Chapter 2
“Cheer up, for crying out loud,” Svangerd said, as I lifted our trunks onto the cart. “It’s an adventure. Out of the office. It’ll be fun.”
A cold, crisp morning; travelling clothes; new boots still gleaming with sheep’s wool grease; a stack of books tied together with string to read on the journey.
Two of them I’d copied myself, privately, when I was supposed to be somewhere else doing something else: Saloninus’ Human, All Too Human and Inguiomar’s Progression of the Holy Spirit.
Both of them were technically illegal in three of the jurisdictions we’d be crossing on our way to Choris, but we were delegates to the council so we had both diplomatic immunity and benefit of clergy; basically, we could burn down an orphanage and sell the charred bones of the orphans for bonemeal, and the worst we could expect would be a leisurely deportation.
Not that I’d ever dream of doing such a thing, and Svangerd wouldn’t either, unless the orphans happened to be aristocrats.
“This is not fun,” I said firmly. “This is work. We’re putting ourselves in harm’s way to do a difficult, morally dubious—”
“Bullshit,” she said, settling herself in the back of the cart and securing three-quarters of the rug we were supposed to be sharing. “How much money have we got?”
I told her. She smiled. “We’ll need to do ourselves pretty well along the way,” she said. “Roast dinner at all the inns, with wine. That’s what delegates to these things do. We need to maintain our cover.”
I gave her the bent eye. “Chastity, obedience and what was the third one?”
“Men,” she said, “have this habit of mixing up piety and being miserable. It’s a man thing and it’s stupid. The Invincible Sun gave us fun because he intended us to use it. I’m going to have fun on this trip whether you like it or not. You can do what you like.”
Her definition of fun doesn’t entirely square with the one you’ll find in Eumeric’s General Lexicon. “Just don’t get us arrested,” I said. “I hate that.”
“They can’t arrest us; we’re delegates. I think I’m going to like being a diplomat.”
As well as the six books tied up with string, I had my pocket-sized copy of Brihtmer’s Confessions.
I pulled it out and opened it at random.
“We may need the money for bribing officials or buying information,” I said.
“It’d be really stupid if we jeopardised the mission just so you can stuff your face with roast beef in oyster sauce. ”
“Haven’t had that for years,” she said. “Actually, you’re probably right. We’ll go easy on the way out, then blow everything we’ve got left on the way back. How does that sound?”
Sister Svangerd always has the last word: that’s as inevitable as winter. The trick is to manoeuvre her to the point where the last word is something you can bear to live with. “Fine,” I said.
“Good. Read your book.”
Most of the first day we were in territory we both know only too well.
We changed horses at Dui Chirra and again at Ancola, and we rolled into the Constancy however, I waved our diplomatic passes under the innkeeper’s nose and told him he’d be breaking the law if he refused to let us in, and he believed me.
“Just keep her under control, for crying out loud,” he muttered, as I unloaded our trunks. “I’m trying to run a business here.”
Svangerd was as good as gold, mostly because I got her into a cut-throat game of checkers, which kept her occupied and away from the other guests.
She’s a world-class checkers player and there’s only one man in the known world who can beat her on a regular basis.
That’s me. She, of course, hates to lose at anything, which is why we only play checkers in an emergency.
At some point in the early hours of the morning I contrived to forfeit the tournament by falling asleep.
By that stage there wasn’t much point in going to bed, so I stayed where I was until dawn, and then we got back on the cart for the long trundle down the hill to Metousa Bay.
An hour or so before noon, she nudged me in the ribs. “We’re being followed,” she said.
I stuck my finger in my book to mark the place and closed it. “No,” I said. “There’s a covered chaise behind us, and it’s been there for over an hour, but that’s because the people in it want to go to Metousa, same as we do. It’s a seaport. That’s not following.”
She was looking ahead. “In a mile or so we’ll be down into the Ceun valley,” she said, “where it’s always misty at this time of year, because of the river. My guess is, they’re waiting for that, and then they’ll make their move. We need to be ready for them. Which trunk are the weapons in?”
“What weapons?”
She gave me that look. “Two riding swords, type fifteen, two three-pound poleaxes with takedown shafts. Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you—”
“I needed the space for our diplomatic robes,” I said. “Also, there are legal problems about carrying weapons in diplomatic luggage. The last thing we need is hassle with customs.”
The same look, only treble strength. “Positively the last time I let you pack,” she said. “Stuff it, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.”
“We haven’t got anything.” Doubt flared in my mind. “Have we?”
She was lifting the hem of her habit to get at her boot. “No thanks to you,” she said. “Here. Don’t lose it; it’s one of a pair.”
Here turned out to be a long, thin dagger. “Put it away, before you poke somebody’s eye out,” I said. “You’re being ridiculous. There is no danger. We are not being followed.”
The road from Berd to Metousa crosses the river at a ford. When we got there, we found it blocked by an abandoned lumber cart. The chaise closed up behind us, in the mist. I hate it when she’s right.
The carter turned round and gazed at us. “What’s going on?”
“The gentlemen in the chaise behind are going to try and kill us,” I said. “If I were you, I’d run.”
So he did. Svangerd handed me the dagger I’d refused earlier. I gave it back. “That’s no bloody good,” I told her. “What I wouldn’t give right now for a type-fifteen riding sword. Or a poleaxe.”
There were six men in the chaise. They fanned out as they approached us, and I felt that wave of utter helplessness that always washes over me when I’m faced with the prospect of violence. It makes me think I’m six years old again, and about to be beaten up by my older brothers.
I glanced round at her but she wasn’t there. She likes to move, whereas I prefer to fight from a fortified position. Well now, I thought.
The key to this violence business is concentration.
I considered the man walking towards me.
I could see that he had a short axe in his left hand and a spear in his right.
The axe was something he’d brought from home; the spear was military issue, from the war before the war before last. Something about the way he looked, I’m not sure what, told me plain as anything that in real life he worked at the docks.
Fair enough; not much going on in his line at this time of year, before the trade winds start to blow.
I waited till he was about eight feet from me, then I threw a trunk at him.
The sharp corner of the trunk caught him in the middle of the forehead, which was sheer luck.
I’d aimed to miss left, since he was probably left-handed and would therefore flinch left (my right), but a trunk is hardly a missile of precision.
Luckily for me he didn’t flinch at all. I launched myself off the cart and landed on his ribcage.
That earned me a spear and a hand-axe. I chucked the spear at the man on my right – that close, I couldn’t miss – and converted the twist of the throw into a demi-volte to avoid the haymaking slash from the billhook of the man on my left.
He didn’t miss by much, but by then I’d stepped in behind him.
The axe was nice and sharp, so I dropped my hand to waist level and drew-cut him on his right side, just under the ribcage.
The pain clouded his thinking long enough for me to sink the beard of the axe in the back of his head.
As I did so, I was uncomfortably aware that I had no idea what was going on behind me, a level of negligence that should have proved fatal if there was any justice in this world, which fortunately there isn’t.
I swung round, but there was nobody there.
“Svangerd?” I yelled.
She stepped out from behind the cart. She was breathing heavily and grinning. There was blood on her left sleeve, but I didn’t think it was hers. “Are you all right?” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “How about you?”
She was looking at me. I glanced down and saw a slash in my habit just above the right hip. Through it I could see a cut, about a forefinger long, which was bleeding. I could have sworn the billhook had missed me clean, but apparently not.
“Trust you to get yourself cut up the first day out,” she said. “I take my eye off you for two minutes and look what happens.”
“It’s nothing.”
“There’s my brave soldier. Right, let’s find someone to talk to.”
Her three were long past talking, needless to say.
The man I’d hit with the trunk was still breathing, but I wouldn’t have paid money for him at market, as my father used to say.
That left the man I’d thrown the spear at.
He was sitting on the ground, gazing at the wooden pole sticking out of his gut with a comical expression on his face.
Under other circumstances he’d have broken my heart.
Svangerd reached for the spear-shaft and gave it a brisk twist. The man screamed.
“Who sent you?” she asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, and blood came spilling out, down from the corners of his lips and in a stream over his chin. That did it for me. I ran round behind the cart and threw up.