Chapter 12
Rotlaug, I thought; and I heard my mother saying, Don’t you go near that man, and if he follows you, shout and holler. And Svangerd; diapygaena, one who takes it in the arse, therefore by extension (allowing for societal and ethical shift) a female prostitute. The diapygon’s dagger.
Lactantius, of course, was a great one for assonance; hence dagger, instead of plain old knife.
A plain old knife such as Rotlaug’s little toothpick.
Societal factors, too, as Unctuarius would say.
In the Mesoge we don’t have prostitutes as such, just as we don’t have tailors or pastry chefs or teachers of elocution.
But we do have men like Rotlaug, only the word we use for them is hero, because they’re the only ones who can stop a walker.
Why, I thought. Why, for crying out loud?
I shrugged as I walked. Presumably there was a reason, and presumably someone knew it once, back before the empire fell and there was so much more knowledge and understanding.
Too late to do anything about that now. For a moment I felt an almost physical pain, because once we knew so much and then it was all lost, burned, rotted, used for arsewipe or wrapping cheese – But that, I decided, was a stupid thing to get upset about, when there were people hurting and dying, and ever so many more who’d hurt and die if I didn’t get things precisely right in my mind –
It’s all fashion, I remember thinking, and in spite of my cherished cynicism it came as a shock to me to find I’d been right all along.
Fashions in heroism and buggery and Good and Evil; in the early to middle empire it was perfectly all right and nobody thought anything of it, but by the late empire it was a term of vulgar abuse, and then it got stamped on so hard, we forgot what it originally meant.
Fashions in morality, in Good and Evil – that’s all it is.
Fashion: is there an inherently true and perfect hemline, established by God at the moment of Creation, and from which all other hemlines are heresy and abomination?
Is there an ideal sleeve, or a shoe-buckle that we hold to be self-evident, that’s exactly right because it just is, has been and ever shall be, world without end, amen?
But that wasn’t what I was supposed to be thinking about; regarding which, see Saloninus’ second law, which states that a person is capable of doing an infinite amount of work, just so long as it’s not the work he’s supposed to be doing.
No; I was meant to be thinking about knives, and what could be done to stave off the end of the world.
So I did that, and went back to my room.
She looked up as I came in. “I’m sorry I threw a chair at you,” she said.
“That’s all right.”
“I was upset.”
“I’d sort of gathered.” I closed the door. “I’ve discovered something.”
“Oh yes?”
“Something important. But I want you to promise not to attack me if I tell you.”
She heard me out, I’ll say that for her. Then she looked at me in dead silence.
“Say something,” I said. “Please?”
“There’s a flaw in your reasoning.”
“Is there?”
She nodded. “According to you, your Mesoge pal was a, what you said. And he killed one walker, but then another walker killed him. So it doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” I said. “I think it means that a special type of person can beat a walker. I don’t think it means they necessarily will.”
“Ah.”
I took a cloth-wrapped bundle out of the front of my habit. “I stopped by the Mercy Chapel and stole this,” I said. “That’s where they’ve laid him out, poor bastard. They’re going to bury him in the crypt, along with all the saints and bishops.”
She frowned. “Is that wise?”
“Possibly not. But he died a martyr, so it’s more or less obligatory, so I gather. Anyway, you might find it useful,” I went on, putting the bundle in her hands. “It worked on Kotkel, at any rate. I don’t know if that means anything any more or not.”
She unwrapped it and played with it in her best professional manner.
“Not bad,” she said grudgingly. “A fair degree of distal taper, putting the weight back in the hand where you need it, and the edge geometry’s all right.
Centre of percussion’s nicely on the climax of the curve.
Ugly piece of shit, but I guess you can’t have everything.
It’s probably more suitable than anything else I’ve got with me at the moment. Thanks,” she added.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
She stood up. “I suppose I’ve got to do this,” she said.
“I think you probably do.”
“Me too. I’d have thought you’d have tried to stop me. You were the one they were able to blackmail: do this and do that or the girl gets it.”
“Funny, that,” I agreed. “Maybe you could’ve stopped all this at the start.”
“Or maybe not, and the next time you see me, my head’ll be yay thick.” She held her fingertips two inches apart. “I can’t say I like that idea very much.”
“No,” I said, “nor me.”
She did her thoughtful frown. “When she was about to guzzle you, and your dad showed up.”
“Yes,” I said. “I thought about that too.”
“Did he come to save his little boy from the monster? Or was it just a case of two monsters scrapping over territory?”
“Or just because they like to fight,” I said. “I don’t know. I think it’s one of those cases where you have to choose to believe something. I believe it was just two monsters who liked to fight.”
“Your choice.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you always were a miserable bastard. I think I’ll go and pray in the Rose Chapel for a bit.” She paused, then added, “She was the closest thing I ever had to a mother, and he was your dad.”
“The Mesoge way,” I told her. “Basically we’re all monsters, where I come from.”
“Now you’re just being glib,” she said. She was right, of course.
Except – I didn’t point this out to her, of course – it hadn’t been Vitimer or one of the extra-holy holy men or even Svangerd that she’d come for. It had been me.
Sometimes, hedging your bets just means you get to be wrong twice, simultaneously.
I’d told her about Lactantius because she deserved to know.
I’d stolen the hog knife for her because if anyone in Choris might have a use for it, that’d be her.
But the painfully obvious thing – I was under no obligation to draw her attention to it, so I didn’t. My mess, after all. My fault.
Mother Krimhild had come for me. Therefore there was the possibility, which I was duty bound to explore, that I was the object of the exercise, the point at issue, the centre of percussion, whatever.
Put it bluntly (something I was reluctant to do, but what the hell): maybe I was the problem, and Mother Krimhild was the solution.
Why her? Because she was on the spot, and from the Mesoge.
Because my father and my brother had tried, or been tried, and had failed.
Get rid of the problem, and maybe everything would be fine.
Any other explanation necessarily referred to, or dragged in, concepts and issues of destiny, predestination, by extension the supernatural, God and all that rubbish.
I was meant to recognise that stupid box for what it was.
I was sent to Mavais, or the box was put there for me to find – all those lines of speculation had a horrible tendency to look like periphrases for the divine plan, the long game: something I couldn’t quite bring myself to bear to think about.
But if I was the problem, and having my skull flattened would solve it …
The trouble was, I wouldn’t be around to see if it did the trick or not, but that was a risk I was just going to have to take.
My room no longer had a door, and parts of the walls and floor were distinctly sketchy, but I’d turned down the offer of alternative accommodation.
No point, I thought, in any more of the irreplaceable architectural heritage of Choris getting trashed.
I hadn’t said anything to her, but I was pretty certain that Svangerd would be making her stand outside Vitimer’s chamber door, or in the basilica – somewhere to do with Good and Evil, bless her.
Somewhere a good long way away from where I was; somewhere safe. But if I was right, the real action –
A gust of wind blew the lamp out. Something large was in the room, moving about, squeezing out the air.
“Just one thing,” I said.
Pitch dark. No moonlight tonight. She made no sound, but I knew she was getting close.
“Once you’ve killed me,” I said, “will it be over?”
She laughed. I’d said something funny. “Well?” I asked. “Will it?”
A hand closed over my head. Her thumb was in my ear; her fingers were spread out over my left temple. “What do you think?” she said.
“No,” I said. “It won’t be, will it?”
“No.”
Nuts, I thought, or words to that effect. She began to squeeze.
“Get off him,” someone said. A woman’s voice. “Please.”
Krimhild roared, like a bull or a bear, and let me go. I could see her now, a huge silhouette defined by pale lamplight behind her. Then I heard the lamp smash, and it was dark again.
Something hit the wall, hard enough to make the whole room shake.
Then I heard boot-heels on the floor, and another roar – anger, frustration, a tantrum because someone wasn’t getting her own way.
Another thump; something brushed against me; which of them it was I have no idea.
My hand touched something hot enough to burn – my lamp, which had blown out.
I had a tinder-box in my sleeve. I groped for it, got it out, felt for the groove in the lid.
Another thump, and a cracking noise overhead.
Then a sound I remembered from my childhood, from when my father used to kill the pigs: a cleaving noise, steel on bone.
My fingers were burning. I’d lit the tinder-box without knowing it.