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  ‘That bastard. Someone ought to fix him good, one of these days.’

  ‘Damn straight,’ Poldarn said, nodding emphatically. ‘But this bloke was telling me, years ago when he was a kid, he trained with the sword-monks. Is that right, do you know?’

  ‘Oh, everybody knows that,’ his neighbour grunted. ‘Taught him everything he knows, they reckon, which is another good reason they had it coming, the bastards. Best thing Cronan ever did was kicking shit out of that bunch of arseholes.’

  Poldarn frowned, because of course it was the raiders who’d destroyed Deymeson, not General Cronan, even though the monks had sent men to murder him. Still, it made a better story that way, since Cronan was one of the good guys, and the raiders were unmitigated evil. It was good to know that memory could be melted down and recast if it came out flawed the first time around, just like a bell. ‘The same bloke was telling me,’ Poldarn went on, ‘that when Feron Amathy was with the monks, he was in the same year as this mad woman who’s going round saying she’s the priestess for the god in the cart – you know, the one who makes the world end, or whatever. Is there any truth in that, or—?’

  The other man shook his head. ‘Can’t be right,’ he said. ‘Their ages are all wrong for that. Far as I can remember, Feron Amathy’s been in business for years and years – that’s right, because wasn’t it him who screwed over General Allectus, way back? That mad woman – Xipho something, she’s called – she’d be about your age, from what I’ve heard tell. So she’d still have been a little girl when Allectus got done; and Feron bloody Amathy started up years before Allectus’s bit of bother. He must be getting on a bit by now, Feron Amathy; sixties, maybe even early seventies. Wish the bastard’d retire,’ he added. ‘Then we could all get some peace.’

  ‘Ah,’ Poldarn said, ‘thanks. Tell me, have you ever heard of someone called Gain Aciava?’

  ‘Gain what?’

  ‘Aciava.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Why, what’s he done?’

  ‘Just someone this bloke was talking about,’ Poldarn replied. ‘He reckoned this Aciava was at Deymeson along with Feron Amathy and the mad woman. But if Feron Amathy’s as old as you say, maybe the bloke was wrong about Aciava too.’

  The other man shrugged. ‘Never heard of anybody called that,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a sword-monk with that name. All sorts of bloody odd names, those bastards had, and I wouldn’t trust any of ’em further than I could spit.’

  Just then, the cider jug intervened, and Poldarn took the opportunity to start talking to the man on his other side, who’d just woken up. He turned out not to have anything much to say, so Poldarn sat back and tried to listen to whatever it was the old fool was singing.

  At first, he couldn’t quite make out if it was another hymn or one of the smutty ballads. There was a man and a woman in it, which suggested the latter, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything much apart from talking, and the absence of lewd puns tended to favour the hymn theory. The woman seemed to be telling the man his fortune, and he didn’t seem particularly happy about it – understandably enough, since most of what the man was destined to do was profoundly unpleasant, a list of close family members he was scheduled to betray, rape or murder when he wasn’t busy burning down cities and plundering houses of religion. Poldarn didn’t need to be in holy orders to figure out that this was something to do with the god in the cart, his namesake. On balance, he decided, he’d rather talk to the man on his right, or even the man on his left. Or he could drink some of the disgusting cider. Worth a try, he decided; but by then the jug had passed on round. He closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the old fool singing; not that it mattered, since shortly afterwards, the god-in-the-cart song mutated seamlessly into further adventures of the sword-monk and the innkeeper’s daughter, whose brief union had apparently been blessed with issue. Poldarn sighed, and closed his eyes—

  Discomfort. He identified the source; a toecap nudging his ribs. ‘You going to lie there all day?’ growled a voice he recognised. He opened his eyes and looked up. Banspati the foreman was looming over him like an eviction order. No crows anywhere to be seen, so it wasn’t merely a bad dream. Pity.

  ‘Now what?’ he heard himself say, and he wondered why he’d said it.

  ‘Get up,’ Banspati replied, ‘and get your idle bum down to the cutting. We need more clay.’

  Hold on, Poldarn thought, we’re ready to pour, what do we want more clay for? ‘Problem?’ he asked.

  Ugly smile on the foreman’s face. ‘You could fucking well put it like that, yes. Bloody mould cracked in the night, way past fixing. So, we’re starting again.’ He sighed, shook his large, round head. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘This job’s starting to get to me. Any more of it and I’ll end up crazy as Spenno. I mean, two fuck-ups in a row. That’s not good, really.’

  He means it, too, Poldarn realised. It wasn’t so much that he was worried – Banspati was the foreman, being worried defined him absolutely – as the unusual look of bewilderment in his eyes, as though he’d just been badly let down by the one person in the world he was sure he could trust. No anger, just a total inability to understand why this was happening. Not good; not good at all. ‘Right,’ Poldarn said quietly, ‘I’d better get down to the cutting, then.’

  Banspati looked at him, then nodded and said, ‘Thanks’. And that was way, way past disturbing, out the other side into very scary indeed. Poldarn quickly broke eye contact, and fled.

  Chapter Four

  ‘What the hell sort of a sword do you call that, then?’ the wheelwright said, with a mixture of apprehension and scorn in his voice. ‘Looks more like an overgrown beanhook to me.’

  Several of the men behind him laughed, but mostly out of loyalty. Ciartan grinned.

  ‘You never seen one of these before?’ he asked.

  The wheelwright shook his head. Ciartan shrugged, as he surreptitiously looked round for something he knew was missing. Clear skies behind the bleak, bare winter branches of the trees, not a crow to be seen anywhere. Just as he was starting to worry, he caught sight of the inn sign, and nearly laughed out loud: a single crow on a light blue background, though it looked rather more like a sooty chicken with a broken neck. Anyhow, that was all right.

  ‘Seen plenty of swords,’ the wheelwright was saying. ‘My dad was in the free companies all his life, got his old sword up in the rafters somewhere. Never seen anything like that.’

  The inn was called the Redemption & Retribution; it was the first inn Ciartan had ever seen, though he’d learned all about them, naturally. Inns, they’d told him were where members of the local community gathered to relax, exchange news and discuss current events while drinking beer and playing games of skill and chance: ideal places to gather intelligence unobtrusively and assess the mood of the country. He could see what they’d been getting at, but he reckoned they hadn’t expressed themselves very well.

  ‘Here,’ Ciartan said, backflipping the sword a couple of times (this impressed the crowd no end) and presenting it to the wheelwright hilt first, horns upwards. ‘See what you make of it.’

  The wheelwright took it as if he was shaking hands with his dead grandmother. ‘Not bad,’ he admitted. ‘Lighter than it looks, too. Where did you say it comes from?’

  They really should have warned him about the beer. Sure, it tasted like last month’s rainwater, but apparently it was quite strong, enough to get you into conversations you’d have preferred to avoid. ‘That I don’t know,’ Ciartan said. ‘I bought it off a bloke in an inn; he said it was from up north somewhere. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.’

  Maybe he’d said that in time, maybe not; at least one of the other men seemed to be able to recognise a raider backsabre when he saw one. As for his explanation, his advisers had made a point of telling him that ‘bought it off a bloke in an inn’ was a credible provenance for nearly anything, no matter how sinister its associations. With lu
ck, the men in the crowd would assume it was a battlefield pick-up, or something of the sort. If not – well, he’d just have to kill them all, that was all. Serve him right for being indiscreet.

  ‘Nice,’ the wheelwright grunted, handing the sword back to him. ‘But I wouldn’t reckon it for actually using, not with that weird shape. I mean, you couldn’t get that out the scabbard in a hurry, for a start. Not without slicing off your own fingers.’

  ‘Really?’ Even as he said the word, Ciartan was begging himself not to show off. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have been listening. He sheathed the backsabre and let his hands fall down by his sides; then, without any conscious decision, he drew. Logic dictated that there had to have been a moment between sheathed and drawn, but if there was one, Ciartan wasn’t aware of it. The point, he realised, was resting on the side of the wheelwright’s neck, with precisely the amount of pressure that wouldn’t quite cut the skin. He grinned, double-backflipped and slid the sword back into its scabbard.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ someone said. The wheelwright just stared at him.

  ‘It’s a knack, really,’ Ciartan heard himself say, but all his attention was on plotting the best way out of the situation, the most direct route to the tethering post where his horse was waiting, without turning his back on them or breaking eye contact. ‘You’ve got to do a sort of wiggle to get the curved bit past the bend in the scabbard. Once you’ve mastered that, it’s a doddle.’

  Nobody said anything. Gather intelligence unobtrusively, they’d said. Well, unobtrusive was a joke, and by the looks of it he still needed to get a whole bunch of intelligence from somewhere if he was planning to be alive come summer. Laying off the beer wouldn’t hurt, either.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’d better be getting along. Thanks for the drinks and all.’

  He made it to his horse, jumped up and didn’t look back to see if he was being followed. Chances were that he wasn’t; they were farmers and craftsmen, not soldiers, so they were under no obligation to go picking a fight with a retreating hostile. They’d undoubtedly mention his performance to the first patrol or convoy they met, however, so he was a very long way from being clear. Best thing would be to put as much road between the Redemption & Retribution and himself as he could manage in the time available.

  Three miles later, Ciartan stopped and looked down the valley, back towards the village. On the positive side, he couldn’t see any dust clouds betokening squadrons of pursuing cavalry. On the other hand, here he was, miles out in the bush, no food, no blanket, and the only inn for miles around definitely out of bounds for the foreseeable future. Also, the beer was catching up with him. Things to do: throw up, lie down, find a cave or something before it started pissing down with rain.

  He slid off his horse, knelt down and waited. Up there on the horse, he’d been certain he was about to be sick; down here, it was no more than a distinct possibility. He swallowed a couple of times and closed his eyes. All in all, he wished he’d never left Haldersness—

  ‘You,’ said a voice behind him.

  Instinct took over, but various things got in the way; his balance was shot and his physical control was way below par, so that when he tried to draw, he forgot or overdid the scabbard-clearing wiggle and tried to pull the sword out through the neck of its scabbard. The blade was as sharp as a good blade ought to be and did its best; it sliced through the wood and leather and bit into the fingers of his left hand. He winced, swore and let go. The voice behind him (he’d forgotten all about him, just for the moment) was laughing.

  Try again. He made himself relax; draw the sword slowly, he ordered himself, there’s no need to rush it. This time he managed it and stood up, trying hard not to stagger. He’d screwed up badly but he was still alive, so things weren’t too bad, after all.

  The voice belonged to a young man about his own age, who was sitting on a small-looking mule ten yards or so away. Black hooded cloak, good quality, but you’d expect someone who could afford fine cloth to go for something rather less plain and drab. A uniform, maybe; or, more likely, religious garb of some kind. The man’s face was bright and pink, and his hair was short, standing on end as if he’d just taken off his hat. Ciartan had seen more menacing objects floating in his milk; but then the kid drew back the hem of his cloak – a rather melodramatic gesture– to reveal the hilt of a sword.

  Ah, Ciartan thought, I’m supposed to be scared. Well, why not? I’m not bothered either way, and it doesn’t look like anybody wants a fight. ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘You cut your hand.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ciartan replied. ‘Clumsy. You startled me,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  ‘I was watching you,’ the kid said, ‘back at the inn there. I was wondering what the hell you thought you were playing at.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ciartan admitted. ‘It was that filthy disgusting beer. Back on the farm, we stuck to water and ewes’ milk.’

  ‘Ah,’ the kid said, nodding gravely. ‘You’re not from round here, then.’

  ‘No.’ Always tell the truth if it’s not absolutely inconvenient. ‘Passing through.’

  ‘Thought so. On your way to Deymeson.’

  ‘Where?’

  The kid didn’t believe him. ‘Deymeson,’ he repeated. ‘On your way to join the order. Start of the new academic year. You’re obviously new, because I haven’t seen you there and believe me,’ he added with a grin, ‘I’d remember you if I had. My name’s Gain, by the way. Gain Aciava.’ Ciartan nodded politely. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘Just a moment,’ he added, and threw up, only just missing the toes of his boots. ‘Sorry, yes. I’m Ciartan Torstenson.’

  ‘Honoured,’ the kid replied, with just the right degree of well-bred disdain. ‘What’s the matter?’ he went on. ‘Something you ate?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ciartan said.

  ‘Ah. So you can draw that weird gadget pretty good, and yet you’re not on your way to Deymeson. Curious.’

  ‘Never heard of it till you mentioned it just now,’ Ciartan said truthfully. ‘What happens there, then?’

  ‘It’s a house of religion,’ Aciava told him. ‘Correction; it’s the house of religion. Holiest place in the Empire. Headquarters of the order.’

  ‘Fine,’ Ciartan said. ‘I’m not religious.’

  That seemed to puzzle the kid. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  The kid shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your business. You looked pretty damned good at it back there at the inn, but what the hell, I’m no expert. Maybe it was just a trick of the light or something.’

  Not for the first time, Ciartan wished his head was just a little bit clearer. ‘What’s what happened back at the inn got to do with religion?’ he asked.

  ‘When you drew your sword—’ The kid frowned. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  This was starting to get on Ciartan’s nerves. ‘Don’t know what?’

  ‘Religion,’ Aciava said patiently. ‘The sacrament of the sword. It’s only the most profound concept in the whole of orthodox doctrine.’ He was hesitating, Ciartan could tell; something had struck him as not quite right, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. ‘You don’t know about—’

  ‘What you said, yes. Never heard of it.’ True, it was a risk; it made him seem odd, conspicuous. On the other hand, pretending he knew would be an even bigger risk, liable to betray him as a spy or impostor, which of course he was. ‘So, what’s it all about, then?’

  The kid’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s hard to explain, really. The idea is that – oh shit, I never was any good at this stuff, I’m more the practical sort myself. Faith through works, all that kind of nonsense. Anyhow, the deal is, religion – or let’s call it the presence of the divine, all right? Wherever you have an instance of perfection, the divine is present. I mean, that much stands to reason, surely, because if the divine wasn’t present, it couldn’t be perfect, could it? Anyway, that’s by the way. Religion – and now I’m talk
ing about your formal, organised religion, the stuff that people do in order to sort of cultivate the presence of the divine within themselves – religion is trying to create instances of perfection by, well, doing things perfectly. You know; light in me the fire that makes all things fine, and all that crap.’

  Ciartan assumed that that was a quotation, something so well known that even he ought to be able to recognise it.

  ‘Well, anyhow,’ Aciava went on, ‘you know what it’s like, there just aren’t that many things in life that can be done perfectly; not perfectly, like in you simply can’t imagine them being better. Most stuff in life just isn’t like that. So the monks – they’re the people who do religion all the time– they looked around for something that they could learn to do perfectly, and that’s how they came to study swordsmanship; to be precise, the art of drawing your sword and chopping the other bloke so quick, it’s all over before he can even move. It’s perfection, see? You eliminate the moment between the sword being in the belt and the sword being wedged in the other poor bugger’s head, and that’s perfect. It’s an act of the gods, quite literally; because an ordinary man could never manage to do it, he can draw a sword pretty bloody quick but there’ll always be a moment in between. But the gods, the divine, they can sort of snip out that moment so it’s just not there, and that’s perfection. Religion, in fact. And that’s what they do at Deymeson.’

  Ciartan wasn’t sure he quite followed. ‘They kill each other?’ ‘

  No, no, they practise with wooden swords, it’s all perfectly civilised. They practise, and they train, and there’re these old, really holy monks who’ve been training since before they could walk, practically, who teach you all about it. Plus you do a lot of meditating, and you’ve got to learn the theory, of course, and a whole lot of mysticism and stuff which apparently you’ve got to know or else you’re wasting your time. And in the end, if you work really hard at it and you understand all the theory and you’re very lucky, you get to achieve religion and get a piece of the divine actually inside you—’