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  '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 amp; 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 luck, 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 amp; 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, C
iartan 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 talking 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-'

  'Like a tapeworm?'

  The kid scowled. 'Yes, I know, it all sounds a bit dumb. But that's just because I'm not explaining it right-you need one of them to explain it. And the point is, if you can do the sword-drawing stuff that well without being trained at all, then it sort of stands to reason that you're halfway there already; maybe you've even got a little tiny bit of the divine in you that's been there ever since you were born. I mean, that'd practically make you a god, even though you don't seem to be aware of it.'

  Ciartan thought for a moment. 'So you're saying you think I should go to this Deymeson place and join up. It can't be as simple as that, though. I mean, presumably there's a test before they'll let you join up. And what about board and lodging, and paying for the teaching, and things like that? I haven't got any money-'

  'They have,' Aciava said. 'They're incredibly rich. You see, people give them money, and leave them money and land and stuff when they die, so the monks will pray for their souls. And they get money from tithes and local taxes and customs and tolls and all sorts of things. They're major landowners, particularly up north-which is why some people send their sons to join, so they'll work their way up the ladder and become abbots and whatever, as an alternative to going in the army or to Court. The point being, if they want you, they'll pay for your keep and all your tuition and everything, for the rest of your life. I mean, for poor families it's a wonderful deal.'

  'I can see that,' Ciartan said. 'So, what do you have to do to get in? Do you just have to draw a sword very quickly, or is there other stuff as well?'

  The kid shook his head. 'It's not like that,' he said. 'When I joined, I was shown into this long, dark room, and half a dozen of the senior tutors and so on looked at me for a while, and they asked me a question or two, which didn't seem to make much sense but I'd been expecting that so it didn't bother me; then I had to show them a few draws; and then the Father Tutor, that's the senior monk in charge of training, told me I'd passed and where to go to get my clothes and stuff, and that was it, I started straight away; in classes the next day. Mind you, our family's been sending its younger sons to Deymeson for six hundred years. But what I'm trying to say is, if they think you've got what it takes, they'll take you in and train you, even if you're-well, nobody. It's like they say: it's not who you are or who you used to be, it's who you're going to be that's important.'

  Ciartan thought about it for a moment or so. The whole thing sounded pretty bizarre to him, especially the vague bits about perfection. On the other hand he had to face facts; when his people had brought him here, obviously they'd only had a very sketchy idea about how the Empire worked. They'd imagined it was more like back home, where there was a place for everyone and everyone found his place. Instead, it had turned out to be all loose and ragged and disorganised; everyone telling everyone else what to do, nobody actually doing anything. In consequence, he'd had to think about all sorts of things that really ought to have taken care of themselves, such as food and clothes and places to sleep. What was more, providing for even such basic things as these was hardly easy or straightforward. In fact, it was absurdly hard to make a living here, unless you owned land (now there was a strange notion; it was like the ox owning the plough) or your family had taught you a trade, or there was some other pre-existing pattern you could fit into. In a way it was like being an off comer back home, except that here everybody was an offcomer, and nobody knew where they ought to be. By comparison, the order sounded almost normal. And further, Ciartan considered, if the order was rich and powerful like the kid said, what better way to gather useful intelligence and so on than to get in with the upper crust? Put like that 'You really think I'd be able to get in?'

  'Of course.' Aciava smiled. He seemed pleased, as though he'd just found a big clump of mushrooms. 'Trust me. Come along with me, and everything'll be just fine.'

  Ciartan took a step back. 'I know it's silly,' he said, 'but every time someone says Trust me, I get suspicious. What's it to you whether I join this order of yours or not?'

  'What on earth do you mean?' The kid looked suddenly hurt and angry, as if Ciartan had just spat in his face. 'I'm just trying to be helpful, that's all. And doing my bit for religion, like we're supposed to. Why? What other reason could there be?'

  Offhand, Ciartan couldn't think of one; nor could he figure out why the two crows that were circling overhead were in any way relevant. But they were, because (Because he remembered: he'd had a dream once, when he'd been just a child, back at Haldersness. He could remember the dream, because it had had crows in it, and that meant the dream didn't just evaporate as soon as he woke up. In that dream he'd been here, exactly this place, talking to this rather annoying young man. In fa
ct, he'd had this same dream several times and, on each occasion, as soon as the kid asked him What other reason could there be? he'd woken up.)

  Aciava was staring at him. He didn't look happy. 'Well?'

  'Well what?'

  'Well, have you come up with a reason why I should want you to come to Deymeson, apart from trying to help you and help the order? I think you'd better think of one, because otherwise I'm going to have to take that as an insult.'

  (Every time, Ciartan remembered, except once; and on that occasion, the dream had been slightly different, because part of the way through-at this exact point, in fact-everything had changed suddenly. Both he and the kid were somehow much older, and the kid wasn't asking him to come to Deymeson. He was asking him to join up with some other venture, which apparently involved people they both knew, old classmates, something like that. For some reason, he'd told the kid no, and things had started going wrong after that; cracks in the clay, lies, mistaken identities, (Clay? What clay?) deception and murder and coincidences and just plain rotten luck. And for some reason, it had been very important-he'd made a point of telling himself he had to remember this when he woke up-that the pattern that recreates the lost shape (where the tallow is burnt out in the middle) is in fact an empty hole, a gap waiting to be filled, like a blank memory.)

  Deep breath. 'I'm sorry,' Ciartan said, and Aciava relaxed-it occurred to Ciartan that if he hadn't apologised the kid would've felt obliged to fight him or something like that, and the thought of fighting him was scaring the kid half to death. 'I didn't mean to insult you,' Ciartan went on. 'It was just me thinking aloud. I guess I'm not used to people being nice for no reason.'

  'Well,' the kid replied, 'I guess that's fair enough. Only, it's not for no reason. Religion's a reason, and after all, I'm training to be a monk, hopefully an ordained priest further along the line. Got to start somewhere, you know. And it'll do me no harm at all with Father Tutor if I bring along a good new recruit for the start of the new term.'