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  Well then, the brother thought, and now we know. He'd had an idea the name was familiar from somewhere; presumably he'd come across it at some stage when he'd been reading for finals, and it had lain hidden in the hayloft of his memory ever since, useless and unobtrusive, its purpose forgotten like some rusty old tool you find hanging in a dark corner of the barn. Curious, perhaps, to pick such an out-of-the-way god to impersonate; certainly not one the rubes in the villages would be likely to have heard of. He grinned; he could narrow his search down to renegade scholars, rogue Mannerist poets and southerners. In the countryside between the Mahec and Bohec rivers, anybody belonging to any of those categories would stick out like a turd in a cake shop.

  Even so, it all seemed reasonably straightforward; nevertheless, he amused himself by chasing up a few references until the bell went for nocturns. He shuffled into chapel with the rest of them, took his place at the back of the middle section of stalls designated for the junior ordained, and spent the first quarter of an hour gazing meditatively at the distinctly uncanonical sculpted frieze that spiralled round the column nearest to him. The column was one of the best-kept secrets in the order; it stood in a blind spot in the field of view from the lecterns and pulpits, which presumably was how it had escaped the notice of the Father Abbot who'd commissioned the chapel decorations three centuries ago, and it was an unspoken convention of the order that when one was promoted to a level of dignity and grace where one couldn't possibly sanction such things, one conveniently forgot all about it, along with all the other guilty secrets and pleasures of the junior orders. Great art it definitely wasn't; come to that, it wasn't even biologically accurate, having presumably been put up there by a chapel monk who'd only ever read about such things; but it was fun, a little scrap of permitted rebellion in the stronghold of the Rule.

  A lifetime of practice enabled him to snap out of his reverie in plenty of time to join in the hymns and responses, and as his mouth shaped the words (far too familiar by now to mean anything) he turned his mind to the divine Poldarn and the practicalities of his mission.

  Going openly, as a religious, in garb and observing the Rule, he might expect a certain degree of co-operation from the pious and the fanatical that he wouldn't get as a casual traveller. On the other hand the order wasn't unduly popular outside its own lands at the best of times. These days, with bizarre cults springing up all over the place and crazy people burning down granaries in the name of the coming apocalypse, he might find garb made him unhelpfully conspicuous, not to mention a target for every overstressed hysteric with a grudge and a hayfork. (For some reason, the order had never got around to developing an approved course of combat for sword against hayfork, and as a result experienced brothers tended to treat the weapon with a healthy degree of respect. A fine weapon it was, too, with the potential for some quite sophisticated parries and disarms. One day, perhaps…)

  In that case (they were singing the 'Father, In Thy Mercy') he'd need a persona, something from the order's catalogue of appropriate identities for spies and infiltrators. He gave the matter some thought, but nothing obvious sprang to mind. Most of the personas in the catalogue were designed for the gathering of political, military and commercial intelligence in mind; the idea that one day there might be a need for an undercover scholar would seem not to have occurred to the early fathers, in spite of their quite awesome ability to predict virtually any possible contingency. In a way it pleased him to have come up with an angle that wasn't covered by the Rule; when he got back, assuming he was still alive and had managed to achieve his objective, he'd be able to write it up as a paper, possibly even submit it for adjudication towards the junior fellowship he was surely in line for.

  They knelt for prayer, and he dutifully herded all such thoughts out of his head as he opened his mind for the voice of the Divine. And, as always, the Divine chose not to speak to him on that particular day; and then they stood and sang the 'Perfect Grace', allowing him to continue with his train of thought.

  Apart from a religious, what sort of person goes around the countryside asking questions about gods, prophecies, strange happenings, miracles and magic? Offhand, he couldn't think of anybody. Nor were they the kind of topic that'd be likely to crop up in ordinary taproom conversation, except in passing, without the level of detail necessary for his observations. Very well, then; he'd have to approach the problem from another angle. There was, for example, always force; a man at the head of a column of cavalry can ask any question he likes and expect a detailed and civil answer. But that would be clumsy, as well as constituting an embarrassing show of strength at a time when the order preferred to stay quiet. Father Tutor wouldn't like it at all, and might well suspect that he was doing it to be annoying, as a protest against being sent on what was palpably a penance assignment. Not force, then; what did that leave? Wandering lunatic? Surprisingly effective in some cases, though pretty gruelling, and the outskirts of Josequin were a long way away; sheer hell to have to stay in such a disagreeable character all that time, on foot, sleeping in ditches…

  All right then, what about the other extreme? What about a wealthy eccentric, an amateur scholar compiling material for a book about-let's see, how about 'some observations concerning popular superstitions in the northern provinces', something like that? Oh, he'd suffered enough of the works of such fatuous dilettanti in his youth-still the primary sources for several topics, even though the lecturers complained bitterly about their inaccuracy and lack of scientific method. There weren't nearly so many of them nowadays-not many people could afford the time or the money, even if they had the interest-but the stereotype would still be recognised (translated into village speech, it'd come out as 'bloody nuisance with too much money and time on his hands, coming round here asking bloody stupid questions'-an accurate enough assessment, at that). At least it'd have the advantages of allowing him to sleep in a bed at an inn instead of curled up under a bush; he'd be able to ride and carry a couple of changes of clothing, eat whatever passed for a good meal.

  So engrossed was he in planning the details of his new persona that he didn't notice that the service was over, even though he'd correctly chanted the responses and sung the hymns (automatic, like the draw; and there were some who said that only the man who no longer thinks about praying can actually pray, since in reflexive action there is no thought, and without thought there can be no doubt-'the hand believes that the sword is in the sash; the heart believes that the divine is there,' as someone or other so memorably put it). He came to just as the choir monks were starting to file out of the chapel, quickly reminded himself of who he was and what he was due to do next, and hurried back to his quarters to start getting ready.

  Chapter Six

  'No point trying the act in Sansory,' Copis had said earlier that day. 'Wouldn't work. If a god were to show up in Sansory they'd kidnap him and hold him to ransom.'

  The first thing they saw after they'd driven under the amazingly high arch of the city gate was a fight. They had no option but to stay and watch, since the crowd of enthusiastic spectators had jammed the street solid and it was perfectly clear that nobody was going anywhere until there was a result. The participants were two old men: one was tall, bald and stooping, and the shaggy fringe of white hair around the back of his head was streaked with blood from two deep scalp wounds on his crown; the other was just under average height, with grey spikes plastered across his forehead and a palpably smashed jaw. They were fighting with quarterstaffs, which clattered together with a sound like a fast-running capstan as they struck and parried faster than Poldarn could follow. It didn't take him long to see why both men's wounds were to the head; it was clearly the primary target in quarterstaff play, with a few shots being reserved for the solar plexus, groin, kneecaps and elbows. The stamina and ferocity of the fighters was quite awe-inspiring, as was their apparent ability to take punishment. The bald man, for example, misjudged a ward and was jabbed in the teeth (he hadn't had many to start with), followed by two lightn
ing-fast cracks to either temple, a savage downward blow in the middle of his forehead, and an upward cut directly under his chin that knocked his head back so sharply that Poldarn was sure his neck must have been broken. But, after staggering back three or four paces, still managing to dodge a shot or two while he was at it, he found a wall to back into and straighten himself up again, and launched himself at his enemy with a feinted jab to the throat, instantly converted into another feint to the groin, and carried home as a slanting smash to the cheekbone that sprayed the first three rows of the crowd with a fine mist of blood. Then it was the other man's turn to stagger for a moment; three or four exchanges later, however, they were back to being evenly matched, both of them moving as fast and as fluently as ever.

  Poldarn leaned over to whisper. 'Does this sort of thing…?'

  'All the time,' she replied, her eyes fixed on the fight. 'It's part of their rich and unique cultural heritage. Whee!' she added, as the shorter man stepped into his enemy's attack, deliberately taking a sickening blow to his left temple so as to close and slam his staff into the other man's groin. 'You must admit, they put on a good show here.'

  Even the bald man couldn't keep standing up after a shot like that one. He doubled up, his head bobbing forward, straight into a chin-lifter even more blood-curdling than the one he'd planted on the other man a few moments before. It was followed up by four crushing side blows, two to each ear, and rounded off by a left-to-right lowhand cross that broke his nose and set it back at a truly bizarre angle, leaving him crumpled up on the ground like a child who's just fallen out of a tree. After that he didn't move at all. The shorter man, having kicked him in the ribs a few times in the interests of total security, spat on his face and hobbled awkwardly away, using his staff as a crutch.

  'One thing we must do while we're here,' Copis said, 'is try the smoked lamb. It's the local speciality. Apparently, it's something to do with the kind of wood they use.'

  Now that there was nothing left to see, the crowd dissolved, like earth becoming mud under heavy rain. Copis edged the cart carefully through the mass of bodies.

  'You were staring,' she explained. 'One thing you must never do in a place like this is stare. You'll see a lot worse than that while you're here, I promise you.'

  'Sorry,' Poldarn said. 'It just seemed so pointless, that's all. I mean, at their age wouldn't it be simpler to wait a few years and see which one of them outlives the other?'

  Copis laughed. 'I suspect you're a country boy,' she replied. 'Nobody in the city waits for anything if they can help it. Which is strange,' she added, 'since living in a city means you're bound to spend a large slice of your life standing around in queues or waiting for the traffic to clear; you'd have thought patience would've become a survival trait by now. Right,' she said, stopping the cart without warning, to the extreme disgust of the traffic behind her, 'let's try here.'

  'What are we going to do?' Poldarn asked, as she jumped down and made the reins fast to a tethering-post. The carter who'd been following them squeezed his cart past between their wheels and the opposite pavement, his face bright red with rage as he yelled abuse at them. Copis didn't seem to notice.

  'See if we can sell all this stuff, of course,' she replied. 'Pull down a couple of jars while I talk to the stallholder. Well, come on. We're blocking the road.'

  The stallholder turned out to be a small man, almost spherical, with a smooth, shiny bald head and a pointed nose, like a carrot. He was sorry, but he didn't buy small quantities, no matter how cheap they might be. His regular order with the plantation agents was finely calculated to give him exactly the amount of stock in hand that he could be sure of getting rid of before it went green and started to sprout; anything extra he bought would be money thrown away. Copis pointed out that at the prices they were asking he could almost give it away, thereby attracting new customers to his stall and increasing his sales without hurting his margins. That suggestion made the stallholder very sad, because, as he pointed out, every bushel of cut-price flour he sold meant another bushel of full-price flour, which he'd already paid for, that he wouldn't be able to get shot of; in effect, he'd be waging a price war against himself. Besides, he explained, he had a Guild charter and a quota; if he bought or sold more or less than what was written down on his licence and the Guild found out about it, that'd be twenty years of hard work out of the window. Not worth it for a dubious chance of making a few extra quarters. Sorry.

  'He meant it,' Copis said, frowning, as she climbed back into the cart and pulled out, nearly causing a nasty accident. 'I hadn't realised the Guild had got this far. Bloody nuisance. Never mind,' she added, 'at least we won't go short of things to eat for awhile.'

  'What's the Guild?' Poldarn asked.

  'Long story,' Copis replied, ducking to avoid a low-hanging sign. 'Tell you later. Well, that solves the problem of which inn to stay at. The cheapest.'

  Poldarn nodded. 'We'll have to ask someone,' he said.

  'No need,' Copis replied, pulling a face. 'It's the one thing everybody knows about Sansory.'

  It was a pleasant relief to discover that he could read; the sign over the wide archway was black with soot and mould but he could still make out the words Charity and Diligence in big red letters against a faded gold-leaf background. 'Used to be a religious order,' Copis explained as they passed under the arch. 'All the inns and brothels in these parts were religious houses once, only really changed when the monks started charging for board and lodging. I guess that's the coach-house over there.'

  Poldarn saw a huge shed in front of them, nearly twice the size of the ruined temple they'd slept in at Cric. Next to it was an even bigger shed; next to that, a massive square stone building, with fluted white columns and a flight of twelve broad, shallow marble steps leading up to a pair of bronze doors, still awe-inspiring despite a thick layer of verdigris. The steps themselves were nearly invisible for the huge number of people sitting on them, bunched up together like calves in a pen. They ranged from scruffy to bundles of rags, and mostly they sat still and quiet, staring at the ground or straight in front of them. In the doorway itself stood two very large men with folded arms and grim expressions on their faces. When one of the scruffy people got up and tried to push past them through the doorway, they grabbed him by his arms, lifted him off his feet and threw him down the steps like a bale of straw. He landed badly, his fall partly broken by a couple of the silent sitters who hadn't got out of the way in time. There was a little bit of shrill cursing, which didn't seem to bother the men in the doorway at all, and then things settled down again.

  'Typical Sansory,' Copis said as they waited for someone to come and open the coach-house door. 'They couldn't pay their tab, so they're slung out and the house keeps their tools and stuff. Without their tools, they can't earn any money to pay off their tab and redeem their tools. So they sit and wait for something to happen. Like I told you, this is pretty much a place where you stop because you can't go any further.'

  The doors opened eventually, and two very silent, very efficient grooms unyoked the horses and led them away, while two others manhandled the cart into a stall in a long line that stretched the length of the shed. Another man, who'd kept perfectly still while the others were working, then handed them a little bone counter with a number on it-Copis explained that so many carts and wagons passed through the Charity every day that the stablemaster couldn't be expected to remember them all, hence the little ticket with the stall number on it. There was a hole drilled at the top, through which Copis passed a piece of hemp cord she'd picked up off the floor (it was covered in the stuff). She tied the ends together, hung it round her neck and tucked it away out of sight. 'Lose the ticket, lose the cart,' she said. 'It's that kind of place. Now you can see why I'd have preferred something a bit less basic.'

  'What about our things?' Poldarn asked, thinking of the big lump of gold hidden by the tailgate. 'The fireworks and all the rest of our stuff. Do you think they'll be safe there?'

  Cop
is grinned. 'Guaranteed,' she replied. 'Tradition of the house: no fighting, no stealing, except by order of the management. I don't know if you noticed the two porters on the main door; it's a fair bet there's at least a dozen more like them inside, and as many again in the staff barracks waiting for their shift. Free company men, probably; it's one of the usual careers for when you've had enough of the road.'