The Proof House Page 2

  ‘If I were you,’ Alexius said, ‘I’d go left.’

  ‘I was just about to,’ Bardas replied.

  ‘Oh. That’s all right, then.’

  He went left. The gallery was narrower here, the floorboards rougher, not yet polished by the passage of gloved hands and copped knees. It was hot, which suggested there might be vapour.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Alexius said.

  ‘Good. I’ve got enough to contend with as it is.’

  ‘But unless I’m very much mistaken,’ the Patriarch went on, ‘there’s someone up ahead of you, about seventy-five yards – sorry I can’t be more exact, but of course I can’t see a damned thing. I believe he’s stopped and he’s fixing something; a board that’s come loose, probably.’

  ‘All right, thanks. Which way’s he facing?’

  ‘No idea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not to worry. Is he a cusp too?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you. He might be a cusp, or he might be purely serendipitous.’

  ‘Right.’

  He slowed down, carefully shifting his weight with each knee-stride forward so as to make no sound at all. He smelt of blood, of course, and probably sweat, too. The man smelt of pepper and coriander.

  ‘That’s it, you’ve got him. Now do be careful.’

  Bardas didn’t answer, not this close. Where were you just now, when I could have done with someone to talk to? He could hear the man’s breathing now, and the very faint creak of the leather cops on his knees as he worked.

  ‘He’s got his back to you.’

  I know. Now please go away, I’m busy. He moved closer (couldn’t be more than a yard now) and reached towards the top of his boot for his knife-hilt. Sometimes the blade made a very slight hissing noise as it rubbed along the cloth of his breeches. Fortunately, not this time.

  Afterwards, he thanked him—

  ‘Why do you do that?’ Alexius asked, puzzled. ‘I’ll be straight with you, I find it rather morbid.’

  ‘Do you?’ Loredan shrugged (pointless gesture in the dark, where not even people who weren’t there could see him do it). ‘Personally, I think it’s a nice tradition.’

  ‘A nice tradition,’ Alexius repeated. ‘Like blackberry-picking or hanging bunches of primroses over the door at Spring Festival.’

  ‘Yes,’ Loredan said firmly. ‘Like putting out saucers of milk for the likes of you.’

  ‘Please, don’t trouble yourself on my account. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s soggy bread in sour milk.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t have us waste the good stuff, would you?’

  He crawled over the dead man; still no clue what it was he’d been doing there, so quiet and meticulous. Unimportant. Couldn’t be much further now and he’d be at the face.

  (‘Then how come,’ he’d asked once, ‘if you’re wholly imaginary, you keep telling me things I don’t know, like the enemy’s up ahead or vapour-pockets? And you’re nearly always right, too.’

  Alexius had thought for a moment. ‘Possibly,’ he’d said, ‘you’re unconsciously picking up clues that are so slight your mind can’t take notice of them in the usual way – tiny noises you don’t know you’ve heard, just the faintest taste of a smell, that sort of thing – so it invents me out of thin air as a way of getting the information to you.’

  ‘Possible, I suppose,’ he’d replied. ‘But wouldn’t it be easier just to admit that you exist?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Alexius had replied. ‘But just because a thing’s more likely doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.’)

  Sometimes he tried to picture it all in his mind; where he was in real terms, in relation to the city and the Great King’s camp and the river and the estuary. He still believed in them, just about, though at times his faith was sorely tried. Maybe it would help if he left them the occasional bowl of milk.

  He could hear digging; four, possibly five distinct noises. He could smell coriander, and sweat, and steel, freshly cut clay, a very faint trace of vapour, not enough to be dangerous; leather and wet cloth and urine, and the blood on his own hands and knees. For some reason he was having difficulty estimating the range – it could well be because he was near the face, where the solid wall of clay ahead soaked up the sound, or perhaps the roof was higher than usual, creating a slight echo. Five men digging, so there’d be a scavenger to each man, and at least two chippies – but he couldn’t hear scavengers’ hooks or carpentry tools, implying that they’d only just started work, and if that was the case, pretty soon a man would come up the gallery with the rope to pull the spoil-dolly. He listened, but Alexius wasn’t there (typical; but everybody knew you couldn’t rely on the voices). Trying not to worry, he felt the side-walls carefully for a spur, a lay-by, a point where the gallery widened enough for him to tuck in out of the way and let the rope-bearer go by – or failing that, somewhere he could turn round and go back. If the worst came to the worst he’d have to crawl backwards, but that was very much a last resort, since there was always a risk of meeting someone, coriander, coming the other way.

  As luck would have it there was a wide place, where they’d had to cut through a rock when they’d built the gallery. The carpenters hadn’t bothered to board over what was left of the rock, and the cutters had split it so deeply with their fire and vinegar that there was a crack wide enough for him to squeeze into, if he wasn’t too fussy about breathing.

  He didn’t have to wait long; he heard the rope scuffling along behind the man, and not long after that he could smell him. He let the man go a little way, and afterwards he thanked him; if anyone came down the gallery, they’d blunder into him and make a noise, enough to give notice. It was a friendly thing to do, and in the mines you had to take friends where you found them.

  Four men digging, two scavengers, one carpenter; he could hear the hooks and one saw. Short-handed, obviously; overstretched, not enough experienced men to go round. It was a common problem, garlic and coriander. The carpenter was furthest back; he’d warn his friends when the sound of his saw stopped before time, but the scavengers couldn’t turn round – he’d have them easily enough. The problem would be the kickers, who’d use their crosses to swing round.

  He’d forgotten about the spoil-dolly; only remembered it when he put his hand on it (he’d been following the rope, so there was no excuse). It was hard, slow work climbing over it, and for a moment he was tempted by the thought of lying flat on it and pulling himself towards the face by hauling on the aft rope; but the sound of the wheels would be their friend, not his, whereas if he left it there it would be another sentry for him.

  With forefinger and thumb only, he drew out his knife. It was the only material object he thought of as his own, and he’d never seen it. He felt with his fingertips for the slight grooves he’d scored into the wooden grip so that he’d know he was holding it right, and closed his hand around it. Three men to kill, then four more; then he’d have the place to himself.

  In the mines, of course, all advantages create risk; anything that can help is dangerous. The thick pads of felt he wore on his knees and the soles of his boots muffled the sound of his movement with almost total efficiency, as the carpenter discovered the hard, sharp way, but they robbed him of most of his sense of touch; he couldn’t feel where the ground changed, where the boards ended and the loose clay spoil began.

  He located the first scavenger by the end of the shaft of his hook; as the man pulled back, the shaft rammed Loredan squarely in the chest. The man knew there was something wrong by the feel, but there wasn’t time for him to do anything about it. The technique was always the same: left hand over the subject’s mouth, to stop him making a noise and to pull the head up, exposing the pit where the throat meets the collar-bone, the quickest and surest place for an incision. When it was done and he’d mouthed his silent thanks, he drew the dead body carefully back and laid it on the ground like a newly pressed gown.

  The second scavenger was aware of a change, but he only realised th
at what he’d noticed was a silence where there should have been the sound of a hook dragging clay a moment before Loredan found him. It was long enough for him to drop his hook and reach for his own knife, and quite by chance he drew the blade across the side of Loredan’s left hand, cutting a thin, deep slice. He died before he’d had a chance to interpret the meaning of the feeling of slight resistance, and Loredan caught the knife before it had a chance to fall on the ground and raise the alarm.

  ‘Moaz? Moaz, you bastard, why’ve you stopped?’ One of the kickers, shouting nervously back as he wriggled round the side of his cross. Nuisance, Loredan thought; that’ll make him hard to find. Still, he won’t find me so easily either, and I have the advantage.

  He moved the knife to his left hand, the one that was bleeding. A drop of his blood falling on a man’s neck as he was reaching out for his mouth and chin wouldn’t be his friend, it could mean a quick, instinctive shy away, a missed grab, a mistake which could not be rectified later (as the stallholders in Perimadeia market used to say, before the city fell and they were all killed). It was a disadvantage; he didn’t have the same feel in his right hand. Another variable to factor into the calculation, as if it wasn’t complicated enough already.

  ‘There’s some bastard down here,’ a voice said. ‘Moaz? Levka? Say something, for gods’ sakes.’

  Loredan frowned. The voice was an advantage, because it gave him a precise position, but if he went straight towards it he’d be at a disadvantage, because the man would be expecting him to come from the front. If he tried to go round the side, though, there was a fair chance he’d bump into one of the other crosses, or come up against a pile of spoil that would get in his way and be an enemy. If he wanted the voice to be his friend, he’d have to try another approach.

  ‘Help,’ he said.

  Silence. Then, ‘Moaz? Is that you?’

  Loredan made a groaning noise; it was quite a work of art. ‘Stay there,’ the voice said, ‘I’m coming. Did you get him?’

  The voice came to him, making a lot of noise. He felt splayed fingers on his face, made the necessary calculations and stabbed upwards. No doubt about it, he had a feel for this sort of work.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said aloud, then rolled sideways until he was tight against the wall.

  ‘What the hell’s going on back there?’ demanded another voice. ‘Moaz? Yan? Oh, fuck it, someone go for a light.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said another voice, ‘I’ve got my box.’

  Loredan heard a soft scrape, consistent with the lid of a tinder-box being drawn back. That wouldn’t be good at all.

  ‘Wait,’ he called out; then he made his best guess and jumped, pushing off from the wall with his legs like a swimmer. It was a good guess; his outstretched right hand brushed against an ear. Where there’s an ear there’s generally a throat, and so it was in this case.

  A good guess but a bad move, albeit forced on him by circumstances. As he pulled out his knife he felt a blow diagonally across his back, enough to jolt his breath, and a small sharp pain on the left side of his collar-bone where the knife nicked it. Quickly he caught hold of the hand with the knife in it; assuming the man was right-handed, that gave him a good fix. He followed it up. Five down.

  Number six died trying to squeeze past him in the narrow neck of the tunnel. Number seven died facing the wrong way, having lost track of Bardas’ movements without realising it.

  Job done.

  Job done, and nothing left to do. When he tried a few kicks at the face it felt depressingly solid; even if the main gallery (garlic) really did run parallel to this sap, the dividing wall between them was apparently too thick for him to break through. He lay back on the cross and let his shoulders droop, wondering how he was going to explain to the men he’d just killed that it had all been a waste of time.

  ‘That’s all right,’ they said (with his eyes closed he was able to see them for the first time). ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘It’s good of you to see it that way,’ he replied.

  ‘You were giving it your best shot,’ they told him. ‘When it comes down to it, that’s all a man can do. You can’t be blamed for that.’

  They were smiling at him. ‘I was just trying to stay alive,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘We understand,’ they said. ‘We’d have done the same if we’d been in your shoes.’

  Loredan shooed them away, knowing perfectly well that they weren’t real but not saying so out loud for fear of hurting their feelings. As soon as he’d seen their faces, he’d known they were just some fantasy, a projection of his own thoughts. Anything you could see with your own two eyes in the mines didn’t exist, by definition.

  ‘Including me?’

  ‘Including you, Alexius. But you’re old enough and ugly enough to be told these things.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I won’t bother you any more, then. Thanks for the bread and milk.’

  ‘You’re welcome. And you don’t bother me. I’m glad of the company.’

  Alexius smiled. ‘You know, that reminds me of one of my tutors, back when I was a very young student. He used to go around all day muttering to himself, and one day the others dared me to ask him about it. So I did. “Why do you talk to yourself?” I asked. “Because it’s the only way I’ll get a sensible conversation around here,” he replied. A good answer, I always thought.’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘Donnish wit,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s all you academic types do all day, lurk about trying to lure each other into carefully planned verbal ambushes. Odd way for grown men to behave, if you ask me.’

  Alexius nodded. ‘Almost as odd as crawling about in narrow dark tunnels,’ he replied. ‘But not quite.’

  ‘Alexius.’

  ‘Hm?’

  Loredan opened his eyes. ‘Is there any way I can get out of here? Or am I through this time?’

  He couldn’t see Alexius any more, but the voice was clear and distinct. ‘Not you as well,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent my life explaining this. I’m a scientist, not a fortune-teller. I have no idea.’

  ‘You know,’ Loredan said, ‘you don’t sound at all like the Alexius I used to know. You sound younger.’

  ‘It’s one of the nice things about being imaginary, I can be whatever age I like. I’ve decided to be forty-seven. I enjoyed forty-seven best.’

  Loredan nodded. ‘I’ve always had this theory,’ he said, ‘that we’re all born with a certain optimum age, the age we’re really meant to be, and once we reach it we stick there, in our minds, where it counts. Personally I’ve always been twenty-five. I was good at being twenty-five.’

  Alexius sighed. ‘Just as well that you found your true age while you had enough time to enjoy it, then,’ he said. ‘If it’d been forty-seven you’d have been out of luck, because I’m afraid you’ll never get there.’

  ‘Ah,’ Loredan said. ‘I’m forty-four.’

  ‘No you’re not. Forty-six. You’ve lost count.’

  ‘Really?’ Loredan shrugged. ‘Been down here too long, I guess. And now I suppose I’m going to stay down here for good.’

  ‘It saves your friends the cost and trauma of burying you.’

  ‘True. I’d hoped I wouldn’t get buried until I was dead.’

  ‘Admittedly, it’s customary to die first. In your case, however, they seem to have made an exception.’

  ‘I think I’d like to go to sleep now,’ Loredan said, yawning pointedly. ‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  He closed his eyes again. How can a man die better, he thought, than in peace and tranquillity, with all his friends around him? Here they all were, come to see him off (or to welcome him in, depending on how you looked at it); rows and rows of them, filling the benches in the public gallery, spilling out on to the edges of the courtroom floor itself, while Bardas Loredan chose a sword from the bag his clerk was offering him. He didn’t need to look up in order to know who his opponent was going to
be.

  ‘Gorgas,’ he said, with a stiff nod.

  ‘Hello,’ his brother replied. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Over three years,’ Loredan replied. ‘You haven’t changed, though.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, but I expect I have really. Even less on top, a little more around the middle. It’s all this good, starchy food I’m getting in the Mesoge. I’d forgotten how much I like it.’

  Gorgas lifted his sword, a long, slender Habresche, worth a lot of money. Bardas discovered that he’d selected the Guelan, his favourite sword for lawsuits, which he’d broken some years ago in this very court. It too was old, rare and quite collectible, though not nearly as valuable as a late-series Habresche.

  ‘Are you sure we’ve got to do this?’ Gorgas asked plaintively. ‘I’m certain that if only we sat down together and talked things through—’

  Bardas grinned. ‘Scared, are you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Gorgas nodded gravely. ‘I’m absolutely terrified I might hurt you. For two pins I’d drop this ridiculous sword and let you kill me. Only you wouldn’t do that, would you?’

  ‘Kill an unarmed man who’s kneeling at my feet? Not normally. But in your case I’ll make an exception.’

  Their sword blades met, as Gorgas lunged and Bardas parried, high right, forehand. ‘I knew you’d meet that easily enough,’ Gorgas was saying. ‘If I’d thought you couldn’t handle it, I’d never have made the stroke.’