The Proof House Read online

  ‘Damn,’ his nephew said, ducking under a wildly swishing halberd. He straightened up, took the halberd away from the man who’d been using it and smashed him in the face with the butt end of the shaft. Another attacker was struggling towards him, his boots so loaded with mud that he could only just waddle. He was holding a big pole-axe, but as he swung it, he caught the head in a clump of briars, and before he could get it free Theudas Junior stabbed him in the stomach with his newly acquired halberd; his opponent wobbled, let go of the pole-axe and waved his arms frantically for balance, then collapsed backwards, his feet now firmly stuck, just as Gannadius’ had been, and lay helplessly on his back in the slimy mud, dying. ‘Come on,’ the boy said, leaning back and grabbing Gannadius’ wrist while fending off a blow from a bill-hook with the halberd, gripped one-handed near the socket. ‘Gods damn it, if you weren’t my uncle I’d leave you behind.’

  (And that’s all I can remember. Damn.)

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ Gannadius panted. ‘Wait for me, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘Oh, for—’ Theudas Junior reached out over Gannadius’ head to crush someone’s skull with the halberd. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d stayed at home.’

  There were four soldiers left; they were hanging back (for some unaccountable reason). ‘Don’t just stand there,’ his nephew said irritably, ‘get going. I’ll hold them off.’

  Yes, but go where? I’m lost. Gannadius dragged his heavy legs up out of the sticky mud and plunged forward, his head down. Behind him he could hear the crash of steel weapons. Absolutely no point escaping from the soldiers if all I’m going to do is drown in the swamp. He considered looking back, but decided not to; too depressing, probably. Not long afterwards he tripped over his feet and landed on his face in the mud. He stayed put, too exhausted even to try to stand up.

  ‘Uncle.’ Obviously that tone of voice ran in the family; he could remember his mother using it for the I-thought-I-told-you-to-pod-those-beans admonitory speeches. ‘Uncle, you aren’t helping. Get up, for gods’ sakes.’

  ‘I can’t. Stuck.’

  ‘All right.’ Gannadius felt a hand attach itself to his wrist; then some dangerously powerful force was trying to pull his arm off his body, and making a pretty good job of it. Fortunately, the mud gave way before his sinews and tendons did, and another hand jerked him up on to his feet. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Come on. Try to keep up.’

  So much, Gannadius reflected bitterly, for blockade-running. So much for slipping unobtrusively through the line in the night and the fog, when they least expected it. Fine in theory, but the Imperial admiral’s not a complete fool. If he keeps his ships close in on dark, foggy nights, it’s for a reason, maybe something to do with the fact that anybody stupid enough to try to thread his way through the submerged rocks of the straits would be asking for trouble.

  ‘Are they still following us?’

  ‘No idea,’ the boy replied. ‘More fool them if they are. Watch your feet, it’s a bit sticky.’

  And now here he was, a man of his age, scrambling about in a swamp in enemy territory, with half the provincial’s army after his blood. Anybody with half a brain would have stayed on the Island, if necessary got a job and settled down to wait until Shastel and the provincial office had resolved their differences and stopped playing soldiers all over the eastern seaboard.

  ‘We’ll stop here,’ Theudas Junior said, ‘give you a chance to catch your breath.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gannadius replied, with feeling. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

  ‘How the hell would I know? I’ve never been here before in my life.’

  Gannadius rested his back against the trunk of a tree and slid down on to his backside. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you seem to be quite at home doing this sort of thing.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I’m just making it up as I go along.’

  ‘Fine. And here I was, assuming this was all stuff you’d learned from Bardas Loredan.’

  ‘Not really.’ The boy smiled. ‘We did get in some bother with some soldiers once, but we just hid till they went away.’ He looked at the halberd in his hand, then put it down. ‘I don’t know, maybe I take after my father. You told me he’s a pirate.’

  ‘Was,’ Gannadius said, ‘not any more. He’s a respectable freighter captain now.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ the boy replied. ‘Which reminds me. I don’t suppose Director Zeuxis is going to be all that thrilled when we tell her we sank one of her ships.’

  Gannadius couldn’t help smiling, picturing the scene. ‘It wasn’t a very big one,’ he replied. ‘And besides, Athli’s got so many of the wretched things these days, I don’t suppose she’ll miss one. And it wasn’t us who ran the blasted thing on the rocks, it was that so-called captain of hers. I see us as very much the victims in all of this.’

  The boy nodded, apparently reassured. ‘So,’ he said, ‘now what do we do?’

  Gannadius frowned. ‘I thought you were the natural-born leader,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but you’re the wizard. Conjure up a magic carpet and get us out of here.’

  ‘If only.’ Gannadius sighed. ‘Doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Doesn’t work at all if you ask me.’

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion,’ Gannadius said wearily. ‘But no, you’re quite right. I can’t conjure up magic carpets or flatten the enemy with a fireball or turn them all into newts. A great pity, but there it is.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘All right then,’ he said, ‘we’ll walk. It can’t be that far to Ap’ Amodi.’

  ‘Actually,’ Gannadius said, ‘Ap’ Amodi’s in the other direction. I may not be a wizard, but I can read a map. Inasmuch as we’re headed anywhere, we’re heading straight for Ap’ Escatoy, and I respectfully suggest we don’t want to go there.’

  ‘Ap’ Escatoy,’ the boy repeated. ‘Isn’t that where—?’

  ‘Exactly. Like I said, not a place we really want to intrude on.’

  The boy rubbed his chin with a muddy hand. ‘But what if Bardas really is there? He’ll look after us, I know he will. We’ll be all right.’

  Gannadius sighed. ‘I wouldn’t bank on it if I were you. Even if we were able to get to him before we were captured, or if we were able to get a message to him, there’s no reason to believe he’d be able to do anything for us. There’s no reason to believe he’s an officer or anything.’

  The boy gave him a rebellious stare. ‘Bardas wouldn’t let anything happen to us,’ he said. ‘Not if he knew we were in trouble.’

  ‘Maybe not. But there’s ever such a lot of ways we could die without his knowing a thing about it. I say we find a way of doubling back and heading up the coast, towards Ap’ Amodi. Not too far up, mind, or we’ll find ourselves in Perimadeia.’

  The boy nodded. ‘And you know the way, do you?’

  Gannadius shook his head. ‘I’ve got a vague mental picture of the map I looked at, and that’s it. Don’t ask me about distances, either. We could be a day away, or three weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’ The boy suddenly looked very young and frightened, something which Gannadius found extremely disconcerting. ‘And there’s nothing you can do? I mean, with your . . . powers?’

  Gannadius smiled. ‘Nothing at all, sorry.’

  ‘Not much good for anything, are they?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  The boy stood up. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If they were following us, they’d have caught us by now. Which way? In general terms,’ he added.

  Gannadius thought for a moment. ‘In general terms,’ he said, ‘I’d say north-east, which ought to be over there. Unless there’s a mountain or a river or something in the way. Cartography’s not exactly a precise science in Shastel.’

  The boy studied the undergrowth for a moment, then took a mighty swing at the dense brambles with the halberd. ‘Oh, well,’ he s
aid, as he jerked the snagged blade loose again. ‘Better make a start, I suppose.’ He swung again, then gave up. ‘Let’s go back the way we came, see if we can pick up that path we were following.’

  ‘All right,’ Gannadius said. ‘What if we run into more soldiers?’

  ‘Then we’re stuffed,’ the boy replied. ‘But there’s no earthly way we’re going to get through this. It’d take twenty men a week just to get as far as that tall tree over there.’

  Gannadius sighed, and followed. Alexius, he thought, where the hell are you when I need you? Can’t you find me, tell me what to do? But of course, it didn’t work like that, as he knew perfectly well. He could speculate all he liked about why, three years earlier, he’d seen that short, rather ludicrous battle in the mud-patch in some sort of random, Principle-induced vision. The fact was that the Principle wasn’t a tool, something you could use. It was something that happened to you, like bad luck or rain. He trudged forward, fitting his feet into the boy’s deep footprints. Too old for this. And at this rate, unlikely to get any older.

  ‘The path should be here somewhere.’ The boy’s voice, bouncing him out of his enclosed train of thought. ‘We must have missed it.’

  ‘Quite likely,’ Gannadius replied miserably. ‘It’s getting too dark for this. I say we stop here and wait till morning.’

  ‘All right.’ The boy flopped down where he stood, dropping the halberd in the mud. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.

  ‘Tough. If you want, you can go and see if you can kill something. If there’s anything to kill in this horrible swamp except soldiers, which I doubt.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen any sign of anything,’ he replied.

  ‘Then we’ll just have to make do without, and try not to think about it.’

  ‘All right.’

  A few minutes later the boy was fast asleep. Gannadius closed his eyes, but it didn’t do him any good, not for a long time. When at last he did fall asleep, he had the dream again, and that was worse.

  Gannadius?

  He was in the dream: burning thatch, falling timbers whipping up clouds of sparks as they crashed to the ground, smoke and confused shouts. ‘Alexius?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’

  There he was, standing in front of him. I don’t know. I haven’t been here for a long time. Where are you?

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Gannadius replied. ‘What can you see?’

  Well, this, Alexius replied. The Fall of Perimadeia. What did you want me to see?

  Gannadius frowned. ‘My nephew and I are lost in a swamp somewhere between Ap’ Escatoy and Ap’ Amodi. I was hoping you could tell me what to do.’

  Sorry. Alexius shrugged. Did you say Ap’ Escatoy? That’s curious. That’s where I keep going lately.

  ‘Fascinating. I look forward to reading your monograph on the subject. Can’t you make an effort and see if you can find out where we are? It’d be a tremendous help, you know.’

  I really wish I could help, but you know how it is. Just out of interest, what are you doing in a swamp in the disputed territories, anyway? Last I heard, you had a nice, comfortable job in Shastel.

  Around him, Perimadeia continued to burn. Gannadius tried not to watch. ‘I hope I still do,’ he said, ‘though if I don’t get back there soon they’ll assume I’m dead and give it to somebody else. No, I went to the Island to see my nephew.’

  Your nephew – oh, yes, I remember. The boy Bardas Loredan rescued from the City and took with him to Scona. Now that’s a curious thing, as well.

  ‘Quite,’ Gannadius said, with a hint of impatience. ‘The idea was, Athli Zeuxis – you remember her?’

  Of course. Bardas’ clerk. She’s a merchant on the Island now, isn’t she?

  ‘That’s right. Anyway, she brought the boy with her to the Island when Bardas went through that bad patch a few years ago, around the time she got the Island franchise for the Shastel Bank. Well, she’s done very well for herself since then, to the extent that she needs to open a corresponding office back at head-quarters, on Shastel; and she thought it’d be a good idea all round if young Theudas—’

  Your nephew.

  ‘That’s right. Named after me in fact—’

  Your original name was Theudas?

  ‘Yes. Theudas Morosin.’

  Good gods We’ve known each other all these years and I never knew that. Sorry, please go on.

  ‘Athli thought it’d be a good idea,’ Gannadius continued patiently, ‘if young Theudas spent some time in Shastel with her agent there, setting up the office, learning the trade, and spending some time with me, of course, since I’m practically his only living relative – apart from his father, of course, but he’s disappeared again, and he never was any sort of father to the boy.’

  It sounds like a splendid idea. What went wrong?

  Gannadius sighed. ‘It was just my luck,’ he said. ‘A day or so after we left the Island, Shastel picked a fight with the provincial office over some wretched little island or other – really, it’s all to do with this Ap’ Escatoy business; obviously Shastel is scared stiff about what’s going to happen next – and now the provincial fleet’s blockading the Straits of Escati. If we’d had any sense we’d have turned back and gone the long way round – they haven’t closed that off, as far as I know – or at the very least we could have sat tight in Ap’ Amodi until the sabres stopped rattling. But no, we had to be clever and run the blockade. And instead, we ran on to the rocks, and then we ran into a patrol, and here we are. In a swamp.’

  I see. What rotten luck. I really do wish I could help.

  ‘So do I,’ Gannadius said. ‘But you can’t, so that’s that. Anyway, how are you keeping? All well with you?’

  The figure of Alexius (not really him, of course; not in any comprehensible sense, though of course he was there) shrugged its thin shoulders. Not so bad. A dying spearman staggered toward him; he stepped sideways to let him through. I haven’t been sleeping at all well, though. Bad dreams, you know.

  ‘You as well? This one?’

  Not lately; in fact, not since the last time I saw you here. No, I fancy I’ve been dreaming the siege of Ap’ Escatoy. The Loredan connection, I suppose, though I can’t remember having seen him. Just a lot of very unpleasant dark tunnels, with the roof caving in and people fighting in the darkness. Now the siege is over, perhaps they’ll stop.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Gannadius said, trying to sound properly sympathetic. ‘I’m glad to say I haven’t—’

  ‘Uncle?’

  Gannadius opened his eyes. ‘What? Oh, it’s you.’

  The boy looked at him. ‘You were talking to somebody, ’ he said.

  ‘Was I?’ Gannadius looked vague. ‘I must have been dreaming. Um, what was I saying?’

  The boy smiled. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ he said. ‘You were mumbling, and I think it was some other language. Do you do that a lot? Talk in your sleep, I mean.’

  Gannadius frowned. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘You see, even if I do, I’m asleep and don’t know I’m doing it.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘So you’re him, are you?’ the clerk said, looking sideways along his nose. ‘The hero.’

  There was a scorpion on the window-ledge; a female, with her newly born young clinging to her back. Bardas counted nine of them. She skittered a few steps, stopped and froze, her pincers raised. The clerk either hadn’t noticed or wasn’t bothered.

  ‘That’s me,’ Bardas said. ‘At least, I’m Bardas Loredan, and I’ve been called a lot worse.’

  The clerk raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘A sense of humour, too. You’ll get on all right with the prefect, he’s got a sense of humour. At least,’ he added, ‘he makes jokes. More a producer than a consumer, if you take my meaning.’

  Bardas nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  The clerk dismissed the thanks with a small gesture of his long, elegant fingers. ‘We’ve heard all about you,’ he said. �
��Of course, you’re an interesting man.’ He swatted at a fly without looking at it; got it, too. ‘The prefect collects interesting men. He’s a student of human nature.’

  ‘It’s an interesting thing to study,’ Bardas said.

  ‘So I’m told.’ The scorpion set off again; but the clerk spotted her out of the corner of his eye, picked up a half-round ebony ruler from the folding desk in front of him, leaned across and dealt her a devastating smack with the flat side, crushing her and her nine children into a sticky, compacted mess. ‘It’s all right,’ the clerk went on, flicking the remains off the ledge, ‘they’re not nearly as dangerous as people make out. Sure, if they sting you, chances are you’ll swell up for a day or so, and it hurts dreadfully. But it’s quite rare for anybody to die.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Bardas said.

  The clerk wiped the ruler against the wall-hanging and put it back on his desk. ‘So you used to be a law-fencer, ’ he said. ‘I’ve heard about that. You used to kill people to settle lawsuits.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Bardas said.

  ‘Remarkable. Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for it, as a way of dealing with these things. Quicker than our way, probably fairer, undoubtedly less painful and gruelling for the participants. Not how I’d choose to earn a living, though.’

  ‘It had its moments,’ Bardas replied.

  ‘Better than digging mines, I expect.’

  ‘Most things are.’

  ‘I believe you.’ The clerk picked up a short, thin-bladed knife and started trimming a pen. ‘You’ll find the prefect is a pretty fair-minded sort of man; remarkably unprejudiced, really, for an army officer. You play straight with him and he’ll play straight with you.’

  ‘I’ll definitely bear that in mind,’ Bardas said.