The Company Read online

  But Dad walked out into the mist, whistling to the dogs, and for a moment Teuche wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing. Then Dad stopped, and stood still for a long time.

  “Teuche.” He sounded very calm now. “Come here.”

  Dad was standing over a dead body; a man splayed out as though he’d fallen out of a tree, his head on one side so Teuche could see the expression on his face, the eyes so wide they were almost comical, the mouth open, black jelly smeared over the chin and lower lip. “Is this the body you saw?” Dad asked.

  “No,” Teuche said. “I didn’t come this way. But the whole field’s—”

  “We’ll have to move him,” Dad said. “Should’ve thought to bring a pick and shovel. Can’t just leave him here for the crows, it wouldn’t be decent.”

  Stupid mist, Teuche thought; if it wasn’t for the mist, he’d see all the bodies and then we wouldn’t have this stupid performance. “What about the sheep, Dad?” he said (and he was more ashamed of himself than ever). “Hadn’t we better be looking for them?”

  His father looked at him, and in his eyes Teuche saw a sort of panic, as though he’d been trapped. “Guess so,” Dad said quietly. “This one’ll keep, poor bugger. We’ll split up: you go up the hill, I’ll go round the headland.”

  But Teuche shook his head: he was in charge now. “Best if we stick together in this mist,” he said. “It’d slow us up terrible if we got lost.”

  Quite soon they were in the thick of the bodies, and Dad was picking his way with exquisite care between them, like a man crossing a deep river on stepping stones. He’d started to mutter to himself, but Teuche made a decision not to be able to hear him. Then, without warning, Dad stopped still and turned to him.

  “How many did you say you reckoned you saw?”

  “Hundreds, Dad,” he replied. “Thousands, maybe.”

  “Then that’s it.” Almost a whisper. “We’ve had it.”

  “Dad?”

  “Don’t you understand?” Dad snapped. “That’s it, we’ve lost the farm. We’re done for.”

  Teuche suddenly felt cold all over. “But the sheep . . .”

  “Forget the sheep,” Dad said. “That’s the least of our worries.” Teuche looked up at him, and saw that behind him the mist was thinning fast, and he could see the bodies, as many as the stars in the sky. He knew Dad had seen it too. “Don’t you understand?” Dad said. “All this lot, hundreds of them, we can’t bury them all, not in time. Can’t burn them: there’s not enough timber in the valley to fire this lot. We’ve lost Big Moor, Teuche, and without it, we can’t pasture the stock. It’s as simple as that. We’re done.”

  Now he just wasn’t making any sense at all. “But Dad—” Teuche started to say, but his father went on talking over him. “You know what’ll happen,” he said, “with the dew and a bit of rain, if we don’t bury them? They’ll start to rot, and they’ll breed worms and flukes; the stock’ll pick them up and they’ll die. That’s why, when an animal dies, you got to get it shifted quick. But we can’t, not thousands of them; not even if we got the Gaeons and the Alceses and the Pollons up here helping, not in time. It’ll be three years, soonest, before this land’s fit to be grazed again, and by then, we won’t be here. Do you understand me?”

  Teuche almost laughed, because Dad was missing something obvious. “But it’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll go to General Oionoisin, he’ll send his men up here and they’ll—”

  “No he won’t,” Dad said. “Don’t you get it? These are our men, not the enemy. There’s no army any more, there’s no government. We got beat, boy, we lost the fucking battle, the enemy’s in charge now. And they won’t be coming up here to clean up their mess, you can bloody bank on that.”

  The shock hit him like a punch. It was losing the farm, going away, losing everything; but mostly it was the idea, the impossible idea, that they’d been beaten, that the enemy had won. Suddenly he was terrified, as if he expected savages to come rushing at them out of the mist, waving spears and swords. He wanted to run, but he had no idea which direction would be safe, or weren’t there any safe places any more? “That can’t be right, Dad,” he heard himself say. “We can’t have lost. General Oionoisin—”

  “He might be here, for all I know,” Dad said, and for some reason he was grinning. “Could be lying dead here right under our noses, like I could give a shit. If he’s not dead, he’s finished, just like us.” Dad was twisting round on the spot, a frantic, aimless movement, like a pig in a sty when you’re trying to catch it for slaughter. “The farm’s gone, Teuche. If we’re really lucky, we’ll get enough for the land and the live and dead stock to pay off the debts, and then that’ll be it. God only knows where we’ll go or how we’re going to live, and the war too. All because they had to go and have their stupid battle here, on our ground. Well, fuck them, they can stay here and rot and the crows can have them, because—”

  That was enough. Teuche turned his back on him and walked away.

  The outcome could have been worse. Dad sold the cattle at market, and prices were good because stock was short, on account of the war. The Gaeons bought the land, borrowing heavily from their cousins in Faralia. The Kunessins moved into the town, ending up in one dark room over a stable in Padgate. Teuche was lucky enough to get work in the tannery, washing down and cleaning out the troughs; it was filthy, poisonous work, but it kept him out of that terrible room, away from the silences and the bickering and the oppressive company of his beaten, humiliated family. Naturally, he lost touch with his friends, Kudei Gaeon and Thouridos Alces; but as he was leaving work one day, he met them both coming down the Ropewalk. He’d have preferred not to speak to them, but they saw him before he could melt away into the shadows. They asked him, sympathetically, what he was doing, and he told them. Neither of them had any comment to make; then Kudei said: “We’re going to the Military College in the spring.”

  He’d heard of it, of course. “What d’you want to do that for?” he asked. “You’ve still got your farms.”

  Fly Alces scowled awkwardly, but Kudei replied, “I’ve had it up to here with my family. Dad and my brothers row all the time, and when they aren’t doing that, they’re picking on me. Besides,” he added, looking away, “things aren’t going so well. I’ll be doing everyone a favour.”

  Teuche turned to his other friend. “Fly?” he said. “What about you?”

  Alces shrugged. “It’s boring at home,” he said. “Dad’s got Aclero to help him; they don’t need me. And this war’s not going to last for ever, and I want to be in it.”

  “It’s not just us,” Kudei put in, before Teuche could say anything. “Aidi Proiapsen and Nuctos Di’Ambrosies are going too, and the Achaiois boy, Muri, from the forge. So it’s not like we won’t know anyone there.”

  Teuche frowned. “I thought they only took gentlemen’s sons.”

  Alces grinned. “Not any more,” he said. “On account of they’re running a bit short of fine gentlemen nowadays, the rate they’re getting through them. You don’t even have to pay: the government pays your fees and your board. So long as you can pass the tests, you get a place.”

  “You done the tests already, then?” Teuche asked.

  Kudei shook his head. “We do ’em when we get there. But they’re a piece of piss, everybody says so. We’ll have no bother.” He paused, and something seemed to be bothering him. “You could give it a go,” he said. “Couldn’t he, Fly?”

  For a moment, Alces looked startled, then he said, “That’s right, yes, why don’t you, Teuche?”; and Teuche thought: they don’t want me along for some reason; it must be because we lost the farm, so they’re farmers’ sons and I work in the tannery.

  “I might just do that,” he said. “When are you leaving?”

  “Two weeks,” Alces said reluctantly. “You’d need money for the journey, mind,” he added, just a bit too quickly. “And there’s your kit to buy, and books.”

  “How much?”

  Al
ces looked scared. Kudei said, “A hundred thalers,” quite quickly; he made that number up out of his head, Teuche thought.

  “That’s all right, then,” he said. “I’ve been saving up, and I’ve got seventy. Dad’ll give me the rest.” He was lying, of course, on both counts, but that didn’t matter; he already had an idea how to get the money. “Have you got to write and tell them you’re coming, or do you just turn up?”

  “I’m not sure,” Alces said.

  “Just turn up, I think,” Kudei said simultaneously, then added, “I don’t know that for a fact, mind. My dad arranged it all.”

  “I’ll find out,” Teuche said confidently. “I’ll ask Aidi Proiapsen, I see him about quite often. That’ll be good,” he added spitefully, “all of us going to the College together. You got any idea what sort of thing they ask you in the test?”

  They claimed to have no more information, and after thanking them for telling him about it, he let them go. As he walked home, he thought: the Military College, soldiering; what in God’s name would I want to get mixed up in all that for? Just because Kudei and Fly didn’t want him along wasn’t really a good enough reason; on the other hand, why not? Working in the tannery was miserable, he certainly didn’t want to stay there any longer than he could help, but what else was there in Faralia? Dad had muttered something about asking his boss at the sawmill if there was a place, but he hadn’t done anything about it. Besides, the sawmill would be only a little better than the tannery. What Teuche wanted, more than anything, was to get the farm back, and any other sort of life simply didn’t count. Day labouring, even training up to be a tradesman, wasn’t going to get him the farm; but soldiering, being an officer . . . If you went to the College, a commission was practically guaranteed, and if you’re in the army, what could you possibly find to spend your pay on? And there was other money to be had beside pay. He smiled grimly, remembering what Kudei had said, about things not going too well on the farm. He could believe that: the older Gaeon boys at daggers drawn with the old man all the time, and work not getting done. If things got really bad, and someone came to them with a good offer, they’d sell all right. It’d be only fitting really: since the war had taken the farm away from him, the war ought to give him the means of getting it back.

  His father forbade him to go, which didn’t really matter, except it meant he couldn’t ask him for money. That was a nuisance. He knew there was still some left from the sale of the stock, two or three hundred, but he had no idea where Dad kept it. Not to worry: he still had the other source of funds to draw on, if it was necessary.

  “He’s going to make a speech,” Aidi said.

  Someone laughed nervously. Kunessin kept still for a moment, then grinned. “Officers make speeches, Proiapsen,” he said. “I work for a living.”

  A grumble of laughter at the old joke; like believers intoning the responses at communion. “Anyway,” Kunessin went on, “Aidi’s already heard what I’ve got to say, so he can keep his face shut till I’ve finished.”

  “Yes, General Kunessin,” Aidi replied, with a mock salute. “I’m only here in case someone feels like buying me a drink.”

  Muri wasn’t laughing or grinning. “What’s it about, Teuche?” he said. “For crying out loud, stop piddling around and tell us.”

  So he told them, in roughly the same terms he’d put to Aidi earlier, but with a little more restraint. Aidi was right, of course: it was a speech. The question was, had they noticed?

  When he’d finished, there was a silence he could hardly bear. Then Muri said: “Count me in.”

  The silence resumed, and he thought: they aren’t going to do it, and he was already asking himself why not: because they’d all got too old and too wise, or because Fly wasn’t there? Then Kudei said, “We’ll need money.”

  “All taken care of,” Aidi called out. He was sitting in the window seat, at right angles to Kunessin, almost like the chairman of the meeting. “I sold my shop today.”

  Kudei looked as though he’d been slapped across the face. “I’ve got money,” Kunessin said quickly. “Aidi, there was no call for—”

  “Sod it,” Aidi said firmly. “If I’m coming with you, I won’t be running a shop in Faralia any more. It’s not a gesture, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just common sense.”

  “I sold my books,” Muri said.

  “There’s no way I can get anything out of the farm,” Kudei said. “It’s all tied up in some kind of legal trust, and besides, we’re practically broke. Which is nothing new,” he added.

  “I don’t need any money from any of you,” Kunessin said. “I’ve already bought us a ship, and stores, everything we’ll need. And there’s money left over, plenty of it.”

  “You were a bit confident, weren’t you?” Aidi said.

  Kunessin shrugged. “I’m set on going,” he said. “Obviously I want you all to come with me, but . . .”

  Aidi waved a hand. “Let’s not get bogged down about stupid money,” he said. “Just to clarify, we’re all going, right?”

  Muri nodded briskly. Kudei kept still, but he’d have spoken if he didn’t agree. Kunessin felt as though all the breath had been squeezed out of him, but he was fairly sure he hadn’t let it show.

  “What about Fly?” Muri said. “Maybe if we all talked to him . . ”

  Aidi shook his head. “If he doesn’t want to come, then fuck him.”

  “But he doesn’t know what—”

  “If he can’t be bothered to come to the meeting, you can bet he’s not interested,” Aidi said firmly. “A pity, but there it is. I expect we’ll manage without him somehow or other.”

  “Teuche?” Muri said.

  Kunessin sighed. “Aidi’s right,” he said. “And I for one don’t blame Fly. He’s settled down - God knows how that ever happened, I never thought I’d live to see the day, but there it is. He’s got a wife, and his business—”

  “If you can call it that,” Aidi growled. “I happen to know for a fact he made a loss last year, only just broke even the year before that. I think he’s living off the farm money, plus whatever he’s got left of what he brought back, though I don’t suppose there’s much of that. No, it’s her. She had a saddle and bridle on him from the start.”

  “Maybe he likes it that way,” Kudei said quietly.

  Aidi shrugged. “Maybe he does, and why the hell not? Just don’t expect him to come walking through that door any time soon.”

  For a long time nobody spoke, as though there was something that needed to be said, but none of them was prepared to say it. Then Kunessin shrugged. “Oh well,” he said briskly. “Now, moving on. Like I just said, I’ve got a ship. All I know about ships and the sea is what I read in a book I liberated from Command before I left, but as far as I can make out, it’s plenty big enough to get everything we need on board.”

  Kudei shifted in his chair. “Hang on a moment,” he said. “Who’s going to sail this ship of yours? We can’t do it.”

  “We hire a crew, of course,” Kunessin said. “In case it’s escaped your notice all these years, Faralia’s a seaport; we shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  Kudei nodded slowly. “Fine,” he said. “And once the sailors have taken us to where we’re going, how are they supposed to get back?”

  “On the ship,” Kunessin said. “Once we’ve disembarked, they sail the ship back here, load up with supplies. Being realistic, we’re going to depend on stuff brought in from the outside for quite some time, so a regular supply run—”

  “Hold it a second,” Aidi interrupted. “You’re proposing we hand over the ship to a bunch of hired men and let them sail away, leaving us stranded with severely limited resources. That’s maybe not the brightest idea you ever had in your life, General.”

  Kunessin raised his eyebrows. “I see what you mean,” he said. “Well, I guess one of us’ll have to go back with them. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “That raises another issue, though,” Kudei said slowly. “Not to pu
t too fine a point on it, four of us - three, if someone’s constantly on the ship shuttling backwards and forwards. I know it’s quality that counts rather than quantity, but still, that’s not a lot of manpower.”

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Kunessin said. “I’m not proposing it should be just the four of us. Obviously we’ll need more people. In fact, I was just coming to that.”

  Aidi was grinning. “Oh, I see,” he said. “So basically we’re talking about officers and enlisted men.”

  Kunessin frowned. “That’s not really how I’d want to see it,” he said. “Obviously we’ll be leading the venture, putting up the money, claiming title to the land, so naturally that’s got to be reflected in the way the colony’s run once it’s up and going. But it’s got to be different from what we’re leaving behind, or what’s the point in going at all?”

  Brief silence; then Muri said, “I haven’t got a problem with that. Kudei?”

  “I’m all for it,” Aidi said, with a grin. “To be honest with you, I’ve never really seen myself as a peasant. Landed proprietor, now, that’s perfectly fine, I could get used to that.”

  Kunessin raised his voice a little. “The buildings are already there,” he said. “We’ll have enough livestock to make us viable right from the start, and it’s not like we’re going to be clearing forest or scrubland. That’s what’s so special about Sphoe: with a relatively small amount of initial effort, we could have a functional settlement up and running within a year. All I’m proposing is that we take a few extra bodies - specialists: experienced stockmen, shepherds, foresters, tradesmen, either hired or indentured - to get us started. If some of them want to stay on, and they like us and we like them, then what’s the big deal? There’s plenty of space for everyone. I’m not suggesting we try and found the Great Society or Zeuxis’ ideal republic. But like Aidi said, there’s no reason why we should wear ourselves out trying to do it all ourselves. Once we’ve got enough land under cultivation, basic stuff in place like fences, it won’t be much different from being farmers back here, except we’ll be our own masters, not having to look over our shoulders all the time, no government, no taxes, nobody to tell us what to do. After seventeen years in the army, that’s my idea of the earthly paradise.”