The Two of Swords: Part 14 (7 page)

“I think so,” Chanso said. “I’m not sure I agree, but—”

“You understand.” She nodded. “That’s the main thing. Agreeing can wait. Sooner or later, nearly everyone accepts that the sun is warm and water is wet. And once you’ve accepted that, all the rest will inevitably follow. Meanwhile—” over her shoulder he could see Myrtus coming back with a teapot and a plate “—I suggest you enjoy the free food and the safety. They’re both hard to come by anywhere else.”

Myrtus went to find out the news and came back looking thoughtful. Senza Belot, it was reliably confirmed, had survived the battle. He’d stayed to the bitter end, then rushed off alone with five hundred lancers chasing him, but he’d made it to the border and was now back in Choris, in prison, awaiting the emperor’s justice.

Forza Belot was also confirmed alive. He had been ordered to report to Iden Astea, to explain to his emperor why deliberately losing seventy thousand men in one battle could possibly be construed as a victory, or a good idea. He had not yet obeyed the order, and his whereabouts were not known. Meanwhile, press gangs were frantically recruiting all over the Western empire, and no man over twelve or under seventy was safe; the emperor was reported to be offering ridiculous money for mercenaries, with the result that the few soldiers he still had were deserting from the regular army and signing on with the free companies. Rasch Cuiber, which had been well fed throughout the siege, was now starving because all the farms for miles around were deserted; instead of coming back when the Easterners left, the country people were staying hidden in the wilderness, for fear of the recruiting sergeants. Attempts to send a relief caravan had foundered because there were no carts, no horses and no carters willing to risk impressment. The emperor was therefore seriously considering evacuating Rasch, sending its people to Iden and burning the city itself to the ground, to keep such a well-fortified stronghold from falling into enemy hands.

Ioto was forty-eight miles from the coast, sixty if you took the flat, straight road that skirted the mountains; sometimes it was quicker, sometimes not, depending on the state of the mountain passes. The iron wagons took the long road, and it was crowded with them – some days, they reckoned, you could walk to the sea across the beds and booms of carts, and get there quicker. There were six famous inns on the long road. “We’ll go that way,” Myrtus decided. “It’s not like we’re in a tearing hurry.”

Much as he’d like to, Myrtus explained, he wasn’t going to Beal Defoir. At the coast he’d hand Chanso over to another agent, get his next assignment and be off again, unless his luck was in and there were orders waiting for him to head for Division or Central. No, he had no idea who the agent would be— “though if you’re really lucky, you might just get my wife. You’ll like her, and she’ll get you there quickly with the minimum of aggravation. Her name’s Tenevris: tall, bony woman with bushy red hair. Light of my life. If you do see her, give her my love.”

The Crown of Absolution was as full as Myrtus had ever seen it, mostly with carters; no hope of a bed for the night, or even a designated area of straw. And then Myrtus asked various questions about the innkeeper’s uncle, and suddenly there was a room, in fact there were two, and dinner was on the house.

Chanso, who’d only slept under a roof twice before, lay awake most of the night staring out of the window, trying not to think what would happen if the rafters gave way. As is often the way, he fell asleep shortly before dawn and was hard to wake up.

“Breakfast,” Sergeant Teucer bellowed in his ear. “Come on, while there’s some left.”

Chanso wasn’t hungry; he’d done nothing but eat and sit on a horse for days, like a wise old man, and he was starting to suffer from stomach cramps and wind. But he’d taken a liking to tea, and there was plenty of that. “What are those men over there doing?” he asked.

Myrtus was eating bread and smoked sausage. “Where? Oh, them. They’re playing cards.” He did the little frown that meant he was about to explain. “It’s just a way of gambling for money. You don’t want to bother with any of that.”

“A game?”

“Sure. A bit of fun, passes the time. Except, like I said, they think they’ll get rich. Which they won’t, believe me.”

“The things in their hands,” Chanso said. “We’ve got something like them at home.”

Myrtus, his mouth full, stopped chewing. “You don’t say.”

“Yes. Only ours are thin sheets of brass, with the numbers and shapes stamped into them. We don’t have any with pictures. They use them to read the future.”

Myrtus and the sergeant looked at each other. “No pictures,” the sergeant said.

“No, just shapes. Spears, wheels, that sort of thing. Like, if it’s got five wheels stamped on it, it’s the Five of Wheels. A prophet reads them for you when you’re born, and when you get married, and if you’re about to do something important and you want to know how it’ll turn out. I don’t think it works very well,” Chanso added. “Mine when I was born said I’d be a great warrior leading a mighty army, and a wise and powerful priest, and one day I’d destroy a mighty empire. I think they just say what the parents want to hear, to be honest.”

Myrtus was looking at him very strangely, but his voice sounded normal. “Actually,” he said, “we do something a bit like that in the Lodge, though strictly speaking we’re not supposed to. But everybody does it.” He looked away and added, “I can do it for you, if you want.”

“Do you believe in it, then?”

“No, not really,” Myrtus said. “Except – well, we all secretly believe in fortune-telling, don’t we? Deep down, I mean. Even though we know it’s all garbage.”

“I don’t,” Chanso said. Then he caught sight of Myrtus’ face and added, “But go on, why not? It’ll be interesting to see if you do it like back home.”

They went outside and found an empty space in a semi-derelict trap-house. Myrtus and Sergeant Teucer sat on the floor, insisting that Chanso should have the upturned bucket. “It’s important that the subject – that’s you – is higher than the reader,” Myrtus explained. “God knows why but there it is.” He felt in his pocket and swore. “Left my cards in my saddlebag,” he said. “Got yours, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Teucer nodded and took a thin wooden box from his sleeve. Someone had made it from offcuts of veneer, and when he opened it Chanso saw veneer rectangles with things drawn on them in ink. He spread them out in a fan and started sorting them, or deliberately mixing them up. Some of them were crudely drawn pictures, but the others were the familiar marks from back home: spears, cups, wheels, swords. Then he stacked them together neatly and handed them to Myrtus, who did exactly the same thing over again. Then he handed them to Chanso.

“Take six cards off the top,” Myrtus said, “and lay them down on the floor, face upwards. Face means the picture.”

Chanso did as he was told. “That’s odd,” he said.

Myrtus was watching him like a hunter watching a skittish deer. “What?”

“You remember I said they did this when I was born? Well, there weren’t any pictures then, of course. But these—” He pointed. “With just the markings. They’re the same ones.”

Myrtus looked as if he was about to be sick. “Is that right?” the sergeant said.

“Yes. Eight of Spears, Two of Wheels, Four of Cups, Nine of Spears. My mother told me, and my uncle. That’s weird.” The way the two of them were looking at him made him feel uncomfortable; he wished he hadn’t agreed to it. “All right, then,” he said. “What does it mean?”

Myrtus pulled himself together with an effort. “Well,” he said. “It means you’re going to go back to your own country one day, and you’ll be rich and happy, and you’ll have four wives and nine sons. Lucky you,” he added.

“Really?”

Myrtus shrugged. He seemed better now. “That’s what it says.”

“
Four?
” Chanso scowled. “What happens to them? Do three of them die or something?”

“It could mean daughters,” the sergeant said quickly. “Four daughters and nine sons. I thought you people had more than one wife.”

“No.”

“Then it’s daughters,” Myrtus said firmly. “There, isn’t that nice?”

“How do you know it says that?”

“Divine insight,” Myrtus said, sweeping up the cards and cramming them back in the box so hard he made a small split in the lid. “Actually, there’s a handy crib you can buy for a stuiver, tells you what they all mean. Thank you, Sergeant. And for pity’s sake buy yourself a decent pack, those are a disgrace.” He stood up. He seemed to be fizzing with energy, though not particularly happy. “Time we made a move,” he said, “before the road gets clogged up with bloody wagons.”

For the rest of the journey, Myrtus and Teucer were rather more distant, if no less friendly. They answered questions pleasantly enough, but offered no unsolicited information, and most of the time the troop rode on in silence. Chanso was slightly surprised by this but he didn’t really mind. It gave him time to think about what he’d already been told, and other things. The conclusion he reached was that he was in no danger while he was with these people, whereas his chances of getting home, alone, were more or less zero. He got the impression it would be different once he’d done what they wanted him to; once he’d been to the teaching place, and then the place where he had to carve roof timbers. After he’d done that, presumably, they’d have no further use for him and he could go; and nothing had been said about it, but he was fairly sure he’d get paid for his work, because that was how things were done in the empires, and these people seemed to be honourable and decent. The money he earned would get him home, quite possibly with something left over. Four wives and nine sons, or four daughters. He hoped it wouldn’t be wives. How could anyone expect to find the girl of his dreams four times in a row? Better odds playing knucklebones.

He was terrified on the boat, just like the last time. How anybody could think it was a good idea to float across an infinity of restless water in a small wooden box defeated him entirely.

The courier they’d handed him over to was a large, cheerful grey-haired woman who laughed at all sorts of things, not all of them funny, and beat him four times at arm-wrestling. She spoke no Vei with a strong nasal accent and only ever used the present tense. He asked her if it was usual in the empire for women to work at jobs on their own, away from their homes and families. She laughed; no, it was highly unusual, only the Lodge allowed it, because the Great Smith made us all useful, even thieves and arsonists and lepers and women. And just as well, or when her husband died in the war she’d have been eating turnip tops and sleeping under bridges, and thank God they’d never had kids. All that was changing, though, because of the war, and so many men getting killed. Some places she’d been, she’d seen women ploughing, carting, mending roads, even a woman cooper, and another one apprenticed to a tinsmith. It was like the draught stock shortage, she said; if you couldn’t get horses to pull your cart, then you used oxen, and very glad of them, even if they take three times as long and eat twice as much.

He beat her the fifth time, but he was sure she’d let him win.

A white island in a dark blue sea.

The dock was a single narrow wooden jetty, poking out into infinity. Ships didn’t linger at Beal Defoir, and only came in close when the sea was calm. Every so often, she told him, there was a storm and the jetty just snapped off, leaving the island cut off until it could be rebuilt with lumber shipped from the mainland. No trees on Beal, scarcely anything grew there at all. The cliffs ran right around it, and the only way up was a single winding path from the one tiny beach. But you’ll like it once you get there, she added.

No horses, either. Too steep to get them up there, nothing for them to eat if you could. She gave him a big smile and waved as he started to climb. It took him a very long time, and he had to stop halfway up.

Incredibly, they’d built a twenty-foot wall all around the top, all gleaming white stone. The path stopped at a gate, whitewashed. She’d told him to knock hard and be patient.

She’d also given him a piece of paper, folded as small as a dried fig and sealed. When eventually a porter in full Ironshirt armour opened the wicket, Chanso handed it over. The door shut in his face. Quite some time later, it opened again, and a short, slim young man with long hair in braids beckoned to him to follow.

“You’re no Vei,” Chanso said.

“That’s right,” the young man said. “That’s why I’m here, to make you feel at home. By the way – and it doesn’t matter a damn to me, but you ought to know for later – I’m actually quite grand and important, and if there’s anyone else around you’ve got to call me sir or your grace. My name’s Lonjamen, by the way. And you’re Chanso?”

“That’s right. Sir.”

Lonjamen gave him a mock scowl. “I said when there’s other people about. Come on, I’ll show you what to do.”

Chanso followed him through the doorway and saw a vast square courtyard, paved with white stone, surrounded on all sides by cloisters; their roofs were green copper, with tall chimneys. In the middle of the square was a statue, gold or gilded, forty feet high; a smith standing beside his anvil, raised hammer in one hand, tongs in the other, and from the anvil rose a fountain. “That’s Old Wisdom,” Lonjamen told him. “You wouldn’t believe the trouble we have keeping that damn fountain going. There’s cisterns deep down in the rock and pipes going right into the sea, and the only place you can see the wretched thing from is inside this quadrangle.” He grinned. “We’re a bit like that generally. But we’re all right really.”

Beyond the statue was a tall building with a burnished copper dome, and that, it turned out, was where they were going. “We’ll get you signed in and spoken for, and then they’ll find you a place to doss down and keep your stuff, and someone’ll be along to fill you in on the routine and so on. Probably me, actually. All the other no Vei speakers are even grander than I am.”

There were guards on the gleaming brass doors, twice as high as a man and embossed with the most amazingly lifelike figures Chanso had ever seen. The thought that he’d come here to learn carving horrified him, if they expected results like that. Beyond the doors was a square hall whose roof was the ceiling of the dome. If anything could possibly be higher than the sky, that was it. The floor was, of course, white stone, polished so it looked like it was running with water.