Pattern

'Not bad.' Someone was talking to him; not the man he'd spoken to in the ditch, but presumably one of his officers, to judge by his manner and tone of voice. 'Not bad at all. I'll be honest with you, I thought it was a lousy idea and you were going to get us all killed. Glad I was wrong.'

He shrugged. 'Well,' he said. 'It's always worked for me before. No reason why you should know that, of course.'

The other man grinned. 'You're a ruthless bastard, though,' he said. 'I can't think of anybody else who'd knock off a whole village just to decoy a column into exactly the right spot. I thought it was just an excuse, because you like killing people.'

'What, me?' He was grinning, though he didn't know what was so funny. 'It's like I always say, you've got to set out the right pattern, let 'em see what they expect to see, otherwise they'll shy off and not drop in. We wanted them to think there were raiders in these parts, but they'd got no reason to believe that; so the obvious thing to do was make it look like the raiders had been through. Nothing does that like a couple of hundred dead bodies. Simple fieldcraft.'

'It's simple when you put it like that,' the other man said. 'Can't say I'd have thought of it myself, though. Still, you lot have always had a different way of going about things.'

'Sure,' he replied. 'We don't give a damn, it makes life much simpler.' He frowned. 'Your people take their time, don't they? We'd have been done and stripping their boots off by now'

'Maybe it's because my men don't need dead men's boots,' the other man said mildly. 'Anyway, it's a certainty now, so that's all right. The general is going to be very pleased.'

He nodded. 'Where is he, by the way? Wasn't he supposed to be with the Seventh, coming in from the wood?'

'That's what I thought, too,' the other man said. 'Still, Cronan never did have a wonderful sense of direction. Maybe he wandered off and got himself lost.'

He laughed, for some reason. 'That'd be right,' he said. 'Of course, this is going to be the crowning glory of his brilliant career, so I guess it's appropriate, the bloody fool not even being here. Meanwhile, we do all the work and don't get a damn thing for it.'

The other man looked offended. 'I wouldn't say that, exactly,' he said.

'Yes, well. The main thing is, the job's done. I think I'll leave you to it, if you don't mind. I've got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.'

'That's no lie,' the other man said, with a certain degree of distaste. 'Have fun; and for God's sake, don't miss any of them. If Cronan finds out what we've been up to-'

'Oh, for crying out loud, Tazencius,' he said, 'what do you take me for, an idiot? It's not like I'm new at this.'

'No,' the other man said. 'You're not.' He smiled offensively. 'But mistakes happen-you should know that better than anybody. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?'

He could feel that that, for some reason, was a deadly insult; he was conscious of forcing down the urge to lash out, of filing it away among his grievances, to be paid for later. 'Point taken,' he said. 'Right, I'm off. Are you heading back to town when this lot's done?'

The other man nodded. 'Soon as I can,' he said. 'Cronan can do without me for a week or so.'

'I'm sure. When you get back, be sure to give Lysalis my love.'

The other man abruptly stopped grinning, and gave him a look of pure hatred. 'Yes, all right,' he said. 'I'll tell her-well, I'll tell her you've been making yourself useful.'

'Thanks. Tell her I'll be bringing her back something nice for her birthday. I don't know what it is yet, mind, but there's bound to be something she'll like at Josequin.'

The other man was about to say something, but he wasn't there to hear it; he was sitting on a stone bench in the middle of a beautifully tended lawn, surrounded on three sides by an elegant sandstone cloister. Behind him he could hear running water, and he knew without looking round that the source of the sound was a small, rather ornate fountain in the shape of a grotesque dolphin. There was a woman next to him on the bench, cradling a baby girl in her arms. Between them lay a painted wooden box, about the size of a house brick. The hinged lid was open, and inside it was a necklace: woven gold with pearls and coral beads.

'It's lovely,' the woman said, with obvious pleasure. (He thought it looked flashy and vulgar, but he didn't say so.) 'Where on earth did you find it?'

'On a stall in the market at Boc,' he replied, knowing he was telling a little white lie. 'As soon as I saw it, I knew it was you all over.'

She beamed, as if the compliment mattered more than the gift. 'Thank you,' she said, and kissed him. Her lips were very soft and full. She was very pretty, and not more than nineteen, with masses of dark auburn hair piled up on top of her head in an over-elaborate coiffure. He noticed that the earrings she was wearing matched the necklace. Ah, he thought, that's probably why she likes it. How thoughtful of me.

'How long can you stay for this time?' she was saying, a little wistfully. She really was very attractive, and he awaited his reply with interest. 'Not long,' he heard himself say (he was disappointed), 'I've got to see some people and then get back. But I couldn't miss your birthday.'

She smiled. 'I think that's really sweet of you,' she said, 'coming all that way. We hardly seem to get any time together these days. Still, with all the wonderful help you've been giving Daddy I can't complain. I'm so glad you've decided to be friends at last.'

I remember you from somewhere, he thought, but of course he couldn't say anything like that. 'Well,' he said instead. 'The truth is, he's a bit out of his depth at the moment. It's this damned feud of his with General Cronan-it's going to cause a lot of trouble if something isn't done about it.'

'Oh.' The woman looked confused. 'But I thought that's what you'd been doing. Helping General Cronan, I mean.'

He laughed. 'That's exactly what we've been doing,' he said. 'That's the whole point. Only, our fool of an emperor assigned your father to Cronan's staff.' She looked even more confused, so he explained: 'That means he's working for Cronan, he's his subordinate. Well, you can imagine what he thinks about that. So nothing will do except he's got to steal all the glory; which is why he needed me, to pull off a really big coup, and beat General Allectus before Cronan could get to him. That was the idea, anyhow. Luckily for all of us it didn't turn out that way; your father rushed on ahead, trying to get to Allectus before Cronan could, and if he'd managed it, chances are Allectus would've had him for breakfast and there'd have been nothing I could do about it. But when your father did catch up with Allectus, he wasted two days dancing round him trying to get a good position, and by then Cronan was right behind him. So your father panics, tells me to think of something quickly-'