'Do you want us to set fire to the house?' one of his men asked.
He shook his head. 'We haven't got time to waste on that,' he said. 'Besides, there's no need. I don't know whose house this is, but I don't think he's ever done me any harm.'
The soldier shrugged. 'What about these?' he asked, meaning the four halberdiers.
'Them?' He frowned. 'They're rebels. Kill them.'
He didn't wait to see if his order was obeyed. A soldier helped him sling General Allectus over the back of the spare horse; he took the leading rein himself, looping it twice around his wrist to make sure. All in all, he thought, a pretty neat operation: the old bastard ought to be grateful, since I'm clearing up his mess. He won't be, but who gives a damn?
Apparently the soldiers had decided to burn the house down after all. He charitably assumed that they had a good reason for disobeying a direct order; there wasn't time to ask them what it was. With the red glow of dawn and burning thatch behind him, he spurred his horse into a canter.
He opened his eyes.
It was still dark, though there were traces of red seeping in past the shutters. Someone was standing over him; he shifted, intending to sit up, but something pricked his throat. He stayed exactly where he was, his weight uncomfortably on his wrists.
'He's in here,' the man called out. He could just make out a black line running up from under his chin into the man's hands. It was almost certainly a spear. It would make better sense, he thought, if he was still dreaming, but he was fairly sure he wasn't.
'What's going on?' he asked.
The man didn't answer; in fact, he didn't seem to have heard. So Poldarn stayed where he was. By this point he was certain he was awake, which made the situation he found himself in rather alarming.
The door opened, letting in a bit more light-enough, at any rate, to allow him to recognise the man who came in and stood next to the stranger with the spear. 'Eyvind?' Poldarn said. 'What's happening?'
It was Eyvind, no question about that. 'Hello, Ciartan,' he said. 'Don't move, or Elbran here'll kill you. I'd rather that didn't happen, but it wouldn't break my heart.'
'Please,' Poldarn said, 'for pity's sake, tell me what this is all about. I don't understand.'
Eyvind smiled, rather bleakly. 'It's quite simple,' he said. 'I'm taking your house.'
Chapter Twenty-Two
'I don't understand,' Poldarn repeated.
Eyvind looked down at him, the smile fading. 'No,' he said, 'I don't suppose you do. All right,' he told the man with the spear, 'that'll do. Give me that, I'll deal with him.'
The stranger-Eyvind had mentioned his name but Poldarn hadn't taken note of it-handed over the spear and left the room. Eyvind lifted the point away from Poldarn's face, just enough to let him stand up but no more. He looked as though he'd be delighted to have a pretext for using the weapon.
'Stand up,' Eyvind told him. 'I will kill you if I have to, so don't make trouble.'
As soon as Poldarn was on his feet, Eyvind stepped behind him, and Poldarn felt the spear-point digging into the small of his back. 'You go on through,' Eyvind said, 'I'll be right behind you.'
The main hall was even more crowded than usual. Poldarn saw his people, the household, lined up against the west wall; they looked confused and scared, which was very unusual.
He didn't recognise any of the other men, but they were all holding weapons of various sorts-spears, backsabres or axes. He guessed they must be Eyvind's people.
Eyvind made Poldarn sit down on a stool in the middle of the floor, which had apparently been put there for the purpose, to give the impression of a trial of some sort-or at least the conclusion of a trial, after the verdict had been brought in.
'Now, then,' Eyvind said, leaning on his spear, 'I don't suppose you know what I'm doing here. Do you?'
'No,' Poldarn said.
'All right, I'll tell you.' Eyvind took a deep breath, and it occurred to Poldarn that he was having trouble figuring out how to say whatever it was that he had in mind. He could sympathise with that; quite plainly, his friend was having a hard time, for whatever reason, Poldarn could feel his nervousness, he could discern traces of it in the way he spoke and moved, a slight and uncharacteristic degree of awkwardness and physical ineptness that suggested Eyvind was under rather more stress than he was used to. Not quite enough, Poldarn decided, to be useful tactically; enough to slow Eyvind down, so that it ought to be possible to get past him, get the spear away from him, but not enough to guarantee a certainty if Poldarn were to try and take him hostage, as a way of getting past the men with weapons and out of the house. Poldarn made a quick, rough estimate of the odds and decided against anything of the sort, at least until he had more to go on as far as the cause of all this was concerned. For all he knew it could be a ludicrous misunderstanding, something that could be set right with a few calm words. Escalating it into bloodshed was uncalled for at this stage.
'About a fortnight ago,' Eyvind said quietly, 'you took it upon yourself to go up the mountain and divert the stream-damn it, I don't know what to call it, all the burning shit that's coming out of the side. I've heard how you did it. I'm impressed, it was no end clever, and it worked just fine. You must be very proud.'
'Not really,' Poldarn said. 'Some people got killed. I don't think it was worth it, for that.'
Eyvind breathed in sharply through his nose, as if Poldarn's words had taken him by surprise. 'Interesting you should say that,' he said, 'because I'd assumed you were just showing off. You're always trying to do that.'
'I don't mean to,' Poldarn murmured.
'Maybe.' Eyvind scowled. He was having problems with something. 'I guess you do a lot of things you never meant to do. Is that right?'
Poldarn shrugged. 'I've got no idea,' he said. 'You know why.'
'Oh yes.' Eyvind nodded briskly. 'You lost your memory, you haven't got a clue who you are or what you've done, so we've all got to make allowances and forgive you. Well, that's fine, except that this time it isn't going to work, because you should have thought, you should have considered-' He paused, painfully aware that he wasn't expressing himself well. 'I'll tell you what you did, Ciartan. You diverted the stream. You turned it away from where it was going, and you sent it down the other side of the mountain. Is that right? I mean, I don't want to make any false accusations. You do agree with what I've said?'
'Of course. That's what happened.'
'Good, at least we haven't got to argue over the truth. So; did it occur to you to wonder where you were sending all that burning stuff? Did you even look to see where it was going to go?'
Poldarn frowned. 'Yes,' he said, 'I did. But it was just an empty valley. There was a farm, but a long way away, and the lie of the ground meant the fire-stream wouldn't go anywhere near it. There was a small, deep combe; I figured it'd flow into that, and no harm done. It wasn't even grazing land, just a bit of scrubby old woodland.'
Eyvind's face grew very tight, as if something was hurting him. 'Right,' he said. 'Just a bit of scrubby old woodland, so you decided-like a god or something, only gods are supposed to know things-you decided that the little combe didn't matter, you could just take it out, blot it out and there'd be no harm done. Is that what you thought?'
'Yes,' Poldarn said.
Eyvind took a moment before he replied. 'Fine,' he said. 'Do you happen to know who that little combe belongs to?'
Poldarn shook his head. 'No idea,' he replied.
'You're sure about that?'
'I'm sure.'
'I believe you. Well, you may be interested to know, it belongs to me. Not the farm; that belongs to my uncle. Just the wood. It was my wood. Do you understand what that means?'
Poldarn lifted his head and said nothing.
'I think you do,' Eyvind went on. 'I think you must understand; because this house we're in now, which I helped you build, this is your wood. Your grandfather planted it the day you were born, it was always here for you, for when it was time for you to build your house. It was your future. And that other one, that scrubby little bit of woodland, that was my wood. My future. And you destroyed it. Burned, flattened, filled in with rock so you can only tell where it used to be by seeing where the grass ends and the rock starts. Do you understand me?'