Shadow

The abbot frowned. 'Oh, she'll be all right,' he said. 'Of course,' he went on, 'it'll be awkward for her, losing her associate so suddenly, but we'll see to it she's not out of pocket.'

That was the first time that it occurred to Poldarn that there wouldn't be a place for Copis in this new old life of his. Was he still married? He didn't know; oh, he knew all manner of things about himself just from having overheard them in inns and bakers' shops, besides what the voice had told him, but the things he wanted to know weren't the sort of thing that anybody else could possibly know.

'That's all right, then,' he said. 'So what'll you do? Let her go back to Sansory?'

The abbot nodded. 'If you like, we can provide her with an escort,' he said. 'Probably just as well, if she's carrying a large sum of money and with the roads as they are.'

'I'd appreciate that,' Poldarn said, wondering if he'd just made a serious mistake. They couldn't help but have heard the note of concern in his voice, the one that proclaimed, I care about this person, who would therefore make an ideal hostage, loud enough that they'd probably heard it in Boc. If he'd kept quiet and not mentioned her, perhaps they'd have forgotten about her and left her alone-no, precious little chance of that. He had an idea that the order made a virtue of scrupulous attention to detail. Still, going on about her now would only make things worse, and it wasn't as if he was in any position to do anything constructive for her.

(Your first marriage, to Bolceanar Hutto, was purely a political affair, and ended in divorce once you achieved your first prefecture, to the great satisfaction of all parties. When you were twenty-six, however, and just about to leave Torcea to assume command of the expedition against the Fodrati, you made the drastic mistake of marrying for love. Sornith Eollo was the daughter of a prosperous building contractor rather heavily involved in bidding for military contracts-not to put too fine a point on it, for a master tactician you were either blind or deliberately obtuse. It didn't help that your feud with the young princes was just starting to become a major annoyance-it was the year of your infamous duel with Tazencius, which led to his disgrace and earned you the undying hatred of the entire Revisionist faction-)

'Well,' the abbot said, 'I think that's more or less everything. Welcome back to the order, Brother Stellicho, and the best of luck for your mission.'

That signified the end of the interview; he could feel them turning over his page and moving on to the next item of business. He allowed himself to be politely shooed out of the room by the four sword-monks who hadn't left his side since early that morning, and went with them across the yard, through a couple of arches, past the stables and the coach-house He didn't stop, because he didn't need to. When a man's been jolting and rattling along muddy, rutted roads in a cart for any length of time, he gets to the point where he can recognise that cart by the thickness of its tyres or the degree of warp in the side panels. Definitely his cart, their cart, but it was backed in and surrounded by a dozen others in the coachhouse, suggesting it had been subsumed into the transport pool, to be booked out and assigned to the duty carter next time a load of charcoal needed to be fetched or two dozen crates of chickens brought up from the market.

Attention to detail, just as he'd guessed. Easy enough to reconstruct what had happened. A monk would have come back from the lower town that morning and sent for a carter, explaining that there was a cart down at the inn, and that its owners wouldn't be needing it any more; if it stayed there, the innkeeper might get to wondering what had become of the man and woman who'd brought it in-he wouldn't say anything out loud, of course, but loose ends like that are bad for morale. So the monk would have given the carter some kind of warrant or letter of authority, and the carter would have given it to the innkeeper, and the innkeeper would have told his groom to get the cart ready, and the carter would have turned it over to the transport officer or the duty officer, who would have told him to put it away with the others (waste not, want not; men and women die every day, but a functional cart is valuable property), and the cart itself would henceforth serve the order, purged of its identity and memory, because a piece of equipment is there to serve and be used by whoever has a right to it.

'Just a moment,' he said, slowing down without stopping. 'I left some things in my cart last night. Would it be all right if we stopped off at the inn and picked them up?'

'Don't worry about it,' one of the monks replied. 'We'll arrange for all your stuff to be collected and kept for you till you get back. If there's anything you need, we can stop by the quartermaster's.'

They were in perfect position, two in front and two behind, just outside his circle. If they'd been closer or there had only been three of them, he'd have given it a try. But the order wouldn't make a mistake like that. Poldarn shrugged. 'No, the hell with it,' he said. 'It wasn't anything important.'

'There'll be a horse waiting for you at the gate,' the monk continued. 'You'll have three days' rations, money for expenses in the saddlebag, change of clothes, blanket, water bottle, all the usual kit. Is there anything else you might need, do you think?'

Poldarn didn't smile, though he felt moved to do so. 'Well,' he said, 'there's my book. Normally I wouldn't go anywhere without it, but just this once won't hurt.'

The monk was curious. 'Book?'

Poldarn nodded. 'Marvellous thing,' he said, 'contains all the wisdom in the world. Still, I won't be needing it for this job, I don't suppose.'

'All the wisdom in the world,' the monk repeated. 'Must be a big book, then.'

'Quite big,' Poldarn replied. 'Not as big as the recipe book, but it makes a good pillow.'

The cavalry escort was waiting for him: fifty sword-monks, in dark brown and grey coats drawn from the quartermaster's bin marked 'Riding Coat, Civilian, Nondescript'. Would they be wearing armour under them, he wondered, or didn't sword-monks feel the need of steel rings and scales when they had their invisible circle of sharp steel around them at all times? If getting away from four monks on foot was beyond him, escaping from fifty of them on fast horses wasn't going to be any easier. Falx Roisin would have been delighted to give any one of them a job riding dangerous cargo.

On an impulse he turned to the monk he'd already talked to and asked him, 'What do you know about a god called Poldarn?'

The monk hesitated for a moment, then grinned. 'Bit late to be asking that now, isn't it?' he said. 'Besides, it should be me asking you, shouldn't it?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'Well, you know,' he said. 'I always like to know who I've been.'

'You were pretty good at it, by all accounts,' the monk replied. 'But really, she should've known better, or else she didn't know. Talk about tempting providence.'

'I don't quite follow,' Poldarn said quietly.

'Oh, no, of course,' the monk said. 'I forgot, sorry. The thing about Poldarn is, you see, that anybody who gets up in the cart with him always dies.' He made a vague gesture with his right hand. 'You could just about come up with a worse omen, but it'd take some fairly serious research. Still, there you are.'

'Quite,' Poldarn replied. The monk had moved very slightly out of position, no more than a single step, but enough. He could see the sequence perfectly clearly in his mind's eye, as if he was remembering something that had already happened. From the draw, he cut the side of this monk's neck and carried on, so that the curved tip sliced into the soft skin under the second monk's chin as he stepped away and left. By this time the two monks behind him had drawn and were one step, of the right foot forward, which was why his turn pivoted around his left heel, bringing the overhead diagonal slash perfectly in line with the left-side monk's right wrist; then the clever move, dodging left to keep the wounded man between himself and the fourth opponent, just long enough for a feinted lunge to make him shy backwards into a right-side rising cut to the chin; the wounded man, dealt with at his leisure, completed the pile of bodies, all four dead before the first hit the ground. And Father Tutor, looking on with grudging approval 'Is something the matter?' the monk asked him.