Shadow

'With respect-' Hisco was the man standing behind him, who'd just put down the plate. 'With respect, that's all there is, and you're lucky to have that.'

'Hisco, you sound like my mother. What happened to all that white cream cheese we took out of that village down the valley?'

Hisco, still unseen, clicked his tongue. 'It'd gone bad,' he said, 'so I slung it out. I'd rather starve than be poisoned, thanks very much.'

'Hisco, it's supposed to taste like that, it's a fucking delicacy… You know how much you'd pay for a pound of that stuff in Weal Bohec?'

'The men wouldn't touch it,' Hisco replied. 'Talking of which, that's the last of the bacon. Tomorrow it'll be oatmeal and dried fish. You may want to think about that.'

He turned round in his chair, but Hisco had gone; the tent flap swished behind him. 'Bloody cook,' he said bitterly. 'Dumps a thousand quarters' worth of Mausandy cheese and threatens me with oatmeal. I ought to stick his head up on a pike.'

'It'd be good for morale,' a man three places down from him replied. 'But he was right about the cheese. We thought something had died in the wagons.'

'Barbarians. Oh well, I suppose we'd better eat this, or we'll never hear the last of it.' He pulled his napkin out of the ring-dark rosewood, carved in relief with a design of two crows holding something in their beaks; the carving was too worn for him to be able to make out the details. 'Somebody tell me there's some beer left, or I'll burst into tears.'

Someone else passed him a tall silver jug; it matched the long-stemmed goblets and the side plates. All solid silver, every inch embossed and gadrooned. He took a sip and nearly spat it out.

'That does it,' he said. 'Cold greasy bacon I can live with, but this is beyond a joke. Get me the map, someone.'

They were all dressed in the most dazzling array of silks, brocades, velvets, linens that you'd ever hope to see outside the imperial court; the effect was spoiled slightly by the characteristic red-brown half-moons left behind by rusty chainmail after a week of continuous wear. Someone reached under the table and produced a bronze tube, two feet long by six inches wide. He fished inside it and pulled out the map.

'Right,' he said, 'we're here. There's the river and there's the mountains-no, that's wrong, they're further away than that. This map's useless.'

Someone laughed. 'Imperial survey,' he said. 'In cases where the terrain doesn't agree with the map, standing orders state that the terrain must be in error.'

He clicked his tongue. 'Tell me about it,' he said. 'All right; ignoring the fact that the mountains have been sleepwalking, there's a village about half a day downstream, between this wood here-oh, for pity's sake, there isn't a wood there, we'd have seen it.'

'Old map,' the other man replied. 'Probably the wood's been felled for charcoal long since.'

'Yes, maybe. According to this map, there's a village. It's a good step out of our way, but there's nothing else this side of the river; and I don't see why we can't cut back up the other side of this combe here and get back on the road that way. Assuming the village is there, of course. If it isn't, we'll be in big trouble, since at best we'll lose a day and a half.'

'There's still the oatmeal,' someone put in. 'Sure, we'll get a bit of attitude, but we won't starve.'

He scowled. 'Besco, Besco, you don't command the loyalty and love of an army by feeding them oatmeal. No, the question is whether we can trust this stupid map. What d'you reckon?'

Silence. Then the man at the other end of the table, who hadn't spoken yet, put down his cup. 'Should be all right, Feron,' he said. 'Those maps were originally drawn for the revenue, remember. They may get the hills and rivers wrong, but they're usually pretty careful about marking the taxpayers. The only problem would be if Allectus has been there before us.'

He rubbed his chin. 'That's a good point, Mashant,' he said. 'Hadn't thought of that. Still, it's unlikely. We've got him figured as crossing the river much further up; he'll have filled his boots at Josequin, so he won't need to go stocking up in the villages.'

Mashant shrugged. 'I suppose not,' he said. 'Anyway, I don't think we've got much choice in the matter. If we're down to the oatmeal already, we'll just have to risk it.'

'It'll be all right,' he said cheerfully.

Mashant laughed. 'I'll say this for you, Feron,' he said, 'nobody could ever say you aren't decisive.'

After he'd choked down the bacon and cheese (he couldn't face the bread or the poisonous beer), he took another look at the map, with nobody peering over his shoulder. Things were starting to fall apart, mostly because he still hadn't heard from either Allectus or Cronan. It was enough to make a man paranoid; what if they'd figured out what he was up to, and were deliberately letting him kick his heels and starve while they patched up their differences before coming after him? Absurd, of course; that would be making the fatal mistake of assuming your enemies think the way you do. But it was enough to drive a man crazy, marking time like this, knowing he was down to his last few days' supplies (and the fact that nobody else seemed to have noticed that before today was hardly reassuring; the deadheads who were supposed to be running the commissary were in for a nasty surprise when the crisis was over and he had a bit of time again).

He scowled at the map, picked off a bit of frayed vellum from the edge. He really did have better things to do right now than go raiding villages for food. Quite apart from the detour, the loss of position, the risk of something going wrong, someone getting away, he didn't like the thought of doing something like this with not one but two imperial armies breathing down his neck. True, the armies were fighting each other, but they were still imperials, and both Cronan and Allectus were dutiful, honourable men, just the sort who'd leave their own war hanging in order to go chasing off after a party of raiders, if they heard there was one operating nearby…

It was cold, in spite of the two heaped-up braziers; he rubbed his cheeks with his palms to warm them. Part of him couldn't really believe that neither Cronan nor Allectus had yet figured out that half the attacks attributed to the raiders were the work of the Amathy house-how could they get to command armies and still be that naive? But they were imperials, Torceans, southerners; things were different down there-not better, he was sure of that, but the treachery took different forms, was played to different rules, some of which, no doubt, he'd be too naive to spot if he ever crossed the bay. No chance of that, if he had anything to do with it.

He was just rolling the map up again and thinking vague, disjointed thoughts about a variety of issues when the tent flap was folded back and a man put his head through it. 'Letter,' he said.

He looked round. 'Fine, thanks,' he said, making a point of keeping the excitement out of his voice. 'Just put it down on the chair, I'll deal with it in a minute.'

The head looked embarrassed. 'Sorry,' it said, 'but the courier says he's got to give it to you personally; orders and so forth. We tried to take it off him, but…'

He noticed that the head had a swollen lower lip. He managed not to smile. 'All right,' he said. 'Show him in.'

'You sure?' the guard asked. 'I mean-'

'You mean he could be an assassin pretending to be a courier.' He grinned. 'Don't worry about it, I could use the practice.'

But he wasn't an assassin, just a very thorough, dedicated courier, the kind that costs an obscene amount of money and is worth every quarter. And it was the letter he'd been waiting for.

'It's all right,' he told the guards, who were standing nervously at the back of the tent, their hands on their sword hilts. 'Thank you,' he said to the courier. 'Go and get a beer, then come back. There'll be a reply.'

The letter was, typically, short and to the point; Cleapho, touched by the Divine, to Feron Amathy, merchant; greetings, good health amp;c.

Concerning the small point of doctrine you queried at our last meeting; the Desert school, and Thauscus in particular, held the view that the rising sun conveyed more blessings on the observer than the setting sun, since it was hotter, having come straight from the divine forge, and more malleable, having not yet been quenched in the sea. Both the Desert school and the Ascetics held that it was inadvisable to wait until noon to look directly at the sun, and the latter party attributed great virtues to observation carried out just after sunrise, at the point when the sun's heat dries up the morning dew. I trust that this clarifies the matter to your satisfaction.