Shadow

'No, I don't think so. It was Scele or Scale, something like that. Can't remember precisely, but it wasn't Cric.'

'Oh.' Monach looked up; that had thrown him. 'And this was after Josequin? You're sure about that? Because God help me if you're telling lies.'

'Positive,' the woman put in. 'And I'm almost certain the name of the place was Scale, because it reminded me so much of my uncle Ascaltus, rest his soul. I don't think I've ever been to a place called Cric.'

Monach took a moment to consider what he'd been told. It sounded entirely plausible; the part about getting caught the first time they tried to pull the scam was particularly convincing, it was just the sort of thing that would happen to the kind of feckless losers he took these two to be. There was only one thing that snagged in the lining of his mind, and it was too insignificant to bother about.

'You're lying,' he said quietly.

For a moment it looked as if they were going to protest, declare that every word was true, maybe shout or burst into tears. He was relieved that they didn't, since he found that sort of thing rather disturbing. 'How did you know?' the man said.

'I'm not stupid,' Monach replied. 'Now, since you aren't going to tell me the truth, I'd better tell you. I don't know about you,' he went on, nodding at the woman, 'you may well be from Morevich for all I know, but you're not from Josequin.'

The man sighed and looked at his feet. 'No,' he said.

'No, My guess is you're either a deserter from the army or a veteran-early discharge for some reason or another-and you joined one of the free companies about twelve years ago-the bit about you being married a long time I do believe, not that it matters a damn. The point is, you're a southerner just like she is.'

The man nodded. 'My dad was a veteran,' he said, 'got resettled in Morsello after his discharge. And that's true.'

Monach shrugged. 'If you say so. What matters is that you come up here, north of the Bohec, deliberately intending to work this scam, and you've been doing it for at least six months. And you're good at it, too. Healing the sick-well, a woman hanging round the free companies learns a bit about setting bones and curing fevers, I guess that was your field of expertise.' The woman nodded. 'As for you,' he went on, turning to the man, 'the imperial corps of sappers and siege engineers is mostly recruited in Morevich; that's how you know about flares and bombards and other things that blow up and make a deafening noise when you set light to them. Very obscure and closely guarded branch of knowledge, that is; which makes deserter rather more likely than discharged veteran.'

'All right,' the man said. 'Yes, I ran away. Do you want the details?'

'No,' Monach replied. 'Anyway, that's what I know; everything bearing directly on your guilt and the kind of sentence you'll get. What I actually want to know is really nothing to do with that side of things, so by telling me the truth there's no way you can make things any worse for yourselves. But you could make them a lot better.'

He left the words between them in the air for a moment or so, before continuing.

'First question,' he said. 'And remember, if I think you're lying, you'll stay in the trouble you're in. All right. Why did you choose to impersonate Poldarn? Why pick a name that doesn't mean anything on this side of the bay?'

The man shrugged. 'I grew up with stories about Poldarn,' he said. 'Besides, I know he doesn't exist. I didn't want to risk pretending to be a god who might exist.'

Monach smiled. 'Nice reasoning,' he said. And why exactly are you so sure Poldarn doesn't exist?'

'How do you mean?'

Monach wasn't quite sure how to answer. 'I mean,' he said, 'given that you're a believer or at least an agnostic-hence the rather charming superstition-why single out Poldarn as a god who quite definitely doesn't exist? You said it like you'd seen proof somewhere.' He stopped, and frowned. 'Did I just say something funny? Must've been very funny indeed if it made you laugh, considering how much trouble you're in.'

The man looked suitably ashamed. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'really. It just seemed so-well, odd; I mean, you're a priest, surely you know…'

The scowl on Monach's face set hard, like concrete. 'Enlighten me,' he said.

'It was the monks,' the woman cut in. 'At Endlupho Mountain. They made him up. They were short of money; people weren't going there any more, so they made up a god to get people to come and worship.'

Monach sighed. 'What's she talking about?'

'It's true,' the man said. 'Well, more or less. It was a long time ago, before Morevich was added to the empire. I don't know the details; it was something about the empire annexing a province, which cut right across the pilgrim trail to a famous shrine somewhere down on the coast. Endlupho was like a staging post for these pilgrims, and when they stopped going that way-started going another way so they wouldn't have to cross the bit the empire had taken over-the monastery at Endlupho was about to die out. So they cooked up a god of their own, started a pilgrim trail. It worked really well. Then about a hundred years ago the abbot of Endlupho got in a fight with the district agent over water rights in the valley or something of the sort, and the agent got so mad he sent his soldiers up the mountain to clear the monks out, and when they got there they found all the old chapter minutes and documents like that, going back hundreds of years, and it was all in there, about the abbot and chapter deciding to invent a god, even the records from the committee they set up to choose a name. As far as I can remember, it came down to a choice between Poldarn and Bettanc, and I think the abbot flipped a coin. In fact, I have an idea they got the name Poldarn off a roof tile-you know, the name of the brickyard that made it. Anyway, the other priests had it all hushed up and I don't suppose many people outside Morevich knew about it. But that's what happened. And there really is no such god as Poldarn.'

Monach really didn't know what to say this time. 'Oh' didn't seem to cover it. It was a while before he could think of anything more impressive.

'Doesn't change a thing,' he said at last. 'Impersonating a god who doesn't exist is even worse than faking one who does; it's idolatry.' He stood up, ducking at the last moment to avoid the low ceiling. 'Still,' he went on, 'as you've probably guessed, you've told me something I didn't know. Now tell me something else. Did you go to Cric?'

The woman shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I promise.'

'Right.' Monach sighed. 'All right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell the magistrate that you're being transferred to Deymeson for trial, which'll please him no end, at any rate. As soon as we're out of sight of the city, I'm going to turn you loose. But if I ever hear another report about gods in carts or the second coming of Poldarn-or gods who don't exist because some bloody fool made them up-I'll have a word with my brothers in the martial order, and twenty sword-monks will be sent to find you and bring back your heads, nicely packed in salt and oregano to keep them fresh. You know about the sword-monks, do you?'

The expressions on their faces suggested that they did. 'Thank you,' the man said.

Monach sighed. 'My pleasure,' he replied sourly. 'Oh, and you might as well have this.' He picked twelve gold gross-quarters out of his sleeve and dropped them on the floor. 'That way, you won't have any need to make nuisances of yourselves till you're safely across the bay. You can do what the hell you like in Torcea and it won't cause me any problems. Just remember,' he said, putting his thumb behind the guard of his sword and shifting it out half an inch so they could see it. 'Keep your faces shut, be good, or I promise you, you won't realise you're dead till your heads hit the floor. Understood?'

The magistrate was waiting for him out in the passage. 'Well?' he asked.

Monach ran his sleeve across his forehead. 'Listen to me,' he said. 'I'm taking these two with me. You don't know anything about them. They were never here. Two people might have been arrested on suspicion of blasphemy, but it all turned out to be something and nothing, a bunch of inbred rubes overreacting and wasting everybody's time. Do you understand?'