It was in Poldarn's mind to point out at some stage that so far they'd been on the road together for three days and two nights, and so far the worst peril they'd encountered had been the pea soup in the Mercy and Forbearance. He hadn't done so yet, partly because of tempting providence, partly because interrupting the new man's flow wasn't going to be easy. Words poured steadily out of him like grain flowing through a hole in the bottom of a manger, and all he could do was hang on and wait till eventually there weren't any more.
Which was a pity, because if he'd been able to have a normal conversation with the man there were all sorts of questions he'd have liked to have asked about Liancor, the place they were going to. For one thing, it was south of the Bohec, and it was the first time (first time he could remember) that he'd been across the river. Things were different on this side. Instead of sprawling shapelessly, the moor was parcelled up in neat, sheep-filled squares with birch-hedged banks and dry-stone walls. Here and there he saw buildings-sheds and linhays mostly, but a few houses and yards as well, suggesting that life on this side was settled and secure enough that people dared to live outside the villages. The road was narrower, sheltered from the wind by banks and hedges, more rutted and worn, and much busier-hardly an hour went by without another cart or wagon creaking past them, going the other way. There were birds other than crows on this side of the river: big mobs of pigeons and peewits, either pitched in the trees or down on the ground, munching devastating rides through fields of young cabbage and kale; every now and then a buzzard circling high over a copse or covert; just occasionally a heron standing in the bed of one of the fast, shallow rivers that drained down to the Bohec out of the moorland hills. It was useful, productive country, on your side rather than against you, and people quite definitely lived here. As for Liancor itself, he knew absolutely nothing about it apart from the name.
'What I want to know is-' The new man stopped abruptly and sat up, staring at something on the other side of the combe; then, just as Poldarn (who couldn't see anything) was about to ask what was.so interesting, he sighed. 'Oh well,' he said, 'I suppose that's it. Had to come sooner or later.'
Poldarn peered as hard as he could, but all he could see was a hillside, some walls, a couple of thorn trees bent sideways by the wind, and a small group of wild ponies. 'What are you talking about?' he said.
'Over there,' the new man said. 'Are you blind or something? Look, they're-'
Which was as far as he got. A stone whizzed out of nowhere and hit him in the middle of his forehead. His head jerked back and he fell on his back in the bed of the cart as another stone smacked into Poldarn's shoulder, wasting its force against the steel plates sewn into his gambeson. It was still enough to startle him out of his wits and move him in his seat, as if he'd been shoved. The next two rattled off the side of the cart, digging out finger-sized chunks of timber. He didn't hang around to see if the grouping improved. From the box he jumped on to the bank, scrambled over it and half slid, half fell into the ditch on the other side, which was about eighteen inches deep and full of water.
For an unnervingly long time nothing happened. Poldarn had wound up lying on his left side so that his head and right shoulder were out of the water; the rest of him was submerged. Having no reason to move, he stayed put. He was reconsidering this policy when a head bobbed up over the bank, looked both ways in a cursory fashion, and popped down again. He heard someone say, 'No sign of the bugger.' Then, after another infuriating pause, he saw a man standing up on the box of the cart. Because the bank was in the way, all he could see was the back of his head-matted, curly brown hair blowing in the wind-and the tops of his shoulders, before the man bent or knelt down and was out of his sight. While he was analysing what he'd learned, another head appeared, this time three-quarter face; same sort of hair, a thin, long face with a pointed chin scruffy with a slight growth of woolly fuzz, a very young man who probably hadn't been eating well lately.
Lying still and quiet seemed rather more attractive at this point. He'd come to the conclusion that the weapons used were most likely slings. He found that he seemed to know a lot about slings, probably including how to use one: you could make one out of anything, they were difficult to use but could be both accurate and effective, but the rate of fire was slow and up close they were useless. Just right for knocking drivers off carts, but if that was all they had, there shouldn't be any problem.
If. Time for another choice, damn it. The argument for staying where he was struck him as unusually persuasive; he was a courier, not a cart guard; he had an important letter to deliver, and getting involved in fights would only put the letter at risk; he hadn't liked the new man, not one bit. The argument for scrambling out of the ditch, vaulting over the bank and starting a fight was so insubstantial and vague that he couldn't even reduce it to words. But, he realised as his boots hit the planks of the cart bed and the two men spun round to face him, it must have had its merits, or why the hell was he doing it?
The man on the right took a step towards him. His hand may have been raised to throw a punch, or he may just have been lifting it to help him balance as he tried to jump down off the cart and escape. In any event, the step brought him inside Poldarn's circle, and he fell backwards off the cart and out of sight before Poldarn even had a chance to see what sort of wound he'd inflicted. The other man stayed very, very still.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'really I am. I didn't recognise you.'
For a moment, Poldarn's mind was completely blank, then he decided he'd better put his sword away before he did himself an injury with it. He flicked the blood off the blade with a crisp crack of his wrist, drew the back over the web of his left thumb and slid it into the scabbard without looking down.
'What?' he said.
'I didn't know it was you,' the man said, perfectly still except for his mouth. 'All we could see was two men on a cart. I'm really sorry.'
Poldarn breathed out slowly. 'It's all right,' he said, 'I'm not going to hurt you. Just don't go away quite yet. You know who I am?'
The man shrugged. 'Yes,' he replied. 'Well, sort of. I saw you at the rendezvous when we landed.'
Poldarn stared at him a moment or so longer. 'Listen to me,' he said. 'You may know who I am, but I don't. I got a bash on the head, and when I woke up I couldn't remember anything; not my name, where I'm from, nothing like that at all. Tell me what you know, or so help me-'
'All right.' The man winced, and Poldarn caught sight of a little pool of liquid forming on the boards of the box, next to the man's left ankle. He resisted the temptation to burst out laughing, and instead said, 'It's all right, I promise I'm not going to do anything to you. Just help me out, please.'
The man took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I don't know your name. I only saw you the one time. I don't even know if you're one of us or one of them; I was on watch, I saw you walking down the path from the cliffs, and before I could challenge you the skipper said it was all right, you were expected. You walked past me-close as you are now-and about an hour later you came back, went off the way you came. That's it.'
All Poldarn could do was sigh. He didn't need to ask the next question, he already knew the answer. He'd guessed it a moment ago, when he'd realised that the language he was talking and hearing wasn't the one he'd been living with for the last few weeks.
'You're raiders,' he said.
It seemed to surprise the man that this point needed confirmation. 'That's right,' he said. 'Me and Turvin and about five others, we got cut off after the battle following up too far, so when the relief came, we couldn't get back; then a squad of horsemen chased us up, and when we stopped running we hadn't a clue where we were, what direction we'd come, anything like that. Later on the sun came up, we found out we'd been going south, so we tried to head back north-west, only we walked straight into the bloody relief again. Turvin and me, we got away, the others didn't; we kept on going till we reached the river-they'd sent another squad after us, the bastards, we thought they were on our side, and we didn't give them the slip till nightfall. Well, we were so scared by then that we dumped all our kit into the river-trying to make it look like we'd drowned, though I don't suppose it fooled anybody-and swam across; we figured they wouldn't expect us to go southeast, away from the ships, so that was the only safe way to go. Anyhow, we wound up here, and here we've been ever since.'