Shadow

'Since I was ten,' Monach replied automatically, though he knew Father Bursar didn't really want to know that. 'Was that his name, Coiroven? I never knew.'

'No reason why you should,' Father Bursar replied, in a tone of voice that suggested that this was meant to be a comfort. 'Did you say you have something important to report?'

'Yes,' Monach replied, as a terrible thought struck him. 'But who should I report to? Nobody else knew what Father Tutor was working on, not even me.'

Father Bursar smiled. 'I promise you,' he said, 'anything of importance will be known to at least one other member of senior chapter, or else recorded in his files and logs. We're a society governed by old men, we're used to taking precautions.'

Monach took a deep breath. 'I see,' he said. 'In that case, can you tell me who I should report to? It's fairly urgent.'

Father Bursar rubbed his chin. 'Not to me, at any rate,' he said. 'In the circumstances, I suggest the only person you can responsibly give this information to, whatever it is, would be Father Abbot.'

Monach's jaw fell open like a loose tailgate on a bumpy road. 'Oh,' he said. He'd seen Father Abbot nearly every day of his life but never been close enough to him to hit him with a slingshot. The thought of talking to him was terrifying. The thought of waking him up in the early hours of the morning-'I'm sure it can wait,' he gabbled. 'Really.'

Father Bursar gave him a thoughtful stare. 'I'm not sure that's your decision to make,' he said. 'You should consider the possibility that your news is far more important than you realise-unless, of course, you were fully apprised of everything Coiroven was dealing with at the time of his death, and all their implications for other areas of policy.'

It was tacitly acknowledged that sword-monks had no need to be afraid of any living thing on Earth; if it could be killed, they could kill it, so fear was irrelevant. It was generally implied that a sword-monk who'd attained orders could probably hold his own against most minor gods, given a fair fight and choice of weapons. With all his experience outside Deymeson, Monach had better grounds than most for believing in this principle, and genuine fear, as against worry or concern or apprehension, was something he'd tasted about as often as he'd drunk vintage sweet white wine at thirty quarters a bottle. But he was definitely afraid of Father Abbot.

'Right,' he said, very quietly. 'I don't suppose you could tell me where I might find him?'

Father Bursar looked at him. 'In the abbot's lodgings, of course,' he said. 'You do know where they are, don't you?'

'Sorry.' He'd been seven when the prior of novices had first pointed out to him the small grey stone box where the abbot lived; he'd been made to promise not to run or shout or do anything naughty within two hundred yards of it, on pain of vivisection. 'I forgot.'

Father Bursar didn't say anything, but he nodded slowly. He turned to go back to his rooms, then stopped and looked back. 'For what it's worth,' he said, 'I always liked Coiroven. We were novices together sixty-five years ago. If he'd lived another ten years, I might have started to get to know him, but there it is.'

Naturally, there were guards outside Father Abbot's door, two of them, lay brothers, both of whom Monach had taught, six or seven years ago. As soon as he was close enough to the door for his shadow to touch it they snapped to attention and blocked his way by crossing their pikes in front of his face. They didn't say anything, of course. That would have made it too easy.

Monach cleared his throat. 'I need to see the abbot,' he said.

The guards looked at him.

'I have a report,' he said, feeling as if he was drowning in hot sand. 'Originally it was for Father Tutor, but since he's dead-' (Did they know that? Were they authorised to know that?)'-since he's unavailable, I thought I'd better take it to Father Abbot. To be on the safe side.'

The guards continued to stare at him for three very long seconds; then one of them (Cormista, Monach remembered; good with the pike and staff, competent swordsman, hopeless at theory and protocols) reached behind him and shoved open the door. Monach, who'd been hoping that one of the guards would do the actual waking-up, felt his shoulders slump forward as he went past and into the lodgings.

From the outside, the abbot's quarters looked small and bleak. Inside they were smaller and bleaker. The room Monach found himself in was the office. Because there was only one small pottery lamp, resting on a bare board table, he couldn't make out much in the way of detail, but he could see that the walls were lined with pigeonholes, with rolls of parchment or paper shoved into them, and in the middle of the room there was a single table and a single chair. The floor was covered in neat piles of documents, arranged in arrow-straight rows. The place was as cheerful as an abandoned graveyard.

He took three steps forward, taking pains to avoid the document piles, until he was able to locate the inner door, which led to the abbot's bedroom. Then he stopped, as if he'd just bumped into an invisible wall. He could feel the abbot's circle pressing against his kneecaps, and more than anything else in his whole life he didn't want to break into it.

He'd been standing there for ten, possibly twelve seconds, when he heard a giggle.

At first he assumed it had come from outside: one of the very young novices, perhaps, who'd broken out of his dormitory and was trying to climb in through a window or the chimney. But Father Abbot's lodgings didn't have windows or chimneys, he'd spotted that by the time he was ten. Furthermore, although the giggle was as high-pitched as a child's voice, it was quite definitely female. He'd heard giggles like that many times before, while staying at inns. It was one of those sounds that you immediately recognise, like a sword being drawn behind you, or rain in a gutter.

No, he thought. Definitely not. Must've been something else.

There it was again; no shadow of doubt about it, particularly since it was followed by the sort of soft male chuckle you always hear a fraction of a second after that sort of female giggle. One of the guards, he thought; one of the guards has been stupid enough to bring his girlfriend in here-probably the abbot's a really heavy sleeper, nothing wakes him up short of the roof falling in, so it's perfectly safe, though horrendously sacrilegious and blasphemous. Somewhere in this room, unaware that he was standing there just inside the door, was a sentry and The giggle, again, and unmistakably coming from the other side of the inner door. There was no way past it, the conclusion was that obvious. The abbot The abbot was busy and not to be woken. The news would wait till morning-which couldn't be far off now in any case, and what possible difference could an hour or so make? After all, even if the news was so vital that the abbot mobilised the entire order in marching kit with three days' rations, a couple of hours would be neither here nor there. It could wait; and it was high time he got out of his sopping wet clothes and had something to eat. After all, he couldn't go in front of the abbot looking like a terrier who's just crawled out of a drain, now could he?

Very slowly and carefully, petrified in case his boots squelched or he knocked something over, Monach crept back the way he'd come in, gently eased the door open to give the guards notice he was coming out, and fled across the yard to the gate into the middle quadrangle, across it into the west cloister, and up three flights of spiral stone steps to his own door. Once it was safely behind him he let out the breath he'd taken in the abbot's office somewhere between a minute and forty years ago, and slumped on to his bed as if all his bones had suddenly melted.

When he woke up it was light, and he could tell from the angle of the shaft of light spearing through his cell's small, high window that the sun had been up for several hours. Then he realised that he'd fallen asleep in his wet, clammy travelling clothes, and that he had pins and needles in both feet.