By nightfall they'd sold the best part of eight hundred buttons. When they'd packed up the stall, Copis asked where the inn was. There wasn't an inn. But the blacksmith might be prepared to let them sleep over in his barn for a few quarters. A few turned out to be six, rather more than they'd have spent in a reasonably good inn; the barn was cold, with a damp floor (like the Potto house) and a thoroughly objectionable goose, which brayed at them all night and managed to get out of the way of everything they threw at it.
They were ready to leave as soon as the sun rose. 'Deymeson,' Copis said. 'There's nothing to stop for between here and there, so we should be able to get there in a day if we don't hang about.'
Poldarn shook his head. 'Actually,' he said, 'I want to stop off on the way.'
Vistock wasn't hard to find. It was where a village should have been, where the road forded a small, inoffensive river. The first thing they could make out was the shell of a mill-house, with a wrecked and moss-grown wheel sunk in the water. Inside the building they found a lump of rust that had once been an anvil and the charred stump of a trip-hammer. There was only one other structure still standing: half a barn (the other half had fallen in a long time ago, there were still signs of fire on the rounded ends of the rafters) surrounded on two sides by an overgrown wall.
'Over there, I suppose,' Poldarn said.
'What the hell could there possibly be in there worth stopping for?' Copis asked.
'No idea,' Poldarn replied. 'Come on.'
Someone had made a half-hearted attempt at boarding in the remaining half of the barn. There was even a door, hanging out of the fence of rotten timbers on two straps of mouldy rope. There really didn't seem to be much point in knocking, since you could get through the gap between the door and the fence if you went sideways and held your breath, but Poldarn knocked anyway.
'Go away,' said a voice from inside.
'Good God,' Copis whispered. 'There's someone in there.'
'I know,' Poldarn replied. 'That's why we're here.'
He opened the door into darkness. An egg hit him in the face.
Luckily it caught him on the chin, so he didn't have to worry about razor-sharp splinters of shell in his eyes. He wiped it away with the back of his left hand and called out, 'Hello?'
'Piss off. I got a knife.'
Poldarn peered round, but it was very dark indeed inside and he couldn't see anything. 'Can I come in?' he asked.
'No. Get lost, before I stick this knife in you.'
'There's no call to be like that,' Poldarn said.
'Yes there is. Get out, or I'll kill you.'
Poldarn was using the voice to find whoever it was. It was low for a woman's voice, rather breathy in a way that suggested some kind of chronic lung trouble. 'We don't mean you any harm,' he said. 'I'd just like to ask you a few questions.'
'Get out. Go away, before I set the dogs on you.'
It was fairly obvious that there weren't any dogs. 'Really,' he said, listening hard, 'we aren't going to hurt you or steal your stuff. We've come a long way.'
'I don't give a damn if you've come all the way from bloody Morevich, you're not-' That was enough for Poldarn to get a fix; he reached out quickly into the dark and grabbed, and connected with a thin, tight arm. He could feel small muscles, as hard as rope, under old skin.
'Sorry,' he said, dragging on the arm, 'but I do need to ask you some things. Won't take long.'
She may have been lying about the dogs, but not the knife, but Poldarn knew the moment her hand violated his circle, and he caught her wrist easily. A quick twist, enough to hurt without damaging, was enough to make her drop the knife. He pulled firmly, overcoming rather more resistance than he'd expected, and led her out into the light.
Not a pretty sight. It was fairly evident that she didn't feel the cold, since she wasn't wearing any clothes; as a result, it was hard to miss the shiny white scar that ran from her left hip almost to her navel. She had a fuzz of tangled grey hair, with things in it, and a jaw that had set badly after being broken a long time ago. She stopped struggling when Poldarn let go of her, and sat down on a log that looked as if it had done long service as a chopping-block.
'Who the bloody hell are you, then?' she asked, and sneezed.
Poldarn grinned. 'You know,' he said, 'that's a very good question. But if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question of my own first. Is it true you've got a son?'
She scowled at him, and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. 'Come to make fun, have you?' she said. 'I know your sort. You'll be old too one day, and then you'll be sorry.'
Poldarn shook his head. 'I'd really like to know,' he said.
'All right.' She reached down behind the log and produced a small axe-Poldarn could have sworn it hadn't been there a moment ago. 'But you lay off me, or so help me I'll smack your head in. You got that?'
'Sure,' Poldarn replied. 'So, is it true?'
She nodded. 'I did have a son once, yes. Had him for all of ten days, before they came over from Vistock; said they reckoned it was about time for the kid to be born, and it wasn't right, trying to bring up a kid out here. They told me I had to go with them, I said I wasn't going. One of them grabbed him, my baby, so I cut his throat.' She paused to pinch something out of her eye; she was very delicate and precise about it, nipping whatever it was off her eyeball with the ends of her jagged nails and flicking it away. 'Well, that was him dealt with, and they went away. But they took the boy, and I've never seen or heard of him since. That was a long time ago.'
Poldarn, who was kneeling down beside her, nodded. 'What about this story I heard in Forial,' he asked, 'about the god in the cart? How did that start?'
She turned her head and looked at him. 'Oh, that's who he was, all right,' she said. 'He told me so himself.'
'I see,' Poldarn said, without emphasis. 'When he was ten days old.'
'No, of course not,' she replied, frowning. 'Don't talk so stupid. No, it was in a dream. I saw him.'
'You saw him,' Poldarn repeated. 'As a baby, or was he grownup?'
'Oh, he was all grown up,' she replied. 'But I knew it was him. And he knew who I was, too. He stopped the cart and got out-he was standing about where that stone is.' She pointed with her left hand, but Poldarn didn't turn to look; the axe was still in her right hand, and he didn't want to take his eye off it just yet. 'Anyway, he smiled at me-always did have a nice smile, of course-and then he got back in and rode away. The smile's from my mother's side, though he had his father's nose.'
'His father.'
'Yes, him.' She frowned. 'One of Feron Amathy's men, he was,' she went on, looking down at her feet. 'It was them burned the village, you know, and killed everybody. Never knew why; I suppose we were in the way or something.'
'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'I'd heard it was the raiders.'
'That's right. Feron Amathy's men. From across the sea.' She found a stub of twig and started whittling at it with the hatchet blade. 'When he was finished with me he was going to kill me, but I was too quick for him. Always was quick with my hands,' she added with a smile. 'That's how I got my knife. Been a good knife over the years, I'd be lost without it. It was lying there on the ground, he was reaching for it, but I got it first and stuck it in his ear. Just there,' she added, 'where you're kneeling, that's where he fell. Landed on his face, and I pulled the knife out and ran. One of his mates was just by the door, he took a swing at me with one of those big inside-out swords of theirs-that's how I got this, in case you were wondering.' She drew a fingertip down the line of the long scar, tracing it by feel, almost affectionately. 'And this was later,' she added, touching her jaw, 'when the government soldiers came through. Was that what you wanted to ask about?'
Poldarn nodded slowly. 'So your son, the god in the cart-his father was a raider, and you killed him.'