'I think so,' the monk replied, yawning hugely. 'Sorry,' he added. 'And you're right. I've got to stop for a rest, before I fall off and break my silly neck.'
Monach left him to it, turned the cart round and headed back to Cric. It was just his rotten luck, he reflected, to find himself in the middle of a situation that was far too complicated for him to manage, with responsibility for the survival of the order, possibly the empire as well, and nobody to tell him what to do or how to do it. All his life he'd been taught not to think for himself-better still, not to think, just draw and cut, guided by faith and instinct. All his life he'd been warned that the overall view, the big picture was not for the likes of him, at least not until he'd achieved enlightenment and been promoted to Father. All his life, he'd been trained to believe in the value of instinct and ignorance, two qualities which weren't likely to get him very far in his present situation. No wonder that he felt such a strong affinity with the divine Poldarn, harbinger of confusion, the god who didn't know he was a god.
A bizarre thought occurred to him, and he laughed out loud. Maybe he was Poldarn.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. Here he was, driving through the northern villages in a cart, liable at any moment to make a mistake that would plunge the empire into war, bring about the destruction of the order (which would mean the end of religion, since it was an article of faith in the order that nobody else knew the most fundamental bases of doctrine) and quite possibly open the gates to the enemy incarnate, the raiders-how they fitted into the picture he wasn't sure; but then again, if he was Poldarn, that was to be expected; that they were involved in some way he was absolutely certain.
It started to rain, but he hardly noticed. Of course; that solved everything. Had Father Tutor known who he really was? Of course; Father Tutor knew everything, and that was why he'd chosen him for the mission, sent him to find out the truth about rumours of his own (false) appearances. Unfortunately, he'd been too stupid to make the obvious connections at the time, and Father Tutor had died before he'd had a chance to explain-or perhaps it was essential that Poldarn should remain ignorant of his true identity until the end of the world had been successfully encompassed-in which case something had gone wrong, he'd failed; had Father Tutor sent him on the mission on purpose to expose him to the truth and therefore make the end of the world impossible? Just the sort of thing you'd expect a father tutor of the order to do-frustrate destiny, save the world from its appointed doom. Had he always been Poldarn, he wondered, or was divinity something that happened to you later in life, like puberty or baldness; was it something you were chosen for, on merit, like the priesthood? If so, what had he done to deserve it? Had he been chosen out of all the world because he was the only man alive stupid enough to become a god and not realise it? Above all, what ought he to do next? As Poldarn, it was his duty to bring about the end of the world, but Father Abbot had ordered him to kill Cronan because that was the only thing that could save the world from ending. Which took precedence, his duty as a god or the direct orders of his superior officer? Or had Father Abbot sent him to kill Cronan because killing Cronan was the event that would bring about the end of the world-which would mean that Father Abbot had deliberately misled him; until recently, that would have been inconceivable, but now he knew that Father Abbot fornicated with loose women in the dead of night, he had to admit it was possible.
What should he do next? Trust his instincts, of course. Have faith. Above all, resist the disastrous temptation to think, because thought allows a moment to slide in between the breached circle and the draw, thought negates faith. To become God, you must become perfect, eliminate the moment, eliminate thought… Was that why he'd been chosen? Because he was the best of his year at swordfighting?
…And if my sister had six tits she'd be a cow, as they said in Sansory. He sighed, and shook his head. For a moment, he'd almost believed it, proving how easy it can be to pick up a bloody stupid notion, like a nail in the sole of your boot. Whoever he was (and at times it was hard to keep track, what with his true name and his name in religion and all those aliases), he was pretty certain he wasn't a god; and if he was a god he wouldn't be Poldarn, not if you paid him. The plain fact was, the gods didn't exist, as he'd known in his heart since he was a second-year novice. Religion wasn't about gods, it was all in your own mind, it was the self-denying moment between the instinct and the draw, nothing more or less than that. He grinned. A god who didn't know who he was, maybe. A god who's an atheist, no.
'Besides,' he said aloud, 'if I'm Poldarn, where's the crow?'
Whereupon not one but three crows erupted out of a tall, skinny ash tree beside the road and paddled noisily away through the wet air. For a moment, Monach sat quite still with his mouth open, then he burst out laughing.
He was still chuckling when he rolled into the camp at Cric. It was beginning to get dark, and the campfires stood out in the gloom, their light reflected in glowing clouds of smoke. The rain was falling steadily now, hard enough to make it difficult for Monach to think much further than shelter, warmth, food and sleep. He was wondering how these objectives might best be achieved when a soldier stepped out beside the cart and grabbed the lead horse's bridle.
'You're back, then,' he said. It was probably the man he'd spoken to earlier, he wasn't quite sure. 'You'd better get down and come with me. The general wants to see you.'
Monach woke up out of his train of thought with a snap. 'What?' he said. 'General Cronan?'
There were several soldiers now; lots of soldiers, a dozen at least and more coming. Two more were holding the horses, one was climbing up on to the box of the cart beside him, at least three behind him in the bed, and as many again closing in round him in a rapidly shrinking circle. While he sat still and tried to figure out what was going on, the soldier sitting next to him reached across and pulled the sword out of his scabbard, before he could do anything about it.
The first soldier's face broke into a grin. 'No,' he said, 'not General Cronan. General Feron Amathy. You coming quietly, or what?'
Chapter Twenty
'I've never seen anything like it,' Poldarn repeated.
'You can't remember seeing anything like it,' Copis pointed out. 'In your case, that doesn't mean much. For all you know, you used to live there.'
Poldarn frowned; he wasn't in the mood. 'It's amazing,' he said. 'And you honestly believe we're going to be able to sell them buttons?'
From the top of the rise they could see Deymeson, dramatically backlit by the sunset: the town, slopped round the foot of the hill as if it had seeped out under the walls of the castle; the fortress, with its double wall and star-pattern bastions; the abbey and the citadel, topped with a massive low, square tower. Nobody in their right mind would ever call it beautiful. It made Poldarn think of the machines in Potto Dec's factory: entirely functional, designed to execute some process or operation he couldn't begin to understand. If Copis had told him that the gods lived there, he'd probably have believed her.