‘All right,’ Loredan muttered, squeezing himself through a tight spot where a side-panel had come adrift, ‘it’s a cusp. Do whatever it is you do. And if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just carry on with what I’m doing.’
‘You always were sceptical,’ said the voice. ‘I can’t say I blame you. There’s a lot of it I have trouble believing in myself, and I wrote the book.’
Loredan sighed. ‘You were rather less irritating when you were real,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’
Everbody heard imaginary voices after a while. Some people heard them as dwarves and gnomes, kindly creatures that warned about vapour-pockets and cave-ins. Others heard them as dead family or friends, while bad men heard them as the people they’d murdered or raped or mutilated. Some people put out bowls of bread and milk for them, as children do for hedgehogs. Others sang to drown the voices out, or yelled at them till they went away; others talked to them for hours, finding that it helped pass the time. Everybody knew they weren’t really there; but in the mines, where it’s always dark and everybody, real or not, is nothing but a disembodied voice, people learn not to be quite so dogmatic about what’s actually there and what isn’t. For better or worse, Bardas Loredan heard his voice as Alexius, the former Patriarch of Perimadeia, who he’d known for a short while years ago and who was now quite probably dead. Except here, of course, where the living are buried and the dead live on bread and milk, like invalids.
‘If I were you,’ Alexius said, ‘I’d go left.’
‘I was just about to,’ Bardas replied.
‘Oh. That’s all right, then.’
He went left. The gallery was narrower here, the floorboards rougher, not yet polished by the passage of gloved hands and copped knees. It was hot, which suggested there might be vapour.
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Alexius said.
‘Good. I’ve got enough to contend with as it is.’
‘But unless I’m very much mistaken,’ the Patriarch went on, ‘there’s someone up ahead of you, about seventy-five yards – sorry I can’t be more exact, but of course I can’t see a damned thing. I believe he’s stopped and he’s fixing something; a board that’s come loose, probably.’
‘All right, thanks. Which way’s he facing?’
‘No idea, I’m afraid.’
‘Not to worry. Is he a cusp too?’
‘That I can’t tell you. He might be a cusp, or he might be purely serendipitous.’
‘Right.’
He slowed down, carefully shifting his weight with each knee-stride forward so as to make no sound at all. He smelt of blood, of course, and probably sweat, too. The man smelt of pepper and coriander.
‘That’s it, you’ve got him. Now do be careful.’
Bardas didn’t answer, not this close. Where were you just now, when I could have done with someone to talk to? He could hear the man’s breathing now, and the very faint creak of the leather cops on his knees as he worked.
‘He’s got his back to you.’
I know. Now please go away, I’m busy. He moved closer (couldn’t be more than a yard now) and reached towards the top of his boot for his knife-hilt. Sometimes the blade made a very slight hissing noise as it rubbed along the cloth of his breeches. Fortunately, not this time.
Afterwards, he thanked him-
‘Why do you do that?’ Alexius asked, puzzled. ‘I’ll be straight with you, I find it rather morbid.’
‘Do you?’ Loredan shrugged (pointless gesture in the dark, where not even people who weren’t there could see him do it). ‘Personally, I think it’s a nice tradition.’
‘A nice tradition,’ Alexius repeated. ‘Like blackberry-picking or hanging bunches of primroses over the door at Spring Festival.’
‘Yes,’ Loredan said firmly. ‘Like putting out saucers of milk for the likes of you.’
‘Please, don’t trouble yourself on my account. If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s soggy bread in sour milk.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t have us waste the good stuff, would you?’
He crawled over the dead man; still no clue what it was he’d been doing there, so quiet and meticulous. Unimportant. Couldn’t be much further now and he’d be at the face.
(‘Then how come,’ he’d asked once, ‘if you’re wholly imaginary, you keep telling me things I don’t know, like the enemy’s up ahead or vapour-pockets? And you’re nearly always right, too.’
Alexius had thought for a moment. ‘Possibly,’ he’d said, ‘you’re unconsciously picking up clues that are so slight your mind can’t take notice of them in the usual way – tiny noises you don’t know you’ve heard, just the faintest taste of a smell, that sort of thing – so it invents me out of thin air as a way of getting the information to you.’
‘Possible, I suppose,’ he’d replied. ‘But wouldn’t it be easier just to admit that you exist?’
‘Maybe,’ Alexius had replied. ‘But just because a thing’s more likely doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.’)
Sometimes he tried to picture it all in his mind; where he was in real terms, in relation to the city and the Great King’s camp and the river and the estuary. He still believed in them, just about, though at times his faith was sorely tried. Maybe it would help if he left them the occasional bowl of milk.
He could hear digging; four, possibly five distinct noises. He could smell coriander, and sweat, and steel, freshly cut clay, a very faint trace of vapour, not enough to be dangerous; leather and wet cloth and urine, and the blood on his own hands and knees. For some reason he was having difficulty estimating the range – it could well be because he was near the face, where the solid wall of clay ahead soaked up the sound, or perhaps the roof was higher than usual, creating a slight echo. Five men digging, so there’d be a scavenger to each man, and at least two chippies – but he couldn’t hear scavengers’ hooks or carpentry tools, implying that they’d only just started work, and if that was the case, pretty soon a man would come up the gallery with the rope to pull the spoil-dolly. He listened, but Alexius wasn’t there (typical; but everybody knew you couldn’t rely on the voices). Trying not to worry, he felt the side-walls carefully for a spur, a lay-by, a point where the gallery widened enough for him to tuck in out of the way and let the rope-bearer go by – or failing that, somewhere he could turn round and go back. If the worst came to the worst he’d have to crawl backwards, but that was very much a last resort, since there was always a risk of meeting someone, coriander, coming the other way.
As luck would have it there was a wide place, where they’d had to cut through a rock when they’d built the gallery. The carpenters hadn’t bothered to board over what was left of the rock, and the cutters had split it so deeply with their fire and vinegar that there was a crack wide enough for him to squeeze into, if he wasn’t too fussy about breathing.
He didn’t have to wait long; he heard the rope scuffling along behind the man, and not long after that he could smell him. He let the man go a little way, and afterwards he thanked him; if anyone came down the gallery, they’d blunder into him and make a noise, enough to give notice. It was a friendly thing to do, and in the mines you had to take friends where you found them.
Four men digging, two scavengers, one carpenter; he could hear the hooks and one saw. Short-handed, obviously; overstretched, not enough experienced men to go round. It was a common problem, garlic and coriander. The carpenter was furthest back; he’d warn his friends when the sound of his saw stopped before time, but the scavengers couldn’t turn round – he’d have them easily enough. The problem would be the kickers, who’d use their crosses to swing round.
He’d forgotten about the spoil-dolly; only remembered it when he put his hand on it (he’d been following the rope, so there was no excuse). It was hard, slow work climbing over it, and for a moment he was tempted by the thought of lying flat on it and pulling himself towards the face by hauling on the aft rope; but the sound of the wheels would be their friend, not his, whereas if he left it there it would be another sentry for him.