With forefinger and thumb only, he drew out his knife. It was the only material object he thought of as his own, and he’d never seen it. He felt with his fingertips for the slight grooves he’d scored into the wooden grip so that he’d know he was holding it right, and closed his hand around it. Three men to kill, then four more; then he’d have the place to himself.
In the mines, of course, all advantages create risk; anything that can help is dangerous. The thick pads of felt he wore on his knees and the soles of his boots muffled the sound of his movement with almost total efficiency, as the carpenter discovered the hard, sharp way, but they robbed him of most of his sense of touch; he couldn’t feel where the ground changed, where the boards ended and the loose clay spoil began.
He located the first scavenger by the end of the shaft of his hook; as the man pulled back, the shaft rammed Loredan squarely in the chest. The man knew there was something wrong by the feel, but there wasn’t time for him to do anything about it. The technique was always the same: left hand over the subject’s mouth, to stop him making a noise and to pull the head up, exposing the pit where the throat meets the collar-bone, the quickest and surest place for an incision. When it was done and he’d mouthed his silent thanks, he drew the dead body carefully back and laid it on the ground like a newly pressed gown.
The second scavenger was aware of a change, but he only realised that what he’d noticed was a silence where there should have been the sound of a hook dragging clay a moment before Loredan found him. It was long enough for him to drop his hook and reach for his own knife, and quite by chance he drew the blade across the side of Loredan’s left hand, cutting a thin, deep slice. He died before he’d had a chance to interpret the meaning of the feeling of slight resistance, and Loredan caught the knife before it had a chance to fall on the ground and raise the alarm.
‘Moaz? Moaz, you bastard, why’ve you stopped?’ One of the kickers, shouting nervously back as he wriggled round the side of his cross. Nuisance, Loredan thought; that’ll make him hard to find. Still, he won’t find me so easily either, and I have the advantage.
He moved the knife to his left hand, the one that was bleeding. A drop of his blood falling on a man’s neck as he was reaching out for his mouth and chin wouldn’t be his friend, it could mean a quick, instinctive shy away, a missed grab, a mistake which could not be rectified later (as the stallholders in Perimadeia market used to say, before the city fell and they were all killed). It was a disadvantage; he didn’t have the same feel in his right hand. Another variable to factor into the calculation, as if it wasn’t complicated enough already.
‘There’s some bastard down here,’ a voice said. ‘Moaz? Levka? Say something, for gods’ sakes.’
Loredan frowned. The voice was an advantage, because it gave him a precise position, but if he went straight towards it he’d be at a disadvantage, because the man would be expecting him to come from the front. If he tried to go round the side, though, there was a fair chance he’d bump into one of the other crosses, or come up against a pile of spoil that would get in his way and be an enemy. If he wanted the voice to be his friend, he’d have to try another approach.
‘Help,’ he said.
Silence. Then, ‘Moaz? Is that you?’
Loredan made a groaning noise; it was quite a work of art. ‘Stay there,’ the voice said, ‘I’m coming. Did you get him?’
The voice came to him, making a lot of noise. He felt splayed fingers on his face, made the necessary calculations and stabbed upwards. No doubt about it, he had a feel for this sort of work.
‘Thank you,’ he said aloud, then rolled sideways until he was tight against the wall.
‘What the hell’s going on back there?’ demanded another voice. ‘Moaz? Yan? Oh, fuck it, someone go for a light.’
‘Hold on,’ said another voice, ‘I’ve got my box.’
Loredan heard a soft scrape, consistent with the lid of a tinder-box being drawn back. That wouldn’t be good at all.
‘Wait,’ he called out; then he made his best guess and jumped, pushing off from the wall with his legs like a swimmer. It was a good guess; his outstretched right hand brushed against an ear. Where there’s an ear there’s generally a throat, and so it was in this case.
A good guess but a bad move, albeit forced on him by circumstances. As he pulled out his knife he felt a blow diagonally across his back, enough to jolt his breath, and a small sharp pain on the left side of his collar-bone where the knife nicked it. Quickly he caught hold of the hand with the knife in it; assuming the man was right-handed, that gave him a good fix. He followed it up. Five down.
Number six died trying to squeeze past him in the narrow neck of the tunnel. Number seven died facing the wrong way, having lost track of Bardas’ movements without realising it.
Job done.
Job done, and nothing left to do. When he tried a few kicks at the face it felt depressingly solid; even if the main gallery (garlic) really did run parallel to this sap, the dividing wall between them was apparently too thick for him to break through. He lay back on the cross and let his shoulders droop, wondering how he was going to explain to the men he’d just killed that it had all been a waste of time.
‘That’s all right,’ they said (with his eyes closed he was able to see them for the first time). ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘It’s good of you to see it that way,’ he replied.
‘You were giving it your best shot,’ they told him. ‘When it comes down to it, that’s all a man can do. You can’t be blamed for that.’
They were smiling at him. ‘I was just trying to stay alive,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
‘We understand,’ they said. ‘We’d have done the same if we’d been in your shoes.’
Loredan shooed them away, knowing perfectly well that they weren’t real but not saying so out loud for fear of hurting their feelings. As soon as he’d seen their faces, he’d known they were just some fantasy, a projection of his own thoughts. Anything you could see with your own two eyes in the mines didn’t exist, by definition.
‘Including me?’
‘Including you, Alexius. But you’re old enough and ugly enough to be told these things.’
‘Oh. Well, I won’t bother you any more, then. Thanks for the bread and milk.’
‘You’re welcome. And you don’t bother me. I’m glad of the company.’
Alexius smiled. ‘You know, that reminds me of one of my tutors, back when I was a very young student. He used to go around all day muttering to himself, and one day the others dared me to ask him about it. So I did. “Why do you talk to yourself?” I asked. “Because it’s the only way I’ll get a sensible conversation around here,” he replied. A good answer, I always thought.’
Loredan shook his head. ‘Donnish wit,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s all you academic types do all day, lurk about trying to lure each other into carefully planned verbal ambushes. Odd way for grown men to behave, if you ask me.’
Alexius nodded. ‘Almost as odd as crawling about in narrow dark tunnels,’ he replied. ‘But not quite.’
‘Alexius.’
‘Hm?’
Loredan opened his eyes. ‘Is there any way I can get out of here? Or am I through this time?’
He couldn’t see Alexius any more, but the voice was clear and distinct. ‘Not you as well,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent my life explaining this. I’m a scientist, not a fortune-teller. I have no idea.’
‘You know,’ Loredan said, ‘you don’t sound at all like the Alexius I used to know. You sound younger.’
‘It’s one of the nice things about being imaginary, I can be whatever age I like. I’ve decided to be forty-seven. I enjoyed forty-seven best.’
Loredan nodded. ‘I’ve always had this theory,’ he said, ‘that we’re all born with a certain optimum age, the age we’re really meant to be, and once we reach it we stick there, in our minds, where it counts. Personally I’ve always been twenty-five. I was good at being twenty-five.’