‘Come on,’ his wife was shrieking (basically the same intonation she used for chivvying him in from the barn when dinner was on the table, going cold), and he could see the sense in that; but they were killing his friends, the least he could do was watch. It would be terrible if nobody even knew how they’d died.
‘Mavaut, come back!’ His wife’s voice again; she was watching their daughter sprinting away on her own, terrified, going the wrong way. Belis wanted to go after her, but he grabbed her wrist and wouldn’t let her (she didn’t like that). He watched as Mavaut bundled down the hill in a flurry of skirts, suddenly came up against the shield-wall, spun round and came scampering back.
They were coming up the hill now, this way. If they ran, they might still get out of the road. ‘All right, I’m coming,’ he said, and an arrow appeared in the air above him, hanging for a very brief moment before dipping and falling towards him. He could see it quite distinctly, down to the colour of the fletchings, and he watched it carefully all the way down and into his stomach, where it passed at an angle through him and out the other side, leaving six inches of shaft and the feathers still in him. Belis was screaming but after the slight shock of impact he couldn’t feel very much, except for the strange and disturbing sensation of having something artificial inside his body. ‘All right,’ he snapped, ‘don’t fuss, for gods’ sakes.’ Time to be sensible, he decided, and led his family up the hill, then at right-angles along Pacers’ Alley. As he’d anticipated, the pirates carried on up the hill. They had better things to do than break order to go hunting stray civilians.
He sat down on the front step of Arc Javis’ house and looked at the arrow. There was blood all over his shirt, soaking into the broad weave of the cloth. There would be no point trying to stand up again now; his knees had failed completely, even his elbows and wrists felt weak and he was confused now, distracted, unable to concentrate his mind. The best thing would be to lean his head against the door and close his eyes for a while, just until he felt a little stronger.
His wife and daughter were arguing again – well, they always argued, Mavaut was at that age – and they seemed to be arguing about whether they ought to pull the arrow out or leave it in there. Belis was saying that if they took it out now it’d make the bleeding worse and he would die; Mavaut had to know different, of course, and she was nearly hysterical. With what was left of his consciousness, Pollas hoped his wife wouldn’t give in, the way she usually did when Mavaut worked herself up into a state, because an overindulged child would be an awful thing to die of.
He must have been asleep for a while, though it hadn’t seemed like it; he’d just closed his eyes for a moment. But he could hear different sounds; shouting, men shouting information backwards and forwards, like dock hands loading an awkard cargo. Orders; he could hear a man’s voice telling someone to keep in line, another voice shouting, Dress your ranks, raise your halberds, or something along those lines. He raised his head – it had got very heavy – but there was nobody in the alley except Belis, Mavaut and himself; the battle, if that’s what it was, seemed to be happening fifty yards or so away, on the main street. He applied his mind, trying to work out what was going on just by listening, but without seeing he had no idea which lot of foreigners were the pirates and which were Gorgas Loredan’s men. Of course he knew nothing about the shape of battles, about how they worked; it was like trying to work out where the hands of the town clock were just by listening to it ticking. More orders, a lot of shouting; it hadn’t occurred to him how busy the sergeants must be in a battle, how many things they must have to think about at once; like the captain of a ship, or the master of a work crew. He couldn’t make sense of the orders, though; the technical stuff was outside his experience – port your arms, dress to the front, wheel, make ready at the left there. He could hear feet shuffling, the nailed soles of boots scraping on cobbles, a few grunts of effort, the occasional clatter of a dropped weapon; but not the ring of steel or the screams of the dying, the sort of thing he’d been led to expect. It was remarkably quiet, in fact, so presumably they hadn’t started fighting yet.
He remembered something, and glanced down. The arrow wasn’t there any more, and once he saw that he started to feel an intrusive ache, like the worst kind of bellyache. Damn, he thought, they pulled the arrow out after all. They were sitting quite still beside him, holding on to each other as if they were afraid the other one would blow away in the wind.
Then the noise started; and yes, a battle was pretty loud. It was the sound of a forge, of metal under the hammer, not ringing but dull pecks and clunks and bangs – he could almost feel the force of the blows in the sound they made, unmistakable metal-on-metal, force being applied and resisted, thumping and bashing. They were going at it hard all right, if the noise was anything to judge by. There was effort behind those sounds; it must take an awful lot of effort to cut and crush helmets and breastplates and armour. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate, isolate sounds so as to interpret them better, something which is of course much easier to do in the dark. It was hard work, though; the shouting of the sergeants got in the way, drowning out the nuances of the metal-on-metal contact, blurring his vision in the darkness. Typical, he thought. First time I’m ever at a battle and I can’t see a bloody thing. Fine story this’ll make to tell my grandchildren.
Quite suddenly, the battle moved on. The likeliest thing Pollas could think of was that one side or the other had given ground or run away, because the noise was muffled and distant, but whether it was up the hill or down he couldn’t make out. Down the hill was what he wanted, presumably, Gorgas’ men driving the pirates back into the sea (unless they’d somehow changed places, so that Gorgas’ men were attacking up the hill – all he knew about tactics was that they were complicated, like chess, and he couldn’t even beat Mavaut at chess these days). Besides, he couldn’t concentrate properly any more, the bellyache got in the way of his hearing and pretty well everything else, and his head was spinning as badly as if he’d just drunk a gallon of cider on an empty stomach. All in all, he didn’t feel very well, so he was probably excused observing battles for now. Oddly enough, though, the pain didn’t get in the way of falling asleep; so he did that -
– And then he was in a bed, his own; the room was dark and there was nobody else there, so he couldn’t ask if he was dead or alive (and he had no way of knowing for himself). It followed, though, that his side had won; so that was all right.
CHAPTER NINE
In the courtyard below the prefect’s office, a madman was reciting scripture. The words were right, as accurate as any scholar could wish, but the madman was howling them at the top of his voice, as if uttering curses. The prefect frowned, disturbed by the inconsistency; here was everything that was beautiful and good, unmarred by error or omission, and yet it was utterly wrong.
The district administrator paused in the middle of his summary, aware that his superior wasn’t paying attention. Being slightly deaf, he hadn’t found the distant noise intrusive, but now he could hear it too. The two men looked at each other.