Memory (72 page)

Tazencius shrugged; so much for all that.

‘Anyway,' he went on, ‘you made the usual arrangements with the savages for the coming season; and then you reported back to Cordomine. The idea was, as I've told you, that you would send them strolling blithely into an ambush. But by this stage, I'd found out, from spies of my own in the Amathy house, that you'd turned traitor on me. I gave orders for my agent in the House to kill you – his reward was to be Feron Amathy in your stead – but he failed. You escaped and turned to Cordomine for protection. He was in an awkward position. Needless to say, he hadn't dared to let Cronan in on the secret; Cronan was far too straightforward to play the game out quietly, he'd have told the Emperor all about me and the Amathy house being in league with the savages, and I'd have been forced to mobilise both of my allies against the government in a straightforward civil war – and together, the House and the savages would probably have won, but not conclusively; we'd have seized the Bohec valley, perhaps, and I'd have set myself up as a rival Emperor, hated as a despicable traitor in the city, and everything would have descended into a chaotic mess. So although Cordomine needed you to deliver the savages and the House into Cronan's hands for execution, he couldn't save you openly from your outraged followers in the House. The best he could do was smuggle you to safety, using the resources of the Order; he sent his bodyguards to escort you from Josequin to Torcea, and Father Tutor sent his best agent, Xipho Dorunoxy, just in case something went wrong.

‘Something did go wrong: the House's trackers, who'd been following you, caught up with you and your escort beside the river. There was a fight; the trackers and the escort wiped each other out, you were knocked over the head and lost your memory. Xipho Dorunoxy found you and sent a message to Deymeson for instructions. That was the moment when everything began to fall apart.'

Tazencius stopped talking and took a long drink. Poldarn took the opportunity to study distances and angles, make estimates of time.

‘The consequence were as follows,' Tazencius went on. ‘You failed to turn up at your rendezvous with the savages, to give them the information they needed to carry out the plans you'd previously outlined for them. They knew they had to attack certain places – Deymeson was one of them, I'd decided to get rid of the Order once and for all – but they didn't even know where these places were, let alone the safe and inconspicuous ways of getting there and getting safely back. They decided to set out anyway, hoping to find you, or that you'd catch up with them along the way. Your people are amazingly stupid, Ciartan.

‘The new leader of the Amathy house, meanwhile, had bought acceptance as your replacement by promising them a major prize, namely Josequin. They collected their payment, but the savages didn't show up to give them the support they'd expected. Things weren't right, and they were terrified of being found out. They withdrew in confusion and therefore weren't on hand when I needed them, later.

‘Then things got worse, rapidly. Your old tutor changed his mind about what had to be done. I think it was some horrible coincidence, some prophecy accidentally fulfilled; he always was a mystic at heart, with far more faith than is good for a priest. In any event, he was suddenly convinced that you were none other than the God in the Cart, harbinger of the end of the world – I think it was the fact that you'd lost your memory, but I'm just speculating – and that it would be sacrilege to impede your disastrous progress in any way. He sent word to his most faithful servant, Xipho Dorunoxy (who by this time had retrieved you from where you'd got lost), and told her that her duty was henceforth to act as your priestess and acolyte, in accordance with the scriptures that foretell Poldarn's second coming. She coped splendidly, I suppose. She knew that the whole point about the God in the Cart is that He doesn't know who He is; by sheer fluke, she'd been using the cover of the fraudulent god as she followed you around. When you accidentally killed the false Poldarn, she made you take his place – the true god pretending to be Himself in order to cheat rustics out of loose change; no wonder the delicious irony of the whole thing was enough to unhinge your erstwhile tutor's brain. Cordomine had him killed as soon as he could, of course; but not before the old priest had sent his other faithful servant, another classmate of yours whose name escapes me, first to confirm that you really were the god (which apparently he did, to Father Tutor's satisfaction) and then to wreck Cordomine's plans for saving the Empire from you and me by murdering General Cronan.

‘He failed, of course, but by then everything had come loose, so to speak. Cordomine found you, purely by chance, at an inn in Sansory, but
he
didn't know that you'd lost your memory; he merely thought you were playing some new game, and before he could find out the truth or take effective action, the Amathy house caught up with you. Cordomine's guards stopped them from catching you and you escaped. In the meantime, the savages were blundering wildly through the countryside. For my part, I had no choice but to use the few resources I had to make an overt bid for the throne. I thought I could rely on the Amathy house. I was wrong. A few government soldiers joined me, but very few; I lost a battle, was captured and sent to Torcea to explain myself and be executed. Quite brilliantly, I managed to elude my guards, steal a horse and escape. But, just when I thought that for once luck was on my side, my horse was startled by a rocketing pheasant in the woods; I was thrown and broke my leg. And who should find me but you.' Tazencius shook his head sadly, as if trying to express his disappointment with Fortune, from whom he'd expected better. ‘It was a pretty charade we all played out that night. The members of my escort were under orders to make it seem as though I was a noble prince returning home on state business: the government believed I enjoyed far more support than I actually had, and thought that if I was seen being dragged away in chains, loyal peasants would abandon the plough and the hoe and rescue me. I was desperate not to let my guards find out that I was on speaking terms with the notorious Feron Amathy (they didn't even recognise you in the event, but by then it was too late), and of course I didn't know that you'd lost your memory and didn't have the faintest idea who I was. Finally I managed to escape, though I had to cut your colleague's throat first, and the guards came after me, though I shook them off quite easily. After enormous hardship and suffering I reached the Amathy house camp; and your replacement immediately sent me to General Cronan, as a peace offering.

‘Things looked bad for me. True, the savages destroyed Deymeson. But then Cronan caught up with them and cut them to pieces, and I thought I was done for. It was sheer good luck that he blundered into them after the battle, and that they killed him and (thanks to you) allowed me to escape. I suppose I should be grateful to you for that, but I'm not. If it wasn't for Lysalis here, I'd have you hung up in one of those frames and smash every bone in your body with my bare hands. Instead,' and he took a deep breath, ‘I'm obliged to forgive you, as your former colleagues in the House have done. We are prepared to trust you, simply because you have nowhere else to go, nobody left to betray us to; and because we still need you, God help us all.'

Poldarn looked at him. ‘Why?' he said.

Tazencius sighed, as though he was dealing with a particularly stupid child. ‘The savages,' he replied. ‘They've been shown the way to the dairy, so to speak. We need to make sure the attacks will cease, for ever, which presumably means buying them off; and, tragically, you're still the only man in the Empire capable of talking to the horrible creatures. It changes one's perspective somewhat,' he continued mildly, ‘actually getting one's heart's desire. True, I only wanted the Empire so that I could punish Cronan Suilven; after his death, I needed it because it was the only hope I had of staying alive. But now, here I am; all that blood and burning and
waste
was to get me here. In return, I suppose I have some sort of moral obligation to be a good Emperor, to protect the best interests of the people. One thing I can do is make sure the savages don't come back; also, I can pay off the Amathy house. Creating all the problems makes it easier to solve them. And you,' he added, with resigned distaste. ‘You as well. Since I can't kill you, I shall have to pay you off too.'

Poldarn managed to raise a smile. ‘How do you plan to do that?' he asked.

Tazencius shrugged. ‘Tell me what you want, it's yours.' He waited for a reply. ‘There must be something you want,' he added. ‘Everybody wants something.'

But Poldarn shook his head. ‘Not really,' he replied. ‘This man you've been telling me about, this man I was supposed to have been once, I'm sure there must've been something he wanted. You've all been telling me I was in love with Copis – with her,' he amended, not looking round. ‘I'll have to take your word for it. Your daughter reckons I may have been in love with
her
– as well as or instead of. You also said that I wanted to be forgiven by that man I just killed. For a while I kidded myself into thinking that what I wanted was a quiet life in a place where nobody knew me, because whatever I might've done in the past, as long as I'm alive and breathing I can change, turn into somebody I could bear to live with. And there was another part of me that reckoned what I really wanted was the truth.' He shook his head. ‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘There's nothing I want, but my instincts won't let me roll over and die, I'm too well trained for that. I can't go back home, I screwed up too badly for that. I can't go away, and I can't stay here. And I've come to the end of the road now: I've got to do something about
me
, before I make things worse still.' He felt an urge to stand up, but he fought it. ‘You don't need to worry about my people,' he added. ‘I don't think they'll be back in a hurry. In any case, there's not much I can do about them – they won't listen to me any more.'

Tazencius looked at him. ‘Very nicely put,' he said, ‘but what do you
want
?'

Poldarn grinned. ‘I'd like to go now, please.'

Long, awkward silence; then Tazencius said, ‘Fine. Can't say I'll be sorry to see the back of you. Do you want to take that woman with you?' He made a vague gesture in Copis's direction. Poldarn shook his head. ‘No, thank you,' he said. ‘I suppose I ought to care what becomes of her, but I don't really.' He hesitated, frowned. ‘I'll tell you what, though,' he said. ‘If you want an intermediary between my people and yours, you could send her and—' He paused, trying to shape the words, like an engineer struggling to work from a vague verbal specification of something he'd never seen and couldn't understand. ‘Her and our son,' he said. ‘Send them home to my country. The boy's the rightful heir to Haldersness – you don't know where that is, but it doesn't matter, my people will know. You want to know what I want? That's it. The boy's still young enough to be raised as one of them. The thought of the poor little bastard growing up here makes me feel sick. Will you do that for me?'

Tazencius smiled. ‘Actually, I will,' he said. ‘I have scholars who know your language, I'll find a way. After all, I did it before, when I restored you to your doting grandfather. Is he still alive?'

Poldarn shook his head. ‘I haven't got a clue who's in charge there now,' he said. ‘But send them to Asburn the smith, in the Haldersness region. He'll see them right.' He frowned, as if making sure that there wasn't anything he'd forgotten; then he realised what he was doing, and smiled at the irony. ‘That's all,' he said. Then he turned his head a little. ‘Sorry,' he said, to Noja or whatever her name was. ‘One thing I can guarantee, you'll be better off without me.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘But that's no consolation.'

He turned away from her – easily, as if from a stranger– and scanned the Amathy house people for someone who looked like a leader. But they all looked the same, like crows in a flock. ‘Sorry,' he repeated. ‘You'll have to find someone else. You couldn't have trusted me, in any case. Believe me; I've known myself for over three years now, and I wouldn't trust me further than I can spit.'

Nobody said anything. He got the impression that they were glad he was leaving, though on balance they'd have preferred it if he'd been lying on the floor with his neck cut through. But they were pragmatists – they knew they couldn't always have everything they wanted. One of them did call out, ‘Where will you go?' but Poldarn didn't answer. Only because he didn't know. He picked up the backsabre, backflipped it absent-mindedly a couple of times, and walked towards the door. All the way there, across a desert of black and white marble tiles, he waited for the pressure on the perimeter of his circle. But it didn't come. No more guards wanted to die, nobody hated him enough to risk the moment of religion as the curved blade swung. It's a special kind of hate, he told himself, when they don't mind letting you live just so long as you go away for ever, so they can pretend you never existed; so they can cut you out of memory, like a child making dolls from folded paper.

When he got tired of walking the streets (the ludicrous luxury shoes rubbed his toes until he pulled them off and threw them away, leaving him a clown in red velvet and cloth of gold, barefoot on the sharp cobbles) he flopped down under the eaves of a shuttered workshop. Above his head he could see a thin plate sign swinging wearily, a black shadow of an anvil against the dark blue sky; his instincts had led him to a smithy, as befitted a hereditary Master of Haldersness. He laughed and stretched out his sore feet, wishing the smith was there so he could beg leave to soak his poor toes in the black, oily water of the slack tub. He closed his eyes, daydreaming about the morning: the smith finding him there asleep, taking pity; casual conversation between strangers, a chance remark – I used to be a bit of a smith myself back home – leading to an offer of work, at least until after the fair, when the rush dies down; work, a livelihood, a home. He was, after all, a skilled man. Give him a good fire, an anvil and a hammer and there wasn't anything he couldn't make.