Pattern (45 page)

Stones, he thought; but he didn't move. Instead, he looked towards the volcano, Polden's Forge, and saw a thick column of black smoke billowing out of the summit, exactly like a flock of crows put up out of a knot of tall, thin trees, their castle. He could almost believe that the smoke was crows, all the crows he'd killed that day and on other good days, when he'd blackened the fields with his mess. It reminded him of one day in particular, a turning point in his career as the death of crows – he'd forgotten all about it until now, but suddenly it appeared in his mind's sky, swooped and pitched in the killing zone of his memory, the day when a young boy called Ciartan had gone out to kill crows on a field of sprouting peas, only to find that a man he couldn't remember having seen before had got there first and built his hide in this very ditch, under this very oak tree. The offcomer (a strange and rather frightening man with a sad face) was having a very good day, the field was covered in dead bodies, and he'd sat with him in his hide for a while and watched him at work, learning ever so much about decoying and tracking the birds in night and building and maintaining patterns – the foundations on which he'd based all his subsequent triumphs, from that day to this. It was the sheer number of the dead that had impressed him then – after the man had gone he counted them, one hundred and seventy-two – and (he guessed) it was the similarity of that picture of slaughter to this that had jarred his mind back into the groove.

He let go of the bucket and went out to count the dead birds. There were a hundred and seventy-two of them. As he turned them over with his foot and reckoned up the total, he was singing:

He remembered that he'd left the billhook in the bottom of the ditch. For a moment he was tempted to leave it there – he was too tired and aching to go scrambling about in ditches, it'd be easier to go home, fire up the forge and make a new one – but he put that unworthy thought behind him and slithered back down the slope into the mud (much deeper now, where he'd churned it up.) The hook had managed to burrow its way into the bed of the ditch and he had to scrabble for it with his fingertips. The mud felt cold and rather disgusting, it was like paunching a rabbit you'd killed yesterday and forgotten to dress out; he found the hook eventually, but while he was groping for it he came across something else. At first it looked like just another stone (could've done with that a few minutes ago, when the crows were coming in) but something prompted him to scour away the surface mud with the ball of his thumb, and he realised that it was iron or steel, remarkably well preserved under the coating of mud, except that it had turned a stony grey colour. A knob of mud in the middle gave way under his finger and proved to be the eye of a small axe. Once he'd found the billhook he spent a few minutes scraping off the mud and rust coating, and was pleased to see that it was salvageable; all it'd need would be a touch or two on the grindstone and a new handle, and he'd have a perfectly usable tool. He tucked it into his belt, wondering how it had come to be there, sunk in the mud and deprived of its history. But there were no clues to be found just by looking at it; its memory had long since rotted away, along with its handle. Not to worry; whoever it had belonged to and whatever it had been, it was still a perfectly good axe, and so long as it could be made to remember how to cut, that, surely, was all that mattered.

By the time he'd hauled himself out of the ditch and trudged back across the field, the crows were already starting to drop in and pitch again, as if nothing had happened and he hadn't been there. That should have annoyed him, but this time he only shrugged and turned his back on them. There would, after all, be another day tomorrow.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he next day Poldarn could hardly move at all. From his hips to his knees, his legs ached unbearably, and he couldn't straighten them without yelping with pain. One trip from the bedroom round the back of the house to the privy was enough to persuade him that the crows could wait a day or so. He staggered back into the house and leaned against the door frame, feeling profoundly unhappy.

‘What's the matter with you?' asked Carey the field hand, bustling past with a small cider barrel tucked under his arm.

‘Done my legs in,' Poldarn answered dolefully. ‘Six hours cramped up in a ditch'll do that to you.'

Carey grinned. ‘Serves you right,' he said. ‘Out enjoying yourself all day when the rest of us are working. Good day?'

Poldarn nodded. ‘Hundred and seventy-two. Only quit because I ran out of stones.'

‘Well, you must've saved a few for later. I was out there this morning and the whole field was black with the little buggers. Going out again later?'

‘Certainly not,' Poldarn groaned. ‘I'm wounded in action, that means I get a day off. Otherwise, where's the point?'

Carey grunted. ‘Soft, that's what you are. Maybe you should try a day's biscay-spitting, that'll teach you a thing or two about really hurting.'

Poldarn made it back to his bed without falling over, though it was touch-and-go most of the way. Elja was in the bedroom, folding up the washing.

‘You can't lie on the bed, I've just made it,' she said. ‘You'll make the room look scruffy.'

‘Go away,' Poldarn replied, collapsing onto the bed in a barely controlled fall. ‘I want sympathy, not criticism.'

‘You poor thing,' Elja said briskly. ‘If you're going to lie there, take your boots off.'

‘Have a heart,' Poldarn whimpered. ‘It took me half an hour to get them on.'

She shook her head. ‘It's your own silly fault for crouching in a muddy ditch,' she sighed. ‘You can't expect sympathy if you crock yourself when you're out having fun.'

Poldarn pulled a face. ‘It wasn't fun, it was serious work. You should see the damage they've done already, bloody things.'

‘Sure,' Elja replied. ‘I think you're cruel, picking on a load of defenceless birds.'

Poldarn straightened out his legs and closed his eyes. ‘Please go away,' he said. ‘As a special favour to me.'

‘Just my luck,' Elja said with an exaggerated sniff. ‘I end up married to an old man who can't sit in the sun all day without straining something. Fat lot of use you are to a growing girl.'

She left while he was still trying to think of an appropriate reply.

He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep, but of course that didn't work. It was gloomy and dark in the bedroom now that the sun was up; it would have been too dark to read even if he'd had a book, which he didn't. He was too bored to stay still and his legs hurt too much to let him move. He longed for something to do – sewing shirts, or mending nets, or podding beans, anything useful that could be done with just the hands. Presumably if he summoned one of the women and
ordered
her to bring him a bucketful of apples to core and slice, she'd have to obey him, since he was the lord of Ciartanstead and his word was nominally law. Unfortunately he couldn't think of any way of attracting attention. Alternatively, he could lie back and think up brilliant, far-reaching schemes and reforms and ways of doing things much more efficiently and productively than ever before, or astoundingly original plans for dealing with droughts, floods and infestations of rats, or an amazingly simple way of protecting the farm from the volcano. Or he could write a poem (in his head; no paper) or compose a song. Or he could count sheep jumping over a low wall.

‘Here you are.' There was someone in the doorway, but he couldn't see who it was from where he was lying. He tried to sit up but the angle was all wrong. ‘No, don't get up,' the voice went on. ‘Looks like you need your rest.'

He placed the voice; it was Egil, of all people. That in itself made him suspicious, in addition to the feeling of unease that his brother-in-law's tone of voice inspired in him. ‘Sorry,' he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. ‘I've strained my legs, and I can't sit up.'

‘I heard.' Egil appeared in front of him. ‘Crouching in a ditch all day, hardly surprising. I did something like that once: I was sitting out waiting for the geese to come in on the long estuary at Brayskillness. Nine hours on the mud flats, and when the buggers finally showed up, I got one shot at extreme range, and I missed. But archery was never my strong point.'

‘Nor mine,' Poldarn said. ‘At least, I can't remember ever trying it. Actually, I'm talking nonsense, for all I know I'm a crack shot. I should give it a try some time, it'd be a useful skill if I'm any good at it.'

Egil shrugged. ‘Who knows?' he said. ‘You were bloody pathetic at it when you were younger, but you seem to have learned a whole lot of skills while you were away, so maybe archery was one of them.' He shifted uncomfortably; he hadn't come here to talk about archery or swap hunting stories.

‘Kind of you to drop by,' Poldarn said. ‘You've no idea how boring it is lying here.'

‘Actually, I have,' Egil said. ‘I broke my leg, years ago. Nearly went off my head, staring at the roof timbers hour after hour. In the end I used to lie there with my eyes shut, imagining stuff.'

Poldarn raised an eyebrow. ‘Stuff?'

Egil laughed, slightly off key. ‘Swordfights,' he said, ‘horse races, quarterstaff bouts. And, um, stuff with girls. All sorts of things. It passed the time.'

‘I think I'll stick with staring at the roof, thank you,' Poldarn said. ‘Though there's a botched lapjoint in the third rafter down that's bugging the hell out of me; what I want to do most in the world is get a ladder and a hammer and chisel and tidy it up. Soon as I'm back on my feet, I'm going to do that, I swear.'

‘Well, that's good,' Egil said. ‘It's nice to have a purpose in life. You must be wondering what the hell I'm doing here.'

Poldarn nodded. ‘Ever since we met you've done your best to stay out of my way,' he said. ‘And you keep hinting that it's because of some dreadful secret. I don't suppose you're here to let me in on it, are you?'

‘No.' Egil shook his head. ‘And I think you just answered the question I came here to ask. Thanks.'

‘Hey.' Egil was about to leave the room. ‘At least ask me the question.'

Egil frowned. ‘All right,' he said. ‘Someone told me Leith was here a day or so back. Is that right?'

‘Yes. How did you – I guess someone told you. Or something like that.'

‘Something like that. So he was here, then.'

‘Came and went. Stayed just long enough to be annoyingly cryptic, then slung his hook. Why, do you know him?'

‘I used to. But that was years ago. Look, I thought we had an understanding; you don't want to know about the old days, and I don't want to tell you.'

Poldarn dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘But Leith was something to do with it.'

‘Very much so,' Egil said. ‘So, he came over here because he knew you were back—'

‘And he'd heard I'd lost my memory, but he wanted to make sure. Which he did. Then he went home. Simple as that.'

‘Fine. So you must've set his mind at rest.'

‘His mind, yes. Look, I've been thinking. This deadly secret, it must have been something I did. I'm starting to think I ought to know about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I should. I've been second-guessing and third-guessing, I lie awake at nights trying to figure out what it could be, and it seems to me that it can't have been all that bad, or they'd never have brought me home. Halder knew, didn't he?'

‘Oh, Halder knew.' Egil looked very thoughtful. ‘You know, if anybody's to blame really, it's him. Other people – well, they made mistakes, I think it's fair enough to call it that – but Halder actually did a very bad thing, a
wicked
thing, and I'm positive he knew he was going to die soon afterwards and the truth would die with him. At least, that's what he thought, because he didn't know Leith and I were in on the secret too. But that doesn't make it any better.'

‘Doesn't it?'

‘Of course not. If you could commit a crime, something really cruel and unspeakable, and you knew for a fact you'd never be found out, nobody'd even know the crime had been committed, it'd still be a crime. Wouldn't it?'

Poldarn thought for a moment. ‘To be honest,' he said, ‘I can't think of a really terrible crime that nobody would notice. I mean, there's got to be a victim or it isn't a crime: you can't blind someone or burn down his house without him realising what's been done to him. Well, I suppose you could kill a lonely stranger, someone with no family or friends who's just arrived in the district, so nobody apart from yourself knows he's there. That's not what happened, is it?'

Egil shook his head. ‘Nothing like that,' he said. ‘In fact, that wouldn't be such a bad crime, if you ask me, because someone like that – well, who cares? Apart from the stranger, of course; but if he's got no family, nobody depending on him, then it's not like it's a great loss, is it? There's nobody left to be affected by it.'

Poldarn's eyes opened wide. ‘That's a pretty cold-blooded way of looking at things, isn't it?' he said.

‘Maybe.' Egil sounded like he wasn't bothered. ‘Truth is, it's so unlikely and far-fetched, it's hard to imagine what it'd be like. Everybody's got family and friends somewhere, even that new friend of yours, the bear-hunter who got you out of the mud over at our place. Like, if I killed him tomorrow, you'd notice he wasn't around any more, and if you found out I'd killed him, you'd be after me for revenge. And he's as close as you'll ever get to what you had in mind.'