Memory (15 page)

Poldarn had been exaggerating slightly when he'd said they were in the middle of nowhere. Falcata was only a few days away, and there were half a dozen small villages that could be reached in a day or so of hard walking. But the chances of finding any work at that time of year were slim to non-existent. Any day now, the rains would start; the flat plain that began at Ilno and stretched over as far as the lower slopes of the Sourwater Hills would soon be flooded, with only the villages and the embanked roads above water. Good for the reed-beds and the osier gardens; good for the market gardeners in the fat strip between Falcata and the Green River, since the alluvial silt that the flood water washed down off Sourhead was just the job for beans and cabbages. For everyone else on the levels, it was simply a fact of life; six weeks every year when you stayed home and found something to do indoors. It had never been a fact of life that bothered the foundry crew, since the flood water had never come far enough up the vale to affect them, and if they had finished work to deliver, there were always barges and rafts – easier, in fact, to float a bell than lug it about on a cart. So long as everybody stayed where they were meant to be, in fact, the wet season was nothing to worry about, and who'd be stupid enough to go wandering about in those conditions?

Someone or other, possibly Malla Ancola but probably not, made vague noises about sticking together and taking the road up the vale into the hills, through the big woods and out the other side, heading for Balehut or even the coast. That idea was so impractical that nobody could be bothered to point out the problems; but someone else suggested spending the forced holiday in the woods, burning their own supply of charcoal, which (if they got it right) could save them enough money to cover what they stood to lose on the penalty clause, in the long term; and as for the short term, everybody knew how easy it was to live off the land in a forest, hunting and gathering all those deer and birds and wild pigs and nuts and roots and berries, not to mention wild mushrooms and truffles. In fact, the argument ran, the only real danger was that they'd get so used to the carefree life of the forester and the collier that they'd never want to go back to rotten old foundry work.

This proposal went the rounds all the next day and halfway through the night, and then died, as quickly and suddenly as it had arisen; at which point people started to drift away, most of them aiming without much hope to reach Falcata before the rain started. The group Poldarn joined up with, however, declared that they were headed the other way. Burning their own coals, they acknowledged, was obviously not a realistic proposition (why this was so, nobody bothered to say; presumably because it was obvious and they didn't want to look ignorant); but hadn't Poldarn said they were always on the lookout for casual labour at the burning camps, to replace the ones who suddenly took it into their heads to drift away and do something else? It was worth a try; and even if there wasn't any food, from what Poldarn had told them there was no shortage of free beer for anybody who was too slow to get out of the way in time.

Poldarn wasn't entirely sure that that was what he'd said; but it couldn't be denied that his memory wasn't the best in the world, so maybe they were right, at that. At any rate, since this expedition appeared in some way to have been his idea, he felt more or less obliged to tag along with it; also, he could see the sense in setting off
up
the hill if the plains were about to flood. As far as his companions in the venture were concerned, they all seemed like honest, decent, good-natured people, and it'd only be for a few weeks, until the core dried out.

‘There's been a change of plan,' Chiruwa said casually, as they reached the edge of the forest.

‘Oh?' Poldarn shrugged. The afternoon sun was pleasantly warm, and his mind had been elsewhere. He hadn't actually been paying much attention to what the others had been saying; least of all Chiruwa, who had a tendency to chatter away as though he was trying to use up a stockpile of words before they went stale. ‘Fair enough. What's changed?'

Chiruwa avoided his gaze. ‘We talked it over, the rest of the guys and me, and we reckoned looking for work round the charcoal camps probably wasn't such a good idea after all. Like, it's the wet season coming on, they won't be shipping much charcoal till the roads are clear again, most like they'll be slowing down production, having a rest, that sort of thing. Probably not much work going.'

That seemed reasonable, now that Chiruwa mentioned it. Pity nobody had thought of it before. If they couldn't get casual jobs around the burning camps, the prospects weren't wonderful. Apart from the colliers, nobody much lived in the big woods; apart from the two or three inns along the road that catered to travellers, there weren't any houses or settlements till you reached the Stonebick river. ‘So what did you have in mind?' Poldarn asked. ‘Do we turn round and go back, or what?'

Chiruwa pulled a face. ‘We did consider that,' he said. ‘Only we probably don't have enough in the way of supplies to get as far as Falcata; and the smaller places might not have anything to spare. So we thought we'd carry on along the road for a bit.'

Poldarn looked at him. ‘Why?'

‘Well.' Chiruwa, the foundry's chief polisher, was a short man, very broad and wide, with an honest face partly shrouded by a big black moustache. You'd have felt fairly confident about paying him in advance for a large order of dried beans. ‘What we thought we'd do, we thought we could make a quarter or two in these parts. Not right here, of course. More where the road goes through the edge of the wood.'

‘Doing what?'

‘Well.' Chiruwa said again and breathed in through his nose. ‘There's quite a bit of traffic on the road this time of year, people coming up from the plains before the rain starts. Also merchants and freight on the way to Ridgetop and Spadea – there's big fairs there in a couple of weeks.'

Poldarn didn't say anything, but that contradicted what Chiruwa had implied a moment or so before, about the colliers not being able to ship any charcoal because of the roads being impassable. Or maybe he'd just misunderstood, or didn't know enough about the local geography. ‘Right,' he said. ‘So, what about it? Are you planning on setting up an inn or something, because—'

‘Not really,' Chiruwa replied. ‘What we had in mind was more like robbing them. Happens a lot around here,' he went on quickly, in an it's-all-right-really tone of voice. ‘And the weather'd be on our side, because we wouldn't have to worry about the soldiers – once the rain starts they won't be able to get up the road from Falcata. By the time the roads south are open again, we'll have finished and be long gone. It'd be safe as houses, really.'

‘Robbing them?' Poldarn reckoned he must have heard him wrong, or misunderstood what he'd been trying to say. ‘You mean, like – well, highwaymen, bandits, that sort of thing?'

‘Sort of,' Chiruwa replied.

‘Sort of ?'

But Chiruwa didn't seem inclined to explain any further. ‘So,' he said, ‘are you in with us, or aren't you?'

Didn't look like he had very much choice in the matter. ‘Yes, all right, then,' Poldarn said; then he hesitated. ‘I'm not killing anybody, mind. That's—'

‘Oh, don't worry about that,' Chiruwa assured him quickly. ‘You don't get big escorts, or soldiers or anything, it'll just be one or two people on their own. It's not like we'll be ambushing supply columns or anything like that. Besides, if they look like they'd be trouble, we just stay back and let them go on through. Goes without saying, really.'

For a moment, Poldarn wondered if he ought to be keeping an eye out for crows, in case this was a bad dream or a memory. (And what ought he to think if he did see one? Just the place for them, after all, this close to the edge of the big wood; in fact, he was surprised there weren't any. Or was it the case that crows really only existed in dreams? He doubted that.) ‘You know,' he said, ‘I'm not sure. Maybe we really ought to at least try the charcoal outfits, just in case they're hiring. After all, it couldn't do any harm just asking, could it?'

‘Well, actually,' Chiruwa replied awkwardly, ‘the others've more or less made their minds up about it, so I don't suppose there'd be any point. I mean, you can suggest it if you like, but I don't imagine they'll listen to you.'

Poldarn figured he knew why. They'd never had any intention of going to the colliers' camps looking for work. This had been the plan all along. Odd that he hadn't figured it out for himself. ‘Is this what you usually do, then?' he asked. ‘Whenever there's a lay-off at the foundry, or when you feel like a change of pace?'

‘Oh no. Well, not me personally; this'll be, what, my third or fourth time. Some of the guys come up this way quite often, that's how they know there won't be any soldiers or armed escorts. We know what we're doing, if that's what's bothering you.'

It'd be a good idea, Poldarn decided, to pretend that it was. ‘Well, if you're sure,' he said.

‘Quite sure,' said Chiruwa. ‘It'll be like hop-picking, you take my word for it.' (Well, Poldarn thought, Chiruwa did have an honest face.) ‘We'll get all the food and supplies we need, and a bit of spending money as well; and long before they can send anybody out after us we'll be back home down on the plain, with no one any the wiser. I mean, if you're wandering about in a godforsaken place like this, you're practically asking to be robbed, people expect it. Far as they're concerned, it's just bad luck, like breaking an axle.'

At that, Poldarn nodded and changed the subject. He was wondering whether it'd be possible to slip away before they reached the woods and maybe head for the charcoal camps. The man he'd stayed with, Basano, would probably find him a job, or maybe just let him hang about for a few weeks – he hadn't seemed to mind the prospect of Poldarn waiting there until the wagons left, time didn't seem to matter much to the colliers. Come to that, maybe he'd be better off staying there for good; if he sloped off from the robbing party, it was possible they wouldn't be too pleased to see him when he got back to the foundry when work resumed there, particularly if something went wrong with their plans, such as an unexpected column of soldiers – they'd assume he'd betrayed them or something. Or maybe it'd be better to stay with the party and keep his head down. He didn't like the prospect of cold-blooded robbery, but there were worse things, and he had a bad feeling he'd done most of them. It was, after all, a matter of survival in a hard country in a bad season. And the world was full of predators: eagles and lions and bears, all of them doing nothing worse than making a living.

(He couldn't believe he'd thought that; hearing himself suggest such a line of argument was the most worrying aspect of the whole business. It had come quite naturally, like reaching out in the dark for something he knew was there. Even so; even so. If he went to the colliers' camp and told them he needed work or a place to hang out while the foundry was closed down, it'd be as good as betraying the others; because the colliers would know that men from the foundry had been in those parts, and when news of the robberies filtered through to them, they'd have to be stupid not to draw the obvious conclusions. It
would
be betrayal; and which was worse – to betray his friends and colleagues, or to persuade a few wealthy merchants to share their good fortune with others less favoured than themselves? And of course the people they'd be robbing would be the rich, because the poor don't have anything to steal . . . Even so. Even so.)

‘I guess you're right,' Poldarn said. ‘And we'd only be taking what we need, wouldn't we?'

Chiruwa nodded enthusiastically. ‘It's a way of life in these parts, really,' he said. ‘I mean, if this was a civilised place, with towns and places where you could find work, there wouldn't be any need. But we've all got a right to live, is what I say. Isn't that right? I mean, one man's as good as another, there's no reason we should starve when there's people who've got more than they need. You'll see, usually they're quite good-natured about the whole thing.'

He'll be telling me they enjoy the thrill of the chase next. ‘It's all right,' Poldarn said, ‘I'm not bothered about it, so long as nobody gets hurt. That's the main thing, isn't it?'

(And he thought: it
is
all right, because I know what I'm doing; and besides, I've done worse. I was happy enough swindling peasants, when I was being the god in the cart. I've killed soldiers for getting in my way, I've killed sword-monks just to please my distant cousins, I killed my best friend for stealing back his own horses. Compared to what I've done when I was sure I was doing the right thing, stealing a few quarters beside the road is practically an act of charity and conscience. I have nothing to prove to anybody. I am who I am, and that's fine.)

Two days in the highway-robbery business were enough to convince Poldarn that he'd been worrying unnecessarily.

Their first victims looked a likely enough prospect; a man and a woman, elderly and mildly shrivelled, driving a large covered cart slowly along one of the main droves leading up to the forest roadways. Anybody with eyes in his head could see they were farmers, and since they were going up the hill, it stood to reason that they were taking their surplus produce to the colliers' camps, undoubtedly (this was Poldarn's private assumption) to sell them to a captive market at grossly inflated prices.

Once they'd stopped the cart, however, and managed to get across to the old man (who was deaf) and the old woman (who appeared to speak no known language and at least three unknown ones) that this was a
robbery
, not a request for directions, they were surprised and extremely annoyed to find nothing in the back of the cart except empty sacks. Eventually, the old woman contrived to explain that they were on their way to pick up their village's quarter-year supply of charcoal, which had already been paid for. Since vigorous searching failed to produce a single coin, Chiruwa had no choice but to take their word for it and send them on their way, with a rather sad request that they shouldn't tell anybody about the incident.