The Proof House (13 page)

That prompted Bardas to ask a question that hadn’t occurred to him before: how old was the Empire, and where did it start?

The courier looked at him as if he was simple. ‘The Empire is one hundred thousand years old,’ he said, ‘and it started in the Kingdom of Heaven.’

‘Ah,’ Bardas said. ‘Thank you.’

From Ap’ Reac to Seshan (wherever Seshan was), the road went up a steep mountain and down into a deep canyon, with cliffs on either side. It looked for all the world as if the earth had been pulled apart; the road followed the bed of a long-dead river, which had cut the canyon and then dried up. Still thinking about the mines as they rumbled along under the shadow of the cliffs, Bardas couldn’t help being reminded of the galleries, the main thoroughfares of the underground city under Ap’ Escatoy. That city, with its complex grid of painfully cut roads and alleys, was all gone now; ruined and lost, like Ap’ Reac or Perimadeia, except in his memory, where it was still vivid, more real than this improbable and unconvincing place he was in now, which smelt of rosemary and roses and was soaked right through with light.

Absolutely ideal place for an ambush
, Bardas reflected.
Just as well we’re deep inside the Empire; you’d get twitchy in here otherwise.

Up above somewhere, the sun was high and hot. Under the eaves of the cliffs, it was dark and cool. The road seemed to stretch on for ever. There was next to no wind to take away the smell of roses. In a way, it was like being in the mines. In a way, everything would always be like being there.

The coach had stopped. Bardas hauled himself up and peered over the luggage.

‘Is this Melrun?’ he asked.

‘No,’ the courier replied.

They were in the ravine. The road ahead was empty. ‘So why’ve we stopped?’ Bardas asked.

‘This isn’t right,’ the courier replied, standing up on the box.

‘I don’t understand,’ Bardas said. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

The courier frowned. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said; at which point an arrow hit him just below the ear. He fell sideways off the box and hit the ground with a thump.

Oh, for pity’s sake.
Bardas dropped down, landing awkwardly among the packing-cases. The heart of the Empire; slap-bang in the middle of the shadow of the Children of Heaven, where (as everybody knew) you could leave a cartload of diamonds unattended all night in the market square and be sure nobody would steal them.

Whoever the unseen archer was, he was a cautious, methodical type, content to wait until he was sure the coast was clear before giving away his position. Bardas found this degree of professionalism highly aggravating; he was crouched down in a murderously uncomfortable position, from which he dared not move for fear of giving himself away and getting an arrow in his own neck.
This is ludicrous
, he thought.
It’s not as if I’m likely to lift a finger to stop the Imperial post being looted; they can have the lot, and welcome, if only I could move my feet.
The thought of dying, from an arrow or thirst, or being fried by the savage heat of the sun, for the sake of twelve crates of rose essence and the Imperial mail was little short of insulting.

Nothing happened. He tried thinking it through. When was the next coach due? He ought to know how often they ran along this road. Someone had told him, but he couldn’t remember. Presumably the cautious man up in the rocks knew the timetable, he didn’t seem the sort to be slapdash about important stuff like that. He’d have to allow enough time to get the coach unloaded and haul off the stuff he wanted, that’d take time (unless he was planning to drive the coach to the end of the ravine, he was going to have to haul it up the sides with ropes). How many friends and relations did he have with him? Most important (and unfathomable) of all, did he/they know he was here, or was a long wait-and-see standard operating procedure when robbing the post?

Just as he was sure he couldn’t stand the cramp in his legs any more, he heard the sound of someone scrambling about on loose rocks. Daren’t look up, of course, so he couldn’t see what was going on, but at least something was happening. No weapons, of course, except a short knife stuck down the side of his boot, as in the mines.
Been in worse scrapes than this.
Really? Name three.

‘All right.’ A man’s voice, badly out of breath. ‘You two, start unloading. Gylus, hold the horses. Azes, where’s your damn brother with those hooks?’

‘
I
don’t know, do I?’ replied a child’s voice, with the eternal put-upon whine of the younger brother.

‘Don’t be cheeky. Gylus, lend me your knife. Bassa, for crying out loud be careful with that, it’s fragile.’

The family business, obviously.
Families that loot together take root together.
‘It’s not fair,’ said another childish voice. ‘You said it was my turn to have the boots.’

‘You’ve already got a pair of boots. Why can’t you do as you’re told, just for once?’

- And there he was, standing on top of the luggage, his back to Bardas, directing his obstreperous workforce. All Bardas could see was the back of a bald head, wreathed with a few wisps of greying hair, and a shabby military-issue coat with a suspicious-looking hole, scrupulously darned, between the shoulders.
Go away
, Bardas thought, but the man didn’t seem to be in any sort of a hurry. ‘Bassa!
Bassa!
Put it down, you’ll cut yourself and then I’ll have your mother on at me. Oh, for—’

The man stood and stared for a full heartbeat, then groped for the hilt of the cavalry scimitar that dangled incongruously from his shoulder on an excessively long belt.
Damn
, Bardas thought; his legs were too cramped for sudden, energetic movement, else he’d have run away; but that option wasn’t available. The man had found his sword-hilt (round, jowly, harassed face; used to know a man who looked quite like him, had a stall selling candles in the Chandlers’ quarter) and was struggling to draw it, hampered by the long belt and his own extreme terror. The knife was in Bardas’ hand (
here we go again
), its pommel finding its own place in the hollow of his palm, his thumb pressing down on the middle of the handle, feeling for the slight groove that marked the right spot, the fingertips resting lightly on the quillons; arm back behind the ear, cock the wrist back and flick as the arm comes forward, to keep the knife upright as it leaves the hand, so that the shifting weight of the hilt guides it and powers it - you have to do this instinctively, if you think about it you’ll miss, or the knife’ll hit side-on. It’s second nature or it’s impossible (it had always come naturally to him in the mines, throwing his knife at a noise in the dark, knowing where to find it again).

A good solid hit; not the ten, but cutting the edge of the nine, slicing into the adam’s apple and severing the windpipe, so that there wasn’t any air available for the curse or the famous last words or whatever it was the man was about to say; but his mouth opened and closed and nothing came out, and then his feet slipped from under him and he went crashing down on to a crate (marked
fragile
, inevitably) which burst dramatically open, drenching Bardas in the scent of dawn-plucked roses. A moment later, the dead man’s boot skidded past his ear.

‘Dad?’ No time for anything now; Bardas reached awkwardly over the body with his left hand and fished out the cavalry sword (horrible, evilly balanced things, the pommel nips your wrist and you’d have to be a triple-jointed contortionist to thrust effectively), then used his left hand to push himself up on to his feet - left foot still numb, pins and needles in the right, what a stupid reason for getting killed . . .

‘Dad!’ There was an edge of panic in the young voice. ‘Bassa, what’s happened to Dad?’

‘Hang on.’ A head popped up over the rampart of luggage - a girl, about nine years old, squat pudding face (obvious family resemblance). ‘Dad?’ Now she was staring at him, and at the dead body lying face down in the ruins of the crate. ‘
Gylus!
He’s killed—’

The knife was in his hand again, but he was a bit too late; the head bobbed down again before he could throw.
I wish I wasn’t here
, he thought, as he tried to shuffle along the ledge of exposed crate he was standing on; but his knees still weren’t working properly, he lost his footing and stumbled, bashing the side of his head against a sharp wooden corner.
Ouch, that hurt
, he noted, trying to get the knee working so he could get up. Someone was swearing at him; he looked up and saw a boy, twelve or thirteen, resting a clumsy and crude-looking crossbow on the edge of the crate rampart. He could only see the eyes, the forehead, the clump of scruffy ginger hair, over the arched steel bow and the sun glinting on the honed edge of the arrow-blade.
Instinct
, he thought, as his wrist flipped over; and then, since instinct was running the show, he said, ‘Thank you,’ aloud, as the head snapped back and disappeared, taking his knife with it.

He heard the girl scream as he shifted the scimitar across to his right hand.
If she picks up the bow I’m still not out of this
, he thought, wincing at the pain as he put his weight on his left foot.
Come on, leg, this is no time for hissy fits.
Maybe that’s all there were, father, son and daughter; or maybe there’s the rest of the gods-damned extended family crouched up there in the rocks - brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, fifteen different degrees of cousin, grandpa and grandma and a picnic lunch in a hamper.
What I’d really like is to be somewhere else; but I’d settle for my knife back.

Azes. There’d been another kid, called Azes; a boy’s name, presumably. Now what would a good boy do, in the circumstances? Would he scoop up his kid sister and get the hell out? That’s what I’d do (only it’s not what I did) or would he come after the monster, the destroyer of his family and his home and his life -
Oh I hope not. I really, really
—

In the mines, you knew when someone was behind you. As the boy jumped down, Bardas was already twisting around, trying to get some sort of balance so he could use his feet. It would have been nice to side-step, hop lightly out of the way while bringing the sword up in a universal backhand parry - that’s what he’d have done if he wasn’t stumbling about in a narrow space between crates of perfume and biscuits in the back of a coach, with two clumsy, painful feet and the sun in his eyes as he looked up. As it was, he saw a blur and he hit it as hard as he could, relying on instinct (again) and basic timing. The boy’s blood hit him in the face, suggesting he’d slashed through the jugular vein. A ten, and wrong-footed.

A good ten; he’d nearly cut the boy’s head off.
I hope you were Azes
, he thought, turning round again.
I’d really hate it if there were more of you
. There was still the crossbow, spanned and cocked and with an arrow in the nut, somewhere up above his head on top of the luggage. Just as well Azes was as thick as a brick, trying to jump him from behind with a little wood-cutter’s hatchet when there was a perfectly good crossbow lying about; not that intelligence seemed to run in this family, or they wouldn’t have chosen this particular method of earning a living.

I’ve had enough of this. Let’s get out of here.
A gap where the roped-down crates had shifted was just enough of a toehold to allow him to scramble up on top of the luggage, past the crossbow, past the dead boy with the knife between his eyes, and down on to the box. If there’d been a third cousin twice removed up among the rocks with another crossbow he’d have been in trouble; but there wasn’t, so that was all right. He grabbed the reins and the whip, trying to remember how you went about driving coaches -
can’t be all that different from a hay-wagon, though I haven’t driven one of them since I was - oh, Gylus’ age.
Nobody shot at him, or tried to cut his throat from behind, or rolled rocks down on top of him, so that was all right.

‘You’re not the usual courier,’ said the man at Melrun station, as he reached up to take the reins.

‘The courier’s dead,’ Bardas explained. ‘Someone tried to rob the coach.’

The man looked shocked. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Straight up. Jump up and count the bodies if you don’t believe me.’

‘You fought them off?’ the man asked. ‘On your own?’

Bardas shook his head. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘I’m a hero. And besides, most of them were just kids.’

The battle was effectively over. It had been short, one-sided and rather bloody, mostly because of the rebels’ distressing reluctance to call it a day, even when it was obvious that they’d lost. Fighting to the last drop of blood sounds all very well in theory, but it’s really only ever worth the effort when you’re winning.

Temrai’s handling of the battle had been textbook perfect, from the initial skirmisher attacks that had drawn the main rebel force out of position and into the killing zone, through the flawless enveloping manoeuvres of the main cavalry wings down to the perfectly conceived and executed pursuit and mopping-up of the enemy survivors. It was a pity, General Kurrai remarked afterwards, that such a masterly battle should be wasted on a bunch of malcontents and losers who’d never stood a chance anyway. A few volleys of arrows and a simple charge would have done the trick in a matter of minutes, and the cavalry could simply have ridden them down as they ran. Simple, efficient and there wouldn’t have been that embarrassing business at the end . . .

At the death, when the encircling horns of horse-archers and lancers had met up to complete the ring around the zone and it was all over bar the actual killing, one of the enemy ringleaders had caught sight of the pennants of Temrai’s bodyguard and committed what was left of his forces to a suicide attack against that part of the line. Needless to say, only a handful of rebels actually made it through the shield-wall as far as the edge of the guard cordon, and nearly all of them ended up spitted on the pikes and halberds of the guards. No more than four men out of a whole double company came within striking range of Temrai himself; and of those four, just the one man actually managed to land a blow on the king’s person. A thumbnail’s width to the left, and all that effort would have been entirely justified.