The Proof House (73 page)

‘Sure. You’re an engineer, after all.’

Bardas shrugged. ‘I suppose I am,’ he said.

‘No suppose about it,’ replied the courier firmly. ‘My dad, he was an engineer. Fifteen years on roads and bridges, then he got his transfer to the artillery, worked his way up to bombardier-sergeant; not a sapper like you, of course, though one of my uncles . . .’

‘Is that the sea over there?’

‘That’s right,’ the courier said. ‘Just over the hills there, about two miles. We follow the coast right down as far as Ap’ Molian, then we head inland for a couple of days to Rhyzalia, and that’s as far as I go. I expect you’ll be catching the Torrene coach - one of the couriers on that’s my brother-in-law, so ask him if he happens to know a bloke called—’

He didn’t get as far as the name; he stopped, sat bolt upright and fell off the box.
Not again
, Bardas thought and grabbed for the reins, but they were still wrapped round the courier’s wrists. He was dragged along by them as the coach gradually slowed down. Somewhere on the rack behind him was a crossbow, service issue for post guards, but it wasn’t where it was meant to be. His scimitar was with the rest of the luggage, somewhere in the back. No point trying to fight, then; which left him with one option, retreat. He shuffled along the box seat and reached out for the reins, overbalanced and fell. The last thing he was aware of was the front offside wheel, rushing toward him -

‘Anax?’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Bardas replied. ‘You’re leaving, then.’

‘Who’s dead? You mean Iseutz, my niece?’

There was no way of knowing where this place was; it was dark, without noises or smells. ‘I seem to remember you telling me about her,’ he said. ‘And I met her and her brother a few times. They were friends of Athli Zeuxis.’ He was about to say something else, but didn’t.

‘Well, then.’ Bardas decided to ask after all. ‘Do you happen to know - what did become of Athli, in the end?’

In the end, I’m not sure. She had some part to play in the last defence of Shastel, but whether she escaped or not I never found out. There’s a passing reference to her in one of the discussions of the Colleon war, but it’s inconclusive; it could be either the First Colleon War, which was before the fall of Shastel
—

‘So it wasn’t her,’ Bardas said, ‘above the gateway?’

‘Not someone I’ve heard of,’ Bardas replied. ‘Thank you. I feel a bit better for knowing Athli got away.’

 

Bardas opened his eyes.

‘Thank the gods for that,’ Gorgas said. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’

Gorgas was kneeling over him, a bowl in one hand, a piece of wet rag in the other. The rag had been torn off his shirt; Bardas could see where he’d ripped it from the sleeve.

‘It’s all right,’ Gorgas went on. ‘You took one hell of a nasty bump on the head, but the swelling’s gone down and I don’t think it’s bleeding inside. Bardas? You do know who I am, don’t you?’

‘I think so,’ Bardas replied. ‘You’re my brother Gorgas, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

Bardas tried to nod, but that turned out to be a very bad idea. ‘We built the tree-house together,’ he said. ‘In the big apple tree, before it blew down. There was a squirrel that used to walk right past the window.’

‘That’s it, you’ve got it,’ Gorgas said. ‘Now lie still, take it easy. Everything’s under control.’

‘Where’s Dad?’

Gorgas looked at him, then smiled. He had a big, warm smile. ‘He’s around somewhere,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, things are going to be just fine.’

Bardas tried to smile back, but his head hurt. ‘You’re not going anywhere, are you?’ he asked.

‘Of course not. I’ll be here. You take it easy.’

He closed his eyes again; and when he opened them, he remembered.

‘Gorgas?’ He tried to get up, but there wasn’t enough strength in his body. He was lying on the deck of a small ship, his head on a folded-up sail, under a heap of coats and blankets. The sun was bright, sharp, almost cruel; but there was a pleasantly cool breeze.

‘Bardas?’ The voice came from some way away, up the other end of the ship. ‘Hang on, I’ll be right there.’ Bardas couldn’t move, but he could place Gorgas exactly by the sound of his feet on the deck, the vibrations running through the planking; it was a skill he’d acquired in the galleries under Ap’ Escatoy.

‘You got bashed on the head, remember?’ Gorgas was saying (but Bardas couldn’t see him; he was above and behind, so that his shadow fell across Bardas’ face). ‘You fell off the post coach. Dammit, I should have guessed something like that might happen. It’s my own damn stupid fault. You could have been killed.’

Bardas took a deep breath, let it go. His mouth was dry, like hard leather. ‘You shot the coachman,’ he said.

‘Seventy yards, if it was a step. That bow you made for me, Bardas, it’s a honey. But I should have been more careful.’

Bardas frowned. ‘Why?’ he said.

‘Why what?’

‘Why did you kill the coachman?’

‘I had to stop the coach, idiot.’ Bardas could picture the smile; the big, warm smile. ‘Too open for a road-block, and the post doesn’t stop for stray fares. Would you like something to drink now?’

‘No. Yes,’ Bardas amended, because at that moment a drink was what he wanted most in the whole world.

‘Coming right up,’ Gorgas said. ‘You’ve no idea the fun and games I’ve had since then; you were out cold, I was convinced I’d killed you, I was wetting myself. So I got all that trash off the coach, got you back on, set off cross-country for where I’d left the ship; and then a bloody wheel came off—’

Bardas frowned. He seemed to remember a conversation he’d been having a few moments earlier; the whole point was, it wasn’t a wheel, it was a camshaft. But that didn’t make sense.

‘So after I dumped the coach,’ Gorgas was saying, ‘I had to carry you the last two miles - brother, you’ve put on weight since I used to carry you round the yard, though granted, you were only three then. And of course I was petrified about jogging you about, damaging something - head injuries are really sensitive things, you know, you can do all sorts of damage to someone’s head if you’re not careful. Dear gods; I’ll tell you, it was only when I got us both back on this ship that I even remembered to worry about anybody chasing after us. But there doesn’t seem to be anybody, luckily. And so,’ he added cheerfully, ‘here we are, on our way. You know, this is like old times.’

‘Why did you stop the coach?’ Bardas asked.

‘Oh, for . . . To rescue you, of course. You don’t think I was going to stand by and let them court-martial my brother, do you? You may have faith in Imperial justice, but I don’t.’

(Three heads over a gateway; it was a valid point.) ‘They weren’t going to court-martial me,’ Bardas said. ‘They’re sending me to a new posting. Hommyra,’ he remembered.

Gorgas laughed. ‘There’s no such place, you clown. Come on, you know the Empire by now; for every failure, one responsible officer. Hey, it’s just as well you’ve got your big brother to look out for you, you’re not fit to be out on your own.’

‘But the coachman, he’d heard of it. I think.’

‘Sure,’ Gorgas said. ‘Look, who’d you rather believe, the Empire or your own flesh and blood? No, here we are again. Only this time, it’s going to be different. Promise.’

Bardas’ head hurt. ‘We’re going home? The Mesoge?’

‘You mean you haven’t—?’ Gorgas’ voice became very soft. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you,’ he said. ‘It’s gone.’

‘Gone? It can’t have
gone.
’

‘Sorry, bad choice of words. All right, no beating about the bush. The farm’s been destroyed, Bardas. They did it, the provincial office.’

‘What are you talking about, Gorgas?’

Gorgas was quiet for a moment. ‘They sent a company of archers,’ he said. ‘In the middle of the night, needless to say. Surrounded the place, barred the doors from the outside, set light to the thatch. I woke up coughing my lungs out, ran to the window, nearly got shot. It was like hell, Bardas; there was smoke everywhere, you couldn’t see a thing; burning thatch coming down in great bunches, timbers, the lot. I tried to get them out, I really tried; but Clefas was dead, the smoke got him while he was sleeping; Zonaras was trapped under about half the roof, he was caught there screaming and burning and I couldn’t do anything—Look,’ he said, and moved round, so that Bardas could see his face. For an instant, he thought it was someone else. ‘I was still trying when he died,’ he said. ‘He kept yelling,
Gorgas, help me
, right up to the end.’

Bardas didn’t say anything.

‘Iseutz had already left - but you know that anyway. So it was just me and Niessa,’ Gorgas eventually continued. ‘Just her and me; we managed to jump out the top loft window on to the roof of the duck shed - she’d had the wit to grab the bow and some arrows, and there was light enough, gods know; we managed to crawl into the duck shed and I kept them off till I ran out of arrows - you saved our lives, boy, making me this bow, I’m telling you. Anyway, just when I thought we’d had it, I saw a gap we could get through and we ran for it. I didn’t stop till I was out in Clyras’ meadow - you know, the sunken cart-road; you’d never know it was there now, the hedge had grown up all round it. Then I realised Niessa wasn’t with me, so I went back. She was dead. They were cutting her head off with Dad’s old felling-axe.’

Gorgas was quiet for a long time.

‘Well,’ he resumed at last, ‘there wasn’t any point, was there? Maybe killing a few of them and getting killed myself, what would that have achieved? You’ve got to be practical. I snuck back down the sunken road, hid up for the day, walked into Tornoys that night and found this boat. It’s Lyras Monedin’s old lobster-boat; you remember Lyras, miserable old bugger who used to throw stones at us when we were kids.’

Bardas opened his eyes. ‘Is he still alive? He must be over a hundred.’

‘Still going strong, apparently,’ Gorgas said, ‘though Buciras and Onnyas take the boat out now. Well, before I stole it, anyway. So that’s that,’ he went on. ‘Everything we ever had, everything we worked for, you and me, all gone up in smoke, literally. It’s just you and me now, Bardas. We’re the only ones left.’

‘I see.’ Bardas closed his eyes again. ‘So where are we going?’

‘Ah.’ Gorgas’ voice was smiling again. ‘That’s what I meant when I told you it was all going to be all right. You remember Fleuras Peredin?’

‘What?’

‘Fleuras Peredin,’ Gorgas repeated. ‘Used to go fishing for cod and those long wriggly buggers with the big flat heads, out beyond the sand-banks.’

‘Yes, I remember. What’s he got to do with anything?’

‘Ah.’ Gorgas chuckled. ‘Well, I remembered something he told me once, about how he’d been caught in a squall and blown right out to sea; and he told me about this island he’d wound up on, a long way out. Of course I thought he was making it up, he always was a liar; and then I heard someone in the Hopes and Fears telling pretty much the same tale about a year ago, which set me thinking. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, there really is an island there; I’ve been there, and I know how to find it. It’s nothing special, I’ll grant you; lots of rocks and trees and not much else. But there’s fresh water, and a flat spot right in the middle that looks as good a bit of dirt as I’ve ever seen anywhere; spit out an apple pip and a year later you’ll have a tree. There’s goats living up in the rocks, and plenty of birds; you couldn’t go hungry there if you tried. There’s timber for building, any god’s amount of it; and to cap it all, do you know what I found, up one of the mountains? Iron ore; dirty great lumps of it, just lying on the surface. I promise you, Bardas; my strength, all your skills, there’s nothing we can’t have there if we want it. Just you and me, together. It’d be like old times. What d’you reckon?’

Bardas thought for a moment. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said.

Gorgas frowned a little. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re actually suggesting we could live together, build a farm, as if none of what you did ever happened. You want to go back to when we were kids, before—’

Gorgas’ face seemed to be falling apart; the cracked, angry, melted skin and the look of horror. ‘For gods’ sakes, Bardas,’ he said. ‘What
I
did? I love you, Bardas, more than anybody in the whole world, but you simply can’t just lie there and talk about what
I
did. One bad thing - oh, a very, very bad thing, no possible doubt about that; and ever since, every waking moment of my life, I’ve been trying to make up for it - to Niessa, to Clefas and Zonaras, to you. Every single thing I’ve done since, I’ve done for the three of you. And yes, I’ve done some bad things in that time, terrible things, but good and bad simply don’t come into it when it’s done for us, for family. But you - all the things
you’ve
done, all those people you killed - with Uncle Maxen, in the courts, during the siege, on Scona, Ap’ Escatoy, the war here; who did you kill them
for
, Bardas? For whoever was paying you? Go on, answer me, I want to know.’