Memory (14 page)

‘Religion,' Aciava said patiently. ‘The sacrament of the sword. It's only the most profound concept in the whole of orthodox doctrine.' He was hesitating, Ciartan could tell; something had struck him as not quite right, but he couldn't figure out what it was. ‘You don't know about—'

‘What you said, yes. Never heard of it.' True, it was a risk; it made him seem odd, conspicuous. On the other hand, pretending he knew would be an even bigger risk, liable to betray him as a spy or impostor, which of course he was. ‘So, what's it all about, then?'

The kid's eyebrows shot up. ‘Well,' he said, ‘it's hard to explain, really. The idea is that – oh shit, I never was any good at this stuff, I'm more the practical sort myself. Faith through works, all that kind of nonsense. Anyhow, the deal is, religion – or let's call it the presence of the divine, all right? Wherever you have an instance of perfection, the divine is present. I mean, that much stands to reason, surely, because if the divine wasn't present, it couldn't be perfect, could it? Anyway, that's by the way. Religion – and now I'm talking about your formal, organised religion, the stuff that people do in order to sort of cultivate the presence of the divine within themselves – religion is trying to create instances of perfection by, well, doing things perfectly. You know; light in me the fire that makes all things fine, and all that crap.'

Ciartan assumed that that was a quotation, something so well known that even he ought to be able to recognise it.

‘Well, anyhow,' Aciava went on, ‘you know what it's like, there just aren't that many things in life that can be done perfectly; not
perfectly
, like in you simply can't imagine them being better. Most stuff in life just isn't like that. So the monks – they're the people who do religion all the time– they looked around for something that they could learn to do perfectly, and that's how they came to study swordsmanship; to be precise, the art of drawing your sword and chopping the other bloke so quick, it's all over before he can even move. It's perfection, see? You eliminate the moment between the sword being in the belt and the sword being wedged in the other poor bugger's head, and that's perfect. It's an act of the gods, quite literally; because an ordinary man could never manage to do it, he can draw a sword pretty bloody quick but there'll always be a moment in between. But the gods, the divine, they can sort of snip out that moment so it's just not there, and that's perfection. Religion, in fact. And that's what they do at Deymeson.'

Ciartan wasn't sure he quite followed. ‘They kill each other?' ‘

No, no, they practise with wooden swords, it's all perfectly civilised. They practise, and they train, and there're these old, really holy monks who've been training since before they could walk, practically, who teach you all about it. Plus you do a lot of meditating, and you've got to learn the theory, of course, and a whole lot of mysticism and stuff which apparently you've got to know or else you're wasting your time. And in the end, if you work really hard at it and you understand all the theory and you're very lucky, you get to achieve religion and get a piece of the divine actually inside you—'

‘Like a tapeworm?'

The kid scowled. ‘Yes, I know, it all sounds a bit dumb. But that's just because I'm not explaining it right – you need one of them to explain it. And the point is, if you can do the sword-drawing stuff that well without being trained at all, then it sort of stands to reason that you're halfway there already; maybe you've even got a little tiny bit of the divine in you that's been there ever since you were born. I mean, that'd practically make you a god, even though you don't seem to be aware of it.'

Ciartan thought for a moment. ‘So you're saying you think I should go to this Deymeson place and join up. It can't be as simple as that, though. I mean, presumably there's a test before they'll let you join up. And what about board and lodging, and paying for the teaching, and things like that? I haven't got any money—'

‘They have,' Aciava said. ‘They're incredibly rich. You see, people give them money, and leave them money and land and stuff when they die, so the monks will pray for their souls. And they get money from tithes and local taxes and customs and tolls and all sorts of things. They're major landowners, particularly up north – which is why some people send their sons to join, so they'll work their way up the ladder and become abbots and whatever, as an alternative to going in the army or to Court. The point being, if they want you, they'll pay for your keep and all your tuition and everything, for the rest of your life. I mean, for poor families it's a wonderful deal.'

‘I can see that,' Ciartan said. ‘So, what do you have to do to get in? Do you just have to draw a sword very quickly, or is there other stuff as well?'

The kid shook his head. ‘It's not like that,' he said. ‘When I joined, I was shown into this long, dark room, and half a dozen of the senior tutors and so on looked at me for a while, and they asked me a question or two, which didn't seem to make much sense but I'd been expecting that so it didn't bother me; then I had to show them a few draws; and then the Father Tutor, that's the senior monk in charge of training, told me I'd passed and where to go to get my clothes and stuff, and that was it, I started straight away; in classes the next day. Mind you, our family's been sending its younger sons to Deymeson for six hundred years. But what I'm trying to say is, if they think you've got what it takes, they'll take you in and train you, even if you're – well,
nobody
. It's like they say: it's not who you are or who you used to be, it's who you're going to be that's important.'

Ciartan thought about it for a moment or so. The whole thing sounded pretty bizarre to him, especially the vague bits about perfection. On the other hand he had to face facts; when his people had brought him here, obviously they'd only had a very sketchy idea about how the Empire worked. They'd imagined it was more like back home, where there was a place for everyone and everyone found his place. Instead, it had turned out to be all loose and ragged and disorganised; everyone telling everyone else what to do, nobody actually doing anything. In consequence, he'd had to think about all sorts of things that really ought to have taken care of themselves, such as food and clothes and places to sleep. What was more, providing for even such basic things as these was hardly easy or straightforward. In fact, it was absurdly hard to make a living here, unless you owned land (now there was a strange notion; it was like the ox owning the plough) or your family had taught you a trade, or there was some other pre-existing pattern you could fit into. In a way it was like being an offcomer back home, except that here everybody was an offcomer, and nobody knew where they ought to be. By comparison, the order sounded almost normal. And further, Ciartan considered, if the order was rich and powerful like the kid said, what better way to gather useful intelligence and so on than to get in with the upper crust? Put like that—

‘You really think I'd be able to get in?'

‘Of course.' Aciava smiled. He seemed pleased, as though he'd just found a big clump of mushrooms. ‘Trust me. Come along with me, and everything'll be just fine.'

Ciartan took a step back. ‘I know it's silly,' he said, ‘but every time someone says
Trust me
, I get suspicious. What's it to you whether I join this order of yours or not?'

‘What on earth do you mean?' The kid looked suddenly hurt and angry, as if Ciartan had just spat in his face. ‘I'm just trying to be helpful, that's all. And doing my bit for religion, like we're supposed to. Why? What other reason could there be?'

Offhand, Ciartan couldn't think of one; nor could he figure out why the two crows that were circling overhead were in any way relevant. But they were, because—

(Because he remembered: he'd had a dream once, when he'd been just a child, back at Haldersness. He could remember the dream, because it had had crows in it, and that meant the dream didn't just evaporate as soon as he woke up. In that dream he'd been here, exactly this place, talking to this rather annoying young man. In fact, he'd had this same dream several times and, on each occasion, as soon as the kid asked him
What other reason could there be?
he'd woken up.)

Aciava was staring at him. He didn't look happy. ‘Well?'

‘Well what?'

‘Well, have you come up with a reason why I should want you to come to Deymeson, apart from trying to help you and help the order? I think you'd better think of one, because otherwise I'm going to have to take that as an insult.'

(Every time, Ciartan remembered, except once; and on that occasion, the dream had been slightly different, because part of the way through – at this exact point, in fact – everything had changed suddenly. Both he and the kid were somehow much older, and the kid wasn't asking him to come to Deymeson. He was asking him to join up with some other venture, which apparently involved people they both knew, old classmates, something like that. For some reason, he'd told the kid no, and things had started going wrong after that; cracks in the clay, lies, mistaken identities, (Clay? What clay?) deception and murder and coincidences and just plain rotten luck. And for some reason, it had been very important – he'd made a point of telling himself he had to remember this when he woke up– that the pattern that recreates the lost shape (where the tallow is burnt out in the middle) is in fact an empty hole, a gap waiting to be filled, like a blank memory.)

Deep breath. ‘I'm sorry,' Ciartan said, and Aciava relaxed – it occurred to Ciartan that if he hadn't apologised the kid would've felt obliged to fight him or something like that, and the thought of fighting him was scaring the kid half to death. ‘I didn't mean to insult you,' Ciartan went on. ‘It was just me thinking aloud. I guess I'm not used to people being nice for no reason.'

‘Well,' the kid replied, ‘I guess that's fair enough. Only, it's not for no reason. Religion's a reason, and after all, I'm training to be a monk, hopefully an ordained priest further along the line. Got to start somewhere, you know. And it'll do me no harm at all with Father Tutor if I bring along a good new recruit for the start of the new term.'

Was that just a little bit glib, a tad too reasonable? No, Ciartan decided, it could have been, but this time it wasn't. ‘That's all right, then,' he said. ‘I guess that makes it mutual benefit.'

‘Exactly.' Aciava smiled. ‘The only way to receive is to give,' he added portentously, ‘and that's a genuine five-quarter precept of religion.'

A what?
Ciartan wanted to ask; but instead he woke up, because some bastard was prodding him in the shoulder with a stick.

‘Piss off,' Poldarn muttered.

‘I said, wake up,' Banspati replied. ‘Bloody hell, you're harder to wake up than a dead tree.'

Poldarn opened his eyes. ‘What do you want?' he grumbled.

‘You missed the meeting.'

‘What meeting?'

‘The one you missed. It was important. We had a vote and everything.'

Poldarn remembered.
That
meeting. To decide whether, in view of the fact that they'd spent the last four weeks trying to cast the Falcata guild bell and every time the mould had failed, they should close the works down or keep trying. And he'd missed it. Buggery.

‘Oh, right,' he said, sitting up. ‘So, what was the result?'

Banspati sighed. ‘Bloody disaster,' he said mournfully. ‘You know, there's times when I wonder why the hell I bother. I mean, it's an uphill struggle every bloody step of the way, and at my time of life I just don't need this kind of—'

‘The vote,' Poldarn interrupted. ‘Yes or no?'

Banspati pulled a face. ‘Yes and no,' he said. ‘What they all reckoned was – and since when does voting for something make it true even if it isn't? Supposed to be
craftsmen
, but I didn't see any bloody sign of it. Anyhow, what they reckon is, the only way we're going to get this fucking bell made is if we let the core dry out thoroughly – I mean, really dry out, like three weeks before we even put on the tallow. What difference that's supposed to make I really don't know, but hey, I'm just the bloody foreman.'

‘Three weeks,' Poldarn repeated.

‘That's right. We make a core, leave it three weeks, then we carry on. In the meantime, I'm afraid I'm having to lay the lot of you off. Don't want to, can't afford not to. We've got this fucking penalty clause hanging over us, and there just isn't the money for wages until we know how much we're going to be made to pay.'

Poldarn scowled at him. ‘Wonderful,' he said. ‘And what're we supposed to live on in the meantime?'

Banspati shrugged. ‘That's your business,' he said. ‘If I was you, I'd start looking round for a job somewhere, just to tide you over. After all, you've got to eat, and we can't pay you.'

Poldarn stood up. ‘What do you mean, get a job? A job doing what? This isn't the city, you know, I can't just go to the hiring fair or stand about outside the corn exchange till somebody hires me. We're in the middle of nowhere—'

‘Well, the others are in the same boat too,' Banspati replied. ‘It's not just you, you know. And don't pull faces at me like it's all my fault. I didn't vote for this bloody stupid idea, so you can't go blaming me.'

Poldarn never did find out for certain whose idea it had been or whose fault it was. Nobody at all seemed happy about it, even though the vote in support of the motion had apparently been unanimous (though everybody he asked said they'd voted against, which was odd). More important, nobody seemed to have given any thought as to how they were going to earn a living while the works were shut down.