The Belly of the Bow (13 page)

To divert his thoughts from such depressing topics he undid the straps on his pack and peeled open the linen parcel that contained his three days’ rations. He couldn’t help smiling; Alescia had put in a thick wedge of his favourite cheese, some peppered sausage (rock-hard and bright red, the way he liked it), a block of mature rye bread, six onions, a leg of cold chicken - he looked up and saw that the men were watching him. He folded the parcel up again and strapped up the pack.

He wanted to say something -
So what’ve you got in yours?
- but of course he couldn’t. A Master of the Foundation, twelfth-generation Poor, with a doctorate in metaphysics and a master’s degree in philology, doesn’t ask his troops what their wives have put in their lunch-boxes. Obviously not. For some reason. He smiled vaguely, and the men looked away.
Strange
, he reflected.
We’re off to fight together, possibly die in each others’ company, and yet we seem to have so little in common
. On reflection, that wasn’t so strange. What
do
ordinary people talk about? Not about textual variants in the early manuscripts of Mazia’s
Epiphany
, or the fallacy of moral duality, or modern developments in the art of counter-sapping during long-term sieges, or aspects of the problems of extended lines of supply during protracted foreign campaigns, or Dio Kezma’s early instrumental music, or the likelihood of a fall in interest rates among the federated banks of the Island, or who was likely to succeed Master Biehan as Chief Executive of the Department of Public Health and Waterways. And if you discounted that sort of thing, what
was
there to talk about? The weather?

A heavy wave shoved against the barge like a rude man in a hurry, and Juifrez grabbed at his helmet just in time to stop it toppling off his head into the sea.
Organised sport
, he remembered,
and shared experiences in the workplace, known as ‘shop’
. But he knew nothing about organised sport, except that in theory it was forbidden, and he had an idea that enlisted men weren’t likely to want to talk shop with their commanding officer. As for the weather -
There’s a light drizzle. Yes, isn’t there?
He frowned and picked at a loose end of binding-cord on the handle of his halberd. It was a pity; because he was there, the men seemed to feel that they couldn’t talk among themselves - presumably because what they wanted to say was how crazy the mission was and what little confidence they had in the judgement of their commander. Absolutely no way of knowing. The nearest he’d ever been to their situation was when he’d been a very young freshman, and he and six or so of his classmates had found themselves sharing a ferryboat with their class tutor. Of course they’d all sat there in stony silence, all the way from Shastel Pier to Scona Point, but that was because they were all terrified of dour, humourless, miserable old Doctor Nihal . . . Juifrez frowned, not liking the implications.
Me dour, humourless, miserable? Maybe Doctor Nihal wasn’t any of those things either, and we all assumed he was just because he was Them. Am I Them? When did that happen, I wonder?

Not long after that, the condition of the sea and the bad manners of the wind and waves helped clear his mind of all thoughts except,
I hate going on boats
, and just when the steady drizzle was leading him to the conclusion that four coats of wool grease on a military cape aren’t quite enough to make it waterproof, the pilot sang out, ‘Roha Point!’ and he snapped out of his personal thoughts and became an officer again.

First, he looked behind, but the drizzle and the sea-fret were so thick that he couldn’t see the other two barges. That didn’t mean anything. Visibility was down to twenty yards, if that. He narrowed his eyes, trying to blink away the raindrops, and peered ahead, but there was nothing to see.
How in hell’s name does he know we’re at Roha Point? We could be anywhere
. Master Juifrez reflected that one of the things he knew least about in the whole wide world was boat-handling. There were bound to be ways of knowing where you are in the middle of a thick fog, or else how did anyone ever get anywhere?

He heard the splash of the anchor and stood up, at first swaying helplessly until his hand connected with the rail. Tradition and honour demanded that he should be the first to jump off the boat into the cold water of unknown depth that separated him from the beach. He scrambled awkwardly over the bench, sat astride the rail, swung his other leg over, dropped off the side of the barge and ended up sitting in nine inches of water.
Marvellous
, he muttered to himself as he hoisted himself back to his feet using the shaft of his halberd,
leadership by example
. Behind him, the men were disembarking in a rather more orderly, scientific manner (
because they’re trained to do this and I’m not; after all, I’m just the damn commanding officer
). He raised his left arm and waved the men on, giving the sign to fall in. Behind his boatload, he could see two other similar bodies of men, blurred dark shapes forming a vague platoon-shaped mass. All present and correct, then; time to go.

Up the hill, the scouts had told him, back in the relative warmth and comfort of the Fifth Company’s barracks in Shastel; up the hill, follow the track until you come to a cluster of derelict buildings; that’s the abandoned tin mine, the Weal Erec. From there, you want to march for about an hour due north, that’s carrying on uphill, until you find yourself just under the hog’s back; then you turn east and follow the line of the crest until you come to a sudden deep combe, a fold in the ground. The village is down there, in the dip.

Simple enough directions, easy to remember. Master Juifrez led the way, his boots squelching abominably, the rain trickling down the gutter formed by the rolled-over seam between the fluted plates of his helmet and straight down the back of his neck. Did it always rain here? The ground was sodden, and great clumps of mud stuck to his feet, making them impossibly heavy to lift. The further uphill he went, the thicker the low cloud seemed to get, so that by the time he stumbled and tripped over a block of fallen masonry from the wheelhouse of the abandoned mine, he had convinced himself they’d come the wrong way and was on the point of giving the order to turn back.

We’re where we’re supposed to be; fancy that
. He called a halt, and watched the men fall out and perch on the broken-down walls of the mine buildings, bedraggled and gloomy-looking as a flock of rooks roosting in the bare branches of winter trees on a rainy day. Some of them were emptying water out of their boots, others were wringing out hoods and capes, while the majority just sat with the absolute stillness unique to exhausted, demoralised men. He reflected for a moment on how heavy rain makes cloth, and wondered whether there was any realistic chance of getting these sad, sorry people to exhibit any degree of aggression whatsoever, as and when they finally came upon the enemy.
If they’ve got any sense, they’ll invite us inside for a hot drink and a seat by the fire; they’d be safe as houses if they did that
.

He could feel the urge to snuggle down inside his cape and go to sleep becoming steadily more insistent; time to start moving again, or he’d never get them to budge. He stood up, waved them on, and they formed up in line of march like so many sleepwalkers, without so much as a grumble. Looking at them, the expression ‘raiding-party’ seemed so incongruous as to be absurd. Raiders pounce and swoop; they don’t squelch, or trudge along with their heads down like a work detail on their way to the peat diggings. Maybe he ought to address the men, say a few inspiring words that’d stir up their military ardour. He remembered reading something to that effect, but decided against it. In all the years of their history the armies of the Foundation had never once mutinied, but there’s always a first time.

From the Weal Erec, march due north for an hour until you find yourself just underneath the hog’s back. Master Juifrez looked round for a landmark. Stupid: he couldn’t remember which direction they’d come from. He did know that due north was uphill, but there was an awful lot of uphill in front of him; which way were they supposed to go now? Absolutely no chance of fixing due north by the position of the sun (what sun?). Utterly ridiculous, the idea that a hundred and fifty grown men, supposedly professional soldiers, could lose their way on an open hillside, just because it was raining and there was a touch of low cloud. He concentrated, trying to visualise the ruined site as he’d first seen it.

Well now, if we keep going uphill, sooner or later we’ll find the hog’s back, and then we just turn right. As simple as that. You couldn’t get lost if you really tried
. He signalled the advance, and felt his stiff legs protesting as he trudged and slithered through the unspeakable mud. Not for the first time, it struck him as ludicrous that anybody should be willing to die for the right to own this loathsome place. So far he’d seen no cultivation, no cattle or sheep, nothing to indicate that this sloppy, squelchy mess was of any interest to anybody - quite understandably. You couldn’t plough this mud or plant anything, it’d simply rot in the ground. Livestock wouldn’t last a season before footrot and starvation decimated them. Nothing but waste and an abandoned, flogged-out mine. You’d have to be mad.

They came up onto the hog’s back almost without knowing it. One moment they were dragging themselves up a steadily increasing gradient, having to use halberd-shafts to pole themselves up the hill; the next, the ground seemed to fall away under their feet, and Juifrez found himself staggering, waving his arms to try and keep his balance. He signalled a halt, wiped the rain out of his eyes yet again, and tried to make sense of the landscape.

They were on the top of the ridge all right, but directly to the west he could see the hillside tumbling down in just such a combe as the scouts had described - which was bewildering, since the combe where the village lay should be to the east, and about three miles further along. Either this was a different combe entirely, or else they’d taken a diagonal course up the hill, overshot the combe and come up on the other side. The combe itself, of course, was full of cloud, which billowed up onto the sides of the crest like the head on a mug of beer. Ridiculous; but here he was, and he had to do something. He could send scouts to see if the village really was down there, but somehow he didn’t feel that was wise. The thought of any of his bedraggled, unhappy-looking force being able to descend that steep slope quietly enough to avoid detection was, he felt, fairly remote. Nothing for it but to order the advance, lead his men down the hill and hope he’d got the right combe. Ridiculous. Ah, hell . . .

He raised his halberd and pointed down into the mist. The question wasn’t so much whether they’d be able to get down the slope quickly enough to be onto the enemy before they had a chance to get ready. It was more a matter of whether, in all this filthy, slippery mud, they’d be able to stop at all. A vision of a hundred and fifty heavy infantrymen tobogganing into battle on their backsides, frantically trying to steer with the butt-ends of their halberds, flitted through his mind and made him cringe.
Austerity and Diligence
, he muttered to himself,
victory or death. Does it count as a victory if the enemy can’t fight back because they’re laughing so much?

With severe misgivings and a general sense of being in the wrong place, he led the way. Their best, or only, chance lay in zigzagging their way back and forth across the slope, slowly working their way down until he felt the risk of detection was too great; then he’d have no alternative but to charge down the rest of the slope and trust to luck that there really was a village in the bottom of the valley. Wouldn’t the scouts have mentioned it if there were two basically identical combes right next to each other? Maybe they had, and he hadn’t been listening. And assuming, just for fun, that there really is a village down there, what are we supposed to do about it, exactly? Burn it to the ground? In this rain?

Maybe they’re already waiting for us; bows strung, arrows nocked, just waiting for the command, ‘Loose!’ Maybe we’re all about to die, any minute, here in the rain and the mud. No way of knowing, of course. I hope I don’t die today
.

It took a very long time to work their way down the side of the combe, maybe more in subjective than objective time, but it’s the time you feel that matters. No signs of any life whatsoever, which was reasonable enough. Either this was the wrong combe and there wasn’t a village down here at all, or else it was the right combe and everyone was safe and warm indoors, where any sensible person would be on a day like this. Only idiots and raiding parties go slobbering about in the rain and the mud. Idiots, raiding parties and people who are hopelessly lost . . .

Juifrez stopped dead, digging his heels in to keep himself upright. Below, through a curling wisp of cloud, he could see a thatched roof, no more than hundred yards away.
Damn it
, he thought, holding up his arm for the halt. He stood for a moment, trying to see or hear something, anything at all apart from the patter of rain on his helmet, like the drumming of a bored child’s fingers on a desktop. Around him he could see the fuzzy outlines of his men, blurred by rain and mist, standing the way he’d seen herds of wild ponies, still and aimless in the rain, just standing and dripping.
Here goes nothing
, he muttered under his breath, and gave the signal for rapid advance.

The next moment he had more than enough to occupy his mind. Rapid advance was one way of describing it. The general philosophy behind it all seemed to be that if you ran fast enough you had a chance of keeping from falling over, as if instability was a pursuer hot on your heels. The three platoons of the Fifth Company (
Austerity and Diligence
) scampered down the hill like reckless, over-excited children, skipping and bouncing, sliding and careering, and all amid a dead, eerie silence that was quite unnerving. The danger they were in was very real indeed; if a man stopped suddenly (assuming such a thing was possible) it was virtually certain that someone’d go charging into the back of him and spit him clean through with the spike of his halberd. Being aware of this, everyone was trying to run faster still, so that the whole unit was accelerating, racing ahead like falling rocks bouncing down a mountainside, a hundred and fifty men all terrified of each other, running away from their own men directly towards the enemy. By the time the ground under their feet started to level out and the first houses loomed up at them out of the mist they were covering the ground at speeds most athletes would never aspire to, skimming over the mud like flat stones spun over still water.
Ludicrous
, Juifrez told himself,
ludicrous
. . .