The Two of Swords: Part 12 (4 page)

“What? Yes, of course I do.”

“Fine. Listen, I’ve put two loaves and a skin of water in a bag. I reckon, if you’re smart, you’ll hike down the south road till you come to the river, then look out for one of the big charcoal barges. They’ll give you a lift as far as you like for twenty stuivers, and you don’t leave footprints floating down a river. If you’re serious about wanting to get to the coast, you ought to be able to find barges that’ll take you the whole way, and you won’t have to set foot on land once, just hop from one boat to another. If anything’ll make you hard to find, that will. Boats move on, see, by the time your man’s figured out you’re on such and such a boat, it’ll be twenty miles downstream, he’ll be chasing about all over the shop.” He frowned. “Look, I can’t give you any money, I haven’t got any to spare right now. If you hadn’t been quite so—”

“That’s all right,” Musen said. “Money isn’t a problem.”

Glabria sighed, and gazed at him. “Never thought I’d meet anybody who could say that with a straight face,” he said. “And when I do, he’s one step ahead of the Devil. Nothing’s ever perfect, is it?”

Musen didn’t watch the cart leave, though he heard its wheels on the stones of the yard. He took a while rubbing sheep’s-wool grease into his boots; it was all he could do by way of preparing for the journey, so he did it as well as he possibly could. He had the Blemyan knife, the decent coat he’d bought at the fair, the cloth bag with the bread and water and a hundred and fifteen stuivers in small change. He felt like he was wearing armour, safe and strong.

Glabria let him out of the side gate, with directions for finding the south road. “Good luck,” the blacksmith hissed, then shut the gate firmly behind him, and then bolts shot home, top and bottom; it was a pleasure meeting you, and please, please don’t come back. Well; he could see Glabria’s point. He hoped the smith had been human enough to steal something from the cart, to make it worth his while.

It was a good time of day to be starting out. There were a few people about, but not too many. Musen guessed they’d finished their business early at the fair and were starting home. He walked for a while behind two men, close enough to eavesdrop on what they were saying – actually, it was one man talking and the other presumably listening; the duties of a newly hired brickmaker, followed by a long list of offences that would earn instant dismissal. Musen quickened up and overtook them as soon as he could. A bit further on, he came up behind an old man, an old woman and a girl; similar situation, except that the woman was telling the girl what she’d do to her if she caught her fooling around with the man, who didn’t utter a word all the time Musen was trailing them. It was just as well Musen had long legs and could outpace people without having to run.

At noon he passed an inn – door open, windows not boarded up, four men sitting outside sharing a jug of something. But the men were old, and there were no horses tied to the rail. Apart from Glabria, he hadn’t seen a man under fifty for a long time.

He guessed most of his fellow travellers must’ve stopped at the inn, because from then on until sunset he had the road to himself. He managed not to let that bother him. The fields on either side of the road were flat stubbles, with broad headlands and only the occasional maiden willow, so he could see a long way and be sure he wasn’t being followed. He realised he was walking fast, setting a pace that hurt his calves and ankles. He tried to slow down, but it didn’t feel right. Glabria had told him he wouldn’t reach the river before nightfall, but maybe he could; there would be barges tied up for the night, and he’d have a far better chance of finding one that would take him. Plenty of time to rest and take it easy once he was safely on board, floating down the middle of a wide river.

He reached the river quite some time after the sun had set, walking toward lights which he assumed to be the boatmen’s campfires. In fact they turned out to be lamps, hung on the side rails of the barges, which loomed like a street of houses out of the shadows. He walked a short distance down the towpath listening for voices, and found himself face to face with a girl, in a big coarse blue coat, carrying a bucket of water. She stared at him, then called out, “Nula, come here. Right now.”

He took a step back, out of the lamplight, so the girl couldn’t see his face. He heard boot heels on a wooden deck, then a thump as someone jumped from the boat on to the path. A lantern glared at him, and a girl’s voice said, “Dear God, it’s a—”

“Shut up, Maza,” said a third girl’s voice behind him. “Here, you. What are you snooping round for?”

He turned, into the light of another lantern. Behind it he caught a flash of golden hair, under a dark hood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wondering—”

“Maza, Frez, on the boat, now.” The lantern lifted up; the girl behind it was inspecting him. “On the
boat
, I said.”

“Nula—”

“
Now
.” He heard unhappy noises behind him, but didn’t turn. “Now listen, you,” the girl went on. “You’re very tall and pretty but I’m afraid we can’t have you, we don’t know where you’ve been. Obviously you’re a deserter—”

“You don’t know that,” said a voice behind him. “Nula, it’s been
years
.”

“And you know as well as I do what happens to people who harbour deserters,” the girl in front of him went on, “we could lose this boat and frankly, I don’t care, you’re not worth it. Now please go away before I start screaming.”

Musen started to back away, then remembered he was hemmed in. “I just want a lift to the coast,” he said. “I’m not a deserter, I got my discharge. I won’t be any bother.”

“I see. Got your papers?”

“No, but—”

“Fine. I’m going to count to five. One.”

Musen took a long step back, collided with something, sidestepped, turned and ran. Behind him he heard a piercing voice – “Nula, how
could
you?” – and decided he hadn’t run far enough. He didn’t stop till he’d reached the end of the line of barges; then he dropped to his knees and crouched for a moment, until the lanterns left the towpath and went back on the barge.

“Hey, you down there.” A man’s voice. “Yes, you. I’m talking to you.”

Musen stood up. “Excuse me—”

“Quiet. Let me look at you.” Another artificial yellow sunrise blazed in his face. “What was all that racket about back there?”

Musen took a deep breath. “I’m looking for someone who’ll give me a lift downstream,” he said. “I asked some women, but I think I must’ve scared them or upset them or something, so I—”

“Ran away. Very wise. Wish I’d had the sense when I was your age. Still.” The lantern lifted, and he saw an old man, big head, bald, stubby white beard. “Trouble is, no matter how hard you run, they catch you in the end. This is my wife, Altea. I’m Cusen. Come aboard.”

The lantern swayed, and he saw an old woman, with long white hair tied back in a ponytail, and a ladder. “Don’t just stand there,” the woman said. “Come on, we won’t eat you. And don’t listen to him,” she added, “he’s an idiot. Where did you say you were headed?”

The barge must’ve been a grand affair once; it had a cabin, with three bunks and a table. The old man put the lantern down, sat on the edge of the bunk and said, “Now then, let’s have a look at you.”

“I’m not a deserter,” Musen said. “I just want to go south.”

“Course you do,” the woman said. “What’s in the bag?”

“Bread.”

“Good, we’re hungry. Got any money?”

“Give the boy a chance,” the man said. “Let him sit down, take the weight off.”

“Thirty stuivers,” the woman said. “Just passage, no board.”

“That’s fine,” Musen said. He dug his hand in his pocket and showed them the money. “And I can help out, if you want me to.”

The old man shook his head. “No need,” he said. “It’s no sweat working a barge, if it was, we couldn’t do it.” He got up, took the coins, gave them to the old woman, who put them in her mouth. “If you wouldn’t mind sharing,” he went on, nodding at the bag. “What with one thing and another, we ran out of food. Make it up to you at the lock.”

“That’s fine,” Musen said, and took a loaf from his bag. The old woman hopped up, pounced on it like a cat and took it to the table. “You don’t want to pay any mind to those stupid girls,” she said, tearing into the loaf with her fingers. “They’d have eaten you alive, and that’s a fact.”

“Truth is,” the old man said, “nobody gives a shit who you are on the river. That Nula, she didn’t want the other two scratching each other to death, that’s all. Got some sense, that one, more than the other two, though that’s not saying a great deal. You stick with us, son, we’ll take you where you want to go.”

Cusen hadn’t always been a waterman, oh no; his father had been one of the original Ocnisant gang – that was Piemo Ocnisant, the old man, not young Siama who was running things now. This was back before the war, mind – well, this war, anyhow, there’s always a war, isn’t there, but people don’t notice unless it’s right under their noses. No, they were high old times growing up with Piemo’s bunch, good money to be made and never in the same place twice, except when the gang blew into town with money in their pockets. But his father made him promise; son, this is no life for an old man, put a bit by when you can, get yourself a stake and go into some other line of business. Poor old devil didn’t take his own advice, mind, he loved the life too much, moving about, always the chance of the big score; caught a fever and died when he was forty-seven. But the Ocnisants look after their own, famous for it, and a lad who was willing to work was fine by them. But then Cusen had got married, kid on the way, and there was a big score – start of this war, matter of fact, hell of a big battle and they all reckoned it’d be over by midsummer. So he sold out his share – God only knows what it’d be worth now, of course, didn’t bear thinking about – and sold off the various bits and pieces he’d put by, and bought this bloody old boat. Not that it was a bad life, the three of them working together, that was before the boy got called up, of course. Different now, just the two of them slogging away, and not getting any younger. Made you think, really; what’s going to happen when all the old folk get too old, and then there’ll be nobody at all left to do the work, and God only knew what’d happen then. It’d be just girls, like that mad Nula and her sisters, and a few cripples with only one arm.

He woke up because he couldn’t breathe. Axeo was standing over him. He smiled, lifted his heel and stamped on Musen’s ribs.

“Hello,” he said. “You bloody idiot.”

The lamps were still lit, and Musen could see the old man and his wife, sitting on a bunk, watching. The Blemyan knife was on the deck beside him. He moved his hand, and Axeo stamped on that, too; then he shuffled it away with the side of his foot and kicked it across the cabin.

“That’s him, then?” Musen heard the old woman say.

“Oh, yes,” Axeo replied. “That’s my boy.”

Musen tried to breathe, but the weight on his chest – there was nothing there – was too great for his muscles to lift. He managed about a cupful of air, and choked.

“You’re not going to kill him here, are you?”

“I promised, didn’t I?” Axeo reached down, caught hold of Musen’s wrist and hauled him up; doubled the hand behind his back and applied pressure. Musen’s own weight was on the joint, pulling it apart, but Axeo’s grip was the only thing holding him up. “Thanks ever so much. We’ll be going now.”

“We know our duty,” the old man said. “I’m an old soldier, me.”

Axeo wheeled him round, like a heavy barrel or a crate, then lifted him by the agonising elbow joint and kicked his heels forward to get him walking. “Course you are,” he said, and his free hand opened, and four gold angels landed on the table, rolled and fell off.

“Deserters,” the old woman said. “String ’em up, I say. Nothing but cowards, that’s what they are.”

Axeo solved the problem of getting Musen off the boat by jamming him against the rail and shoving him in the chest. Musen toppled backwards and landed on his shoulder on the towpath; a moment later, Axeo vaulted down after him and dragged him up again. “Onwards,” he said briskly. “We haven’t got far to go.”

About a hundred yards down the towpath, well clear of the lights from the boats. Axeo let go of him and he dropped, and then he felt Axeo’s boot on his neck.

“You might like to know the blacksmith told me,” Axeo said. “Of course, the forge was the first place I asked; have you seen a tall man, split lip nearly healed? He couldn’t have been more helpful, once I told him who I was.” The boot was slowly crushing his windpipe. “He guessed the pack was something really important, and that you’d stolen it. But you looked so desperate, and you had a knife.” He laughed. “I told him you were soft as butter.”

Musen couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He tried to think of the cards: Poverty, the Chariot, the Angel, the Drowned Woman (no, not her), the Cherry Tree, Destiny, Hope. There is always grace, he told himself, grace in life, grace in death, the one grain of grace that cures the flesh, grace disregarded in the mud and trodden on, but harder than diamonds. Death doesn’t matter, the fire and the hammer. Grace will draw us up and make us clean—

The pressure had stopped. Using every last scrap of his strength, he breathed in, dragging the air past all the creases and the pain, like a man hauling a heavy sack up into a loft.

“You clown, Musen,” Axeo said. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

“You really want to pack it in,” Axeo was saying, as he built the kindling up round the thin, guttering flame. “For one thing, all this getting beaten up and having the shit kicked out of you, it’s not good for you, first thing you know, it’ll ruin your health. I mean, you’re young now, you heal quickly, in six months or a year you’ll be up and charging about good as new, should you manage to live that long. But sooner or later it’ll be one boot in the kidneys too many, and you’ll be pissing every five minutes for the rest of your days. I ask you, is it worth it?”

Axeo was heating up some chicken broth. He had three horses tied up in a barn, about half a mile from where the boats were moored. Two of the horses had saddles and bridles; the third was a packhorse, for carrying the supplies.