Memory

Not far down the next corridor, he turned to her and said, 'Noja, what the hell-?'

She shushed him, as though he was a small child. 'Normally,' she said, 'the Secretary would've referred you to the Chaplain in Ordinary. But we both know why that'd be a bad idea, don't we?'

'No,' Poldarn said; then; 'Oh, you mean Cleapho-'

Noja stopped by a fine red and black lacquered cabinet, opened it and took out a bundle wrapped in soft grey cloth. It was about three feet long. 'Do your dreams still have crows in them?' she asked.

Poldarn nodded. 'Always,' he said. 'How do you know-?'

'Sometimes you'd call out in your sleep,' she said, pulling the cloth back. Inside it was a sword: a raider backsabre, not quite finished, still rough and unpolished. But, since the last time he'd seen it (in Colonel Lock's office in Falcata), someone had hardened and tempered it, fitted the tang with wooden scales, even ground the edge. 'It's all right,' she said. 'Take it, it won't bite you.'

He hesitated. 'What's this for?' he said. She didn't answer. 'Is your name really Noja?' he asked.

She sighed. 'No, of course not,' she replied. 'And you don't recognise me, which is fine. I actually thought, a couple of times, that you might know who I was. You were looking at me.'

'You-reminded me of someone,' Poldarn said. 'Things you did, the way you moved. I guessed you reminded me of Xipho.'

Her lips were thin and tight. 'No,' she said. 'I think I reminded you of me. But not enough,' she added. 'Which is a shame, all things considered. Come on, we're nearly there.'

He had to hurry to keep up. 'No, listen,' he said, 'this is getting out of hand. Do I know you? Well enough that you've heard me talk in my sleep?'

'Yes,' she said. 'This way.' She'd turned the handle of a door and opened it enough to let a sliver of yellow light slide through. The central panel of the door was beautifully painted: two crows sitting in a tall, thin tree.

'Welcome home,' she said.

'Welcome home,' she'd said.

He'd smiled, and it was probably the right thing to have done; she'd clearly been to a lot of trouble. There were garlands of flowers on the walls, a friendly blaze in the fireplace, bowls of dried rose petals to scent the air, all the things she'd have liked to welcome her home if she'd been away for four months. Wasted on him, but it was the thought that counted. 'Everything looks wonderful,' he'd said, trying to sound as if he meant it. She'd looked pleased, so that was all right.

'Come and sit down,' she'd said, 'you must be exhausted.' She'd kissed him again, then gone over to the long table in the corner and poured out a glass of wine. It was, inevitably, the sweet fortified muck that she liked and he hated, but he'd drunk it anyway. The result had been to make him feel even more tired, something he wouldn't have believed possible. 'You made very good time,' she'd said. 'We weren't expecting you till this evening.'

'Following winds across the Bay,' he'd replied, yawning. 'So, how've you been? And how's Choizen?' She always liked it when he remembered to ask after their son. 'Did he cut that tooth after all?'

She'd laughed, as if he'd said something endearingly stupid. 'That was weeks ago,' she'd said. 'He's cut another two since then. And he's fine. He said another word yesterday.'

'Really?'

She'd beamed at him. '"Biscuit",' she'd said proudly. 'Well, what he actually said was "iskik", but he was pointing at the plate and smiling, so-'

His cue to laugh, so he'd done that. 'Wonderful,' he'd said, stifling another yawn. 'Where is he?'

'Asleep,' she'd said. 'Talking of which, you look tired out. Maybe you should have a lie-down before dinner.'

Before dinner? What he'd really wanted to do was sleep for a week. 'I'm fine,' he'd said, ransacking his memory for another scrap of domestic trivia to enquire after. She liked to believe that he thought about home when he was away; as if he had nothing better to occupy his mind with in the middle of a campaign than carpet-fitting and endless feuds with tradesmen. 'Did the men come to put up the new trellis?' he'd asked. Apparently they had. Oh, joy.

'They had a dreadful job getting the posts in the ground, though.' She'd sat down next to him, cosy but not actually touching. 'It took them two days, and I'm afraid the lavender got a bit trampled. But yes, it's up, and it looks really nice.'

He'd smiled again, thinking, Thank God for that; I've been worrying myself sick over the trellis in the middle courtyard. Even in the middle of the battle, when they broke through and it looked pretty much as though we weren't going to make it, that fucking trellis was never far from my thoughts-'Splendid,' he'd said. 'Next year we can grow our own sweet peppers. That'll be nice.'

'Oh.' She'd looked disappointed. 'I thought we were going to put in those climbing roses, from Malerve.'

Roses, peppers, whatever; like it mattered. 'That'd be good,' he'd replied.

'Yes, but if you've set your heart on peppers-'

'Roses will be much better.'

But her face had shown she was still disappointed, probably because she'd guessed that he didn't care. Fine; too tired to fret about stuff like that. 'Have you seen much of your father while I've been away?' he'd asked, trying to sound casual.

She'd nodded. 'We went over for dinner a few times; mum and Turvo like to see Choizen. I…' She'd hesitated. 'I asked Dad where you'd gone, but he didn't seem to want to tell me. I suppose he was afraid I'd be worried.' Another pause. 'Was it-dangerous?'

Was it dangerous. Just as well he'd got out of it without a scratch, or there'd have been scars to explain. 'No,' he'd said, 'just routine stuff, all very boring. And I'm home now, so that's all right.'

As he'd said it, he couldn't help wondering how she'd have reacted if he'd told her the truth: that, on her father's orders, he'd just led an army of freelances, Amathy house, in a joint venture with the unspeakable, monstrous raiders, who everyone knew weren't even properly human, to wipe the city of Alson off the face of the earth, taking particular care to make sure there were no survivors at all. Would she be shocked? He'd looked at her. She was his wife, she'd borne him a son, in a remote and unsentimental way he loved her; and he didn't know the answer to that.

Like that mattered, too.

'We'd better go round there tomorrow,' he'd said. 'There's a few things I need to talk over with your father. Not tonight, though.'

'Of course not,' she'd said. 'Now stay there, I've got a surprise for you. Promise not to look.'

'Promise.'

She'd bustled out; he'd managed to keep his eyes open while she was out of the room, knowing that once they closed, they'd stay closed for at least twelve hours. About the only thing she could have brought him that he wanted just then was a bath; but that wouldn't have been a surprise.

'Here you are.' She'd handed him a box. Rosewood, with brass fretwork hinges. Nice box, as boxes go, and you can never have too many of them. 'Go on, then,' she'd said, 'open it.'

Oh, right, there's something inside the box. Too tired to think straight-He'd opened the box; and inside, he'd found a book.

It's very kind of you, but what the fuck do I want with-? He'd caught sight of the spine. Very old book, the lettering on the vellum binding very brown and faint. Concerning Various Matters.

'That's-' He hadn't been able to say anything else. Concerning Various Matters: the rarest book in the world, just the one copy known to exist, in the Great Library at Deymeson-until a foolish young student called Cordomine had tried to break in and read it, and set the whole place on fire. Since then, no Cordomine and no book: the sum of all knowledge, the entire memory of the human race, wiped out in one moment of destruction 'Where on earth did you get this from?' he'd heard himself say.

She'd grinned like a monkey. 'It was the most amazing stroke of luck. There were these monks-not proper monks, like the Order and everything, they belonged to some funny little religion out in the middle of nowhere, and then the raiders came and burned the place down; and there was only just time to save one thing from the whole monastery before they were all killed, and this was it. And they ended up here in the city, and one of them was finally fed up with being a monk, so he left the others and took this book because he reckoned it might be valuable. He was trying to get in to see Dad when I was over there, and the doorkeepers were telling him to go away, but for some reason I was interested, and asked what was going on; and I know it's a book you're interested in, because I heard you talking about it with some of your school friends, years ago. Anyhow, the upshot was that I bought it from him, for thirty grossquarters. Wasn't that a stroke of luck?'