They've got to shove off soon, he told himself as the excruciating vigil carried on into the night, they've all got to go to work in the morning; they can't afford to lose a night's sleep. This turned out to be a serious underestimation of rural piety; furthermore, the heartless creatures sent to their houses for lanterns and torches, which put paid to his hopes of being able to nod off unnoticed in the dark.
Some time later-about two hundred and fifty years, by Poldarn's estimation-Copis came out of her trance, got up slowly and lifted a small wooden box down from the cart. He recognised it, and wondered what on earth she was up to, since there was nothing in there but half a loaf of extremely elderly bread that she'd insisted on keeping, even when they were both hungry. She opened the box, took out the loaf and scraped off some of the thick coating of blue mould on to a little dish with the edge of her small knife. Then she shut the box and looked round.
In spite of being told not to, the villagers had brought out a sad assortment of their sick and infirm, ranging from a young man with a missing arm to an old, old woman swaddled up in blankets who looked like she didn't stand much chance of lasting out the night. Copis stood up and walked backwards and forwards, occasionally leaning forward to take a closer look, feel for a temperature, or roll back an eyelid. She didn't say a word, but after she'd inspected all the various exhibits she pointed to four of them and clapped her hands suddenly for attention. She explained that she'd examined the casualties through the god's eyes, and seen that these four could be saved without upsetting the complex patterns of destiny. In the dish were the scrapings of the god's own food; mixed with garlic juice and swallowed four times a day for ten days, it would cure them and, provided they were properly grateful, they ought to carry on to live long and useful lives. Should anybody else presume to eat the god's food, she warned, she wasn't prepared to be responsible for the consequences, which might well include blindness, madness or death.
There was a loud murmur of wonder from the crowd, as the relatives of the chosen four stepped up to receive their share of the blue dust. When the little ceremony was over, Copis announced that she now had to go into a very deep trance indeed, in order to tell the god what she'd done and ask him to make the necessary arrangements; it was essential, she added, that she wasn't disturbed, else she, the four sick people and anybody else in a day's radius might suffer some unpleasant consequences. She'd rather they went away completely, but if they insisted on coming back shortly after first light, she would probably be through with her trance by then. Then she knelt down, crossed her legs and closed her eyes.
A few moments later they had the place to themselves.
'It's all right,' she hissed softly, 'they've gone. Not far, though; I think they're all sitting outside in the street. You can relax for a bit, but don't make any noise.'
'Actually,' Poldarn whispered back, 'I think I'm stuck. You've got no idea-'
'Ssh.' She got up slowly and walked round the courtyard, still in character. 'I can't see anybody,' she whispered, kneeling down again, 'but that doesn't mean anything. There could easily be kids or something up on the roofs.'
'Would it be all right if I went to sleep?'
She thought for a moment. 'I suppose so,' she said. 'But you'd better stay where you are. You snore when you sleep lying down.'
'I don't. Do I?'
He closed his eyes; and the next thing he knew it was just starting to get light, and Copis was surreptitiously prodding his foot with a stick. 'Let's get out of here,' she said, 'before they come back.'
'You bet,' Poldarn replied. 'For one thing, if I don't take a leak in the next few minutes, I'll either burst or explode.'
'Told you not to drink anything before we started, but you wouldn't listen.'
She had the horses into the shafts and harnessed up in no time at all. The cart was considerably heavier than it had been when they arrived, and there was a nasty moment when it looked like it was going to get stuck in the mud. Luckily it pulled free when Copis applied the switch to the horses' backs, and they were moving.
'Not long now,' she whispered. 'Of course, we've got to stay in character for a while after we leave, just in case anybody follows.'
'Oh hell,' Poldarn muttered, as his mind filled with a nightmare vision of a whole villageload of disciples following the cart all the way to Josequin. Mercifully that didn't happen, though the crowd hung back watching at a safe distance until the cart was over the skyline and out of sight.
'Now?' Poldarn asked anxiously.
'All right.'
He jumped down from the cart, landed painfully, and hobbled round behind the back wheel. 'You know,' he said, some time later, 'I can't imagine anything quite so wonderful as a really good piss after a night of torture. It's almost like a spiritual thing, you know?'
'Shut up and get back on the cart,' Copis replied. 'And keep the chatter down until we're at least an hour further on. You just can't be too careful in this line of work.'
By the time she'd sounded the all-clear he was on the verge of falling asleep again, and only a precisely accurate kick on his left anklebone brought him round at the last moment. He opened his eyes and groaned.
'It's all right,' she said, 'we're clear.'
'You woke me up to tell me that?'
She frowned. 'You weren't the only one who didn't get any sleep.'
'I suppose so,' he replied. 'What the hell are we going to do with all this food?'
'Sell it,' she said. 'Aside from the stuff we need, of course. We'll get a good price for it in Josequin, especially the bacon.'
'I've been meaning to ask you,' he said. 'That stuff you gave the sick people. It wasn't poisonous, was it?'
She laughed. 'Good God, no. Why would I want to poison a bunch of people I don't even know?'
'That's all right then, so long as you're sure. I mean, bits of mould scraped off an old loaf-'
'Actually,' she interrupted, 'it's the best cure for fevers and the like I've ever come across.'
'That was what was wrong with them, was it?'
She nodded. 'Always one or two in every crowd,' she said. 'Wonderful publicity. In a few days' time those four'll be up and about again, utterly convinced the god snatched them out of the jaws of death; they'll tell their friends, word'll spread round the villages, and the next time we work in these parts they'll welcome us with cries of joy and we won't have to bother with all that messing about at the start. Not to mention,' she added with a sigh, 'wasting a firework.'
'A what?'
'The thing that goes bang.'
'Ah, right.' He rubbed his left shoulder, which was still painful. 'I was meaning to ask you about that. What are those things?'
She smiled. 'Used to be as common as anything in the southern provinces of the empire, back when the empire still had some southern provinces. Apparently it's a mixture of charcoal and sulphur and some kind of white powder you make by distilling urine-'