Shadow

'You're kidding.'

'That's what I was told,' Copis said. 'Mix it all up, set light to it, and-well, you saw for yourself. Now, of course, nobody from the south ever comes across the desert, and people have forgotten about the things. It was seeing a box of them in Josequin market that gave me the idea for the act, actually. Of course, the man who sold them to me hadn't got the faintest idea what they're for.'

'What happens when we run out?'

'Well, we could try and figure out the recipe for ourselves, if you don't mind peeing into a bottle for a week or so. Or we could think of a different act.'

He didn't reply. She'd reminded him of a rather unsettling train of thought that'd been rattling about in his head for a day or so: how long was he going to do this for, travelling round swindling people for a living? He'd tried to reassure himself that it couldn't be for very long, since any day now he'd get his memory back and it'd all be over… And when he repeated this bedtime story to himself in the early hours of the morning, he had to face the fact that his memory might never come back, and that his entire life could be fitted easily into a small cart and carried aimlessly from village to village, still leaving room for several hundredweight of improperly obtained provisions.

'Can I go to sleep now?' he asked.

'I suppose so,' Copis replied. 'If you insist. It's just that it gets very boring, driving this cart for hours at a time with nobody to talk to.'

He smiled. 'Tough,' he said, and closed his eyes, only to find that he couldn't get to sleep after all. He opened them again, and saw a man sitting beside the road about a hundred yards away, apparently doing something to a small wagon.

'We ought to stop and help, really,' Copis said. 'Tradition of the road, and all that.'

'All right,' Poldarn replied. 'Do you know anything about mending broken carts?'

'No.'

When they got close enough to be able to see what he was doing, however, it became apparent that he had the problem well in hand. The offside shaft was broken, so he'd taken out the horse and raised the yoke on a little cairn of stones so as to take the weight off the broken part, and now he was wrapping something round it to hold it together.

'That won't work, surely,' Poldarn said.

'Ah.' Copis nodded toward a bucket of water standing next to the front nearside wheel. 'You see that?' she said. 'What he's done is, he's got some strips of rawhide from somewhere, soaked them for a few hours in the water, and now he's wrapping them round the break. As the rawhide dries out, it shrinks a whole lot and tightens itself round the snapped timbers. When I was a girl, my dad used to mend broken hammer handles and things that way. Works like a charm.'

Poldarn was impressed. 'You know all sorts of things, don't you?'

'Oh yes,' she said. 'No shortage of information. None of it any use, but all good stuff.'

Even though the man didn't seem to need any help, they stopped and asked anyway. The man assured them that he was fine, he'd be on his way by morning; meanwhile, he had something to eat and a nice wagon to sleep under in case it rained. Then he looked hard at Poldarn.

'I know you,' he said.

Poldarn felt as if he'd just been punched in the stomach. 'Do you?'

'Never forget a face,' the man said. 'It was at an inn somewhere-either Josequin or Mael, can't remember which. We spent the evening playing dominoes. I won twelve quarters.'

Poldarn took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'Tell me everything you know about me.'

'That's easy,' the man replied, with a slightly bewildered grin. 'You're a rotten dominoes player. That's about it.'

'What do you mean, that's it?'

'That's it.'

Before he realised what he was doing, Poldarn had vaulted off the cart, grabbed the man's throat with both hands and slammed him back hard against the wheel of his wagon. 'What else do you know about me?' he said, tight-lipped. 'Come on, this is important.'

'Really,' the man said, gasping for breath, 'that's all. We were staying at the same inn, I asked if you wanted to play, you said yes. Look, if it's the money that's bothering you-'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I couldn't give a damn about it,' he said. 'Try and remember. Anything at all.'

'All right. Just stop throttling me, will you?'

Poldarn relaxed, a little. 'Well?'

'I don't know. What sort of thing do you want me to tell you about?'

'Anything,' Poldarn yelled. 'Any bloody thing at all. I've lost my memory; I got bashed on the head, and now I haven't got a clue who I am or where I live or anything. So if we've met before…'

The man shook his head. 'God's honest truth,' he croaked, 'all I can remember is playing the game. I think you were dressed pretty much like you are now.'

Poldarn nodded. 'These were the clothes I was wearing when I came round,' he said, 'after I got bashed. What else?'

'Really, that's all. Well, apart from the fact that you had twelve quarters on you. I guess that says something about you. Now let go, for God's sake, before you choke me.'

Reluctantly, Poldarn relaxed his grip. The man stepped away from him to one side and rubbed his throat. 'All right,' Poldarn said. 'At least try and remember where it was. Who knows, maybe they'd remember me there.'

'I told you, I-' The man took another step away. 'Hold on, though,' he said. 'It was the Patience Rewarded, in Josequin. That's right, I remember now; it was fair week, and we'd both turned up late so they shoved us in the annexe, along with the stable boys and the like. I complained about having to pay full price just to sleep in the tack room. You told me to be grateful for that, since it gets so busy in town when the fair's on. And that was when I suggested the game.' He screwed up his forehead, as if he was trying to lift an anvil with his eyebrows. 'We played four games, I won all four, and then you didn't want to play any more. So I curled up on my blanket and went to sleep, and when I woke up the next morning you'd gone. And that's it, I swear to God. Nothing else.'

Poldarn stared at him. 'That's it?'

'I just said so, didn't I?'

'All right, all right. Come on then, who do you think I am? What do I do for a living, where do I come from, what sort of accent do I have? Anything at all is better than nothing.'

The man thought for a moment. 'Can't place the accent at all,' he said. 'But around Josequin you hear all kinds of accents; it's not something you worry about. If I had to guess, I'd say you were a southerner, probably from across the bay, like your-hell, I was about to say your wife here, but presumably she isn't.'

'Just someone I met on the road,' Poldarn said. Copis, who was getting more and more impatient, looked daggers at him for saying that, but didn't interrupt. 'So what line of work am I in? Come on, you should be able to make a good guess at that.'

He shrugged. 'Probably something involving travel, because you seemed to be an old hand at staying at inns, like I am, and I'm a courier by trade, though I don't think you are.' He closed his eyes. 'I'm trying to see if I can remember whether you had a horse or whether you were walking,' he said. 'No joy, though. If I've really got a hazard a guess, I'd say you're either something to do with the military or a government type of some sort. But that's reaching, it really is; more to do with your manner than anything else, if you get my meaning.'

Poldarn thought about that, then laughed bitterly. 'You mean I push people around when I want something? Maybe; but I think the circumstances-'

'Oh, sure. In your shoes, maybe I'd react the same way, I really couldn't tell you. It's the next best thing to impossible to imagine something like that.'

Poldarn breathed out slowly. 'The Patience Rewarded, you said.'

'That's right. It's near the Westgate, just before you get to the-'

'I know where it is,' Copis interrupted. 'Talking of which, we've got to get going if we want to be there before dark.' She was starting to get very twitchy, and Poldarn could see why, but the damage was done now. 'Thank you,' he mumbled. 'And I'm sorry-'