At that point, the door opened. Through it came another soldier of the type he'd decided were the enemy; he was wearing the same kind of mailshirt and holding the same kind of halberd. The pattern repeated; clarity, then complication. It was like some kind of board game.
'Bloody hell,' the soldier said. 'I thought it was you.'
Poldarn hadn't been expecting that; he'd been anticipating something straightforward and easy to deal with, such as a halberd blade shoved in his face. 'You know me?' he asked.
'What? It's me, you idiot, Sergeant Lovick. You been getting bashed on the head a lot lately or something? Quick,' he went on, before Poldarn had a chance to reply, 'straight out the door behind me, takes you across the yard to the stables, you can get a horse and clear out. I never saw you. Right?'
'But just a…'
'I said quick. Before you get us both killed.'
'What you said just now,' Poldarn protested. 'About getting bashed on the head. That's what happened, I can't remember anything. Can you-?'
Sergeant Lovick (whoever the hell he was) scowled horribly at him. 'Pack it in, will you? Haven't got time for your stupid jokes right now. Look, if anybody comes then so help me, I'll have to kill you. Go on, clear off, now.'
Poldarn could feel anger about to explode inside his head; there wasn't much he could do about it, even though he knew how much it could complicate matters. 'No,' he shouted. 'Not till you tell me.'
'I said, I haven't got time…' The man was getting angry too. 'Bloody hell, chief, can't you take anything seriously?'
Chief? Why couldn't he have used my name instead? Thoughtless, inconsiderate bastard. 'I'm not joking, you idiot. Look, can't you at least tell me my name? Do that, I promise I'll go. Word of honour.'
Before Sergeant Lovick could say anything the door behind him opened; another soldier came in, saw Poldarn; his face instantly filled with anger. 'It's all right,' Lovick said loudly, not looking round, 'I've got him, he's mine. You get back and tell them…'
'Hell as like,' the newcomer said. 'Kill the bugger now, have done with it.'
Lovick shook his head. 'Our orders were…' he began.
'Screw the orders,' the other man said, taking two steps forward, his halberd at guard. 'Not worth the risk. You try and take this bastard alive, he'll do us both before we can get him across the yard. Oh come on, man, don't be so bloody pathetic.'
Lovick's face didn't change, but suddenly he was two strides closer and the move he was making with his halberd was either a killing thrust to the face or a feint to mask an equally lethal cut to the right temple. More choices.
Poldarn decided to cheat by circumventing both possibilities. He took a standing jump backwards, which gave him a yard of clear space, then threw himself to the right, drawing the sergeant into a clubbing stroke with the butt of the halberd. The sergeant dutifully obliged, and in the fraction of a second before the steel butt-shoe crunched into the bone of his skull, he grabbed the wooden shaft and pulled hard left, drawing the beard of the cutting edge deep into the web of Lovick's right hand. As anticipated, the shock and pain were enough to make him lose his grip, and as soon as Poldarn had control of the weapon he reversed the pull into a brisk upward thrust. He misjudged it a little because Lovick flinched, and instead of driving the point into his throat he caught him square in the left eye; just as good, if not better. Before the dead man could fall backwards he pushed again, throwing the body the way a builder's labourer throws a shovelful of dirt. The other soldier had to step to his right to avoid it, and in doing so walked into a thrust to the groin, which he avoided just in time. It didn't do him much good, since it was only a feint; the killing blow hit him in the ear, and the shock of steel bursting through layers of bone and membrane jarred down the halberd shaft into Poldarn's arm, wrenching a muscle and making him grunt with pain.
From complicated back to simple in a few easy moves. He let the dead man's own weight draw him off the halberd spike, then laid the weapon across the table and rubbed his forearm where he'd hurt it. Just my luck, he thought; it didn't take much imagination to see how, if there was going to be more of this sort of thing, a pulled muscle or a sprain or a cramp, anything that detracted from the perfection of these instinctive plays he somehow knew how to make, could easily be enough to kill him. The anger that had been building up before the fight, when Lovick wouldn't answer him, tell him the one word he needed to know (and he could have said it so easily, it wouldn't have cost him anything; damn it, quite likely it would've saved his life)-all that anger was still there but directed now against these two selfish, malicious men who'd kept knowledge from him and damaged his right arm when he needed it most. It only made it worse that one of them had apparently been a friend.
The door was still open. He stopped and listened before he looked through it. There didn't seem to be anybody about. He picked up the halberd, then put it back; even though he was having to work out so much from first principles, he was fairly sure that wandering around the courtyard of a busy inn with a bloodstained halberd in his hands wasn't a good idea. Besides, he'd managed without quite well so far, and whenever he'd needed a weapon there had always been someone on hand to give him one.
It was quite dark outside by this time, although there were lanterns on sconces all round the yard. He stood for a moment outside the door-yet another choice: go to the dormitory or the refectory and try to find Copis, or do what Lovick had advised, head for the stables, or compromise and make for the coachhouse, to retrieve the cart or, at the very least, the big lump of fused gold that was bound to come in useful sooner or later…
He decided on the compromise, mostly because the coachhouse door was directly opposite, only a few seconds away. Of course, there was a fair chance of finding more soldiers there, waiting for him, but that was true of the whole inn, and quite possibly the whole world. Simplify: to the coach-house.
The coach-house was empty; no grooms and no soldiers. And no cart. That made him angry, but it wasn't unexpected, by any means; in fact, he'd resolved on a contingency plan before he even pushed open the door. This consisted of taking the back way out of the coach-house, which (if he was remembering straight) would take him into a little narrow alley that led to the hay store, which had its own direct access to the stables. Once he'd got a horse and was out into the main courtyard, the likeliest problem would be if the soldiers, the enemy, had thought to close the main gate-in which case he'd have to forget about the horse and shin over the wall somewhere. He tried to recall a suitable point for climbing over while he was saddling up the sturdy grey gelding he'd chosen, and he'd just brought to mind an ideally suitable wicket gate in the back wall of the tower courtyard as he rode through the open main gate, thereby rendering all his diligence and foresight redundant. Always the way, he thought resentfully. Just when you've managed to get all eventualities covered, along comes a stroke of good luck, and it's all been for nothing.