Pattern (64 page)

(‘But I don't know the way,' Stolley protested, when they told him he'd just volunteered. ‘I've never been west of Locksdale in my life.'

‘You'll be all right,' Rook assured him. ‘Just follow the trail over the mountain till you get to Ciartanstead and ask there. They'll tell you where Colsceg's gone. Be reasonable; if it wasn't something any bloody fool could do, do you think we'd be sending you?')

One morning, when Poldarn was busy in the forge making a pot-hook, one of the offcomer women – her name was Birta, and she was Geir's kid sister – came by with the water jug.

‘That's good timing,' Poldarn said, and he took a long drink straight from the jug. ‘Thanks.'

‘That's all right,' Birta replied; as usual, she was slightly taken aback at being thanked. One of these days, Poldarn promised himself, I'll get out of the habit, and then maybe I won't get stare at quite so much. ‘Oh, and there's a message for you,' she went on, ‘from my brother. He said to tell you the Ciartanstead men came by and picked up the horse.'

Poldarn rested the jug on the anvil. ‘Sorry?'

‘The Ciartanstead men. They came by and picked up the horse.'

He frowned. He could ask again, and she could repeat her message, and maybe they could carry on having the same conversation all day. ‘Where's Geir now?' he asked.

‘In the trap-house, fixing the roof,' she replied. ‘At least, he was a minute ago.'

Geir was still there. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘two men, I didn't catch their names. That's all right, isn't it?'

Poldarn looked up at the roof. There was a hole in the thatch. ‘I'm not sure,' he said. ‘What did they have to say for themselves?'

Geir shrugged. ‘That they'd come to collect the horse, and you knew all about it, you'd fixed it up with Eyvind. Why, is something wrong?'

‘It's probably nothing,' Poldarn replied. ‘Chances are there's a perfectly good explanation, only nobody's bothered to tell me about it. That sort of thing happens a lot round here, you'll find that out for yourself.'

But nobody else knew anything about any horse, so Poldarn went back to Geir and asked him for more details.

‘Well,' Geir told him, ‘one of them was a big, thin man, something between forty and sixty, with a nose like the beak on an anvil. The other one was short and quite broad, with a little thin beard. Does that help at all?'

The thin man sounded like Carey, the Haldersness stockman. ‘Nothing to worry about,' Poldarn said. ‘But I just might run over there sometime and sort it all out.'

He thought about it some more, and went and saddled up a horse. He told the stable hands to tell Elja he'd be away for a day or so, but it was no big deal, just something that needed clearing up.

He needn't have bothered them with the message, because he met Elja coming out of the rat-house. ‘Where are you off to?' she asked.

‘Ciartanstead,' he replied, tightening the girth. ‘There's some kind of silly mix-up about a horse, I thought I'd better go over there and put it straight before it gets out of hand.'

She nodded. ‘Got any food for the journey?'

‘Salt beef and a bottle of water,' he replied. ‘I don't plan on being very long.'

‘Good,' she said. ‘It's not a good time to go swanning off on sociables.' Elja pushed aside the saddle-blanket. ‘You're taking Boarci's axe with you,' she observed.

‘I thought I might,' Poldarn said. ‘Just in case there's still any bears left that he didn't bash on the head.'

‘Well, have a safe trip,' she told him. ‘See you in a day or so.'

On his way up and down the mountain, Poldarn put the missing horse out of his mind and thought about the future. Planting some trees; that was definitely something he was going to have to do. There was also the question of the Haldersness herd, which was presumably still somewhere out west, along with a dozen or so of the Haldersness men. The mountain hadn't played up at all since they'd moved into Poldarn's Forge, and fresh milk, meat, cheese and wool would come in very handy indeed; so would the herdsmen, if they could be induced to come and settle at the Forge. He could remember the names of two of them – Odey and Lothbrook – but nothing else about them at all. In their shoes, of course, he'd throw in his lot with Eyvind and use the herd to pay his membership dues; but of course he wasn't a bit like these people (his people) and what he'd do in any given situation wasn't a reliable guide. He couldn't see that Eyvind had any justifiable claim on the herd, simply because he'd stolen the house and the farm; if they saw it differently, however, he recognised that there was precious little he could do about it. The most sensible thing would be to agree a compromise with Eyvind and divide the herd between them – after all, he didn't have the manpower to look after the whole herd, even if he could get his hands on it. That would be the most practical, logical course of action. No question about it.

Poldarn slept badly out in the open, and woke up with a stiff neck. Halfway through the next morning it came on to rain, and he realised he'd come out without a proper coat. The horse blanket, draped round his shoulders and tucked in under his chin, made him feel happier for a while, until it soaked up so much water that its presence became a nuisance rather than a help. Half an hour before he reached Ciartanstead it stopped raining and the sun came out, filling his nose with the stench of drying blanket.

He remembered a small patch of dead ground not far from the house, with a tree he could tie the horse to. From there he walked slowly and carefully, making sure he kept just below the skyline. At some point in his career – at Deymeson, presumably – he'd learned how to make himself inconspicuous in a rural landscape. If anyone saw him as he approached the farm, he wasn't aware of it.

The closest cover was the cider house. Leaning against the wall was a stack of long poles; he crept in behind it and looked up the sky. Not far off noon; in which case, Carey would be fetching water from the spring. That meant crossing the yard, and there were bound to be people about. Fortunately, he appeared to have covered that part of the syllabus, too. He found a bucket, picked it up, and crossed the yard briskly and openly. Nobody ever takes any notice of a man with a bucket who looks like he's working.

Just for once, he'd got it pretty much right. Carey was at the spring, stooping down to fill his own bucket. Another part of the course must have dealt with sneaking up behind people without being heard, because the first Carey knew about Poldarn was the edge of Boarci's axe, pressed against the side of his neck.

‘Hello,' Poldarn said; quiet, ordinary speech, in a pleasant tone of voice, because few things are as conspicuous as whispering. ‘Why did you steal my horse?'

Carey had the sense to stay very still. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘It was Eyvind's decision. Just happened to be my turn to go, is all.'

‘I understand,' Poldarn replied. ‘I don't blame you, it's not your fault. Where's the horse now?'

‘In the stable,' Carey replied. ‘Fifth stall on your right from the door.'

‘Thanks,' Poldarn said. ‘Out of interest, why did Eyvind decide to steal my horse?'

Carey sighed. ‘He didn't want to,' he said. ‘But Melsha – you know, Orin's daughter; Orin, the man Boarci killed – Melsha was making trouble, said it was wrong how he'd put aside Orin's death without a settlement, when he hadn't been doing anything wrong. She kept nagging Eyvind to do something, Eyvind said no, she said there had to be a settlement, even if it was just a gesture, and they decided on taking a horse. Nobody's happy about it. Eyvind reckoned it'd cause trouble, and he doesn't want that.'

Poldarn frowned. ‘He should have thought of that when he turned me out of my house,' he replied, and drew the edge of the axe firmly across Carey's jugular vein.

Chapter Twenty-Six

T
he spurt of blood splashed him before he could duck out of the way. It was humiliating, like being laughed at by the rest of the class for getting the exercise wrong. He felt a fool as he wiped the warm, thick stuff out of his eyes.

Now then, he thought, looking down at the dead body (lying on its face half in and half out of the water, which was brown with disturbed silt and red with blood; here we are again, back at the beginning): what did I go and do that for? It was a good thing that the face was mostly submerged, because he'd known Carey, though only for a short while, and now he was gone, his life had broken out of its pen and escaped, and there was no chance of catching up with it and bringing it back. There were things he'd have liked to have asked him, and he couldn't now.

Then he remembered; of course, Eyvind and the stolen horse and the stolen house, the broken settlement, the act of war that he was obliged to take notice of. He hadn't really had any choice in the matter, once he'd been told about it and the sharp facts had embedded themselves in his memory, in over the barbs and up to the socket. You can't ignore stuff like that when you're the head of a house, or what would the world come to?

Pity, though; he'd neither liked nor disliked the man, but now Carey was firmly planted in his memory, a fixture in his mind for ever, or until his own life flew the coop. He wondered which bloody fool it was who'd put such a vulnerable thing as the jugular vein in such an exposed position on the neck, where any vicious bastard with a sharp edge could just reach out and snip through it, easy as picking apples. If it was the work of some god, he wasn't impressed. To him it suggested carelessness or outright malice, and either of those was good grounds for contempt.

Well; it wasn't very smart to stand out here in the open, at midday, a known enemy of the house, with a dead man at his feet and blood all over his face. If he'd done that back at Deymeson, they'd have made him stand in the corner for the rest of the lesson.

First, it'd be a good idea to get rid of the blood. He dropped to his knees and plunged his hands in the water, tearing apart his own reflection (which was fine by him, it wasn't something he wanted to see at that precise moment). It didn't take him long to scrub the blood out of his eye sockets with his balled fists, and that would have to do to be going on with. A quick scout round in case anybody was watching, then a brisk but relaxed walk across the open ground between the pool and the trap-house; brief pause for another look round, then across the yard to the rat-house and the sanctuary of his nest of leaning poles.

Time to think sensibly about the next step. If he was going to do this thing properly, he ought really to go over to the stable and retrieve his stolen horse. That would be the right thing to do, and if he didn't, killing poor old Carey would begin to seem less like a tactical necessity and more like cold-blooded irrational murder. By the same token, stealing the horse was the most effective way he could think of to sign his name to the killing; and then there'd be retribution, and the cycle would gather speed, the pattern repeating, until one side or the other was wiped out. If he were to sneak quietly away without being seen, that might not happen; sure, Eyvind would suspect him and his house, he couldn't help but do so, but he'd have no proof and so wouldn't be obliged, or able, to take the matter further. That was all very well; but he'd come here to deliver a message. He'd done that, but did a message really count as having been delivered if you whispered it in the other man's ear while he was asleep?

Furthermore, he thought, if I show up at Poldarn's Forge with the missing horse, and a day or so later Eyvind's men arrive, my people will know for sure that it was me who killed Carey – and I'm not entirely sure I want them to. They're the ones who stand to suffer most if this turns into a regular killing feud, simply because there's so many more of Eyvind's lot than there are of us.

At times like this, duty to those one leads and to those who are under one's protection must be the overriding consideration. Otherwise, what would become of us all?

He frowned; and then he knew what to do. It came into his mind by intuition, or he remembered having been at this point before; it was like suddenly remembering how to do the forge-weld, or how to use a scythe properly.

But that was some way in the future. Right now, there wasn't really all that much he could usefully do here – and besides, it was his unshirkable duty to keep from getting caught and killed, because who else was there who could run things at the Forge? Better that he should go home, keep his face shut and quietly figure out a defence strategy that'd give his side even a remote chance of surviving if Eyvind saw past his anonymous act and took the next step. After that, of course, he knew exactly what had to be done, so there was no need for detailed planning.

Forget the horse, then, and concentrate on getting out of there in one unobserved piece. That was a tough enough assignment to pose a worthwhile challenge for anybody.

Just strolling along with a bucket had been enough to get him in, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that it couldn't be relied on to get him out again. On the way in, he hadn't done anything wrong yet, and so the worst he could have suffered was embarrassment. If he was stopped and detained now, they'd find the body and that'd be that: worst possible outcome.

A diversion, then, so they'd all be looking the other way. That was the classic approach; unlikely that he'd be able to better it by figuring out something from scratch. Quickest, easiest and best value in terms of effect would be to set fire to one of the buildings – but he knew for a stone-cold certainty that if he tried that, he'd be a quarter of an hour trying to get a spark to catch in the tinder, and even then it'd smoke feebly for a few seconds and then go out. Even with charcoal and a big set of bellows it was still always a pleasant surprise when he managed to get a fire going in the forge. Out here, in these circumstances, with the materials available to him – forget it.