not really up to talking much. But you go ahead.'
Ducas laughed. 'It's all right,' he said. 'I'll buzz off and leave you in peace, let you get some rest. They said you'd had a nasty bump on the head. Maybe later, if you feel like a chat. We could talk about some of the battles you lost. I'd like that.'
The water tasted of something nasty he couldn't quite place. 'If you're here,' he said, 'who's in charge of your army?'
'Who finally beat you, you mean.' Ducas' smile widened. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Wish I did. Whoever it is seems to be doing a good job; better than me, anyhow. It comforts me to know that the war is in better hands than mine.' He frowned. 'I never really expected to be a soldier,' he said. 'Oh, I was trained for it, of course, because it was one of the things a man in my position needs to know how to do. War, administration, good manners and chasing animals, and it doesn't hurt if you can play a musical instrument. On balance, I'm a slightly better rebec player than I am a general, but I wouldn't want to have to earn a living doing either; not if I had to compete with professionals.' He shrugged. 'You'd better get some rest now,' he said. 'The men will be back soon, and they'll have spent the hottest part of the day burying the dead, they may not be in the best of moods. It's been a pleasure talking to you.'
So, Miel thought, as he turned his back and walked away, that's Phrastus Gyges. Younger than I'd expected; otherwise, pretty much like I'd imagined he'd be. And now, I suppose, I'd better think about leaving. I guess that means stealing the horse.
Standing against the middle of the wall was a big old wooden feed bin. He'd noticed it earlier, and what was inside it. Presumably such things were so familiar to them that they no longer noticed them; careless but understandable. Casually, he lifted the lid and peered inside.
Mostly it was sidearms, assorted various; he could see the scabbard chape of a Mezentine Type Fifteen, the scent-bottle pommel and wire-bound grip of a good-quality Eremian double-fullered backsword, the brass stirrup- guard and horn scales of a village-made hunting hanger. Any of them would do, since he wasn't proposing to use it; just something to wave in the face of anybody who tried to stop him. He was pretty sure they wouldn't fight him lo keep him from getting away, just in case he managed to hurt someone-that'd mean a man off work, possibly for a long time or even permanently, and they couldn't afford to carry the loss. The horse, on the other hand; horses, he knew from eavesdropping and his own experience, were a serious problem in this war. Not enough of them to go round; if, after a battle, you had to choose between rounding up the spare horses and seeing to your immobilized wounded, you had to go for the horses whether you liked it or not. They might well fight him for the horse. Unfortunately, he needed the head start. If he tried to get away on foot, with his recent injuries and vague knowledge of the local geography, he wouldn't really stand a chance. He wished that, at the very least, he had some money, so he could leave them enough to buy another horse. Come to think of it, he'd never stolen anything before. Never needed to, of course.
The stupid thing is, he thought, I don't really want to leave. I'd be happier staying here, learning to patch up chainmail and bury corpses. Now there's an interesting comment on my life so far.
Nobody seemed to be watching; just in case, though, he turned his back so as to mask what he was doing, and slid his arm in under the lid of the bin until his fingers connected with something. By the feel of it, the stirrup- guard hanger-not his first choice, but he was hardly in a position to be picky. He fished it out, got it over the edge of the bin, nearly dropped it, point downwards, on his foot, and shut the lid as quietly as he could. He didn't look down at the short sword dangling by its guard from his little finger; instead, he drew it flat against his stomach and walked slowly away, waiting for someone to yell at him. No yell. His first act of theft-his first crime-successfully carried out.
The idea was to steal a weapon now, while the place was empty and there was nobody about to see. He couldn't leave until much later, because the men hadn't brought the horse back yet. Once they'd come home he was going to have to wait a couple of hours, at least, until they'd finished their work for the day; also, the horse would be tired too, and not in the mood for further strenuous exercise. What he needed now, therefore, was somewhere to hide the sword until it was time to make his move. He hadn't realized how complicated a life of crime could be.
He looked round. His pretext for leaving the barn would be going outside for a leak. Nearly everybody went round the south side of the barn, simply because it was sheltered from the wind. If you went round the east side, you ran a substantial risk of coming back in wearing what you'd gone out to dispose of. Fair enough. He wandered over to the door, doing his very best to look like a man with a mildly full bladder. He had no illusions about his abilities as an actor, but nobody seemed interested in him anyway, so that was fine. Once outside, he turned left, round the corner, and looked carefully about. When he was sure nobody could see him, he reached up and shoved the sword into the loose, ragged thatch of the eaves, until only the little rectangular knob of a pommel was showing. It'd be dark when he came out to retrieve it, but he'd be able to find it by touch.
He paused and frowned, noticing how he'd been feeling ever since he lifted the lid of the feed bin. I'm afraid, he thought, and that surprised him. It had been quite a while since he'd been afraid of anything-haven't had the time or the attention to spare, he realized. When he'd been leading his men into an ambush there was simply too much else to think about. Now, with nobody to consider but himself, he could afford to be self-indulgent. Stupid, he thought; all I'm doing is stealing a twenty-shilling horse, not cutting up a column of Mezentine cavalry at odds of three to one. Maybe, if I manage to get away with this, I can find the time to develop a sense of perspective. It'd be nice to have one of those for a change.
Perspective, he thought, as he went back inside the barn (it was pleasantly cool indoors; nice to be back). Perspective is mostly about value; what things are really worth, in context. Not so long ago (he sat in the corner nearest the door and stretched his legs out), I was a wealthy nobleman. If someone had come up to me and asked me how many swords and how many horses I owned, I'd have had to ask the steward; and he wouldn't have known offhand, he'd have had to check the house books. Now, when I actually need them, I'm reduced to stealing them from men who have next to nothing.
(Outside, heavy wheels were grinding on stones; the cart was coming home.)
So, Miel thought, I've come down in the world. So what? When I was a boy, I used to worry about that all the time. What'd become of me if we suddenly lost all our land and our money? I used to have nightmares about it; I'd be in my room and nasty men would come bursting in to take away the furniture; they'd throw me out into the street, and all the poor people and ugly beggars and cripples would jeer at me and try and take my shoes. Apparently I used to wake up screaming sometimes; the servants used to ask what on earth the matter was, and of course I refused to tell them.
Any moment now, the door would open and the men would come in. Once they did that, everything would become irrevocable. Someone would tell Juifrez Stratiotes about their latest acquisition, and Juifrez (a pleasant enough man, and painfully shy when talking to his ex-landlord) would make the inevitable business decision, based on cost-efficiency and the availability of the horse. Miel thought about that. If he was Juifrez, he'd tell a couple of his men to keep an eye on the Ducas, just in case he'd put two and two together; don't be obvious about it, he'd say, but don't let him too far out of your sight. He considered the practical implications of that for a moment, decided on a plan of action and put it out of his mind. I wish I didn't have to go, he thought. But it's not up to me. That made him smile. The pleasure, the release, had been in not being in control of his own destiny for a while; but because he was the Ducas, as soon as he stopped being his own master he turned into valuable property, with potentially lethal consequences. He therefore had no choice. His holiday was over, and the best he could hope for was getting away from this place in one piece, preferably without having to hurt anybody. Beyond that, he didn't want to speculate; didn't care.
The door opened. In came the men; silent, too tired to talk. The woman, Juifrez's wife, had gone with them. It occurred to him that he'd have liked to say goodbye to her, but clearly that was out of the question. Now she'd remember him as the man who'd stolen their horse.
If he hadn't already known what they'd been doing all day, he'd have had no trouble at all figuring it out from the smell they brought in on their clothes and boots. He'd done many things in his time, but no digging. He'd always drawn the line at it, even in the kind of military crisis where rank and status were unaffordable luxuries, and even the Ducas was no more than another pair of hands. Digging, in his mind, was about as low as you could sink; miserable hard work, exhausting, tedious, repetitive, the epitome of his old morbid fears of poverty and destitution. Digging graves for strangers in the thin, stony soil of the northeastern hillsides would, by that reasoning, have to be
