Pattern

Chapter Fourteen

'I've never been to a wedding before,' Poldarn said. 'At least, that's not strictly true. But I can't remember ever having been to one. What happens?'

Eyvind laughed. 'Oh, nothing much. Everyone troops into the hall, the head of the house says a few words, that's basically it. No big deal.'

Poldarn wasn't sure he believed him. The subdued frenzy of activity that had been going on behind his back for the last couple of days suggested otherwise. Of course, he hadn't the faintest idea what they'd been getting up to, because as soon as he turned up, everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at him in oppressive silence until he went away again; but it seemed to involve yards and yards of cloth, dozens of baskets of flora and vegetable matter, and pretty well every member of the two households except him. Even Asburn had been bashing away in the forge at all hours of the day and night, and had refused to let him in in case he saw something he shouldn't. Meanwhile, precious little work was being done around the farm, except by the prospective bridegroom (who, being at a loose end, had been pressed into deputising for all the busy people; he'd mended fences, laid hedges, weeded, spit and harrowed, mucked out cattle sheds and stables, fetched, carried, cooked, swept and polished, until he no longer needed to be told what to do. If he saw a job of work, he did it, knowing full well that if he didn't, nobody else was likely to. On reflection, it occurred to him that maybe that was the whole point).

'What sort of no big deal?' he asked. 'I mean, do I have to do anything, or do I just stand there like a small tree until it's all over?'

Eyvind shook his head. He was mending a broken staff-hook by binding the smashed shaft with wet rawhide, which gave him an excuse for not meeting Poldarn's eye. 'Actually,' he said, 'to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure. You see, as well as being the bridegroom you're also the head of the household-both households, really, since Colsceg and his mob are under your roof. So, properly speaking, you're the one who should be doing all the speeches and saying the magic words. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out, really.'

Poldarn sighed. Getting a straight answer out of Eyvind looked like it would take major surgery. On the other hand, nobody else was even prepared to talk to Poldarn, except Boarci, who probably knew the score but was pretending he didn't. 'That's just silly,' Poldarn said. 'I can't marry myself, it sounds all wrong. There must be some sort of established procedure in these cases.'

'You'd have thought so, wouldn't you?' Eyvind replied. 'But apparently not, it's never happened quite like this before. You see, usually the sons and grandsons of heads of households are married by the time they're nineteen, sometimes earlier. Old men like you and me roaming around free as birds is definitely the exception rather than the rule.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'So why aren't you married, then? I've got an excuse, but you haven't.'

Eyvind shrugged. 'It just turned out that way,' he said. 'People like you and me, heads of houses or heirs apparent, can't just go marrying anybody-it's a serious thing, we've got to marry daughters of heads of other households, preferably ones whose farms share a common boundary or two. Our place-well, it's tucked in rather awkwardly between several much bigger spreads and, as it turned out, after they'd all done deals with each other there wasn't anybody left over for me. So I'd have had to go marrying up-country, which would've involved a lot of messing around with grazing rights and water rights and overwintering agreements and stuff like that, and it's hard enough as it is screwing a living out of the collection of large rocks we call a farm without buggering up all our arrangements just so I don't have to sleep alone. Besides, there's no real need. When I die, the farm will go to my mother's brother's family, and everybody's quite happy with that. If I got spliced and had a son, it'd cause more problems than it'd solve.'

Oh, Poldarn thought. Isn't that missing the point rather? Obviously not. 'Do you mind?' he asked.

'Not terribly.' Eyvind grinned. 'I know what you're thinking. But-no offence-you're forgetting the main difference between yourself and the rest of us. Take that into account, and maybe you can see how we've got a whole different set of motivations and priorities Or, at least, I'm guessing that, because I haven't got a clue how your mind works. Still, it seems to me that if you can go around thinking whatever the hell you like with nobody being able to look in on you, your approach to the whole subject has got to be completely different. Much better in some ways, I guess, and far, far worse in others. We tend to keep that side of ourselves-well, in reserve, out of sight, even, until we go abroad. Doesn't matter a damn what we do while we're over there, after all.'

Well, not quite, Poldarn thought; that's how I came to be born, or didn't you hear about that? I'm sure you must have done, so that was a definite mistake, my otherwise tactful friend. Now maybe-It was the first time he'd thought of it. Maybe the reason he couldn't read and be read was because his mother was a foreigner, not part of the swarm, with a mind that couldn't be prised open and examined by everybody in the household. Not that it mattered; and the subject as a whole seemed to be embarrassing Eyvind, so he decided to change it. 'You were saying something about speeches and magic words,' he said. 'Can you be a bit more specific, perhaps?'

Eyvind pulled the last strip of rawhide tight and wiped his hands on his shirt. 'Let's see,' he said. 'It's been a while since I was at a wedding. I think what happens is that the head of household goes through a sort of list of do's and don'ts, asks questions about whether you really want to marry each other, are there any things you haven't told anybody about, like being brother and sister; that sort of thing generally. The sort of stuff that probably meant something once but now it's just a set of meaningless rote questions and responses that everybody reels off by heart without thinking.'

'Fine,' Poldarn said. 'So you're telling me I've got to ask all these dumb questions and then answer them myself. And with people watching, too. There's got to be a better way of going about it than that.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, I don't know. Can't I appoint someone as a stand-in head of household, just for the day of the wedding? Or what about Colsceg? He's a head of house, he'll do.'

'Yes, but it's not his house. I think there's specific rules about that.'

'All right, then,' Poldarn said with a touch of desperation. 'How about you? You're not a head of house but you're in line to be. I'm sure you could do it. The logical choice, really.'

Eyvind shook his head. 'You can forget that,' he said. 'I'd rather be trapped in a burning house, with the roof falling in on me.'

'Even to help out a friend in need?'

'I said forget it. Wouldn't be right, anyhow. Strictly speaking, I'm an offcomer, I shouldn't even be in the house when there's a wedding going on.'

'What does that mean?' Poldarn interrupted.

'Oh, superstition,' Eyvind replied. 'They say that if there's offcomers in the house on a wedding day, it's bad luck, to the bride and groom and the offcomers too. Just a load of old garbage, of course, but some people take that kind of thing pretty seriously-it wouldn't do to go upsetting them by having an offcomer actually taking the service.'

'Somebody's got to do it,' Poldarn snapped, 'and I'm bloody certain it isn't going to be me. Now come on, for pity's sake, I've got to go out there and get married in a few hours, there isn't any time for playing games. Think of someone.'

'I'm thinking,' Eyvind replied, somewhat nettled by Poldarn's outburst. 'But I can think till my brains boil out through my ears and it won't do any good if there's nobody to think of. Oh, I don't know, what about Colsceg's sons?'

Poldarn looked up sharply. 'What, you mean Barn? If he can do it, so could Colsceg, surely. And at least Colsceg's a bit more animated than a broken cartwheel.'

'I just said, he's disqualified. All right, if you've got something against Barn, what about Egil?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'He doesn't like me,' he said.

'How doesn't he like you?' Eyvind looked concerned. 'And what gave you that idea, anyhow?'

'Nothing. Forget I just said that.'

'Sorry,' Eyvind replied, 'but some of us can't forget things as easily as others. What's your problem with Egil?'

'Nothing, really. It's just an impression I got, so it's far more likely to be wrong than right, anyhow. I can't see inside his head, remember, so I have to go by other kinds of signal. And I wouldn't trust my judgement in such matters further than I could sneeze it out of my ear.'

That didn't seem to satisfy Eyvind at all. 'Fine,' he said. 'Be like that, don't tell me. But it strikes me that picking imaginary feuds with your prospective in-laws isn't the most intelligent thing in the world, especially if they're going to be living a few hundred yards from your front door.'

Poldarn smiled defensively. 'That's interesting,' he said. 'You make it sound like it's actually possible to have a quarrel with anybody in these parts. I wouldn't have thought it could be done, with everybody being so like-minded and knowing what everybody else is thinking.'

'Don't you believe it,' Eyvind replied. 'Oh, it's rare enough, but it happens. Not in the same household, of course, that would be impossible, but neighbours do fall out occasionally, and it can get rather unpleasant if you're not careful. Which is why getting it into your head that someone's got it in for you is a bad idea, believe me.'

'All right,' Poldarn said appeasingly, 'I promise to love all my fellow human beings to bits. And if you think Egil would do it, sure I'll ask him. I just doubt it, that's all.'

Eyvind stood up. 'I'll ask him for you, if you like,' he said abruptly. 'That way, you won't feel tempted to say something stupid or offensive.'

'Good idea,' Poldarn sighed. 'Why don't you do that?'

'All right.'

Poldarn had hoped that Eyvind wasn't serious, or that Egil would refuse; but apparently not. 'He says he'll be delighted,' Eyvind announced happily, a few minutes later. 'And he reckons he knows all the words and what to do, so that's all right. I think he liked the idea of playing at being a head of household for a while, since he won't ever get the chance otherwise. Pity, that,' Eyvind added, 'he'd be good at it, or at least better than his brother would be. Mind you, the same would hold true of a small piece of rock.'

Best not to go there, Poldarn decided. 'Fine,' he said. 'Thank you. Now, will you please tell me what I'm supposed to do at this wedding, because otherwise it's going to be extremely embarrassing.'

'Well,' Eyvind began; at which point an unfamiliar twelve-year-old girl came bounding up to tell them it was time to begin, and everybody was waiting. 'Actually,' Eyvind added, as the little girl led them away, 'it should all be pretty obvious, you'll know what to say when the time comes.'

Poldarn wasn't in the least convinced, but it was too late now to do anything about it. Quite apart from the details of the ceremony, there were a great many other connected issues he'd have liked to talk through, but clearly he wasn't going to get the chance. He had the feeling of being on the box of a runaway cart trundling slowly down a hill, just about to gather pace.

The wedding was going to take place in the hall of the house-the old house, Poldarn told himself; I don't live there any more, for some reason nobody's seen fit to explain to me. That bothered him for a moment; the house wasn't his now, and since the new house was built he'd been given to understand that he wasn't supposed to set foot in it. No doubt there was a very good reason why the wedding should be held on foreign soil, so to speak. If Halder had still been alive, where would they have held the wedding? In his house, presumably. Poldarn was sure there was a reason for every detail-that seemed to be the way of things here-but he couldn't help wishing that someone would explain it to him. After all, he was the head of the household, supreme ruler in a society where nobody ever told anyone else what to do, nobody ever needed to tell anyone else what to do (except when mountains exploded and flooded the world with black mud). Ludicrous, he thought; nominally, I'm the most important man in this valley, and I'm the only one who hasn't got a clue what's happening. It's like a religion where everybody worships a god who doesn't know he's divine.

The little girl led Poldarn to the door (the back door, he noticed; any significance in that? Undoubtedly, though he could only guess at what it might be) and told him, rather abruptly, to wait there. So he waited. At first he stood up; then he began to feel fidgety, and leant against the door frame. Then he pulled over a log from the logpile and sat down. After a while, he wondered if they'd forgotten all about him, or whether the bride had changed her mind (assuming she had one to change), or if there was a furious debate raging inside about letting an offcomer marry into a respectable house; or maybe they'd all fallen asleep, or gone off to do something else, or died. Maybe they were all waiting impatiently for him, tapping their feet and picking at their sleeves, with Elja in floods of tears because she'd been left standing at the altar. He considered opening the door just a crack and looking in, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do that, for fear that he'd be noticed and everyone would swivel round and stare at him. Ridiculous, he thought; they can't leave me out here all day like a tethered donkey. Can they?

Apparently they could. After what seemed like a very long time-long enough for his left leg to go to sleep, at any rate-Poldarn came to the conclusion that if he was going to be stuck here indefinitely, he might as well find something useful to do, in accordance with the underlying philosophy of the place. He looked around, and saw a big splitting axe lodged in a big stump, with a stack of wood split into kindling, where someone had presumably downed tools in order to go to the wedding. There was still plenty of wood to be split, a whole pile of it, so he hauled himself painfully to his feet, levered the axe out of the chopping block, set a log on top and took a swing at it.

He'd taken aim at a shake-line in the log but he missed, and the axe bit deep into the log at a slant, sending a jarring shock up his arms into his shoulders. Poldarn winced, stood on the log and waggled the axe from side to side to get it free.

His next shot was in line and on target, and the log did indeed split in two; no doubt about that, because the two halves flew apart and sailed through the air at just under head height, fast enough to do a serious injury to anybody unlucky enough to be in the way. That suggested to him that maybe he was using a bit too much force; better, probably, just to lift the axe and let it fall in its own weight (which had no doubt been carefully calculated by a competent smith for this very reason). He retrieved the two halves of the log, put one up and studied it, taking care to fix all his attention on the place where he wanted the axe to bite. Then he swung it up, letting the momentum of the swing bring it through its course, and allowed it to fall, guiding it with his hands like a skilled helmsman.

He missed the log with the axe head but not with the shaft; with the result that the head snapped off and shot off at a ridiculous pace, thumping against the back door of the house with a noise that must've been audible at Colscegsford. As he stood there feeling incredibly stupid, the door opened and Eyvind came out.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he asked.

'Sorry,' Poldarn mumbled. 'I was just trying to make myself useful, that's all.'

'There's a time and a place, you know,' Eyvind said, shaking his head. 'Anyway, the hell with that. There's a problem.'

Poldarn nodded. 'I had a feeling there might be. What's up?'

Eyvind pulled a face. 'We haven't got a guarantor, is the problem.'

'Oh.' Poldarn looked grave. 'What's a guarantor?'

'What? Oh, of course, you wouldn't know. The guarantor is the man who guarantees the wedding vows.'

The way Eyvind said it made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, until you stopped and thought about it. 'Ah,' Poldarn said. 'What does that mean? In practice,' he added quickly. 'What's he got to do in the ceremony, I mean.'

'Not a lot,' Eyvind admitted, 'but you can't have a wedding without one, because then it wouldn't be a wedding. All he's got to do is stand around looking solemn, and when you and the girl say your vows, he holds out a sword or a spear, and you rest your hand on it.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'What's that in aid of?'

Eyvind fidgeted impatiently. 'The general idea is that if either side breaks one of the wedding vows, the guarantor's there to make sure they're punished for it. That's what the sword's for, it's symbolic. Like the seconds in a duel.'

'Really? At a wedding?' Poldarn shrugged. 'Still, what do I know about it? Anyway, why haven't we got one? Surely there's established procedures for figuring out who it's got to be.'

Eyvind laughed. 'Oh, it's easy. Younger brothers of the bride and groom, one on each side; failing which, male relatives in order. Unfortunately, there aren't any. You've got no living relatives, apart from your grandmother. On her side, Colsceg can't do it, because he's her father, and he's too old. Barn can't do it, because he'll be head of house when Colsceg's gone. Normally it'd be Egil, but he's conducting the ceremony. We're stuck.'

Poldarn thought about it for a moment. 'It's got to be family,' he said.

'Well, it should be. But in this case, obviously not.'

'Yes,' Poldarn said impatiently, 'but this can't be the first time something like this has happened. There's got to be a back-up procedure, surely.'

Eyvind nodded slowly. 'Well, yes, there is. Where there's no family, it should be two outsiders-neighbours, of course, but they shouldn't be under the jurisdiction of either side. Well, obviously,' he added, and Poldarn didn't ask for an explanation. 'Actually,' he went on, 'Colsceg suggested me for your side, and I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't, it's just a ceremonial thing after all. But that still leaves us short for their side.'

Poldarn sighed. 'This is silly,' he said. 'Come on, there must be someone. Haven't they got cousins or nephews or something?'

'Oh sure. But not here, they all live a long way away, that's the problem. It'd be days before they could get here, and one thing you really can't do is stop a wedding once it's started. That's really bad.'

Poldarn nodded. 'And nobody considered all this before now?' he asked. 'All those people scurrying about with baskets of leaves and stuff, and no one thought about who was going to say the words or do this guarantor business?'

'No.' Eyvind grinned. 'If you knew us, you wouldn't be at all surprised. It's not usual, you see, it never happens like this, so nobody thought about it. Halder would've thought about it, of course, that'd have been his job, but he's not here. So you'd have thought about it, but you don't know.'

'Nobody told me.'

'It didn't occur to anybody you wouldn't know. Except me, I guess; but I'm not even supposed to be here. I can't suddenly stand up and start telling people what to do-I'm a guest in this household.'

He seemed to be getting upset, so Poldarn headed him off. 'That makes sense, I suppose. It's a bloody nuisance, though. What are we going to do?'

'No idea,' Eyvind confessed. 'Same for everybody. You're head of house, this sort of thing is up to you. It's what you're for.'

'Ah,' Poldarn said, 'well, that answers an important question that's been bothering me for a while. So I've got to choose someone, have I?'

Eyvind nodded.

'And if I make a choice, everybody's got to go along with it? No arguments or people stamping off in a huff?'

'Certainly not.' Eyvind looked mildly shocked at the thought. 'Of course, you've got to choose the right person.'

'Of course.' Poldarn leant the broken axe handle tidily against the woodpile. All right, we need an outsider. That narrows it down to two; and you're already in, and I'm the bridegroom…'

'You aren't an outsider.'

Poldarn pursed his lips, then went on: 'So that just leaves Boarci, doesn't it? Slice of good luck him showing up when he did, really.'

Eyvind made an exasperated noise. 'You can't choose him,' he said, 'he's an offcomer.'

'Isn't that the point?'

'Yes, but-' Eyvind stopped, then nodded slowly. 'All right,' he said, 'that's fine, I'll go and ask him if he'll do it. You wait there.'

'Well, but-' Poldarn said; but by then, Eyvind was back in the house and the door was closing behind him. Poldarn waited for a few minutes, then he picked up the axe handle, sat on his log and started whittling back the broken tongue with his knife.

He'd done one side and was scraping down the other when the door opened again. This time, though, it wasn't Eyvind; it was Barn, his future brother-in-law, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

'There you are,' he said. 'We've been looking for you all over. Are you coming in, or not?'

Poldarn put down the axe handle and stowed his knife carefully away. 'Might as well,' he said. 'Have you sorted everything out yet?'

Barn frowned. 'Of course we have,' he replied. 'Everything's ready. Come on, will you, they'll be wondering what the hell's going on.'

They'll be wondering, Poldarn thought. 'Fine,' he said. 'Lead the way, then.'

Though it had been only a few days since he'd lived there, he'd forgotten quite how dark the inside of the house could be. The only light came through the small side windows (which on this occasion were firmly shuttered), the smoke-hole in the roof, and a battery of assorted pottery lamps lined up on a single table at the far end of the hall. Fortunately, people got out of his way before he blundered into them, and at least there wasn't any furniture left in the house for him to trip over. He followed Barn up to the top table. He felt horribly nervous, more so than if he'd been expecting to have to fight for his life (but that wasn't a fair comparison; he knew he was good at that sort of thing, but this was all new to him). He could feel a sneeze gathering momentum just above the bridge of his nose, and keeping it down was harder than carrying newly felled lumber.

Once Poldarn was inside the circle of pale yellow light, he was able to make out a few faces. There was Colsceg, right in the middle of the table, looking worried and depressed. There was Egil, white as a sheet and very tense, his left hand crushing his right fist. Next to Egil was Eyvind, doing a fine imitation of a dead body, and next to him was Elja, who gave him a very quick, conspiratorial smile before tightening her mouth into a thin line. It was that smile that made him think that, just possibly, this whole mess might somehow come out all right in the end. For some reason they'd draped her in bits of trailing greenery-for some reason, for some reason; he'd have given the farm and the clothes he stood up in for an insight into the coherent Stream of logic that he was sure lay at the back of all this, but for the life of him he couldn't see why a young girl couldn't get married without having to be festooned with salad. That said, it suited her, in a bizarre sort of way. The dark, shining green of the leaves, reflecting the dull glare of the lamps, emphasised the thickness and body of her abundant, slightly coarse brown hair (and maybe that was the only reason; and a very good reason it would be, if only he could be sure). They'd put her in a plain light brown sack of a dress-somehow he knew without any doubt at all that she hadn't chosen it herself-but in spite of everything it looked just right, bringing out the creamy white of her skin and the very dark red of her lips. Pure luck that she should be so perfectly suited to the traditional outfit, which ought to have looked ridiculous; but at that moment, he was almost prepared to forgive and accept all the outlandish and inexplicable things about these people (his people; must remember that), simply because Elja proved that, once in a while, they worked pretty well.

I'm staring, Poldarn thought, that's got to be the wrong thing to do. Try to look properly solemn, or, failing that, stuffed. No sudden movements, and for pity's sake, let's see if we can get through this without killing anybody.

Egil stood up. He had some slight difficulty with the bench, it was too close to the table, and he had to slide and wriggle past it to get to his feet. Once he was there (he had to grab the table with his left hand to steady himself) he took a deep breath and looked Poldarn straight in the eyes.

'Ciartan,' he said-it took Poldarn just a fraction of a second to remember that Ciartan was him-'do you accept this woman as your wife?'

Which woman? Oh, that woman, the one you're standing in front of so I can't actually see her. But there weren't any other females sitting at the table, apart from Rannwey, and he assumed that the chances of marrying her by accident were acceptably slim. 'Yes,' he replied, and hoped that would do.

Egil turned his head. 'Elja, do you accept this man as your husband?' There was a muted squeak from the shadows that might have been a yes, or a rodent narrowly avoiding a cat.

Egil seemed inclined to accept it as consent, or else he was too busy rehearsing his own lines in his head to listen; he grunted, and went on: 'Who is prepared to guarantee this marriage?', as if he were a general ordering brave men to their deaths. Eyvind stood up with the speed of a sword-monk's best draw; then nothing happened. Several heartbeats passed, and Poldarn finally sneezed.

'Here,' someone said in the darkness outside the yellow circle, and Boarci threaded his way through the crowd, somehow managing not to knock anybody over or cause any injuries with the axe in his right hand. Poldarn winced; if I'd only known, he thought, I'd have made more of an effort with the polishing. It made sense, of course; they'd never have allowed Boarci on the top table. For some reason, Poldarn had a picture of him being given his portion of the wedding breakfast in a bowl on the floor, with the other domestic animals.

'It's all right,' Boarci muttered in Poldarn's ear as he took his post directly behind him. 'Cheer up, nobody's going to eat you.' Eyvind scowled at him for that; nobody else appeared to have noticed.

'Guarantors,' Egil said crisply, whereupon Eyvind stooped and came up holding a backsabre, which he'd left on the floor where nobody could trip over it; he put it on the table as if he was waiting on a grand banquet and the sword was a tray of cinnamon cakes. Boarci leaned over, shoving Poldarn's head slightly to one side with his arm, and dumped his axe next to it; the two weapons clattered together noisily. 'All right,' Egil said. His sister stood up, reached across and laid the flat of her hand on the blade of the sword, nodding very slightly at Poldarn. He interpreted that as meaning that he was supposed to do the same thing, and rested his fingertips on the axe head. It was cold and very smooth, like steel skin. Poldarn felt ashamed at the sight of the file marks around the eye.

'Bear witness,' Egil said, in a rather wobbly, high-pitched voice, 'these weapons, and if these vows are broken, avenge them.' He finished the speech with a stifled cough-he was standing over one of the lamps, and the smoke was tickling his throat. Poldarn managed not to laugh, though it was one of the funniest things he could remember having seen. 'Bear witness,' he repeated, coughing himself, and he picked up the sword and the axe and waggled them half-heartedly in the air.

At that point, he must have swallowed a mouthful of lamp smoke the wrong way, because instead of just coughing he choked, and the spasm must have messed up his coordination; in any event, he lost his grip on the axe, made a desperate attempt to recapture it, and dropped it right on top of the lamp, which shattered and flooded the table with oil, which immediately caught fire. At first, nobody seemed to realise what was happening. Then the burning oil set light to their cuffs and sleeves; they jumped up, swearing and flapping their arms like so many crippled birds, prancing round in circles, bumping into each other-under other circumstances it would have made a very pretty burlesque dance, appropriate for a country wedding, except for the presence of the uninvited guest and master of ceremonies, the spirit of fire. Poldarn immediately looked to see if Elja was all right; but she didn't have any sleeves, and she'd got her hand out of the way in time. Then he looked down at his own hands, and saw that although the cloth at his wrists was dark and shiny with oil, for some reason the fire hadn't taken to him. Egil was staggering backwards, pawing at his face; Eyvind was on fire from his wrists to his chin, contriving to set light to his whole body as he tried to slap out the flames. Apparently Colsceg had more imagination than the rest of them; he'd doused his sleeve with a jug of beer, but the oil refused to stop burning. Another lamp, a little further down, burst in the heat and showered the table with burning oil and sharp potsherds, like a miniature volcano.

Oh for pity's sake, Poldarn thought, because this was all so unnecessary; it was just a little fire to start with, and there was no earthly reason why it should be spreading so dramatically. He knew he ought to be doing something-head of the household, hero of the mudslides, a little domestic fire ought to be child's play to him-but for the moment all he could do was stand and stare. Nobody in the mob behind him seemed to be moving, so perhaps they all thought it was part of the ceremony.

'Hold still,' someone was shouting; it was Boarci, wrapping his coat round his left arm. 'For God's sake hold still, before you set the house on fire.' But nobody seemed prepared to listen to him, or else they simply couldn't understand a direct order; so he pushed past Poldarn, scrambled over the table, kneeling in the burning oil as he did so, and shoved Eyvind over onto the ground. Somebody was yelling at him, but he was too busy to notice; he was clubbing out the flames that Eyvind was wearing like a suit of clothes, as he did so choosing to disregard the fire that was clinging to his own legs and body. Egil had pulled off his coat by now, and was whacking at his father's arms and chest with it, while Colsceg stood perfectly still and stared at him as if he'd just gone mad. Another lamp exploded 'Well,' said a voice by Poldarn's side, 'here we are again. Trouble really does seem to follow you around, doesn't it?'

He recognised the face, which hadn't been there a heartbeat ago; and the voice was even more familiar, though God alone knew where from. 'Who the hell are you?' he asked.

'Oh, don't mind me, I'm not really here.' The man laughed. 'I was here, many years ago, and of course I'll be here again. Right now, I'm somewhere else, but don't worry about it. You think I'd let a piddling little thing like geography keep me from my best friend's wedding?'

'Who are you?' Poldarn repeated.

'Good question,' the man replied. He was wearing the robes of a sword-monk in full academic dress, with a broad crimson sash to hold his sword in, and a white fur trim to his hood. 'You know, I call myself so many names, it's a pain sometimes remembering who I'm meant to be. When in doubt, I just say Monach, which is the word for monk in some language or other that nobody knows any more. In case you're wondering,' he went on, 'this is actually some time later.'

Poldarn wanted to move, at least to get close enough to smash this idiot's face in, but found he couldn't. 'What've you done to me?' he shouted.

'Me? Nothing. How could I, when I'm not even here? Now pay attention, I'm trying to explain. You think you're still at the wedding, in the middle of the fire. Not so. Right now you're lying on a heap of straw in a deep sleep, with your devoted subjects and newly minted in-laws taking bets on whether you'll ever wake up out of it. Didn't I mention, you're one very sick man?'

'No,' Poldarn replied. In front of his eyes, Boarci and Egil were still flapping away with their coats; everything was moving, but nothing was changing. 'What happened?'

Monach laughed. 'Oh, it hasn't happened yet-in the time-frame you're looking at, I mean. In this time-frame, we're about twenty seconds away from the fire spreading to the thatch, which is where the trouble starts. In about five seconds, though, you'll fall over backwards and hit your head, so I'd better get a move on. You trip over your feet, bang your head and go to sleep-is this starting to sound familiar, by the way?-then the building catches light, everybody panics and squashes out through the door; it's only later, when the fire's taken hold and the roof's starting to fall in, that someone says, Hey, where's Ciartan? and they realise you must still be inside. You know,' Monach went on, reaching past a burning man and taking a honeycake off a plate, 'your life is woven from two dominant threads, tragedy and lack of originality. Not only do really shitty things happen to you, they happen over and over again.' He bit into the cake and chewed before continuing. 'There's a very good reason for that, by the way, like there's a very good reason for everything that goes on around here, and you're the only person in the whole wide world who isn't allowed to know what it is. That must really get up your nose sometimes, I guess.'

'I'm asleep,' Poldarn said. 'And dreaming all this.'

'Correct,' Monach said. 'Actually, it goes deeper than that; in fact, from a professional point of view, as far as I'm concerned, this is a real beauty, a genuine collector's item. You see, you aren't just dreaming this now, as you're lying on your pile of straw surrounded by your nearest and dearest. This is going to be one of your favourite recurring nightmares, you'll come back here time and again, sometimes weeks in a row; so I'm not just talking to you now, I'm talking to you all through your life, present, future and past. You know, I could work this up into a really good paper for the Founders' Day lecture, if you hadn't burned down Deymeson.' He grinned, and reached for another cake. 'Very good, these,' he said. 'Next time we meet up like this you must give me the recipe. Do you understand what I'm telling you? You bloody well ought to, you were top of the class in divinity theory in Third Year. I always had trouble getting my head around logical paradox, but it never bothered you any.'

'Please,' Poldarn said, 'I want to wake up now, I don't like this dream.'

'Not surprising. You aren't meant to like it. That's why they call them nightmares.' Monach sighed. 'What really amazes me is how few of them you have, considering the stuff you've got up to over the years. Compared to most of what you've done and been through, this is a picnic. Still, I guess it's all a matter of interpretation; and this is one of the main turning points in your life-well, we're just coming up to it, or else we've just passed it, depending on which direction we happen to be going in at the time.' He smiled. 'No, I'm not making it easy for you, I know. You'd hate that, you'd reckon it was patronising. Now, this girl you've just married-' He pointed; Elja was staring up at the roof and pointing. 'Lovely kid, she really likes you, I'd say you're on to a good thing there, even if she is young enough to be your daughter. God only knows what she sees in you, but that's her business, I suppose. Anyway, I trust you'll treat her a bit better next time you're here. She'll forgive you, I expect. That's the amazing thing about these people, this extraordinary knack they've got for forgiving and forgetting, or at least turning a blind eye.' Monach yawned-Poldarn could see bits of chewed cake on his tongue-then turned into a crow and, flapping the burning sleeves of his gown, lifted aloft, and flew slowly up into the smoke and flames of the roof.