The Two of Swords: Part 11 Read Online Free PDF Page A

him,” he said, and stalked back the way he’d just come.
    The riot petered out just before dawn, when it started raining heavily and the Prefect and the mayor of Prosc worked out a compromise, the details of which have not been recorded. By noon, wheeled traffic was crossing the causeway once again, and Axeo (who’d slept in a coal bunker, with Musen curled up at his feet like a dog) decided it would be safe to leave the city. He dumped the blue gown, which by then was filthy with coal dust, and sent Musen to steal him a coat. Musen protested that he was covered in coal dust, too, but Axeo pointed out that the rain would wash most of it off, so that was fine.
    Carts and coaches were streaming into the city, not much was going the other way. They tried to hitch a lift on a farm cart, but the driver told them to go to hell, so they walked. Axeo’s ankle was playing up; he couldn’t remember damaging it, but it’s easy to tweak something and not notice when your life gets exciting for a while. Musen’s lip had scabbed over. “Don’t pick at it,” Axeo advised him.
    “I must confess I didn’t give a lot of thought to how we get home,” Axeo said, as they sheltered from the rain under a chestnut tree on the edge of the northern marshes. “Never thought we’d get this far, to be honest. Still, fool’s luck.”
    Musen had taken off his left boot and was wringing out a wet sock. “Can’t we just walk?”
    Axeo gave him a sour look. “Theoretically, I suppose we could. I hate walking. It’s boring and I get blisters.”
    Musen shrugged. “Where I come from, we walk everywhere.”
    “Oh, well, then, in that case.” Axeo craned his neck to look up at the sky. “Bloody rain,” he said. “Come on, we’ve done the difficult bit, surely. The rest should be easy.”
    Musen dragged his boot back on. “Did you really think we wouldn’t make it?”
    “I was convinced of it. Our continued existence is a complete but agreeable surprise to me.”
    “You seemed so sure of yourself. Like it was all a prank or something.”
    Axeo shrugged. “I appease the Great Smith by playing the clown. One of these days he won’t find me funny any more.”
    Musen turned his head away.
    “You don’t like me saying things like that,” Axeo said, “making jokes, taking His name in vain.”
    “Not much, no.”
    “Provincial.” Axeo wriggled back up against the trunk of the tree. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that the greatest blasphemy of all is implying that He can’t take a joke?”
    Musen frowned, then suddenly grinned. “I never thought of it like that.”
    “Course you didn’t, you’re a provincial. I imagine you think of Him as an old man with a white beard and a leather apron. Well?”
    “I suppose so, yes.”
    “Fair enough.” Axeo pulled two apples from his coat pocket, offered one to Musen, who took it. “It’s a valid interpretation. Me, I see Him as a vast, extraordinarily complex concatenation of circumstances.” He bit into the apple. “Which, taken together, admit of no other possible explanation other than intelligent design and conscious purpose. All as broad as it’s long, of course. I from the evidence, you from intuitive revelation, we both arrive at the same point. Which is all that matters, really.”
    Musen looked at him. “I’ve always believed,” he said. “Ever since I was a kid. Nobody else in our village did, so I had to keep it to myself.”
    Axeo nodded. “Like the thieving.”
    “I guess so, yes.”
    “Your special gifts.” Axeo yawned. “I used to wonder about that,” he said. “Why would He do that? I guess it’s easy to see why He would call someone to be a saint, a healer of the sick, a champion of the poor and oppressed, or even a great artist or musician. But why did He call you to be a thief and me to be an enormously talented leader of irregular troops? It seems unlikely.”
    “He needs thieves sometimes.”
    Axeo clapped his hands and pointed. “Exactly. As