The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Lynch, Scott Page 0,136

and wood smoke one minute, of manure and olive groves the next.

“Here beyond the walls,” said Chains, “is what many folks living outside the great cities would think of as cities; these little scatterings of wood and stone that probably don’t look like much to someone like you. Just as you haven’t really seen the country, most of them haven’t truly seen the city. So keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and be mindful of differences until you’ve had a few days to acclimate yourself.”

“What’s the point of this trip, Chains, really?”

“You might one day have to pretend to be a person of very lowly station, Locke. If you learn something about being a farmer, you’ll probably learn something about being a teamster, a barge poleman, a village smith, a horse physiker, and maybe even a country bandit.”

The road north from Camorr was an old Therin Throne road: a raised stone expanse with shallow ditches at the sides. It was covered with a gravel of pebbles and iron filings, waste from the forges of the Coalsmoke district. Here and there the rains had fused or rusted the gravel into a reddish cement; the wheels clattered as they slid over these hard patches.

“A lot of blackjackets,” Chains said slowly, “come from the farms and villages north of Camorr. It’s what the dukes of Camorr do, when they need more men, and they can afford to wait a bit, without raising a general levy of the lowborn. It’s good wages, and there’s the promise of land for those that stay in service a full twenty-five years. Assuming they don’t get killed, of course. They come from the north, and mostly they go back to the north.”

“Is that why the blackjackets and the yellowjackets don’t like each other?”

“Heh.” Chains’ eyes twinkled. “Good guess. There’s some truth to it. Most of the yellowjackets are city boys that want to stay city boys. But on top of that, soldiers can be some of the cattiest, most clannish damn folk you’ll ever find outside of a highborn lady’s wardrobe. They’ll fight over anything; they’ll brawl over the colors of their hats and the shapes of their shoes. I know, believe me.”

“You pretended to be one once?”

“Thirteen gods, no. I was one.”

“A blackjacket?”

“Yes.” Chains sighed and settled back against the hard wooden seat of the horse cart. “Thirty years past, now. More than thirty. I was a pikeman for the old Duke Nicovante. Most of us from the village my age went; it was a bad time for wars. Duke needed fodder; we needed food and coin.”

“Which village?”

Chains favored him with a crooked smile. “Villa Senziano.”

“Oh.”

“Gods, it was a whole pile of us that went.” The horses and the cart rattled down the road for a few long moments before Chains continued. “There were three of us that came back. Or at least got out of it.”

“Only three?”

“That I know of.” Chains scratched at his beard. “One of them is the man I’m going to be leaving you with. Vandros. A good fellow; not book-smart but very wise in the everyday sense. He did his twenty-five years, and the duke gave him a spot of land as a tenancy.”

“Tenancy?”

“Most common folk outside the city don’t own their own land any more than city renters own their buildings. An old soldier with a tenancy gets a nice spot of land to farm until he dies; it’s a sort of allowance from the duke.” Chains chuckled. “Given in exchange for one’s youth and health.”

“You didn’t do the twenty-five, I’m guessing.”

“No.” Chains fiddled with his beard a bit more, an old nervous gesture. “Damn, I wish I could have a smoke. It’s a very frowned-on thing in the order of the Dama, mind you. No, I took sick after a battle. Something more than just the usual shits and sore feet. A wasting fever. I couldn’t march and I was like to die, so they left me behind…myself and many others. In the care of some itinerant priests of Perelandro.”

“But you didn’t die.”

“Clever lad,” said Chains, “to deduce that from such slender evidence after living with me for just three years.”

“And what happened?”

“A great many things,” said Chains. “And you know how it ends. I wound up in this cart, riding north and entertaining you.”

“Well, what happened to the third man from your village?”

“Him? Well,” said Chains, “he always had his head on right. He made banneret sergeant not long after I got laid up with the fever.