The Proof House Part 36

'No,' Iseutz said. 'Loredans don't kill family. Uncle Gorgas, now; you murdered his son and he forgave you. You had a chance to kill me, but you didn't. Mother could've had me put down any time she chose, but she didn't. It's not our way.' She laughed. 'The more I think about it, the more I get the impression I'll be doing you a kindness. Come on, Uncle Bardas, what possible reason could you have for wanting to stay alive? If I'd done half the things you've done, I'd die of exhaustion through never being able to sleep. Your life must be really horrible; I mean, mine's bad enough and I've hardly even started.'

'What a thing to say,' Bardas replied. 'Consequences aside, I can't think of a single thing I've done that I didn't do for the best.'

'That wasn't a very sensible thing to say, in the circ.u.mstances. '

'Really?' Bardas was just about able to keep himself from shaking like a dog that's just climbed out of a pond, but it was hard work. 'I don't think so. You aren't really going to kill me. If you were I'd be dead by now.'

'You reckon?' Iseutz said, and jammed the knife home.

Later, Bardas decided that it made up for all the mistakes he'd made that day, that one deftly planned tactical success. By provoking her so skilfully, he'd at least known exactly when the thrust was going to happen. This made it possible for him to jerk his head forward and sideways - he still got a horrendous gash across the base of his scalp, but it wasn't enough to die of - while simultaneously shoving hard with both feet to slam the back of the chair into where he hoped her solar plexus was likely to be. With the same impetus he threw himself to the ground, rolled and grabbed at the place where (provided n.o.body had moved it) Theudas' penknife ought to be, in his writing-tray on the floor. After three years in the mines it was second nature, easier to do in the dark by feel and memory than if he were in the light and able to see. The knife-hilt found his hand and the act of throwing it was a continuation of the retrieve - economy of movement, an essential in the mines. He heard the impact and the gasp of pain - bad, because if she could cry out, he'd missed - but he was already reaching for the scimitar he'd left lying on the map-table.

She said, 'Uncle Bardas, no . . .' Then he heard the wet crunch of steel cutting flesh and sinew, the sharp edge compressing the fibres and shearing them. 'Thank you,' he said instinctively, and waited (always count to ten before moving; another valuable lesson he'd learned in the mines) before lowering the scimitar, getting up and groping for the tinder-box and the lamp.

She was dead by the time he had a light; cutting the neck vein is messy but quick. There was fear in her eyes too, probably that last-second realisation that she had wanted to live after all (he'd seen it so often). Her mouth was open and she'd thrown the knife away; but in the dark, of course, he couldn't have been expected to see that. Theudas' penknife had slit her cheek open, a gaudy but trivial flesh-wound like the one she'd given him. He stood and looked at her for a while. One less Loredan. Well.

So it goes on, he thought, so it goes on. And now I've got a dead girl in my tent. She'd fallen, needless to say, across the bed, which was now fairly comprehensively saturated with blood. So he slept in the chair instead.

Away from the fighting, in peace and quiet; he felt like he couldn't remember a time when there hadn't been dust and the constant pounding of the trebuchets.

He remembered this place from years before. He'd been about ten years old, the whole family had gone off for the day after a distant, unconfirmed rumour of geese on the flooded levels; there weren't any geese, of course, but they did find wild strawberries and some mushrooms that Uncle maintained were edible. As was usually the way on these occasions, they brought more food with them than they took back, but that wasn't really the point. Though n.o.body would have put it in quite those terms, it was about getting away from the rest of the clan for a while, a token act of separation. They were the only family he knew who did such things; it was regarded as a rather quaint eccentricity, and n.o.body ever asked if they could come too.

He remembered the cave; well, cave was an overstatement, the sc.r.a.pe under a rock where there'd been plenty of room for a ten-year-old to crawl in and imagine he was living in a house, one of those strange, non-mobile dwellings the Enemy lived in, when they weren't being the enemy.

He remembered it because of the strange feeling of security it gave him; walls that were rock and clay, not felt. One day, he thought, I'd like to live in a house. And so he had, years later, until the Enemy (another Enemy, but the same one) came to Ap' Escatoy and pulled his house down into their cave.

He remembered it also because while they were away from the clan, the Enemy had raided the camp; it was the day they killed Temrai's mother and rode off most of the herd, causing the famine that killed off so many people that winter. He remembered what it had been like riding back into the camp, seeing the sc.r.a.ps of burned felt flapping from the charred poles, the bodies left lying because there were so many of them it would take a whole day to clear up - he frowned, superimposing that memory on what he'd just seen.

(He'd seen a lot over the years, and remembered more of it than he'd have chosen; but that's what a spy does. He sees, and remembers; and then does what he's told.) The sc.r.a.pe was still there (no reason why it shouldn't be); it was smaller than he remembered, but plenty big enough to shelter him for the rest of the night and give him somewhere to work. He tied his horse to the thorn-tree (still there too; but it was nearly dead now), unslung his saddlebag and crawled into the dark tunnel.

The tinder flared at the third attempt (outside it had started to rain). He lit his lamp, then the little oil-stove that had belonged to his uncle. It flickered rather alarmingly, but he had light and enough warmth to keep his hands steady. That was enough.

He took the meat out of the bag and looked at it; then fished in the saddlebag for the little wooden box that held his uncle's most prized and mysterious treasure, the thin-bladed jointing and filleting knife. Think twice, cut once, he thought, then chose his spot for the first incision.

It was important to pace the work, easing the skin back with the forefinger of his left hand, working it off the bone with the flexible, razor-sharp blade in his right. He'd done similar work before, seen similar work done many times, and of course a certain degree of natural apt.i.tude was in the blood. This was, however, an exceptional case, and it would be infinitely easier to avoid mistakes than to make them good later.

It was an awkward joint to skin, because of the curves and angles. Uncle had done harder jobs over the years - he was so good at this sort of thing that people brought him their special trophies of the hunt, their prize bucks and wolves and foxes, to be made into cloaks and rugs and blankets (though how anybody could want a blanket with the head still on he'd never been able to understand). He'd always found the sight fascinating, to see how the skin came off the bone, looking the same but completely different; and in his unformed mind he'd often speculated about that close relations.h.i.+p between the skin and what it covered, how the skin could be part of the whole and yet so easily separated. These reflections had led on to others - the nature of external and internal reality, the way that what lies underneath shapes the surface, the way the surface protects and contains and masks what's inside. One paradox that had always amused him was the cuir-bouilli, thick, supple oxhide stripped off, boiled in wax and moulded to make armour that was nearly as effective as steel plate (because unlike the skin of steel, the cuir-bouilli had a memory; crush it and it flexed and returned to shape). He'd had a fantasy about a man boiled in wax until his skin became armour and no blade could bite him - impractical, of course, to make a defence for the outside that killed the inside. n.o.body would ever try an experiment like that, and so the theory went unproven.

He carried on peeling and shaving until the last pinch of skin came away whole, and he was left with two separate objects; skin and bone. He looked up. The water was simmering in the pot, so he dropped the bone in, to boil out the meat and tissue (the final step would be to bleach the bone and burnish it), then he laid out the skin and reached in his saddlebag for the things he needed: salt, herbs and the pot of honey. The salt he smeared in a thick layer over the raw side of the skin; then he sprinkled on the herbs and rolled the skin up tightly, like a letter. Finally he cut the wax around the neck of the honey-jar, prised off the lid and submerged the roll in the honey. The lid went back, and he melted a little k.n.o.b of wax with the lamp to seal it up again.

He rested for a minute or so, as much from the effort of concentration as the actual physical work, though that had been hard enough, calling for exceptional strength and dexterity of the fingers. To wash his hands, he crawled to the mouth of the sc.r.a.pe and held them out in the rain, then wiped them dry on a tussock of couch-gra.s.s. The last task was cleaning off the knife (Uncle had made him promise faithfully never to let it get rusty; once that happens, he'd said, you might as well chuck it away - you'll never get it clean again).

For a while, he thought about the work he'd done. Then he lay back, stretched out his legs and went to sleep.

Gannadius.

He sat up, his head dizzy with sleep. The room was so dark that he couldn't tell whether or not his eyes were open.

'Alexius?' he said.

- and Alexius stepped out of the darkness and sat down beside the bed. 'Sorry, did I wake you?'

'Presumably,' Gannadius replied. 'But that's all right. How are you?'

Alexius frowned at him. 'Dead,' he replied.

'Sorry, it was just a reflex question, I know you're . . . I'm sorry,' Gannadius added lamely.

'That's all right,' Alexius replied. 'I always thought philosophy's gain was diplomacy's loss. Think, if you'd joined the diplomatic corps instead of the Order, how many interesting wars you could have started.'

Gannadius clicked his tongue. 'That's something I've noticed, actually,' he said. 'You've got ever so much more sarcastic and waspish since you've been dead.'

'Have I?' Alexius looked concerned. 'Yes, come to think of it I suppose I have, though I hadn't noticed till you mentioned it. I can only a.s.sume it's the result of being filtered through your delightful personality and sunny disposition every time I need to talk to you. Hence also, no doubt, the increased levels of flippancy. Not that I'm complaining; I always felt I was a trifle too dry and bland in my conversation.'

'Glad to be of service,' Gannadius said. 'Now then-'

'The message, yes.' Alexius thought for a moment. 'I'm not sure how to put this without sounding deplorably melodramatic. Goodbye for ever.'

'Oh,' Gannadius replied. 'What's happened?'

'The mess we made has finally put itself right,' Alexius replied. 'Although right isn't perhaps the most appropriate word. Iseutz Hedin is dead. Bardas killed her a few minutes ago.'

'Oh,' Gannadius repeated. 'And that changes things how, exactly? I'm sorry, I don't quite follow.'

Alexius sighed. 'Vegetating here among the intellectual elite of the Shastel Order hasn't done much for your inductive reasoning, I see,' he said. 'Let's see. I suppose you could say that the Principle has a.s.serted itself, or returned to its proper course - that's if we're using the river a.n.a.logy, which I never liked much. If we're using the wheel a.n.a.logy, I'd say it's completed a revolution and returned to top dead centre, though that conveniently ignores the fact that it was off-line for a while. Thanks, I'm sorry to say, to you and me.'

'The curse.'

'Oh dear, that word again. That diversion, or that deflection - or should it be eccentricity? Although on balance I'd settle for that b.l.o.o.d.y stupid mistake.' He shook his head. 'It's been resolved, in any event. In a sense, we're now back to where we would have been if we hadn't interfered - except, of course, that we're nowhere near, because the city that hasn't fallen isn't Perimadeia, it's a fortress out on the plains somewhere that Bardas has failed to capture; and it's Iseutz, not Bardas, who's been killed; and of course, because the wheel's turned an extra turn and covered that much more ground, any number of people have been involved who needn't have been. But it's over, which is the main thing. Now all that's left is for you to write up the experiment as a paper. Not meaning this unkindly,' he went on, 'but I'd get someone to work on it with you, just to add that objective angle that makes all the difference. What about that confounded gifted student of yours, the girl-'

'Machaera?' Gannadius shook his head. 'She changed course last year. She's in Commercial Strategy now, doing rather well.'

'Really? Shame.' Alexius sighed. 'Well, you'll find someone, I expect. And you won't be in a position to start work until everything's calmed down anyway, so-'

'What do you mean exactly,' Gannadius interrupted, 'by "calmed down"?'

Alexius made a vague gesture with his hands. 'Worked itself out, found its own level. You'll see.' He stood up. 'Well, old friend, this is one of those acutely embarra.s.sing moments we try so hard to avoid; it's been a pleasure working with you, and I've enjoyed our friends.h.i.+p very much (even if the consequences for hundreds of thousands of people were fairly catastrophic). It'd be nice to think we might meet again some day, though I have to say that in my interpretation of the Principle, that's extremely unlikely.' He pulled a face. 'I know that sounds dismally formal, but you and I aren't the sort to make big emotional speeches. More's the pity, probably.'

Gannadius nodded. 'I shall miss you,' he said. 'But I suppose I'm glad, if it really is over; except that I'm not, because things have turned out so terribly badly, and it was our fault-'

'Partly our fault. We didn't make people the way they are, or cause the problems that started it all. In a sense, all this would have happened anyway; because it has happened-' He broke off, scratched his head, and smiled ruefully. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I had hoped that death would clarify my thinking in this area, but I'm afraid it hasn't. I never did understand the Principle, and I don't now.'

'There were two alternative courses, each equally valid,' Gannadius said slowly. 'We chose. But what happened, happened.'

'If you use the river a.n.a.logy,' Alexius said, 'which I've never been happy with. But I don't see how you can fit all this into the wheel a.n.a.logy-'

'Unless,' Gannadius put in, 'you see the Principle not as a wheel but as a camshaft.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Just something I heard. I don't think much of it, either.' He took a deep breath. 'Can we shake hands, or hug, or something? I feel some sort of physical expression of leavetaking-'

Alexius thought about it. 'I can leave you with an impression that there was physical contact,' he said, 'but it would const.i.tute an unreliable memory. However, it would be impossible to prove otherwise.'

'And equally impossible to prove,' Gannadius replied with a smile. 'And remember, we're philosophers. Scientists. To us, proof is everything.'

'Very well then. Goodbye, Gannadius.'

- Who realised he was awake, and had been dreaming.

It was like the aftermath of a big feast, a birthday or a wedding; they felt exhilarated and exhausted, and the last thing they wanted to do was start clearing up the mess. Unfortunately, a certain amount would have to be done before they could go to bed; a careful search for enemy survivors, for instance, not to mention their own wounded.

'Iordecai, you organise some work details,' Sildocai said. 'Lissai, Ullacai, check the defences, just in case they do attack - I can't imagine they will, but it'd be a brilliant tactical move, hitting us when we're at our most relaxed. Pajai, I want you to take twenty men and make sure Loredan's body isn't bobbing up and down in the river somewhere. You never know your luck.'

'All right,' someone replied. 'And what are you going to do?'

'Report to Temrai, of course,' Sildocai replied with a grin. 'By the way, has anybody seen him? Last I saw him he was heading back to his tent, but that was when we were still mopping up by the cattle pens.' n.o.body had anything to contribute, so he shrugged and said, 'I expect he's in his tent with his feet up; after all, he's not really fit again after that bas.h.i.+ng he took when he got buried.'

There were fires burning everywhere he looked as he crossed the camp; the neatly stacked cords of firewood had got soaked in the rain, so they were using halberd-shafts and Imperial-issue boots for fuel. Everybody he saw was moving at the slow, grim pace of the bone-weary, the dogged trudge, shoes heavy with clinging mud. He knew how they felt; but he was still slightly buzzed with victory. A pity that a victory took even longer to clear up after than a defeat.

The women and children had come out and were doing their best to help; pulling s.h.i.+rts and boots off dead halberdiers, gathering up armfuls of arrows, bustling about the harvest of the dead, the unexpected wind-falls of good things that shouldn't go to waste. There were children rolling helmets along the ground and laughing (excited to be up so late, burning off energy after being cooped up in the tents for so long); he saw a small girl stop and stare thoughtfully at the body of another child, one who'd run out during the fighting and got in the way; it was half trampled into the mud, and the small girl was studying it without any apparent emotion. Over on the other side, a few men were darting and sliding wildly about, trying to round up some horses that had got loose. One of the men had a saturated-red bandage round his head - but someone had to catch the horses; they were his living, after all. He looked down and realised that he'd just put his foot on a hand.

Ah, well, he thought; it'll probably be back to work again tomorrow, when the trebuchets start up again, but we might as well get some sleep tonight, we've earned it. It occurred to him that he was starving hungry - chances were he wasn't the only one - but that was going to have to wait too. Had anybody thought to get Temrai something to eat?

The tent-flap was pulled back, and light was soaking out. He knocked against the post, but n.o.body answered. Asleep, maybe. He ducked and walked in.

Temrai was in his chair, or at least his body was. But his neck had been cut through square, and his head was missing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

'Please try not to think of it as a retrograde step in your career,' the Son of Heaven said, his eyes focused an inch or so above the top of Bardas' head. 'It's nothing of the sort. As I said earlier, we're quite satisfied with your performance. In the final a.n.a.lysis, the war has proved successful; you may have lost a battle, but you've negotiated peace on the same terms I'd have found acceptable if you'd won. After all,' he went on, 'n.o.body was expecting you to kill them all.'

Bardas nodded. 'Thank you,' he said.

'My pleasure. We do recognise that you took over command under adverse circ.u.mstances, that you couldn't be expected to handle troops to the same level of competency as an experienced general, and that these plainsmen proved to be an unexpectedly resourceful, tenacious and difficult enemy. You weren't the only commander they beat. In fact, you did considerably better than we expected.'

'It's very kind of you to say so.'

'Not at all. Which is why,' he went on, 'I had no hesitation whatsoever in recommending you for your new position. After all, men with your depth of experience in siege mining operations are few and far between. Not that we expect the situation at Hommyra to last anything like as long as the Ap' Escatoy business,' he added. 'Once the main galleries are completed we antic.i.p.ate a conclusion in a matter of months.'

Bardas nodded. 'That's good,' he said.

'And after that - well.' The Son of Heaven actually smiled. 'There will, I feel sure, always be a need in the service for a first-cla.s.s sapper. I can see the possibility of great things in your future, provided you fulfil your side of the bargain.'

(It had been a strange meeting, almost comic; both men treating each other with exaggerated courtesy, as if the slightest false nuance would immediately result in a hail of arrows answered by a desperate cavalry charge. Captain Loredan had greeted King Sildocai with all due and proper respect, precisely quantified in provincial office protocols (an enemy general ranks above one's own immediate subordinate, equal with oneself, but is deemed to be equal-and-below for diplomatic purposes with one's immediate superior) and had offered formal condolences on the death of King Temrai. King Sildocai had thanked Captain Loredan for his most welcome sentiments, and expressed the wish that henceforth their two nations could work together in a spirit of co-operation towards finding a mutually acceptable settlement. The deal - that the clans would leave the plains, go north into officially designated wilderness and never come back - was concluded so quickly and easily that at times both of them suspected that they were reading from the same set of notes. When they parted, they were almost friends.) 'Of course,' continued the Son of Heaven, 'we never had the slightest intention of sending you to the Island.'

'Really?' Bardas said. He sounded as if the subject was of academic interest only.

'Absolutely. It would have represented a concession, almost an act of weakness. No, the Island needs - forgive me - strong, uncompromising leaders.h.i.+p to see it through the difficult process of transition. The territory itself is, of course, hardly worth bothering with (in due course I expect we'll amalgamate it with one of the other sub-prefectures, adjust the population balance, make it a viable proposition as a designated naval base); but at this particular juncture, the first priority must be to secure the fleet. If our various unfortunate experiences in this theatre of operations has taught us anything, it's that we can no longer afford to neglect seapower.'

He's talking to me, Bardas realised, entirely as one of us - a subordinate, naturally, but us includes us all, even me. 'I can see that,' he said. 'As you say, it's a matter of priorities.'

Magnanimously, the Son of Heaven offered to pour him some more wine. He'd noticed that they liked to do this, either because it made some point about their relations.h.i.+p as servants of the Empire, or because they couldn't trust outlanders not to disturb the sediment. He nodded thank you politely.

'As a matter of fact,' the Son of Heaven went on, 'during my discussions with him, I found the rebel leader rather more shrewd than I'd antic.i.p.ated - a bad lapse of judgement on my part, I confess. Well,' he added, pursing his thin lips, 'not shrewd, exactly; it was more that curious blend of cunning and stupidity that characterises mercantile nations. In my experience they tend to have an uncanny knack of being able to understand motivations on the individual human level, whereas larger issues that would be perfectly obvious to you and me seem to pa.s.s them by entirely. Hence,' he added, with a trace of a smile, 'the aptness of the personal approach, the misguidance - is there such a word? I wonder - that we would be sending you, somebody they could both trust and manipulate. Of course he was a fool to base his entire strategy on a wholly unsupported a.s.surance, a vague statement of probable future intent. The remarkable weakness I've found among traders is their apparent desire, in spite of their facade of cynicism, to trust someone. Making him trust me was easy; people like that can't help trusting people they're afraid of.'

Bardas smiled, as if sharing the joke. 'What's going to happen to him?' he asked. 'The rebel leader, I mean.'

The Son of Heaven was watching him out of the corner of his eye. 'Oh, he'll be extradited, tried and sentenced; we have to balance the books, after all. Fortunately, our system of audit allows one man to bear the blame for his country's defaults; it's efficient and humane, and it simplifies performance reviews. Thus King Temrai's paid for his people, Master Auzeil and his cohorts will pay for theirs; we can draw a line under both columns and rule the page off. Similarly,' he went on, his voice so gentle that it almost degenerated into a drawl (except that no Son of Heaven would ever sink so low), 'we can conclude our rather pointless entanglement in the Mesoge with one simple act of accounting.'

Bardas kept perfectly still.

They had, of course, been reading his letters. It was standard operating procedure when an officer was under review following an unsatisfactory or questionable action.

The letter in question had reached him at a bad time, when he was in the middle of trying to sort out a mess he'd made with the duty rosters. 'Not now,' he'd said, and then seen the expression on the face of the man who'd brought it. He looked as if he wanted to be sick.

'What've you got there?' he asked.

'Letter for you,' the man replied. 'And that.' He pointed to a large earthenware jar, which was being held by another distressed-looking soldier. 'We've got the man who brought them in the guardhouse.'

Bardas nodded. 'Fair enough,' he said, wondering what was going on. 'Give me the letter and put the jar in my tent. I'll be along in a minute'

In the event it took him nearly half an hour to straighten out the rosters, by which time he'd clean forgotten about the letter. It wasn't until that evening, when he managed to sc.r.a.pe up an hour for a rest and a sit-down, that he saw the jar beside his chair and remembered.

The seal was broken - well, he was used to that - but familiar; the Loredan Bank, which meant the letter was from one of two people. And he couldn't imagine his sister Niessa sending him a letter, let alone presents.

Dear Bardas, You're reading this, which means you've won the battle. Congratulations! Now, let's go back a bit.

When I've finished writing this letter, it'll go to my man in Temrai's camp. He's been working for me for a while now; basically, his job's been to make sure nothing happens to Temrai until you catch up with him; then to make sure, come what may, that he doesn't escape. If you get him - well, fine, you won't be reading this letter. If he's managed to give you the slip - well, it's all right.

It was the least I could do. I know how important it is for you - your career, your future - to make a success of this war. It's been touch and go, hasn't it? First they were going to send that huge great army, which would've meant you never got your chance. Well, we couldn't have that, could we? Luckily, I was able to arrange a little diversion there; the Islanders are so stupid and greedy that all I had to do was suggest that they might consider holding out on the deal and demanding more money, and that was that. Then, of course, they went too far and got themselves annexed; I felt a bit foolish when I heard about that, I can tell you. Luckily, though, there was enough time to send some of my people across to start a neat little rebellion - a long shot, but it worked. I had a feeling it would work; because, you see, I know this war is meant to happen for you, and nothing's going to stand in your way this time.

I hope you like the present. You've been making things for me ever since we were kids (you were always the clever one with your hands). Now, you know I can't make things to save my life, so I've got this clever fellow Da.s.sascai to do this for me. What with being an a.s.sa.s.sin and a cook, he ought to have made a fair job of it. If not - well, it's the thought that counts.

As always, Your loving brother, Gorgas.

Bardas rolled up the letter; then he cut the wax around the neck of the jar, eased off the stopper and pulled out what he found inside.

At first he thought it was a pig's head, like the ones he'd always dreaded as a boy, though his father and Gorgas considered them a great delicacy. The drill was to bone out the skull, leaving the mask intact; it was then cured with salt and stuffed with good things - cloves, allspice, basil, black and red Colleon pepper-corns, mace, cinnamon, c.u.min, dried apricots and root ginger - and steeped in thin, clear, almost white domestic honey. Even then, Bardas had been both intrigued and disgusted by the paradox of the sweet, delicious, fragrant inside and the grotesque, dead exterior; he wondered who could possibly have thought up the idea of such a bizarre combination. As a dutiful son, he'd always made a show of tackling his share and miming enthusiasm, trying to make himself concentrate on the gorgeous smell and the rich, sweet taste - after all, you don't have to look at something in order to eat it, you just reach out with your knife and cut.

It was the same recipe; he could imagine Gorgas writing it out in detail and sending it to his cook, with strict instructions not to try to improve it (Gorgas had a flair for cooking and a tremendous ability to enjoy food; details mattered to him. On reflection, Gorgas would have made a fine Son of Heaven). But it wasn't a pig's face that dangled from the mop of honey-slicked hair between his fingers; shrunken and distorted (probably by the drying action of the salt), it was the face of King Temrai.

Honey trickled down the dimpled, overripe-peach cheeks like golden tears; the eyelids were closed on the empty sockets (Bardas knew how much closed eyes could see) and the mouth was sewn up with finely twisted sinew, which had in one or two places torn through the thin fabric of the lips as the skin contracted and tightened. It was soft and yielding to the touch, like a leather bag - like the footb.a.l.l.s they used to make out of bladders crammed with straw, or the savoury winter puddings his mother stuffed into the stomach of a sheep. Under the white-gold glaze, the skin was pale and marbled, like mother of pearl.