Taking care not to rustle too much, Polly pulled out the much-folded, much-read, much-stained last letter from her brother, and read it by the light of the solitary, guttering candle. It had been opened and heavily mangled by the censors, and bore the stamp of the Duchy. It read:
Dear all,
We are in ■■■■■ which is ■■■ with a ■■big thing with knobs. On ■■■■we will ■■■■■ which is just as well because ■■■ out of. I am keeping well. The food is ■■■■. ■■■ we’ll ■■ at the ■■■ but my mate ■■er says not to worry, it’ll be all over by ■■■■ and we shall all have medals.
Chins up! Paul
It was in a careful hand, the excessively clear and well-shaped writing of someone who has to think about every letter. She slowly folded it up again. Paul had wanted medals, because they were shiny. That’d been almost a year ago, when any recruiting party that came past went away with the best part of a battalion, and there had been people waving them off with flags and music. Sometimes, now, smaller parties of men came back. The lucky ones were missing only one arm or one leg. There were no flags.
She unfolded another piece of paper. It was a pamphlet. It was headed ‘From the Mothers of Borogravia!’ The mothers of Borogravia were very definite about wanting to send their sons off to war against the Zlobenian Aggressor and used a great many exclamation marks to say so. And this was odd, because the mothers in Munz had not seemed keen on the idea of their sons going off to war, and positively tried to drag them back. Several copies of the pamphlet seemed to have reached every home, even so. It was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.
Polly had learned to read and write after a fashion because the inn was big and it was a business and things had to be tallied and recorded. Her mother had taught her to read, which was acceptable to Nuggan, and her father made sure that she learned how to write, which was not. A woman who could write was an Abomination unto Nuggan, according to Father Jupe; anything she wrote would by definition be a lie.
But Polly had learned anyway because Paul hadn’t, at least to the standard needed to run an inn as busy as The Duchess. He could read if he could run his finger slowly along the lines, and he wrote letters at a snail’s pace, with a lot of care and heavy breathing, like a man assembling a piece of jewellery. He was big and kind and slow and could lift beer kegs as though they were toys, but he wasn’t a man at home with paperwork. Their father had hinted to Polly, very gently but very often, that Polly would need to be right behind him when the time came for him to run The Duchess. Left to himself, with no one to tell him what to do next, her brother just stood and watched birds.
At Paul’s insistence, she’d read the whole of ‘From the Mothers of Borogravia!’ to him, including the bits about heroes and there being no greater good than to die for your country. She wished, now, she hadn’t done that. Paul did what he was told. Unfortunately, he believed what he was told, too.
Polly put the papers away and dozed again, until her bladder woke her up. Oh, well, at least at this time of the morning she’d have a clear run. She reached out for her pack and stepped as softly as she could out into the rain.
It was mostly just coming off the trees now, which were roaring in the wind that blew up the valley. The moon was hidden in the clouds, but there was just enough light to make out the inn’s buildings. A certain greyness suggested that what passed for dawn in Pliin was on the way. She located the men’s privy which, indeed, stank of inaccuracy.
A lot of planning and practice had gone into this moment. She was helped by the design of the breeches, which were the old-fashioned kind with generous buttoned trapdoors, and also by the experiments she’d made very early in the mornings when she was doing the cleaning. In short, with care and attention to detail, she’d found that a woman could pee standing up. It certainly worked back home in the inn’s privy, which had been designed and built in the certain expectation of the aimlessness of the customers.
The wind shook the dank building. In the dark she thought of Auntie Hattie, who’d gone a bit strange round her sixtieth birthday and persistently accused passing young men of looking up her dress. She was even worse after a glass of wine, and she had one joke: ‘What does a man stand up to do, a woman sit down to do and a dog lift its leg to do?’ And then, when everyone was too embarrassed to answer, she’d triumphantly shriek, ‘Shake hands!’ and fall over. Auntie Hattie was an Abomination all by herself.
Polly buttoned up the breeches with a sense of exhilaration. She felt she’d crossed a bridge, a sensation that was helped by the realization that she’d kept her feet dry.
Someone said, ‘Psst!’
It was just as well she’d already taken a leak. Panic instantly squeezed every muscle. Where were they hiding? This was just a rotten old shed! Oh, there were a few cubicles, but the smell alone suggested very strongly that the woods outside would be a much better proposition. Even on a wild night. Even with extra wolves.
‘Yes?’ she quavered, and then cleared her throat and demanded, with a little more gruffness: ‘Yes?’
‘You’ll need these,’ whispered the voice. In the fetid gloom she made out something rising over the top of a cubicle. She reached up nervously and touched softness. It was a bundle of wool. Her fingers explored it.
‘A pair of socks?’ she said.
‘Right. Wear ‘em,’ said the mystery voice hoarsely.
‘Thank you, but I’ve brought several pairs . . .’ Polly began.
There was a faint sigh. ‘No. Not on your feet. Shove ‘em down the front of your trousers.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look,’ said the whisperer patiently, ‘you don’t bulge where you shouldn’t bulge. That’s good. But you don’t bulge where you should bulge, either. You know? Lower down?’
‘Oh! Er . . . I. . . but . . . I didn’t think people noticed . . .’ said Polly, glowing with embarrassment. She’d been spotted! But there was no hue and cry, no angry quotations from the Book of Nuggan. Someone was helping. Someone who had seen her . . .
‘It’s a funny thing,’ said the voice, ‘but they notice what’s missing more than they notice what’s there. Just one pair, mark you. Don’t get ambitious.’
Polly hesitated. ‘Um . . . is it obvious?’ she said.
‘No. That’s why I gave you the socks.’
‘I meant that . . . that I’m not . . . that I’m . . .’
‘Not really,’ said the voice in the dark. ‘You’re pretty good. You come over as a frightened young lad trying to look big and brave. You might pick your nose a bit more often. Just a tip. Few things interest a young man more than the contents of his nostrils. Now I’ve got a favour to ask you in return.’
I didn’t ask you for one, Polly thought, quite annoyed at being taken for being a frightened young lad when she was sure she’d come over as quite a cool, non-ruffled young lad. But she said calmly: ‘What is it?’
‘Got any paper?’
Wordlessly, Polly pulled ‘From the Mothers of Borogravia!’ out of her shirt and handed it up. She heard the sound of a match striking, and a sulphurous smell which only improved the general conditions.
‘Why, is this the escutcheon of her grace the Duchess I see in front of me?’ said the whisperer. ‘Well, it won’t be in front of me for long. Beat it . . . boy.’
Polly hurried out into the night, shocked, dazed, confused and almost asphyxiated, and made it to the shed door. But she’d barely shut it behind her and was still blinking in the blackness when it was thrust open again, to let in the wind, rain and Corporal Strappi.
‘All right, all right! Hands off . . . well, you lot wouldn’t be able to find ‘em . . . and on with socks! Hup hup hi ho hup hup . . .’
Bodies were suddenly springing up or falling over all round Polly. Their muscles must have been obeying the voice directly, because no brain could have got into gear that quickly. Corporal Strappi, in obedience to the law of non-commissioned officers, responded by making the confusion more confusing.