The Company

by K.J. Parker

Genres: War & Military; Epic Fantasy; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need -- food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives. But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for. For one of them, it seems, has been hiding a terrible secret from the rest of the company. And when the truth begins to emerge, it soon becomes clear that the war is far from over. With masterful storytelling, irresistible wit, and extraordinary insight into human nature, K.J. Parker is widely acknowledged as one of the most original and exciting fantasy writers of modern times. The Company, K.J. Parker's first stand-alone novel, is a tour de force from an author who is changing the face of the fantasy genre.

Release date: May 27, 2009

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 440

Sample

The boatman who rowed him from the ship to the quay kept looking at him: first a stare, then a frown. Pretending he hadn’t
noticed, he pulled the collar of his greatcoat up round his chin, a perfectly legitimate response to the spray and the cold
wind.


“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” the boatman asked.

“Wouldn’t have thought so,” he replied.

The boatman’s frown deepened. He pulled a dozen strokes, then lifted his oars out of the water, letting the back-current take
the boat the rest of the way. “I do know you,” the boatman said. “Were you in the war?”


He smiled. “Everybody was in the war.”

The boatman was studying his collar and the frayed remains of his cuffs, where the rank and unit insignia had been before
he unpicked them. “Cavalry?” the boatman persisted. “I was in the cavalry.”


“Sappers,” he replied. It was the first lie he’d told for six weeks.

He felt the boat nuzzle up to the quay, grabbed his bags and stood up. “Thanks,” he said.

“Two quarters.”

He paid three—two for the fare, one for the lie—and climbed the steps, not looking back. The smell was exactly as he remembered
it: seaweed, rotting rope, cod drying on racks, sewage, tar. It would’ve been nice if just one thing had changed, but apparently
not.


As he walked up the steep cobbled hill, he saw a thick knot of people blocking his way. Never a good sign. It was just starting
to rain.


It was as he’d feared. The short, fat man in the immaculate uniform was almost certainly the harbourmaster; next to him, two
thin men who had to be his clerks; the old, bald man had the constipated look of a mayor or a portreeve. Add two guards and
a tall, scared-looking youth who was presumably someone’s nephew. At least they hadn’t had time to call out the town band.


No chance of slipping past. He didn’t look at them directly. At ten yards, they stood at sort-of-attention. At five yards,
the presumed harbourmaster cleared his throat. He was actually shaking with fear.


“General Kunessin,” he said, in a squeaky little voice. “This is a tremendous honour. If only we’d had a little more notice…
”


“That’s perfectly all right,” he replied; his polite-to-nuisances voice. “Listen, is there somewhere I can hire a horse and
two mules?”


Looking rather dazed, the harbourmaster gave him directions: through the Landgate, second on your left, then sharp right—

“Coopers Row,” he interrupted. “Thanks, that’s fine.”

The harbourmaster’s eyes opened very wide. “You’ve been here before then, General?”

“Yes.”

One thing that had changed in seventeen years was the cost of hiring a horse in Faralia. It had doubled. All the more surprising
because, as far as he could tell, it was the same horse.


“Is this the best you’ve got?” he asked. “I’ve got a long way to go.”

“Take it or leave it.”

The horse shivered. It wasn’t a particularly cold day. “Thanks,” Kunessin said. “Forget the horse and make it three mules.”

The groom looked at him; cheapskates aren’t welcome here. Kunessin smiled back. “How’s your uncle, by the way?” he asked pleasantly.
“Keeping well?”


“He’s dead.”

Two things, then. “Not that one,” he said, “it’s lame.” He counted out two dollars and nine turners. “Thank you so much,”
he said.


The groom handed him the leading reins. “Do I know you?”

“No,” he replied, because at six and a half turners per half-dead mule per day, he was entitled to a free lie. “I’m a perfect
stranger.”


Climbing the hill eastwards out of town, his feet practically dragging on the ground as the mule panted mournfully under his
weight, he thought: hell of a way for the local hero to travel. And that made him laugh out loud.


Because he took a long loop to avoid Big Moor, it took him two and a half hours to reach Ennepe, at which point he got off
the mule and walked the rest of the way, to save time.


No change, he thought. Even the gap in the long wall was still there, a little bit bigger, a few more stones tumbled down
and snug in the grass. Seventeen years and they still hadn’t got around to fixing it. Instead, they’d bundled cut gorse into
the breach and let the brambles grow up through the dead, dry branches. He smiled as he pictured them, at breakfast round
the long kitchen table: one of these days we’d better fix that gap in the wall, and the others all nodding. Seventeen years;
seventeen years slipping by, and they’d never found the time. For some reason, that made him feel sad and rather angry.


Walking down the drove, Stoneacre on his left, he could see Big Moor clearly in the distance. Seventy-five acres of bleak,
thin hilltop pasture, a green lump. It cost him a good deal of effort to avoid looking at it, but he managed.


At the point where the drove crossed the old cart road (now it was just a green trace in the bracken; by the look of it, the
lumber carts didn’t come this way any more), he saw a boy sitting on a fallen tree, staring at him. He pushed his hat back
a little, to show his face, and called out, “Hello.”


The boy’s head dipped about half an inch. Otherwise he didn’t move. Kunessin understood the look on the boy’s face all too
well: the natural distrust of newcomers, at war with the furious curiosity about a stranger, in a place where strangers never
came.


“There’s a stray ewe caught in the briars up at the top, just past the deer track,” he said. “One of yours?”

The boy studied him for three heartbeats, then nodded a full inch. His lips moved, but “thanks” didn’t quite make it through.
He stood up, but didn’t walk.


“You’ll be Nogei Gaeon’s boy,” Kunessin said.

“That’s right.”

“I’m on my way up to the house now. Is he likely to be in the yard, this time of day?”

Desperate hesitation; then the boy shook his head. “He’ll be up at the linhay,” he replied, “feeding the calves.”

“Over Long Ridge?”

The boy’s eyes widened; he couldn’t understand how a stranger would know the names of the fields. “Thanks,” Kunessin said.
“How about your uncle Kudei? Where’d he be?”


The boy gave him a long, frightened look. “You from the government?”

Kunessin grinned. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said.

He left the boy and carried on down the hill until he reached the top gate of Castle Field, which led into Greystones, which
led into Long Ridge. The hedges were high, neglected, and they shielded him from the sight of Big Moor.


(Well, he thought, I’m home, as near as makes no odds; the last place on earth I want to be.)

Then, before he was ready, he was standing at the top of the yard, looking down the slope. Directly in front of him was the
old cider house, which had finally collapsed. One wall had peeled away, and the unsupported roof had slumped sideways, the
roof-tree and rafters gradually torn apart by the unsupportable weight of the slates; it put him in mind of the stripped carcass
of a chicken, after the meal is over. A dense tangle of briars slopped out over the stub of the broken wall, and a young ash
was growing aggressively between the stones. It must have happened so slowly, he thought: neglect, the danger dimly perceived
but never quite scrambling high enough up the pyramid of priorities until it was too late, no longer worth the prodigious
effort needed to put it right. There would have been a morning when they all came out to find it lying there, having gently
pulled itself apart in the night. They’d have sworn a bit, shaken their heads, accepted the inconvenience and carried on as
before.


A man came out of the back door of the house: tall, bald, slightly stooped shoulders. He was carrying a large basket full
of apples. Halfway across the yard he stopped and looked up. For a moment he stayed quite still; then he put the basket down.
Kunessin walked down to meet him.


“Oh,” the man said. “It’s you.”

Kunessin smiled. “Hello, Euge,” he said. He noticed that the apples in the basket were all wrinkled, some of them marked with
brown patches. Forgotten about, left too long in store, spoiled, now only fit for the pigs.


“What’re you doing here?”

“Visiting,” Kunessin replied. “Where’s Kudei?”

Euge Gaeon nodded in the direction of the foul, wet pasture beyond the house. “You still in the army?” he asked.

“No,” Kunessin said. “I retired. How’s the farm?”

Euge shrugged, as if the question didn’t make sense: might as well ask, how are the mountains? Just behind him, a rat scuttled
across the yard and vanished into a crack in the feed store wall.


“You staying long?” Euge asked.

Kunessin shook his head. “Flying visit,” he said.

Well, at least he’d made somebody happy today. He left Euge to his melancholy task, rounded the back porch of the house (the
midden was buried under the finest crop of nettles he’d ever seen in his life, but he could just see the remains of a dead
sheep, and a large clot of sodden chicken feathers), climbed over the back rails and squelched across the small orchard to
the beech-hedged bank that divided it from Little Moor. There was no gate in the gateway; instead, four or five broken willow
hurdles had been wedged together and tied to each other with flax twine. He climbed over, grazing his ankle in the process,
and saw a man in the distance.


Kudei Gaeon was standing a few yards from the single oak tree that grew in the top left corner of the field. He was watching
a handsome heifer calf, which he’d clearly just tied to the tree with three feet of rope. The calf was tugging furiously,
its feet dug into the soft ground, leaning back with all its weight, its head turned sideways. Ten yards or so beyond, a thin
cow was watching, angry but too apprehensive to get involved. Kudei took a piece of rag from his coat pocket and bound it
round his left hand; rope burns, Kunessin supposed.


“Hello, farmer,” he said.

Kudei looked round and saw him. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.” For a moment he hesitated, then he grinned; it was as though his
face was splitting, like a log to the wedge. “You’re back, then.”


Kunessin realised he’d taken a step back, just as he’d always done when talking to Kudei. Too close and he had to look up
to him, because Kudei happened to be a head taller than him. He’d always resented that, for some absurd reason.


“How’s the farm?” Kunessin asked.

“Could be worse,” Kudei replied with a scowl. “Short on hay this year because of the rain, but the grass is good and fat,
so we won’t have to start feeding till late.” He must have realised he was scowling; he deliberately relaxed his face, then
smiled. “You didn’t come all this way to ask about the farm.”


“Actually,” Kunessin said, then shrugged. “Hasn’t changed much in seventeen years.”

Kudei thought for a moment, then said, “It’s changed slowly.”

“The cider house.”

“You noticed.” Kudei laughed: a slight shudder in his massive chest. “Well, of course you did. Sorry about that. I guess we
never got round to doing anything about it.”


“There’s always something,” Kunessin said.

“Not when you had the place.” Kudei frowned, then disposed of that expression too. “You really came back just to see what
we’ve done with it?”


“No, of course not.” The calf was twisting its neck against the rope. Quite soon, there’d be a sore patch. Dad would’ve padded
the halter, Kunessin thought. “That’s a nice little heifer,” he said. “Going to show her in the spring?”


“We don’t show any more,” Kudei said. “No time.”

Kunessin nodded. “Are you done here? I could do with a drink.”

“Come up to the house. You’ll have to excuse my brothers,” he added sadly. “They haven’t exactly mellowed with age.”

“I met Euge just now,” Kunessin said. “Wasn’t he ever pleased to see me.”

“I can imagine,” Kudei said; he was pulling the rag tighter round his damaged hand.

“You should wear gloves when you’re roping cattle.”

“I would, if I had any.”

For some reason, Kunessin was shocked by that. “You’re kidding.”

Kudei laughed. “Sort of,” he said. “We’ve got seven pairs of gloves, actually, all of them with the palms worn through. And
we’ve got three good cured sheepskins hanging up in the barn, going mouldy with the damp, but cutting a bit off and patching
a glove… ” He smiled. “It’s a case of getting round to it, you see. Always tomorrow, always directly. Well, you know.”


Shocked and, he realised, angry. “That’s no way to live, Kudei,” he said.

“We manage,” Kudei replied quietly. “Come inside, we’ll have that drink.”

“Forget it,” Kunessin said, more abruptly than he’d have liked. “I need to get back to town by nightfall,” he lied. “It was
good to see you again.”


Kudei stopped dead in his tracks. “Is that it, then?” he said. “You came all this way to yell at me for not patching a pair
of gloves?”


“You shouldn’t have let the cider house fall down,” Kunessin replied. “That was just idleness.”

(He could always tell when Kudei was starting to get angry. It was a long, gradual process, and it always began the same way.
He’d start to slow down, his movements gentler, his voice growing softer. Just before he got furious, you could barely hear
him.)


“It hasn’t been easy,” Kudei said. “I was away for ten years.”

“I know.” Time for another lie. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“My brothers… ” It was as though Kudei was searching the shelves and drawers of his mind for the right words. “They do their
best,” he said.


Which was true, and of course that was what made it unforgivable. But Kunessin hadn’t come here to fight. “I’ll be at the
Glory of Heroes for three days,” he said. “Drop in and I’ll buy you that drink.”


He started to walk away. Kudei didn’t move. A pity, Kunessin thought; but when did we ever say a dozen honest words to each
other without falling out? “If I don’t see you, take care of yourself,” he said, not looking round.


He took five steps; then he heard Kudei say, “If you can hang on an extra day, I’ve got to take a load of grain to the mill.”

He had his back to Kudei, so it was safe to smile. “I’ll see you then,” he said, and walked away.

The sign didn’t hang straight, and the paint was starting to flake in the salty sea air. It read:

Royal United School of Defence

Founder & Propr Thouridos Alces

Late Master Sgt at Arms 5th Infantry

All schools, styles & techniques expertly taught

Vacancies usually available

Under the sign was a small door that looked as though it had been made for a larger doorway and cut down to fit. The latch
didn’t quite line up with the keeper, so someone had bent it enthusiastically with a hammer. Beyond the door was a long, dark
passageway leading to a flight of stairs; and at the head of the stairs, another door with another sign:


Fencing School

No Admittance While Class In Progress

Kunessin pushed it open and saw a large square room, brightly lit by a great bay window that occupied most of the outward-facing
wall. The polished floorboards reflected the light, which meant that the man standing in the centre of the floor was a backlit
silhouette. Nevertheless…


“Hello, Fly,” Kunessin said.

There was a loud clatter as the man dropped the two-handed sword he’d been holding. “Teuche?” he said, in a bewildered voice,
like someone woken up in the middle of a complicated dream.


“Yes,” Kunessin said.

The man started forward, trod on the blade of the dropped sword, stumbled, jumped a foot in the air, landed perfectly and
ran towards him—all, apparently, in one concerted movement. Instinctively Kunessin took a step back and sideways, but the
man must have anticipated the move; he lunged, caught Kunessin round the waist and lifted him off the ground.


“For God’s sake,” Kunessin gasped. “You’re breaking my bloody ribs.”

Thouridos Alces laughed and let him go; he slid down the front of Alces’ canvas fencing coat until his heels jarred on the
floor.


“Teuche, you complete bastard,” Alces said, gripping Kunessin’s shoulders and shaking him. “What the hell do you mean by it,
sneaking up on me like that? You might at least’ve let me know you were coming.”


He’d forgotten, he realised, quite how short Fly Alces was: five feet four, five at the most. Hardly surprising: it was something
you had to make a conscious effort to remember. For one thing, he never seemed to hold still for long enough to be quantifiable
by any normal system of weights and measures; more like a wave than a solid object, someone had once said. For another, he
had a knack of seeming to fill all the space available, regardless of whether he was standing in an empty barn or hiding in
a flour barrel.


“You’re a strange man, Fly,” Kunessin said, pulling gently away. “First time I’ve ever come across someone who demotes himself
when he leaves the army.”


Alces’ face became a total grin, from chin to eyebrows. “Professional licence,” he said. “No bugger’s going to pay money to
be taught fencing by a captain. Got to call yourself a sergeant or they think you don’t know anything.” Kunessin didn’t actually
see Alces move, but suddenly he was a full pace closer and clinging to his elbow. “Come in the back and have a drink,” he
said. “My God, it’s good to see you again.”


(There was a scar, Kunessin noticed, running from the corner of his left eye to the lower edge of his cheekbone. He hadn’t
got that in the army.)


“Tea,” he said, “or no deal.”

“Sure.” He was being towed along, like a cart, towards a green door in the far corner. “I’m a tea drinker myself these days.
Haven’t touched a real drink in five years. Mind your head on the beam.”


Too late. He winced; for some reason, it was important to him not to yelp or swear. Alces opened the door, and Kunessin followed
him into the back room.


It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Instead of chaotic poverty, he saw good furniture, silverware on a polished walnut table,
a velvet-curtained alcove where he assumed the bed would be, a worn but good-quality imported rug on the floor, and (the last
thing he’d been expecting) a wife.


“Enyo,” Alces said, “this is an old friend of mine, Teuche Kunessin.”

She wasn’t impressed, he could see that. There were, in his experience, two sorts of wives. There was the easy-going kind,
usually stout, plain-faced and harassed-looking, who smiled at the unexpected visitor and immediately set out an extra plate
and spoon; and there was the other kind, who regarded their husbands’ old army friends as marginally better than bailiffs
but definitely worse than mice. They were the ones who kept tidy houses and cooked cheap, wholesome meals with plenty of fresh
vegetables.


“My wife,” Alces said, and although he sounded properly embarrassed, there was also a deep, unmistakable pride.

(Well, Kunessin thought. This makes things awkward.)

“You’ll stay to dinner,” Enyo said; not a question but a statement, a grim fact stoically accepted.

“Thanks, but no,” Kunessin said. “I’m meeting some people in half an hour.”

She made an unintelligible noise, turned her back on him and started peeling something; a dismissal, but also a withdrawal:
just pretend I’m not here. Which, of course, he couldn’t do.


“How’s business?” he asked.

“Fine,” Alces said, sitting down in a fine chair (he makes the room look untidy, but presumably she’s learned to cope with
that). “We’ve been running this place for—how long’s it been, five years?” No confirmation from the other end of the room.
“And it’s turned out pretty well. Tradesmen’s sons, a couple of the local gentlemen farmers; Faralia’s changed quite a bit
since our day, more money about since the war. No competition. We’ll never be rich, but I do three classes a day, all fully
booked. It’s a living, and not particularly arduous.”


The back of Enyo’s head let him know exactly what she thought of her husband’s summary, but he fancied that her definition
of a living was rather different. He managed to keep his face straight.


“What about you, though?” Alces went on. “General Kunessin. Only goes to show, if you stay in the service long enough… ”

“I retired,” Kunessin said.

“I heard that,” Alces replied. “What did you want to go and do that for? You’d done all the hard work; I’d have thought you’d
have stayed on and taken it easy.”


Kunessin forced a laugh. “Don’t you believe it,” he said. “I reached the point where I couldn’t stick the aggravation any
more. Best decision I ever made, actually.”


Alces shrugged. “So, what’s the plan?” he said. “Buy some land and play at farming?”

He knew Alces didn’t mean anything by it, so he let it pass. “Sort of,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it some time. So,” he
went on, turning away a little, “do you see much of the others these days?”


A slight frown, but no change in Alces’ tone of voice. “A bit,” he said. “Not a great deal. I run into Kudei in the street
from time to time, but he doesn’t come into town much. Muri—you know about Muri?”


Kunessin nodded. “I don’t get that,” he said. “I thought he had plans.”

“Apparently not,” Alces replied. “Or else he changed them, or they fell through. He seems happy enough, which is what matters,
I suppose.”


“What about Aidi? I heard he’s running a shop, for crying out loud.”

Alces grinned. “Very successful,” he said. “Got a real flair for it. Also, he got married about three years ago, but she died
in the spring. Lost the kid, too, which must’ve been hard to bear.”


Kunessin nodded. “I suppose it’s something we never really considered,” he said, “bad stuff still happening even when the
war’s over. It’s so much easier when you can pile it all on to the enemy. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what wars are really
for.”


Maybe a barely perceptible shake of the head; he wasn’t sure. But he had the distinct impression that that wasn’t a subject
to be discussed, even in the presence of the back of Enyo’s head. Fair enough, he thought. Any woman who married Thouridos
Alces would have to be firm about what could and couldn’t be talked about.


(And then he noticed; or rather, he became aware of the lack of it. Not on the wall, or leaning in a corner of the room; not
in a glass case or over the fireplace or hung by two nails from a rafter. He couldn’t have simply got rid of it, not even
for her sake; but in a room so neat and orderly there were only so many places it could be, and it wasn’t there—a glaringly
empty space, like a place laid at the dinner table where nobody sits down. Could it have been in the rack of blunts and foils
in the schoolroom? He’d have noticed it there, and besides, it was unthinkable.)


He planted his feet squarely on the floor and pushed himself up. “I really have got to make a move,” he said. (Alces started
to say something, then thought better of it.) “I’m in town for the next few days, I’m staying at the Glory… ”


Alces grinned. “Haven’t been in there for years,” he said, and the back of his wife’s head quite definitely twitched. “If
you can afford to stay there, you can afford to buy me a cup of tea.”


“Just about,” Kunessin replied—it didn’t even sound like him talking. “Pleased to have met you,” he said to the room in general,
and left quickly. Alces went with him as far as the green door.


(Outside in the street, he turned and looked up at the sign. Here lies Thouridos Alces, he thought, may he rest in peace.
Not, he acknowledged with a faint grin, that there was much chance of that.)


After the visitor had left, she asked him, “Who was that?”

Inevitably. He marshalled his face and mustered his words. “Old army friend of mine,” he said, picking up an empty cup and
taking it over to the washstand. It was a valiant effort but tactically unsound; he never washed up dirty crockery.


“General Kunessin, you called him,” she said, and he could feel her eyes on the back of his head.

“That’s right,” he said, up-ending the cup and swilling its rim in the washbasin. “He stayed on in the service after I quit.
He’s from around here, originally.”


“He wanted something,” she said.

“You think so? I thought he was just calling in to say hello, since he’s in the neighbourhood. I haven’t set eyes on him for
seven years.”


“He wanted something,” she repeated. “But he wasn’t going to tell you about it in front of me.”

Retreat to prepared positions. He half-turned and smiled at her. “What could a retired general possibly want from someone
like me?” he said. “Besides, he’s retired. And so am I. You know that.”


One of those looks: uncomfortable, like gravel in your shoe. Never for one moment had he regretted marrying her, but she could
break his defences the way he used to break the schiltrons. “You want me to tell you about him?”


Shrug. “If you like.”

He left the washstand and sat down in his favourite chair, where he could be besieged in comfort. “We were all at the Military
College together, six of us, all from Faralia, which meant we had something in common; the city kids treated us like peasants,
so we formed what you might call an offensive and defensive alliance, for mutual support. Then the war came, and amazingly
enough the brass had the good sense not to split us up. They made us into a lance—”


“What does that mean?”

“Sorry? Oh, right. A lance is a military unit, an officer and ten men, only they were so short of manpower by then, most units
were understrength. It was the six of us plus the officer, Lieutenant D’Eteleieto. Anyhow, we stayed together all through
the war. One of us didn’t make it, but compared to most we got off lightly. Specially since we were linebreakers. That means
we were the ones who—”


“Don’t tell me about that,” she said sharply.

“Fine,” he said, recognising the edge in her voice. “Anyway, that’s about it. The war ended, we went our separate ways. I
always thought that afterwards we’d stay in touch, specially since we were all Faralians and all of us except Teuche—that’s
his name, Teuche Kunessin—came back here to settle down. But we didn’t. There wasn’t any grand falling-out or anything like
that. I guess that once we split up—we’d been together twenty-four hours a day for ten years; just think about that—I guess
we realised we didn’t have anything in common worth holding on to.” He paused, just long enough to breathe. “And that’s all
there is to it.”


A lie so monumental you could have dug a moat round it and called it a citadel. He offered it to her with a sort of honesty;
her choice whether to attack and invest or withdraw and leave him in peace. But she was a better strategist than that. “Those
other people you were talking about,” she said. “He seemed to know all about them.”


Which hadn’t escaped his attention, but he hadn’t had time to reflect on the implications. “Presumably someone’s been sending
him news from home,” he said. “Like I said, he’s a local boy, grew up on a farm in the valley. Actually, there’s a bit of
a story there,” he added, not sure whether it was a good idea to open another front but willing to take the risk. He paused,
and she sort of nodded: yes, I’m waiting. “His family lost the farm