Memory by K. J. Parker

don’t know me from a hole in the ground, do you? That’s – well, that’s rather hard for me. But we won’t worry about it now. Have some spring cabbage, it’s not half bad.’
    Poldarn didn’t move. There was a precept of religion about why that was advisable, tactically, but he couldn’t remember the exact words offhand.
    â€˜Anyhow,’ Aciava went on, ‘when you were telling me, in the cart, about not having remembered anything because, basically, you don’t want to – I can tell you, that actually makes a whole lot of sense. At any rate, it puts me in a dilemma. If you believe that I’m your friend, at least that I used to be the friend of the man I used to know – you appreciate the distinction, I’m sure – then you’ll understand why I’m doing all this faffing about, instead of spitting it straight out and telling you, whether you like it or not. Truth is, I don’t know you any more; I don’t know who you’ve become. And I can imagine how some of the stuff I could tell you might do you a lot of damage. Hence– well, I suppose it’s a sort of test, or what the government clerks call an assessment. Only way I can find out what you’d really like to know is to ask you; only I can’t ask you straight out without risking doing the damage. Like, if I said, “Do you want me to tell you about that time in the Poverty and Prudence, with the violin-maker’s daughter and the six goats?” – well, you get the idea, I’m sure.’
    While Aciava had been saying all this, Poldarn hadn’t moved. For some reason, he was acutely aware of every detail of his surroundings – the hiss of slightly damp logs on the fire, the smell of the onion sauce on the smoked lamb, the pecking of light rain on the chapel slates. He realised that he’d breathed out some time ago and hadn’t breathed in again.
    â€˜Who are you?’ he said.
    Aciava sighed. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is what Father Tutor used to call a very intelligent question. Well, for a start, my name really is Gain Aciava. I was born in Paraon in eastern Tulice thirty-nine years ago; my father was a retired cavalry officer who got a sinecure in the governor’s office when he left the service, and my mother was his CO’s younger daughter. When I was twelve they decided that since both my elder brothers had gone into the army, it’d be sensible to diversify a bit and send me into religion; so they packed me off to Deymeson as a junior novice. I did my time there, and eventually I was ordained. As luck would have it, I got a transfer away from Deymeson the year before you and your relations trashed the place; I joined Cleapho’s office in Torcea as a junior chaplain. When the order abruptly ceased to exist and Cleapho formally rescinded its charter I found myself out of a job, and since sword-monks were distinctly out of favour by then, I hunted round for someone who’d pay me a wage, with indifferent success, until I sort of stumbled into this false-teeth lark. Amazingly, it’s turned out to be a good living, totally undemanding, quite relaxing in fact, and I’m enjoying it rather more than eight hours perched on a high stool in an office followed by six hours’ sword-drawing practice and sleeping on a plank bed in a small stone cell. And that, give or take an unimportant detail or two, is basically all there is to know.’
    But Poldarn shook his head. ‘That may be the truth,’ he said, ‘but it sure as hell isn’t the whole truth. How do you know all that stuff about me, and why did you go to all the trouble of finding me?’
    Aciava grinned offensively. ‘I could give you an answer, only it’s not allowed. If you want to know why you’re worth busting my arse to find—’
    â€˜All right,’ Poldarn conceded, ‘you’ve made your point.’ He