What Polly Did Next: Autumn 3/3
What Polly Did Next
Summary: If Monstrous Regiment could be filed under “What Polly Did” this would fall under the remit of “What Polly Did Next” covering as it does the joys, trials and tribulations of our eponymous heroine, picking up sometime in the year following the final paragraph of MR. Will contain Polly/Mal, but not yet.
A/N> At last! To put this into some sort of perspective, this is where the idea started over a year ago now on a Easyjet flight back from Dublin to Luton as the sun set in lurid orange stripes behind us. Unfortunately the one scene that the whole thing grew out of made no sense without the rest of it, so it's been sitting, nicely-written, in my file store for ruddy months. You have no idea how good it feels to finally get this one out there. I hope it was worth the wait.
Disclaimer: Polly and Mal belong to Sir Terry Pratchett. Author makes no claims of ownership in any way. No profit is being made from this work.
(1. Summer) (2. Autumn 1/3, Autumn 2/3)
~X~
Autumn 3/3
The eagle screamed somewhere above them and Polly stopped for a moment to catch her breath, foot resting on a handy rock. Squinting up into the pale blue sky she picked out the tiny dot wheeling high overhead and unbidden her lips relaxed into a smile. Hitching her pack higher she stretched tired back muscles, feeling her shirt peel clammily away from the hollow of her back as she watched the speck drift away towards the high peaks.
“Regretting you came?”
Distracted by the view Polly hadn’t noticed Mal slip quietly alongside her but now drew her gaze back from the lofty heights to take stock of her surroundings. Out over the valley opposite the tree filled slopes tumbled down to the town nestling small in a curve of the road far below. Here and there Polly could pick out the track they had spent the morning climbing, wending in and out of view as it crept along the lower slopes, weaving around small walled fields. Ahead they would soon be entering the wooded tangle that reached up out of sight to take up their post as guardian angels of the valley for the next 16 days. Sixteen days of cold nights and damp mornings. She pulled her blue jacket up around her neck, chilled now that she’d stopped moving. Was she regretting this?
Down there were the grey confining walls, the piles of paper demanding her immediate attention, thousands upon thousands of dull forms and the sheer boredom of fort life. Up here… well, up here there was the eagle. Taking a deep breath of exceedingly fresh if thin air she adjusted her shako to a jaunty angle and turned to her companion with a grin of pure joy.
“Not a chance.” She swung a lazy fist bump which Mal easily avoided. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Corporal. Not after all the late nights I had to put in to get all the paperwork for the next two weeks filed appropriately.”
“I helped!” They fell into step together, picking their way over the loose shale. By the looks of it the track became a stream whenever there was even a moderate rain storm up here and neither wanted to turn an ankle on a loose rock.
“You helped? That was helping? Pacing the office night after night until I threw you out for being too-jittery-to-live whereupon you invariably slipped off to play Cripple Mr Onion in the guardroom bringing back a veritable choir to serenade me from the corridor with what you termed inspirational music? That was meant to be helping?”
“I may have been a little too imaginative at times I admit.” Mal rubbed a fading bruise on her temple where she’d moved a little too slowly to avoid a perfectly aimed file. “But I was bored Pol.”
“Yes, you said. Many times. Generally whilst I was in the middle of a very complicated mathematical problem.”
Luckily for their friendship at that moment a shout came down the line and, reluctant to be left behind they sped up, saving their breath for the scramble. Sub Lt Latimer might be the closest thing they had to friends in high places and they owed him big time for letting Polly come on this Patrol. It would be a shame to do anything that might be construed as letting him down.
~X~
By the time the sun collapsed exhausted behind the mountains after a successful day’s work the patrol had arrived at their home for the foreseeable future. A clearing had been clawed out of the surrounding forest probably by whoever had inhabited the remains of some kind of dwelling that huddled along one side. At one point a woodcutters hut, it was now nothing more than a collection of large stones tumbled here and there like the discarded building blocks of some giant’s offspring. Polly’s aching muscles looked upon the rough grass and declared it heaven. She didn’t consider herself unfit, sword training against a vampire who didn’t experience physical exhaustion was a good way to stay in shape, but she was ready to admit to a little fatigue. As the rest of the lads lay sprawled around her, easing tiredly out of heavy packs she concluded there was no shame in that.
“Alright! You know what to do!” Sergeant Kettering jumped to his feet and began to order them about as Latimer returned from carrying out private deeds beyond the tree line. “Turner and Finchley first watch, Tinsley and van Hoeffler second watch, the rest of you divide up amongst yourselves. Perks, you’re with me.” He jerked his head at a quiet corner of the clearing and hauling herself to her feet she ambled over as quickly as her stiffening legs would allow.
“You and yer monkey get the night watch, relieved at first light, ‘k?”
“When a person beats another person at cards this act does make the said person an automatic member of the simian races.” Mal had sauntered over to poke a nose into the conversation.
“Shurrup, Corporal.” He turned back to Polly. “You keeps ‘em awake alright? Make yer rounds, keep ‘em quiet and if anything crops up - you call me or the Lieutenant sharpish.”
“Right, Sergeant.”
“Yer monkey can show you the sentry points and the OP.”
“Yes Sergeant.” Her elbow caught Mal under the ribs and apart from her small grunt of pain the pair stood in silence as he stalked away.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“You shouldn’t let him draw you. What happened to being the superior vampire race and all that?”
“He annoys me.” Mal frowned as she rubbed at bruised ribs.
“Then smile sweetly and pass by on the other side. You can always thrash him at cards again when we get back. He’ll love that.” An introspective smile drifted over the vampire’s face but Polly nudged her out of the reverie. “Come on Monkey, you’ve got sentry points and an observation post to show me.” She scuttled away before Mal could wreak vengeance.
~X~
Telling the tale in later years even Polly would admit that her first night as a patrol sergeant wasn’t a rousing success. It had begun well, the sergeant trailing around behind Mal as the corporal attempted to familiarise her with their immediate surroundings. Latimer knew what he was doing; the sentry points were well placed, tucked away at quadrant points around the camp with decent viewing arcs for the sighting of any approaching foe. Sauntering out beyond the sentries they’d quickly come across the OP. Someone had carved out a gap in the vegetation where two people could sit on slowly disintegrating logs and have a view both up and down the valley and across to the mountain opposite. Squashing in alongside the two lads already settled into their watch she had passed round cigarettes, Mal striking the matches to get everyone puffing away. A minimal exchange of sentences sufficed to get the measure of her subordinates and Polly had left them to their surveillance having discovered that any length of time in contact with the damp logs allowed the transfer of moisture to the trousers of the sittee. Wandering back toward camp even the clinging uncomfortable of moist breeches couldn’t dampen her mood and she’d been struck again by the overwhelming realness of the woods. Tuning out Mal’s chatter she’d drifted to a halt, dazedly tracing the strong trunks reaching up to an unseen sky, the scent of leaf mulch invading her nasal passages to romp around her brain in exultant glee. Mal, recognising that in her exhaustion the bombardment of sights and sounds was almost overwhelming, stepped back to slip a supporting arm around her waist, encouraging her onward.
It was later that things developed a less professional tone. Having sat silently through the scratch supper Polly had willingly accompanied Mal on a checking round of the sentries. On their return (after dropping in to the OP to introduce themselves to the most recent watchers) they found the remainder of their troops had turned in for the night. Reeling from the rising barrage of snores that resonated around the clearing they’d unanimously decided to find somewhere else to rest their weary legs.
“I think I saw an outcrop just off the path to the OP.” Mal accompanied her whisper with a shudder as an elephantine trumpeting drifted over the campsite.
“Can you find it in the dark?” Polly’s night vision had been destroyed the minute she laid eyes on the abandoned campfire, an amateur mistake she was kicking herself over.
“Vampire, remember?”
Stumbling in her wake Polly had tripped twice before Mal took pity on her and stretched back a helping hand. With her fingers entwined in that firm grasp, a tug to the left or right guiding her over the uneven ground Polly found the going much easier. As they made their way warily through the impenetrable forest the looming trees overhead sent chill tendrils down Polly’s spine but wrapped Mal in a comfortable blanket of gothic familiarity. The cluster of uncovered bedrock was exactly where the corporal had remembered. Her night vision returning, Polly scrambled up to find a welcoming point where a tired soldier who wasn’t too picky about cushioning could sit comfortably, leaning back against the rock. Mal leapt lightly up beside her, settling into the solid stone as though it were the softest armchair money could buy.
“How long before we need to check on the sentries again?”
Mal checked an internal clock and wobbled an inconclusive hand. Relaxing into the rock Polly let her head fall back, the prickle of muddled constellations far above somehow clearer up here in the thinner mountain air.
“…so many stars.”
“Yeah.” Mal craned her neck upward. “There’s The Shovel, see? And the three stars that make up The Obvious Triangle, also known as The Goddess Feeding A Goat And Two Chickens, and if you stretch you can just make out Conan over the mountain.”
The only response was a quiet snore. Mal shook her head on a sigh and wrapping an arm around Polly’s shoulders she tenderly guided the head of the tired sergeant onto a welcoming shoulder. Polly, bless her, had stubbornness in spades, but despite her best efforts every now and then humanity won out. Shifting under that amused gaze, Polly murmured something incomprehensible and snuggled innocently into the warm body beside her, unconsciously seeking to get away from the chill rock.
It was still early, the brightening sky restricted to a small area above the horizon when Polly woke. For a long moment she lay there, her drowsy mind slowly piercing together the hard rock against her hip and shoulder in contrast to the rough material against her cheek. How had someone managed to steal the roof off the castle without anyone noticing? She blinked confusedly at the tree-framed sky with the remains of stars still twinkling down on her from overhead.
“Morning.” Mal appeared in her view, a cheery grin plastered beneath charmingly dishevelled locks. “Finished with my jacket yet?”
Polly shot upright, able at last to identify her makeshift pillow. “How long was I asleep?” Ambushed by a massive yawn she rubbed childlike at bleary eyes prompting Mal to paste another “adorable” iconograph into the scrapbook of memory.
“About six hours maybe?” Mal removed the jacket and shrugging into it gracefully, buttoned the collar up against the early morning chill. Disconcertingly the rough material was still warm in odd places from Polly’s cheek. “You didn’t snore, much.”
“Six hours?!” Polly scrambled down the rock. “What if something had happened? What if Latimer had decided to take a stroll? What if I’d decided to roll over and fallen to my death?”
“Relax Pol. You were exhausted, you fell asleep, nothing happened and like any good soldier you woke up in time for me to brief you to that effect long before your relief arrived.”
“Nothing happened?” Polly paused in her frantic efforts to remove any evidence of her extended nap from badly rumpled clothing.
“A quiet night all round. We’re due a sentry check; you can do that if you’re feeling industrious.”
Mal waited for said industrious activity but Polly didn’t move, uncertainty in her loitering. “I don’t remember where they are.” She flushed and Mal couldn’t help grinning at her discomfort.
“Come on Sergeant. Let the ever helpful corporal guide you back to the campsite. We’ll brew up in the age old fashion and provide our vigilant lads with a welcome cup of saloop to greet the new morn. You never know, this could be the one. I’ve always wanted a great big fish.”
~X~
Midmorning and Mal was smoking, lying back on her elbows, her boots stretched out toward the fire. They’d been relieved without incident, no-one questioning Polly’s description of a quiet uninterrupted night. The bustle of a patrol rising to a new day with associated complaints about breakfast was over and Latimer had sent out the wider sweeping squad to the first of the trouble spots on the list. The morning sentries had come in and gone back out again. It seemed everyone had some task, some place they should be. Except them. The night watch were not expected to make an appearance until the evening, but refreshed by an uninterrupted night’s sleep Polly hadn’t immediately sought her blanket roll. Mal of course never seemed to need sleep and so it was just the two of them, sat round the restrained campfire turning over the various possibilities for entertainment in low voices.
“We could have an explore.”
Mal threw her cigarette butt into the fire and dropped back to hide her face in her hands with an audible groan.
“I’m sure I saw something between the trees further up the hill.”
Mal rolled over, peeking through her fingers to see if Polly were in fact serious. Realising that she most definitely was the vampire rolled back again, resting her arm over her eyes.
“You, Pol will be the death of me.” She heaved a longsuffering sigh. “How far up the hill?”
“Not far, I’ll grab some rations, we could have a picnic.”
“A picnic. The woman wants to go on a picnic.” The vampire hauled herself to her feet, coiled grace in every movement. “I knew we shouldn’t have let females join the army. They only lead to trouble.”
“More trouble than the undead and their very pointy teeth?” Polly swung a bundle across her shoulders and strode purposefully toward the trees. Mal pulled a face and hurried after.
~X~
“I thought you said it wasn’t far?” Mal slashed at another branch, the scabbard wasn’t as effective as the sword, but she didn’t want to blunt her blades on mere vegetation.
They’d been walking for half an hour, fighting their way through years of undisturbed undergrowth. Polly was still hopeful, but Mal had been grumbling about being lost for the past ten minutes. Luckily, before the vampire could test her theory that no sergeant could survive being dangled from a tree by her ankles whilst an irate mountain lion cub took swipes at her head, they stumbled onto a trail cutting perpendicular to their path. It was wide, if overgrown, and seemed to cut straight across the shoulder of the hill as though designed to take more than mere occasional foot traffic. Polly kicking at the years of leaf mulch underfoot felt her boot connect with something solid, and digging down they found old flagstones, the eroded groves of passing carts still visible.
As Mal replaced the disturbed soil Polly stood bang in the middle of the road, shading her eyes as she squinted up and down the track attempting to uncover its deepest secrets.
“Which way?”
“There’s no difference.” Mal shrugged. “Toss a coin.”
“I’m skint. You’re the one with all the winnings, you toss.” The coin came down on the Duchess’s head and they swung left.
After ten minutes of easy walking the pair rounded a corner to see the glimpse of piled stone through the trees. Hurrying along they came up on the base of what looked like one of the old watchtowers that were strung out along the old line of the border. They shared a glance of astonishment and then, curious as the next man, separated to work their way around the base
“I found a door!” Polly ran her hands over the weathered wood, the iron door handle long ago rusted away leaving the shadow of it over the latch.
“Coming!” When Mal appeared at her shoulder, she was definitely not panting because vampires didn’t get out of breath, but an observant watcher would have to record that her chest was rising and falling just a smidgeon quicker with all the excitement.
“We should go in.”
“We should?” Displaying unusual caution Mal tilted her head, listening to the creak that might be a tree against the upper stories, but could have been the stones themselves moving.
Her Sergeant huffed scornfully at her fears. “It’s stood here for at least 100 years, it’s not going to fall down just because we’re inside it.”
“Onward then.” She straightened her shako. “Never let it be said a vampire quivered in the face of creaky death.”
Polly reached out and pushed gently at the door. Absolutely nothing happened. It was a wonderful anticlimax and like all mature people before them they fought the giggles rising inexorably from deep inside and failed miserably. In the end Mal had to put her shoulder to the wood, Polly exhorting her enthusiastically and they both fell into the lower room with a crash.
“Floor’s still here then.” Polly rubbed an elbow that had taken a good part of the fall. “Indeed.” Mal applied the same basic first aid to a hip that performed admirably in cushioning her landing.
“Might I suggest a little investigation of this ‘ere building, Corporal?”
“I say, what? I believe that might be a ripping good idea you just had, Sergeant.”
Clambering to her feet Polly held out a hand and hauled Mal inelegantly to upright. Brushing down her jacket to remove the worst of the dirt the vampire declared herself ready to explore. They soon found that the lower levels were not that interesting, being mainly empty rooms. Passing swiftly through the second level, affected by collapse at the rear but generally structurally sound, they climbed the final steep set of steps to emerge out onto the roof.
“Wow.”
Polly could only agree wholeheartedly with Mal’s comprehensive response. The view stretched from the distant pass at the top of the valley all the way to the castle and town far below. Gazing out over the wooded slopes they could pick out the high farms and tiny woodcutter cottages on the mountain slopes opposite. Many years ago some genius had picked the perfect spot for a watchtower and then employed some people of less genius but more strength to build this sturdy stronghold to guard the people of Borogravia from whatever might come over the mountains. It was a gift.
Polly pulled out her telescope and focused it on the castle, astounded to see she how much detail she could pick out amongst the crenulations. She handed it over to Mal, pointing out the speck in the distance but the vampire seemed more taken with the instrument itself.
“Nice telescope.” She tilted it to read the engraving. “To Polly Perks, For the Things That Never Happened. CC.” Mal frowned. “Who’s CC?”
“Christine Clogson.” Polly waited for the explosion.
“Clogson? Major-where’s-my-jam-sandwich-Clogson gave you a telescope? What were the things that never happened?”
“She meant the war.”
“Which war? The war I was in as well? The war we all helped with? Tonker and Lofty and Wazzer and Igorina and Jade and Shufti and all the rest? How come we didn’t all get telescopes? I could use a nice shiny telescope.”
“No. Not that war. The one that didn’t happen. The one I went off to Ankh Morpork to negotiate into non-existence. The one that ended up with me being shoved off up here, thrown away and forgotten at the arse end of the world.”
“Oh.” Mal blinked at the object in her hands as though unsure how it had got there and handed it back carefully. “It’s a nice telescope.”
“Thank you.”
Turning her back Polly put the brass to her eye and scanned the wooded slopes below, attempting to pick out the camp she knew was somewhere down there.
“Do you fancy lunch?”
“I’m not Clogson.” Polly spotted the movement of a blue jacket above off-white breeches through the canopy and followed it to what could be a small clearing. She wasn’t ignoring any tactless vampires that happened to be in the vicinity, she just wasn’t paying them that much attention, that was all.
“I never said you were.” Mal settled herself in the shade of the parapet, next to a tempting sunny spot. “Doesn’t mean you have to skip lunch though.”
A loud rumble from Polly’s stomach betrayed her. She sat herself a dignified distance from the sprawling vampire and received the hunk of bread with tight smile of thanks. Politeness was important. Lunch was taken in silence, but as Polly threw her apple core over the parapet into infinity the assuaging of her hunger pangs meant she was well on her way to being reconciled. She stretched in the sun and was unexpectedly overtaken by a yawn.
“We should head back, your blanket roll must be more comfortable than bare stone.”
Mal climbed to her feet, offering a hand and Polly considered it carefully before placing her hand in that firm clasp. Mal drew her slowly to her feet, for once controlling her usual erratic tug and Polly left her hand in the vampires for a moment, accepting the apology unspoken.
The walk back to the camp took less time than the original struggle up to the road. They easily retraced their steps, the broken vegetation of Mal’s earlier frustration leaving a clear trail. Polly was asleep the minute her head hit the pillow of her folded jacket and when she woke refreshed some two hours later Mal was nowhere to be seen. The vampire strolled back into camp just as the wide brushstrokes of colour were beginning to fade from the sky. Polly made some comment about falling out of trees and handed over a mug of coffee from the pot constantly located on the edge of the fire. While Mal sipped from the possibly poisonous gunk Polly explained how she’d managed to brief Latimer on what they had found, drawing a series of maps on the flat topped rock with charcoal as he’d spooned thin stew into his thin mouth. To her obvious frustration as she told the tale, the sub-lieutenant had declined to make any decision until he’d had time to think.
That night it was Finchley in the OP for the first watch and they sat with him until the twinkling lights far away in the valley began to wink out. Murmuring a quiet goodnight to the friends tucked up in warm beds somewhere out there in the darkness they sat on, discussing this and that until his relief came. After escorting Finchley back to the camp, they picked up fresh mugs of tea and made their way back to the rock that was already feeling like home. Mal attempted to point out a few constellations but the uncooperative clouds hid much of the sky. They’d been sitting in companionable silence for a while when Mal asked “How’s your brother?”
“Fine. The Duchess is doing well. They’ve been upgrading the privies.” Mal gave her a disbelieving look. “No really. Shufti writes me letters. Very regular. She says ‘Hi’.” Mal added an enquiring eyebrow, prompting Polly to continue “I may have mentioned you one or two times. When you were exceptionally annoying. She’s knitting you some socks.”
The vampire’s face became carefully expressionless. However, when Polly choked on the snigger in her throat Mal could hold it no longer and her poker face cracked into a million pieces. They lay back on the cold stone and gave way to gusts of laughter. It was comfortable there and once the chuckles died away they didn’t immediately sit up, talking a little longer about those far away places and the people they’d left behind, as all soldiers will in the small watches of the night. Quiet murmuring memories of home, wisps of reminiscence drifting up into the empty skies above. Eventually the conversation faded away naturally and they lay on, listening to the breeze rustling the remaining leaves on the trees.
“We should go round the sentries. They’re due a brew.” Polly stretched and sat up.
“Damn the army.”
“Indeed. Damn them all to hell.” She slid down the rock, jumping the last foot to land heavily in the ankle deep undergrowth. “Do you want a coffee?”
“Of course I want a coffee. Hang on though.” Mal’s head emerged over the top of the outcrop. “You never brew it right, you know that.” She clambered gracefully down to link her arm with Polly’s. “Duty calls. Let us away to bend our not insignificant minds to the glorious pursuit of caffeination.”
~X~
The next morning, after considering the options carefully Sub-Lieutenant Latimer revealed that he intended to investigate this watchtower and ordered Polly and Mal to make a good copy of the map they’d sketched for him the previous evening. They protested that they should be the ones to lead the squad but it was to no avail, Latimer leaving them to their bedrolls with the rest of the night watch. When they awoke mid afternoon it was to a camp decimated, with the bustle of lads stuffing the equipment that remained into packs. Apparently the patrol was moving to the tower, the Sub-Lieutenant having declared it a more than suitable billet for their remaining time on the mountain.
Their briefing that night was short. The OP was now on the roof above and the sentries were posted around the base of the tower, at a reasonable distance that they would pick up any creeping approach that the lookouts might miss in the darkness. The fire would be kept burning on the second floor for comfort purposes, hidden from any watchers by blocked windows, with the off duty troops playing cards on the lower level. Dismissed, Polly and Mal wandered up to rest on the still warm parapet, gazing down the friendly vista of the valley as the OP lads kept a weather eye in the other direction to the less welcoming lands nearer the border. Pulling out her telescope Polly swept the deeper darkness of the valley until she picked out the lanterns of the guards on the castle far below. Though the sky still had some colour in it somewhere down there someone was looking up at the mountain, watching vigilantly for the flicker of light signalling out of the darkness. Latimer would have something special to tell them tonight and she felt a flash of pity for the poor lad tasked with operating the lantern.
Later, as the tower slept peacefully beneath her, Polly her rounds complete for the moment settled in beside Mal, elbows on the parapet. The quiet murmuring of the lookouts melded with the rustling tree tops, giving them at least the sense of privacy.
Mal, who had been gathering the threads of previous conversations into one niggling whole, pulled her vacillating thoughts together and opened the conversation.
“Polly?
“Hmm?” Deep in the mist of trying to remember whether Turner had one sugar or two in his coffee Polly wasn’t really paying attention and so missed the warning tremor of nervousness interwoven through that use of her name.
“Why did you sign up again?”
Polly thought for a moment, staring out into the impenetrable darkness as she waited for her night sight to return. “I had the book, thought I could do something.” She shifted her weight against the supporting wall. “It was too soon.”
Behind them they heard a short gust of laughter at a dirty joke before the OP lads settled into quiet again.
“What about you?”
“Apart from the fact I was bored and I look good in a uniform?” Even in the darkness Mal felt the look.
“It’s different for us, Polly. Vampires aren’t a friendly species. Another vampire isn’t company, it’s competition. I knew Jackrum must have given you something you could use and when I heard they were drumming up again I thought…” she paused. “I thought: I might be new to this buddy thing, but friends don’t let friends walk into the jaws of hell without at least tagging along to make use of any prime mocking opportunities.”
“And if I didn’t come?”
“Well, like I said, I look good in a uniform and I needed a vacation anyway.” She brushed at the stone under her hand, sending moss spinning into the darkness. “You would have come, I know you. I knew you’d be planning something stupid.”
“And then I didn’t take you with me.” Polly quiet admission lay between them.
“It’s ok.” Mal leant closer and nudged that tight shoulder with her own. “I was away, you got the chance to go and you took it. I hadn’t said anything. You weren’t to know.”
“I would have taken you.”
“I know.”
Resting there, shoulder to shoulder with the vampire against the world, Polly sighed.
“What is it?” But Polly didn’t respond and after waiting patiently for as long as she could Mal reiterated her enquiry.
“It’s just… sometimes… I wonder if it was worth it.” She drew in a deep breath, rubbing her face with her hands as she released it in a short gust. “Did I waste my opportunity, show my hand too soon? That book was power and I threw it away.”
“I don’t think you threw it away.” Mal spoke with quiet emphasis. “You gave them peace even if it was only for a short while. You gave fathers the chance to hold their children, mothers the time to watch their sons grow into men. Young folk spent the spring courting instead of dying in far away fields, grandparents lived out their years surrounded by family, and crops were planted, harvested and put away into storage for a fat winter.”
Polly turned in surprise. “You’re a vampire, immortal I believe the saying goes, outside the power of death. However did you learn the value of a single day?”
“Oh, here and there.” Mal thought of the scrapbook of memories, reverently returned to over and over in the quiet months after the attack on the keep. Of a too short period trekking through high forest, sleeping on uncomfortable ground, hiding from a malicious enemy and along the way learning everything possible about the mechanics of a single smile.
“Do you really think I didn’t waste it?”
“Really.” The statement stood firm against the night and feeling the guilt wash out of the figure held together so stiffly at her side Mal added more softly, “You do the best you can with whatever you can find. Luckily for the huddled masses, Borogravia found you.” Polly sniffed and throwing caution to the wind Mal threw a comforting arm around the tired shoulders, squeezing gently. Behind them the one of OP lads stretched and took a turn about the roof in an attempt to keep awake. Passing by the pair now standing decorously side by side against the retaining wall he gave a murmured greeting, unconcerned that only the corporal replied. By the time they were given their privacy again Polly had found her composure once more and it was her turn to ask the question.
“Why did you stay? After I’d gone off to Ankh Morpork, by your own admission there was nothing left for you to stick around for, why didn’t you leave?”
Mal silently cursed the darkness that encouraged confidences but non-the-less couldn’t prevent the answer slipping from her grasp. The simple sentence somehow encapsulated the whole grubby entanglement.
“I gave my word”
Polly looked over in enquiry, unsure as to what she meant.
“I told you I learnt to play cards in Guena but that was a bit of a simplification.” Mal reached into her jacket for the ever present packet of tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. “When I came up out of the horrors of that cell in Ankh Morpork they advised us that one should find something to do with all the new free time we now had. So I went on a trip.”
Her labours completed she inserted the narrow object between thin lips and struck a match. Her whole attention seemed to be focussed at the tip of her roll-up where the flame was gently playing across the paper. Eventually it was lit to her satisfaction and she shook the match out, dropping it into the darkness and delicately picked a tendril of tobacco from one lip. Only then did she deign to return to her story.
“I ended up floating down the Vieux River on a paddle steamer, living the high life, playing a young gentleman on the Grand Sneer whilst paying my way from my winnings at the table. Good times.” A reminiscent smile peeked out for a second before darker memories re-surfaced. “I lost my fortune, won someone else’s. Met some people, learnt some things.” She took a deep drag, the end of the cigarette burning up brightly in the darkness and in the following pause they both watched it fade away to a muted glow. “They tell you it’s the giving up of the blood that’s the hardest, but it’s not. When we stop feeding, stop merely reacting to the world and start thinking… that’s when we go mad.”
Mal had forgotten Polly was there, the quiet murmur almost a conversation with herself.
“I saw myself for the first time. A vampire: no morals, no finer feelings, no empathy. If I don’t have my honour, if my word counts for nothing, what good am I at all?” She gestured uselessly, the tobacco firefly drawing painful pictures across the sky.
“I’m sorry.” Polly lifted the cigarette from between those nervous fingers and took a deep drag in turn before handing it back. She couldn’t go on, even now unable to express aloud why she hadn’t asked Mal back then. She was sorry. More sorry than she could say that she’d allowed her fears over why Mal had come back and her confusion about what the vampire wanted from her to let her to leave the vampire behind with only an inborn stubbornness to keep her head above water.
“Hey, we ended up here anyway so Nullus Anxietus as I hear they say in barbarian lands.” Mal flicked the butt into the abyss and turned to lean back against the wall and look up at the towering mountains dark against the night sky. “Would you have wanted to miss those stars?”
Polly agreed, allowing Mal’s humour to lead them into shallower waters. But as they stared up to the ineffable beauty produced by mere pinpricks of light in an infinite tapestry she knew she would never forget those simple quiet words spoken so steadily into the darkness.
~X~
The Patrol came down the track in loose formation, Corporal Finchley was out on point and the rest spread out behind him in small groups as they made their way across the fields. Above them the sky was torn into intensely orange and pink stripes by the setting sun, and the puff of their breath (Mal notwithstanding) lingered behind them in the chill air. Not needed for any defence purposes at this time Polly and Mal found themselves toward the rear, walking side by side in wide cart ruts, the muddy soil frozen underfoot.
It was going to be alright. Polly didn’t know where the certainty came from, but somehow she knew a corner had been turned. She could have kept the book for another time. She could have done it a different way. Maybe something else would have cropped up to keep Borogravia from that possibility of one last totally destructive war. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. Here and now they were alive, and walking down that rough cart track she knew she would have it no other way. She slipped her gloved hand into that of the corporal strolling next to her, a smile dancing at the corners of her mouth as the sound of someone humming an old folk tune drifted back over the squad in time with their marching feet. Mal looked down in confusion but then as clarity broke through and she gave an understanding squeeze, releasing the hand before anyone noticed. Behind them one of the lads broke into the chorus and the rest joined in until Finchley fluffed a line and they had to stop for laughing.
Side by side, shoulders touching at every other step the Sergeant and her Corporal tramped on toward the town spread out below them, smoke rising up into the chill evening air. She remembered Goldhawk had promised them chilli with named meat and her stomach rumbled in anticipation.
It was going to be alright. They were going to be alright. Both of them.
~X~
Summary: If Monstrous Regiment could be filed under “What Polly Did” this would fall under the remit of “What Polly Did Next” covering as it does the joys, trials and tribulations of our eponymous heroine, picking up sometime in the year following the final paragraph of MR. Will contain Polly/Mal, but not yet.
A/N> At last! To put this into some sort of perspective, this is where the idea started over a year ago now on a Easyjet flight back from Dublin to Luton as the sun set in lurid orange stripes behind us. Unfortunately the one scene that the whole thing grew out of made no sense without the rest of it, so it's been sitting, nicely-written, in my file store for ruddy months. You have no idea how good it feels to finally get this one out there. I hope it was worth the wait.
Disclaimer: Polly and Mal belong to Sir Terry Pratchett. Author makes no claims of ownership in any way. No profit is being made from this work.
(1. Summer) (2. Autumn 1/3, Autumn 2/3)
~X~
Autumn 3/3
The eagle screamed somewhere above them and Polly stopped for a moment to catch her breath, foot resting on a handy rock. Squinting up into the pale blue sky she picked out the tiny dot wheeling high overhead and unbidden her lips relaxed into a smile. Hitching her pack higher she stretched tired back muscles, feeling her shirt peel clammily away from the hollow of her back as she watched the speck drift away towards the high peaks.
“Regretting you came?”
Distracted by the view Polly hadn’t noticed Mal slip quietly alongside her but now drew her gaze back from the lofty heights to take stock of her surroundings. Out over the valley opposite the tree filled slopes tumbled down to the town nestling small in a curve of the road far below. Here and there Polly could pick out the track they had spent the morning climbing, wending in and out of view as it crept along the lower slopes, weaving around small walled fields. Ahead they would soon be entering the wooded tangle that reached up out of sight to take up their post as guardian angels of the valley for the next 16 days. Sixteen days of cold nights and damp mornings. She pulled her blue jacket up around her neck, chilled now that she’d stopped moving. Was she regretting this?
Down there were the grey confining walls, the piles of paper demanding her immediate attention, thousands upon thousands of dull forms and the sheer boredom of fort life. Up here… well, up here there was the eagle. Taking a deep breath of exceedingly fresh if thin air she adjusted her shako to a jaunty angle and turned to her companion with a grin of pure joy.
“Not a chance.” She swung a lazy fist bump which Mal easily avoided. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Corporal. Not after all the late nights I had to put in to get all the paperwork for the next two weeks filed appropriately.”
“I helped!” They fell into step together, picking their way over the loose shale. By the looks of it the track became a stream whenever there was even a moderate rain storm up here and neither wanted to turn an ankle on a loose rock.
“You helped? That was helping? Pacing the office night after night until I threw you out for being too-jittery-to-live whereupon you invariably slipped off to play Cripple Mr Onion in the guardroom bringing back a veritable choir to serenade me from the corridor with what you termed inspirational music? That was meant to be helping?”
“I may have been a little too imaginative at times I admit.” Mal rubbed a fading bruise on her temple where she’d moved a little too slowly to avoid a perfectly aimed file. “But I was bored Pol.”
“Yes, you said. Many times. Generally whilst I was in the middle of a very complicated mathematical problem.”
Luckily for their friendship at that moment a shout came down the line and, reluctant to be left behind they sped up, saving their breath for the scramble. Sub Lt Latimer might be the closest thing they had to friends in high places and they owed him big time for letting Polly come on this Patrol. It would be a shame to do anything that might be construed as letting him down.
~X~
By the time the sun collapsed exhausted behind the mountains after a successful day’s work the patrol had arrived at their home for the foreseeable future. A clearing had been clawed out of the surrounding forest probably by whoever had inhabited the remains of some kind of dwelling that huddled along one side. At one point a woodcutters hut, it was now nothing more than a collection of large stones tumbled here and there like the discarded building blocks of some giant’s offspring. Polly’s aching muscles looked upon the rough grass and declared it heaven. She didn’t consider herself unfit, sword training against a vampire who didn’t experience physical exhaustion was a good way to stay in shape, but she was ready to admit to a little fatigue. As the rest of the lads lay sprawled around her, easing tiredly out of heavy packs she concluded there was no shame in that.
“Alright! You know what to do!” Sergeant Kettering jumped to his feet and began to order them about as Latimer returned from carrying out private deeds beyond the tree line. “Turner and Finchley first watch, Tinsley and van Hoeffler second watch, the rest of you divide up amongst yourselves. Perks, you’re with me.” He jerked his head at a quiet corner of the clearing and hauling herself to her feet she ambled over as quickly as her stiffening legs would allow.
“You and yer monkey get the night watch, relieved at first light, ‘k?”
“When a person beats another person at cards this act does make the said person an automatic member of the simian races.” Mal had sauntered over to poke a nose into the conversation.
“Shurrup, Corporal.” He turned back to Polly. “You keeps ‘em awake alright? Make yer rounds, keep ‘em quiet and if anything crops up - you call me or the Lieutenant sharpish.”
“Right, Sergeant.”
“Yer monkey can show you the sentry points and the OP.”
“Yes Sergeant.” Her elbow caught Mal under the ribs and apart from her small grunt of pain the pair stood in silence as he stalked away.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“You shouldn’t let him draw you. What happened to being the superior vampire race and all that?”
“He annoys me.” Mal frowned as she rubbed at bruised ribs.
“Then smile sweetly and pass by on the other side. You can always thrash him at cards again when we get back. He’ll love that.” An introspective smile drifted over the vampire’s face but Polly nudged her out of the reverie. “Come on Monkey, you’ve got sentry points and an observation post to show me.” She scuttled away before Mal could wreak vengeance.
~X~
Telling the tale in later years even Polly would admit that her first night as a patrol sergeant wasn’t a rousing success. It had begun well, the sergeant trailing around behind Mal as the corporal attempted to familiarise her with their immediate surroundings. Latimer knew what he was doing; the sentry points were well placed, tucked away at quadrant points around the camp with decent viewing arcs for the sighting of any approaching foe. Sauntering out beyond the sentries they’d quickly come across the OP. Someone had carved out a gap in the vegetation where two people could sit on slowly disintegrating logs and have a view both up and down the valley and across to the mountain opposite. Squashing in alongside the two lads already settled into their watch she had passed round cigarettes, Mal striking the matches to get everyone puffing away. A minimal exchange of sentences sufficed to get the measure of her subordinates and Polly had left them to their surveillance having discovered that any length of time in contact with the damp logs allowed the transfer of moisture to the trousers of the sittee. Wandering back toward camp even the clinging uncomfortable of moist breeches couldn’t dampen her mood and she’d been struck again by the overwhelming realness of the woods. Tuning out Mal’s chatter she’d drifted to a halt, dazedly tracing the strong trunks reaching up to an unseen sky, the scent of leaf mulch invading her nasal passages to romp around her brain in exultant glee. Mal, recognising that in her exhaustion the bombardment of sights and sounds was almost overwhelming, stepped back to slip a supporting arm around her waist, encouraging her onward.
It was later that things developed a less professional tone. Having sat silently through the scratch supper Polly had willingly accompanied Mal on a checking round of the sentries. On their return (after dropping in to the OP to introduce themselves to the most recent watchers) they found the remainder of their troops had turned in for the night. Reeling from the rising barrage of snores that resonated around the clearing they’d unanimously decided to find somewhere else to rest their weary legs.
“I think I saw an outcrop just off the path to the OP.” Mal accompanied her whisper with a shudder as an elephantine trumpeting drifted over the campsite.
“Can you find it in the dark?” Polly’s night vision had been destroyed the minute she laid eyes on the abandoned campfire, an amateur mistake she was kicking herself over.
“Vampire, remember?”
Stumbling in her wake Polly had tripped twice before Mal took pity on her and stretched back a helping hand. With her fingers entwined in that firm grasp, a tug to the left or right guiding her over the uneven ground Polly found the going much easier. As they made their way warily through the impenetrable forest the looming trees overhead sent chill tendrils down Polly’s spine but wrapped Mal in a comfortable blanket of gothic familiarity. The cluster of uncovered bedrock was exactly where the corporal had remembered. Her night vision returning, Polly scrambled up to find a welcoming point where a tired soldier who wasn’t too picky about cushioning could sit comfortably, leaning back against the rock. Mal leapt lightly up beside her, settling into the solid stone as though it were the softest armchair money could buy.
“How long before we need to check on the sentries again?”
Mal checked an internal clock and wobbled an inconclusive hand. Relaxing into the rock Polly let her head fall back, the prickle of muddled constellations far above somehow clearer up here in the thinner mountain air.
“…so many stars.”
“Yeah.” Mal craned her neck upward. “There’s The Shovel, see? And the three stars that make up The Obvious Triangle, also known as The Goddess Feeding A Goat And Two Chickens, and if you stretch you can just make out Conan over the mountain.”
The only response was a quiet snore. Mal shook her head on a sigh and wrapping an arm around Polly’s shoulders she tenderly guided the head of the tired sergeant onto a welcoming shoulder. Polly, bless her, had stubbornness in spades, but despite her best efforts every now and then humanity won out. Shifting under that amused gaze, Polly murmured something incomprehensible and snuggled innocently into the warm body beside her, unconsciously seeking to get away from the chill rock.
It was still early, the brightening sky restricted to a small area above the horizon when Polly woke. For a long moment she lay there, her drowsy mind slowly piercing together the hard rock against her hip and shoulder in contrast to the rough material against her cheek. How had someone managed to steal the roof off the castle without anyone noticing? She blinked confusedly at the tree-framed sky with the remains of stars still twinkling down on her from overhead.
“Morning.” Mal appeared in her view, a cheery grin plastered beneath charmingly dishevelled locks. “Finished with my jacket yet?”
Polly shot upright, able at last to identify her makeshift pillow. “How long was I asleep?” Ambushed by a massive yawn she rubbed childlike at bleary eyes prompting Mal to paste another “adorable” iconograph into the scrapbook of memory.
“About six hours maybe?” Mal removed the jacket and shrugging into it gracefully, buttoned the collar up against the early morning chill. Disconcertingly the rough material was still warm in odd places from Polly’s cheek. “You didn’t snore, much.”
“Six hours?!” Polly scrambled down the rock. “What if something had happened? What if Latimer had decided to take a stroll? What if I’d decided to roll over and fallen to my death?”
“Relax Pol. You were exhausted, you fell asleep, nothing happened and like any good soldier you woke up in time for me to brief you to that effect long before your relief arrived.”
“Nothing happened?” Polly paused in her frantic efforts to remove any evidence of her extended nap from badly rumpled clothing.
“A quiet night all round. We’re due a sentry check; you can do that if you’re feeling industrious.”
Mal waited for said industrious activity but Polly didn’t move, uncertainty in her loitering. “I don’t remember where they are.” She flushed and Mal couldn’t help grinning at her discomfort.
“Come on Sergeant. Let the ever helpful corporal guide you back to the campsite. We’ll brew up in the age old fashion and provide our vigilant lads with a welcome cup of saloop to greet the new morn. You never know, this could be the one. I’ve always wanted a great big fish.”
~X~
Midmorning and Mal was smoking, lying back on her elbows, her boots stretched out toward the fire. They’d been relieved without incident, no-one questioning Polly’s description of a quiet uninterrupted night. The bustle of a patrol rising to a new day with associated complaints about breakfast was over and Latimer had sent out the wider sweeping squad to the first of the trouble spots on the list. The morning sentries had come in and gone back out again. It seemed everyone had some task, some place they should be. Except them. The night watch were not expected to make an appearance until the evening, but refreshed by an uninterrupted night’s sleep Polly hadn’t immediately sought her blanket roll. Mal of course never seemed to need sleep and so it was just the two of them, sat round the restrained campfire turning over the various possibilities for entertainment in low voices.
“We could have an explore.”
Mal threw her cigarette butt into the fire and dropped back to hide her face in her hands with an audible groan.
“I’m sure I saw something between the trees further up the hill.”
Mal rolled over, peeking through her fingers to see if Polly were in fact serious. Realising that she most definitely was the vampire rolled back again, resting her arm over her eyes.
“You, Pol will be the death of me.” She heaved a longsuffering sigh. “How far up the hill?”
“Not far, I’ll grab some rations, we could have a picnic.”
“A picnic. The woman wants to go on a picnic.” The vampire hauled herself to her feet, coiled grace in every movement. “I knew we shouldn’t have let females join the army. They only lead to trouble.”
“More trouble than the undead and their very pointy teeth?” Polly swung a bundle across her shoulders and strode purposefully toward the trees. Mal pulled a face and hurried after.
~X~
“I thought you said it wasn’t far?” Mal slashed at another branch, the scabbard wasn’t as effective as the sword, but she didn’t want to blunt her blades on mere vegetation.
They’d been walking for half an hour, fighting their way through years of undisturbed undergrowth. Polly was still hopeful, but Mal had been grumbling about being lost for the past ten minutes. Luckily, before the vampire could test her theory that no sergeant could survive being dangled from a tree by her ankles whilst an irate mountain lion cub took swipes at her head, they stumbled onto a trail cutting perpendicular to their path. It was wide, if overgrown, and seemed to cut straight across the shoulder of the hill as though designed to take more than mere occasional foot traffic. Polly kicking at the years of leaf mulch underfoot felt her boot connect with something solid, and digging down they found old flagstones, the eroded groves of passing carts still visible.
As Mal replaced the disturbed soil Polly stood bang in the middle of the road, shading her eyes as she squinted up and down the track attempting to uncover its deepest secrets.
“Which way?”
“There’s no difference.” Mal shrugged. “Toss a coin.”
“I’m skint. You’re the one with all the winnings, you toss.” The coin came down on the Duchess’s head and they swung left.
After ten minutes of easy walking the pair rounded a corner to see the glimpse of piled stone through the trees. Hurrying along they came up on the base of what looked like one of the old watchtowers that were strung out along the old line of the border. They shared a glance of astonishment and then, curious as the next man, separated to work their way around the base
“I found a door!” Polly ran her hands over the weathered wood, the iron door handle long ago rusted away leaving the shadow of it over the latch.
“Coming!” When Mal appeared at her shoulder, she was definitely not panting because vampires didn’t get out of breath, but an observant watcher would have to record that her chest was rising and falling just a smidgeon quicker with all the excitement.
“We should go in.”
“We should?” Displaying unusual caution Mal tilted her head, listening to the creak that might be a tree against the upper stories, but could have been the stones themselves moving.
Her Sergeant huffed scornfully at her fears. “It’s stood here for at least 100 years, it’s not going to fall down just because we’re inside it.”
“Onward then.” She straightened her shako. “Never let it be said a vampire quivered in the face of creaky death.”
Polly reached out and pushed gently at the door. Absolutely nothing happened. It was a wonderful anticlimax and like all mature people before them they fought the giggles rising inexorably from deep inside and failed miserably. In the end Mal had to put her shoulder to the wood, Polly exhorting her enthusiastically and they both fell into the lower room with a crash.
“Floor’s still here then.” Polly rubbed an elbow that had taken a good part of the fall. “Indeed.” Mal applied the same basic first aid to a hip that performed admirably in cushioning her landing.
“Might I suggest a little investigation of this ‘ere building, Corporal?”
“I say, what? I believe that might be a ripping good idea you just had, Sergeant.”
Clambering to her feet Polly held out a hand and hauled Mal inelegantly to upright. Brushing down her jacket to remove the worst of the dirt the vampire declared herself ready to explore. They soon found that the lower levels were not that interesting, being mainly empty rooms. Passing swiftly through the second level, affected by collapse at the rear but generally structurally sound, they climbed the final steep set of steps to emerge out onto the roof.
“Wow.”
Polly could only agree wholeheartedly with Mal’s comprehensive response. The view stretched from the distant pass at the top of the valley all the way to the castle and town far below. Gazing out over the wooded slopes they could pick out the high farms and tiny woodcutter cottages on the mountain slopes opposite. Many years ago some genius had picked the perfect spot for a watchtower and then employed some people of less genius but more strength to build this sturdy stronghold to guard the people of Borogravia from whatever might come over the mountains. It was a gift.
Polly pulled out her telescope and focused it on the castle, astounded to see she how much detail she could pick out amongst the crenulations. She handed it over to Mal, pointing out the speck in the distance but the vampire seemed more taken with the instrument itself.
“Nice telescope.” She tilted it to read the engraving. “To Polly Perks, For the Things That Never Happened. CC.” Mal frowned. “Who’s CC?”
“Christine Clogson.” Polly waited for the explosion.
“Clogson? Major-where’s-my-jam-sandwich-Clogson gave you a telescope? What were the things that never happened?”
“She meant the war.”
“Which war? The war I was in as well? The war we all helped with? Tonker and Lofty and Wazzer and Igorina and Jade and Shufti and all the rest? How come we didn’t all get telescopes? I could use a nice shiny telescope.”
“No. Not that war. The one that didn’t happen. The one I went off to Ankh Morpork to negotiate into non-existence. The one that ended up with me being shoved off up here, thrown away and forgotten at the arse end of the world.”
“Oh.” Mal blinked at the object in her hands as though unsure how it had got there and handed it back carefully. “It’s a nice telescope.”
“Thank you.”
Turning her back Polly put the brass to her eye and scanned the wooded slopes below, attempting to pick out the camp she knew was somewhere down there.
“Do you fancy lunch?”
“I’m not Clogson.” Polly spotted the movement of a blue jacket above off-white breeches through the canopy and followed it to what could be a small clearing. She wasn’t ignoring any tactless vampires that happened to be in the vicinity, she just wasn’t paying them that much attention, that was all.
“I never said you were.” Mal settled herself in the shade of the parapet, next to a tempting sunny spot. “Doesn’t mean you have to skip lunch though.”
A loud rumble from Polly’s stomach betrayed her. She sat herself a dignified distance from the sprawling vampire and received the hunk of bread with tight smile of thanks. Politeness was important. Lunch was taken in silence, but as Polly threw her apple core over the parapet into infinity the assuaging of her hunger pangs meant she was well on her way to being reconciled. She stretched in the sun and was unexpectedly overtaken by a yawn.
“We should head back, your blanket roll must be more comfortable than bare stone.”
Mal climbed to her feet, offering a hand and Polly considered it carefully before placing her hand in that firm clasp. Mal drew her slowly to her feet, for once controlling her usual erratic tug and Polly left her hand in the vampires for a moment, accepting the apology unspoken.
The walk back to the camp took less time than the original struggle up to the road. They easily retraced their steps, the broken vegetation of Mal’s earlier frustration leaving a clear trail. Polly was asleep the minute her head hit the pillow of her folded jacket and when she woke refreshed some two hours later Mal was nowhere to be seen. The vampire strolled back into camp just as the wide brushstrokes of colour were beginning to fade from the sky. Polly made some comment about falling out of trees and handed over a mug of coffee from the pot constantly located on the edge of the fire. While Mal sipped from the possibly poisonous gunk Polly explained how she’d managed to brief Latimer on what they had found, drawing a series of maps on the flat topped rock with charcoal as he’d spooned thin stew into his thin mouth. To her obvious frustration as she told the tale, the sub-lieutenant had declined to make any decision until he’d had time to think.
That night it was Finchley in the OP for the first watch and they sat with him until the twinkling lights far away in the valley began to wink out. Murmuring a quiet goodnight to the friends tucked up in warm beds somewhere out there in the darkness they sat on, discussing this and that until his relief came. After escorting Finchley back to the camp, they picked up fresh mugs of tea and made their way back to the rock that was already feeling like home. Mal attempted to point out a few constellations but the uncooperative clouds hid much of the sky. They’d been sitting in companionable silence for a while when Mal asked “How’s your brother?”
“Fine. The Duchess is doing well. They’ve been upgrading the privies.” Mal gave her a disbelieving look. “No really. Shufti writes me letters. Very regular. She says ‘Hi’.” Mal added an enquiring eyebrow, prompting Polly to continue “I may have mentioned you one or two times. When you were exceptionally annoying. She’s knitting you some socks.”
The vampire’s face became carefully expressionless. However, when Polly choked on the snigger in her throat Mal could hold it no longer and her poker face cracked into a million pieces. They lay back on the cold stone and gave way to gusts of laughter. It was comfortable there and once the chuckles died away they didn’t immediately sit up, talking a little longer about those far away places and the people they’d left behind, as all soldiers will in the small watches of the night. Quiet murmuring memories of home, wisps of reminiscence drifting up into the empty skies above. Eventually the conversation faded away naturally and they lay on, listening to the breeze rustling the remaining leaves on the trees.
“We should go round the sentries. They’re due a brew.” Polly stretched and sat up.
“Damn the army.”
“Indeed. Damn them all to hell.” She slid down the rock, jumping the last foot to land heavily in the ankle deep undergrowth. “Do you want a coffee?”
“Of course I want a coffee. Hang on though.” Mal’s head emerged over the top of the outcrop. “You never brew it right, you know that.” She clambered gracefully down to link her arm with Polly’s. “Duty calls. Let us away to bend our not insignificant minds to the glorious pursuit of caffeination.”
~X~
The next morning, after considering the options carefully Sub-Lieutenant Latimer revealed that he intended to investigate this watchtower and ordered Polly and Mal to make a good copy of the map they’d sketched for him the previous evening. They protested that they should be the ones to lead the squad but it was to no avail, Latimer leaving them to their bedrolls with the rest of the night watch. When they awoke mid afternoon it was to a camp decimated, with the bustle of lads stuffing the equipment that remained into packs. Apparently the patrol was moving to the tower, the Sub-Lieutenant having declared it a more than suitable billet for their remaining time on the mountain.
Their briefing that night was short. The OP was now on the roof above and the sentries were posted around the base of the tower, at a reasonable distance that they would pick up any creeping approach that the lookouts might miss in the darkness. The fire would be kept burning on the second floor for comfort purposes, hidden from any watchers by blocked windows, with the off duty troops playing cards on the lower level. Dismissed, Polly and Mal wandered up to rest on the still warm parapet, gazing down the friendly vista of the valley as the OP lads kept a weather eye in the other direction to the less welcoming lands nearer the border. Pulling out her telescope Polly swept the deeper darkness of the valley until she picked out the lanterns of the guards on the castle far below. Though the sky still had some colour in it somewhere down there someone was looking up at the mountain, watching vigilantly for the flicker of light signalling out of the darkness. Latimer would have something special to tell them tonight and she felt a flash of pity for the poor lad tasked with operating the lantern.
Later, as the tower slept peacefully beneath her, Polly her rounds complete for the moment settled in beside Mal, elbows on the parapet. The quiet murmuring of the lookouts melded with the rustling tree tops, giving them at least the sense of privacy.
Mal, who had been gathering the threads of previous conversations into one niggling whole, pulled her vacillating thoughts together and opened the conversation.
“Polly?
“Hmm?” Deep in the mist of trying to remember whether Turner had one sugar or two in his coffee Polly wasn’t really paying attention and so missed the warning tremor of nervousness interwoven through that use of her name.
“Why did you sign up again?”
Polly thought for a moment, staring out into the impenetrable darkness as she waited for her night sight to return. “I had the book, thought I could do something.” She shifted her weight against the supporting wall. “It was too soon.”
Behind them they heard a short gust of laughter at a dirty joke before the OP lads settled into quiet again.
“What about you?”
“Apart from the fact I was bored and I look good in a uniform?” Even in the darkness Mal felt the look.
“It’s different for us, Polly. Vampires aren’t a friendly species. Another vampire isn’t company, it’s competition. I knew Jackrum must have given you something you could use and when I heard they were drumming up again I thought…” she paused. “I thought: I might be new to this buddy thing, but friends don’t let friends walk into the jaws of hell without at least tagging along to make use of any prime mocking opportunities.”
“And if I didn’t come?”
“Well, like I said, I look good in a uniform and I needed a vacation anyway.” She brushed at the stone under her hand, sending moss spinning into the darkness. “You would have come, I know you. I knew you’d be planning something stupid.”
“And then I didn’t take you with me.” Polly quiet admission lay between them.
“It’s ok.” Mal leant closer and nudged that tight shoulder with her own. “I was away, you got the chance to go and you took it. I hadn’t said anything. You weren’t to know.”
“I would have taken you.”
“I know.”
Resting there, shoulder to shoulder with the vampire against the world, Polly sighed.
“What is it?” But Polly didn’t respond and after waiting patiently for as long as she could Mal reiterated her enquiry.
“It’s just… sometimes… I wonder if it was worth it.” She drew in a deep breath, rubbing her face with her hands as she released it in a short gust. “Did I waste my opportunity, show my hand too soon? That book was power and I threw it away.”
“I don’t think you threw it away.” Mal spoke with quiet emphasis. “You gave them peace even if it was only for a short while. You gave fathers the chance to hold their children, mothers the time to watch their sons grow into men. Young folk spent the spring courting instead of dying in far away fields, grandparents lived out their years surrounded by family, and crops were planted, harvested and put away into storage for a fat winter.”
Polly turned in surprise. “You’re a vampire, immortal I believe the saying goes, outside the power of death. However did you learn the value of a single day?”
“Oh, here and there.” Mal thought of the scrapbook of memories, reverently returned to over and over in the quiet months after the attack on the keep. Of a too short period trekking through high forest, sleeping on uncomfortable ground, hiding from a malicious enemy and along the way learning everything possible about the mechanics of a single smile.
“Do you really think I didn’t waste it?”
“Really.” The statement stood firm against the night and feeling the guilt wash out of the figure held together so stiffly at her side Mal added more softly, “You do the best you can with whatever you can find. Luckily for the huddled masses, Borogravia found you.” Polly sniffed and throwing caution to the wind Mal threw a comforting arm around the tired shoulders, squeezing gently. Behind them the one of OP lads stretched and took a turn about the roof in an attempt to keep awake. Passing by the pair now standing decorously side by side against the retaining wall he gave a murmured greeting, unconcerned that only the corporal replied. By the time they were given their privacy again Polly had found her composure once more and it was her turn to ask the question.
“Why did you stay? After I’d gone off to Ankh Morpork, by your own admission there was nothing left for you to stick around for, why didn’t you leave?”
Mal silently cursed the darkness that encouraged confidences but non-the-less couldn’t prevent the answer slipping from her grasp. The simple sentence somehow encapsulated the whole grubby entanglement.
“I gave my word”
Polly looked over in enquiry, unsure as to what she meant.
“I told you I learnt to play cards in Guena but that was a bit of a simplification.” Mal reached into her jacket for the ever present packet of tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. “When I came up out of the horrors of that cell in Ankh Morpork they advised us that one should find something to do with all the new free time we now had. So I went on a trip.”
Her labours completed she inserted the narrow object between thin lips and struck a match. Her whole attention seemed to be focussed at the tip of her roll-up where the flame was gently playing across the paper. Eventually it was lit to her satisfaction and she shook the match out, dropping it into the darkness and delicately picked a tendril of tobacco from one lip. Only then did she deign to return to her story.
“I ended up floating down the Vieux River on a paddle steamer, living the high life, playing a young gentleman on the Grand Sneer whilst paying my way from my winnings at the table. Good times.” A reminiscent smile peeked out for a second before darker memories re-surfaced. “I lost my fortune, won someone else’s. Met some people, learnt some things.” She took a deep drag, the end of the cigarette burning up brightly in the darkness and in the following pause they both watched it fade away to a muted glow. “They tell you it’s the giving up of the blood that’s the hardest, but it’s not. When we stop feeding, stop merely reacting to the world and start thinking… that’s when we go mad.”
Mal had forgotten Polly was there, the quiet murmur almost a conversation with herself.
“I saw myself for the first time. A vampire: no morals, no finer feelings, no empathy. If I don’t have my honour, if my word counts for nothing, what good am I at all?” She gestured uselessly, the tobacco firefly drawing painful pictures across the sky.
“I’m sorry.” Polly lifted the cigarette from between those nervous fingers and took a deep drag in turn before handing it back. She couldn’t go on, even now unable to express aloud why she hadn’t asked Mal back then. She was sorry. More sorry than she could say that she’d allowed her fears over why Mal had come back and her confusion about what the vampire wanted from her to let her to leave the vampire behind with only an inborn stubbornness to keep her head above water.
“Hey, we ended up here anyway so Nullus Anxietus as I hear they say in barbarian lands.” Mal flicked the butt into the abyss and turned to lean back against the wall and look up at the towering mountains dark against the night sky. “Would you have wanted to miss those stars?”
Polly agreed, allowing Mal’s humour to lead them into shallower waters. But as they stared up to the ineffable beauty produced by mere pinpricks of light in an infinite tapestry she knew she would never forget those simple quiet words spoken so steadily into the darkness.
~X~
The Patrol came down the track in loose formation, Corporal Finchley was out on point and the rest spread out behind him in small groups as they made their way across the fields. Above them the sky was torn into intensely orange and pink stripes by the setting sun, and the puff of their breath (Mal notwithstanding) lingered behind them in the chill air. Not needed for any defence purposes at this time Polly and Mal found themselves toward the rear, walking side by side in wide cart ruts, the muddy soil frozen underfoot.
It was going to be alright. Polly didn’t know where the certainty came from, but somehow she knew a corner had been turned. She could have kept the book for another time. She could have done it a different way. Maybe something else would have cropped up to keep Borogravia from that possibility of one last totally destructive war. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. Here and now they were alive, and walking down that rough cart track she knew she would have it no other way. She slipped her gloved hand into that of the corporal strolling next to her, a smile dancing at the corners of her mouth as the sound of someone humming an old folk tune drifted back over the squad in time with their marching feet. Mal looked down in confusion but then as clarity broke through and she gave an understanding squeeze, releasing the hand before anyone noticed. Behind them one of the lads broke into the chorus and the rest joined in until Finchley fluffed a line and they had to stop for laughing.
Side by side, shoulders touching at every other step the Sergeant and her Corporal tramped on toward the town spread out below them, smoke rising up into the chill evening air. She remembered Goldhawk had promised them chilli with named meat and her stomach rumbled in anticipation.
It was going to be alright. They were going to be alright. Both of them.
~X~