Memory Read Online Free Page A

wouldn’t like what I discovered. Think about it: what if I turned out to be somebody really evil and disgusting, someone that everybody hates?’
    Basano thought for a moment. ‘Well, if everybody hated you, surely you’d have been recognised before now. And if you were on the run from the gallows or the stone-yards, they’d have been looking for you and someone would’ve caught you. And if you were like a dangerous nutcase or whatever, sooner or later you’d murder someone or set fire to a temple or whatever it might be, and then you’d know that way. And if you found out you’d only ever been a milkman, or the bloke who cleans the blood off the slaughterhouse floor, well, that’d be all right, you wouldn’t have to go back to your rotten old life if you didn’t want to, and that way at least you’d know—’
    Poldarn pulled a face. Partly it was the foul taste of the beer. ‘There’s other bad things it could be,’ he said. ‘Like, suppose I was married and there was trouble at home, something like that. My theory is, you see, that deep down I don’t want to remember, which is why my memory hasn’t come back long since. I reckon you’d have to be stupid to take a risk like that.’
    Basano pursed his lips. ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘It’d depend on how good life was where I am now. I mean, do you really, really like working in the foundry?’
    Poldarn shrugged. ‘It’s all right, I suppose.’
    â€˜You’re settled in just the way you like it? Got yourself a really tasty bird, nice house, all that stuff?’
    â€˜Well, no.’ Poldarn frowned. ‘But that sort of thing comes with time. I mean, you find somewhere you want to be and settle down, and happiness just sort of grows on you, like moss on rocks.’
    Basano nodded. ‘And you don’t think any happiness had grown on you before you had your accident and forgot it all? I mean, a man of your age, you’d expect to be settled and doing well. So maybe you were.’
    â€˜Like you are, you mean?’
    â€˜Oh, I’m not doing so bad,’ Basano answered, wriggling sideways as a handful of dirt dropped from the roof onto his head. ‘I told you, we’re doing a hell of a trade, I’m putting a lot of good money by. Another ten years or so, I’ll be able to retire, buy a place, spend the rest of my life playing at being a gentleman.’ He grinned. ‘I got it all worked out, don’t you worry. See, I know where I’m from, so I can make up my mind where it is I want to go. You don’t, so you can’t. See what I’m getting at?’
    â€˜Sort of.’
    â€˜Well, there you go.’ Basano suddenly froze, and said, ‘Shit.’
    â€˜What’s the matter?’
    â€˜Beer jug’s empty. Excuse me, I have to go to the outhouse and fill it up again.’
    That, Poldarn felt, was open to misinterpretation; but when Basano came back and refilled both their cups, the beer tasted no worse than before. ‘I was thinking,’ Basano said.
    â€˜Hm?’
    â€˜About what you were saying. You not wanting to know, in case you turned out to be the nastiest man in the world. Well, you can set your mind at rest there.’
    â€˜Can I? Oh, good.’
    â€˜Sure.’ Basano grabbed two handfuls of wood and threw them on the fire. ‘It’s like this. You go anywhere, ask anybody you like who’s the nastiest man in the world, they’ll all give you the same answer. Well,’ he added, after a pause for thought, ‘maybe not, because we’ve just had the taxes round here, so a lot of folks would say the Emperor. Bastard,’ he added, with feeling.
    â€˜He’s not popular?’
    â€˜You can say that again.’
    Poldarn nodded. ‘I don’t even know who the Emperor is,’ he confessed.
    â€˜Really? Well, we had a change recently,