The Wisdom of Crowds

by Joe Abercrombie

  “So the seat’ll be toasty upon my return,” said Rikke, to some laughter from the room. “And now the Nail. Wasn’t long ago you were an enemy to be feared. I’d thank Stour Nightfall for being fool enough to turn you into a friend, but thanks are wasted on the dead. The West Valleys are yours already. I’d like to add two more to your land on the eastern side.”

  “You’re generous as well as beautiful,” said the Nail, with the hint of a grin.

  “I’ll live with one of two. But I need something from you in return.”

  “Name it.”

  “I have heard tell you like a fight.”

  He grinned wider. “I can stand a scuffle in the right cause.”

  “Seems folk in Ollensand have come over sour about me taking charge. They’ve shut up their gates. Say they’re doing things their own way from now on.”

  “Can’t have that,” whispered Shivers.

  “You let one sheep pick its own path,” said Isern, “and ’fore you know it the whole herd’s got opinions.”

  The Nail slowly nodded. “I’ll make ’em aware o’ their error.”

  “Gently, eh? No need to whistle up the dogs to begin with. I’d rather they came willing.”

  “And if they won’t?”

  “Bring ’em unwilling.”

  “Right y’are.” The Nail loitered a moment, like he had something more to say. She could guess what was on his mind. What happened between the two of them before he went away. It was on her mind, too. She’d have liked to say stay. Even if it was just for a night. Even if it was just for a quick fumble behind the kitchen. But a leader has to be careful who she lets in. Who she’s seen to let in. Specially a she.

  The Nail scratched at his pale beard, looking at her sidelong, mouth open like he was about to speak. When he paused, Rikke didn’t help him. She couldn’t afford to.

  “Right y’are,” he said again and strode out, waving his men after. No sooner had they quit the place than Isern’s brothers were strolling in, a pack of tattooed hillmen and hillwomen at their backs.

  “Scofen and Scenn-i-Phail!” called Rikke. “Were two fat bastards ever more beloved of the moon than you twain?”

  “My father always said a man should have some meat upon him,” said Scofen, laying a great hand on his great belly.

  “His worth is his girth,” said Scenn, combing his fingers through his riot of red beard.

  “There’s been bad blood between the clans of the North and the people of the hills for far too long,” said Rikke. “Since the time of Crummock-i-Phail and Bethod and since times long before. But that’s all washed away. You were there when I needed you, and I’ll be there if you need me, that’s my promise. But since promises are cheap, you can take the land we discussed as well.”

  “Truth is, you’ve already done us a service beyond reckoning by taking our sister off our hands,” said Scenn.

  “Every moment her tongue is stabbing at you is a moment it’s not stabbing at us,” said Scofen.

  Isern blew some chagga spit which spattered on Scofen’s shirt and made him grin. “Mind you don’t get stabbed with something sharper,” she said.

  “I think of her as a sister myself,” said Rikke. “An older, tougher, wiser sister, at that. Reckon that makes you my brothers. And family should keep in touch.” Rikke sat forward. “I say we open up the ways into the hills. Build better roads and set to trading more than wounds. I’ve fond memories of that ale I sampled last time I was with you. Coal in the hills, too, I hear, and copper. No doubt we’ve got things of iron and steel and cloth you might find useful.”

  “No doubt,” said Scenn, reaching out to rub thoughtfully at the sleeve of Hardbread’s mail coat between big finger and thumb.

  “A couple of you should take the voyage to Adua with me. See the world. Sample the pleasures of civilisation. Take some ideas with you and bring a few back. Show folk down there the North’s united. Together we’ll make worse enemies, and better friends, and it’ll be a thing we can all profit from.”

  “Ah, enemies and profits.” Scofen’s eyes lit up. “Things our father loved almost as much as the moon.” And there was laughter, and back-slapping, and trading of well-meaning insults and overblown tales of the battle.

  But being a leader can’t all be grinning at friends. Sooner or later you’ll have to frown on your foes. Calder’s man Flatstone was marched in next, battered and bandaged. His hands were bound, but he stood as if he meant to die with his pride intact, which was a thing Rikke supposed she could admire.

  Lurking at his shoulder, Shivers pulled out that bright little knife. Might be he didn’t catch the light on the blade on purpose and flash it in Flatstone’s face. But Rikke wouldn’t have bet on it.

  “You’re Brodd Flatstone,” she said.

  “I am.”

  “One of Black Calder’s War Chiefs.”

  “I was.”

  “How many of my folk did you kill in the battle?”

  Flatstone gave Shivers’ blade a glance, then set his jaw and lifted his chin. “Many as I could.”

  “Huh. How long did you serve Black Calder?”

  “More’n twenty years. Since I won my name at the battle on the Heroes. Joined Calder then. A lot o’ folk were doing it.” Flatstone took a breath through his broad nose, and let it puff away. “And I’d do the same again. He was a great leader, in his time.”

  “But his time’s done.”

  “No arguing with that.” Flatstone lowered his head. “His time’s done, and yours has come, and that’s the way of things.”

  “The question on my mind is—could you be as loyal to me as you were to him?”

  He looked up sharply and blinked about the room. Then he squared his shoulders. “I believe I could.”

  “A big man like you could kneel to a little woman like me?”

  “I’d say you were over middle height,” muttered Isern.

  “Aye, but that spoils the balance o’ the phrase.”

  “No shame kneeling to a woman who’s proved herself the way you have,” said Flatstone.

  Rikke raised her brows. “So…?”

  “Oh. Right.” And with a pained grunt, hands still bound behind him, Flatstone wobbled down to one knee.

  “My father always said, why waste what can be used? Reckon that goes for men as much as aught else. More, since so much effort goes into making the bastards.” Some mutters of agreement from the warriors about the hall. They didn’t mind mercy for a fighter who’d fought his hardest. They knew they might end up kneeling where he was one day, if luck tipped the wrong way. “I want you to gather any of your Carls who lived through the battle and are willing to serve me and take the bones o’ these Crinna fucks back the way they came. While you’re out there, teach any that’ve wandered across the water since a hard lesson. You understand?”

  Flatstone nodded. “I do.”

  “I do…?”

  “I do, Chief.”

  Shivers cut the rope on Flatstone’s wrists and, as he stood, handed him back the axe he’d given up on the day of the battle, bright gold swirling on the blade. He looked up at Rikke as he took it. “I appreciate the chance. Won’t let you down.”

  “Oh, I know.” Rikke turned her Long Eye towards him. “I’ve seen it.”

  He swallowed and strode for the door.

  “Soft,” grunted Isern, sourly.

  “It’s worth giving your enemies a chance. They know they can’t expect one and might be thankful for it.” Rikke frowned sideways. “Friends are much harder to please.”

  And indeed, Isern’s scowl got deeper than ever as the next pair were dragged in. Corleth and her granny, dirty from the cells and with their hands bound tight.

  “Easy,” said Rikke. “We won, remember? We can afford to be generous.”

  “Just ’cause you can afford it,” grunted Isern as the young woman and the old were shoved down before the dais and left squinting in the sunlight, “doesn’t mean you should buy it. Is Corleth even your name
?”

  “It is.” The girl didn’t look much chastened, her jaw jutting. As much fight in her as when she first came to Uffrith.

  “Got anything to say for yourself?” asked Rikke.

  “I could kneel here and spew excuses but you all know me for a liar. Where’d be the point?”

  “We done what was asked of us,” croaked out the old woman.

  “Shame you didn’t do it better,” sneered Isern, “you might not be kneeling there.”

  Rikke held up a hand for silence. “I reckon a lot of folk would like to see you cut with the bloody cross as traitors and spies.”

  She let the silence stretch, heavy with the weight of lives in the balance.

  “But I’m minded to be merciful. We wouldn’t have hooked Black Calder

  without you offering the bait, after all. You wandered into Uffrith so

  you could tell him what we were about. Now you can wander down to Ostenhorm. Tell me what the Union are up to.”

  This helping of mercy wasn’t at all to the menfolk’s taste. They could see past a man trying to kill ’em, but a woman tricking ’em was too much to stand.

  “Thought you wanted peace with the Union?” grunted Hardbread. “And trade, and smiles.”

  “I’ll smile easier knowing what they’re up to,” said Rikke.

  “I don’t know no one down there,” said Corleth.

  “Good a liar as you are, I’m sure you’ll soon make new friends.”

  “What about my granny?”

  “She really your granny?”

  “She is.”

  “I’m half-tempted to keep her here so she can make me soup.” Rikke sat back, considering. “But it seems a shame to split up a winning act. Cut ’em free, Shivers.” And he did, showing no sign of whether he thought it a good idea or a bad.

  “Thank you, Black Rikke,” said Corleth’s granny, near kissing the floor. “You won’t regret this.”

  “True.” And Rikke tapped her cheek. “I’ve seen that, too.”

  “Soft,” hissed Isern, shaking her head, and she wasn’t alone in her opinion. Lots of grumbling. Some outright scowls. One man spat at Corleth’s feet as she walked out. It was a wearying business. Proving yourself once as a leader is never enough. You have to do it fresh with every choice.

  A miserable crowd came next, kicked and bundled into Skarling’s Hall, forced down on the pitiless stones before her, chains rattling. Stand-

  i’-the-Barrows’ men. Stripped of their armour of bones and with their paint all smeared off, they looked a lot less fearsome. One was trembling. One might’ve been weeping. Don’t matter how savage a face you show the world, few men dare look the Great Leveller in the eye once he comes calling. She felt the old tug towards mercy and sat back frowning in Skarling’s Chair.

  “You bastards crossed the Crinna,” she said.

  Their leader shuffled forwards on his knees, his chin near touching the floor and the lank hair hanging around his face. “We was invited, Great Queen,” he whined, speaking Northern with an accent which was an offence upon the ear. “We was invited.”

  “Not by me,” she snapped, making him flinch. “Stand-i’-the-Barrows, a man the world will not much miss, planned to see how many of my bones he could cut out while I was still alive.”

  There was a snivelling and a mewling, like she’d a pack of beaten dogs before her. She took a long, slow breath.

  “But I’m not Stand-i’-the-Barrows.” She waved a gracious hand. “Suffering doesn’t make me smile.”

  The leader bowed even lower. “You are wise and merciful, Great Queen.”

  “I like to think so.” She nodded to Shivers. “Kill ’em first, then boil ’em down to the bones, then get Flatstone to send the bones back across the Crinna. Maybe that’ll teach their kind to stay on their side of the water.”

  She watched ’em dragged out, gibbering and weeping, and had a sense the faces of the warriors in the hall were changed. No scornful glances now. Eyes mostly to the floor, indeed. Her father would’ve said it’s a good thing, to show mercy. Long as you also show, when it’s needful, that you can make of your heart a stone.

  Isern offered a chagga pellet, and Rikke took it and stuffed it up behind her lip. “You approve?”

  “Do you hear me disapprove?” asked Isern.

  And so it went. They marched in or were dragged in. Those who’d fought on one side or the other. Those who’d served her, or served Black Calder. She stuck mostly to mercy, but she made some examples, too. Enough, she judged, to keep the North orderly while she was off striking a bargain with the friends she’d turned into enemies. The day wore on and the strips of sunlight from the tall windows crept across the stone floor, from one side of Skarling’s Hall to the other, till the room was mostly empty, and the flood became a trickle, and the trickle dried up to naught.

  “That everyone?” asked Rikke, sitting back.

  “Just one more,” said Shivers.

  A Half-Baked Loaf

  Clover sat in the yard outside Skarling’s Hall and watched the nervous folk called in to receive their deservings. He watched some strut out beaming over their rewards. He watched some dragged out crestfallen over their punishments. He saw a couple noticeably not emerge at all.

  Life and death, hanging on the word of Black Rikke. She held more of the North and in a tighter grip now than Black Dow at his most feared, than Black Calder at his most cunning. Who’d have guessed that, when she came tumbling through the wet woods to lie at his feet all those months ago? He gave a disbelieving little snort of laughter. Would’ve taken the Long Eye to see it coming.

  Clover had seen ’em rise and fall. The leaders, the chiefs, the kings. He’d taken a hand in a few of those ups and downs himself, indeed. Bethod, and the Bloody-Nine, and Black Dow, and Scale Ironhand, and Stour Nightfall, an ever-lengthening list o’ glory and disaster. Those who served ’em, too, the fortunes of the little men rising and falling with the big men they chose to follow, like boats lifted by the tide, or dropped stranded on the sands. He glanced over at Sholla and Flick. Hoped they wouldn’t end up stranded, on account of tethering their fortunes to his.

  Maybe, having spent half his life too reckless, he’d ended up playing it too safe. He’d clung to those who’d risen and could only come down, rather than had the courage to seek out those whose tide was surging in. To seek out those he actually liked, maybe. But he was still casting a shadow, at least. More’n you could say for Wonderful, or Magweer, or Downside, or all those others he’d put in the mud down the years. Still alive, as the Bloody-Nine was once so fond o’ saying. There wasn’t much else to take pride in, for a man who carried a sword. Even one who tried never to draw it.

  “Clover.” Shivers stood there, in the doorway of Skarling’s Hall. You never could tell what that man was thinking. No more feeling showed in his living eye than his dead one. No sign of what the judgement would be. But from those coming and going, Black Rikke was proving a tougher judge than folk had guessed. Girl had iron in her, that was plain, and sharpened, too.

  “Can I bring my people?” asked Clover.

  Shivers looked at Flick and Sholla. “Why not?” And he stood aside to offer them all the way. So he’d be at their backs, o’ course. A bad man to have behind you with a sword, Caul Shivers. Just ask Black Dow. But if Clover wasn’t used to having bad men with swords about, he never would be.

  Rikke sat in Skarling’s Chair, an old sheepskin draped over the back and onto the seat, red cloak around her shoulders and green stones around her neck, the tattoos black on her pale face. She looked comfortable, in that uncomfortable-looking chair, one leg crossed over the other with the worn boot gently swinging. There were some big names in the room, but everyone faced a bit towards her, like flowers turning their petals towards the sun. No doubt who had the say in that room.

  “Jonas Clover,” she said, tapping a thoughtful fingernail against the arm of Skarling’s Chair as he traipsed up nervously to stand before her. “Here’s a ri
ddle.”

  “Well.” He gave an apologetic little grin. “No one wants to be thought of as simple.”

  “There are folk who’ve done me favours and folk who’ve done me wrongs.” She sat forwards, those troubling eyes full upon him as if she could see into his head, see into his heart. “But there’s none I can think of that are such a half-baked loaf as you.”

  Clover scratched at the back of his head. “I’ll admit I’ve been called worse and deserved it.”

  “You were one of Calder’s men. One of Nightfall’s. One of those that invaded the Protectorate all those months ago.”

  “I mostly ambled along at the back, to be fair.” He squinted up towards the shadowy rafters, a cobweb fluttering in the breeze through the windows. “In that war, if I recall, I killed more men on my side than on yours.”

  “That’s naught to be proud of,” grunted Hardbread.

  “No.” Clover gave a sorry shrug. “You’ll find few men less proud o’ themselves than me.”

  “And once I had Skarling’s Chair,” said Rikke, “you gave every sign of going back over to Calder’s side soon as the chance was offered.”

  “When you let Stour live, then tossed all your friends away, I started worrying you might not have the bones for the task. In my defence, you did act the part o’ someone shitting themselves very nicely.”

  “Plenty o’ practice,” grunted Rikke. “And after all, I could only spare Stour ’cause you handed him to me in the first place.”

  “That was less a service to you, though, and more about settling a score between me and him.”

  Rikke looked at him baffled. “When I count something against you, you want to disagree. When I count something for you, you want to disagree with that, too.”

  “In my experience… things are rarely all one way or the other.”

  “You’re right there,” said Rikke, sitting back. “And you did let me go, that day in the woods.”

  “That’s one good deed I’ll fully confess to,” admitted Clover.