‘Quietly, we’re watched!’ Calder came close, huddling as though he had secrets to share. An attitude he’d noticed tended to make men do the same, however little they were inclined to. ‘I thought we could help each other, since we find ourselves in the same position…’
‘The thame?’ Golden’s bloated, blotched and bloodied face loomed close. Calder shrank back, all fear and surprise, while on the inside he was a fisherman who feels the tug on his line. Talk was his battlefield, and most of these fools were as useless on it as he was on a real one. ‘How are we the thame, peathemaker?’
‘Black Dow has his favourites, doesn’t he? And the rest of us have to struggle over the scraps.’
‘Favourith?’ Golden’s battered mouth was giving him a trace of a lisp and every time he slurred a word he looked even more enraged.
‘You led the charge today, while others lagged at the back. You put your life in the balance, were wounded fighting Dow’s battle. And now others are getting the place of honour, in the front line, while you sit at the rear? Wait, in case you’re needed?’ He leaned even closer. ‘My father always admired you. Always told me you were a clever man, a righteous man, the kind who could be relied on.’ It’s amazing how well the most pathetic flattery can work. On enormously vain people especially. Calder knew that well enough. He used to be one.
‘He never told me,’ muttered Golden, though it was plain he wanted to believe it.
‘How could he?’ wheedled Calder. ‘He was King of the Northmen. He didn’t have the luxury of telling men what he really thought.’ Which was just as well, because he’d thought Golden was a puffed-up halfhead, just as Calder did. ‘But I can.’ He just chose not to. ‘There’s no reason you and I need to stand on different sides. That’s what Dow wants, to divide us. So he can share all the power, and the gold, and the glory with the likes of Splitfoot, and Tenways … and Ironhead.’ Golden twitched at the name as if it was a hook tugging at his battered face. Their feud was so big he couldn’t see around it, the idiot. ‘We don’t need to let that happen.’ Almost a lover’s whisper, and Calder risked slipping his hand gently onto Golden’s shoulder. ‘Together, you and I could do great things…’
‘Enough!’ mumbled Golden through his split lips, slapping away Calder’s hand. ‘Peddle your lieth elthewhere!’ But Calder could smell the doubt as Golden turned away, and a little doubt was all he was after. If you can’t make your enemies trust you, you can at least make them mistrust each other. Patience, his father would have told him, patience. He allowed himself a smirk as Golden and his men stomped off into the night. He was just sowing seeds. Time would bring the harvest. If he lived long enough to swing the scythe.
Lord Governor Meed gave Finree one last disapproving frown before leaving her alone with her father. He clearly could not stand anyone being in a position of power over him, especially a woman. But if he supposed she would give him a lacklustre report behind his back, he had profoundly underestimated her.
‘Meed is a primping dunce,’ she shot over her shoulder. ‘He’ll be as much use on a battlefield as a two-copper whore.’ She thought about it a moment. ‘Actually, I’m not being fair. The whore at least might improve morale. Meed is about as inspiring as a mouldy flannel. Just as well for him you called off the siege of Ollensand before it turned into a complete fiasco.’
She was surprised to see her father had dropped into a chair behind a travelling desk, head in his hands. He looked suddenly like a different man. Shrunken, and tired, and old. ‘I lost a thousand men today, Fin. And a thousand more wounded.’
‘Jalenhorm lost them.’
‘Every man in this army is my responsibility. I lost them. A thousand of them. A number, easily said. Now rank them up. Ten, by ten, by ten. See how many there are?’ He grimaced into the corner as though it was stacked high with bodies. ‘Every one a father, a husband, a brother, a son. Every life lost a hole I can never fill, a debt I can never repay.’ He stared through his spread fingers at her with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Finree, I lost a thousand men.’
She took a step or two closer to him. ‘Jalenhorm lost them.’
‘Jalenhorm is a good man.’
‘That’s not enough.’
‘It’s something.’
‘You should replace him.’
‘You have to put some trust in your officers, or they’ll never be worthy of it.’
‘Is it possible for that advice to be as lame as it sounds?’
They frowned at each other for a moment, then her father waved it away. ‘Jalenhorm is an old friend of the king, and the king is most particular about his old friends. Only the Closed Council can replace him.’
She was by no means out of suggestions. ‘Replace Meed, then. The man’s a danger to everyone in the army and a good few who aren’t. Leave him in charge for long and today’s disaster will soon be forgotten. Buried under one much worse.’
Her father sighed. ‘And who would I put in his place?’
‘I have the perfect man in mind. A very fine young officer.’
‘Good teeth?’
‘As it happens, and high born to a fault, and vigorous, brave, loyal and diligent.’
‘Such men often come with fearsomely ambitious wives.’
‘Especially this one.’
He rubbed his eyes. ‘Finree, Finree, I’ve already done everything possible in getting him the position he has. In case you’ve forgotten, his father…’
‘Hal is not his father. Some of us surpass our parents.’
He let that go, though it looked as if it took some effort. ‘Be realistic, Fin. The Closed Council don’t trust the nobility, and his family was the first among them, a heartbeat from the crown. Be patient.’
‘Huh,’ she snorted, at realism and patience both.
‘If you want a higher place for your husband…’ She opened her mouth but he raised his voice and talked over her. ‘…you’ll need a more powerful patron than me. But if you want my advice — I know you don’t, but still — you’ll do without. I’ve sat on the Closed Council, at the very heart of government, and I can tell you power is a bloody mirage. The closer you seem to get the further away it is. So many demands to balance. So many pressures to endure. All the consequences of every decision weighing on you … small wonder the king never makes any. I never thought I would look forward to retirement, but perhaps without any power I can actually get something done.’
She was not ready to retire. ‘Do we really have to wait for Meed to cause some catastrophe?’
He frowned up at her. ‘Yes. Really. And then for the Closed Council to write to me demanding his replacement and telling me who it will be. Providing they don’t replace me first, of course.’
‘Who would they find to replace you?’
‘I imagine General Mitterick would not turn down the appointment.’
‘Mitterick is a vainglorious backbiter with the loyalty of a cuckoo.’
‘He should suit the Closed Council perfectly, then.’
‘I don’t know how you can stand him.’
‘I used to think I had all the answers myself, in my younger days. I maintain a guilty sympathy with those who still labour under the illusion.’ He gave her a significant look. ‘They are not few in number.’
‘And I suppose it’s a woman’s place to simper on the sidelines and cheer as idiots rack up the casualties?’
‘We all find ourselves cheering for idiots from time to time, that’s a fact of life. There really is no point heaping scorn on my subordinates. If a person is worthy of contempt, they’ll bury themselves soon enough without help.’
‘Very well.’ She did not plan to wait that long, but it was plain she would do no more good here. Her father had enough to worry about, and she was supposed to be lifting his spirits rather than weighing them down. Her eye fell on the squares board, still set out in the midst of their last game.
‘You still have the board set?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then …�
� She had been planning her move ever since she last saw him, but made it as if it had only just occurred to her, brushing the piece forward with a shrug.
Her father looked up in that indulgent way he used to when she was a girl. ‘Are you entirely sure about that?’
She sighed. ‘It’s as good as another.’
He reached for a piece, and paused. His eyes darted around the board, hand hovering. His smile faded. He slowly withdrew the hand, touched one finger to his bottom lip. Then he started to smile. ‘Why, you…’
‘Something to take your mind off the casualties.’
‘I have Black Dow for that. Not to mention the First of the Magi and his colleagues.’ He sourly shook his head. ‘Are you staying here tonight? I could find you a…’
‘I should be with Hal.’
‘Of course. Of course you should.’ She bent and kissed him on the forehead, and he closed his eyes, held her shoulder for a moment. ‘Be careful tomorrow. I’d sooner lose ten thousand than lose you.’
‘You won’t shake me off that easily.’ She headed for the door. ‘I mean to live to see you get out of that move!’
The rain had stopped for the time being and the officers had drifted back to their units. All except one.
It looked as if Bremer dan Gorst had been caught between leaning nonchalantly against the rail their horses were tied to or standing proudly straight, and had ended up posed awkwardly in no-man’s-land between the two.
Even so, Finree could not think of him as quite the harmless figure she once had, when they used to share brief and laughably formal conversations in the sunny gardens of the Agriont. Only a graze down the side of his face gave any indication that he had been in action at all that day, and yet she had it from Captain Hardrick that he had charged alone into a legion of Northmen and killed six. When she heard the story from Colonel Brint it had become ten. Who knew what story the enlisted men were telling by now? The pommel of his steel glinted faintly as he straightened, and she realised with an odd cold thrill that he had killed men with that sword, only a few hours before. Several men, whichever story you believed. It should not have raised him in her estimation in the least, and yet it did, very considerably. He had acquired the glamour of violence.
‘Bremer. Are you waiting for my father?’
‘I thought …’ in that strangely incongruous, piping voice of his, and then, slightly lower, ‘you might need an escort.’
She smiled. ‘So there are still some heroes left in the world? Lead the way.’
Calder sat in the damp darkness, a long spit from the shit-pits, listening to other men celebrate Black Dow’s victory. He didn’t like admitting it, but he missed Seff. He missed the warmth and safety of her bed. He certainly missed the scent of her as the breeze picked up and wafted the smell of dung under his nose. But in all this chaos of campfires, drunken singing, drunken boasting, drunken wrestling, there was only one place he could think of where you could be sure of catching a man alone. And treachery needs privacy.
He heard heavy footsteps thumping towards the pit. Their maker was no more than a black outline with orange firelight down the edges, the very faintest grey planes of a face, but even so Calder recognised him. There were few men, even in this company, who were quite so wide. Calder stood, stretching out his stiff legs, and walked up to the edge of the pit beside the newcomer, wrinkling his nose. Pits full of shit, and pits full of corpses. That’s all war left behind, as far as he could see.
‘Cairm Ironhead,’ he said quietly. ‘What are the chances?’
‘My, my.’ The sound of spittle sucked from the back of a mouth, then sent spinning into the hole. ‘Prince Calder, this is an honour. Thought you were camped over to the west with your brother.’
‘I am.’
‘My pits smell sweeter than his, do they?’
‘Not much.’
‘Come to measure cocks with me, then? It ain’t how much you’ve got, you know, but what you do with it.’
‘You could say the same about strength.’
‘Or guile.’ Nothing else but silence. Calder didn’t like a silent man. A boastful man like Golden, an angry man like Tenways, even a savage man like Black Dow, they give you something to work with. A quiet man like Ironhead gives nothing. Especially in the dark, where Calder couldn’t even guess at his thoughts.
‘I need your help,’ he tried.
‘Think of running water.’
‘Not with that.’
‘With what, then?’
‘I’ve heard it said Black Dow wants me dead.’
‘More’n I know. But if it’s true, what’s my interest? We don’t all love you as much as you love yourself, Calder.’
‘You’ll have need of allies of your own before too long, and you well know it.’
‘Do I?’
Calder snorted. ‘No fool gets where you are, Ironhead. Black Dow scarcely has more liking for you than me, I think.’
‘No liking? Has he not put me in the place of honour? Front and middle, boy!’
Calder got the unpleasant feeling there was a trace of mocking laughter in Ironhead’s voice. But it was some kind of opening and he had no choice but to charge in with his most scornful chuckle. ‘The place of honour? Black Dow? He turned on the man who spared his life, and stole my father’s chain for himself. The place of honour? He’s done what I’d do to the man I fear most. Put you where you’ll take the brunt of the enemy’s fury. My father always said you were the toughest fighter in the North, and Black Dow knows it. Knows you’ll never back down. He’s put you where your own strength will work against you. And who’s to benefit? Who’s been left out of the fight? Tenways and Golden.’ He’d been hoping for that name to work some magic, but Ironhead didn’t move so much as a hair. ‘They hang back while you, and my brother, and my wife’s father do the fighting. I hope your honour can stop a knife in the back, when it comes.’
There was a grunt. ‘Finally.’
‘Finally what?’
The sound of piss spattering below them. ‘That. You know, Calder, you said it yourself.’
‘Said what?’
‘No fool gets where I am. I’m a long way from convinced Black Dow’s set on my doom or even on yours. But if he is, what help can you offer me? Your father’s praise? That lost most of its worth when he got bested in the High Places, and all the rest when the Bloody-Nine smashed his skull to porridge. Oops.’ Calder felt piss spattering over his boots. ‘Sorry ’bout that. Guess we’re not all as nimble with our cocks as you are. Reckon I’ll stick with Dow, touched though I am by your offer of alliance.’
‘Black Dow’s got nothing to offer but war and the fear men have of him. If he dies there’s nothing left.’ Silence, while Calder wondered if he’d gone a step too far.
‘Huh.’ There was a jingling as Ironhead fastened his belt. ‘Kill him, then. But until you do, find other ears for your lies. Find another piss-pit too, you wouldn’t want to drown in this one.’ Calder was slapped on the back, hard enough to leave him teetering at the brink, waving his arms for balance. When he found it, Ironhead was gone.
Calder stood there for a moment. If talk sows seeds, he wasn’t sure at all what harvest he could expect from this. But that didn’t have to be a bad thing. He’d learned Cairm Ironhead was a subtler man than he appeared. That alone was worth some piss on his boots.
‘One day I’ll sit in Skarling’s Chair,’ Calder whispered into the darkness. ‘And I’ll make you eat my shit, and you’ll tell me nothing ever tasted so sweet.’ That made him feel a little better.
He shook the wet from his boots as best he could, and strutted off into the night.
Rest and Recreation
Finree did not make much noise. Neither did Gorst. But that suited him well enough. Knobs of backbone showed through pale skin, thin muscles in her hunched shoulders tensing and relaxing, an unsightly ripple going through her arse with every thrust of his hips. He closed his eyes. In his head it was prettier.
They were
in her husband’s tent. Or no. That wasn’t working. My quarters in the palace. The ones he used to have when he was the king’s First Guard. Yes. That was better. Nice feel, they’d had. Airy. Or maybe her father’s headquarters? On his desk? In front of the other officers at a briefing? Hell, no. Urgh. His quarters in the palace were easiest, familiar from a thousand well-worn fantasies in which the Closed Council had never stripped him of his position.
I love you, I love you, I love you. It hardly felt like love, though. It hardly felt like much of anything. Certainly nothing beautiful. A mechanical action. Like winding a clock or peeling a carrot or milking a cow. How long had he been at it now? His hips were aching, his stomach was aching, his back and his shoulder were bruised as a trampled apple from the fight in the shallows. Slap, slap, slap, skin on skin. He bared his teeth, gripping hard at her hips, forcing himself back to his airy quarters at the palace …
Getting there, getting there, getting there…
‘Are you nearly done?’
Gorst stopped dead, snatched to reality with an icy shock. Nothing like Finree’s voice. The side of her face turned towards him, gleaming damply in the light of the one candle, the dimple of an old acne scar inadequately covered by thick powder. Nothing like Finree’s face. All his thrusting seemed to have made little impression. She might have been a baker asking his apprentice if the pies were done.
His rasping breath echoed back from the canvas. ‘I thought I told you not to talk.’
‘I’ve a queue.’
So much for nearly there. His cock was already wilting. He struggled to his feet, sore head brushing against the ceiling of the tent. She was one of the cleaner ones, but still the air had a cloying feel. Too much sweat and breath, and other things, inadequately smothered by cheap flower-water. He wondered how many other men had already been through here tonight, how many more would come through. He wondered if they pretended they were somewhere else, she was someone else. Does she pretend that we are someone else? Does she care? Does she hate us? Or are we a procession of clocks to be wound, carrots to be peeled, cows to be milked?
The Heroes Page 25
