Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Sarmis has been menacing for decades. He’s the most menacing Legate you ever heard of.’

  ‘Then it’s true as it ever was!’

  ‘News spoils quick, friend, like milk.’

  ‘I say it gets better if carefully kept, like wine.’

  ‘I’m glad you like the vintage, but I ain’t buying yesterday’s news.’

  The woman cradled her papers like a mother hiding an infant from bird attack, and as she leaned forward Shy saw the top was tore off her tall hat and got a view of the scabbiest scalp imaginable and a smell of rot almost knocked her over. ‘No worse than tomorrow’s, is it?’ And the woman swept her aside and strode on waving her old bills over her head. ‘News! I have news!’

  Shy took a long, hard breath before she set off. Damn, but she was tired. Crease was no place to get less tired, far as she could tell.

  ‘I’m looking for a pair of children.’

  The one in the middle treated her to something you’d have had to call a leer. ‘I’ll give you children, girl.’

  The one on the left burst out laughing. The one on the right grinned, and a bit of chagga juice dribbled out of his mouth and ran down into his beard. From the look of his beard it wasn’t his first dribble either. They were an unpromising trio all right, but if Shy had stuck to the promising she’d have been done in Crease her first day there.

  ‘They were stolen from our farm.’

  ‘Probably nothing else there worth stealing.’

  ‘Being honest, I daresay you’re right. Man called Grega Cantliss stole ’em.’

  The mood shifted right off. The one on the right stood up, frowning. The one on the left spat juice over the railing. Leery leered more’n ever. ‘You got some gall asking questions over here, girl. Some fucking gall.’

  ‘You ain’t the first to say so. Probably best I just take my gall away on down the street.’

  She made to move on but he stepped down from the porch to block her way, pointed a waving finger towards her face. ‘You know what, you’ve got kind of a Ghosty look to you.’

  ‘Half-breed, maybe,’ grunted one of his friends.

  Shy set her jaw. ‘Quarter, as it goes.’

  Leery took his leer into realms of facial contortion. ‘Well, we don’t care for your kind over on this side o’ the street.’

  ‘Better quarter-Ghost than all arsehole, surely?’

  There was that knack for upsetting folk. His brows drew in and he took a step at her. ‘Why, you bloody—’

  Without thinking she put her right hand on the grip of her knife and said, ‘You’d best stop right there.’

  His eyes narrowed. Annoyed. Like he hadn’t expected straight-up defiance but couldn’t back down with his friends watching. ‘You’d best not put your hand on that knife unless you’re going to use it, girl.’

  ‘Whether I use it or not depends on whether you stop there or not. My hopes ain’t high but maybe you’re cleverer than you look.’

  ‘Leave her be.’ A big man stood in the doorway. Big hardly did him justice. His fist up on the frame beside him looked about the size of Shy’s head.

  ‘You can stay out o’ this,’ said Leery.

  ‘I could, but I’m not. You say you’re looking for Cantliss?’ he asked, eyes moving over to Shy.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Don’t tell her nothing!’ snapped Squinty.

  The big man’s eyes drifted back. ‘You can shut up…’ He had to duck his head to get through the doorway. ‘Or I can shut you up.’ The other two men backed off to give him room—and he needed a lot. He looked bigger still as he stepped out of the shadows, taller’n Lamb, even, and maybe bigger in the chest and shoulder, too. A real monster, but he spoke soft, accent thick with the North. ‘Don’t pay these idiots no mind. They’ve got big bones for fights they’re sure of winning but otherwise not enough for a toothpick.’ He took the couple of steps down into the street, boards groaning under his great boots, and stood towering over Leery.

  ‘Cantliss is from the same cloth,’ he said. ‘A puffed-up fool with a lot of vicious in him.’ For all his size there was a sad sag to his face. A droop to his blond moustache, a sorry greying to the stubble about it. ‘More or less what I used to be, if it comes to that. He owes Papa Ring a lot of money, as I heard it. Ain’t been around for a while now, though. Not much more I can tell you.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that much.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ The big man turned his washed-out blue eyes on Leery. ‘Get out of her way.’

  Leery gave Shy a particularly nasty leer, but Shy had been treated to a lot of harsh expressions in her time and after a while they lose their sting. He made to go back up the steps but the big man didn’t let him. ‘Get out of her way, that way.’ And he nodded over at the stream.

  ‘Stand in the sewer?’ said Leery.

  ‘Stand in the sewer. Or I’ll lay you out in it.’

  Leery cursed to himself as he clambered down the slimy rocks and stood up to his knees in shitty water. The big man put one hand on his chest and with the other offered Shy the open way.

  ‘My thanks,’ she said as she stepped past. ‘Glad I found someone decent this side of the street.’

  The man gave a sad snort. ‘Don’t let a small kindness fool you. Did you say you’re looking for children?’

  ‘My brother and sister. Why?’

  ‘Might be I can help.’

  Shy had learned to treat offers of help, and for that matter everything else, with a healthy suspicion. ‘Why would you?’

  ‘Because I know how it feels to lose your family. Like losing a part of you, ain’t it?’ She thought about that for a moment, and reckoned he had it right. ‘Had to leave mine behind, in the North. I know it was the best thing for ’em. The only thing. But it still cuts at me now. Didn’t ever think it would. Can’t say I valued ’em much when I had ’em. But it cuts at me.’

  He’d such a sorry sag to his great shoulders then that Shy had to take pity on him. ‘Well, you’re welcome to follow along, I guess. It’s been my observation that folk take me more serious when I’ve a great big bastard looking over my shoulder.’

  ‘That is a sadly universal truth,’ he said as he fell into step, two of his near enough to every three of hers. ‘You here alone?’

  ‘Came with my father. Kind of my father.’

  ‘How can someone be kind of your father?’

  ‘He’s managed it.’

  ‘He father to these other two you’re looking for?’

  ‘Kind of to them, too,’ said Shy.

  ‘Shouldn’t he be helping look?’

  ‘He is, in his way. He’s building a house, over on the other side of the street.’

  ‘That new one I’ve seen going up?’

  ‘Majud and Curnsbick’s Metalwork.’

  ‘That’s a good building. And that’s a rare thing around here. Hard to see how it’ll find your young ones, though.’

  ‘He’s trusting someone else to help with that.’

  ‘Who?’

  Normally she’d have kept her cards close, so to speak, but something in his manner brought her out. ‘The Mayor.’

  He took a long suck of breath. ‘I’d sooner trust a snake with my fruits than that woman with anything.’

  ‘She sure is a bit too smooth.’

  ‘Never trust someone who don’t use their proper name, I was always told.’

  ‘You haven’t told me your name yet.’

  The big man gave a weary sigh. ‘I was hoping to avoid it. People tend to look at me different, once they know what it is.’

  ‘One o’ those funny ones, is it? Arsehowl, maybe?’

  ‘That’d be a mercy. My name’ll make no one laugh, sad to say. You’d never believe how I worked at blowing it up bigger. Years of it. Now there ain’t no getting out from under its shadow. I’ve forged the links of my own chain and no mistake.’

  ‘I reckon we’re all prone to do that.’

  ‘More’n likely.’ He
stopped and offered one huge hand, and she took it, her own seeming little as a child’s in its great warm grip. ‘My name’s—’

  ‘Glama Golden!’

  Shy saw the big man flinch a moment, and his shoulders hunch, then he slowly turned. A young man stood in the street behind. A big lad, with a scar through his lips and a tattered coat. He had an unsteady look to him made Shy think he’d been drinking hard. To puff his courage up, maybe, though folk didn’t always bother with a reason to drink in Crease. He raised an unsteady finger to point at them, and his other hand hovered around the handle of a big knife at his belt.

  ‘You’re the one killed Stockling Bear?’ he sneered. ‘You’re the one won all them fights?’ He spat in the mud just near their feet. ‘You don’t look much!’

  ‘I ain’t much,’ said the big man, softly.

  The lad blinked, not sure what to do with that. ‘Well… I’m fucking calling you out, you bastard!’

  ‘What if I ain’t listening?’

  The lad frowned at the people on the porches, all stopped their business to watch. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, not sure of himself. Then he looked over at Shy, and took one more stab at it. ‘Who’s this bitch? Your fucking—’

  ‘Don’t make me kill you, boy.’ Golden didn’t say it like a threat. Pleading, almost, his eyes sadder’n ever.

  The lad flinched a little, and his fingers twitched, and he came over pale. The bottle’s a shifty banker—it might lend you courage but it’s apt to call the debt in sudden. He took a step back and spat again. ‘Ain’t fucking worth it,’ he snapped.

  ‘No, it ain’t.’ Golden watched the lad as he backed slowly off, then turned and walked away fast. A few sighs of relief, a few shrugs, and the talk started building back up.

  Shy swallowed, mouth suddenly dried out and sticky-feeling. ‘You’re Glama Golden?’

  He slowly nodded. ‘Though I know full well there ain’t much golden about me these days.’ He rubbed his great hands together as he watched that lad lose himself in the crowd, and Shy saw they were shaking. ‘Hell of a thing, being famous. Hell of a thing.’

  ‘You’re the one standing for Papa Ring in this fight that’s coming?’

  ‘That I am. Though I have to say I’m hopeful it won’t happen. I hear the Mayor’s got no one to fight for her.’ His pale eyes narrowed as he looked back to Shy. ‘Why, what’ve you heard?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, trying her best to smile and failing at it. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Blood Coming

  It was just before dawn, clear and cold, the mud crusted with frost. The lamps in the windows had mostly been snuffed, the torches lighting the signs had guttered out and the sky was bright with stars. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, sharp as jewels, laid out in swirls and drifts and twinkling constellations. Temple opened his mouth, cold nipping at his cheeks, turning, turning until he was dizzy, taking in the beauty of the heavens. Strange, that he had never noticed them before. Maybe his eyes had been always on the ground.

  ‘You reckon there’s an answer up there?’ asked Bermi, his breath and his horse’s breath smoking on the dawn chill.

  ‘I don’t know where the answer is,’ said Temple.

  ‘You ready?’

  He turned to look at the house. The big beams were up, most of the rafters and the window and door-frames, too, the skeleton of the building standing bold and black against the star-scattered sky. Only that morning Majud had been telling him what a fine job he was doing, how even Curnsbick would have considered his money well spent. He felt a flush of pride, and wondered when he had last felt one. But Temple was a man who abandoned everything half-done. That was a long-established fact.

  ‘You can ride on the packhorse. It’s only a day or two into the hills.’

  ‘Why not?’ A few hundred miles on a mule and his arse was carved out of wood.

  Over towards the amphitheatre the carpenters were already making a desultory start. They were throwing up a new bank of seating at the open side so they could cram in a few score more onlookers, supports and cross-braces just visible against the dark hillside, bent and badly bolted, some of the timbers without the branches even properly trimmed.

  ‘Only a couple of weeks to the big fight.’

  ‘Shame we’ll miss it,’ said Bermi. ‘Better get on, the rest of the lads’ll be well ahead by now.’

  Temple pushed his new shovel through one of the packhorse’s straps, moving slower, and slower, then stopping still. It had been a day or two since he’d seen Shy, but he kept reminding himself of the debt in her absence. He wondered if she was out there somewhere, still doggedly searching. You could only admire someone who stuck at a thing like that, no matter the cost, no matter the odds. Especially if you were a man who could never stick at anything. Not even when he wanted to.

  Temple thought about that for a moment, standing motionless up to his ankles in half-frozen mud. Then he walked to Bermi and slapped his hand down on the Styrian’s shoulder. ‘I won’t be going. My bottomless thanks for the offer, but I’ve a building to finish. That and a debt to pay.’

  ‘Since when do you pay your debts?’

  ‘Since now, I suppose.’

  Bermi gave him a puzzled look, as if he was trying to work out where the joke might be. ‘Can I change your mind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your mind always shifted with the breeze.’

  ‘Looks like a man can grow.’

  ‘What about your shovel?’

  ‘Consider it a gift.’

  Bermi narrowed his eyes. ‘There’s a woman involved, isn’t there?’

  ‘There is, but not in the way you’re thinking.’

  ‘What’s she thinking?’

  Temple snorted. ‘Not that.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Bermi hauled himself into his saddle. ‘I reckon you’ll regret it, when we come back through with nuggets big as turds.’

  ‘I’ll probably regret it a lot sooner than that. Such is life.’

  ‘You’re right there.’ The Styrian swept off his hat and raised it high in salute. ‘No reasoning with the bastard!’ And he was off, mud flicking from the hooves of his horse as he headed out up the main street, scattering a group of reeling-drunk miners on the way.

  Temple gave a long sigh. He wasn’t sure he didn’t regret it already. Then he frowned. One of those stumbling miners looked familiar: an old man with a bottle in one hand and tear-tracks gleaming on his cheeks.

  ‘Iosiv Lestek?’ Temple twitched up his trousers to squelch out into the street. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Disgrace!’ croaked the actor, beating at his breast. ‘The crowd… wretched. My performance… abject. The cultural extravaganza… a debacle!’ He clawed at Temple’s shirt. ‘I was pelted from the stage. I! Iosiv Lestek! He who ruled the theatres of Midderland as if they were a private fief!’ He clawed at his own shirt, stained up the front. ‘Pelted with dung! Replaced by a trio of girls with bared bubs. To rapturous applause, I might add. Is that all audiences care for these days? Bubs?’

  ‘I suppose they’ve always been popular—’

  ‘All finished!’ howled Lestek at the sky.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ someone roared from an upstairs window.

  Temple took the actor by the arm. ‘Let me take you back to Camling’s—’

  ‘Camling!’ Lestek tore free, waving his bottle. ‘That cursed maggot! That treacherous cuckoo! He has ejected me from his Hostelry! I! Me! Lestek! I will be revenged upon him, though!’

  ‘Doubtless.’

  ‘He will see! They will all see! My best performance is yet ahead of me!’

  ‘You will show them, but perhaps in the morning. There are other hostelries—’

  ‘I am penniless! I sold my wagon, I let go my props, I pawned my costumes!’ Lestek dropped to his knees in the filth. ‘I have nothing but the rags I wear!’

  Temple gave a smoking sigh and looked once more towards the star-prickled heavens. Apparently he was s
et on the hard way. The thought made him oddly pleased. He reached down and helped the old man to his feet. ‘I have a tent big enough for two, if you can stand my snoring.’

  Lestek stood swaying for a moment. ‘I don’t deserve such kindness.’

  Temple shrugged. ‘Neither did I.’

  ‘My boy,’ murmured the actor, opening wide his arms, tears gleaming again in his eyes.

  Then he was sick down Temple’s shirt.

  Shy frowned. She’d been certain Temple was about to get on that packhorse and ride out of town, trampling her childish trust under hoof and no doubt the last she’d ever hear of him. But all he’d done was give a man a shovel and wave him off. Then haul some shit-covered old drunk into the shell of Majud’s building. People are a mystery there’s no solving, all right.

  She was awake a lot in the nights, now. Watching the street. Maybe thinking she’d see Cantliss ride in—not that she even had the first clue what he looked like. Maybe thinking she’d catch a glimpse of Pit and Ro, if she even recognised them any more. But mostly just picking at her worries. About her brother and sister, about Lamb, about the fight that was coming. About things and places and faces she’d rather have forgotten.

  Jeg with his hat jammed down saying, ‘Smoke? Smoke?’ and Dodd all surprised she’d shot him and that bank man saying so politely, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ with that puzzled little smile like she was a lady come for a loan rather’n a thief who’d ended up murdering him for nothing. That girl they’d hanged in her place whose name Shy had never known. Swinging there with a sign around her twisted neck and her dead eyes asking, why me and not you? and Shy still no closer to an answer.

  In those slow, dark hours her head filled with doubts like a rotten rowboat with bog water, going down, going down for all her frantic bailing, and she’d think of Lamb dead like it was already done and Pit and Ro rotting in the empty somewhere and she’d feel like some kind of traitor for thinking it, but how do you stop a thought once it’s in there?

  Death was the one sure thing out here. The one fact among the odds and chances and bets and prospects. Leef, and Buckhorm’s sons, and how many Ghosts out there on the plain? Men in fights in Crease, and folk hung on tissue-paper evidence or dead of fever or of silly mishaps like that drover kicked in the head by his brother’s horse yesterday, or the shoe-merchant they found drowned in the sewer. Death walked among them daily, and presently would come calling on them all.