The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Just the three of us.” Shivers grunted as he shifted Rikke higher up his shoulders. Made her feel like a child again, being carried like this, his hands around her ankles. On between the stones and down a steep path through trees. Old, old trees with whispers in their high, high branches and their jealous roots delving deep, deep, knotted like misers’ fingers.

  Around a bend and Rikke saw the shore. Grey shingle stretching down to grey water, blurred reflections of the tall trees prickled by rain-ripples. A few strides out, all was lost in a mist, and beyond that Rikke could see nothing, and somewhere a lonely owl hooted at the sunset.

  “The forbidden lake,” said Isern. “Not far to go now.”

  “Always has to be a mist, doesn’t there?” grunted Shivers.

  Isern set off, her boots crunching in the shingle. “I guess nothing looks so magical, d’you see, as what can’t be seen at all.”

  “No,” whispered Rikke, closing her eyes. “This hasn’t happened yet.”

  Night, and firelight danced on the gathered faces. Withered old faces and fresh young ones. Faces pricked with the swirling tattoos of the hillmen. Faces that weren’t there yet, maybe, or had been there long ago. Rikke could hardly tell today from yesterday from tomorrow any longer. Meat spat and sizzled. The cold, crisp air of the hills on the back of Rikke’s head but the warmth of the fire on her face and she grinned at the simple pleasure of it, snuggled into a smelly old fur.

  “I don’t like it,” said Scenn, shaking his great fat head.

  “You’ve confused me with someone who’d spare a turd on what you like or don’t,” said Isern.

  Two siblings could hardly have been less alike. Isern, spear-hard and dagger-faced with her crow-black hair in a long tangle. Scenn, huge as a house with hands like hams and a face like a pudding, hair shaved back to a red fuzz on his creased scalp.

  “Don’t like going up there,” he said, frowning northwards, between the firelit hovels to the archway of crooked branches. “It’s forbidden for a reason.”

  “I need you to take us, not voice your opinions. They’re as bloated with wind as you are.”

  “You need not be so harsh about it,” said Scenn, kneading at his belly and looking a touch hurt. He frowned over at Shivers. “She’s harsh as a whipping, ain’t she?”

  Shivers raised his brows. Or the one he had, anyway. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “She has to go up there and that’s all there is to it,” snapped Isern, harshly. “This girl matters, Scenn. She’s beloved of the moon. I’ve always known it.”

  “You’ve confused me with someone who’d spare a turd on what you know or don’t,” said Scenn. “I’m not taking her just ’cause you say so.”

  “No, you’re taking her because she has to go.”

  “Because she has the Long Eye?”

  “Because she has the Long Eye so strong it’s killing her.”

  Scenn looked over at Rikke, then. Small, dark eyes he had, but she saw the sharpness in them. Beware of clever men, her father told her once. But beware most of clever men who look like fools. “What do you say, girl?” And he spat a bit of gristle into the fire and pointed at her with the stripped-bare bone. “If you can see the future, tell me mine.”

  Rikke leaned forward then, the fur slipping from her shoulders, and she turned her burning left eye on him and opened it wide. He flinched back as she raised her left hand, pointing with her forefinger towards the glittering stars, and spoke in ringing tones her prophecy.

  “I… see… you’re going to get fatter!”

  Laughter around the fire at that. An old woman with just one tooth laughed so hard she nearly fell over, and a young one had to slap her on the back till she coughed up a shred of meat.

  Shivers tapped his ale cup against hers and Rikke took a swig and settled back into her fur. There weren’t a lot of things would bring someone to Slorfa, but they made good ale, the hillmen, her head was dizzy with it. Or maybe that was the sickness of the Long Eye. Hard to tell the difference. Scenn frowned, settling his bulk cross-legged.

  “She has a sense of humour, then. She’ll need that, up in the High Places. There are few laughs at the forbidden lake.” He frowned towards Isern again. “Do you really think this little shred of gristle, this little snot with the ring through her nose, is beloved of the moon?”

  Isern spat ale in the fire and made it hiss. “What would you know about it, Scenn-i-Phail, who carries our father’s hammer?”

  Scenn stuck his beard out at her. “I’d know as much as you, Isern-i-Phail, who carries our father’s spear. Just because he loved you best, don’t think you learned the most from him.”

  “You’re joking, you sheep-fucker! Our father hated me.”

  “He did. He loathed the guts and face and arse of you, head to toe.” Scenn paused a moment. “And you were his favourite.”

  And the two of them burst out laughing together. They might not have looked much alike but their laughter was the same. Mad, cackling peels that sounded halfway to wolves howling while overhead the full moon hung fat and round, and they smashed their cups together and sent up a fountain of ale and drained what was left and carried on laughing.

  Shivers watched them, face in shadow. “This’ll be a long month, I reckon.”

  “No,” said Rikke, snuggling into that smelly fur and shutting her eyes. “This hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Always upwards,” gasped Rikke, shading her eyes against the sun and squinting uphill.

  “That’s going into the hills for you.” Isern wasn’t even out of breath. Nothing ever tired her.

  “Where are we headed, exactly?” asked Shivers, his boots crunching on the dirt path.

  “To the forbidden lake.”

  “That much I know. I’m asking where it is.”

  “If they told everyone where it was, it wouldn’t be very forbidden, would it?”

  Shivers rolled his eyes. Or eye, at least. “Do you have any straight answers, woman?”

  “What use are straight answers in a crooked world?”

  Shivers gave Rikke a glance, but she was too out of breath to do much more than shrug. “How… do we get there… then?” she asked between her wheezes.

  “My brother Scenn knows the way. He is a turd in the shape of a man, but he’ll help. We’ll head to his village first, which is a turd in the shape of a village. Slorfa, they call it, at the head of the valley four valleys on.”

  “Sounds… a long way,” muttered Rikke.

  “One foot in front of the other will get it done with time.”

  “How many brothers do you have?” asked Shivers.

  “Eleven of the bastards, and each more like a dog’s arse than the last.”

  Rikke raised her brows. “You don’t… talk about ’em much.”

  “We all had different mothers,” said Isern, as though that explained the whole business. “My upbringing was less than happy. An ordeal, d’you see? Living through it once was bad enough but had to be done. Remembering it is a thing I aim to avoid.”

  Isern stopped on a heap of rocks, and pulled out a flask, and splashed water over her head and some more in her mouth and offered it to Rikke.

  By the dead, she was weary. She stood, swallowed water, wiped sweat from her forehead. It was springing out about as fast as she could drink it. Her vest was soaked through. She reeked like a haystack after the rains. The air was cool, but her eye, her eye was always hot. Burning in her head. There’d been a time, she was sure, when she could run and run and never stop. Now a few paces had her panting, and her head pounding, and her sight swimming, ghosts haunting the edges of her vision.

  She looked back the way they’d come, out of the hills over the crinkling valleys towards the lowlands. Back down the long miles walked towards Uffrith. Into the past.

  “Let’s make some footprints,” grunted Isern, turning back to the steeply climbing trail. “The forbidden lake won’t be coming to us, will it?”

  Rikke blew ou
t so hard she made her lips flap and wiped a fresh sheen of sweat from her forehead.

  “Need to ride on my shoulders?” asked Shivers. Most folk couldn’t even have told he was smiling. But she knew how to tell.

  “Never, you old bastard,” she growled, setting off. “More likely I’ll be carrying you.”

  “That I’d like to see,” Isern threw over her shoulder, and stones scattered from the heel of her scuffed boot and down the bald track.

  “No,” muttered Rikke, closing her eyes. “This hasn’t happened yet.”

  “Found you!” shouted Leo in that piping voice with the strange accent, catching hold of Rikke’s foot and dragging her out of the hay.

  She’d soon realised they’d be man and woman grown by the time he found her if she’d stayed in her first hiding place, up among the rafters where the pigeons nested. She’d enjoyed looking down on him hunting around the barn, but when he wandered off to look elsewhere she got bored and dropped down, burrowed into the hay and left one boot sticking out where he could see it. Games are only fun if they’re close, after all.

  “Took you long enough,” she said.

  He was pretty, Rikke thought, even if he wasn’t the cleverest. And he had an odd manner and talked strange. But being brought up in the Union would do that to a boy, maybe, and for pretty you could forgive a lot.

  She was glad he was here, anyway. Nice to have someone her age to play with. She liked to pretend she was happiest on her own, but no one is, really. Her da was always busy having the long talks with the grey-bearded bastards where everyone frowned and shook their heads a lot.

  Shivers would tell her stories sometimes, about his travels around the Circle of the World and all the different styles o’ strange folk he’d killed there, but she felt there was something odd about a friendship between a little girl and one o’ the most feared warriors in the North. He said he didn’t mind but she didn’t want to push it.

  There weren’t many children in Uffrith and those there were thought she was cursed and wouldn’t come near her on account of the fits. Leo didn’t seem worried about the fits. Maybe he would be once he saw her having one. Specially if she shat herself during, which was more often than not, sadly. But there wasn’t much she could do about that. About the fits or the shits.

  Rikke had sworn an oath not to worry about the things she couldn’t change, and she took an oath very seriously. Her father always said there was nothing more important than your word, usually while frowning and shaking his head. It was a shame he frowned so much, ’cause when he smiled it lit the world up.

  “My turn to hide!” shouted Leo, and he dashed off, slipped and fell, rolled in a shower of hay dust, then scrambled up and disappeared through the barn door. Made Rikke sad, for some reason, to see him go. So sad.

  “No,” she said to herself, closing her eyes. “This happened long ago.”

  An Infinite Supply

  “How’s my stance?” asked Flick, peering over his shoulder at his back foot.

  “We’ll get to your stance,” said Clover.

  “In about a year, at this rate,” muttered Downside, holding the edge of his axe up to the sunlight then polishing away at it again.

  “If you last a year.” Sholla frowned as she tried to cut the finest slice of cheese imaginable with that long, thin knife of hers.

  “Don’t listen to this sorry pair,” said Clover. “We’ll get to your stance. But always bear in mind, if your sword’s drawn, you’ve already made at least one mistake.”

  “Eh?” said Flick, squinting at Clover over the wobbling point of his blade.

  “Unless you’re cleaning it, or sharpening it, or maybe selling it.”

  “What if you’re in a battle?”

  “Then you’ve made at least two mistakes, possibly a lot more. A battle’s no place for a self-respecting warrior. But if you must attend one, at least have the good taste to be where the fighting isn’t.”

  “What if some bastard tries to kill you?”

  “Ideally, you’d have worked that out a while back and done ’em first, preferably while they’re asleep. That’s what knives are for.”

  “That and slicing cheese,” said Sholla, lifting her knife towards her mouth with furious concentration, a cheese-shaving so fine it was almost see-through clinging to the flat. A spring gust came through the courtyard just as it was getting to her lips and blew it away like thistledown, left her clutching helpless at the air.

  “That’s the thing about knives,” said Clover. “Cheap to get and with endless applications. Swords are dear as all hell and they’ve got just the one, and it’s one every man should avoid.”

  Flick crunched up his face. “You’re sort of talking yourself out of a job here, far as the teaching of sword-work goes.”

  “Aye, but life being what it is, mistakes happen. That’s when an understanding of sword-work might save your worthless hide from an unsightly hole or two, as it’s saved mine on a couple of regrettable occasions. So, to the stance—”

  “Clover!”

  Greenway came strutting across the yard like he was the one that built it and was highly delighted with the achievement, thumbs in his belt and his elbows pointing out, as if you could tell a man’s quality by the amount of space he took up.

  “I fucking hate this prick,” murmured Sholla as she tried to shave an even thinner slice from the edge of the cheese block, then clicked her tongue in disgust as it crumbled.

  “You’re a fine judge of character,” said Clover, giving Greenway a cheery wave hello as he approached, sneering at Flick. Since Magweer’s untimely demise, he’d taken on the role of Stour’s chief sneerer.

  “Who’s this?” he sneered.

  “This is Flick. I’m teaching him how to use the blade. Or how not to.”

  “He looks a bloody idiot,” said Greenway.

  “Aye, well, there’s a short supply of men clever as you. Have to make do with what we’re given. Stour ready for me?”

  “The king, you mean.”

  Clover stared back blankly. “Aye, the king I do mean. Stour is the king and the king is Stour. We were both there when he hung the chain round his neck, weren’t we?” They’d both been there and they’d both been bloody.

  Greenway shifted his thumbs in his sword-belt. “One o’ these days you’ll say too much, Clover.”

  “Well, the mud’s waiting for us all. Worse ways to get there than excessive conversation. Now, shall we take the news to the Great Wolf?” He nodded at the sack, which had drawn the attention of at least half of Carleon’s flies. “Bring that along, eh, Flick?”

  The lad wrinkled his nose. “You sure? It’s got quite the odour.”

  “That’s the way of things, lad, we all end up stinking. And yes, I’m sure. It’s not for my benefit, I can tell you that.”

  “Stay out o’ trouble, eh, Chief?” grunted Sholla, eyes fixed on her knife and her cheese.

  “Believe it or not, I’ve spent fifteen years trying.”

  “What the bloody hell are you about, anyway?” Downside was asking as Clover went to answer the king’s call.

  “If you get it right,” murmured Sholla, “it just melts on your tongue…”

  Flick looked like he was about to swing the sack over his shoulder, saw the stains and decided against. He wasn’t strong enough to hold it at arm’s length, though, so it ended up knocking against one knee as he walked with a wet clumping. “Never met a king,” he said.

  “No?” said Clover. “I’d have thought you’d be in daily contact with royalty.”

  “Eh?”

  “Just keep your mouth shut and smile.”

  Flick made a gurning rictus of the lower half of his face.

  “Smile, I said. You’re not trying to sell him your teeth.”

  There was a lot that hadn’t changed in Skarling’s Hall since Skarling’s time. The big creaking doors with their great iron hinges, the high rafters, the tall windows, the bright, cold sun beyond and the sound of rushing wat
er far below. Skarling’s Chair was the same one Bethod, and Black Dow, and Scale Ironhand had sat in, hard and simple, paint worn off the time-polished arms and flaking from the back.

  The man sitting in it was new, though. Stour Nightfall, who men called the Great Wolf, with his left leg hooked over one of the arms and the bare foot gently swinging, a very fine wolfskin cloak about his shoulders and grinning like a wolf indeed. Why wouldn’t he smile? Got everything he wanted, hadn’t he? No longer king-in-waiting but king all the way, and all he’d had to do was stab his uncle in the throat.

  Everything boiled over with menace in there. The faces of the young warriors, unsmiling, like life was a contest at having the least fun. The flames in the great fireplace stabbed angrily. Even the cups on the tables seemed to be nursing a slight. There was this horrible quiet, everyone holding their breath, expecting violence to strike like lightning any moment.

  “You should be kneeling,” growled Greenway as they stopped in the midst of that wide stone floor in front of Stour.

  Clover raised his brows. “Thought I’d at least walk in first. Guess I could shuffle in on my knees but that’d wear quite considerably on my trousers and everyone’s patience.” He twirled his finger around, turning back towards the door. “But I’ll happily head back out and start again if there’s a better way to go about it—”

  “You don’t need to kneel, Clover,” said Stour, waving him closer. “Old friend like you? Don’t be a cunt, Greenway.”

  Greenway gave an epic sneer which made him, in Clover’s opinion, look more of a cunt than ever. Some men just can’t help themselves. All the ones in this room, certainly. It was then he noticed there was a new cage in the corner, hanging from one of the high rafters, gently turning. Didn’t seem a good sign. There was someone in it, too, naked and beaten bloody but with eyes still open. That seemed an even worse sign.

  “Unless I’m mistook,” said Clover, “you’ve got Gregun Hollowhead in a cage.”

  Stour narrowed his eyes. “I’ve a room full of bastards to tell me what I know already.”