The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  Rumour was the Dogman’s daughter was a witch. That she had the Long Eye. Clover hadn’t taken it too seriously. Now it was hard to doubt. She’d turned so lean her face was like a skull, skin so stretched you fancied you could see through it, scabbed and angry around her left eye, across her forehead, her cheek, the bridge of her nose. Clover wondered if, of the two of ’em, her father looked the healthier.

  “What the hell happened to you?” muttered Stour, giving voice to the thoughts of everyone in the hall, most likely.

  “A sorceress said she could make me more ordinary,” said Rikke. “Or she could make me less. Guess which I chose?”

  She strutted closer, bony shoulders tipped back, bony chin tipped up, and the mingling of that battered face and that snake-like swagger and that friendly grin and those mad, mad eyes was really most off-putting.

  “I’ve been in the High Places. Up in the mountains, beside a lake.” And she waved a hand, runes on thongs around her thin wrist clicking and clattering. “Fine views, but the water was a little chilly on the toes, eh, Isern?”

  Isern-i-Phail, no doubt used to being the weirdest in just about any company, was of a sudden looking workaday by comparison. “I didn’t paddle,” she said, and spat some chagga juice across the floor.

  “You should’ve. The kind of cold that burns all your doubts away. Whole business was…” And Rikke opened her eyes wide, so wide it seemed they might pop out of her pinched-in face. “Eye-opening. I see right through you, now. Right through all of you.” And she laughed, a jagged laugh, like she’d left her senses far behind her, and it didn’t help at all that she was laughing at her father’s funeral.

  Stour twisted his face sideways as she came close, like he was looking into a wind. Her right eye was all swollen, many-coloured bruises on the bloated lids and a great red stain all across the white of it, pupil shrivelled to a milky pinprick. The pupil of the other yawned huge and black, and Clover saw the scabbed and angry skin around it was pricked with designs. A cobweb of black lines and letters, circles and symbols, so fine it seemed it couldn’t have been drawn by men at all. Clover never saw a thing looked so much like witch’s work, and the warriors muttered and shifted, a dozen big men edging back fearful from one girl thin as a birch sapling.

  “Fucking witch,” muttered one who came from over the Crinna, making a holy sign across his chest. “Should be burned.”

  Rikke smiled at him, pointing with one thin finger. “But it’s you who’ll die by fire!” She smiled at Greenway. “You on the water! And ’cause I’ve told you so, all the days you have left, you’ll go in fear of streams and boats and wells and cups and every drop of dew shall be a terror.” She wagged that finger at him. “But the water will find you out. It will leak in through the cracks in your life no matter how you try to caulk ’em up. I see the Great Leveller coming, and there are no bargains made with him.” She stared at Stour, and took a necklace of green stones she wore and dragged them back until they made a noose, cutting into her thin neck. “But it’s steel for most of you. It takes no Long Eye to see that.” She dropped the necklace and laughed again. “Stay! You’re all welcome. Stay, and I can tell you more.”

  “Not me,” muttered Greenway, who should’ve been called Whiteway he’d turned so pale. He blundered to the door, and saw a bucket there put under a leak, and he shrank away from it, then scrambled out into the daylight. The rest of Stour’s big men weren’t far behind him. Seemed this hadn’t turned out quite the fun he’d promised.

  The Great Wolf himself stayed to give the room a wet-eyed scowl. “We’ll be back,” he barked out. “See that, witch!” And he shoved past Clover and stalked from the hall.

  “How rude.” Rikke’s pale eye and her red eye slid across to Clover. “You I know.”

  “We met once,” he said. “In the woods.” And she’d come a long way from the stringy little scrap who fell at his feet then. She’d come a long, hard way by a crooked road, he reckoned.

  “I remember,” she said. “Do you want to hear what’s coming, Jonas Clover?”

  “Reckon I’d rather not.” Wasn’t easy to meet those strange eyes, one seeming too shallow and one too deep. But he made himself do it. “Just wanted to say I’m sorry about your father. Didn’t know him well, but I wish I’d known him better. Ain’t many left in the North you could say that much for.”

  “Why don’t you stay?” she asked, raising one brow. Seemed the other got shaved off when the tattooing was done. “We can talk about what’s coming.”

  “D’you know? I wish I could.” And it was true. He’d rather have stayed with the witches and the dead than gone back out to Stour and his bastards. “But I am what I am.” Nightfall had the power. More even than before, with the Dogman back to the mud. And Clover was done with losing sides. So he nodded to Isern-i-Phail, and nodded to Rikke, too. Then he turned for the door.

  Shivers stood in his path, that metal eye glinting in the shadows. “We still need to have that talk.”

  “We do.” Clover thought about giving Shivers a clap on the arm or something, but he didn’t really seem the arm-clapping type. “More’n ever.”

  Then he left.

  It was raining when they put him in the mud. Thin rain, making the whole world damp. Soft as a maiden’s kiss, as he used to say. Seemed right, somehow, for the occasion. The gulls and the sea and the sad voices deadened. Everything deadened, like the world was wrapped in a shroud.

  Usually, when a man goes in the ground, there are a few words said. Words from his chief or his family. How good they were, how strong, how brave. How much missed they’ll be by those staggering on. But today, it seemed everyone in Uffrith had words. The little garden beside the hall was packed shoulder to shoulder, mourners spilling out into the wet lanes around.

  One by one they took their turn at the head of the fresh-turned earth, shuffling up to speak their piece till the whole plot was boot-mashed. Till the whole plot looked like a grave. Everyone had a story. Some kindness done. Some wisdom offered. Some little piece of courage that’d given them courage. Soft words spoke with smoking breath. Tears lost in the drizzle.

  They said he’d been the best of his kind. The last straight edge. Closest friend to the Bloody-Nine, worst enemy to Black Dow, who’d fought for Bethod and fought against him, across the North and back. Red Hat shouted out a story about the fight in the High Places. Oxel barked one about the Siege of Adua. Hardbread talked of the Battle of Osrung, folk murmuring with every famous name—Curnden Craw and Whirrun of Bligh and Cairm Ironhead and Glama Golden. He started at a creaky murmur, white hair plastered to his liver-spotted pate, but by the end he was glaring lightning and bellowing thunder as he told of the high deeds done in the valleys of the past. Old men made young again in the fire of those memories, just for a moment.

  Then Shivers stepped up, one hand on the grey pommel of his grey sword, and with the other he pushed the hair back from his scarred face, and spoke in that broken whisper. “Some o’ you have had the misfortune o’ knowing me a long time. I used to be…” He ran out of words a moment, stood there silent with teeth clenched. “I was everyone’s enemy, and my own most of all. A man who’d used up all his chances and didn’t deserve another. But the Dogman gave me one. In hard times, it’s easy to become hard. But here was a man who always looked for the best in folk. Didn’t always find it, but never gave up looking. Wasted no time polishing his own name. Singing his own songs. Didn’t have to. Every man and woman in the North knew his quality. Back to the mud, Dogman.” And he gave the earth a slow nod. “Feels like the best of us goes in the ground with you.”

  Quiet, then. That heavy quiet, and Isern set a hand on Rikke’s shoulder. A gentle hand, for once, soft as the rain. “You want to speak? You don’t have to.”

  “Aye,” said Rikke. “I do.” And she slipped through the damp-eyed crowd to the head of the grave. It was a good spot for him. In the garden he wished he’d tended better. Looking down over the city he’d fought for so many years
. Looking down towards the sea. He’d have liked friends beside him, she reckoned. But their lonely graves were scattered across the North, wherever they’d died. That’s a warrior’s life. A warrior’s death.

  She looked up, saw all those sad faces turned towards her, all waiting for her to say something worth hearing.

  “Shit,” she croaked, shaking her head at that heap of ground. She’d helped to pile it on him. There it was, dark in the grain of her hands, black under her fingernails. Still she couldn’t believe he was under there, and wouldn’t step smiling from the crowd to give the last, best word. “Fucking shit.” She took a long, salty sniff, and rubbed the wet from the blind side of her face.

  “Been a fine thing listening to you all.” She tried to smile but it came out all quivery and brittle. “So many stories. So many burdens he took a little piece of onto his own shoulders. No wonder he was crooked at the end. No wonder. Guess we’ll have to carry our own burdens now. Or maybe all share a little o’ the load between us.”

  Folk held each other. Squeezed each other’s hands. She wondered how long that good fellowship would last. Not long, was her guess.

  “All them battles.” Her voice had faded to a croak, she had to clear her throat to get it going again. “All those great names he stood beside. Fought against. His story was the story of the North, for sixty years and more. You’d think he was the last o’ some race of giants to hear talk of his victories but…” And she grinned, despite herself. “He was a small giant, my da. He’d rather have been growing things than killing ’em. Didn’t get much of a chance at it, as this garden’ll testify. He was always going to tend to it tomorrow. But he loved to sit here, with the sun on his face. He could spend hours here, looking to the sea. Hoping better times might roll in on the tide.”

  She wished she had better words. Ones that somehow bound up all he’d been to her. All the things felt but never said. All the holes he’d leave behind. But how can you fit all that in a bit of breath?

  “By the dead, I was proud to be his daughter,” she said. “Folk can talk a lot of shit at a funeral, but even his enemies thought he was the best man in the North.” She took a damp breath and blew it out hard, her lip trembling. “That’s all I got.”

  Shivers put a hand on her shoulder. “Good words, Rikke.”

  Bit by bit, with shuffling feet and hanging heads, folk started to drift back to their lives. Bit by bit, the garden emptied. Rikke stood looking at the ground, wishing she could see through it. Wishing she could force the Long Eye open and see her father’s face again. But her eye stayed cold as the rain, and the sea, and the cold ground.

  “You really see their deaths?” Hardbread’s brow was creased with worry. “The Great Wolf and his arseholes. You really see all that…” And he waved nervously towards her tattooed face. “With the Long Eye.”

  “I saw enough,” she said.

  “You surely made ’em run, all right. You made ’em scamper.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Caurib had been right. The power of the Long Eye wasn’t so much in what you saw, but in what you made folk believe. Rikke had never felt powerful in her life till she made Stour and his men turn tail with just her eye and her words. “But they’ll be back,” she said. “Like wolves prowling just beyond the firelight.”

  “Aye.” Hardbread scrubbed unhappily at his wet wisps of hair. “Do you see what we should do now, then?”

  “Don’t take the Long Eye to see that.” Red Hat had come from the ebbing crowd to stand frowning on one side of the grave. “Stour fucking Nightfall ain’t fit to rule a shit-pit.”

  “He’s a bastard to his enemies.” Oxel had turned up, too, not to be outdone, glowering across the dug-over earth from the other side. “But at least he’s a Northman. At least he’s a warrior.”

  “You don’t know who his enemies’ll be from one moment to the next. Not even he does! And you want us to go lick his arse?”

  “Better his than some Union fool who’s never drawn a sword, a thousand miles away across the sea.”

  “Can’t say I like the taste of anyone’s arse too much,” muttered Rikke, squeezing at the bridge of her nose with finger and thumb.

  “You’re a woman,” said Oxel, with a sneer.

  “True,” said Rikke. “I realised that the first time I tried to piss standing up. Most disappointing day of my life.”

  “My point is, you can’t lead. But there’s some who’ll listen to you, still. Out o’ respect for your father—”

  “And my pretty smile? What about my pretty smile? I’ve a pretty smile, haven’t I, Isern?”

  “Like the sun peeping from behind a stormcloud.” And Isern picked at that hole in her teeth with a fingernail, rooted some scrap of food out of it, held it thoughtfully to the light, then ate it.

  Oxel ground his teeth. “There’s a reckoning coming and it can’t be put off. You all want to make sure you’re on the right side of it!” And he stalked away, his warriors shooting glares about as they followed, to let everyone know they meant business.

  “Stour wants Uffrith,” growled Red Hat, before they were even gone. “He wants everything we’ve got and Oxel’s planning how to hand it over. We have to—”

  “Give it all away to the Union first?” asked Rikke.

  Red Hat held his hands up. “I’m old, Rikke. You get old, and you get to thinking—what kind o’ world will I leave to my grandchildren? Do I want ’em to have to fight all the same bloody wars I fought? You were close with Brock. He’s Lord Governor now. You could talk to him.”

  Rikke snorted. “I’d rather bloody talk to Stour.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” said Isern.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” admitted Rikke. “But neither much appeals.”

  “I’m sorry about your father,” said Red Hat. “I stood second to him most of my life. I couldn’t be sorrier. But tears’ll wash no one clean, my ma used to say. The Protectorate was never going to outlive him. Oxel’s right about one thing. Folk’ll listen to you. You’d best decide which side o’ this you’re on.”

  He jerked his head to his men, and they tramped off after Oxel.

  Hardbread was doing some head-shaking of his own as he watched them go. “Put three Northmen together, you’ll get three different ideas.”

  “Unless you’re one of ’em,” said Isern. “Then you’ll get two ideas and one old bastard tearing his hair out trying to choose between ’em.”

  “Or trying not to,” said Rikke.

  Hardbread sighed. “Aye, well, I got my mouth smashed by Whirrun o’ Bligh one time and ever since I’ve been trying my best to keep things peaceful.”

  “Shame you can’t side with everyone when everyone’s on a different side,” said Shivers, arms folded. “You have to pick one.”

  Hardbread looked over at Rikke. “So which’ll you be picking?”

  “Picky Rikke, eh? Ain’t long since I was choosing an eye, and now I’ve got to choose a side?” She squinted up at the sky, where the rain was slacking off. “I’ll let the earth settle on my father, then I’ll get the garden tidied, then I’ll have a little think. The moment I’ve made my choice, I’ll let you know, how’s that?”

  “Fine with me. ’Course it is. Just don’t think too long. This is apt to get bloody.” And Hardbread and his warriors took their own share of the striding off, leaving Rikke, and Isern, and Shivers alone in the dripping garden.

  “I’ve heard it said you can tell how great a man was by how quick folk start to argue once he’s dead.” Isern thoughtfully narrowed her eyes. “Seems your father was an even greater man than I supposed.”

  Rikke gently shook her head. “Never noticed I had a pillar propping me up till it was gone. Feels like I’d give the eye I’ve got left for one more talk with him.”

  “That deal’s not on offer,” said Isern.

  “Probably just as well. I’ll need all the eyes I can get to see a path through what’s coming.” She set one hand on Shivers’ shoulder, and one on Isern’s. “Re
ckon I’ll need the two of you, too.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Shivers.

  “Whatever you want,” said Isern, licking finger and thumb then rolling chagga between them into a pellet. “But… what do you want?”

  A good question. Rikke pressed at the raw skin around her eye with her dirty fingertips. Things would be different now. Everything would be different, and her especially. She was nowhere near getting used to losing her face, and now she’d lost her father, and it looked like her home might get took away as well. “My da said you have to be realistic. My da said you want things right, you have to put ’em right yourself. My da said Uffrith would need my bones and my brains when he was gone.”

  “In that, I judge him canny.” Isern rolled her eyes after Red Hat, and Oxel, and Hardbread. “Those old bastards don’t have one good set of bones or brains between ’em. Old men, I swear. They get weak and stubborn both at once, so they make no good ideas but won’t be shifted from the bad ones.” She offered the pellet to Rikke. “Trouble snaps ’em straight to splinters.”

  “My da said they’d need my heart, too,” said Rikke, slipping it up behind her lip.

  “Mmmmm,” hummed Isern, rolling another pellet for herself. “It’s a pretty notion. But you don’t have your da’s name, or his fame, or—let’s not dress it up—a cock.”

  “So if you’ve no cock, you can’t afford a heart?”

  “Not if you want to get shit done. I tell you this, Black Calder didn’t get his way through kindness.” She popped the chagga in her mouth and started to chomp on it. “You have to make of your heart a stone, d’you see?”

  Rikke heaved up another sigh. “I do. Half the eyes these days, maybe, but I see twice as clear.” She squatted down to set her hand on the fresh-turned earth one more time and gave it a pat. “You rest now, Da.” The sun was coming out, at least, and she looked to the sea, and watched it glitter. “I’ll take care of things from here.”

  PART V

  “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”