What Vick thought was, Shit. What her expression said was, Good, you’re all here.
“Victarine dan Teufel.” Savine’s face might have been softened by her condition but her smile had a harder, hungrier edge than ever. “Unless I’m much mistaken.”
Broad’s heavy brows knitted with suspicion. “The two o’ you know each other?”
While Vick tried to plot a safe path through the swamp of truths and falsehoods these three knew about her, she met one question with another. “The two of you know each other?”
“Master Broad saved my life during the uprising in Valbeck,” said Savine. “And I shared the carriage there with Inquisitor Teufel.”
“Inquisitor?” Broad’s wide eyes looked strangely small through his lenses. “Thought you grew up in the camps?”
“I did. But Arch Lector Glokta offered me a way out.” Vick met Broad’s eye and told all the truth she could. “Bringing the Breakers to justice.”
“You were working for Old Sticks all that time?”
“My father once described Inquisitor Teufel as his most loyal servant.” Savine sipped delicately from a teacup, but the stare she gave Vick over the rim was flinty. “So I must say I’m surprised to see you swagger into my parlour with a message from one rebel to another.”
There was a weighty silence, then, while everyone frowned at Vick, and Broad slowly unclasped his big hands, that Ladderman’s tattoo squirming as he made fists of them. She knew it was one of those moments when her life hung by a thread. But it was hardly her first.
“Everyone’s loyalties are a touch tangled these days.” She hooked out the chair at the head of the table with her foot and dropped into it, meeting Savine’s eye. “I like to think I never let your father down. He got me out of the camps. I owed him. But he’s gone now.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Savine’s well-powdered face. “Gone?”
She didn’t know. That was useful. A surprise might put her off balance. “Your father had to resign. Once news got out of this little… escapade. Retired to his country estates to write a book about fencing. Your mother thought the air would be good for his health. Or that’s what she said she thought.” It rang true because it was true, and Vick took a fork and leaned across to spear a sausage from a dish. “It’s Arch Lector Pike, now.”
She noticed the muscles squirm in Broad’s jaw. Saw his big fists tighten further. That was useful, too. His anger and Savine’s guilt could keep them distracted, while Vick swaggered past in plain sight.
“I owed your father,” she said, “but I don’t owe Pike a thing. Lord Marshal Brint needed someone to carry a message. Someone who could slip through the lines. Someone comfortable with a lie or two.” She waved towards the window with her fork. “Judging by all the men I passed on the way here, we may have a change in government soon enough.” She bit into the sausage and smiled as she chewed. “If I learned one thing in the camps, it’s always eat when food’s on offer. But if I learned another, it’s that you stand with the winners.”
She was bringing them round, she could feel it. And once you’ve got someone to believe, it takes a jolt to shift them. Accepting you swallowed a lie means accepting you’re a fool, after all. Who wants to think that?
“You’re right to be suspicious, though,” she said. “There’s a hell of a lot at stake. That’s why the lord marshal gave me this.” And she twisted Brint’s ring from her finger and tossed it into the dish with the sausages.
Savine held it frowning to the light, with the air of a woman who’s assessed a lot of jewellery. “It’s a lady’s ring.”
“He said it belonged to his wife. The one lost at the Battle of Osrung.”
There’s nothing like a prop to shore up a lie. Something you can touch. Something with a story. Even if, when you really thought about it, she could’ve stolen it from a one-armed man in a bathhouse.
“Aliz dan Brint… my mother was taken hostage with her!” Brock sat eagerly forward. “What’s the message?”
And now to forget about the truth altogether and bury the bastards in a great cargo of lies. Lies they could build all their plans out of. Lies that’d crumble as soon as any weight was put on them. “Orso is marching against you with every man he can find, but he can’t find many. He’s sent for the King’s Own, but they’re scattered across the Union, and Brint stopped most of the orders going out. The Closed Council were taken by surprise, are off balance and all looking to save themselves. There’s no help coming to the king. No friends and no reinforcements.” As she spoke, the smile spread across Brock’s face, and she knew she had him. “What are your numbers?”
“Perhaps twenty thousand,” he breathed. “There are still men coming in.”
Worse than she’d feared. The rebels might outnumber the loyalists two to one. She smiled as though it was better than she’d hoped. “You might outnumber him four to one.”
Leo dan Brock eagerly clenched his fist. “We have him.”
“Take nothing for granted,” said Savine, but Vick caught the relief in her voice, the flush of triumph on her cheek. The look of a gambler who has gone all in, then been dealt the final card of a winning hand. Lady Brock was a formidable liar herself, of course. Used to flipping investors about her knuckles like a magician flips a coin. But she was nowhere near as good as she thought she was.
Vick had been staking her life on her lies for years. She’d tricked Risinau and his people, tricked Sibalt and his people, tricked Solumeo Shudra in Westport, even tricked the Minister of Whispers herself, for a few days, all while death breathed on her neck. She popped the last bit of sausage in her mouth.
“Lord Marshal Brint asked me to bring a message back. He needs to know your plans.” And she held out her hand for his ring. “What shall I tell him?”
You Asked for Killers
“Well, here’s a mess,” said Clover, wearily puffing out his cheeks.
“Just went wrong, is all.” Dancer knelt in the muddy yard with wrists tied behind him to his ankles. Not the most comfortable position, but he’d no one else to blame. His fat friend was similarly tied but he’d got knocked over when Downside slapped him and couldn’t find a way to wriggle back to his knees, or maybe he’d thought better of trying. Now he was sobbing away softly on his side, one pink cheek caked in muck and the other streaked with tears. Flick, meanwhile, was being sick behind the shed. That boy could never get enough to eat, but somehow he never ran out of sick, neither.
“Just went wrong.”
“Wrong?” barked Downside, stabbing angrily at the woman’s corpse with a pointed finger and making Dancer and the rest of ’em cringe. For a man who made so many corpses, he could get quite upset over the ones other people made. “That all you got to say? Wrong?”
“We just wanted the sheep!” One of ’em bleated from the pen, as if to lend support to that part of Dancer’s story if no other. “We even asked nicely.”
Clover rubbed at his temples. Had a bit of a headache. Thinking about it, he’d had a headache for weeks. “If those sheep were all you had in the world, would asking nicely get you to hand ’em over?”
“Would if this was the alternative,” said Sholla softly, squatting beside the old man. He was sat against the tumbledown wall with his head back like he was sleeping. Except for the arrow in his ribs and his shirt below it soggy black with blood, of course.
“We asked nicely,” whined Dancer. “Then we asked less nicely. Think we did, anyway, you know, the language ain’t my strong point.”
“Remind me what your strong point is, again?” asked Clover.
“Then the old man comes out with an axe so Prettyboy shot him.”
Prettyboy must’ve been named by a real wag since he was, by any standard, a thoroughly ugly man. “Just pointed the bow,” he said, shifting awkwardly on his knees. Everything’s awkward when your hands are tied to your ankles, to be fair. The bow in question lay in the mud not far away, and he gave it a filthy look like it was to blame for the whole busine
ss. “But I fumbled the string, you know, and shot him.”
“Then the woman set to screaming and, well…” Dancer winced down at the mud. “It went wrong, is all. You never had anything go wrong, Clover?”
Clover wearily puffed out his cheeks again. “I’ve barely had anything go right.” A scene like this didn’t make him feel sick any more, or angry, or even sad. Just tired. Maybe that’s when you know you’ve been in the bloody business too long, when tragedies start to feel like chores. When some poor bastard’s end of everything becomes your minor pain in the arse. “Could you shut up?” he asked the fat one, and the man cut his sobbing back to snivelling, which if anything was worse.
Clover pronounced every word with care. “It’s ’cause it can all go wrong so easily that you make every effort to be sure it goes right. Like not being drunk. And not drawing your bloody bow till you want to shoot. And knowing who you’re dealing with and where they are, so an old man with an axe comes as no surprise. That type o’ thing!” He’d ended up shouting, and he winced and rubbed at his head, and forced his voice soft again. “The way you came blundering at this, it’s a wonder you didn’t kill each other into the bargain.”
“Shame they didn’t,” grunted Downside. “Would’ve saved us some fucking trouble.”
Clover could not but agree. Even Dancer couldn’t disagree. “Aye, you’re right,” he said, “I know you’re right, Clover. But you bring warriors to a place like this, it’s the type o’ thing that happens.”
“Shit warriors, maybe,” said Sholla, picking her nose.
Dancer shuffled closer on his knees. Not dancing much with his hands tied to his feet, of course. He looked up, big eyes, little voice, wheedle, wheedle. “No chance we could let it go?”
If there had been a time when Clover was impressed by wheedling, it was far in the past. “Not up to me, is it? If Stour lets it go, I guess it’s gone.”
Dancer’s smile withered like blooms in late summer, and he gave a swallow that made a glug, and the fat one let his face drop in the muck and set to sobbing again. Everyone knew by now. Stour Nightfall’s mercy was a thin thread to hang all your hopes on.
“Just went wrong, is all,” muttered Dancer, and Prettyboy struggled to scratch his ear with his shoulder, and failed.
By then they could hear hooves, and the King of the Northmen wrenched his horse around the side of the barn, Greenway and a dozen of his bastards in a jostling crowd behind. Stour reined in savagely, of course, since there’s no finer sport than mistreating the beast who carries you. He propped his arms crosswise on the saddle horn so his great chain with its great diamond brushed his wrists, and glowered at the burned-out house, and the yard strewn with rubbish, and the corpses, and the prisoners with wrists and ankles closely attached, and Clover and his people stood around them with weapons out. He slowly licked the inside of his mouth until he’d gathered what he wanted, then spat it spinning into the mud.
“Well, here’s a mess.”
Dancer kept his eyes on the ground. “Just went wrong.”
“You fucking think?” snarled the Great Wolf, as Greenway and the rest of his men spread out, looking down their noses at the scene with varying measures of contempt. “Is he crying? Is he fucking simple or something? Get this cleared up, Clover, before… Oh, that’s perfect.”
And who should burst from the trees but the Young Lion and a crowd of his bastards. They reined in so Stour and his lot were sneering bitter scorn from one side of the yard, Brock and his lot scowling righteous outrage on the other. Seemed the Young Lion hadn’t reached the point where tragedies became chores. If anything, he tended towards too much feeling.
“What the hell happened?” he growled.
There was an awkward silence, which Clover for some reason felt the need to fill. What he really wanted to say was that if you don’t like dead folk you shouldn’t start wars, but the best he could think of was, “I’m told it went wrong.” He’d thought when Dancer said it nothing could’ve sounded worse, but somehow he managed it.
“So I see!” The Young Lion spurred his snorting warhorse across the farmyard till it loomed over Clover and his kneeling prisoners. “Is this your idea of best behaviour?” he snapped at Stour, pointing to the face-down corpse with the yawning sword-cut across his back.
The Great Wolf was not to be outdone on the bristling, threatening or nursing of offence. “You’re taking a high hand with me, Young Lion!” And he nudged his own horse forward till Clover had to squint up at him. “You asked for killers. As many as I could find. You wanted dogs off the leash in your own backyard. I warned you they might run after rabbits.”
“Rabbits would be one thing.” Brock kicked his horse even closer to Stour and Clover had to duck away lest he be squashed between the two heroes. “Red-handed murder of Union citizens is another! Was it these bastards who did it?” he snarled at the trussed-up men, and they cringed, or wriggled, and the fat one blubbed into the mud, and Prettyboy moved his lips as he offered up some prayer to the dead which Clover very much doubted would help.
“Last I checked, I was King o’ the Northmen.” Stour leaned towards Brock with that mad gleam in his wet eyes, catching hold of his chain and giving it a shake so the diamond he’d torn from his uncle’s cut throat danced. “These fuckers are Northmen. So I’ll say what’s done with ’em.”
For a moment, it looked like the Young Lion might grab the Great Wolf and they’d wrestle their way down from their saddles and set to an ugly rematch of their duel right there in the corpse-scattered farmyard. Then, looking like it took quite the effort, Brock got a grip on himself. He breathed in through manfully clenched teeth and leaned back. “You’re King of the Northmen.” With a jerk on his reins, he pulled his horse away from Stour’s. “But this is the Union. I expect to see justice done.”
“Trust me, Young Lion,” snarled Stour, looking as untrustworthy as any man ever. “I’m all about the justice.”
Brock wrenched his mount around and led his glaring bastards back into the trees at a brisk trot. Clover slowly breathed out. Sholla, who’d had a cautious hand wrapped around the grip of a knife in the back of her belt, leaned to his ear to whisper, “Seems the lion and the wolf ain’t getting on.”
“’Twas always a doomed romance,” said Clover, under his breath. “Dogs and cats, you know…”
“Thanks, my king,” croaked out Dancer. “You saved our—”
Stour gave him a little smile. “You’re fucking joking, aren’t you? I came here to fight, not stand judge over your folly. Get these idiots killed, Clover.”
“Me?”
“I’m giving orders. It’s what kings do.”
His turn to wrench his horse around and ride off, showering everyone with dirt. Dancer stared at the ground. Prettyboy frowned bitterly at his bow. The fat one set to sobbing again. The corpses, naturally, were unmoved.
“That was a lot o’ bluster,” grumbled Downside, “just to end where we started.”
“Aye, well, that’s life,” said Clover. “From mud we come, to mud we shall return. Every one of us.”
Sholla raised a brow. “Message o’ hope, then?”
“Messages o’ hope would be inappropriate at an execution. Downside, get these idiots killed.”
“Me?” grunted Downside, looking somewhat put out.
“I’m giving orders,” said Clover, turning away. “You can get Flick to help you with the burying. And best take those sheep with us, Sholla. Folk need to eat.”
Dancer was still staring at the mud as Downside pulled his axe out. “Just went wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s all.”
Good Ground
“Good ground,” said Forest approvingly as they rode down the gentle slope.
Stoffenbeck nestled in a valley beside a sparkling river, a re-assuringly old and solid little town of seasoned Midderland stone. Sheep lazily cropped grass in the pastures, the waterwheel of an ancient mill gently turned, soothing smoke drifted from the ornamental chimn
eys which were such a feature of the local architecture. It would have made a fine study for one of those nostalgic painters who turned out the good old days in bulk.
“The best ground.” Orso took a satisfied noseful of the sweet country air. “Absolutely charming.”
“I… meant for a battle, Your Majesty.”
“Oh.” The thought of red-toothed war descending on the sleepy scene was far from pleasant. But then war never is pleasant to contemplate, once it comes to specific homes to be ruined, specific people to be slaughtered. Not to mention specific kings to be toppled. “Yes, of course. Good ground.”
A gentle green hill with a few trees at the crown overlooked the town on the right. Perhaps it would have been more military to say east. Or was it west? For some reason north and south were instinctive, but the other points of the compass always took a moment for Orso to work through. On the left of the town, across the river, there was a steeper hill studded with rocky outcrops. A bluff, might a surveyor have called it?
“Good ground,” said Forest again, his scar puckering as he allowed himself the smallest smile. As if smiles were being strictly rationed and that was all they could spare.
“Hills.” Orso did his best to copy Forest’s discerning expression. “Hills are good.”
“Hills are bloody marvellous, Your Majesty. If you get up ’em first. ’Course, to hold them, we could use more men…”
“Reinforcements are on the way.” Orso tried to make sure his voice betrayed no quaverings of doubt.
“The question is,” murmured Tunny, from behind, “will they get here before we’re all killed?”
A small crowd in feast-day clothes was arranged in the square at Stoffenbeck’s heart. Bunting fluttered about a singularly ugly old building with an absurdly tall clock tower, presumably the town hall.
“Go, then!” snapped a portly man with a chain of office, and a boy raised a polished trumpet and blew a salute, lacking tune but compensating with sheer volume.
“Oh dear,” muttered Orso. “You don’t suppose they’ve turned out for me?”
The Trouble with Peace Page 45
