It had been meant just to shut him up, but it lasted longer than she had expected. When she broke away, they stared at each other in the darkness, quick breath hissing between them.
She licked her lips and went back for another. Hungrier now, and deeper, wriggling half on top of him. The constant ache between her legs had already sharpened to a pleasurable throbbing. It wasn’t just her hands that were endlessly swollen. She slipped one leg over his and started to rub herself against it. Subtly at first. Then not subtly at all. Humping him like an overeager puppy.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
“We’re all awake now.” And she caught his head and pushed her tongue into his mouth.
This was one thing she had not expected about carrying a child. She had never felt less capable of coupling. Never wanted to more. Even now, with everything she had at stake. Especially now, maybe.
He was half-hard by the time she got his nightshirt up. She kept kissing him, one hand between her legs, one hand between his. Someone has to do the work, after all.
When she gave birth to this bloody thing it would be heir to the throne of the Union. That decision was made already. She would never be caught defenceless again, as she had been in Valbeck. Never be scared, never be vulnerable. If Orso had to lose, and her father, and Rikke, so be it. She would be safe. She would be powerful. If the world had to lose so she could win, so be it. The dice were already rolling.
She grunted as she heaved herself over onto her hands and knees, squirmed as she dragged her nightdress clumsily up over her hips. He knelt there, staring at her bare arse, nightshirt draped over his cock like a theatre curtain caught on a rogue piece of the set.
Ridiculous. But there it was.
She slid her elbows forward so the mattress could give some support to her over-heavy chest and pushed the side of her face into the pillow.
“Get it done, then,” she hissed.
Tallow stood with his hands wedged in his armpits as the wind bent the tall grass, shivering. He never seemed to have the right clothes for the weather. Exactly like her brother in that regard. The thought made Vick feel decidedly uncomfortable, and she drew her coat tight about her. A black Inquisitor’s coat. Not something she wore often. She spent most of her time trying to look as little like a member of the Inquisition as possible. But if you didn’t wear your uniform to a battle, when would you?
From up here on the bluff, the dark valley was dusted with thousands of pinprick lights. Campfires, wagon lamps, sentries’ torches. You could pick out the roads, the cluster of Stoffenbeck’s windows, the long battle lines cutting crooked across the hills and fields in dots of fire, a gulf of darkness lying between the two sides.
“Not often you get seats like this at the show everyone’s talking about,” muttered Vick. “Imagine how much it cost to put on.”
“Think what you could buy with it,” said Tallow, firelight glinting in the corners of his big, sad eyes. “The folk that could be fed, and clothed, and housed. Spend it wisely, you might avoid the fight in the first place.”
“There’s something wrong with the world all right,” said Vick, watching Arch Lector Pike step over to the closest cannon and sight down its barrel into the darkened valley.
He’d positioned them with the care of an emperor’s butler setting table for a state dinner. Eighteen darkly gleaming, tapering tubes, set on heavy wooden trestles in a long row just below the brow of the hill. Leather-aproned engineers from the Siege School followed His Eminence down the line, cranking, adjusting, checking instruments, pointing excitedly towards the river where water glimmered faintly in the darkness.
“This one a little to the left, I think,” said Pike, then walked up to the summit of the hill to stand beside Vick, staring out at the valley. “We have been experimenting in the Far Country for several years now.” He watched the crews drag brush around the maws of the great iron tubes to hide them from sight. “And have found that cannons are like birthday presents. Best kept as a surprise.”
“I’ve never liked surprises,” said Vick.
“I suspect the enemy will feel the same.”
“Your Eminence!”
Two dark figures came across the hillside. One had a torch and a mask. The other was a boy, stumbling along with hands tied behind him. A Practical and a prisoner.
“Caught him trying to run.” The Practical shoved the lad down on his knees in front of Pike, the wind ruffling his curly hair. Couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Looked younger. Tallow swallowed and slowly shrank back into the darkness.
“Dear, dear.” Pike took a long breath and squatted beside the boy, torchlight glistening on the shiny burned skin on the side of his face. “Do you know who I am?”
The lad nodded, mouth hanging dumbly open. He looked up at Vick, and took a long sniff, then looked down at the ground between his knees. He must’ve known what was coming. And yet he just sat there.
“Which unit are you with?”
“Lord Crant’s regiment,” he croaked out. “I’m a loader. I load flatbows. Well, I just crank ’em.” Once he’d started talking he couldn’t seem to stop. “My friend Gert puts the bolts in, then hands ’em back to—”
“Shush,” said Pike, softly. There was silence then, and the wind stirred the grass, and Vick found she was wincing. The boy would make a good example, to keep the others at their posts. There was a tree near the summit with a low bough that would be just right. If they’ll hang a boy for running, who won’t they hang?
“Gert stayed,” whispered the boy, “but I… I don’t want to die.”
Pike turned towards those thousands of pinprick lights, twinkling in the valley. “Faced with something on this scale, there could be no more rational response than to run away. But sometimes… we must do things that are not rational. Sometimes we must act on faith.” Pike stared at the lad and the lad stared back, the Practical looming dark over both. “Sometimes… even as the world goes mad… we must crouch next to Gert and load flatbows.”
Another silence. Then the lad’s knobbly throat shifted as he swallowed. “I’d like to do that.”
“Good.” Pike set his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Go back to Lord Crant’s regiment, then.” He nodded to the Practical, and the Practical cut the ropes on the boy’s wrists.
“What do I tell them?”
“That you got lost, but I guided you back to the right path. Isn’t that the truth?”
The boy wiped tears on his sleeve. “That’s the truth.”
“This time, for both our sakes, you should stay at your post.”
The boy jumped up like an eager puppy. “I’ll stay there if hell comes up the hill in the morning!”
“I suppose it very well might,” murmured Pike as he watched him scurry away. “You look surprised, Inquisitor.”
“I was expecting something… harsher,” said Vick. “From your reputation.”
“I find reputations rarely fit people all that well. What are they, after all, but costumes we put on to disguise ourselves?” The mottled skin above his hairless brows twitched as he gave her uniform a glance. “Costumes we are forced to put on. If men are to be productive, they must have something to fear. That is why we have an Inquisition. I like to tell myself that every life I have taken has saved five more. Fifty more, perhaps. Not everyone has the stomach for that kind of arithmetic.” His eyes gleamed with the Practical’s torch. “It is one thing I admire about you, Inquisitor Teufel. One cannot come through the camps without developing a very strong stomach.”
Vick said nothing as the boy vanished over the crest of the hill, a black figure against the dark sky.
“I understand cowards,” said Pike softly. “I used to be one. Who among us never had a weak moment, after all? It cannot all be darkness. We must have a little mercy.” He leaned sideways to whisper it. “As long as no one sees.”
Broad sat and polished his armour. Didn’t need polishing. Brand new from the armoury at Ostenhorm. But it helps to have
a routine. He used to do it out in Styria, the long nights before the long dawns. Kept him calm. That and the drink, anyway. And who was going to sleep now?
Scattered in every direction were other fires, other little knots of sleepless men, scraping the time away as the light leaked into the sky. Talking solemnly about the ground, or brashly about deeds they’d do tomorrow, or mournfully about families waiting back at home.
Maybe Broad should’ve been thinking of his family. Of May’s quick look sideways when she spoke. The lines around Liddy’s eyes when she smiled. But he knew what was coming with the dawn, and he didn’t want it to touch them. Not even in his memory.
“That all the armour you’ll wear?” asked Bannerman, firelight shifting across that little smile he liked to wear.
“Aye,” said Broad. Breastplate and steel cap. Nothing clever.
“Laddermen prefer to go light.” Halder rubbed at the tattoo on the back of his hand. Same as Broad’s, but with just the one star. Some would say that was one too many. “Quicker you get to the top, the better your chances.”
“The best armour’s quick feet and high hopes,” Broad murmured. That was what they used to say to each other, while they waited for an assault. Usually while getting good and drunk.
“Defence won’t save you in the press at the top o’ those walls,” said Halder. “Only attack. Only fury.” Broad kept his eyes on the steel, but his heart was thudding. “No room to think.” He remembered what happened when you got to the top of the ladder. “No room to breathe.” The cauldron of violence. Men made animals. Men made meat. “Pressed in so close you’ll never reach a weapon at your hip, let alone swing it.” Halder was whispering it, now. “You need something you can use to kill a man who’s close enough to kiss.”
That’s why Broad wore a stabbing dagger across his chest. More a long spike than a knife, its three edges barely even sharpened. It was the point did the work, overhand, up under a helmet or into the joints in armour, or the pommel, or the heavy knuckleguard in a pinch. He remembered the feel of a cheekbone crunching, the sticky trickle of blood down the grip. Broad winced as he made his aching fist unclench. He wondered if Judge had been right. Only happy when he was bloody.
“Well, we’ve got no walls to climb,” said Bannerman, “so I’ll take a sword, thanks all the same.” And he drew a few inches of his own blade, then slapped it back into its sheath.
“Sword’s a fine thing for riding down archers. Fighting armoured men face-to-face you can do better.” Halder nodded at Broad’s warhammer, laid out on an oilcloth, waiting for its own turn to be polished. “Hit a helmet hard with that, you can crack the skull inside without breaking the steel.”
True enough. But Broad had got more use from the bladed pick on the back. Fine thing for hooking a man who was leaning over a parapet and dragging him off. Fine thing for hooking down a shield so you could get at the flesh behind it with a dagger. And if you could find room for a proper swing, there wasn’t much you couldn’t punch through with it, either, if you didn’t mind getting it stuck. You can’t get attached to weapons in a battle any more than you can get attached to men.
Sometimes you have to leave ’em in the dirt.
Orso stared at himself in the mirror.
He had got as far as putting his trousers on before he noticed his reflection and now, even facing imminent destruction, he could not look away. No doubt an observer would have thought him immensely vain, but the truth was Orso saw no fine features in a mirror, only faults and failures.
“More reinforcements.” Hildi stood at one of the windows of the grand room the mayor had insisted Orso slept in, watching soldiers tramp past Stoffenbeck’s town hall towards the front. Where they would soon be fighting. Where they would soon be dying. That was the theme of Orso’s reign. The conversion of brave men into corpses.
“Three regiments came in last night,” he said, “as well as a hugely enthusiastic group of farmers from the next valley, demanding to fight for their king.”
“Inspiring.”
“If you find stupidity inspiring.” Orso did, in fact. But he had ordered them back home regardless.
“Position’s stronger, though?” asked Hildi, hopefully.
“Stronger than it was. Lord Marshal Forest still considers us well outnumbered.”
“Battles aren’t always won by the biggest numbers.”
“No,” said Orso. “Just usually.”
He placed an unhappy hand on his belly and tried his best to suck it in. One cannot suck in one’s hips, though. It was reaching the point where he was considering some form of corset. Savine always looked spectacular in them, after all, and exercise was out of the bloody question. He let it all sag again with horrifying results.
“I daresay Leo dan Brock never has to hold in his belly,” he murmured.
“Wouldn’t have thought so. All hard and grooved like a cobbled street, I reckon.” Hildi was gazing into the corner of the room with a dreamy expression. “Combining the best of dancer and docker.”
“While I combine the worst of idler and innkeeper?” Orso pulled his shirt on with bad grace. “Maybe you can get a job oiling the Young Lion’s stomach once he’s replaced me.”
“A girl can dream.”
“There’s more to a man than his gut.”
“No doubt. You’ve put some weight on under the chin as well.”
Orso sighed. “Thank you very much for that, Hildi, I’m never at risk of getting too self-satisfied with you around.”
He twitched a curtain back to watch those men marching past. Probably he should have been moved by their loyalty. His father would have flapped a half-clenched fist around and trotted out some patriotic platitude. But Orso found himself wondering what strange combination of doubts and desires compelled each individual to subsume themselves into this metal mass, plodding towards their own destruction rather than making the eminently sensible choice to run like hell the other way.
Then he found himself wondering why he was still there, and slapped impatiently at the side of his head. “Damn it, Hildi, I think far too much to make a good general.”
“That and you’ve no military training, talent or experience.”
“Training, talent or experience would only be encumbrances to a monarch. Such petty concerns are for the little people, my dear.” From the window he could see the low ridge to the east of town, the spindly trees on top, a faint hint of dawn showing in the clouds behind. “I don’t think I can put it off any longer. When the sun comes up… I’m going to have to bloody fight.”
“Shall I get your armour?”
“I think you’d better. And tell Bernille I’m ready for breakfast.”
“Diet tomorrow, eh?”
Orso patted at his stomach. “If I’m still alive.”
Stour Nightfall was having quite the sulk.
Flick had built a good fire for breakfast, near to the treeline where they could get news if aught happened on the hills ahead. Flick wasn’t bad at building fires, and he’d built an especially pleasing one that morning.
But as Stour’s mood blackened, everyone had slowly shuffled back, sidling around the trees and skulking through the bushes to get out of his eyeline, loitering at the edge of the firelight and leaving a widening empty circle about the King of the Northmen.
It seemed the only man who dared stay close was Clover himself, and that was mostly ’cause he was enjoying having his feet near the warmth. The Union was meant to be so very bloody civilised, but so far, the place was a sea of mud. His boots had got soaked yesterday and the cold had worked right into his feet. Being on campaign was far from comfortable at the best of times. He was damned if he was going to let Stour’s sulking make him even less comfortable. And Clover reckoned you took more of a risk backing away from a slavering wolf than you did calmly standing your ground. So he sat there and slowly picked a leg of cold mutton down to the bone.
“We could’ve gone last night!” snarled Stour, and he kicked a smouldering br
anch from the fire and sent it spinning away, showering sparks. “Why didn’t we go last night?”
“Couldn’t say, my king,” said Clover. “Big army to manage, I reckon.”
“Big army to manage?” sneered the king, and he kicked out at a cookpot and sent it bouncing between the trees where it hit a Carl on the side of his knee and made him squeak with pain, though he kept smiling all the while, which was quite a feat.
If Stour had been an eight-year-old, he’d have got a slap from his mummy. Instead, he got every bastard bowing and grinning and pandering to him, even those he kicked cookpots at. That, of course, only made him rage the worse.
“We’ve joined up with a pack o’ fools!” Stour said. The rest of ’em had been given no choice but to follow. “You see that fat idiot Barezin? He came in gleeman’s feast-day clothes, didn’t he? You see that skinny idiot Isher? Looks like a fucking wilting cock. As for the bunch o’ jesters they’re leading.” He gave a snort that sent snot shooting out of his nose and angrily dashed it away. “Fucking Southerners. What was I thinking?”
Mostly that he was bored and he wanted to fight someone, Clover imagined, and there’d been no one big enough within arm’s reach.
“That cunt Rikke had the right idea! Says yes then stays home in Uffrith frigging herself. Thinks she can laugh at me, does she?”
Clover nibbled a few more shreds of meat from the bone. “Couldn’t say.”
“My king?” A wincing Carl was edging up, an eyeglass offered out to Stour like he was sticking his arm in a fire.
“What now?”
“Reckon… you ought to see this.”
Stour snatched the eyeglass, stomped to the treeline and trained it on the low hill beyond that long slope of darkened wheat, its shape clear now against the brightening sky.
“What the fuck?” he hissed.
“They were reinforced in the night,” said Jin. “Two regiments of King’s Own. Maybe three.”
The Trouble with Peace Page 49
