‘Lord Marshal Kroy,’ grated the governor, with little enthusiasm. Their relationship was a prickly one. In his own province of Angland, Meed was pre-eminent, but as a lord marshal carrying the king’s commission, in time of war Finree’s father outranked him.
‘I realise it must have been a wrench to abandon Ollensand, but we need you here.’
‘So I see,’ said Meed, with characteristic bad grace. ‘I understand there was a serious—’
‘Gentlemen!’ The press of officers near the door parted to let someone through. ‘I must apologise for my late arrival, the roads are quite clogged.’ A stocky bald man emerged from the crowd, flapping the lapels of a travel-stained coat and heedlessly spraying water over everyone around him. He was attended by only one servant, a curly-haired fellow with a basket in one hand, but Finree had made it her business to know every person in his Majesty’s government, every member of the Open Council and the Closed and the exact degrees of their influence, and the lack of pomp did not fool her for a moment. Put simply, whether he was said to be retired or not, Bayaz, the First of the Magi, outranked everyone.
‘Lord Bayaz.’ Finree’s father made the introductions. ‘This is Lord Governor Meed, of Angland, commanding his Majesty’s third division.’
The First of the Magi somehow managed to press his hand and ignore him simultaneously. ‘I knew your brother. A good man, much missed.’ Meed attempted to speak but Bayaz was distracted by his servant, who at that moment produced a cup from his basket. ‘Ah! Tea! Nothing seems quite so terrible once there is a cup of tea in your hand, eh? Would anyone else care for some?’ There were no takers. Tea was generally considered an unpatriotic Gurkish fashion, synonymous with moustache-twiddling treachery. ‘Nobody?’
‘I would love a cup.’ Finree slipped smoothly in front of the lord governor, obliging him to take a spluttering step back. ‘The perfect thing in this weather.’ She despised tea, but would happily have drunk an ocean of it for the chance to exchange words with one of the most powerful men in the Union.
Bayaz’ eyes flickered briefly over her face like a pawnshop owner’s asked for an estimate on some gaudy heirloom. Finree’s father cleared his throat, somewhat reluctantly. ‘This is my daughter—’
‘Finree dan Brock, of course. My congratulations on your marriage.’
She smothered her surprise. ‘You are very well informed, Lord Bayaz. I would have thought myself beneath notice.’ She ignored a cough of agreement from Meed’s direction.
‘Nothing can be beneath the notice of a careful man,’ said the Magus. ‘Knowledge is the root of power, after all. Your husband must be a fine fellow indeed to outshine the shadow of his family’s treason.’
‘He is,’ she said, unabashed. ‘He in no way takes after his father.’
‘Good.’ Bayaz still smiled, but his eyes were hard as flints. ‘I would hate to bring you pain by seeing him hanged.’
An awkward silence. She glanced at Colonel Brint, then at Lord Governor Meed, wondering if either of them might offer some support for Hal in reward for his unstinting loyalty. Brint at least had the decency to look guilty. Meed looked positively delighted. ‘You will find no more loyal man in his Majesty’s whole army,’ she managed to grate out.
‘I am all delight. Loyalty is a fine thing in an army. Victory is another.’ Bayaz frowned about at the assembled officers. ‘Not the best of days, gentlemen. A long way from the best of days.’
‘General Jalenhorm overreached himself,’ said Mitterick, out of turn and with little empathy, behaviour entirely characteristic of the man. ‘He should never have been so damn spread out—’
‘General Jalenhorm acted under my orders,’ snapped Marshal Kroy, leaving Mitterick to subside into a grumpy silence. ‘We overreached, yes, and the Northmen surprised us …’
Your tea.’ A cup was insinuated into Finree’s hand and the eyes of Bayaz’ servant met hers. Odd-coloured eyes, one blue, one green. ‘I am sure your husband is as loyal, honest and hard-working as ever a man could be,’ he murmured, a most unservile curl to the corner of his mouth, as if they shared some private joke. She did not see what, but the man had already oozed back, pot in hand, to charge Bayaz’ cup. Finree wrinkled her lip, checked she was unobserved and furtively tossed the contents of hers down the wall.
‘…our choices were most limited,’ her father was saying, ‘given the great need for haste impressed upon us by the Closed Council—’
Bayaz cut him off. ‘The need for haste is a fact of our situation, Marshal Kroy, a fact no less compelling for being a political imperative rather than a physical.’ He slurped tea through pursed lips, but the room was held so silent for the duration one could have heard a flea jump. Finree wished she understood the trick, and could rely on her every facile utterance being given rapt attention, rather than endlessly chewing on her usual diet of sidelinings, humourings and brushings-off. ‘If a mason builds a wall upon a slope and it collapses, he can hardly complain that it would have stood a thousand years if only he had been given level ground to work with.’ Bayaz slurped again, again in utter silence. ‘In war, the ground is never level.’
Finree felt an almost physical pressure to jump to her father’s defence, as if there was a wasp down her back that had to be smashed, but she bit her tongue. Taunting Meed was one thing. Taunting the First of the Magi quite another.
‘It was not my intention to offer excuses,’ said her father stiffly. ‘For the failure I take all the responsibility, for the losses I take all the blame.’
‘Your willingness to shoulder the blame does you much credit but us little good.’ Bayaz sighed as if reproving a naughty grandson. ‘But let us learn the lessons, gentlemen. Let us put yesterday’s defeats behind us, and look to tomorrow’s victories.’ Everyone nodded as though they had never heard anything so profound, even Finree’s father. Here was power.
She could not remember ever coming to dislike anyone so much, or admire anyone so much, in so short a time.
Dow’s meet was held around a big fire-pit in the centre of the Heroes, shimmering with heat, hissing and fizzing with the drizzle. There was an edgy feel about the gathering, somewhere between a wedding and a hanging. Firelight and shadow make men look like devils, and Craw had seen ’em make men act like devils more’n once. They all were there – Reachey, Tenways, Scale and Calder, Ironhead, Splitfoot and a couple score Named Men besides. The biggest names and the hardest faces in the North, less a few up in the hills and a few more with the other side.
Looked like Glama Golden had got in the fight. Looked like someone had used his face for an anvil. His left cheek was one big welt, mouth split and bloated, blooms of bruise already spreading. Ironhead smirked across the ring of leering faces like he’d never seen a thing so pretty as Golden’s broken nose. They had bad blood between ’em, those two, so bad it poisoned everything around.
‘What the hell are you doing here, old man?’ murmured Calder as Craw jostled into place beside him.
‘Damned if I know. My eyes ain’t all they used to be.’ Craw took a hold on his belt buckle and squinted around. ‘Ain’t this where we go to shit?’
Calder snorted. ‘It’s where we go to talk it. Though if you want to drop your trousers and give Brodd Tenways some polish for his boots I won’t complain.’
Now Black Dow strolled out of the shadows, around the side of Skarling’s Chair, chewing at a bone. The chatter quieted then died altogether, leaving only the crackle and crunch of sagging embers, faint snatches of song floating from outside the circle. Dow stripped his bone to nothing and tossed it into the fire, licking his fingers one by one while he took in every shadow-pitted face. Drew out the silence. Made ’em all wait. Left no doubts who was the biggest bastard on the hill.
‘So,’ he said in the end. ‘Good day’s work, no?’ And a great clatter went up, men shaking their sword hilts, thumping shields with gauntlets, beating their armour with their fists. Scale joined in, banging his helmet on one scratched thigh-plate. Craw rattled his sword in its sheath, somewhat guiltily, since he hadn’t run fast enough to draw it. Calder stayed quiet, he noticed, just sourly sucked his teeth as the clamour of victory faded.
‘A good day!’ Tenways leered around the fire.
‘Aye, a good day,’ said Reachey.
‘Might’ve been better yet,’ said Ironhead, curling his lip at Golden, ‘if we’d only made it across the shallows.’
Golden’s eyes burned in their bruised sockets, jaw muscles squirming on the side of his head, but he kept his peace. Probably ’cause talking hurt too much.
‘Men are always telling me the world ain’t what it was.’ Dow held up his sword, grinning so the sharp point of his tongue stuck out between his teeth. ‘Some things don’t change, eh?’ Another clattering chorus of approval, so much steel thrust up it was a wonder no one got stabbed by accident. ‘For them who said the clans o’ the North can’t fight as one …’ Dow curled his tongue and blew spit hissing into the fire. ‘For them who said the Union are too many to beat …’ He sent another gob sailing neatly into the flames. Then he looked up, eyes shining orange. ‘And for them who say I’m not the man to do it …’ And he rammed his sword point-first into the fire with a snarl, sparks whirling up around the hilt.
A hammering of approval loud as a busy smithy, loud enough to make Craw wince. ‘Dow!’ shrieked Tenways, smashing the pommel of his sword with one scabby hand. ‘Black Dow!’
Others joined in, and found a rhythm with his name and with their fists on metal. ‘Black! Dow! Black! Dow!’ Ironhead with it, and Golden mumbling through his battered mouth, and Reachey too. Craw kept his silence. Take victory quiet and careful, Rudd Threetrees used to say, ’cause you might soon be called on to take defeat the same way. Across the fire, Craw caught the glint of Shivers’ eye in the shadows. He wasn’t chanting neither.
Dow settled back in Skarling’s Chair just the way Bethod used to, basking in the love like a lizard in the sun then halting it with a kingly wave. ‘All right. We’ve got all the best ground in the valley. They’ve got to back off or come at us, and there ain’t many places they can do it. So there’s no need for anything clever. Clever’d be wasted on the likes o’ you lot, anyway.’ A range of chuckles. ‘So I’ll take blood, and bones, and steel, like today.’ More cheering. ‘Reachey?’
‘Aye, Chief.’ The old warrior stepped into the firelight, mouth pressed into a hard line.
‘I want your boys to hold Osrung. They’ll come at you hard tomorrow, I reckon.’
Reachey shrugged. ‘Only fair. We came at ’em pretty damn hard today.’
‘Don’t let ’em get across that bridge, Reachey. Ironhead?’
‘Aye, Chief.’
‘I’m giving you the shallows to mind. I want men in the orchard, I want men holding the Children, I want men ready to die but happier to kill. It’s the one place they could come across in numbers, so if they try it we got to step on ’em hard.’
‘That’s what I do.’ Ironhead sent a mocking look across the fire. ‘Won’t nobody be turning me back.’
‘Whassat mean?’ snarled Golden.
‘You’ll all get a stab at glory,’ said Dow, bringing the pair of ’em to heel. ‘Golden, you fought hard today so you’ll be hanging back. Cover the ground between Ironhead and Reachey, ready to lend help to either one if they get pressed more’n they’re comfortable with.’
‘Aye.’ Licking at his bloated lip with the point of his bloated tongue.
‘Scale?’
‘Chief.’
‘You took the Old Bridge. Hold the Old Bridge.’
‘Done.’
‘If you have to fall back—’
‘I won’t,’ said Scale, with all the confidence of youth and limited brains.
‘—it’d be worth having a second line at that old wall. What do they call it?’
‘Clail’s Wall,’ said Splitfoot. ‘Some mad farmer built it.’
‘Might be a good thing for us he did,’ said Dow. ‘You won’t be able to use all you’ve got in the space behind that bridge anyway, so plant some further back.’
‘I will,’ said Scale.
‘Tenways?’
‘Made for glory, Chief!’
‘You’ve got the slope o’ the Heroes and Skarling’s Finger to look to, which means you shouldn’t get into any scrapes right off. Scale or Ironhead need your help, maybe you can find ’em some.’
Tenways sneered across the fire at Scale and Calder and, hopefully just ’cause he was standing with ’em, Craw. ‘I’ll see what I can root out.’
Dow leaned forward. ‘Splitfoot and me will be up here at the top, behind the drystone wall. Reckon I’ll lead from the back tomorrow, like our friends in the Union do.’ Another round of harsh laughter. ‘So there it is. Anyone got any better ideas?’ Dow slowly worked the gathering over with his grin. Craw had never felt less like speaking in his life, and it didn’t seem likely anyone else would want to make a spectacle of themselves—
‘I have.’ Calder held up a finger, always wanting to make a spectacle of himself.
Dow’s eyes narrowed. ‘What a surprise. And what’s your strategy, Prince Calder?’
‘Put our backs to the Union and run?’ asked Ironhead, a wave of chuckling following after.
‘Put our backs to the Union and bend over?’ asked Tenways, followed by another. Calder only smiled through it, and waited for the laughter to fade, and leave things silent.
‘Peace,’ he said.
Craw winced. It was like getting up on a table and calling for chastity in a brothel. He felt a strong urge to step away, like you might from a man doused in oil when there are a lot of naked flames about. But what kind of man steps away from a friend just ’cause he isn’t popular? Even if he is in danger of becoming a fireball. So Craw stayed shoulder to shoulder with him, wondering what the hell his game was, since sure as sure Calder always had some game in mind. The disbelieving silence stretched out long enough for a sudden gust to whip up, make cloaks flap and torch flames dance, throwing wild light across that circle of frowns.
‘Why, you bastard fucking coward!’ Brodd Tenways’ rashy face was so twisted up with scorn it looked like it might split.
‘Call my brother a coward?’ snarled Scale, eyes bulging. ‘I’ll twist your flaky fucking neck!’
‘Now, now,’ said Dow. ‘If any necks need twisting I’ll do the picking out. Prince Calder’s known to have a way with words. I brought him out here to hear what he has to say, didn’t I? So let’s hear it, Calder. Why peace?’
‘Careful, Calder,’ muttered Craw, trying not to move his lips. ‘Careful.’
If Calder heard the warning, he chose to piss all over it. ‘Because war’s a waste of men’s time, and money, and lives.’
‘Fucking coward!’ barked Tenways again, and this time even Scale didn’t disagree, just stood staring at his brother. There was a chorus of disgust, and cursing, and spitting, almost as loud as the chorus of approval for Dow. But the louder it got the more Calder smiled. Like he thrived on their hatred like a flower on shit.
