Snakewood

by Adrian Selby

  “It were more than fifteen to twenty summers past since we last spoke to him. I’m Gant, this is Shale,” I said.

  “Oh.” She shifted some trays and rags that were on a bench and bid us sit at the table.

  “It’s good o’ you to let us in an’ feed the horses, we’ll pay well for it. Valdir was a brother,” said Shale.

  “A real brother would have been a saving here, pat might have been less rummy if I’d got a length and not a soofy.” She flashed a smile but it seemed to vanish for lack of strength. She fetched some brin, which was a kind of bread in these parts, from under a cloth on a shelf near the window, unshuttered and giving a view west to woods and open land far off. The brin was a bit heavy, but good with some of her salted butter.

  Her hands were scarred, the fingers thick and knuckles swollen from the work. She had no more meat on her than her sparrow of a mother behind her, deep lines on a face that might once have attracted comment. None of us were paintings now though.

  “I will take you on that offer to deliver the brin, gives me that bit of time to sort out the cows. You worked for Kailen then?”

  “Yes,” I said, “we need to find Valdir because we got someone seems to be hunting out the Twenty, killing us off. We want to be sure he’s alive.”

  “He came back however many harvests ago after you all split, said he’d been with one of you, Miri, but it ended badly and that’s how he lost his arm. Our pat was alive then, never forgive him for leaving in the first place, his only son. I never forgive him too for a while. Then he’s back but pat’s still tanning him, about his working the strips, prices he’s getting on the barley and such. I begs him to stay but then he’s gone, never seen him more sad though he said his true sorrow was in here and what he seen and done.” She tapped her head and chewed on some brin a moment.

  “So he went to the coast, come back for pat’s burying then went again, but he brought a woman with him, her boy too not his. She was fine to look on, suited to him for how she would lift him with her touch. He was happier then and I stopped wishing bad of him. Anley’s Harbour is his home now. I reckon he’s still working the boats there.”

  She put a cut of brin on the stool next to the chair her mother dozed on and fetched a jug of her beer for us to sip on. She sat back down and was silent then, like she was alone.

  “I have a concern,” said Shale, “that who it is lookin’ fer us might not spare those who he asks the way of, if yer follow. Bein’ family might make it worse in that regard.”

  I was thinking the same.

  “Yer got nobody lookin’ out fer the farm if yer gets ill?” said Shale.

  “Oh I can’t get ill, that would do us with the wasters that want paying for the scratching about they does. Winters don’t have to be cold to kill you when you’s poor, and there’s little here for us if we don’t shift this wheat for the right price. Pat’s stint at the court was a favour all used up over the years and they’s that run it now didn’t know him.”

  I took a bag of coins out of my belt and opened it on the table among the crumbs, all silver, about fifty pieces.

  “Thinking you should be considering taking it easy, but somewhere far off where this man or men doing the killing in’t going to find you,” I said.

  She took a few coins up in her hand, not believing it, looking at us both keenly. Then she dropped them to hold a hand each, me and Shale’s. She shook her head, beginning to weep. We give her a bit to let it go. Who round here would’ve seen as much on their kitchen table? It was easy to forget.

  “Why?” she said. “Two soldiers coming like this and offering us a fortune like they’s got no need of the coin theirselves.”

  “We couldn’t leave thinking you’d be in trouble, and I’m dying besides. I’ve got enough for what’s left of me. Take the coin, Julir, if we don’t find Valdir we would’ve done something for him at least.”

  She had some more vigour about her as we left and saddled up. Seems the coin wasn’t enough to rouse her ma as she slept there all the while. Julir was muttering about repairs for the broken cart at her doorway as she bid us off, though we impressed as far as we could on her the need for her to disappear. Shale took the brin as she wanted and we give the buyer word to drop the coin up to her farm or we’d be back for his reason.

  The ride to Anley’s Harbour was a couple of days, thick forest for much of it but no trouble other than from my guts. I was slowing us, needing to rest a bit more in the night when we were making our ground quiet.

  There were some houses on the cliffs about the harbour that were half hidden in the sea mist that soaked us as we come to it. We walked the horses down a track cut here and there with slabs of stone. It was a cove, a horseshoe of cliffs in which was the bowl of the harbour, two big wooden jetties reaching out. Around the slopes as we headed down were large and small huts each thickening the mist with smoke from busy chimneys. What noises we could hear of gulls, animals and children seemed to lose themselves in echoes.

  The big huts for the families give way on the harbour to the terraces about the quay. Here it was fairly quiet, boats being out I guess. The nearest inn was The Admiral.

  There were fifteen or twenty in there, a tight run of benches near the fire and the air thick with pipes. There were arguments, chattering and some chuckling that all hushed to the odd whisper as we stood at the table where the ’keep was stood with a buck and an old sailor that sun and the sea had turned into some grey-whiskered oak.

  “We’re lookin’ fer an ale an’ a man, name o’ Valdir,” said Shale.

  “Aye,” said the ’keep, who filled some big tin mugs as we settled. “No’ wantin’ to grieve men who paid colour, but what business do yus have wi’ the man?”

  “Hope yus comes to take him out,” said the buck, “then yus all fucks off.”

  The old man looked past him at us, then rested a hand on his shoulder. “Yus be lookin’ at them again, lad, sin the red leather an’ quillions o’ their blades an’ these oils whut no such colour be found abouts. The lad’s sorry for that,” said the man.

  “Don’t mind a gobby buck,” said Shale, “long as he don’t raise a hand.”

  “Fine ale,” I said. “Happy to see a round for the men here.”

  “Aye, sir,” says the ’keep, watching the buck and Shale staring at each other. “Well, at the stone posts yus saw lit on the way in, top o’ the rise by the burned out tree yus goes right an’ there’s a path yus teks to a house wi’ a great bell on a post, our summer bell we uses for the festival.”

  “Winter too,” said a soak cheered by the free ale he was waiting on, but he was quickly shushed.

  “He’s there, wi’ his wife, mother o’ this one,” said the ’keep, gesturing at the buck, who was sulking and staring fierce now at the serving table, a rage in him.

  I dropped coin on it for the ales and we drinks up. Outside and going back up the hill a couple of duts running about give us a few cheeky songs their mas wouldn’t want them to sing, but they only followed us so far with their begging and they too mentioned Valdir because of our colour and his. The hill was a bit of work this way back, I was sweating and the wound was itching. We got round the lamps and were at his door near the bell, where we tied the horses. Here there were a few yards more of garden than those huts we saw roundabouts and it was kept sharp, some veg growing and a fenced-in run that was tidy. From the house too it was clear a soldier was in it; small place with a strong-looking lacquered door and shutters what were new looking, the sliver of candlelight and smoke of the chimney hole the only sign of people there, keeping out the late afternoon’s chill.

  I give a knock and Valdir opened the door. He’s took back for a moment then shakes his head with a smile growing. “Gant? Shale is it?” He straightened at the sight of us, we embraced and he’s grinning. I see he’s missing most of an arm.

  “Come in, boys, come in! Alina, we got us some guests,” he shouted. “I was just feeding her,” he said to us.

  He back
ed through the door and we walked in to a warm room spare of much. His woman was there in a grand old chair, something he must have built, but she didn’t move. Her eyes took us in, and she started breathing fierce, as though feared or nervous. She made some noises but I saw her lip was drooping, seeming to pull her face down a bit on the one side, a bit of dribble hanging from it and she in no control of speaking. I saw it sometimes on some of the boys we run with over the years and which condition was the end of them as soldiers.

  “Alina, my love, it’s just some old friends. Sit at the table, boys, I’ll get you some stew shortly. Now then, girl, let’s finish these carrots and onions, shall we?”

  He picked up a wooden bowl from the floor near a chair next to her and he shushed her. Putting it in his lap for balance he put the spoon to her lips. Her one hand was still but the other was lifting weakly, trembling with the effort, though to help or hinder him wasn’t clear. There was a bib round her that caught some of the gravy that fell with her spittle, but she made a go of swallowing it and nodding a little. He fussed her, forgetting we were there. After each spoon was taken he would drop it in the soup and wipe her, or fuss with a frond of hair, tucking it behind her ear, telling her the stew had maybe a bit too much salt or did she think the veg was a bit hard or soft. He was bigger now without the fighting, a fuzz of grey about his ears all that remained of his hair and his colour darkened with the years on boats, salt etching his skin deep. He still had those eyes sunk back under the strong ridge of his brows, now as well as those years past they lent him that air of an old sorrow.

  Soon enough he was done and she was tapping her good hand, three taps, groaning a bit.

  “Sorry, boys, she needs to go, I need to get her outside with you here.”

  “How’d you…?” I said, but stopped myself, ashamed a bit.

  “It’s easy, Gant, I carved a couple of wheels and fixed them on the back of her chair, just got to get her outside.”

  She give a tap and he nodded, squeezing her hand. She had no obvious grey in the golden hair about her shoulders, and would have been a heartbreaker ten or so summers past, though the struggle since what must have happened to her now darkened her eyes and drew her mouth and cheeks in narrow.

  “We come by your sister,” I said, when he brought her back in.

  “Aye, think you must have. What brings you here?”

  “Yer got a fine woman there,” said Shale as Valdir headed for the pantry. He’s looking at Alina and he give her a wink, which she returned, a flash of warmth run through her cheeks.

  Valdir nodded, fetching us a jar of ale.

  “Aye, she is. Expect me sister told you the tale of it?” he said.

  “Sounds like your da were the same cut as mine when I says I’m off, but I never got back to see him after and I regrets it,” I said.

  He took a deep draw in his mug, “Pat was on their court and I come back to get me life in some shape. Me colour was trouble but to him also a dishonour. Couldn’t stand to look at me. Me sister was glad of the help, but not much help with one arm. She brought me off the brews but I still take some kannab. I hated him then, pat, much as I loved me mattie and sis I had to go. I come to the coast. I needed a bit of the sea, some sky I could lose a bit of me in. Coming off the brews, paying out, was bad.”

  “Yer sister’s runnin’ it alone, Valdir, but she’s strugglin’,” said Shale.

  “She was tied with a man, but when we last went to see her, when they put pat in the ground, he was a drinker and workshy. Near broke the farm I think.” He stood and went over to Alina, who give a brief nod.

  “She wants to lie down for a while. You boys’ll take a cup later with us? Happy for you to stop by the fire here tonight if you’re passing,” he said. I nodded, giving Shale a quick glance.

  He took her up on his shoulder, a well-practised move, and he pushed through a curtain to a room beyond where they kept their sleeping mats on a little stand off the ground.

  Me and Shale helped each other with our wambas and other leathers, piling them at his door.

  He come back shortly and pulled the curtain.

  “Wouldn’t have her if not for a storm took her husband.” He got a couple more jugs down off a shelf and a fat pouch of kannab and bacca. “Was on the boats, four of us out south looking to run some nets and pick up trout or herring. We got caught in a rusher, spun up out of nothing and the boat her man was captain of got caught on the Spikes, which is some rocks we was pushed into on our run back. I made it, many didn’t.

  “I was lodging at one of the inns down on the quay and her cousin it is runs it, he had me fetch up suppers for Alina and our boy, well I think of him as me own, but then she’s just recovering from his pat being gone. The boy, Heldon, never got used to it.”

  He finished the pipe he was filling as he spoke and give it to Shale, who put his jumpcrick bones to it and got it lit.

  “She got men sniffing about after a couple of months, for her man had this place and kept an investment in two of the other boats so had a bit of coin.

  “One of the fishers that worked with him soon made a move and she took him in. I would still bring up the odd bit of salted fish but I saw enough to know he wasn’t right for her or the boy that he was mean to. Then he’s got some of the fishers and workers from about calling and they seemed to be here most times I called up. Her cousin asks if I could put a word in. Course, I call in and they’s thinking I’m messing outside what I should be. No brew to swig mind, boys, older and fatter, but I took a dislike to one gobby buck at the door there and puts him out with me good hand. The others comes out and a few got me down and gives me a going over, even took a knife thinking it would do me, but the knife found its way back to him that used it. She looked after me from then on and soon enough here we are.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked. Might be harsh to ask, but I felt by asking him I’d know a bit more of him in the years since we split.

  It still cut him to recount it now.

  “Ah she, well, I was bringing the catch off the boat and Heldon comes running down to tell me she wasn’t right, had fallen and couldn’t get up or speak properly. I run up here and lifted her but she was like this, bit worse than now for she was making no sense.”

  He took the pipe off Shale and had a good draw, managing himself.

  “Those couple of years with her was the finest, happiest. I had no right to them, that make sense? She took good care of me even when all I did, all we did, was and is plain for everyone to see.” He held up his cup to drink to it and we clacked and drained them.

  “What about you boys?” said Valdir. “Looks like it’s been a hard life.” We laughed at this. There was a pleasant fug to the air now we were smoking. It was Shale that brought up what we were most fearing to have to say.

  “Valdir, we’re here because we’re bein’ chased, Kailen’s Twenty are bein’ killed. Kailen’s dead, Kheld, Sho, The Prince, a load of us, an’ we just got out of a trap sprung wi’ thirty or so Reds an’ some Agents. We come to see if you were still alive an’ if so, well, yer dead wi’out you come with us.”

  “We give your sister fifty silver to get her and your mother out of the farm and south somewhere,” I said.

  He squeezed my hand with this news, grateful.

  “You were tight wi’ Miri, is he alive?” said Shale.

  He looked at us then, reading us almost.

  “Thirty?” And he was meaning the ambush of course.

  “They weren’t much equipped fer what we had,” said Shale with a shrug.

  I took Valdir through what we found at the Crag and what happened to us since, including what was in Kailen’s letter.

  It took another bowl of that kannab to cover it. My head was going soft like hot butter.

  He told us then what happened to him and Mirisham. But me and Shale were fierce shocked at his story, for what he said made it more than likely, we reckoned, that it was Kigan, one of our own, what were killing us all.

 
“Couldn’t say if Miri was alive or dead now, but not fussed if it was the latter. A few of us did those Citadel kids out of their shinies, the boy and girl we were protecting for that king in Citadel Argir. He gave Kigan a purse to see the two children right into Jua and set them up there. It was, if I recall right, a balls-out fortune. He always was a bit queer, up hisself, that Kigan. I was for cutting them out of all that gold, as was The Prince and Kailen, so Miri said he’d take care of Kigan and I would have a word with the other one they met with, that king’s drudha that had the shinies. I run him off and got the place where the stuff was buried, so, with Ibsey and Kheld fairly risen and not due down a while, and the rest of you had gone on from Snakewood, we thought we’d take it all and disappear. I’m not fluffed with it, but I’m not fucked either whether the boys got a share. I was out of purses with that kind of shine. It wasn’t that I wanted Kigan dead of course, but I couldn’t care that much for what happened to him either, not after some of what I saw him do. His brews were the best, but he didn’t seem to give a shit who he tried his recipes on.”

  “Agreed. Somethin’ weren’t right wi’ him,” said Shale. He was right and all. More than once I caught him putting a drop or a pinch of something on food for prisoners, and in our own cups at times. Saw him once doing it to a bottle that he was fetching for me and Moadd from some Lord’s kitchen and I beat him though all the while he was saying it was just something to perk me up. Told Kailen I wouldn’t go near him after that, for through the night I was sick and he was blaming it on the wine.

  “So this stealing of treasure an’ killing of Kigan were all at Snakewood?” I said.

  “Aye, Snakewood. Miri didn’t kill him though, I think he just give him a dose of something bad and sold him to slavers for a bit of coin. He hated him, and the gold he had and the luxury he was about to have back then, well, Miri wasn’t going to let it happen. So we headed west for a bit, needed to find somewhere we could trade off some of the plant and shinies. We split it as best we could. Kailen and The Prince went over the Sar for a while, because we knew they’s’d be after us, the guilds, the Post too probably and the other Citadels involved in taking over Argir when that king was deposed. Miri was clear in his head that we could do some more good with that wealth than what those kids would. He was from a place around the east of Mount Hope if you recall and his mother and father was killed when he was young by the raiders there that lived in the passes. We did some work there once, cleaning out hides and camps for that Post Marschal that had the one leg and the goit.”