The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Leef!’ she growled through her gritted teeth, ‘Get it over to—’

  One of the leaders slipped, craggy shoulder-blades poking up hard as it struggled for a footing, and then it veered off to the right and took its neighbour’s legs away too and the pair of them were torn sideways by the river. The rope jerked Shy’s right arm straight like it would rip her muscles joint from joint, dragging her half-out of the saddle before she knew a thing about it.

  Now the front two oxen were thrashing, sending up spray, dragging the next yoke out of true while Leef screeched and lashed at them. Might as well have been lashing at the river, which he mostly was. Shy dragged with all her strength. Might as well have been dragging at a dozen dead oxen. Which she soon would be.

  ‘Fuck!’ she gasped, rope slipping suddenly through her right hand and zipping around her forearm, just managing to hold on, blood in the hemp and mixing with the beaded water, spray in her face and wet hair and the terrified lowing of the animals and the terrified wailing of Majud.

  The wagon was skidding, grinding, near to floating, near to tipping. The first animal had found ground again somehow and Savian was smacking at it and snarling, Shy with neck stretched back and dragging, dragging, rope ripping at her arm and her horse shuddering under her. Glimpse of the far bank, people waving, their shouts and her breath and the thrashing of the beasts making just one echoing throb in her skull.

  ‘Shy.’ Lamb’s voice. And there was a strong arm around her and she knew she could let go.

  Like when she fell off the barn roof and Lamb had lifted her up. ‘All right, now. Quiet, now.’ Sun flickering through her lids and her mouth tasting like blood, but not scared any more. Later, years later, him bandaging the burns on her back. ‘It’ll pass. It’ll pass.’ And her walking up to the farm after that black time gone, not knowing what she’d find there, or who, and seeing him sat by the door with that same smile as always. ‘Good to have you back,’ like she’d only left a moment before, hugging her tight and feeling that prickle of tears under her closed lids . . .

  ‘Shy?’

  ‘Uh.’ Lamb was setting her down on the bank, blurred faces flickering into focus around her.

  ‘You all right, Shy?’ Leef was calling. ‘She all right?’

  ‘Give her some room.’

  ‘Let her breathe, now.’

  ‘I’m breathing,’ she grunted, waving their pawing hands away, fighting up to sitting though she wasn’t sure what’d happen when she got there.

  ‘Hadn’t you better stay still a while?’ asked Lamb. ‘You have to be—’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, swallowing the need to puke. ‘Grazed my pride a little, but that’ll scab over.’ It had scars enough on it already, after all. ‘Gave my arm a scrape.’ She winced as she pulled her glove off with her teeth, every joint in her right arm throbbing, grunted as she worked the trembling fingers. The raw rope-burn coiled bloody around her forearm like a snake up a branch.

  ‘Scraped it bad.’ Leef slapped at his forehead. ‘My fault! If I’d just—’

  ‘No one’s fault but my own. Should’ve let go the damn rope.’

  ‘I for one am grateful you did not.’ Majud must’ve finally prised his fingers free of his wagon-seat. Now he draped a blanket over Shy’s shoulders. ‘I am far from a strong swimmer.’

  Shy squinted at him and that brought the burning to the back of her throat again, so she looked to the wet shingle between her knees instead. ‘You ever think a journey over twenty unbridged rivers might’ve been a mistake?’

  ‘Every time we cross one, but what can a merchant do when he smells opportunity at the other side? Much as I detest hardship, I love profit more.’

  ‘Just what we need out here.’ Sweet twisted his hat back firm onto his head as he stood. ‘More greed. All right! Drama’s done, everyone, she yet lives! Let’s get these teams unhitched and back across, the rest of them wagons ain’t going to fly over!’

  Corlin shoved between Lamb and Leef with a bag in one hand and knelt next to Shy, taking her arm and frowning down at it. She’d such a manner of knowing exactly what she was about made you hardly even think to ask whether she did.

  ‘You going to be all right?’ asked Leef.

  Shy waved him away. ‘You can go on. You all can.’ She’d known some folks couldn’t get enough pity, but it’d always made her feel uncomfortable right into her arse.

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked Lamb, looking down at her from what seemed a great height.

  ‘I daresay you’ve got better places to be than in my way,’ snapped Corlin, already cleaning the cuts.

  They drifted off, back towards the ford, Lamb with one last worried look over his shoulder, leaving Corlin to bind Shy’s arm with quick, deft hands, wasting no time and making no mistakes.

  ‘Thought they’d never leave.’ And she slipped a little bottle out of her bag and into Shy’s free hand.

  ‘Now that’s good doctoring.’ Shy took a sneaky swig and curled her lips back at the burning.

  ‘Why do a thing badly?’

  ‘I’m always amazed how some folk can’t help themselves.’

  ‘True enough.’ Corlin glanced up from her work towards the ford, where they were manhandling Gentili’s rickety wagon to the far bank, one of the ancient prospectors waving his spindly arms as a wheel caught in the shallows. ‘There’s a few like that along on this trip.’

  ‘I guess most of ’em mean well.’

  ‘Someday you can build a boat from meaning well and see how it floats.’

  ‘Tried that. Sank with me on it.’

  The corner of Corlin’s mouth twitched up. ‘I think I might have been on that voyage. Icy water, wasn’t it?’ Lamb had dropped in beside Savian, the two old men straining at the stuck wheel, the whole wagon rocking with their efforts. ‘You see a lot of strong men out here in the wilderness. Trappers and hunters hardly spent a night of their lives under a roof. Men made of wood and leather. Not sure I ever saw one stronger than your father, though.’

  ‘He ain’t my father,’ muttered Shy, taking another swig from the bottle. ‘And your uncle’s no weakling neither.’

  Corlin cut a bandage from the roll with a flick of a bright little knife. ‘Maybe we should give up on oxen and get those two old bastards to haul the wagons.’

  ‘Expect we’d get there faster.’

  ‘You reckon you could get Lamb into a yoke?’

  ‘Easily, but I don’t know how Savian might respond to a whipping.’

  ‘You’d probably break your whip on him.’

  The wagon finally ground free and lurched on, Gentili’s old cousin flailing about in the seat. Behind in the water, Savian gave Lamb an approving thump on the shoulder.

  ‘They’ve struck up quite the friendship,’ said Shy. ‘For two men never say a word.’

  ‘Ah, the unspoken camaraderie of veterans.’

  ‘What makes you think Lamb’s a veteran?’

  ‘Everything.’ And Corlin slid a pin neatly through the bandage to hold it closed. ‘You’re done.’ She glanced towards the river, the men calling out as they splashed around in the water, and suddenly she sprang up and shouted, ‘Uncle, your shirt!’

  Seemed like mad over-modesty to panic about a torn sleeve when half the men in the Fellowship were stripped to the waist and a couple all the way to their bare arses. Then, as Savian twisted to look, Shy caught a glimpse of his bare forearm. It was blue-black with tattooed letters.

  No need to ask what he was a veteran of. He was a rebel. More than likely he’d been fighting in Starikland and was on the run, for all Shy knew hotly pursued by his Majesty’s Inquisition.

  She looked up, and Corlin looked down, and neither one of them quite managed to hide what they were thinking.

  ‘Just a torn shirt. Nothing to worry about.’ But Corlin’s blue, blue eyes were narrowed and Shy realised she still had that bright little knife in her hand and of a sudden felt the need to pick her words with care.

  ‘I daresay
we’ve all got a rip or two behind us.’ Shy handed the bottle back to Corlin and slowly stood. ‘Ain’t none of my affair to go picking at other folks’ stitches. Their business is their business.’

  Corlin took a swig of her own, looking at Shy all the while over the bottle. ‘That’s a fine policy.’

  ‘And this a fine bandage.’ Shy grinned as she worked her fingers. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever had a better.’

  ‘You had a lot?’

  ‘Been cut enough, but mostly I just had to let ’em bleed. No one interested in doing the bandaging, I guess.’

  ‘Sad story.’

  ‘Oh, I can tell ’em all day long . . .’ She frowned towards the river. ‘What’s that?’

  A dead tree was washing slowly towards them, snagging in the shallows then drifting on, tangles of foamy grass caught up in its branches. There was something draped over the trunk. Someone, limbs trailing. Shy threw her blanket off and hurried to the bank, slid into the water, cold gripping her legs again and making her shiver.

  She waded out and caught hold of a branch, winced as pain shot through all the joints of her right arm and into her ribs, had to flounder around to use her left instead.

  The passenger was a man, head turned so she couldn’t see his face, only a mass of black hair, wet shirt rucked up to show a patch of brown midriff.

  ‘That’s a funny-looking fish,’ said Corlin, looking down from the bank with hands on hips.

  ‘You want to leave the jokes ’til you’ve helped me land him?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s the Emperor of fucking Gurkhul! How should I know who he is?’

  ‘That’s exactly my point.’

  ‘Maybe we can ask once we’ve dragged him out?’

  ‘That might be too late.’

  ‘Once he’s washed out to sea it surely will be!’

  Corlin sucked sourly at her teeth, then stomped down the bank and into the river without breaking stride. ‘On your head be it if he turns out a murderer.’

  ‘No doubt it will be.’ Together they heaved the tree and its human cargo grinding onto the bank, broken branches leaving grooves through the gravel, and stood looking down, soaked through, Shy’s stomach sticking unpleasantly to her wet shirt with each shivering in-breath.

  ‘All right, then.’ Corlin reached down to take the man under his arms. ‘Keep your knife handy, though.’

  ‘My knife’s always handy,’ said Shy.

  With a grunt and a heave, Corlin twisted him over and onto his back, one leg flopping after. ‘Any idea what the Emperor of Gurkhul looks like?’

  ‘Better fed,’ muttered Shy. He had a lean look to him, fibres in his stretched-out neck, sharp cheekbones, one with an ugly cut down it.

  ‘Better dressed,’ said Corlin. He had nothing but the torn clothes he was tangled with, and one boot. ‘Older, too.’ He couldn’t have been much over thirty, short black beard on his cheeks, grey scattered in his hair.

  ‘Less . . . earnest,’ said Shy. It was the best word she could think of for that face. He looked almost peaceful in spite of the cut. Like he’d just closed his eyes to philosophise a moment.

  ‘It’s the earnest-looking bastards need the most watching.’ Corlin tipped his face one way, then the other. ‘But he is pretty. For flotsam.’ She leaned further to put her ear over his mouth, then rocked back on her haunches, considering.

  ‘He alive?’ asked Shy.

  ‘One way to find out.’ Corlin slapped him across the face, and none too gently.

  When Temple opened his eyes he saw only a blinding brightness.

  Heaven!

  But should heaven hurt so much?

  Hell, then.

  But surely hell would be hot?

  And he felt very cold.

  He tried to lift his head and decided it was far too much effort. Tried to move his tongue and decided that was no better. A wraith-like figure floated into view, surrounded by a nimbus of sparkling light, painful to look upon.

  ‘God?’ Temple croaked.

  The slap made a hollow boom in his head, brought fire to the side of his face and snapped everything into focus.

  Not God.

  Or not the way He was usually portrayed.

  This was a woman, and a pale-skinned one. Not old in years, but Temple got the feeling those years had been testing. A long, pointed face, made to look longer by the red-brown hair hanging about it, stuck to pale cheeks with wet, wedged under a ragged hat salt-stained about the band. Her mouth was set in a suspicious frown, with faint lines at the corners that suggested it often was. She looked used tohard work and hard choices, but there was a soft dusting of freckles across the narrow bridge of her nose.

  Another woman’s face hovered behind. Older and squarer with short hair stirred by the wind and blue eyes that looked as if they were stirred by nothing.

  Both women were wet. So was Temple. So was the shingle under him. He could hear the washing of a river and, fainter in the background, the calls of men and beasts. There was only one explanation, reached gradually and by a process of ponderous elimination.

  He was still alive.

  These two women could scarcely have seen as weak, watery and unconvincing a smile as he mustered at that moment. ‘Hello,’ he croaked.

  ‘I’m Shy,’ said the younger.

  ‘You needn’t be,’ said Temple. ‘I feel we know each other quite well already.’

  Under the circumstances he thought it a solid effort, but she did not smile. People rarely find jokes based on their own name amusing. They, after all, have heard them a thousand times.

  ‘My name is Temple.’ He tried to rise again, and this time made it as far as his elbows before giving up.

  ‘Not the Emperor of Gurkhul, then,’ muttered the older woman, for some reason.

  ‘I am . . .’ Trying to make up his mind exactly what he was now. ‘A lawyer.’

  ‘So much for earnest.’

  ‘Don’t know that I ever been this close to a lawyer before,’ said Shy.

  ‘Is it all you hoped for?’ asked the other woman.

  ‘So far it’s middling.’

  ‘You’re not catching me at my best.’ With a little help from the two women he dragged himself to sitting, noting with a pang of nervousness that Shy kept one hand on the grip of a knife. Not a shy knife, judging by the sheath, and that hard set to her mouth made him think she would not be shy about using it.

  He was careful to make no sudden moves. Not that it was difficult. Painstaking ones were enough of a challenge.

  ‘How does a lawyer get into a river?’ asked the older woman. ‘Give bad advice?’

  ‘It’s good advice usually lands you in trouble.’ He tried another smile, somewhat closer to his usual winning formula. ‘You did not tell me your name.’

  It won nothing from her. ‘No. You weren’t pushed, then?’

  ‘Me and another man sort of . . . pushed each other.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Temple gave a helpless shrug. ‘For all I know he’ll float by presently.’

  ‘You armed?’

  ‘He ain’t even shod,’ said Shy.

  Temple peered down at his bare foot, tendons standing stark from the skin as he wriggled the toes. ‘I used to have a very small knife but . . . that didn’t turn out too well. I think it’s fair to say . . . I’ve had a bad week.’

  ‘Some days work out.’ Shy started to help him up. ‘Some don’t.’

  ‘You sure about this?’ asked her companion.

  ‘What’s the choice, throw him back in the water?’

  ‘I’ve heard worse ideas.’

  ‘You can stay here, then.’ And Shy dragged Temple’s arm around her neck and hauled him to his feet.

  God, he was hurting. His head felt like a melon someone had taken a hammer to. God, he was cold. He could hardly have been colder if he had died in the river. God, he was weak. His knees trembled so badly he could hear them flapping at the insides of his wet trousers.
Just as well he had Shy to lean on. She did not feel like she would collapse any time soon. Her shoulder was firm as wood under his hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and meant it, too. ‘Thank you so much.’ He had always been at his best with someone strong to lean on. Like a flowering creeper adorning a deep-rooted tree. Or a songbird perched on a bull’s horn. Or a leech on a horse’s arse.

  They struggled up the bank, his booted foot and his bare foot scraping at the mud. Behind them, cattle were being driven across the river, riders leaning from saddles to wave their hats or their ropes, yipping and calling, the beasts swarming, swimming, clambering one over another, thrashing up clouds of spray.

  ‘Welcome to our little Fellowship,’ said Shy.

  A mass of wagons, animals and people were gathered in the lee of a wind-bent copse just beyond the river. Some worked timber for repairs. Some struggled to get stubborn oxen into yokes. Some were busy changing clothes soaked in the crossing, sharp tan-lines on bare limbs. A pair of women were heating soup over a fire, Temple’s stomach giving a painful grumble at the smell of it. Two children laughed as they chased a three-legged dog around and around.

  He did his best to smile, and nod, and ingratiate himself as Shy helped him through their midst with her strong hand under his armpit, but a few curious frowns were his whole harvest. Mostly these people were fixed on their work, all of them aimed squarely at grinding a profit out of this unforgiving new land with one kind of hard labour or another. Temple winced, and not just from the pain and the cold. When he’d signed up with Nicomo Cosca, it had been on the understanding that he’d never come this close to hard work again.

  ‘Where is the Fellowship heading?’ he asked. It would be just his luck to hear Squaredeal or Averstock, settlements whose remaining citizens he rather hoped never to be reacquainted with.

  ‘West,’ said Shy. ‘Right across the Far Country to Crease. That suit?’

  Temple had never heard of Crease. Which was the highest recommendation for the place. ‘Anywhere but where I came from suits well enough. West will be wonderful. If you’ll have me.’