The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  He winced as he rubbed at his leg, trying to knead out the aches, but they was always there, laughing at him. Damn, but he was sick of being laughed at. If he’d known the wound would go bad he never would’ve stabbed himself. Thinking he was the clever one as he watched the rest of the battalion charge off after that arsehole Tunny. Little stab in the leg was a whole lot better than the big one through the heart, wasn’t it? Except the enemy had left the wall the night before and they hadn’t even had to fight. The battle over and him the only casualty, kicked out of the army with one good leg and no prospects. Misfortunes. He’d always been dogged by ’em.

  The Fellowship weren’t all bad, though. He turned in his battered saddle and picked out Shy South, riding back there near the cattle. She wasn’t what you’d call a beauty but there was something to her, not caring about nothing, shirt dark with sweat so you could get a notion of her shape – and there was nothing wrong with it, far as he could tell. He’d always liked a strong woman. She weren’t lazy either, always busy at something. No notion why she was laughing with that spice-eating arsehole Temple, worthless brown fuck if ever there was, she should’ve come over to him, he’d have given her something to smile at.

  Hedges rubbed at his leg again, and shifted in his saddle, and spat. She was all right, but most of ’em were bastards. His eyes found Savian, swaying on his wagon-seat next to that sneering bitch of his, sharp chin up like she was better’n everyone else and Hedges in particular. He spat again. Spit was free so he might as well use plenty.

  People spoke over him, looked through him, and when they passed a bottle round it never got to him, but he had eyes, and he had ears, and he’d seen that Savian in Rostod, after the massacre, dishing out orders like he was the big man, that hard-faced bitch of a niece loitering, too, maybe, and he’d heard the name Conthus. Heard it spoken soft and the rebels scraping the bloodstained ground with their noses like he was great Euz his self. He’d seen what he’d seen and he’d heard what he’d heard and that old bastard weren’t just some other wanderer with dreams of gold. His dreams were bloodier. The worst of rebels, and no notion anyone knew it. Look at him sitting there like the last word in the argument, but Hedges would be the one had the last word. He’d had his misfortunes but he could smell an opportunity, all right. Just a case of finding out the moment to turn his secret into gold.

  In the meantime, wait, and smile, and think about how much he hated that stuttering fuck Buckhorm.

  He knew it was a waste of strength he didn’t have, but sometimes Raynault Buckhorm hated his horse. He hated his horse, and he hated his saddle, and his canteen and his boots and his hat and his face-rag. But he knew his life depended on them sure as a climber’s on his rope. There were plenty of spectacular ways to die out in the Far Country, skinned by a Ghost or struck by lightning or swept away in a flood. But most deaths out here would make a dull story. A mean horse in your string could kill you. A broken saddle-girth could kill you. A snake under your bare foot could kill you. He’d known this would be hard. Everyone had said so, shaking their heads and clucking like he was mad to go. But hearing it’s one thing, and living it another. The work, the sheer graft of it, and the weather always wrong. You were burned by the sun or chafed by the rain and forever torn at by the wind, ripping across the plains to nowhere.

  Sometimes he’d look out at the punishing emptiness ahead and wonder – has anyone else ever stood here? The thought would make him dizzy. How far had they come? How far still to go? What happened if Sweet didn’t come back from one of his three-day scouts? Could they find their way through this ocean of grass without him?

  He had to appear fixed, though, had to stay cheerful, had to be strong. Like Lamb. He took a look sideways at the big Northman, who’d got down to roll Lord Ingelstad’s wagon out of a rut. Buckhorm didn’t think him and all his sons could’ve managed it, but Lamb just shrugged it free without a word. Ten years Buckhorm’s senior at the least, but might as well have been carved out of rock still, never tiring, never complaining. Folk were looking to Buckhorm for an example, and if he weakened everyone might, and then what? Turn back? He glanced over his shoulder, and though every direction looked about the same, saw failure that way.

  He saw his wife, too, plodding away from the column with some of the other women to make water. He’d a sense she wasn’t happy, which was a heavy burden and a sore confusion to him. Wasn’t as if all this was for his benefit, was it? He’d been happy enough in Hormring, but a man should work to give his wife and children the things they haven’t got, grab them a better future, and out there in the west was where he’d seen it. He didn’t know what to do to make her happy. Did his husband’s duties every night, didn’t he, sore or not, tired or not?

  Sometimes he felt like asking her – what do you want? The question sitting on his clumsy tongue but his bloody stutter would come on hard then and he never could spit it free. He’d have liked to get down and walk with her a spell, talk like they used to, but then who’d keep the cattle moving? Temple? He barked a joyless laugh at that, turned his eyes on the drifter. There was one of those fellows thought the world owed him an easy ride. One of those men floats from one disaster to another pretty as a butterfly leaving others to clean up his spillings. He wasn’t even minding the task he was being paid for, just toddling along on his mule clowning with Shy South. Buckhorm shook his head at that odd couple. Out of the two of them, no doubt she was the better man.

  Luline Buckhorm took her place in the circle, studiously looking outwards.

  Her wagon was at a halt, as it always was unless she was on hand to shift it by force of will, three of her older children fighting over the reins, their mindless bickering floating out over the grass.

  Sometimes she hated her children, with their whining and their sore spots and their endless, gripping, crushing needs. When do we stop? When do we eat? When do we get to Crease? Their impatience all the harder to bear because of her own. All desperate for anything to break up the endless plodding sameness of the trek. Must have been well into autumn now, but except for the wind having an even chillier slap to it, how could you even tell the time of year out here? So flat, so endlessly flat, and yet she still felt they were toiling always uphill, the incline greater with every day trudged by.

  She heard Lady Ingelstad dropping her skirts and felt her push into place beside. It was a great equaliser, the Far Country. A woman who wouldn’t have deigned to look at her back in civilisation, whose husband had sat on the Open Council of the Union, fool though he was, and here they were making piss together. Sisbet Peg took up her place in the middle of the circle, squatting over the bucket, safe from prying eyes, no more than sixteen and just married, still fresh in love and talking like her husband was the answer to every question, bless her. She’d learn.

  Luline caught that slime Hedges peering over as he swayed past on his mangy mule, and she gave him a stern frown back and closed up tight to Lady Ingelstad’s shoulder, planted hands on hips and made herself big, or as big as she got at least, making sure he’d catch sight of nothing but disapproval. Then Raynault trotted up and put himself between Hedges and the women, striking up some halting conversation.

  ‘A good man, your husband,’ said Lady Ingelstad approvingly. ‘You can always rely on him to do the decent thing.’

  ‘That you can,’ said Luline, making sure she sounded proud as any wife could be.

  Sometimes she hated her husband, with his grinding ignorance of her struggles, and his chafing assumptions of what was woman’s work and what was man’s. Like knocking in a fence-post then getting drunk was real labour, but minding a crowd of children all day and night was fun to feel grateful for. She looked up and saw white birds high in the sky, flying in a great arrow to who knew where, and wished she could join them. How many steps had she trudged beside that wagon, now?

  She’d liked it in Hormring, good friends and a house she’d spent years getting just so. But no one ever asked what her dream was, oh no, she was just expec
ted to sell her good chair and the good fire it had stood beside and chase off after his. She watched him trot up to the head of the column, pointing something out to Majud. The big men, with the big dreams to discuss.

  Did it never occur to him that she might want to ride, and feel the fresh wind, and smile at the wide-open country, and rope cattle, and consider the route, and speak up in the meetings while he trudged beside the squealing wagon, and changed the shitty wrappings on their youngest, and shouted at the next three in line to stop shouting, and had his nipples chewed raw every hour or two while still being expected to have a good dinner ready and do the wifely duties every bloody night, sore or not, tired or not?

  A fool question. It never did occur to him. And when it occurred to her, which was plenty, there was always something stopped her tongue sure as if she had the stutter, and made her just shrug and be sulky silent.

  ‘Will you look at that?’ murmured Lady Ingelstad. Shy South had swung down from her saddle not a dozen strides from the column and was squatting in the long grass in the shadow of her horse making a spatter, reins in her teeth and trousers around ankles, the side of her pale arse plain to see.

  ‘Incredible,’ someone muttered.

  She pulled her trousers up, gave a friendly wave, then closed her belt, spat the reins into her hand and was straight back in the saddle. The whole business had taken no time at all, and been done exactly when and how she wanted. Luline Buckhorm frowned around at the outward-facing circle of women, changing over so that one of the whores could take her turn above the bucket. ‘There a reason we can’t do the same?’ she muttered.

  Lady Ingelstad turned an iron frown upon her. ‘There most certainly is!’ They watched Shy South ride off, shouting something to Sweet about closing the wagons up. ‘Although, at present, I must confess it eludes me.’

  A sharp cry from the column that sounded like her eldest daughter and Luline’s heart near leaped from her chest. She took a lurching step, wild with panic, then saw the children were just fighting on the wagon’s seat again, shrieking and laughing.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said Lady Ingelstad, patting her hand as she stepped back into place in the circle. ‘All’s well.’

  ‘Just so many dangers out here.’ Luline took a breath and tried to calm her beating heart. ‘So much could go wrong.’ Sometimes she hated her family, and sometimes her love for them was like a pain in her. Probably it was a puzzle there was no solving.

  ‘Your turn,’ said Lady Ingelstad.

  ‘Right.’ Luline started hitching up her skirts as the circle closed around her. Damn, had there ever been so much trouble taken over making piss?

  The famous Iosiv Lestek grunted, and squeezed, and finally spattered a few more drops into the can. ‘Yes . . . yes . . .’ But then the wagon jolted, pans and chests all rattling, he released his prick to grab the rail, and when he steadied himself the tap of joy was turned firmly off.

  ‘Why is man cursed with such a thing as age?’ he murmured, quoting the last line of The Beggar’s Demise. Oh, the silence into which he had murmured those words at the peak of his powers! Oh, the applause that had flooded after! Tremendous acclaim. And now? He had supposed himself in the wilderness when his company had toured the provinces of Midderland, never guessing what real wilderness might look like. He peered out of the window at the endless grass. A great ruin hove into view, some forgotten fragment of the Empire, countless years abandoned. Toppled columns, grass-seeded walls. There were many of them scattered across this part of the Far Country, their glories faded, their stories unknown, their remains scarcely arousing interest. Relics of an age long past. Just as he was.

  He remembered, with powerful nostalgia, a time in his life when he had pissed bucket-loads. Sprayed like a handpump without even considering it, then whisked onstage to bask in the glow of the sweet-smelling whale-oil lamps, to coax the sighs from the audience, to wallow in the fevered applause. That ugly pair of little trolls, playwright and manager, entreating him to stay on another season, and begging, and grovelling, and offering more while he refused to dignify them with a reply, busy with his powder. He had been invited to the Agriont to tread the stage of the palace itself before his August Majesty and the entire Closed Council! He had played the First of the Magi before the First of the Magi – how many actors could say the same? He had pranced upon a pavement of abject critics, of ruined competitors, of adoring enthusiasts and scarcely even noticed them beneath his feet. Failure was for other men to consider.

  And then his knees failed him, then his guts, then his bladder, then the audiences. The playwright smirking as he suggested a younger man for the lead – but still a worthy part in support for him, of course, just while he gathered his strength. Lurching on stage, stuttering his lines, sweating in the glare of the stinking lamps. Then the manager smirking as he suggested they part ways. Such a wonderful collaboration for them both, how many years had it been, such reviews, such audiences, but time for them both to seek new successes, to follow new dreams . . .

  ‘Oh, treachery, thy noisome visage shown—’

  The wagon lurched and the miserable dribblings he had laboured the last hour for slopped from the can and over his hand. He scarcely even noticed. He rubbed at his sweaty jaw. He needed to shave. Some standards had to be maintained. He was bringing culture to the wasteland, was he not? He picked up Camling’s letter and scanned it once again, mouthing the words to himself. He was possessed of an excessively ornamented style, this Camling, but was pleasingly abject in his praise and appreciation, in his promises of fine treatment, in his plans for an epoch-making event to be staged within the ancient Imperial amphitheatre of Crease. A show for the ages, as he put it. A cultural extravaganza!

  Iosiv Lestek was not finished yet. Not he! Redemption can come in the most unlooked-for places. And it was some while since his last hallucinatory episode. Definitely on the mend! Lestek set down the letter and boldly took up prick once again, gazing through the window at the slowly passing ruins.

  ‘My best performance is ahead of me . . .’ he grunted, gritting his teeth as he squeezed a few more drops into the can.

  ‘Wonder what it’s like,’ said Sallit, staring wistfully at that bright-coloured wagon, The Famous Iosiv Lestek written along the side in purple letters. Not that she could read it. But that was what Luline Buckhorm had told her it said.

  ‘What what’s like?’ asked Goldy, twitching the reins.

  ‘Being an actor. Up on stage in front of an audience and all.’ She’d seen some players once. Her mother and father took her. Before they died. Of course before that. Not big-city actors, but even so. She’d clapped until her hands hurt.

  Goldy scraped a loose lock of hair back under her battered hat. ‘Don’t you play a role every time you get a customer?’

  ‘Not quite the same, is it?’

  ‘Smaller audience, but otherwise not much different.’ They could hear Najis seeing to one of Gentili’s old cousins in the back of the wagon, moaning away. ‘Seem to like it, might be a tip in it.’ At least there was the chance it would finish quicker. That had to be a good thing.

  ‘Never been that good at pretending,’ Sallit muttered. Not pretending to like it, anyway. Got in the way of pretending not to be there at all.

  ‘Ain’t always about the fucking. Not always. Not just the fucking, anyway.’ Goldy had been around. She was hellish practical. Sallit wished she could be practical. Maybe she’d get there. ‘Just treat ’em like they’re somebody. That’s all anyone wants, ain’t it?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Sallit would’ve liked to be treated like somebody, instead of a thing. Folk looked at her, they just saw a whore. She wondered if anyone in the Fellowship knew her name. Less feeling than for cattle, and less value placed on you, too. What would her parents have made of this, their girl a whore? But they lost their say when they died, and it seemed Sallit had lost her say as well. She guessed there was worse.

  ‘Just a living. That’s the way to look at it. You’re
young, love. You’ve got time to work.’ A heated bitch was trotting along beside the column and a crowd of a dozen or more dogs of every shape and size were loping hopefully after. ‘Way o’ the world,’ said Goldy, watching them pass. ‘Put the work in, you can come out rich. Rich enough to retire comfortable, anyway. That’s the dream.’

  ‘Is it?’ Sounded like a pretty poor kind of dream to Sallit. To not have the worst.

  ‘Not much action now, that’s true, but we get to Crease, you’ll see the money come in. Lanklan knows what he’s about, don’t you worry on that score.’

  Everyone wanted to get to Crease. They’d wake up talking of the route, begging Sweet to know how many miles they’d gone, how many still to go, counting them off like days of a hard sentence. But Sallit dreaded the place. Sometimes Lanklan would talk about how many lonely men were out there, eyes aglitter, and how they’d have fifty clients a day like that was something to look forward to. Sounded like hell to Sallit. Sometimes she didn’t much like Lanklan, but Goldy said as pimps went he was a keeper.

  Najis’ squealing was building to a peak now, impossible to ignore.

  ‘How far is it still to go?’ asked Sallit, trying to cover over it with talk.

  Goldy frowned out towards the horizon. ‘Lot of ground and a lot of rivers.’

  ‘That’s what you said weeks back.’

  ‘It was true then and it’s true now. Don’t worry, love. Dab Sweet’ll get us there.’

  Sallit hoped he didn’t. She hoped the old scout led ’em round in a great circle and all the way back to New Keln and her mother and father smiling in the doorway of the old house. That was all she wanted. But they were dead of the shudders, and out here in the great empty was no place for dreams. She took a hard breath, rubbed the pain out of her nose, making sure not to cry. That wasn’t fair on the rest. Didn’t help her when they cried, did it?