The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Will she see me?’

  ‘That’s up to her.’

  Temple nodded. ‘You’ve got my thanks as well,’ he said to Savian. ‘For what that’s worth.’

  ‘We all give what we can.’

  Temple wasn’t sure whether that was meant to sting. It was one of those moments when everything stung. He left the two old men and made for the stairs. Behind him he heard Savian mutter, ‘I’m talking about the rebellion in Starikland.’

  ‘The one just finished?’

  ‘That and the next one . . .’

  He lifted his fist outside the door, and paused. There was nothing to stop him letting it drop and riding straight out of town, to Bermi’s claim, maybe, or even on to somewhere no one knew what a disappointing cock he was. If there was any such place left in the Circle of the World. Before the impulse to take the easy way could overwhelm him, he made himself knock.

  Shy’s face looked little better than Lamb’s, scratched and swollen, nose cut across the bridge, neck a mass of bruises. It hurt him to see it. Not as much as if he’d taken the beating, of course. But it hurt still. She didn’t look upset to see him. She didn’t look that interested. She left the door open, limping slightly, and showed her teeth as she sank down on a bench under the window, bare feet looking very white against the floorboards.

  ‘How was the hanging?’ she asked.

  He stepped inside and gently pushed the door to. ‘Very much like they always are.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ever understood their appeal.’

  ‘Perhaps it makes people feel like winners, seeing someone else lose so hard.’

  ‘Losing hard I know all about.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She looked up and he could hardly meet her eye. ‘Bit sore.’

  ‘You’re angry with me.’ He sounded like a sulking child.

  ‘I’m not. I’m just sore.’

  ‘What good would I have done if I’d stayed?’

  She licked at her split lip. ‘I daresay you’d just have got yourself killed.’

  ‘Exactly. But instead I ran for help.’

  ‘You ran all right, that I can corroborate.’

  ‘I got Savian.’

  ‘And Savian got me. Just in time.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She held her side as she slowly fished up one boot and started to pull it on. ‘So I guess what we’re saying is, I owe you my life. Thanks, Temple, you’re a fucking hero. Next time I see a bare arse vanishing out my window I’ll know to just lie back and await salvation.’

  They looked at each other in silence, while outside in the street the hanging crowd started to drift away. Then he sank into a chair facing her. ‘I’m fucking ashamed of myself.’

  ‘That’s a great comfort. I’ll use your shame as a poultice on my grazes.’

  ‘I’ve got no excuse.’

  ‘And yet I feel one’s coming.’

  His turn to grimace. ‘I’m a coward, simple as that. I’ve been running away so long it’s come to be a habit. Not easy, changing old habits. However much we might—’

  ‘Don’t bother.’ She gave a long, pained sigh. ‘I got low expectations. To be fair, you already exceeded ’em once when you paid your debt. So you tend to the cowardly. Who doesn’t? You ain’t the brave knight and I ain’t the swooning maiden and this ain’t no storybook, that’s for sure. You’re forgiven. You can go your way.’ And she waved him out the door with the scabbed back of her hand.

  That was closer to forgiveness than he could have hoped for, but he found he was not moving. ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to jump again, you can use the stairs.’

  ‘Let me make it right.’

  She looked up at him from under her brows. ‘We’re heading into the mountains, Temple. That bastard Cantliss’ll show us where these Dragon People are, and we’re going to try and get my brother and sister back, and I can’t promise there’ll be anything made right at all. A few promises I can make – it’ll be hard and cold and dangerous and there won’t even be any windows to jump out of. You’ll be about as useful there as a spent match, and let’s neither one of us offend honesty by pretending otherwise.’

  ‘Please.’ He took a wheedling step towards her, ‘Please give me one more—’

  ‘Leave me be,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘I just want to sit and hurt in peace.’

  So that was all. Maybe he should have fought harder, but Temple had never been much of a fighter. So he nodded at the floor, and quietly shut the door behind him, and went back down the steps, and over to the counter.

  ‘Get what you wanted?’ asked Lamb.

  ‘No,’ said Temple, spilling a pocketful of coins across the wood. ‘What I deserved.’ And he started drinking.

  He was vaguely aware of the dull thud of hooves out in the street, shouting and the jingle of harness. Some new Fellowship pulling into town. Some new set of forthcoming disappointments. But he was too busy with his own even to bother to look up. He told the man behind the counter to leave the bottle.

  This time there was no one else to blame. Not God, not Cosca, certainly not Shy. Lamb had been right. The trouble with running is wherever you run to, there you are. Temple’s problem was Temple, and it always had been. He heard heavy footsteps, spurs jingling, calls for drink and women, but he ignored them, inflicted another burning glassful on his gullet, banged it down, eyes watering, reached for the bottle.

  Someone else got there first.

  ‘You’d best leave that be,’ growled Temple.

  ‘How would I drink it then?’

  At the sound of that voice a terrible chill prickled his spine. His eyes crawled to the hand on the bottle – aged, liver-spotted, dirt beneath the cracked nails, a gaudy ring upon the first finger. His eyes crawled past the grubby lacework on the sleeve, up the mud-spotted material, over the breastplate, gilt peeling, up a scrawny neck speckled with rash, and to the face. That awfully familiar, hollowed visage: the nose sharp, the eyes bright, the greyed moustaches waxed to curling points.

  ‘Oh God,’ breathed Temple.

  ‘Close enough,’ said Nicomo Cosca, and delivered that luminous smile of which only he was capable, good humour and good intentions radiating from his deep-lined face. ‘Look who it is, boys!’

  At least two dozen well-known and deeply detested figures had made their way in after the Old Man. ‘Whatever are the odds?’ asked Brachio, showing his yellow teeth. He had a couple fewer knives in his bandolier than when Temple had left the Company, but was otherwise unchanged.

  ‘Rejoice, ye faithful,’ rumbled Jubair, quoting scripture in Kantic, ‘for the wanderer returns.’

  ‘Scouting, were you?’ sneered Dimbik, smoothing his hair down with a licked finger and straightening his sash, which had devolved into a greasy tatter of indeterminate colour. ‘Finding us a path to glory?’

  ‘Ah, a drink, a drink, a drink . . .’ Cosca took a long and flamboyant swig from Temple’s bottle. ‘Did I not tell you all? Wait long enough and things have a habit of returning to their proper place. Having lost my Company, I was for some years a penniless wanderer, buffeted by the winds of fate, most roughly buffeted, Sworbreck, make a note of that.’ The writer, whose hair had grown considerably wilder, clothes shabbier, nostril rims pinker and hands more tremulous since last they met, fumbled for his pencil. ‘But here I am, once more in command of a band of noble fighting men! You will scarcely believe it, but Sergeant Friendly was at one time forced into the criminal fraternity.’ The neckless sergeant hoisted one brow a fraction. ‘But he now stands beside me as the staunch companion he was born to be. And you, Temple? What role could fit your high talents and low character so well as that of my legal advisor?’

  Temple hopelessly shrugged. ‘None that I can think of.’

  ‘Then let us celebrate our inevitable reunion! One for me.’ The Old Man took another hefty swig, then grinned as he poured the smallest dribble of sp
irit into Temple’s glass. ‘And one for you. I thought you stopped drinking?’

  ‘It felt like a perfect moment to start again,’ croaked Temple. He had been expecting Cosca to order his death but, almost worse, it appeared the Company of the Gracious Hand would simply reabsorb him without breaking stride. If there was a God, He had clearly taken a set dislike to Temple over the past few years. But Temple supposed he could hardly blame Him. He was coming to feel much the same.

  ‘Gentlemen, welcome to Crease!’ The Mayor came sweeping through the doorway. ‘I must apologise for the mess, but we have—’ She saw the Old Man and her face drained of all colour. The first time Temple had seen her even slightly surprised. ‘Nicomo Cosca,’ she breathed.

  ‘None other. You must be the Mayor.’ He stiffly bowed, then looking slyly up added, ‘These days. It is a morning of reunions, apparently.’

  ‘You know each other?’ asked Temple.

  ‘Well,’ muttered the Mayor. ‘What . . . astonishing luck.’

  ‘They do say luck is a woman.’ The Old Man made Temple grunt by poking him in the ribs with the neck of his own bottle. ‘She’s drawn to those who least deserve her!’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Temple saw Shy limping down the stairs and over towards Lamb who, along with Savian, was watching the new arrivals in careful silence. Cosca, meanwhile, was strutting to the windows, spurs jingling. He took a deep breath, apparently savouring the odour of charred wood, and started to swing his head gently in time to the creaking of the bodies on their scaffold. ‘I love what you’ve done with the place,’ he called to the Mayor. ‘Very . . . apocalyptic. You make something of a habit of leaving settlements you preside over in smoking ruins.’

  Something they had in common, as far as Temple could tell. He realised he was picking at the stitches holding his buttons on and forced himself to stop.

  ‘Are these gentlemen your whole contingent?’ asked the Mayor, eyeing the filthy, squinting, scratching, spitting mercenaries slouching about her gaming hall.

  ‘Dear me, no! We lost a few on the way across the Far Country – the inevitable desertions, a round of fever, a little trouble with the Ghosts – but these stalwarts are but a representative sample. I have left the rest beyond the city limits because if I were to bring some three hundred—’

  ‘Two hundred and sixty,’ said Friendly. The Mayor looked paler yet at the number.

  ‘Counting Inquisitor Lorsen and his Practicals?’

  ‘Two hundred and sixty-eight.’ At the mention of the Inquisition, the Mayor’s face had turned positively deathly.

  ‘If I were to bring two hundred and sixty eight travel-sore fighting men into a place like this, there would, frankly, be carnage.’

  ‘And not the good sort,’ threw in Brachio, dabbing at his weepy eye.

  ‘There is a good sort?’ murmured the Mayor.

  Cosca thoughtfully worked one moustache-tip between thumb and forefinger. ‘There are . . . degrees, anyway. And here he is!’

  His black coat was weather-worn, a patchy yellow-grey beard had sprouted from cheeks more gaunt than ever, but Inquisitor Lorsen’s eyes were just as bright with purpose as they had been when the Company left Mulkova. More so, if anything.

  ‘This is Inquisitor Lorsen.’ Cosca scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. ‘My current employer.’

  ‘An honour.’ Though Temple detected the slightest strain in the Mayor’s voice. ‘If I may ask, what business might his Majesty’s Inquisition have in Crease?’

  ‘We are hunting escaped rebels!’ called Lorsen to the room at large. ‘Traitors to the Union!’

  ‘We are far from the Union here.’

  The Inquisitor’s smile seemed to chill the whole room. ‘The reach of his Eminence lengthens yearly. Large rewards are being offered for the capture of certain persons. A list will be posted throughout town, at its head the traitor, murderer and chief fomenter of rebellion, Conthus!’

  Savian gave vent to a muffled round of coughing and Lamb slapped him on the back, but Lorsen was too busy frowning down his nose at Temple to notice. ‘I see you have been reunited with this slippery liar.’

  ‘Come now.’ Cosca gave Temple’s shoulder a fatherly squeeze. ‘A degree of slipperiness, and indeed of lying, is a positive boon in a notary. Beneath it all there has never been a man of such conscience and moral courage. I’d trust him with my life. Or at least my hat.’ And he swept it off and hung it over Temple’s glass.

  ‘As long as you trust him with none of my business.’ Lorsen waved to his Practicals. ‘Come. We have questions to ask.’

  ‘He seems charming,’ said the Mayor as she watched him leave.

  Cosca scratched at his rash again and held up his fingernails to assess the results. ‘The Inquisition makes a point of recruiting only the most well-mannered fanatical torturers.’

  ‘And the most foul-mannered old mercenaries too, it would appear.’

  ‘A job is a job. But I have my own reasons for being here also. I came looking for a man called Grega Cantliss.’

  There was a long pause as that name settled upon the room like a chilly snowfall.

  ‘Fuck,’ he heard Shy breathe.

  Cosca looked about expectantly. ‘The name is not unknown, then?’

  ‘He has at times passed through.’ The Mayor had the air of choosing her words very carefully. ‘If you were to find him, what then?’

  ‘Then I and my notary – not to mention my employer the noble Inquisitor Lorsen – could be very much out of your way. Mercenaries have, I am aware, a poor reputation, but believe me when I say we are not here to cause trouble.’ He swilled some spirit lazily around in the bottom of the bottle. ‘Why, do you have some notion of Cantliss’ whereabouts?’

  A pregnant silence ensued while a set of long glances were exchanged. Then Lamb slowly lifted his chin. Shy’s face hardened. The Mayor graced them with the tiniest apologetic shrug. ‘He is chained up in my cellar.’

  ‘Bitch,’ breathed Shy.

  ‘Cantliss is ours.’ Lamb pushed himself up from the counter and stood tall, bandaged left hand sitting loose on the hilt of his sword.

  Several of the mercenaries variously puffed themselves up and found challenging stances of one kind or another, like tomcats opening hostilities in a moonlit alley. Friendly only watched, dead-eyed, dice clicking in his fist as he worked them gently around each other.

  ‘Yours?’ asked Cosca.

  ‘He burned my farm and stole my son and daughter and sold ’em to some savages. We’ve tracked him all the way from the Near Country. He’s going to take us up into the mountains and show us where these Dragon People are.’

  The Old Man’s body might have stiffened down the years but his eyebrows were still some of the most limber in the world, and they reached new heights now. ‘Dragon People, you say? Perhaps we can help each other?’

  Lamb glanced about the dirty, scarred and bearded faces. ‘Guess you can never have too many allies.’

  ‘Quite so! A man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, eh, Temple?’

  ‘Not sure I wouldn’t rather go thirsty,’ muttered Shy.

  ‘I’m Lamb. That’s Shy.’ The Northman raised his glass, the stump of his middle finger plainly visible in spite of the bandages.

  ‘A nine-fingered Northman,’ mused the captain general. ‘I do believe a fellow called Shivers was looking for you in the Near Country.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Ah.’ Cosca waved his bottle at Lamb’s injuries. ‘I thought perhaps this might be his handiwork.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You appear to have many enemies, Master Lamb.’

  ‘Sometimes it seems I can’t shit without making a couple more.’

  ‘It all depends who you shit on, I suppose? A fearsome fellow, Caul Shivers, and I would not judge the years to have mellowed him. We knew each other back in Styria, he and I. Sometimes I feel I have met everyone in the world and that every new place is peopled wi
th old faces.’ His considering gaze came to rest on Savian. ‘Although I do not recognise this gentleman.’

  ‘I’m Savian.’ And he coughed into his fist.

  ‘And what brings you to the Far Country? Your health?’

  Savian paused, mouth a little open, while an awkward silence stretched out, several of the mercenaries still with hands close to weapons, and suddenly Shy said, ‘Cantliss took one of his children, too, he’s been tracking ’em along with us. Lad called Collem.’

  The silence lasted a little longer then Savian added, almost reluctantly, ‘My lad, Collem.’ He coughed again, and raspingly cleared his throat. ‘Hoping Cantliss can lead us to him.’

  It was almost a relief to see two of the Mayor’s men dragging the bandit across the gaming hall. His wrists were in manacles, his once fine clothes were stained rags and his face as bruised as Lamb’s, one hand hanging useless and one leg dragging on the boards behind him.

  ‘The elusive Grega Cantliss!’ shouted Cosca as the Mayor’s men flung him cringing down. ‘Fear not. I am Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, et cetera, et cetera, and I have some questions for you. I advise you to consider your answers carefully as your life may depend upon them, and so forth.’

  Cantliss registered Shy, Savian, Lamb and the score or more of mercenaries, and with a coward’s instinct Temple well recognised quickly perceived the shift in the balance of power. He eagerly nodded.

  ‘Some months ago you bought some horses in a town called Greyer. You used coins like these.’ Cosca produced a tiny gold piece with a magician’s flourish. ‘Antique Imperial coins, as it happens.’

  Cantliss’ eyes flickered over Cosca’s face as though trying to read a script. ‘I did. That’s a fact.’

  ‘You bought those horses from rebels, fighting to free Starikland from the Union.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I did!’

  Cosca leaned close. ‘Where did the coins come from?’

  ‘Dragon People paid me with ’em,’ said Cantliss. ‘Savages in the mountains up beyond Beacon.’

  ‘Paid you for what?’

  He licked his scabbed lips. ‘For children.’

  ‘An ugly business,’ muttered Sworbreck.