The Winter Road

by Adrian Selby

  “I’ll have Talley, my drudha, look at those wounds,” he says, “and give you something for what the Coffins have done to your bones.”

  “Not today. I just want to find something to wear, something warmer than this, get myself a bath and razor my head. You can give me some coin for that and then find me a fieldbelt and a good sword if you want to be useful. For the belt I’ll need luta leaves, whatever dayer you’ve got, preferably a galerin mushroom base. What’s the base for the fightbrew you have? Walnut and butterbur twist?”

  “Something like that. There’s a spread of fireweed, bark, shiel, lark in the scabbards, arnica presses, betony mix for paying colour. Othbutter will have guards following you, you know that.”

  I don’t answer, I just want to be let outside. I hold my hand up for him to pull me to my feet. He takes my weight as I heave myself up and holds me steady as I whimper at the pain in my knees and hips. I shush any words he’s about to speak and he waits silently while my body remembers its duty.

  “You should come to the Mash Fist tonight,” he says. “Threeboots will be there, she’ll be cheered to see you after all these years.”

  “Let me have some coin, Nazz. I want to go.” I think of Threeboots a moment, one of my old crew, but then I can’t be bothered, I can’t work up any anger, let alone regret. If she ever listened to me on a purse it was only because she loved Nazz. Betraying me and Thad down in Marola wouldn’t have caused her a wink of lost sleep.

  “You made the right choice coming with me, and you’re field-ready, Teyr, deep colour, all cut stone corners as we used to say. I’m trying to persuade Ruifsen to come, Threeboots is with us, she’s on my purse anyway, and one of my cutters told me he saw Salia on the quay, which is a sign Sillindar watches over us—well, if we want to believe that shit and if she’ll take the purse. She apparently came in on a ship two days ago. There’s a few of your friends from the Coffins who know their way about arms and’ll be happy to avoid the noose. Then there’s my own people, and I’d stand my coin on them against anything in the Circle.”

  I say nothing. He shrugs, takes two silver pieces from his belt, Hope stamped, a lot of coin for most who live hereabouts.

  “I know where to find you, Nazz. How long before we leave?”

  “How long do you need, Teyr? To recover from your stint in the Coffins and pay back in I mean, proper colour. You’ll need a few flasks and a week or so, I’d say. Stop in at shed twelve for your belt, sword and flasks tomorrow. Would you go to see Ruifsen? He’s at the farm, has been a long time, as you probably know, but I’m sure if you asked him to come he would; there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you, and he hasn’t changed.”

  “Meaning there’s nothing he would do for you. There’s a time you’d both do anything for me, Nazz, until Marola, and he had the droop for an excuse when you all rode away and left me and Thad with forty-odd mercenaries paid for a crossroads on us.” “Crossroads” meant they had to kill us or die trying. Serious purse.

  I let go of his hand. I’m steady so I turn and leave him standing there and shuffle up to the doors to the just, and I open them to the day, the sea, the life of the port, salt and sweet, ignorant of what might be coming. Fucking Othbutter.

  With no yellow flag flying, nobody’s slowing as they pass in the hope of seeing hangings or floggings at the stand.

  I look up to the hills. I can’t help myself. I’m looking to where our house is, looking to get away from these crowds, find some sky with a flask of wine and a thick piece of ham.

  I head along Ridsen, left off the justice and I walk around wagons that have got themselves in a mess, one with a broken wheel. Alik’s is open, one of the places Steppy used to run. The air’s greasy with heavy, bad bacca and rot in the mortar and wood, but that’s always been its air and it hasn’t fallen in yet. One of the silvers gets me their “finest Juan imported” brandy, a muslin-wrapped hunk of salted bacon and a half-wheel of cheese. I give a handful of pennies to go around those that serve and cook.

  If I’m being followed I don’t see them. I wonder if Nazz has had a word.

  I turn right off Ridsen onto Wadey and right again onto Packham, the east quay’s merchant quarter. Then I’m through the shadows of Folken alley to the tall gate, up through the farmers’ huts and the hill beyond them. The stony path is warm on my soles as I climb the hill. It quickly turns muddy and the nettles at the top catch and nip me all over. “Paths need walking,” Aude had said. “Our boots make them strong.” And I’m watching his boots a few steps ahead, his odd gait that I felt belonged to me, his fine legs. Finally I crest the hill above the harbour at Hillfast, and before me, a hundred or so feet off, is our house. I see a bright new fence post and planks, fresh and proud amid their weathered and weary neighbours, speaking of a recent repair. Thornsen. I remember now he’d come up here on his day off to give his children somewhere to run among the old apple trees, but it seems he’s also keeping the place in some order.

  The path from the gate is swept, the gate opens silently, recently oiled.

  “You haven’t oiled the main door though,” I say out loud, for it cracks open with a rasp. The rooms are empty, silent but for the feathery scratching of a mouse somewhere nearby as I move to the windows and unlatch the shutters. We had goat-horn plates put into a frame before the shutters, so that we could have some sunlight in my little office and our main room without the cold. These were the first such windows many had seen, though they were everywhere in Marola, a legacy of the wealthy Harudanians during their occupation of that land.

  The plates bleach the sun to the colour of butter. Only two chairs remain in the room, and like the desk they’re thick with fronds of dust. Each bare nail in the walls is a marker, a needle of remembrance for the embroidery or carving that once hung there but now lies in a chest in our bedroom. I follow the nails that mark the walls through the hall into the kitchen and scullery beyond, though with the shutters fast only my black eye can see. I see instead Mosa and a kitchen girl I can’t now recall the name of watching Aude skinning a rabbit; the soft crack as the feet are severed, his swift cutting, the easy pull and twist of the fur leaving the glistening, vulnerable-looking body, the length of it always a surprise. I close my eyes to wish this memory away, but the smell of its blood is making me light-headed. Mosa is speaking, saying something I can’t quite catch, the girl’s head is tilted as though listening to Aude, who may have been instructing her.

  I have to get away and walk back along the hall. I’m at the door to our bedroom. Two candles, one at Mosa’s bedside, one at ours. I’d wake earlier than them, always, the price of the colour, the pain seeping through whatever salves and kannab give me sleep. Every morning, turning back at the doorway, candle in hand, checking to be sure I haven’t disturbed them. Aude’s hand would move over the cooling fur where I’d lain, Mosa only a tuft of hair visible in a ball of wool on his own mat.

  “Then I’d crack out my bones before I made the fire,” I say, “cussing and fucking freezing until it got going.” The echoes of my voice slip and slide through the house, as though the house itself doesn’t want to hold or bear me speaking to it. It makes me shiver.

  “Why am I here?”

  “You don’t know?”

  I spin, startled, I go for my sword instinctively, my hand brushing the wool of my tunic.

  “Thornsen! Fucking Sillindar, you move quiet.”

  “And you’re still quick. That sword would be through me if you’d worn it, then I’d be sorry. I guessed it might be you but couldn’t be sure.”

  He’s standing at the front door I left open.

  “I spoke to ward off the ghosts. They don’t want me here.”

  “I’ve brought up some kindling, candles, some oil and a flask of uisge. Would you sit with me, Master?” He takes a cloth from a pocket in his cloak for my tears the moment before they fall. My crying takes over and he hugs me close and waits.

  “Come on now. Let’s get a fire going here, see if the house’ll rem
ember you then.”

  With some wood I hadn’t noticed was piled in the corner of the room, he gets a fire going in the hearth while I’m sitting there, breaking off mouthfuls of cheese and swigging them down with brandy. He pulls up the other chair next to me, and we watch the flames lick the bark of the bigger cuts, building its appetite.

  “You bring Epny and the children here?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Fuck it, Thornsen. Teyr please, just Teyr. I’ll not be Master again.”

  “Of course. We came for the apples after you’d all left last year and I thought they’d need some cropping anyway to get a good yield this year. Epny baked you some in pastry if you recall, with that bit of sugar you gave us from the Thirsty Crow’s cargo. Anyway, I wanted to keep the house in some order for you, for your return. We had some good feasts here over the years, all your crew’s children and … you showed us all such kindness.” I take his hand and hold it while I nip at the brandy, warming up my throat, filling my chest with oranges and browns. Epny was beautiful, a bawdy bark of a laugh, happiest in the vortex of their four children, the sister I never had.

  I tell him what happened to us. I don’t tell him about the Mothers and the things I did there to live, only what come after, with the Kelssens and today with Othbutter.

  “I’ll have Leyden visit that almshouse when he’s back at Carl, see how our coin’s being spent caring for those duts,” says Thornsen, before tipping a measure of uisge into the cap of the flask. It catches in his throat and he coughs. I never saw the appeal, but then he’s never tried to swallow the awful mulch and curd of a fightbrew, closest thing to a throatful of nettles there is.

  “Is his shirt here?”

  “It is, Teyr. It’s in the bedroom. I found a lovely satchel to keep it in. Do you want to see it?”

  I always see it.

  “No. I’m just glad it’s home. I hope he will have been able to follow it.”

  The fire’s warmth is welcome, the flames echoing in the chimney. My feet are warming up.

  “I want you to have my concern, Thornsen. You’ve run it, you’ve helped me and guided me all the way since I hired you. You and Epny have sacrificed so much to see it go well. I don’t intend to come back here, even if I was carrying Khiese’s head.”

  “You said that to me yesterday. I’m not interested.”

  “Who will run it otherwise? There’s too many good people relying on you now.”

  “We can’t talk about this now, Teyr. Too much may still happen. There’s much good still to do.”

  “The only good I can see is killing Samma Khiese, and who will that bring back from the dead?”

  He gives me a sympathetic look, lays his arguments down and huffs his way through another mouthful of uisge.

  “You’re going back to the Circle.”

  “He said he would kill Aude if I did,” I says.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. Aude must be dead. It’s been so long, and we both know he’s got no wild in him.”

  “Can you live not knowing? Does he think you’ll go back after him?”

  “Khiese? He probably thinks I’m beaten. Always in his speaking he was sure of himself. Not sure, certain. What have you heard about matters east?”

  His face darkens. He struggles to meet my eyes as he looks for what to say.

  “It isn’t good, Teyr. The Crutters have been to see Othbutter, according to his guards, and his guards talk when a bit of plant is wanted of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Crutter’s lost three Families now and then half his remaining men trying to claim them back from Khiese. Othbutter’s lost the Crutters and given they won’t side with Khiese the merchants are expecting a coup. Crutters and some Kreigh clans they’re tight with might well be marching in with more soldiers than Othbutter can muster, though he’s had the call out for a few months now for any and all mercenaries to come. The worst is, I’m sorry to say, Elder Hill and Faldon Ridge have fallen to Khiese.”

  “Omar?”

  “No word. I sent three scouts separately, none have come back. Families taken care of.”

  I have nothing to say for a bit, remembering how Omar’s jokes was dry as sand and he’d always be getting our apprentices to ask the smith for a left-handed hammer or to see the carpenters and coopers for wax nails.

  “Best castellan I ever saw, they all loved him at the Ridge, loved him wherever he went.”

  “We took the last chests of coin only a few weeks before it went quiet. His report spoke of some trouble in the Circle—bandits—and he’d requested coats of chain and arms, ingots as well.”

  I know what I’ll find when we get to Faldon Ridge. I see no point in sharing it with Thornsen.

  “Othbutter’s fucked,” I says.

  “Quite.”

  I sip the brandy, feel him watching me.

  “You should come to the house tonight, Teyr. We’ll put a bath on for you, Epny’ll take care of you.” He struggles to speak. “You …”

  “Look the wrong side of sixty? I know.” I feel like a sack of gravel. I’d be worse, fingers and toes only saved from frostbite by whoever the Oskoro have that pass for drudharchs. My hands are lumpy, the colour blackened in places by bruises, cuts and whatever they put on my fingers. I haven’t had salts or rubs for a long time and I got used to everything being sore and hurting.

  “I was going to say you’ll let us fit you out properly for this purse. If you have some time you should get back on the brews and the rubs, it’ll help you with your Forms so you can go and execute this bastard and bring Aude home.”

  I think briefly about refusing to go with him, drink myself under and sing to the darkness filling the house beyond this room. That would be too easy, too soft. I think I’ll put up with their love for a while, straighten myself out for what’s to come.

  Chapter 10

  I’m standing over a bench in the Mash Fist, where I’d spent the previous few days sleeping to avoid seeing any of my old company. I’m fixing my belt, packing a bedskin, bilt and other bits for the walk to Ruifsen’s farm. Good as their word, Thornsen and Nazz had fitted me out proper with what I’d need for a return to the Circle.

  “Teyr?”

  Her accent hasn’t changed; she always made my name sound more exotic than it is, like some breathy and beautiful sigh.

  Salia.

  She hasn’t changed since she was in my crew; at six foot tall she draws all the eyes in the room to her. Perhaps the beauty in her face which tapers like an almond is a little more set, hard work and age thinning out the softness of youth. Her green eyes are lit up by the deep brown and blue-shaded skin of the colour she’s paid. She still has her black hair, though it’s tied back in a thick tail. She was the difference on more skirmishes than I can count, a killer as cold as they come. What I recall of her dry and unforgiving humour, her beautiful body as we shared skins on nights out in the field, was long worn out with her betrayal back in Marola.

  She walks over from the doorway, and I put my arms out for an embrace, a chance to get a sense of how ready she is, because I feel like we’ll be talking about Nazz’s purse very shortly. I’m suspicious of why she’s here at this time, even if Nazz isn’t. She feels hard and strong, square cut as Nazz would have said. I hold her hands as we pull back and they feel agreeably rough and callused.

  “You still move like a dancer and your hands still feel like they hold a sword,” I says.

  “I can choose my work these days, though it’s all for Farlsgrad’s king and it pays well. Word’s crossed the Sar regarding Othbutter’s troubles in the Circle. I thought I’d see for myself. I saw you yesterday, coming in here with a freshly waxed pack and that new scabbard you’re wearing. A new sword as well?”

  “I’m off to see Ruifsen. He still lives about, his brother’s farm. Thought I’d walk it.”

  She gives me a feeble smile, no interest in Ruifsen but too polite to say otherwise.

  “
Are you taking that handsome lad that’s pretending he’s not watching this place from across the lane?”

  “I am. A long story.”

  “Like that beautiful eye of yours. What caused it? Is it some new recipe?”

  “Salia, it’s good to see you alive and looking so well, but let’s not pretend you give a shit about me and I’ll pretend you didn’t leave me to die in Marola. Why don’t you find Nazz, whose purse I’ve just taken, and join the crew he’s putting together? I suspect it’s why you’re here.”

  She nods slowly, taking that one on the chin. It surprises me that she isn’t protesting ignorance of Nazz’s crew and that perturbs me all the more. She was a frighteningly good merc back in our prime, and her leathers, her colour, the strong smell of her plant speak well of her coin and status now. I’d wager she’s been sent by someone close to the king to report on the state of Hillfast.

  “Seems like you’ve had a hard few years, Teyr. It would explain you paying in again. Give Ruifsen Sillindar’s blessing from me, would you?”

  “Of course I will. May Sillindar follow you.”

  I had no desire to suggest we meet up on my return, for all that I guessed she might have felt at least a bit awkward about seeing me again after what happened. So I walk past her and out of the Mash Fist onto the lane. I gesture to the man Salia had pointed out, the guard that was to watch me.

  “I hope you’ve got your walking feet on, lad. Get yourself a pack, we’re leaving for the North Four farms. Did they only send you?”

  He sulks and whistles to another further along the lane, signs to him what we’re doing.

  “I have to have your sword, Teyr,” he says. “I don’t want to be run through the moment I fall asleep out there.”

  “Get a fucking hold of yourself, boy. I’m wearing this sword and I have no desire to run and save my life, let alone kill you to do it. I’m just looking for a few chalk-faced traitors I can die with. Bring your friend along, he’ll give you someone to talk to.”