“Shit,” she breathed.
She felt suddenly as weak at the knees as she had when Bremer dan Gorst rammed her into the wall. She had to slump back on Sworbreck’s desk, staring down at her discarded drawers, rumpled on the floor.
Everyone knew he was a vain, lazy, useless waste of flesh. A man she should not want. A man she could never have.
And she was totally in love with him.
PART II
“Progress just means bad things happen faster.”
Terry Pratchett
Full of Sad Stories
“Be sure to sweep the chimneys on the east side first,” said Sarlby, leaning on his broom. “These ones only just got doused. Still hot as the Maker’s forge.”
The sweep was a quivery old drunk with a squinty eye and a stink halfway between a tap-house and a mass grave. Two smells Broad knew better than he’d like. “I know my business,” he grunted, not even looking up as he led his boys past. Four of them, soot-smudged and hungry-looking, loaded with brushes and rods. The littlest whistled as he went, gave Broad a grin with a couple of teeth missing. Broad tried to grin back, but he didn’t have much of a grin in him.
“I swear that fucker’s more drunk every time I see him,” muttered Sarlby, frowning after the sorry little procession.
“If I hadn’t sworn off drink already, the sight of him’d be a winning argument for temperance,” said Broad.
“It’s a damn shame, lads that age sent down chimneys. How old was that youngest one, you reckon?”
Broad kept sweeping. He’d learned in Styria there’s a lot of things that are better just not thought about. Couldn’t be a coincidence that the happiest men Broad ever knew were generally the stupidest.
“They buy ’em, you know, from the pauper houses. Lads with no kin and no hopes. They’re hardly better’n slaves.” Sarlby wiped his forehead and leaned down close. “They scrub their knees with brine. Elbows, too. Scrub ’em raw, morning and night, toughen ’em up like boot leather so they can stand those hot chimneys.”
“It’s a damn shame.” Broad lifted his lenses to rub at the sweaty bridge of his nose, then settled them back. Summer outside and the kettles cooking all day inside and the brewhouse was hot as an oven. “But the world’s full o’ sad stories.”
“No doubt.” Sarlby gave a joyless little chuckle. “I know one poor arsehole lives in a cellar by the river over on Meadow Street, leaks so bad he has to bail it out every morning like his home was a sinking skiff. Where’s your family now?”
“Malmer found us a set of rooms halfway up the hill.”
“Oh, my lord.” Sarlby stuck his nose in the air and put on his idea of a nobleman’s voice. “A whole set?”
“If you can call two a set. They cost, but my daughter’s got work as a maid and my wife’s bringing some money in stitching. Funeral clothes, mostly.”
“All the best clothes around here are funeral clothes.”
“Aye.” Broad gave a sigh. “Always been good with a needle, Liddy. Good at whatever she turns her hand to. She’s the one with the talent.”
Sarlby grinned. “Not to mention the looks, the brains, the sense o’ humour… What is it you bring to the marriage, again?”
“Honestly, I’ve no bloody idea.”
“Well, good for you, and good for your family. Things aren’t so bad halfway up the hill, where the vapours are a little thinner. Someone’s got to come out on top, I guess. Someone’s got to do well while others suffer.”
Broad gave Sarlby a look over his lenses. “Will you ever stop pricking at me?”
“It’s your conscience doing that.”
“Oh, aye, you just hand it the ammunition.”
“You get tired of the stabbing feeling, you know what you can do.” Sarlby put a hand on Broad’s shoulder, murmured in his ear. “The Breakers are gathering, brother. More of us every day. There’s going to be a Great Change. Just a matter o’ when.”
Maybe it was the breath on his neck, or the sense of a secret shared, or the risk of what they were discussing, or just the sticky heat, but something gave Broad a shiver. He’d wanted to change things once. Before he went to Styria and learned things don’t change easy. “’Course,” he grunted. “And they’ll give every man his own dragon to ride and a candy castle to live in. Then when we get hungry, we can just eat the walls.”
“I’m no fool, Bull. I know what the world is. But maybe we can spread the wealth about a little. Maybe we can take some rich bastards out of those palaces on the hill and some poor families out of those cellars on Meadow Street. Maybe we can give each man an honest wage for an honest day’s work. Stop the false clocks and the fines and the girls pressed into night work. Put an end to the butchers selling tainted meat, and the flour bulked out with chalk, and the ale watered down with rotten water. Maybe we can make sure there’s no little boys being scrubbed with brine any more, at least. That’d be worth something, wouldn’t it?”
“Aye. That’d be worth something.” Broad had to admit there wasn’t much in Sarlby’s little speech he could argue with. “Never had you marked down for an orator.”
There was a clatter somewhere, further down the brewhouse floor. “I stole the words from better men,” said Sarlby. “You like that, you should come to a meeting, listen to the Weaver. He’d soon have you thinking our way.”
Broad could hear someone shouting, muffled. “Can’t afford to think your way,” he said, with some regret. “I gave up putting the world right a while back. First time we climbed those ladders, maybe. Second time, for sure. I’ve enough trouble at my back. Got to keep my head down. Look after my family.”
Another clatter, louder, and a cloud of soot came belching from one of the fireplaces they’d just doused.
“What the hell?” Sarlby took a step towards it. “We’re trying to sweep up down here!”
A scraping, slithering sound echoed from that fireplace, and another puff of soot, and a high wail came from inside. Broad went cold all over at the sound of it—shrill with pain and panic.
“I can’t get out!” Had to be one of the sweep’s boys. “I can’t get out!”
Broad and Sarlby stared at each other, Broad seeing his own helpless horror mirrored in his old comrade’s face.
“He’s trapped in there!” squawked Sarlby.
Broad dashed to the chimney, dropping his broom, clambering up onto a bench beside the flue. The fires had been burning all day. Even on the outside, the bricks were hot to touch.
There was another clatter, the sound of something sliding, and the boy’s cries turned to mindless, wordless shrieks.
The flue had been built no better than most of Valbeck, and Broad tore at its crumbling mortar with his fingertips, with his fingernails, as if he could rip it apart with his bare hands and get to that boy, but he couldn’t.
“Here!” Malmer had run over, was shoving a crowbar at him, and Broad snatched it from his hands and started digging at the loose mortar, stabbing, hacking, brick chips flying while he hissed curses.
He could hear the boy inside, no screams for help any more, just coughs and whimpers.
A brick came grinding free and the wash of heat made Broad jerk his face away. He wedged the bar in the gap, used it as a lever, popped more bricks out.
Soot came billowing with them and he coughed, dust across one side of his lenses. He saw Sarlby grab at the side of the ragged hole, gasp at the heat, tear his apron off and wrap it around his hands.
Broad rammed his bar into the chimney and heaved with all his weight, trembling with effort, growling through gritted teeth. A great wedge of bricks tore free and tumbled down, the black flue opened up and Broad saw something wedged in there. Two black sticks. One had a boot on the end.
So hot inside. Oven hot. Broad could feel the sweat springing out of his face. The boy’s trousers were smouldering, smoking, the flesh of his legs all slick and bubbled. At first, Broad thought it was ash that slid off when he grabbed them. Then he saw it was skin.
He was hot, too hot to touch. It was a painful effort not to let him drop.
“Set him down!” rasped Malmer, sweeping a bench clear and slapping embers from the boy’s smouldering hair.
“Fuck,” whispered Sarlby, back of his arm across his mouth.
The boy didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Burned as he was, maybe that was a good thing. There was a smell like cooking. A smell like bacon in the pan of a morning.
“What do we do?” shouted Broad. “What can we do?”
“Naught we can do.” Malmer’s grey-fuzzed jaw worked as he stared down. “He’s dead.”
“Cooked,” whispered Sarlby. “He fucking cooked alive.”
“I thought you said the west side…” Broad turned to see the sweep standing there, the little lad next to him, staring. “I thought you said—”
It was cut off in a gurgle as Broad caught him by his collar, lifted him, rammed him into the broken chimney. He fumbled helplessly at Broad’s fists, the tendons standing stark from the tattoo on the back of his hand.
“I didn’t know…” Tears wet on his face and his breath stinking of drink and rot. “I didn’t know…”
“Easy,” Broad heard someone saying. A deep voice, soft and soothing. “Easy, big man. Let him go.”
Broad was like a flatbow cranked too tight, all that strain running through him, far easier to let the bolt fly than not. Took a mighty effort not to break the sweep’s back over the chimney, to unclench his hands and let go of his dirty coat, to step away from him, let him slide down to sit blubbing on the floor beside the boiler.
Malmer patted Broad on the chest. “There you go. Nothing to gain with violence. Not now.”
Not ever. Broad knew that. He’d known that for years. But what he knew and what he did had never had much to do with each other.
He looked back at the boy, lying there all blackened, all reddened. He made his aching fists unclench. He fumbled off his dirty lenses and stood breathing. He looked up at Sarlby and Malmer, two blurs now in the lamplight.
“Where are these meetings?”
Surprises
Rikke flopped down, misjudged it and sat so hard she bit her tongue and gave her backside quite the bruising. Isern had to shoot out a quick hand to stop her chair going over backwards.
“You’re drunk,” she said.
“I am drunk,” said Rikke, proudly. She’d hit the chagga pipe as well and everything had a lovely glow. Faces all shiny and smeary and happy in the candlelight.
“You’re proper shitted,” said Isern. “But people are forgiving of you because you’re young, foolish and strangely lovable.”
“I am lovable.” Rikke took another drink, which met just a smidge of burp-sick coming up the other way and made her half-choke and splutter ale everywhere. Would’ve felt extremely undignified if she’d been less drunk. As it was, she just laughed. “And being drunk, well, that’s the point of a feasht.”
Isern’s eyes slipped slowly towards her over the rim of her cup. “The word is feast.”
“That’s what I said,” said Rikke. “Feasht.” Bloody word, she couldn’t quite get her numb teeth all the way around it. The hall—or the barn, in fact, because they had to use what they could get these days—was falling quiet. Rikke’s father was getting up to give a speech.
“Shush!” hissed Rikke. “Shush!”
“I didn’t speak,” said Isern.
“I said shush!” Her cracked voice rang out across the now-silent barn, and her father cleared his throat, and Rikke felt all eyes on her and her face burned and she squashed herself down as low as she could go and took a stealthy slurp from her cup.
“Might be Calder and Scale and their bastards have us on the run!” called Rikke’s father. “So far.”
“So far, the bastards!” someone bellowed, and others seized the chance to growl insults of one kind or another at the enemy and Rikke curled her lip and spat onto the straw.
“Might be my garden’s been trampled to muck!”
“Was naught but brambles anyway!” someone called from the back.
“Might be I’m giving a speech in some fool’s barn rather’n my hall in Uffrith!”
“That hall smelled o’ dog!” came a voice, and there was a scattering of laughter from the hundred or more Named Men wedged around tables made from old doors.
Rikke’s father looked grave, though, and they soon shut up. “Lost a lot of things, in my life,” he said. “Lost ’em, or had ’em taken. Lot of good folk gone back to the mud these past few weeks. Lot of empty spaces, here, now, where friends should be sitting. Spaces that can’t ever be filled.” And he raised his cup, and so did everyone else, and a solemn murmur went around the barn.
“To the dead,” growled Shivers.
“To the dead,” echoed Rikke, sniffing back a sudden wave of sadness and anger mixed.
“But I’ve been blessed with loyal allies!” Rikke’s father nodded towards Lady Finree, doing her best to look comfortable, bless her. “And now my daughter’s come back to me.” He grinned down at Rikke. “So, in spite of some sorrows, I count myself lucky!” And he hugged her tight, and kissed her head, and while the barn rang to its ancient rafters with cheers and whoops, muttered softly, “Luckier’n I deserve, I reckon.”
“I’d like to raise a cup myself!” Rikke clambered onto the table with a hand on her father’s shoulder and held her cup over her head. Ale slopped out and spattered on the wood, though it was already so ale-spattered no one could’ve noticed the difference. “To all o’ you sorry bastards who were so hopelessly lost, but thanks to the tender guidance of Isern-i-Phail, were able to find your way back to me!”
“To lost bastards!” someone roared, and everyone drank, and there was laughter, and a fragment of song, and a fight broke out in a corner and someone got punched and lost a bit of a tooth, but all in good humour.
“By the dead, I’m glad you’re back safe, Rikke.” Her father cupped her face in his gnarled old hands. “Anything happened to you…” Seemed like he had tears glimmering at the corners of his eyes, and he smiled, and sniffed. “You’re all the good I’ve done.”
The way he looked worried her—washed-out and grey, years older than when she’d last seen him just a few weeks ago. The way he talked worried her—sappy and sentimental, always looking back like he’d nothing ahead to look to. But the last thing she wanted was to let him see she was worried, so she clowned more than ever.
“What’re you talking about, you silly old bastard? You’ve done piles of good. Mountains. Who’s done more good for the North than you? Not a one o’ these fools wouldn’t die for you.”
“Maybe. But they shouldn’t have to. I’m just not sure…” He frowned out at the barnful of drunk warriors like he hardly saw them. Like he was staring through them with the Long Eye and saw something horrible beyond. “Not sure I got the bones for the fight any more.”
“Now listen.” She caught his deep-lined face and dragged it back towards her, growling the words at him, fierce. “You’re the Dogman! There’s no man in the North got more bones than you. How many battles you fought in?”
He gave a faint smile at that. “Feels like pretty much all of ’em.”
“It is pretty much all of ’em! You fought beside the Bloody-Nine! You fought beside Rudd Threetrees! You beat Bethod in the High Places!”
He licked at one pointed tooth as he grinned. “I don’t like to boast, you know.”
“Man with your name doesn’t need to.” She raised her chin, puffed herself up, showed him how proud she was to be his kin. “You’ll beat Stour Nightfall and his arse-lickers, and we’ll see him hanged with brambles, and I’ll cut the bloody cross in him and send his fucking guts back to his daddy!” She realised she was snarling the words, spraying spit, shaking her fist in his face, and she made the fingers unc
url and wiped her mouth with them instead. “Or something…”
Her father was somewhat taken aback at her bloodthirstiness. “You never talked like that before.”
“Aye, well, I never had my home burned, either. Never understood why feuds were such a popular pastime in the North but I reckon I’m getting it now.”
Her father winced. “Hoped my scores would die with me and you could walk free of ’em.”
“Weren’t your fault! Or mine. Scale Ironhand attacked us! Black Calder burned Uffrith! Stour fucking Nightfall chased me through the woods. They trampled your garden…” she finished, lamely.
“The beauty o’ gardens is that they grow back.”
“Changes your feelings,” she growled, the anger bubbling up again at the memory, “when you’re sunk to your neck in a freezing river, starving and shitting yourself and quite fucking chafed as well, actually, and hearing some bastard brag on the horrors he’ll inflict on you. Break what you love, he said, and they’ve fucking broken everything. Well, I’ll break what they love, then we’ll see. Swore to myself I’d see Stour killed, and I swear I will.”
Rikke’s father gave a sigh. “The beauty o’ making yourself a promise is that no one else complains if you break it.”
“Huh.” Rikke realised she had her fists clenched again, decided to keep ’em that way. “Isern says I’m soft. Says I’m coddled.”
“There’s worse you could be.”
“Isern says ruthlessness is a quality much loved o’ the moon.”
A Little Hatred Page 19