This uprising had been appalling, of course, but perhaps good could come of it. It could be the moment he ceased to be a disappointment. To the world and to himself. With Savine at his side, he could do anything. Be anything. He strode up and down his tent, the ideas spilling over each other. Facing the day used to be an unbearable effort. Now he could hardly wait to get started.
He had to understand what was truly going on, not just in the corridors of power, but down in the dirt with the common folk. Speak to that woman Teufel. She clearly knew what was really what. Then, when he got back to Adua, interviews with the Closed Council about policy. Proper ones this time, with a real agenda. How he could change things. How he could free the nation of its debts and build. Get rid of those circling vultures Valint and Balk. Spread the wealth. What good was progress if it only benefitted the few? He had to make sure nothing like this uprising could ever happen again. And no bloody apologising for himself this time! Would Savine apologise for herself? Never!
The tent flap was ripped rudely aside and Hildi came stomping in, leaving a trail of muddy bootprints across the groundsheet.
“Morning, Hildi!”
She appeared to be a great deal less pleased with him than he was, not even glancing in his direction as she dragged a great basket of wood sullenly to the stove.
“Wonderful day, isn’t it?”
Orso’s mother had made him bloodhound sensitive to the particular character of punishing silences, and Hildi’s was beginning to feel serious. She threw back the door of the stove with a bang and started shoving logs into it as though they were knives and the stove a despised enemy.
“Something bothering you, by any chance?”
“Oh no, Your Highness,” her high voice close to outright collapse under the weight of sarcasm.
“And yet I sense the slightest frisson of hostility. Grievances are like a drunkard’s bed, Hildi. Always better aired.”
As she turned towards him, he was taken aback by her look of violent hostility. “I defended you! When folk laughed! I spoke up for you!”
“I… appreciate your support?” ventured Orso, baffled.
“You bloody knew this would happen!”
He swallowed, a sense of profound dread beginning to creep up his throat. “What would happen?”
She raised a trembling hand to point towards the flap, beyond which the sound of hammering and raised voices seemed to have taken on a suddenly sinister air. “This!”
Orso pulled his dressing gown about him and ducked into the chilly morning.
Once his eyes had adjusted to the brightness, everything looked rather ordinary. Officers enjoying their breakfast. Soldiers warming their hands at a fire. Others striking a tent as they prepared for the journey back to Adua. A smith some way off was hammering away at some wrought iron. No massacre, plague or famine that he was responsible for, as far as he could—
He froze. A tall pole, almost a mast, had been erected beside the road into Valbeck, a gib sticking sideways from the top. From the gib hung a cylindrical cage. In the cage was a man. A dead man, clearly, his legs dangling. A few curious crows were already gathering in the branches of a tree nearby.
An officer saluted him with a hearty, “Your Highness!” and Orso could not even bring himself to acknowledge it. He wanted very much not to approach the gibbet but he had no choice, the camp mud cold on his bare feet as he picked his way closer.
Two Practicals held the base of the pole while another thumped down the earth around it with a great mallet. A fourth was conscientiously hammering nails into its supports. A large wagon was drawn up beside them. On the wagon were more poles. Twenty? Thirty? Superior Pike stood beside it, frowning at a large map, pointing something out to the driver.
“Oh no.” Orso’s guts weighed heavier with every step, as though they might suddenly tear free and drop out of his arse. “Oh no, no, no.”
The cage creaked as it turned slowly towards him, displaying its occupant, his face awfully slack behind tangled grey hair. Malmer. The man who had led the Breakers. The man to whom Orso had promised amnesty.
“What the fuck have you done?” he screeched, at no one in particular. A fool’s question. The answer could scarcely have been more obvious. Their whole purpose was to make it as obvious as they possibly could.
“We are gibbetting two hundred of the ringleaders at quarter-mile intervals along the road from Valbeck,” droned Pike, as though Orso’s despairing shriek had been a straightforward request for information without the slightest emotional element. As though the issue was the precise positioning of the corpses, not that there were any.
“Well…stop, damn it!” frothed Orso, his majesty somewhat dimmed by having to hold his dressing gown up like a lady’s skirts above the road muck. “Fucking stop!”
One of the Practicals paused halfway through swinging his hammer, a questioning brow raised at the Superior.
“Your Highness, I fear I cannot.” And Pike nodded the man on, the hammer tap, tap, tapping at the nail. The Superior slid out a weighty-looking document, several signatures scrawled at the bottom, a great red and gold seal attached which Orso recognised immediately as his father’s. “These are the express and specific orders of His Eminence the Arch Lector, backed by all twelve chairs on the Closed Council. Stopping now would do no good in any case. The two hundred traitors have already confessed and been executed. All that remains is to display them.”
“Without trial?” Orso’s voice had gone terribly shrill. Hysterical, almost. He tried to bring it under control and failed entirely. “Without process? Without—”
Now Pike turned his lashless, loveless eyes on him. “Your father has granted the Inquisition extraordinary powers to examine, try and execute the perpetrators of this rebellion at once. His edict countermands your feelings, Your Highness, or mine, or, indeed, anyone’s.”
“But I fear there was never really an alternative.” Yoru Sulfur was lying on the back of the wagon, perfectly at ease among the hanging posts with one hand behind his head. His highly specific diet evidently allowed fruit, as he had a half-eaten apple in the other. He had different-coloured eyes, Orso noticed as he gazed up calmly at the gibbet, one blue, one green. “I have seen many cases like this and, take my word for it, justice must fall like lightning. Swift and merciless.”
“Lightning rarely strikes those who deserve it,” grated Orso.
“Who among us is entirely innocent?” Sulfur bared his teeth to take a bite from his apple and thoughtfully chewed. “Could you really have let these Breakers go? To scatter to the winds and spread chaos across the Union? To foment further uprisings? To teach the lesson that murder, riot and treason are small matters, hardly to be remarked upon and certainly not punished?”
“I promised them amnesty,” muttered Orso, his voice getting weaker with every syllable.
“You said what had to be said to bring this unfortunate episode to a close. To ensure stability. A stable Union means a stable world, my master is always saying.”
“You cannot be held to your word by traitors, Your Highness,” added Pike.
Orso winced at the mud. He realised his cock was still painfully trapped behind his belt and hooked a surreptitious thumb through his dressing gown to let it flop loose, all trace of morning magnificence entirely wilted. Sulfur’s arguments were proving hard to disagree with. Ruling a great nation seemed a much more complex business than it had a few moments ago in the privacy of his tent. And what could he do about it anyway? Unhang the Breakers? His useless anger was already guttering out, replaced by equally useless guilt.
“What will people think of me?” he whispered.
“They will think that, like Harod and Casamir and the great kings of old, you are a man who does what must be done!” Sulfur nibbled away at the core of his apple and wagged a finger. “Mercy is an admirable quality in smallfolk, but I fear it does not keep kings in power.”
“Feel free to use me as the villain again,” added Pike. “I must accep
t that I am somewhat typecast.” He bowed stiffly. “And now please excuse me, Your Highness, there is a great deal to be done. You should return to Adua with all speed. Your father will be keen to congratulate you.”
Sulfur stripped his apple to the stalk and flicked it away, lazing back in the gibbet’s shadow with one hand behind his curly head. “I don’t doubt you will have made him very proud. My master, too.”
Father would be very proud. Not to mention this fool’s master. One of Malmer’s trouser legs had ridden up to show his calf, grey hairs on the pale skin stirring faintly with the wind. One eye was closed, but the other seemed to peer down in Orso’s direction. He had heard it said that dead men have no opinions, but this one appeared to hold an exceptionally low one of Orso even so. Almost as low as he did himself.
“Not quite the end to our adventure we were hoping for.” Tunny had walked up, a steaming cup of tea in one hand. “But it’s an end, I suppose.”
Orso was not sure he had ever liked the man less than at that moment. “Why didn’t you get me?” he grated out.
“It was my impression that you were otherwise engaged.” Tunny cleared his throat significantly. “And what good would it have done?”
“I could’ve… I could’ve…” Orso struggled to find the words. “Stopped this.”
Tunny handed him the cup and gave his shoulder a fatherly pat. “No, you couldn’t.”
Orso considered flinging the tea in his face, but his mouth really was very dry, so he took a sip instead. Above, the gibbet groaned and Malmer turned slowly away.
Orso the Merciful, might the historians call him, looking back admiringly on his achievements?
It did not seem likely.
Two of a Kind
“How are you?”
Leo winced as he stretched out his injured leg. “Still a bit sore.”
“It could have been far worse.”
He winced again as he pressed at the cut in his side. “No doubt.”
His mother reached up and brushed his bandaged cheek gently with her thumb. “I fear you’ll have some scars, Leo.”
“Warriors should, don’t you think? In the North they call them Naming Wounds.”
“I think we’ve had our fill of Northern customs over the last few days.”
“A break wouldn’t hurt.” Leo took a long breath. “Rikke hasn’t been to see me.”
“The outcome of the duel did not please her.”
“She’d rather I’d died?”
“She’d rather Nightfall had. She was quite vocal on that point.”
“She’s quite vocal on every bloody point,” grumbled Leo. Rikke might seem an ever-gushing spring of laughs but he was starting to see there was a well of deep grudges beneath. “And what do you think?”
“I think you spared Nightfall because you have a big heart.”
“Meaning I have a little brain?”
“Stolicus said to kill an enemy is cause for relief. To make a friend of him is cause for celebration.” Her eyes met his. That look she had when she wanted him to learn a lesson. “If you could make a friend of the Great Wolf… if you could build an alliance with the North…” She let it hang there.
Leo blinked at her. “Even now you’re thinking of the next step.”
“A runner who does not think of the next step will fall flat.”
“If Rikke’s sore at Nightfall being alive, how’s she going to feel about him being a friend?”
“If you want to be a great lord governor, her feelings cannot dictate your policy any more than mine. Or even yours. You have to do the best for the most. Do you want to be a great lord governor, Leo?”
“You know I do.”
“The Union has been at war with the North, on and off, ever since Casamir took Angland. We cannot beat the Northmen with swords, Leo. Not for good. We will always be fighting to keep them out.” She spoke very softly. “Unless we invite them in.”
“So… I’m a peacemaker now?”
“You’re a fighter, like your father was. But what separates great soldiers from mere killers is that they know when to stop fighting.”
Wincing at the pain in his side, the pain in his stomach, the pain in his thigh, Leo slipped his feet from the bed and swung them down onto the cold floor. “Got to admit, I don’t much fancy fighting right now.”
“I doubt we’ll keep you away from the swords for long.” Leo’s mother had a dry smile as she slipped a folded paper from her sleeve. “You received a letter. A message from the king. Or from his lord chamberlain, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me, they’re finally sending reinforcements.”
“They’ve heard they don’t need to. So, naturally, they overflow with praise for your martial prowess.”
“Their praise will be quite the salve on my wounds, I’m sure.”
“They offer more than that,” she said, looking back to the letter. “You are invited to Adua for a triumph. A grand parade, to celebrate your victory over the Northmen! I suspect the Closed Council want the king and his son to bask in your reflected glory.”
Leo rubbed at his slit shoulder through the bandages. By the dead, that smarted. “You’re the one who deserves the triumph.”
“For what? Retreating?” She put her hand on his. “You fought. You won. You deserve the rewards.” She paused a moment, looking into his eyes. “I’m proud of you.”
It was as if those words were another sword-cut, and he shut his eyes, and felt tears stinging at the lids.
He’d never realised how much he wanted to hear them.
It wasn’t easy.
He walked with a stick, every step an aching effort, the Northmen scattered about the vale competing over who could give him the most threatening glare as he struggled past. One was sharpening a sword with a steady scrape, scrape, scrape that seemed to be applied directly to his raw nerves.
“I’m getting the feeling they don’t like us much,” murmured Jurand through tight lips.
“I’m getting the feeling they don’t like anyone,” whispered Glaward.
“They don’t have to like us, as long as they don’t kill us.” Leo was starting to suspect this had been a very bad idea. But it would hardly have been his first. He put his head back and tried to walk as if he was looking for another duel right now.
It wasn’t easy. But if changing the world was easy, everyone would be at it.
There was a house down by the sluggish stream in the valley’s bottom, smoke smudging from its squat chimney. A man was just ducking from the low doorway, with iron-grey hair and an iron-hard frown. Leo recognised him from the Circle. Black Calder. Father of Stour Nightfall, brother of Scale Ironhand. The man who really ruled the North.
“You’re bold to come here, Leo dan Brock.” He narrowed his eyes as though he was a cat and Leo an especially reckless mouse. “Very bold or very foolish.”
Leo ventured a winning smile. “Can’t a man be both?”
It won nothing from Black Calder. “The two often go together, in my experience. Have you come to mock my son?”
“I’ve come to make a friend of him.”
Black Calder raised his grey brows. “Even bolder. But if you want to stick your head in the wolf’s jaws, who am I to stop you?”
“Which leaves only one thing.”
“Yes?”
Leo nodded towards the glowering warriors. “Your men have no business squatting on the Dogman’s land, specially with such warlike looks. High time they went back to their families and remembered how to smile.”
Black Calder looked at him a moment longer, then gave a snort. “Defeat makes them surly.” And he stalked off.
“You two wait here,” said Leo to his friends. He’d have liked nothing more than to take them with him. But some things you have to do alone.
It wasn’t much different from the room where he’d been lying the last few days. The sharp smell of healer’s herbs and stale sweat. The smothering warmth from the overbanked fire. The one bed, the one chair. Th
e well-used war gear heaped in the corner. A reminder that the man in here had been a warrior. A stubborn insistence that he would be again.
“Well, well. The Young Lion himself come a-calling.” Stour Nightfall lay back in a shadowed corner, bandaged leg raised on rolled blankets. His lip was twisted into an epic sneer, as if to make up for the bruises around both eyes and the crusting of blood under his swollen nose. “The last bastard I expected to see at my sickbed is the bastard who put me here.”
Leo hooked his walking stick over the back of the chair and sat down heavily. “A great warrior always tries to surprise.”
“You speak good Northern.”
“I lived a year in Uffrith, with the Dogman.”
Stour’s eyes gleamed in the half-light. Like a wolf’s eyes in the darkness of the forest. “And I hear you poke his scrag of a daughter.”
Leo held his eye. “When I’m not stabbing Black Calder’s scrag of a son.”
Stour’s sneer grew more savage. “’Cause of your sword, they say I might not walk again.”
Leo was too sore himself to find much sympathy. It would win nothing here anyway. “You’re mistaking me for someone who cares a shit,” he said. “I’m no nursemaid and no fucking diplomat, either. I’m a warrior. Like you.”
“You’re nothing like me.” Stour squirmed back on his mattress, grimacing as he shifted his leg. “I could’ve put you in the mud a dozen times over.”
“I daresay.”
“I was the better swordsman, by far.”
“I daresay.”
“If I hadn’t made a show of it—”
“But you did make a show of it, and you took me lightly, and you fucking lost.” And Leo had to admit he greatly enjoyed saying it. “Now you owe me your life.”
Stour clenched his fist as if he was about to strike. But you won’t punch anyone too hard lying on your back, and they both knew it. He sagged down, looking away, like one wolf beaten by another, slinking off into the undergrowth. “A lesson learned.” His eyes slid back to Leo’s. “Next time, I won’t give you the same chance.”
A Little Hatred Page 44