But Vick had a harder heart than that, and for damn sure a harder head. Or so she told herself.
“Been looking all over for you.” Tallow was at her elbow. No need for him to shove through the crowds. He was that thin, he could just slip through the gaps like a breeze under a door. He’d brought a girl, wearing a best bonnet that even Vick, who’d never worn a bonnet in her life, could tell had been out of fashion a century ago. “This is my sister.”
Vick blinked. “The one who—”
“I’ve only got the one.”
There was no telling how old she was. When children don’t get fed properly, sometimes they look far younger than they are, sometimes far older. Sometimes both at once. She had her brother’s big eyes but a face even thinner, so hers looked even bigger, like a tragic frog’s. Vick could see her own stern, distorted reflection in the damp corners of them, and didn’t much like the look of it, either.
“Go on, then,” said Tallow, nudging his sister with his elbow.
The girl swallowed, as if she was dragging up the words from a long way down. “Just wanted… to thank you. It’s a good place, I been living. Clean. And they feed me. Much as I can eat. Though I don’t eat much, I guess. Just… our parents died, you know. We never had anyone looking out for us before.”
Vick was hard. Ask anyone who’d tried to cross her in the camps. Ask anyone she’d sent to the camps since. Ask anyone unlucky enough to run across her. Vick was hard. But that stung. The girl was thanking her for being a hostage. Thanking her for using her as a tool to make her brother betray his friends.
“What did Tallow tell you?” muttered Vick.
“Nothing really!” Worried she’d get him into trouble. “Just that he was doing some work for you, and so you were looking after me while he was doing it.” She glanced up, fearful. “Is the work done?”
“The work’s never done,” said Vick, and the girl perked up right away. Maybe she should’ve been happy that someone was happy about more work. But Vick had never been sure what being happy felt like. Maybe it had happened and she hadn’t noticed.
There was an ear-splitting fanfare, hundreds of boot heels crashing down together as the soldiers found their final places and brought the parade to an end. For a moment, all was still. Then someone rose from among the great men of the Closed Council, from beside the king, sunlight gleaming on the arcane symbols stitched into his shimmering robes. Bayaz, the First of the Magi.
“My noble lords and ladies! My stout yeomen and women! My proud citizens of the Union! We stand at the site of a great victory!” And he smiled out at the Square of Marshals. A place that was still being painstakingly rebuilt after he’d levelled it no more than thirty years ago. They said it would be better than ever when they were done. But things are always going to be better, or were better long ago. No politician ever got anywhere by telling people things are just right as they are.
“Here the best the Gurkish could send against us were utterly crushed!” And Bayaz shook one meaty fist, calling up a patriotic grumble as a conductor calls up the percussion. “Here their great emperor was utterly laid low. Here the Prophet Khalul was utterly humbled, his cursed army of Eaters sent back to hell where they belonged. We were told the emperor’s soldiers were countless, the Prophet’s children indestructible. But the Union was victorious! I was victorious. The forces of superstition and savagery were defeated, and the gates opened to a new age of progress and prosperity.” Bayaz’s smile was huge enough to be seen all the way across the arena. Clearly a magus could be as pleased with his own past glories as any other old man.
“To me—for it needs hardly to be said that I am very old—it still feels like yesterday. But the bright-eyed young heroes who fought the Gurkish here are old greybeards now.” And he set a heavy hand down on the shoulder of King Jezal, who looked more queasy than pleased by the recognition. “The pages of history turn, one generation gives way to another, and today we have not one, but two new famous Union victories to celebrate! In the North, on the barren borders of Angland, Lord Governor Brock defeated enemies without!” There was widespread cheering, and a child on someone’s shoulders frantically waved a little Union flag. “While here in Midderland, outside the walls of Valbeck, Crown Prince Orso put paid to rebellion within!”
Orso’s applause was quieter, especially at this end of the square, and what there was had the overblown quality of coming from purse rather than heart. The prince had few friends among the nobility, even fewer among the common folk. From what Vick could see of his expression, he knew it, too.
“I feel bad for Orso.” Tallow gave a maudlin little sigh. He’d a talent for maudlin, that boy. “Wasn’t his fault those folk got hanged.”
“Guess not,” said Vick. Less his fault than hers, anyway. “Fancy a pauper having pity to spare for a crown prince.”
“Pity costs nothing, does it?”
“You might be surprised.”
“I have seen many battles fought!” Bayaz called as the last of the cheering faded. “Many battles won. But I have never been prouder of the victors. Never held higher hopes for their futures. We of older generations will do what we can. To advise. To inform. To give the benefit of our hard-won experience. But the future belongs to the young. With young people such as these…” He spread his arms wide, one towards the man they called the Young Lion, the other towards the one they were starting to call the Young Lamb. “I feel the future could not be in safer hands.”
More applause, and more cheering, but there was grumbling, too, among the poor around Vick. Lord Isher had nudged his horse up close to Leo dan Brock, murmuring something under his breath, both of them frowning towards the royal box.
Trouble at both ends of the social scale. Trouble all over. Vick frowned at Prince Orso, then at that Northern girl with the hair like a bird’s nest blown from its tree. She was staring at her own hand with the oddest expression. From what Vick could tell, it was shaking. She scrambled drunkenly from her horse and took something on a thong around her neck and wedged it in her mouth.
“What’s got into her?” asked Tallow.
“Couldn’t say.”
Like a tree chopped down, she toppled over backwards.
“Rikke?”
She prised open one eye. A slit of sickening, stabbing brightness.
“Are you all right?” Orso was cradling her head with one hand and looking quite concerned.
She pushed the spit-wet dowel out of her mouth with her tongue and croaked the one word she could think of. “Fuck.”
“There’s my girl!” Isern squatted on her other side, necklace of runes and finger bones dangling, grinning that twisted grin that showed the hole in her teeth and offering no help at all. “What did you see?”
Rikke heaved one hand up to grip her head. Felt like if she didn’t hold her skull together it’d burst. Shapes still fizzed on the insides of her lids, like the glowing smears when you’ve looked at a candle in a black room.
“I saw a white horse prancing at the top of a broken tower.” Choking smoke, the stink of burning. “I saw a great door open but on the other side there was only an empty room.” Empty shelves, nothing but dust. “I saw…” She felt a fear creeping up on her then. “I saw an old chieftain dead.” She pressed her hand to her left eye. Felt hot still. Burning hot.
“Who was it?”
“An old chieftain, dead, in a high hall lit with candles. Men gathered about the body, looking down. All of ’em wondering what they could get from it. Like they were dogs, and that dead old man was the meat.” That fear grew worse and worse and Rikke’s eyes got wider and wider. “I have to go home.”
“You think it was your da?” asked Isern.
“Who else could it be?”
Shivers was frowning hard, sun gleaming on his metal eye. “If it is… there’s no telling who’ll seize power in Uffrith.”
Rikke winced at the thumping in her head. “All shadows where their faces should’ve been. But I saw what I saw!”
/>
“You’re sure?” asked Orso.
“I’m sure.” Rikke groaned as she pushed herself up onto one elbow. “I’ve got to go back to the North. And the sooner the…” She realised everyone was looking at her. And everyone was a hell of a lot of people right then. She wrinkled her nose at an unpleasant smell. “Ah, by the dead…”
My Kind of Bastard
“How’s the leg?”
Scale laughed, and slapped his nephew’s wounded thigh, and made him wince.
“Better’n it was,” said Stour as he stretched it out under the table.
“You’re lucky, boy.” Scale took another swig from his cup, ale leaking out into his beard. Clover would’ve thought a man who drank as much as he did would’ve got better at it, but the bastard couldn’t seem to stop spilling. “The Young Lion could’ve killed you.”
“Aye.” Stour frowned at the floor, still a trace of yellow bruises around his eyes. “I’d have killed him, if things had gone the other way.”
“Daresay you would’ve.” And Scale chuckled and beckoned for more ale. His old bastards had something smug about them now, and Stour’s young ones something grudging. When their master lost, they’d all lost a little themselves. A little pride, anyway. It’d been a long time since Clover had seen pride as aught but a handicap, yet some men still loved it more than gold.
“The king seems oddly pleased about his champion’s defeat,” muttered Wonderful, almost without moving her lips.
“Aye,” said Clover. “Maybe ’cause it gives him a chance to wag his finger and harp on the hubris of youth and go over all he’s learned in a long career of draining ale cups.”
“Even though he was every bit as keen on a duel as Stour.”
“That’s kings for you. The shit ideas are always someone else’s.” Clover watched Stour rubbing at his hurt leg. Seemed more tame puppy than Great Wolf now. Thoughtful. Subdued, even. “Looks like defeat might’ve finally taught our king-in-waiting some lessons, mind you.”
“Like it did you?”
“Failure’s the best schoolmaster, they say.”
Wonderful nodded, looking out at the room from under her grey-flecked brows. “So the war’s over.”
“Seems so,” said Clover. “A lot of men dead, and nothing much changed.”
“That’s war for you. Turns out best for the worst of us. No doubt we’ll have another presently.”
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“And in the meantime? Back to teaching sword-work?”
“Can’t think of aught else I’m fit for that I can do sitting down. You?”
Wonderful frowned over at Stour and let a breath sigh through her nose. “Long as I’m done babysitting this bastard, I really don’t care.”
“You could come join me.”
“And teach boys sword-work?”
“You’ve more wisdom to pass on than most, I reckon.”
She snorted. “More than you have, that’s for sure.”
“There you go. Like all good partnerships, we make up for each other’s deficiencies. You can do the passing of the wisdom, I’ll do the sitting in the shade.” And Clover took a sup from his own cup and grinned, thinking about being propped up against his favourite tree. The rough bark against his back. The sticks going clack clack down in the field.
“You’re serious,” she said, eyes narrowed.
“Well… I’m not not serious. If I’ve ended up doing things alone, it’s more through bad luck than preference.”
“That and through killing your friends, anyway.”
“This is the North,” muttered Clover. “Who hasn’t killed a friend or two?” And they grinned at one another, and tapped their cups together.
A few chairs down, Stour was frowning into his ale as if there was a riddle at the bottom. “I never lost before. Not at anything.”
“Would’ve won if it wasn’t for that fucking witch!” sneered Greenway, as bitter as if it was him who’d lost. “Fucking Long Eye, or whatever. Fucking cheating, that’s what that was. They should all have the bloody cross cut in ’em.”
“There’s no rule against shouting out, is there?” Stour spoke soft, and with a musing sort of look Clover never saw him wear before. “And I reckon she did me a favour. Losing… it’s made me see things a new way. Like putting a coloured glass to your eye and seeing the world in new colours, or… no! Like taking one away, and seeing the world as it is!”
Scale raised his brows at his nephew. He wasn’t the only one doing it. Clover scarcely had room on his forehead for how high his had gone.
“Might be you’re more like your father than I thought,” said the king. “I knew you were a fighter, but I never had you marked down for a thinker.”
“Nor did I,” said Stour, his wet eyes bright. “But when you’re laid up wounded, what can you do but think? Made me realise. The Young Lion didn’t put me in the mud. But we’re all heading there sooner or later.”
“True, Nephew, the Great Leveller waits for us all.”
“Made me realise.” And Stour stared at his hand as he curled the fingers into a fist. “You only have a lifetime to make your name and a lifetime might not be that long.”
“True, Nephew. No one’ll hand you a place in the songs. You have to seize it.”
“Made me realise.” And Stour thumped the table. “You can’t wait to take what’s yours.”
Scale smiled as he lifted his cup. “True, Ne—”
The word was cut off in a kind of sickly squelch, and the king puked blood and ale and Clover saw to his great surprise that Stour had buried a knife in his uncle’s neck.
There was a click and something spattered Clover’s face, and he saw the old warrior beside him just got his head split down to the bridge of his nose with an axe.
Another was shoved onto the table and had his head hacked off right there. Took two blows.
Another thrashed as Greenway cut his throat, kicking meat and cups off the table, ale spraying.
Another snarled curses, flailing with his eating knife, all tangled up with his own fur cloak before he got a sword through his guts. He swore and drooled blood into his beard then a mace stove in the back of his head.
One of the king’s serving girls had been knocked on the ground, the other was clutching her jug to her chest like she could hide behind it. Scale himself had flopped face down on the table, eyes popping and his tongue hanging out, still weakly blowing red bubbles out of his nose while bloody ale dripped from the edge of the table with a tap, tap, tap.
One of his old warriors was underneath it, crawling, snarling, crawling, trying to reach a fallen sword with his one good arm. He stretched, and stretched, like working his fingers across that little space of stone to the pommel was all that mattered. One of Stour’s boys hopped over the table and stomped down on the back of his neck once, twice, three times with a crunching of bone.
Didn’t take more than a few breaths for the old cunts to be sent back to the mud, the young to stand over ’em with smiles on their red-speckled faces.
Clover cleared his throat, and carefully set down his cup, and pushed back his chair and stood. Realised he still had a half-eaten meat bone in his hand and tossed it on the table, rubbing the grease from his fingers.
He felt strange. Calm. The axe made a sucking sound as it was dragged out of that old warrior’s head. Stour’s men turned towards him, red blades in their hands. Wonderful faced ’em, on her feet in a fighting crouch, sword levelled and teeth bared.
“Easy, everyone!” called Stour. “Everyone easy!” And he sat back, the wolf smile across his bruised face wider than ever. “See this coming, Clover?”
“We don’t all have the Long Eye.” For all his high opinions of his own cleverness, he’d been as blind to it as Scale. But he knew if Stour wanted him dead, he’d have been stretched out with the others. So Clover stood there, and waited to see which way the wind would blow.
“You make out you’re a silly bastard.” Stour took a little
sip from his cup and licked his lips. “But you’re a clever bastard, too. The wise fool, eh? Always thought your lessons were coward’s nonsense but, looking back, I see you had the right of it all along.” He wagged his bloody dagger at Clover. “Like what you said about knives and swords. Spent twenty years training with a sword every morning and every dusk, but I won more with one knife-thrust. I’d like you to stick with me. Might be you’ve more to teach. But… I’ll need a show o’ good faith.” He looked sideways, to Wonderful. “Kill her.”
She turned, eyes wide. “Clo—”
She looked greatly surprised as he caught her in a hug, her sword arm trapped under his left while he stabbed her in the heart with his right, and the blood gushed hot over his fist and down his arm and spattered the floor.
You have to pick your moment. He’d always said so. Told everyone who’d listen. Have to recognise it when it comes, and seize it, with no care for the past and no worries about the future.
He held her as she died. Didn’t take long. He told himself he’d want to be held when he went back to the mud, but it was really that he wanted to hold her. Needed to. What she felt about it, there was no knowing. The feelings of the dead weigh less than a feather.
No last words. Just a sort of grunt. And Clover lowered her to the ground and laid her in the widening pool of her own blood, her disappointed eyes fixed on some cobwebs high among the rafters.
“Fuck,” said Stour. “You didn’t have to think about that for long.”
“No.” Clover had seen a lot of corpses. Made a fair few himself. But he was having trouble thinking of Wonderful as dead. Any moment, she’d laugh it off. Make some joke about it. Cut him down to size with a raised brow.
“That was cold.” Greenway shook his head while another of the young warriors gave a long whistle. “Cold.”
A Little Hatred Page 55