Steebling, the old lord who owned the ruinous tower-house, sitting nearby with a gouty leg up on a stool, threw in an unhelpful snort of contempt.
“I’ll give the orders,” growled Leo, and Barezin sank grumpily into the roll of fat under his chin. “Please convey my thanks to His Majesty. He’ll have my answer within the hour.”
Tunny drew himself up in the saddle to deliver that exhibition of a salute again, then whisked his horse masterfully about and bore the king’s radiant standard back towards Stoffenbeck. You couldn’t deny it was a hell of a flag. Perhaps when this was over it would have to go back to Angland, where it belonged.
“We should attack at once,” growled Barezin, with a warlike flourish of his fist. “Eh, Isher? We should attack!” Some of the more aggressive lords manfully grumbled their agreement. Easy for them to say, they’d attacked nothing more dangerous than a pork chop in their lives.
Isher fidgeted with his gloves but said nothing. He’d a lot less to say on a battlefield than in a drawing room, on the whole.
“Are Stour’s men ready?” asked Leo, in Northern.
Greenway’s grin was almost a leer. “Oh, we’re always up for a fight.”
Jin frowned sideways at him. “He didn’t ask you to measure your cock. He asked if Stour’s men are ready.”
“They’re working through the woods. An hour and they’ll be at the treeline. Maybe two.”
Leo winced. Maybe two could easily mean three. It wouldn’t be enough to push Orso back, he had to crush him. Could they do it in the lag end of an afternoon? He shaded his eyes, trying to work through the distances, the times, but there was so much to consider, his sight danced and his head buzzed with it all. He turned to ask Jurand’s opinion, then remembered, and felt the sting of disappointment and betrayal all over again. He was the only one of Leo’s friends who’d ever really had an opinion worth listening to. Such a clear thinker. Such a cool head in a crisis. Why did the best man Leo knew have to be a bloody pervert? He clenched his fist.
“Isher, Barezin, what about you?”
“My men are up,” fretted Isher, sounding less than delighted about it. “Already deploying on the right.”
“And mine are coming up!” boomed Barezin. He couldn’t say a word without trying to make a threat out of it. “My Gurkish Legion will be ready to advance within the hour!”
Steebling gave another contemptuous cackle. Leo gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it.
“What about the rest of the Open Council?”
Barezin thumped his fat fist into his fat palm. “Mostly up!”
“Partly up,” said Isher. “Some are still bogged down on the bad roads…”
The roads were dried out now. It was damp command and soggy discipline that were slowing them down. They’d need more time to deploy, especially with those orchards and that river ahead. But then the bluff beyond looked only lightly held. It might be better to try to grab it now than wait…
“Damn it,” Leo muttered. As a captain, the right things to do were never in doubt. Follow orders. Care for your men. Lead by example. As a general, the right things were shrouded in fog. Everything was a best guess, a fine judgement, an each-way bet with thousands of lives staked on the outcome. The decisions he’d taken in the past had always been in the heat of the moment. He’d never had time to weigh the consequences.
Had his mother been right? Was he no general? He caught himself wishing she was with him and forced the thought away. By the dead, he was the Young Lion! But courage and a loud roar wouldn’t be enough. Antaup was right, it was bad ground. Men would die taking those positions. Good men. Friends like Ritter and Barniva, killed by his recklessness.
“We have the numbers,” he mused to himself, rubbing at his aching leg. “They have no help coming.”
“Bunch o’ bloody traitors,” said Steebling, more than loud enough to be heard, swigging from a bottle and giving them a scornful stare over it. Leo would’ve liked to kick him off his chair and roll him down the hill, but they were here to free the Union’s people from the tyranny of the Closed Council, not kick them off their chairs, however much they deserved it.
Mustred gave him a nod of encouragement. “The men of Angland are with you, Your Grace, whatever you decide.”
That should’ve been a comfort. But it only brought home to Leo that the decision was entirely his. He’d always prided himself on being the definition of a man of action. Now, in command, on a battlefield with the enemy before him, the very place he’d always dreamed of being, he felt paralysed.
He found himself wishing that Rikke was there. He loved Savine, but she’d a habit of forcing her opinions on people. A subtle, velvety kind of forcing, but her opinions still. Rikke had a way of cutting through the tangle to the simple heart of things. She’d helped him see what he wanted.
He rounded angrily on Hardbread. “Where the bloody hell is Rikke?” The old warrior swallowed and gave a helpless shrug.
High Ground
Rikke squatted in the wet woods, fretting at the old dowel around her neck, going over and over her own tooth marks with her thumbtip.
Her father had spent half his life squatting in wet woods, and it was nice to feel that she was following in his footsteps, but that was poor compensation for the clingy cold spreading across her back as the pines steadily drip, drip, dripped upon her.
“There’s a lot to be said for roofs,” she murmured, under her breath.
She glanced to the right. Armed men knelt among the trees, keeping low. The best men Uffrith had, scarred and war-wise, weapons ready and faces tense. Isern-i-Phail sat with her back to a tree and her spear across her knees, slowly chewing. She leaned to one side, spat and raised her brows at Rikke as if to say, Well?
She glanced to the left. More men. The Nail and the rest of Gregun Hollowhead’s considerable family to the fore, teeth bared like wolves seen a sheep. Hundreds more in the woods behind them, she knew. All tensed like clenched fists, waiting on her say-so. Shivers was on one knee, grey hair plastered about his face with the morning dew, twisting that ring with the red stone around and around on his little finger. He raised the one brow he had at her as if to say, Well?
Rikke narrowed her eyes. Not that narrowing the right one made any difference. A misty night had become a misty day, which had been helpful far as not being seen went but was no help at all far as seeing where they were going now. The road was clear enough, just beyond the trees. The bridge she could see all right. But the gate was naught but a gloomy rumour.
She fiddled at her dowel, fiddled, fiddled. Truth was she hadn’t needed it for months. Let alone a fit, she’d barely had a quiver since she came down from the forbidden lake with the runes on her face. She’d always hated having to wear the damn thing, but here she was hanging on to it. Some last shred of childhood. Some hint of a past where she didn’t have to make the hard choices.
She twitched at a clonking sound, craned up at a creaking over the chatter of the river and squinted towards the archway at a bobbing light. A breeze stirred the branches, and the mist shifted, and she saw two men. One had a fine crested helmet, mail gleaming under a long cloak. The other had a bald head, lamp held high in one hand as he pushed the other door wide.
And the gates of Carleon stood invitingly open.
Rikke snapped the thong with a jerk of her wrist and tossed the dowel away into the bushes.
“Go,” she hissed, and Shivers sprang up, quick and quiet with the Nail right at his heels. With a metal whisper, the first dozen were up and after them, then the next dozen, then the next.
“Come on,” Rikke whispered, nails cutting at her palms she was clenching her fists so tight. “Come on…”
She winced at the clattering footfalls as Shivers and the rest ran out onto the wooden bridge. A moment she’d seen before, she was almost sure. Seen with the Long Eye. The cloaked man in the gateway fumbled for his sword.
His shout became a gurgle as the bald man stabbed him in the throat
and shoved him back into the shadows of the tunnel. Proof once again that a little gold can succeed where a lot of steel might fail. He raised his lamp and stood politely out of the way as Shivers rushed past, leading a steady flood of armed men into Carleon.
Rikke slowly stood, wincing at the ache in her knees from all that squatting, and let her held breath sigh away. “So that’s it, then?”
“A good first step, anyway.” Isern planted one boot on a rock, grinning as a tide of warriors streamed through the misty woods around them and into the city, quiet as ghosts.
“Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to!” called Rikke as she set out towards the gates. She was far from the only one in the North with a taste for revenge, after all.
Things were surprisingly quiet inside the walls, for a city that just got taken.
Knots of Uffrith’s Carls stood on the corners, weapons drawn and shields in hand, one or two painted with the design of the Long Eye. Some prisoners sat about, weapons down and hands bound. A few townsfolk peered scared from windows and doors as Rikke walked past.
“Don’t worry!” She gave what she hoped was a reassuring grin, though the sight of her face didn’t reassure anyone much these days. “No one’s going to get hurt!” She saw a corpse being dragged away by a couple of Carls, leaving a bloody smear down the cobbles. “No one else’ll get hurt!” she corrected. “Long as you’re all, you know, polite.” She wasn’t sure she was helping. But at least she was trying. Trying a deal harder than when Black Calder took Uffrith, she reckoned.
The Nail was leaning against a wall, using a dagger to carefully drill a hole in the pointy end of an egg. He’d a way of standing very still, nothing moving until it had to.
“Worked, then,” he said as she walked up.
“Told you it would.”
“Not sure we’ve lost one dead.”
“Good news. On their side?”
“A couple. Weren’t a tenth o’ the men guarding the place there’d usually be.”
“Aye,” said Rikke. “They’re all off in Midderland, fighting King Orso.”
“Where you told ’em you’d be.”
“That’s why I told ’em so. Reckoned we’d have a lot more fun here.”
The Nail shook his head, blade flashing as he worked that dagger back and forth. “I knew you were a bad enemy to have.” He looked up at her from under his pale brows, his pale lashes. A long, slow look, just taking it all in. “Now I’m wondering if you might be a bad friend to have and all.”
“I’m a bad friend to betray, I can tell you that. Savine dan Brock would’ve sold me out soon enough.” Rikke realised she’d put her hand to the chain of emeralds she wore and took it away again. “She’s a woman who sells everything.” The two of them smiling together, on the bench in her father’s garden. Her hand on Savine’s belly. The baby shifting under her fingers. “As for her husband…” She thought of Leo’s boyish grin, all trusting, all heart, thought of him laughing with her father, thought of the boy he’d been, playing in the barn. She wondered what’d become of him now, in Midderland, without the help she’d promised. She felt a twinge of guilt, then was annoyed with herself for feeling it. You have to make of your heart a stone.
“Have I done what I said I’d do?” she asked.
“You have,” said the Nail.
“Has it worked out the way I said it would?”
“Thus far.”
“So what’s your complaint?”
“I’m not saying I’ve got one.”
“What are you saying?”
He blew a little dust from the top of his egg and his pale eyes rolled up to hers. “I’m saying don’t give me one.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” She nodded towards the big wall up ahead. The one Bethod had built on the high ground around Skarling’s Hall. The strongest wall in the North, maybe. Some men were easing towards the gate with their shields up, and a couple of arrows looped down and skittered from the cobbles, made them shuffle back. “In the meantime, we’ve still got work.”
“There’s always work.” The Nail kept on drilling at that egg with his dagger, patient as tree-roots. “The gates were shut when we got here. Whoever’s inside don’t feel like opening ’em. Keeps shooting arrows at us.”
“Not very neighbourly.”
“No. Come night-time, I was thinking I might climb over there and teach ’em better manners.”
Rikke considered the walls. Damned high, they were, and stark, and grey. “Let’s give ’em a while to consider their predicament. Meantime keep the peace, eh? Make sure no more blood gets spilled in town.”
“You’re forgiving.”
“A minute ago, I was too ruthless for you. Now forgiving’s a bad thing?”
“Depends who you forgive.” He squinted up towards the walls. “In war, you seize all the high ground you can.” He lifted the egg to his lips, looking small between his big finger and thumb. “Except the moral kind.” And he sucked the insides out through the hole. “That ain’t worth shit.”
Isern-i-Phail was in a square not far away, a row of disarmed warriors on their knees in front of her. Corleth stood nearby, proudly holding the standard of the Long Eye. Rikke walked over and planted her hands on her hips.
“I expect kneeling in the street wasn’t what you were hoping for when you got out of bed this morning,” she said. “I can only say I’m sorry for that.”
“Are you, though?” asked Isern. “Really?”
Rikke grinned all across her face. “Not one bit. The thought of Stour Nightfall’s face when he finds we stole his city is what’s been keeping me cheery these last few weeks.”
“Reckon he’ll shit his britches and cry for his mummy.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” said Rikke.
“But his mummy won’t come,” said Isern, cackling away to herself, “on account of being long years dead, d’you see, and he’ll be gnashing his teeth and kicking himself, and his mouth’ll pucker up like a little arsehole, and—”
“You are straying from the point, Isern.”
Isern cleared her throat. “’Tis a failing common in my family. Return us to the matter.”
“It’s not Stour’s mother I’m after, but his father.” Rikke turned back to the kneeling men. “You fellows help me out, you’ll find me reasonable. More reasonable than Stour fucking Shitefall, leastways.”
“Shitefall,” chuckled Isern, shaking her head.
“Now, where’s Black Calder?”
The one on the left, a sour-looking old bastard with a scar through his short grey hair, lifted his head to sneer up at her. “Fuck yourselves, you mad bitches.”
Rikke raised her brows at Corleth. Corleth raised hers back. “Fuck yourselves, he says.”
“I heard him,” said Rikke. “Guess there might be time for that later. Just a celebratory finger or two. But right now, I’m a little busy stealing your city. Where’s Black Calder?”
“Didn’t you fucking hear me?” He bared his teeth. “I said—” Isern grabbed him by the hair and stabbed him in the side of the neck, chopped his throat out with an easy flick of the wrist and sent black blood squirting, shoved him down into the gutter with her boot on his back.
It was good to be forgiving, but this was the North still. Rikke’s father never liked killing. Hadn’t stopped him doing it when he had to. It wouldn’t stop her, either.
“Might be there was a lot to like about him, once you broke through the gritty crust.” Rikke gave a sigh as she watched him squirm under Isern’s boot. “Might be he had a collection of interesting bird skulls, or an excellent singing voice, or a lot of love for his sadly passed sister that caused him to weep at the quiet times.” Rikke looked at the rest of the men, all of them staring over with wide eyes. “But there’s so much to feel sorry for in the world. Can’t waste too much on folk who act like pricks.”
The sour-looking bastard had stopped moving and Isern reached down, wiped her dagger on the arse of his trousers, got distracted by
her reflection in the bright blade, frowned as she rubbed at a smudge of something on her cheek.
Rikke stepped sideways, before the spreading pool of blood reached her feet, to stand in front of the next man. She’d always thought of herself as a figure of fun. Giggling Rikke, fountain o’ laughs. Still seemed strange people might be scared of her. But she had to admit there was something satisfying about the fear in his eyes. Beat contempt, anyway.
“I like your look better,” she said, wagging her finger at him.
“Pleasant-seeming personage, this one,” said Isern, tapping him on the shoulder with her dagger. “Family man, if I might take a guess?”
“Two daughters,” he croaked out.
“Aw,” said Rikke. “How old?”
“Six and two.”
“Aw,” said Corleth.
“Those girls need their daddy,” said Rikke. “I’m hopeful you’ll be helpful.”
“Hopeful you’ll be helpful.” Isern gave a little chuckle. “That’s got a nice balance.”
“Always had a feel for the poetry of language,” said Rikke. “Now, where’s Black Calder?”
The eyes of the father of two daughters flickered sideways, straining towards Isern’s dagger, just out of sight. “Not here,” he croaked.
“Well, don’t worry, we’re making progress. Where is he?”
“Went north to the High Valleys. Some of the chieftains up there are worried about the way Stour’s running things.”
“Aren’t we all?” said Isern. “I mean, I’m an arsehole from a family of arseholes, but that Stour? He sets new standards.”
Rikke nodded towards the gates of the inner wall. The gates with Skarling’s Hall beyond, still tight shut. “So who’s in charge in there?”
“Brodd Silent.”
Name meant nothing to Rikke. She shrugged at Isern, and the hillwoman shrugged back.
“My guess would be he don’t say much,” said Corleth, which seemed a reasonable assumption.
“He ain’t got many men, though,” said the father of two. “No more’n a couple of dozen.”
The Trouble with Peace Page 47