The Blade Itself (37 page)

“For Angland, Jezal!”

“Oh, yes… Angland, of course! Four weeks you say?”

“I thought you ought to know, since you’re busy with the Contest, so you’d have time to get ready. Keep it to yourself, though.”

“Yes, of course.” Jezal wiped his sweaty forehead.

“You alright? You look pale.”

“I’m fine, fine.” He took a deep breath. “All this excitement, you know, the fencing and… everything.”

“Don’t worry, you did well today.” West clapped him on the shoulder. “But there’s a lot more to do. Three more bouts before you can call yourself a champion, and they’ll only get harder. Don’t get lazy, Jezal—and don’t get too drunk!” he threw over his shoulder as he made for the door. Jezal breathed a long sigh of relief as he returned to the table where the others were sitting. His nose was still intact.

Brint had already started to complain, now he could see that West wasn’t coming back. “What the hell was all that?” he asked, frowning and jabbing his thumb at the door. “I mean to say, well, I know he’s supposed to be the big hero and all of that but, well, I mean to say!”

Jezal stared down at him. “What do you mean to say?”

“Well, to talk that way! It’s, it’s defeatist!” The drink was lending him courage now, and he was warming to his topic. “It’s… well, I mean to say… it’s cowardly talk is what it is!”

“Now, look here, Brint,” snapped Jezal, “he fought in three pitched battles, and he was first through the breach at Ulrioch! He may not be a nobleman, but he’s a damn courageous fellow! Added to that he knows soldiering, he knows Marshal Burr, and he knows Angland! What do you know, Brint?” Jezal curled his lip. “Except how to lose at cards and empty a wine bottle?”

“That’s all a man needs to know in my book,” laughed Jalenhorm nervously, doing his best to calm the situation. “More wine!” he bellowed at no one in particular.

Jezal dropped down on his stool. If the company had been subdued before West left, it was even more so now. Brint was sulking. Jalenhorm was swaying on his stool. Kaspa had fallen soundly asleep, sprawled out on the wet table top, his breathing making quiet slurping sounds.

Jezal drained his wine glass, and stared round at the unpromising faces. Damn, he was bored. It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk. A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron. He wondered if he himself was as tedious drunk as Kaspa, or Jalenhorm, or Brint.

Jezal gave a thin smile as he looked over at the sulking bastard. If he were King, he mused, he would punish poor conversation with death, or at least a lengthy prison term. He stood up from his chair.

Jalenhorm stared up at him. “What you doing?”

“Better get some rest,” snapped Jezal, “need to train tomorrow.” It was the most he could do not to just run out of the place.

“But you won! Ain’t you going to celebrate?”

“First round. I’ve still three more men to beat, and they’ll all be better than that oaf today.” Jezal took his coat from the back of the chair and pulled it over his shoulders.

“Sult self,” said Jalenhorm, then slurped noisily from his glass.

Kaspa raised his head from the table for a moment, hair on one side plastered to his skull with spilled wine. “Going sho shoon?”

“Mmm,” said Jezal as he turned and stalked out.

There was a cold wind blowing in the street outside. It made him feel even more sober than before. Painfully sober. He badly needed some intelligent company, but where could he find it at this time of night? There was only one place he could think of.

He slipped the letter out of his pocket and read it in the dim light from the tavern’s windows, just one more time. If he hurried he might still catch her. He began to walk slowly towards the Four Corners. Just to talk, that was all. He needed someone to talk to…

No. He forced himself to stop. Could he truly pretend that he wanted to be her friend? A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time, and had never got anywhere. He had no interest in that arrangement.

What then? Marriage? To a girl with no blood and no money? Unthinkable! He imagined bringing Ardee home to meet his family. Here is my new wife, father! Wife? And her connections are? He shuddered at the thought.

But what if they could find something in between, where everyone would be comfortable? His feet began slowly to move. Not friendship, not marriage, but some looser arrangement? He strode down the road towards the Four Corners. They could meet discreetly, and talk, and laugh, somewhere with a bed maybe…

No. No. Jezal stopped again and slapped the side of his head in frustration. He couldn’t let that happen, even supposing she would. West was one thing, but what if other people found out? It wouldn’t hurt his reputation any, of course, but hers would be ruined. Ruined. His flesh crept at the thought. She didn’t deserve that, surely. It wasn’t good enough to say it was her problem. Not good enough. Just so he could have a little fun? The selfishness of it. He was amazed that it had never occurred to him before.

So he had reasoned himself into a corner then, just as he had done ten times already today: nothing good could come from seeing her. They would be away to war soon anyway, and that would put an end to his ridiculous pining. Home to bed then, and train all day tomorrow. Train and train until Marshal Varuz had battered her out of his thoughts. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, turned and set off towards the Agriont.

The statue of Harod the Great loomed out of the darkness on a marble plinth almost as tall as Jezal, seeming far too big and grand for its quiet little square near the Four Corners. He had been jumping at shadows all the way here, avoiding people, doing his best to be inconspicuous. There weren’t many people around though. It was late, and most likely Ardee would have given up waiting a long time ago, provided she was even there to begin with.

He crept nervously around the statue, peering into the shadows, feeling an absolute fool. He had walked through this square many times before and never given it a second thought. Was it not a public space after all? He had as much right as anyone to be here, but somehow he still felt like a thief.

The square was empty. That was a good thing. All for the best. There was nothing to gain, everything to lose, and so forth. So why did he feel so completely crushed? He stared up at Harod’s face, locked into that stony frown that sculptors reserve for the truly great. He had a fine, strong jaw, did Harod, almost the equal of Jezal’s own.

“Wake up!” hissed a voice by his ear. Jezal let vent to a girlish squeal, scrambled away, tripped, only stayed upright by clawing at King Harod’s enormous foot. There was a dark figure behind him, a hooded figure.

Laughter. “No need to piss yourself.” Ardee. She pushed back her hood. Light from a window slanted across the bottom part of her face, catching her lop-sided smile. “It’s only me.”

“I didn’t see you,” he mumbled pointlessly, quickly releasing his desperate grip on the huge stone foot and doing his best to appear at ease. He had to admit it was a poor start. He had no talent for this cloak-and-dagger business. Ardee seemed quite comfortable, though. It made him wonder whether she hadn’t done it all before.

“You’ve been pretty hard to see yourself, lately,” she said.

“Well, er,” he muttered, heart still thumping from the shock, “I’ve been busy, what with the Contest and all…”

“Ah, the all-important Contest. I saw you fight today.”

“You did?”

“Very impressive.”

“Er, thank you, I—”

“My brother said something, didn’t he?”

“What, about fencing?”

“No, numbskull. About me.”

Jezal paused, trying to work out the best way to answer that one. “Well he—”

“Are you scared of him?”

“No!” Silence. “Alright, yes.”

“But you came anyway. I suppose I should be flattered.” She walked slowly around him, looking him up and down, from feet to forehead and back again. “You took your time, though. It’s late. I’ll have to be getting home soon.”

There was something about the way she was looking at him which was not helping to calm his thumping heart. Quite the opposite. He had to tell her that he could not see her any more. It was the wrong thing to do. For both of them. Nothing good could come from it… nothing good…

He was breathing quick, tense, excited, unable to take his eyes away from her shadowy face. He had to tell her, now. Wasn’t that why he came? He opened his mouth to speak, but the arguments all seemed a long way away now, applying at a different time and to different people, intangible and weightless.

“Ardee…” he began.

“Mmm?” She stepped towards him, head cocked on one side. Jezal tried to move away, but the statue was at his back. She came closer still, lips slightly parted, her eyes fixed on his mouth. What was so wrong in it, anyway?

Closer still, her face turned up towards his. He could smell her—his head was full of the scent of her. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek. What could be wrong with this?

Her fingertips were cold against his skin, brushing the side of his face, tracing the line of his jaw, curling through his hair and pulling his head down towards her. Her lips touched his cheek, soft and warm, then his chin, then his mouth. They sucked gently at his. She pressed herself up against him, her other hand slipped round his back. Her tongue lapped at his gums, at his teeth, at his tongue, and she made little sounds in her throat. So did he, perhaps—he really wasn’t sure. His whole body was tingling, hot and cold at once, his mind was in his mouth. It was as if he’d never kissed a girl before. What could be wrong with this? Her teeth nipped at his lips, almost painful, but not quite.

He opened his eyes: breathless, trembling, weak at the knees. She was looking up at him. He could see her eyes gleaming in the darkness, watching him carefully, studying him.

“Ardee…”

“What?”

“When can I see you again?” His throat was dry, his voice sounded hoarse. She looked down at the ground with a little smile. A cruel smile, as though she’d called his bluff and won a pile of money from him. He didn’t care. “When?”

“Oh, I’ll let you know.”

He had to kiss her again. Shit on the consequences. Fuck West. Damn it all. He bent down towards her, closed his eyes.

“No, no, no.” She pushed his mouth away from hers. “You should have come sooner.” She broke away from him and turned around, with the smile still on her lips, and walked slowly away. He watched her, silent, frozen, fascinated, his back against the cold stone base of the statue. He had never felt like this before. Not ever.

She glanced back, just once, as if to check that he was still watching. His chest constricted, almost painfully, just to see her look at him, then she rounded a corner and was gone.

He stood there for a moment, his eyes wide open, just breathing. Then a cold gust of wind blew through the square and the world pressed back in upon him. Fencing, the war, his friend West, his obligations. One kiss, that was all. One kiss, and his resolve had leaked away like piss from a broken chamber pot. He stared around, suddenly guilty, confused, and scared. What had he done here?

“Shit,” he said.

Dark Work

A burning thing can make all kind of smells. A live tree, fresh and sappy, smells different ablaze to a dead one, dry and withered. A pig alight and a man smell much the same, but there’s another story. This burning that the Dogman smelled now, that was a house. He knew it, sure as sure. A smell he knew better than he’d have liked. Houses don’t burn on their own too often. Usually there’s some violence in it. That meant men around, most likely, and ready for a fight, so he crept right careful down between the trees, slid on his belly to the edge, and peered out through the brush.

He saw it now, right enough. Black smoke in a tall pillar, rising up from a spot down near the river. A small house, still smoking, but burned down to the low stone walls. There’d been a barn too, but nothing more now than a pile of black sticks and black dirt. A couple of trees and a patch of tilled earth. It was a poor enough living at the best of times, farming this far north. Too cold to grow much—a few roots maybe, and some sheep to herd. A pig or two, if you were lucky.

Dogman shook his head. Who’d want to burn out folks as poor as this? Who’d want to steal this stubborn patch of land? Some men just like to burn, he reckoned. He eased out a touch further, looking right and left down the valley for some sign of the ones as did this, but a few stringy sheep spread out across the valley sides was all he could see moving. He wriggled back into the brush.

His heart sank as he sneaked back towards the camp. Voices raised, and arguing, as ever. He wondered for a minute whether to just go past and keep on going, he was that sick of the endless bickering. He decided against it in the end, though. It ain’t much of a scout who leaves his people behind.

“Why don’t you shut your hole, Dow?” Tul Duru’s rumbling voice. “You wanted south, and when we went south all you did was moan about the mountains! Now we’re out o’ the mountains you grumble on your empty belly all day and all night! I’ve had my fill of it, you whining dog!”

Now came Black Dow’s nasty growl. “Why should you get twice as much to eat, just ’cause you’re a great fat pig?”

“You little bastard! I’ll crush you like the worm y’are!”

“I’ll cut your neck while you sleep you great pile o’ meat! Then we’ll all have plenty to eat! At least we’d all be rid of your fucking snoring! I know now why they named you Thunderhead, you rumbling sow!”

“Shut your holes the pair of you!” Dogman heard Threetrees roaring, loud enough to wake the dead. “I’m sick of it!”

He could see them now, the five of them. Tul Duru and Black Dow, bristling up to one another, Threetrees in between them with his hands up, Forley sat watching, just looking sad, and Grim, not even watching, checking his shafts.

“Oy!” hissed Dogman, and they all snapped round to look at him.

“It’s the Dogman,” said Grim, barely looking up from his arrows. There was no understanding that man. He spoke nothing at all for days on end, then when he did speak it was to say what they could all see already.

Forley was keen to distract the lads, as always. It was a hard guess how long they’d keep from killing each other without him around. “What did you find, Dogman?” he asked.

“What do you know, I found five stupid fucking bastards out in the woods!” he hissed, stepping out from the trees. “I could hear them from a mile away! And they were Named Men these, would you believe, men who should have known better! Fighting among themselves as always! Five stupid bastards—”

Threetrees raised his hand. “Alright, Dogman. We should know better.” And he glowered at Tul and Dow. They glowered at each other, but they said nothing more. “What did you find?”

“There’s fighting going on hereabouts, or something like it. I seen a farm burning.”

“Burning, say you?” asked Tul.

“Aye.”

Threetrees frowned. “Take us to it, then.”

The Dogman hadn’t seen this from up in the trees. Couldn’t have. Too smoky and too far to see this. He saw it now though, right up close, and it made him sick. They all saw it.

“This is some dark work here alright,” said Forley, looking up at the tree. “Some dark work.”

“Aye,” mumbled Dogman. He couldn’t think of ought else to say. The branch creaked as the old man swung slowly round, his bare feet dangling near the earth. Might have been he tried to fight, he’d got two arrows through him. The woman was too young to be his wife. His daughter, maybe. The Dogman guessed the two young ones were her children. “Who’d hang a child?” he muttered.

“I can think of some black enough,” said Tul.

Dow spat on the grass. “Meaning me?” he growled, and the two of ’em were off again like hammer on anvil. “I burned some farms, and a village or two an all, but there were reasons, that was war. I let the children live.”

“I heard different,” said Tul. Dogman closed his eyes and sighed.

“You think I give a dog’s arse for what you heard?” Dow barked. “Might be my name’s blacker than I deserve, you giant shit!”

“I know what you deserve, you bastard!”

“Enough!” growled Threetrees, frowning up at the tree. “Have you no respect? The Dogman’s right. We’re out of the mountains now and there’s trouble brewing. There’ll be no more of this squabbling. No more. Quiet and cold from now on, like the winter-time. We’re Named Men with men’s work to do.”

Dogman nodded, happy to hear some sense at last. “There’s fighting nearby,” he said, “there has to be.”

“Uh,” said Grim, though it was hard to say exactly what he was agreeing with.

Threetrees’ eye was still fixed on the swinging bodies. “You’re right. We need to put our minds on that now. On that and nothing else. We’ll track the crowd as did this and see what they’re fighting for. We’ll do no good until we know who’s fighting who.”

“Whoever did this fights for Bethod,” said Dow. “You can tell just by the looking.”

“We’ll see. Tul and Dow, cut these folks down and bury ’em. Maybe that task’ll put some steel back in you.” The two of them scowled at each other, but Threetrees paid ’em no mind. “Dogman, you go and sniff out those as did this. Sniff ’em out, and we’ll pay ’em a visit tonight. A visit like they paid to these folks here.”

“Aye,” said Dogman, keen to get on and do it. “We’ll pay ’em a visit.”

The Dogman couldn’t work it out. If they were in a fight these lot, afraid of being caught out by an enemy, they weren’t making too much of an effort to cover their tracks. He followed them simple as could be, five of them he reckoned. Must’ve strolled nice and easy away from the burning farm, down through the valley beside the river and off into the woods. The tracks were so clear he got a little worried time to time, thinking they must be playing some trick on him, watching out there in the trees, waiting to hang him from a branch. Seemed they weren’t though, ’cause he caught up to them just before nightfall.

First of all he smelled their meat—mutton roasting. Next he heard their voices—talking, shouting, laughing, making not the meanest attempt to stay quiet, easy to hear even with the river bubbling beside. Then he saw them, sitting round a great big fire in a clearing, a sheep’s carcass skinned on a spit above it, taken from those farmers no doubt. The Dogman crouched down in the bushes, nice and still like they should have been. He counted five men, or four and a boy about fourteen years. They were all just sitting, no one standing guard, no caution at all. He couldn’t work it out.

“They’re just sitting there,” he whispered when he got back to the others. “Just sitting. No guard, no nothing.”

“Just sitting?” asked Forley.

“Aye. Five of ’em. Sitting and laughing. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it neither,” said Threetrees, “but I like what I saw at that farm still less.”

“Weapons,” hissed Dow. “Weapons, it has to be.”

For once, Tul agreed with him. “Weapons, chief. Let’s give ’em a lesson.”

Not even Forley spoke up for staying out of a fight this time, but Threetrees thought it out for a bit still, taking his moment, not to be hurried. Then he nodded. “Weapons it is.”

You won’t see Black Dow in the dark, not if he don’t want to be seen. You won’t hear him neither, but the Dogman knew he was there as he crept down through the trees. You fight with a man for long enough, you get an understanding. You learn how he thinks and you come to think the same way. Dow was there.

The Dogman had his task. He could see the outline of the one on the far right, his back a black shape against the fire. Dogman didn’t spare too much thought for the others yet. He spared no thought for anything but his task. Once you choose to go, or your chief chooses for you, you go all the way, and never look back ’til the task’s done. The time you spend thinking is the time you’ll get killed in. Logen taught him that and he’d taken it right to heart. That’s the way it has to be.

Dogman crept closer, and closer still, feeling the warmth of the fire on his face, feeling the hard metal of the knife in his hand. By the dead he needed to piss, as always. The task wasn’t but a stride away now. The boy was facing him—if he’d have looked up fast from his meat he’d have seen the Dogman coming, but he was too busy eating.

“Gurgh!” shouted one of the others. That meant Dow’d got to him, and that meant he was finished. Dogman leaped forward and stabbed his task in the side of the neck. He reared up for a moment, clutching at his cut throat, took a stumble forward and fell over. One of the others jumped up, dropping his half-chewed leg of mutton on the ground, then an arrow stuck him through the chest. Grim, out by the river. He looked surprised a minute, then he sank down on his knees, face twisted up with pain.

That left but two, and the boy was still sitting there, staring at the Dogman, mouth half open with a bit of meat hanging out of it. The last of them was stood up, breathing quick, with a long knife in his hand. He must have had it out for eating with.

“Drop the blade!” bellowed Threetrees. The Dogman saw the old boy now, striding towards them, the firelight catching the metal rim of his big round shield. The man chewed on his lip, eyes flicking from Dogman to Dow as they moved slowly to either side of him. Now he saw the Thunderhead, looming out of the darkness in the trees, seeming too big to be a man, his great huge sword glinting over his shoulder. That was enough for him. He threw his knife down in the dirt.

Dow jumped forward, grabbed his wrists and tied them tight behind him, then shoved him down on his knees beside the fire. The Dogman did the same with the boy, his teeth clenched tight, not saying a word. The whole thing was done in an instant, quiet and cold like Threetrees said. There was blood on Dogman’s hands, but that was the work and couldn’t be helped. The others were making their way over now. Grim came sloshing through the river, throwing his bow across his shoulder. He gave the one he shot a kick as he came past, but the body didn’t move.

“Dead,” said Grim. Forley was at the back, peering at the two prisoners. Dow was staring at the one he’d tied, staring at him hard.

“I know this one ’ere,” he said, sounding quite pleased about it too. “Groa the Mire, ain’t it? What a chance! You’ve been gnawing at the back of my mind for some time.”

The Mire scowled down at the ground. A cruel-looking sort, the Dogman thought, the type that might hang farmers, if there was one. “Aye, I’m the Mire. No need to ask your names! When they find you’ve killed some o’ the King’s collectors you’ll be dead men all!”

“Black Dow, they call me.”

The Mire’s head came up, his mouth wide open. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.

The boy kneeling next to him stared round with big eyes. “Black Dow? You what? Not the same Black Dow as… oh fuck.”

Dow nodded slowly, with that nasty smile spreading across his face, that killing smile. “Groa the Mire. You’ve all kind of work to pay for. I’ve had you in my mind, and now you’re in my eye.” He patted him on the cheek. “And in my hand too. What a happy chance.”

The Mire snatched his face away, as far as he could, trussed up like he was. “I thought you were in hell, Black Dow, you bastard!”

“So did I, but I was only north o’ the mountains. We’ve questions for you, Mire, before you get what’s due. Who’s this king? What is it you’re collecting for him?”

“Fuck your questions!”

Threetrees hit him on the side of his head, hard, where he couldn’t see it coming. When he turned round to look, Dow cracked him on the other side. Back and forth his head went, till he was soft enough to talk.

“What’s the fight?” asked Threetrees.

“We ain’t fighting!” spat the Mire through his broken teeth. “You might as well be dead, you bastards! You don’t know what’s happened, do yer?” Dogman frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this. Sounded like things had changed while they were gone, and he’d never yet seen a change for the better.

“I’ll do the questions here,” said Threetrees. “You just keep your tiny mind on the answers to ’em. Who’s still fighting? Who won’t kneel to Bethod?”

The Mire laughed, even tied up like he was. “There’s no one left! The fighting’s over! Bethod’s King now. King of all the North! Everyone kneels to him—”

“Not us,” rumbled Tul Duru, leaning down. “What about Old Man Yawl?”

“Dead!”

“What about Sything, or Rattleneck?”

“Dead and dead, you stupid fucks! The only fighting now’s down south! Bethod’s gone to war with the Union! Aye! And we’re giving ’em a beating too!”