The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (247 page)

By the looks of it, his new manufactory would have chimneys twice the size. The biggest building within a hundred miles. She hardly even knew what the place was for, except that it had something to do with coal. The hills had hidden little gold in the end but they were surrendering the black stuff in prodigious quantities. As the shadows of the manufactory lengthened, the Mayor had started to wonder whether she might have been better off with Ring across the street. Him, at least, she had understood. But Ring was gone, and the world they had fought over was gone with him, drifted away like smoke on the breeze. Curnsbick was bringing men in to build, and dig, and stoke his furnaces. Cleaner, calmer, more sober men than Crease was used to, but they still needed to be entertained.

‘Times change, eh?’ She held her drink up in salute to no one. To Papa Ring, maybe. Or to herself, when she still had a name. She caught something through the distorting window of her glass, and lowered it. Two riders were coming down the main street, looking as if they’d been going hard, one cradling an injured arm. It was that girl Shy South. Her and Temple, the lawyer.

The Mayor frowned. After twenty years dodging catastrophes she could smell danger at a thousand paces, and her nose was tickling something fierce as those two riders reined in at her front door. Temple slithered from his horse, fell in the mud, stumbled up and helped down Shy, who was limping badly.

The Mayor drained her glass and sucked the liquor from her teeth. As she crossed her rooms, buttoning her collar tight, she glanced at the cupboard where she kept that packed bag, wondering if today would be its day.

Some people are trouble. Nicomo Cosca was one. Lamb was another. Then there are people who, without being troublesome in themselves, always manage to let trouble in when they open your door. Temple, she had always suspected, was one of those. Looking at him now as she swept down the stairs, leaning against the counter in her sadly deserted gaming hall, she was sure of it. His clothes were torn and bloodied and caked in dust, his expression wild, his chest heaving.

‘You look as if you’ve come in a hurry,’ she said.

He glanced up, the slightest trace of guilt in his eye. ‘You might say that.’

‘And ran into some trouble on the way.’

‘You might say that, too. Might I ask you for a drink?’

‘Can you pay for it?’

‘No.’

‘I’m no charity. What are you doing here?’

He took a moment to prepare and then produced, like a magician’s trick, an expression of intense earnestness. It put her instantly on her guard. ‘I have nowhere else to go.’

‘Are you sure you’ve tried hard enough?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Where’s Cosca?’

He swallowed. ‘Funny you should ask.’

‘I’m not laughing.’

‘No.’

‘So it’s not funny?’

‘No.’ He visibly abandoned earnestness and settled for simple fear. ‘I would guess he’s no more than a few hours behind us.’

‘He’s coming here?’

‘I expect so.’

‘With all his men?’

‘Those that remain.’

‘Which is how many?’

‘Some died in the mountains, a lot deserted—’

‘How many?’

‘I would guess at least a hundred still.’

The Mayor’s nails dug at her palms as she clenched her fists. ‘And the Inquisitor?’

‘Very much present, as far as I am aware.’

‘What do they want?’

‘The Inquisitor wants to torture his way to a brighter tomorrow.’

‘And Cosca?’

‘Cosca wants a fortune in ancient gold that he stole from the Dragon People, and that . . .’ Temple picked nervously at his frayed collar. ‘I stole from him.’

‘And where is this twice-stolen fortune now?’

Temple grimaced. ‘Stolen. The woman Corlin took it. She turns out to be the rebel leader Conthus. It’s been a day of surprises,’ he finished, lamely.

‘So . . . it . . . appears,’ whispered the Mayor. ‘Where is Corlin?’

Temple gave that helpless shrug of which he was so fond. ‘In the wind.’

The Mayor was less fond of that shrug. ‘I have not the men to fight them,’ she said. ‘I have not the money to pay them off. I have no ancient hoard for Nicomo
bloody
Cosca and for damn sure no brighter tomorrow for Inquisitor
fucking
Lorsen! Is there any chance your
head
will pacify them?’

Temple swallowed. ‘I fear not.’

‘So do I. But in the absence of a better suggestion I may have to make the offer.’

‘As it happens . . .’ Temple licked his lips. ‘I have a suggestion.’

The Mayor took a fistful of Temple’s shirt and dragged him close. ‘Is it a good one? Is it the best suggestion I ever heard?’

‘I profoundly doubt it, but, circumstances being what they are . . . do you have that treaty?’

‘I’m tired,’ said Corporal Bright, glancing unimpressed at the piled-up hovels of Crease.

‘Aye,’ grunted Old Cog in reply. He kept having to force his eyelids up, they were that heavy from last night’s revelry, then the terror o’ the stampede, then a healthy trek on foot and a hard ride to follow.

‘And dirty,’ said Bright.

‘Aye.’ The smoke of last night’s fires, and the rolling through the brush running from stomping horses, then the steady showering of dirt from the hooves of the galloping mounts in front.

‘And sore,’ said Bright.

‘No doubt.’ Last night’s revelry again, and the riding again, and Cog’s arm still sore from the fall in the mountains and the old wound in his arse always aching. You wouldn’t think an arrow in the arse would curse you all your days but there it is. Arse armour. That was the key to the mercenary life.

‘It’s been a testing campaign,’ said Cog.

‘If you can apply the word to half a year’s hard riding, hard drinking, killing and theft.’

‘What else would y’apply it to?’

Bright considered that a moment. ‘True. Have you seen a worse, though? You been with Cosca for years.’

‘The North was colder. Kadir was dustier. That last Styrian mess was bloodier. Full-on revolt in the Company at one point.’ He shifted the manacles at his belt. ‘Gave up on using chains and had to go with hangings for every infraction. But all considered, no. I ain’t seen a worse.’ Cog sniffed up some snot, worked it thoughtfully about his mouth, gathering a good sense of its consistency, then leaned back and spat it arcing through a hovel’s open window.

‘Never saw a man could spit like you,’ said Bright.

‘It’s all about putting the practice in,’ said Cog. ‘Like anything else.’

‘Keep moving!’ roared Cosca over his shoulder, up at the head of the column. If you could call eighteen men a column. Still, they were the lucky ones. The rest of the Company were most likely still slogging across the plateau on foot. The ones that were still alive, anyway.

Bright’s thoughts were evidently marching in the same direction. ‘Lost a lot o’ good men these last few weeks.’

‘Good might be stretching it.’

‘You know what I mean. Can’t believe Brachio’s gone.’

‘He’s a loss.’

‘And Jubair.’

‘Can’t say I’m sorry that black bastard’s head ain’t attached no more.’

‘He was a strange one, right enough, but a good ally in a tough corner.’

‘I’d rather stay out o’ the tough corners.’

Bright looked sideways at him, then dropped his horse back a stretch so the others up front wouldn’t mark him. ‘Couldn’t agree more. I want to go home, is what I’m saying.’

‘Where’s home to men like us?’

‘I want to go anywhere but here, then.’

Cog glanced about at the tangled mass of wood and ruins that was Crease, never a place to delight a cultured fellow and less so than ever now by the looks of things, parts of it burned out and a lot of the rest near deserted. Those left looked like the ones who couldn’t find a way to leave, or were too far gone to try. A beggar of truly surpassing wretchedness hobbled after them for a few strides with his hand out before falling in the gutter. On the other side of the street a toothless old woman laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Mad. Or heard something real funny. Mad seemed likelier.

‘I take your point,’ said Cog. ‘But we’ve got that money to find.’ Even though he weren’t entirely sure he wanted to find it. All his life he’d been clutching at every copper he could get his warty fingers around. Then suddenly he had so much gold none of it seemed worth anything any more. So much the world seemed to make no sense in the light of it.

‘Didn’t you keep a little back?’

‘O’ course. A little.’ More than a little, in fact, the pouch under his armpit was heavy with coins. Not so much it made him sweat, but a tidy haul.

‘We all did,’ muttered Bright. ‘So it’s Cosca’s money we’re after really, ain’t it?’

Cog frowned. ‘There’s the principle ’n all.’

‘Principle? Really?’

‘Can’t let folks just up and rob you.’

‘We robbed it ourselves, didn’t we?’ said Bright, an assertion Cog could by no means deny. ‘I’m telling you, it’s cursed. From the moment we laid our hands on it things have gone from shit to shitter.’

‘No such thing as curses.’

‘Tell it to Brachio and Jubair. How many of us set off from Starikland?’

‘More’n four hundred, according to Friendly, and Friendly don’t get a count wrong.’

‘How many now?’

Cog opened his mouth, then closed it. The point was obvious to all.

‘Exactly,’ said Bright. ‘Hang around out here much longer we’ll be down to none.’

Cog sniffed, and grunted, and spat again, right into a first-floor window this time around. An artist has to challenge himself, after all. ‘Been with Cosca a long time.’

‘Times change. Look at this place.’ Bright nodded towards the vacant hovels that a month or two before had boiled over with humanity. ‘What’s that stink, anyway?’

Cog wrinkled his nose. The place had always stunk, o’ course, but that healthy, heartening stench of shit and low living that had always smelled like home to him. There was an acrid sort of a flavour on the air now, a pall of brownish smoke hanging over everything. ‘Don’t know. Can’t say I care for it one bit.’

‘I want to go home,’ said Bright, miserably.

The column was coming to the centre of town now, in so far as the place had one. They were building something on one side of the muddy street, teetering scaffold and lumber stacked high. On the other side the Church of Dice still stood, where Cog had spent several very pleasant evenings a month or two before. Cosca held up his fist for a halt in front of it and with the help of Sergeant Friendly disentangled himself from the saddle and clambered stiffly down.

The Mayor stood waiting on the steps in a black dress buttoned to the neck. What a woman that was. A lady, Cog would almost have said, dusting the word off in the deepest recesses of his memory.

‘General Cosca,’ she said, smiling warmly. ‘I did not think—’

‘Don’t pretend you’re surprised!’ he snapped.

‘But I am. You come at a rather inopportune time, we are expecting—’

‘Where is my gold?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘By all means play the wide-eyed innocent. But we both know better. Where is my damned notary, then?’

‘Inside, but—’

The Old Man shouldered past her and limped grumbling up the steps, Friendly, Sworbreck, and Captain Dimbik following.

The Mayor caught Lorsen’s arm with a gentle hand. ‘Inquisitor Lorsen, I must protest.’

He frowned back. ‘My dear Lady Mayor, I’ve been protesting for months. Much good it has done me.’

Cosca had seemed heedless of the half dozen frowning thugs lounging on either side of the door. But Cog noted them well enough as he climbed the steps after the others, and from the worried look on Bright’s face he did too. Might be that the Company had the numbers, and more coming across the plateau as fast as they could walk, but Cog didn’t fancy fighting right then and there.

He didn’t fancy fighting one bit.

Captain Dimbik straightened his uniform. Even if the front was crusted with dirt. Even if it was coming apart at the seams. Even if he no longer even belonged to any army, had no nation, fought for no cause or principle a sane man could believe in. Even if he was utterly lost and desperately concealing a bottomless hatred and pity for himself, even then.

Better straight than crooked.

The place had changed since last he visited. The gaming hall had been largely cleared to leave an expanse of creaking boards, the dice-and card-tables shifted against the walls, the women ushered away, the clients vanished. Only ten or so of the Mayor’s thugs remained, noticeably armed and scattered watchfully about under the empty alcoves in the walls, a man wiping glasses behind the long counter, and in the centre of the floor a single table, recently polished but still showing the stains of hard use. Temple sat there before a sheaf of papers, peculiarly unconcerned as he watched Dimbik’s men tramp in to surround him.

Could you even call them men? Ragged and haggard beyond belief and their morale, never the highest, ebbed to a sucking nadir. Not that they had ever been such very promising examples of humanity. Dimbik had tried, once upon a time, to impose some discipline upon them. After his discharge from the army. After his disgrace. He remembered, dimly, as if seen through a room full of steam, that first day in uniform, so handsome in the mirror, puffed up on stories of derring-do, a bright career at his fingertips. He miserably straightened the greasy remnants again. How could he have sunk so low? Not even scum. Lackey to scum.

He watched the infamous Nicomo Cosca pace across the empty floor, bent spurs jingling, his eyes fixed upon Temple and his rat-like face locked in an expression of vengeful hatred. To the counter, he went, of course, where else? He took up a bottle, spat out its cork and swallowed a good quarter of the contents in one draught.

‘So here he is!’ grated the Old Man. ‘The cuckoo in the nest! The serpent in the bosom! The . . . the . . .’

‘Maggot in the shit?’ suggested Temple.

‘Why not, since you mention it? What did Verturio say? Never fear your enemies, but your friends,
always
. A wiser man than I, no doubt! I forgave you!
Forgave
you and how am I repaid? I hope you’re taking notes, Sworbreck! You can prepare a little parable, perhaps, on the myth of redemption and the price of betrayal.’ The author scrambled to produce his pencil as Cosca’s grim smile faded to leave him simply grim. ‘Where is my gold, Temple?’