Reachey

‘If it ain’t my daughter’s husband!’ called out Reachey, firelight shining on a gap-toothed grin. ‘No need to tiptoe, lad.’

‘Muddy going,’ said Calder.

‘And you always did like to keep your boots clean.’

‘Styrian leather, shipped in from Talins.’ And he planted one on a stone by the fire so Reachey’s old Named Men could get a better look.

‘Shipping in boots,’ grumbled Reachey, as if bemoaning the loss of all that was good in the world. ‘By the dead. How did a clever girl like my daughter fall for a tailor’s dummy like you?’

‘How did a butcher’s block like you father such a beauty as my wife?’

Reachey grinned, so his men did too, the rustling flames picking out every crease and crinkle on their leathery faces. ‘I’ve always wondered at it myself. Less’n you, though. I knew her mother.’ A couple of the older lads grunted, faraway looks in their eyes. ‘And I was quite the beauty myself before life’s buffets wore down my looks.’ The self-same older lads chuckled. Old men’s jokes, all about how fine things used to be.

‘Buffets,’ said one, shaking his head.

‘Could I have a word?’ asked Calder.

‘Anything for my son. Lads.’ Reachey’s closest stood, some with evident effort, and made their way grunting off into the dark. Calder picked a spot by the fire and squatted down, hands out to the flames.

‘You want the pipe?’ Reachey offered it, smoke curling from the bowl.

‘No, thanks.’ Calder had to keep a straight head, even among supposed friends. It was a damn narrow path he was always treading these days, and he couldn’t afford to weave about. There was a long drop on both sides of it and nothing soft at the bottom.

Reachey took a suck himself, sent up a couple of little brown smoke rings and watched them drift apart. ‘How’s my daughter?’

‘She’s the best woman in the world.’ And he didn’t even have to lie.

‘You always know what to say, don’t you, Calder? I won’t disagree. And my grandson?’

‘Still a little small to help out against the Union this time around, but he’s swelling. You can feel him kick.’

‘Can’t believe it.’ Reachey looked into the flames and slowly shook his head, scrubbing at his white stubble with his fingernails. ‘Me, a grandfather. Hah! Seems like just yesterday I was a child myself. Just this morning I was watching Seff kick at her mother’s belly. It all slips by so fast. Slips by and you hardly notice, like leaves on the water. Savour the little moments, son, that’s my advice. They’re what life is. All the things that happen while you’re waiting for something else. I’ve heard Black Dow wants you dead.’

Calder tried not to show he’d been thrown by the shift of subject and failed. ‘Who says?’

‘Black Dow.’

No great surprise, but hearing it laid out stark as that didn’t help Calder’s shredded spirits. ‘I reckon he’d know.’

‘I think he’s brought you back out here so he can find an easy way to kill you, or so someone else can in hopes of earning favours from him. I think he thinks you’ll start scheming, and turning men against him, and trying to steal his chair. Then he’ll find out about it, and be able to hang you fair, and no one can complain over much.’

‘He thinks if he hands me the knife I’ll stab myself.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Maybe I’m quicker fingered than he reckons.’

‘I hope y’are. All I’m saying is, if you’re planning on hatching a scheme or two, be aware he’s aware, and he’s waiting for you to miss a step. Providing he don’t tire of tiptoeing around the issue and tell Caul Shivers to sharpen his axe on your brains.’

‘There’d be a few folk unhappy about that.’

‘True, and half the North’s unhappy as it is. Too much war. Too much tax. War’s got a fine tradition round these parts, o’ course, but tax has never been popular. Dow needs to tread careful on folks’ feelings these days, and he knows it. But it’d be a fool presumed too far on Black Dow’s patience. He ain’t a man made for treading carefully.’

‘But I suppose I am?’

‘There’s no shame in a soft footfall, lad. We like big, stupid men in the North, men who wade about in blood and so on. We sing songs about ’em. But those men get nothing done alone, and that’s a fact. We need the other kind. Thinkers. Like you. Like your father. And we don’t make half way enough of ’em. You want my advice?’

Reachey could stick his advice up his arse as far as Calder was concerned. He’d come for men, and swords, and cold hearts ready to do treachery. But he’d long ago learned that most men love nothing better than to be listened to. Especially powerful men. And Reachey was one of Dow’s five War Chiefs, about as powerful as it got these days. So Calder did what he was best at, and lied. ‘It’s your advice I came for.’

‘Then leave things be. ’Stead o’ swimming out against a fierce current, risking it all in the cold deep, sit on the beach awhile, take your ease. Who knows? Maybe in good time the sea’ll just wash up what you want.’

‘You reckon?’ As far as Calder could tell, the sea had been washing up nothing but shit ever since his father died.

Reachey shuffled a little closer, speaking low. ‘Black Dow ain’t sat too firmly in Skarling’s Chair, for all he carts it around with him. He’s the best bet for most, still, but outside o’ that rotten old fuck Tenways he ain’t got much loyalty. Lot less than your father had, and men these days, the likes of Ironhead and Golden? Pah!’ And he snorted his contempt into the fire. ‘They’re fickle as the wind. Folk fear Black Dow, but that only works long as you’re fearsome, and if things keep dragging on, and he don’t fight … folk got better things to do than sit around here going hungry and shitting in holes. I’ve lost as many men wandering off home to the harvest the last month as I’ll pick up at this weapontake here. Dow has to fight, and soon, and if he don’t, or if he loses, well, everything could spin around in an instant.’ And Reachey took a long, self-satisfied suck at his pipe.

‘And what if he fights the Union and wins?’

‘Well …’ The old man squinted up at the stars as he finished blowing out his latest plume. ‘That is a point you’ve got there. If he wins he’ll be everyone’s hero.’

‘Not mine, I daresay.’ It was Calder’s turn to lean close and whisper. ‘And in the meantime, we’re not on the beach. What if Dow tries to murder me, or gives me some task I can’t but fail at, or puts me in the line somewhere I’m good as dead? Will I have any friends at my back?’

‘You’re my daughter’s husband, better or worse. Me and your father agreed to it when you and Seff weren’t much more’n babies. I was proud to take you when you had the world at your feet. What kind of a man would I be if I turned my back now you’ve got the world on your shoulders? No. You’re family.’ And he showed that missing tooth again, slapping his heavy hand down on Calder’s shoulder. ‘I do things the old way.’

‘Straight edge, eh?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So you’d draw your sword for me?’

‘Shit, no.’ And he gave Calder’s shoulder a parting squeeze and took his hand away. ‘I’m just saying I won’t draw it against you. If I have to burn, I’ll burn, but I ain’t setting myself on fire.’ About what Calder had expected, but still a disappointment. However many life gives you, each new one still stings. ‘Where you going, lad?’

‘I think I’ll meet up with Scale, help him with what’s left of my father’s men.’

‘Good idea. Strong as a bull, your brother, and brave as one with it but, well, might be he’s got a bull’s brain, too.’

‘Might be.’

‘Word’s come from Dow, he’s calling the army together. We’re all marching for Osrung tomorrow morning. Heading for the Heroes.’

‘Guess I’ll catch up with Scale there, then.’

‘And a warming reunion, I don’t doubt.’ Reachey waved a gnarled paw at him. ‘Watch your back, Calder.’

‘That I will,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘And Calder?’

Everyone always had just one more thing to say, and it never seemed to be something nice. ‘Aye?’

‘You get yourself killed, that’s one thing. But my daughter’s stood hostage for you. Done it willingly. I don’t want you doing anything that’s going to bring harm to her or to her child. I won’t stand for that. I’ve told Black Dow and I’m telling you. I won’t stand for it.’

‘You think I will?’ Calder snapped back, with a heat he hadn’t expected. ‘I’m not quite the bastard they say I am.’

‘I know you’re not.’ And Reachey gave him a pointed look from under his craggy brows. ‘Not quite.’

Calder left the fire with worry weighing on his shoulders like a coat of double mail. When the best you can get from your wife’s father is that he won’t help to kill you, it doesn’t take a clever man to see you’re in shit to your chin.

Music was coming from somewhere, old songs badly sung about men long dead and the men they’d killed. Drunken laughter too, figures around the fire-pits, drinking to nothing. A hammer rang from the darkness and Calder caught the shape of the smith, frozen against the sparks of his forge. They’d be working all night arming up Reachey’s new recruits. Blades, axes, arrowheads. The business of destruction. He winced at the shriek of a whetstone. Something about that sound had always set his teeth on edge. He’d never understood what men saw in weapons. Probably a weapontake wasn’t the best place for him, when you thought about it. He stopped, peering into the darkness. Somewhere around here he’d tied his horse—

A boot squelched and he frowned over his shoulder. The shapes of two men, shaggy in the dark, a hint of a stubbly face. Somehow, right away he knew. And right away he took off running.

‘Shit!’

‘Stop him!’

He pounded to nowhere, not thinking about anything, which was a strange relief for a moment, and then, as the first flush of action faded and he realised they were going to kill him … not.

‘Help!’ he screamed at no one. ‘Help me!’

Three men about a fire looked over, part-curious, part-annoyed at being disturbed. None of them so much as reached for weapons. They didn’t care a shit. People don’t, on the whole. They didn’t know who he was, and even if they had he was widely hated, and even if he’d been widely loved, still, on the whole, no one cares a shit.

He left them behind, scared breath starting to burn, slithered down a bank and up another, crashed through a patch of bushes, twigs snatching at him, not caring much about the state of his Styrian boots now as the fear clawed up his throat. He saw a shape looming out of the murk, a pale face, startled.

‘Help!’ he screeched. ‘Help!’

Someone squatting, pinching off a turd. ‘What?’

And Calder was past, thumping through the mud, leaving the fires of Reachey’s camp behind. He snatched a glance over his shoulder, couldn’t see a thing beyond the wobbling black outline of the land. But he could hear them still, too close behind. Far too close. He caught water glimmering at the bottom of a slope, then his lovely Styrian boot toe caught something and he was in the air.

He came down mouth first, crumpled, tumbled, head filled with his own despairing whimpers as the earth battered at him. Slid to what might’ve been a stop though it felt like he was still going. Struggled up, arms clutching at him.

‘Off me, bastards!’ It was his own cloak, heavy with mud. He floundered a half-step, realised he was going up the bank as the killers came down it. He tried to turn and flopped over in the stream, gasping for air, cold water gripping him.

‘Some runner, ain’t he?’ The voice boomed through the surging blood in Calder’s head, a nasty kind of chuckle on the end. Why do they always have to laugh?

‘Oh, aye. Come here.’ That scraping sound as one drew a blade. Calder remembered he had a sword himself, fished numbly for it, trying to struggle up out of the freezing water. He only got as far as his knees. The nearest killer came at him, then fell over sideways.

‘What you doing?’ said the other. Calder wondered if he’d drawn and stabbed him, then realised his sword was still all tangled up with his cloak. He couldn’t have got it free even if he had the strength to move his arm – which, at that moment, he didn’t.

‘What?’ His tongue felt twice its normal size.

A shape flashed from nowhere. Calder gave a kind of squeal, arms jerking pointlessly to cover his face. He felt the wind of something passing, it crashed into the second killer and he went down on his back. The first was trying to crawl away up the bank, making a wet groan. The outline of a man walked down to him, slinging a bow over his shoulder and drawing a sword, and stabbed him through the back without breaking stride. He strolled up close and stood there, a blacker shape in the darkness. Calder stared at him through the spread-out fingers over his face, cold water bubbling at his knees. Thinking of Seff. Waiting for his death.

‘If it ain’t Prince Calder. Wouldn’t expect to chance on you in such surroundings.’

Calder slowly prised his trembling hands away from his face. He knew that voice. ‘Foss Deep?’

‘Yes.’

Relief spouted up in Calder like a fountain, so much he almost wanted to laugh. Laugh or be sick. ‘My brother sent you?’

‘No.’

‘Scale’s busy… busy… busy these days,’ grunted Shallow, still stabbing the second killer, blade squelching in and out.

‘Very busy.’ Deep watched his brother as if he was watching a man dig a ditch. ‘Fighting and so forth. War. The old swords-and-marching game. Loves him some war, Scale, can’t get enough. If that’s not dead yet, by the way, ain’t never going to be.’

‘True.’ Shallow stabbed his man once more then rocked back on his haunches, his blade, and his hand, and his arm to the elbow all sticky black with blood in the moonlight.

Calder made himself not look at it, trying to keep his mind off his rising gorge. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’

Deep offered a hand and Calder took it. ‘We heard you were returned from exile and – aware what a popular boy you are – thought we’d come and stand lookout. Case someone tried something. And whatever do you know …’

Calder held Deep’s forearm a moment longer as the dark world started to steady. ‘Good thing you came when you did. Moment longer I’d have had to kill those bastards myself.’ He stood, the blood rushed to his head, and he doubled up and puked all over his Styrian boots.

‘Things were about to get ugly, all right,’ said Deep solemnly.

‘If you could just’ve got your sword free from your fancy-arsed cloak you’d have cut those bastards up every which way.’ Shallow was coming down the slope and dragging something after him. ‘We caught this one. He was holding their horses.’ And he shoved a shape down in the mud in front of Calder. A young lad, pale face dirt-speckled in the half-light.

‘That’s some good work.’ Calder wiped his sour mouth on the back of his sleeve. ‘My father always said you were two of the best men he knew.’

‘Funny.’ He could see Shallow’s teeth as he grinned. ‘He used to tell us we were the worst.’

‘Either way, don’t know how I’ll thank you.’

‘Gold,’ said Shallow.

‘Aye,’ said Deep. ‘Gold will go most of the way.’

‘You’ll have it.’

‘I know we will. That’s why we love you, Calder.’

‘Well, that and the winning sense of humour,’ said Shallow.

‘And that beautiful face, and those beautiful clothes, and the smirk that makes you want to punch it.’

‘And the bottomless respect we had for your father.’ Shallow gave a little bow. ‘But, yes, mostly it’s the old goldy-woldy.’

‘What rites for the dead?’ asked Deep, poking one of the corpses with the toe of his boot.

Now that Calder’s head was settling, the surging of blood in his ears was quieting, the pounding in his face was dulling to a throb, he was starting to think. To wonder what could be gained. He could show these boys to Reachey, try and get him riled up. Murdering his daughter’s husband in his own camp, it was an insult. Especially to an honourable man. Or he could have them dragged before Black Dow, fling them at his feet and demand justice. But both options held risks, especially when he didn’t know for a fact who was behind it. When you’re planning what to do, always think of doing nothing first, see where that gets you. It was better to let these bastards wash away, pretend it never happened, and keep his enemies guessing.

‘In the river,’ he said.

‘And this one?’ Shallow waved his knife at the lad.

Calder stood over him, lips pursed. ‘Who sent you?’

‘I just mind the horses,’ whispered the boy.

‘Come on, now,’ said Deep, ‘we don’t want to cut you up.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Shallow.

‘No?’

‘Not bothered.’ He grabbed the boy around the throat and stuck his knife up his nose.

‘No! No!’ he squeaked. ‘Tenways, they said! They said Brodd Tenways!’ Shallow let him drop back in the mud, and Calder gave a sigh.

‘That flaking old fuck.’ How toweringly unsurprising. Maybe Dow had asked him to get it done, or maybe he’d taken his own initiative. Either way, this lad wouldn’t know enough to help.

Shallow spun his knife around, blade flashing moonlight as it turned. ‘And for young master I-just-mind-the-horsey-boy?’

Calder’s instinct was just to say, ‘Kill him,’ and be done. Quicker, simpler, safer. But these days, he tried always to think about mercy. A long time ago when he’d been a young idiot, or perhaps a younger idiot, he’d ordered a man killed on a whim. Because he’d thought it would make him look strong. Because he’d thought it might make his father proud. It hadn’t. ‘Before you make a man into mud,’ his father had told him afterwards in his disappointed voice, ‘make sure he’s no use to you alive. Some men will smash a thing just because they can. They’re too stupid to see that nothing shows more power than mercy.’

The lad swallowed as he looked up, eyes big and hopeless, gleaming in the darkness with maybe a sorry tear or two. Power was what Calder wanted most, and so he thought about mercy. Thought all about it. Then he pressed his tongue into his split lip, and it really hurt a lot.

‘Kill him,’ he said, and turned away, heard the lad make a surprised yelp, quickly cut off. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they’re special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one’s special. He heard the splash as Shallow rolled the lad’s body into the water, and that was that. He struggled back up the slope, cursing at his soaked-through, clinging cloak, and his mud-caked boots, and his battered mouth. Calder wondered if he’d be surprised, when his moment came. Probably.