The Heroes

‘Bremer. You look … happy.’ She lifted one enquiring eyebrow, as though a smile on his face was as incongruous as on a horse, or a rock, or a corpse. But get used to this smile, for it is here to stay!

‘I am, very happy. I wanted to say …’ I love you. ‘Goodbye. I am returning to Adua this evening.’

‘Really? So am I.’ His heart leaped. ‘Well, as soon as my husband is well enough to be moved.’ And plummeted back down. ‘But they say that won’t be long.’ She looked annoyingly delighted about it too.

‘Good. Good.’ Fuck him. Gorst realised his fist was clenched, and forced it open. No, no, forget him. He is nothing. I am the winner, and this is my moment. ‘I received a letter from the king this morning.’

‘Really? So did we!’ She blurted it out, seizing him by the arm, eyes bright. His heart leaped again, as though her touch was a second letter from his Majesty. ‘Hal is being restored to his seat on the Open Council.’ She looked furtively around, then whispered it in a husky rush. ‘They’re making him lord governor of Angland!’

There was a long, uncomfortable pause while Gorst took that in. Like a sponge soaking up a puddle of piss. ‘Lord … governor?’ It seemed a cloud had moved across the sun. It was no longer quite so warm upon his face as it had been.

‘I know! There will be a parade, apparently.’

‘A parade.’ Of cunts. A chilly breeze blew up and flapped his loose shirt. ‘He deserves it.’ He presided over a blown-up bridge and so he gets a parade? ‘You deserve it.’ Where’s my fucking parade?

‘And your letter?’

My letter? My pathetic embarrassment of a letter? ‘Oh … the king has asked me to take up my old position as First Guard.’ Somehow he could no longer muster quite the enthusiasm he had when he opened it. Not lord governor, oh no! Nothing like lord governor. The king’s first hand-holder. The king’s first cock-taster. Pray don’t wipe your own arse your Majesty, let me!

‘That’s wonderful news.’ Finree smiled as though everything had turned out just right. ‘War is full of opportunities, after all, however terrible it may be.’

It is pedestrian news. My triumph is all spoiled. My garlands rotted. ‘I thought …’ His face twitched. He could not cling on to his smile any longer. ‘My success seems quite meagre now.’

‘Meagre? Well, of course not, I didn’t mean…’

‘I’ll never have anything worth the having, will I?’

She blinked. ‘I…’

‘I’ll never have you.’

Her eyes went wide. ‘You’ll… What?’

‘I’ll never have you, or anyone like you.’ Colour burned up red under her freckled cheeks. ‘Then let me be honest. War is terrible, you say?’ He hissed it right in her horrified face. ‘Shit, I say! I fucking love war.’ The unsaid words boiled out of him. He could not stop them, did not want to. ‘In the dreamy yards, and drawing rooms, and pretty parks of Adua, I am a squeaking fucking joke. A falsetto embarrassment. A ridiculous clown-man.’ He leaned even closer, enjoying it that she flinched. Only this way will she know that I exist. Then let it be this way. ‘But on the battlefield? On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I … I wish it wasn’t over. I wish … I wish …’

But far sooner than he had expected, the well had run dry. He was left standing there, breathing hard, staring down at her. Like a man who has throttled his wife and come suddenly to his senses, he had no idea what to do next. He turned to make his escape, but Finree’s hand was still on his arm and now her fingers dug into him, pulling him back.

The blush of shock was fading now, her face hard with growing anger, jaw muscles clenched. ‘What happened in Sipani?’

And now it was his cheeks that burned. As if the name was a slap. ‘I was betrayed.’ He tried to make the last word stab at her as it stabbed him, but his voice had lost all its edge. ‘I was made the scapegoat.’ A goat’s plaintive bleating, indeed. ‘After all my loyalty, all my diligence …’ He fumbled for more words but his voice was not used to making them, fading into a squeaky whine as she bared her teeth.

‘I heard when they came for the king you were passed out drunk with a whore.’ Gorst swallowed. But he could hardly deny it. Stumbling from that room, head spinning, struggling to fasten his belt and draw his sword at once. ‘I heard it was not the first time you had disgraced yourself, and that the king had forgiven you before, and that the Closed Council would not let him do it again.’ She looked him up and down, and her lip curled. ‘God of the battlefield, eh? Gods and devils can look much alike to us little people. You went to a ford, and a bridge, and a hill, and what did you do there except kill? What have you made? Who have you helped?’

He stood there for a moment, all his bravado slithering out. She is right. And no one knows it better than me. ‘Nothing and no one,’ he whispered.

‘So you love war. I used to think you were a decent man. But I see now I was mistaken.’ She stabbed at his chest with her forefinger. ‘You’re a hero.’

She turned with one last look of excruciating contempt and left him standing among the wounded. They no longer looked so happy for him as they had done. They looked, on the whole, to be in very great pain. The birdsong was half-dead crowing once more. His elation was a charming sandcastle, washed away by the pitiless tide of reality. He felt as if he was cast from lead.

Am I doomed always to feel like this? A most uncomfortable thought occurred. Did I feel like this … before Sipani? He frowned after Finree as she vanished back into the hospital tent. Back to her pretty young dolt of a lord governor. He realised far too late he should have pointed out that he had been the one to save her husband. One never says the right things at the right time. A stupendous understatement if ever there was one. He gave an epic, grinding sigh. This is why I keep my fucking mouth shut.

Gorst turned and trudged away into the gloomy afternoon, fists clenched, frowning up towards the Heroes, black teeth against the sky at the top of their solemn hill.

By the Fates, I need to fight someone. Anyone.

But the war was over.

Black Calder

‘Just give me the nod.’

‘The nod?’

Shivers turned to look at him, and nodded. ‘The nod. And it’s done.’

‘Simple as that,’ muttered Calder, hunching in his saddle.

‘Simple as that.’

Easy. Just nod, and you can be king. Just nod, and kill your brother.

It was hot, a few shreds of cloud hanging in the blue over the fells, bees floating about some yellow flowers at the edge of the barley, the river glittering silver. The last hot day, maybe, before autumn shooed the summer off and beckoned winter on. It should’ve been a day for lazy dreams and trailing hot toes in the shallows. Perhaps a hundred strides downstream a few Northmen had stripped off and were doing just that. A little further along the opposite bank and a dozen Union soldiers were doing the same. The laughter of both sets would occasionally drift to Calder’s ear over the happy chattering of the water. Sworn enemies one day, now they played like children, close enough almost to splash.

Peace. And that had to be a good thing.

For months he’d been preaching for it, hoping for it, plotting for it, with few allies and fewer rewards, and here it was. If ever there was a day to smirk it was this one, but Calder could’ve lifted one of the Heroes more easily than the corners of his mouth. His meeting with the First of the Magi had been weighing them down all