‘I am, in fact.’ Dow looked over at Tenways and he gave a little shake of his rashy head. ‘And Tenways too. Might be he’s lying, and has his own reasons, but I can tell you one thing for a fact — any man here can tell I had no part in it.’
‘How’s that?’
Dow leaned forwards. ‘You’re still fucking breathing, boy. You think if I’d a mind to kill you there’s a man could stop me?’ Calder narrowed his eyes. He had to admit there was something to that argument. He looked for Reachey, but the old warrior was steadfastly looking elsewhere.
‘But it don’t much matter who didn’t die yesterday,’ said Dow. ‘I can tell you who’ll die tomorrow.’ Silence stretched out, and never had the word to end it been so horribly clear. ‘You.’ Seemed like everyone was smiling. Everyone except Calder, and Craw, and maybe Caul Shivers, but that was probably just because his face was so scarred he couldn’t get his mouth to curl. ‘Anyone got any objections to this?’ Aside from the crackling of the fire, there wasn’t a sound. Dow stood up on his seat and shouted it. ‘Anyone want to speak up for Calder?’ None spoke.
How silly his whispers in the dark seemed now. All his seeds had fallen on stony ground all right. Dow was firmer set in Skarling’s Chair than ever and Calder hadn’t a friend to his name. His brother was dead and he’d somehow found a way to make Curnden Craw his enemy. Some spinner of webs he was.
‘No one? No?’ Slowly, Dow sat back down. ‘Anyone here not happy about this?’
‘I’m not fucking delighted,’ said Calder.
Dow burst out laughing. ‘You got bones, lad, whatever they say. Bones of a rare kind. I’ll miss you. You got a preference when it comes to method? We could hang you, or cut your head off, or your father was partial to the bloody cross though I couldn’t advise it…’
Maybe the fighting today had gone to Calder’s head, or maybe he was sick of treading softly, or maybe it was the cleverest thing to do right then. ‘Fuck yourself!’ he snarled, and spat into the fire. ‘I’d sooner die with a sword in my hand! You and me, Black Dow, in the circle. A challenge.’
Slow, scornful silence. ‘Challenge?’ sneered Dow. ‘Over what? You make a challenge to decide an issue, boy. There’s no issue here. Just you turning on your Chief and trying to talk his Second into stabbing him in the back. Would your father have taken a challenge?’
‘You’re not my father. You’re not a fucking shadow of him! He made that chain you’re wearing. Forged it link by link, like he forged the North new. You stole it from the Bloody-Nine, and you had to stab him in the back to get it.’ Calder smirked like his life depended on it. Which it did. ‘All you are is a thief, Black Dow, and a coward, and an oath-breaker, and a fucking idiot besides.’
‘That a fact?’ Dow tried to smile himself, but it looked more like a scowl. Calder might be a beaten man, but that was just the point. Having a beaten man fling shit at him was souring his day of victory.
‘Haven’t you got the bones to face me, man to man?’
‘Show me a man and we’ll see.’
‘I was man enough for Tenways’ daughter.’ Calder got a flutter of laughter of his own. ‘But what?’ And he nodded up to Shivers. ‘You get harder men to do your black work now, do you, Black Dow? Lost your taste for it? Come on! Fight me! The circle!’
Dow had no real reason to say yes. He’d nothing to win. But sometimes it’s more about how it looks than how it is. Calder was famous as the biggest coward and piss-poorest fighter in any given company. Dow’s name was all built on being the very opposite. This was a challenge to everything he was, in front of all the great men of the North. He couldn’t turn it down. Dow saw it, and he slouched back in Skarling’s Chair like a man who’d argued with his wife over whose turn it was to muck out the pigpen, and lost.
‘All right. You want it the hard way you can have it the fucking hard way. Tomorrow at dawn. And no pissing about spinning the shield and choosing weapons. Me and you. A sword each. To the death.’ He angrily waved his hand. ‘Take this bastard somewhere I don’t have to look at him smirk.’
Calder gasped as Shivers jerked him to his feet, twisted him around and marched him off. The crowd closed in behind them. Songs started up again, and laughter, and bragging, and all the business of victory and success. His imminent doom was a distraction hardly worth stopping the party for.
‘I thought I told you to run.’ Craw’s familiar voice in his ear, the old man pushing through the press beside him.
Calder snorted. ‘I thought I told you not to say anything. Seems neither of us can do as we’re told.’
‘I’m sorry it had to be this way.’
‘It didn’t have to be this way.’
He saw Craw’s grimace etched by firelight. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry this is what I chose, then.’
‘Don’t be. You’re a straight edge, everyone knows it. And let’s face the facts, I’ve been hurtling towards the grave ever since my father died. Just a surprise it’s taken me this long to hit mud. Who knows, though?’ he called as Shivers dragged him between two of the Heroes, giving Craw one last smirk over his shoulder. ‘Maybe I’ll beat Dow in the circle!’
He could tell from Craw’s sorry face he didn’t think it likely. Neither did Calder, if he was honest for once. The very reasons for the success of his little plan were also its awful shortcomings. Calder was the biggest coward and piss-poorest fighter in any given company. Black Dow was the very opposite. They hadn’t earned their reputations by accident.
He’d about as much chance in the circle as a side of ham, and everyone knew it.
Stuff Happens
‘I’ve a letter for General Mitterick,’ said Tunny, hooding his lantern as he walked up out of the dusk to the general’s tent.
Even in the limited light, it was plain the guard was a man who nature had favoured better below the neck than above it. ‘He’s with the lord marshal. You’ll have to wait.’
Tunny displayed his sleeve. ‘I’m a full corporal, you know. Don’t I get precedence?’
The guard did not take the joke. ‘Press-a-what?’
‘Never mind.’ Tunny sighed, and stood beside him, and waited. Voices burbled from the tent, gaining in volume.
‘I demand the right to attack!’ one boomed out. Mitterick. There weren’t many soldiers in the army who had the good fortune not to recognise that voice. The guard frowned across at Tunny as though to say, you shouldn’t be listening to this. Tunny held up the letter and shrugged. ‘We’ve forced them back! They’re teetering, exhausted! They’ve no stomach left for it.’ Shadows moved on the side of the tent, perhaps a shaken fist. ‘The slightest push now … I have them just where I want them!’
‘You thought you had them there yesterday and it turned out they had you.’ Marshal Kroy’s more measured tones. ‘And the Northmen aren’t the only ones who’ve run out of stomach.’
‘My men deserve the chance to finish what they’ve started! Lord Marshal, I deserve the…’
‘No!’ Harsh as a whip cracking.
‘Then, sir, I demand the right to resign…’
‘No to that too. No even more to that.’ Mitterick tried to say something but Kroy spoke over him. ‘No! Must you argue every point? You will swallow your damn pride and do your damn duty! You will stand down, you will bring your men back across the bridge and you will prepare your division for the journey south to Uffrith as soon as we have completed negotiations. Do you understand me, General?’
There was a long pause and then, very quietly, ‘We lost.’ Mitterick’s voice, but hardly recognisable. Suddenly shrunk very small, and weak, sounding almost as if there were tears in it. As if some cord held vibrating taut had suddenly snapped, and all Mitterick’s bluster had snapped with it. ‘We lost.’
‘We drew.’ Kroy’s voice was quiet now, but the night was quiet, and few men could drop eaves like Tunny when there was something worth hearing. ‘Sometimes that’s the most one can hope for. The irony of the soldier’s profession. War can only ever pave the way for peace. And it should be no other way. I used to be like you, Mitterick. I thought there was but one right thing to do. One day, probably very soon, you will replace me, and you will learn the world is otherwise.’
