‘Wonderful,’ muttered Craw.
‘Hey, hey,’ she said. Somewhat of a surprise to see her here, but it saved him some time. It was her he had to tell next.
‘How’s the dozen?’ he asked.
‘All four of ’em are great.’
Craw winced. ‘Aye. Well. I need to tell you something.’ She raised one brow at him. Nothing for it but just to jump. ‘I’m done. I’m quitting.’
‘I know.’
‘You do?’
‘How else would I be taking your place?’
‘My place?’
‘Dow’s Second.’
Craw’s eyes opened up wide. He looked at Wonderful, then at Shivers, then back to her. ‘You?’
‘Why not me?’
‘Well, I just thought…’
‘When you quit the sun would stop rising for the rest of us? Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘What about your husband, though? Your sons? Thought you were going to…’
‘Last time I went to the farm was four years past.’ She tipped her head back, and there was a hardness in her eye Craw wasn’t used to seeing. ‘They were gone. No sign o’ where.’
‘But you went back not a month ago.’
‘Walked a day, sat by the river and fished. Then I came back to the dozen. Couldn’t face telling you. Couldn’t face the pity. This is all there is for the likes of us. You’ll see.’ She took his hand, and squeezed it, but his stayed limp. ‘Been an honour fighting with you, Craw. Look after yourself.’ And she pushed her way through the door, and shut it with a clatter, and left him behind, blinking at the silent wood.
‘You reckon you know someone, and then …’ Shivers clicked his tongue. ‘No one knows anyone. Not really.’
Craw swallowed. ‘Life’s riddled with surprises all right.’ And he turned his back on the old shack and was off into the gloom.
He’d daydreamed often enough about the grand farewell. Walking down an aisle of well-wishing Named Men and off to his bright future, back sore from all the clapping on it. Striding through a passageway of drawn swords, twinkling in the sunlight. Riding away, fist held high in salute as Carls cheered for him and women wept over his leaving, though where the women might have sprung from was anyone’s guess.
Sneaking away in the chill gloom as dawn crept up, unremarked and unremembered, not so much. But it’s ’cause real life is what it is that a man needs daydreams.
Most anyone with a name worth knowing was up at the Heroes, waiting to see Calder get slaughtered. Only Jolly Yon, Scorry Tiptoe and Flood were left to see him off. The remains of Craw’s dozen. And Beck, dark shadows under his eyes, the Father of Swords held in one pale fist. Craw could see the hurt in their faces, however they tried to plaster smiles over it. Like he was letting ’em down. Maybe he was.
He’d always prided himself on being well liked. Straight edge and that. Even so, his dead friends long ago got his living ones outnumbered, and they’d worked the advantage a good way further the last few days. Three of those that might’ve given him the warmest send-off were back to the mud at the top of the hill, and two more in the back of his cart.
He tried to drag the old blanket straight, but no tugging at the corners was going to make this square. Whirrun’s chin, and Drofd’s, and their noses, and their feet making sorry little tents of the threadbare old cloth. Some hero’s shroud. But the living could use the good blankets. The dead there was no warming.
‘Can’t believe you’re going,’ said Scorry.
‘Been saying for years I would.’
‘Exactly. You never did.’
Craw could only shrug. ‘Now I am.’
In his head saying goodbye to his own crew had always been like pressing hands before a battle. That same fierce tide of comradeship. Only more, because they all knew it was the last time, rather than just fearing it might be. But aside from the feeling of squeezing flesh, it was nothing like that. They seemed strangers, almost. Maybe he was like the corpse of a dead comrade, now. They just wanted him buried, so they could get on. For him there wouldn’t even be the worn-down ritual of heads bowed about the fresh-turned earth. There’d just be a goodbye that felt like a betrayal on both sides.
‘Ain’t staying for the show, then?’ asked Flood.
‘The duel?’ Or the murder, as it might be better put. ‘I seen enough blood, I reckon. The dozen’s yours, Yon.’
Yon raised an eyebrow at Scorry, and at Flood, and at Beck. ‘All of ’em?’
‘You’ll find more. We always have. Few days time you won’t even notice there’s aught missing.’ Sad fact was it was more’n likely true. That’s how it had always been, when they lost one man or another. Hard to imagine it’d be the same with yourself. That you’d be forgotten the way a pond forgets a stone tossed in. A few ripples and you’re gone. It’s in the nature of men to forget.
Yon was frowning at the blanket, and what was underneath. ‘If I die,’ he muttered, ‘who’ll find my sons for me…’
‘Maybe you should find ’em yourself, you thought o’ that? Find ’em yourself, Yon, and tell ’em what you are, and make amends, while you’ve got breath still to do it.’
Yon looked down at his boots. ‘Aye. Maybe.’ A silence comfortable as a spike up the arse. ‘Well, then. We got shields to hold, I reckon, up there with Wonderful.’
‘Right y’are,’ said Craw. Yon turned and walked off up the hill, shaking his head. Scorry gave a last nod then followed him.
‘So long, Chief,’ said Flood.
‘I guess I’m no one’s Chief no more.’
‘You’ll always be mine.’ And he limped off after the other two, leaving just Craw and Beck beside the cart. A lad he hadn’t even known two days before to say the last goodbye.
Craw sighed, and he hauled himself up into the seat, wincing at all the bruises he’d gained the last few days. Beck stood below, Father of Swords in both hands, sheathed point on the dirt. ‘I’ve got to hold a shield for Black Dow,’ he said. ‘Me. You ever done that?’
‘More’n once. There’s nothing to it. Just hold the circle, make sure no one leaves it. Stand by your Chief. Do the right thing, like you did yesterday.’
‘Yesterday,’ muttered Beck, staring down at the wheel of the cart, like he was staring right through the ground and didn’t like what he saw on the other side. ‘I didn’t tell you everything, yesterday. I wanted to, but …’
Craw frowned over his shoulder at the two shapes under the blanket. He could’ve done without hearing anyone’s confessions. He was carting enough weight around with his own mistakes. But Beck was already talking. Droning, flat, like a bee trapped in a hot room. ‘I killed a man, in Osrung. Not a Union one, though. One of ours. Lad called Reft. He stood, and fought, and I ran, and hid, and I killed him.’ Beck was still staring at the cartwheel, wet glistening in his eyes. ‘Stabbed him right through with my father’s sword. Took him for a Union man.’
Craw wanted just to snap those reins and go. But maybe he could help, and all his years wasted might be some use to someone. So he gritted his teeth, and leaned down, and put his hand on Beck’s shoulder. ‘I know it burns at you. Probably it always will. But the sad fact is, I’ve heard a dozen stories just like it in my time. A score. Wouldn’t raise much of an eyebrow from any man who’s seen a battle. This is the black business. Bakers make bread, and carpenters make houses, and we make dead men. All you can do is take each day as it comes. Try and do the best you can with what you’re given. You won’t always do the right thing, but you can try. And you can try to do the right thing next time. That, and stay alive.’
Beck shook his head. ‘I killed a man. Shouldn’t I pay?’
‘You killed a man?’ Craw raised his arms, helplessly let them drop. ‘It’s a battle. Everyone’s at it. Some live, some die, some pay, some don’t. If you’ve come through all right, be thankful. Try to earn it.’
‘I’m a fucking coward.’
