splitters, maybe, but the lambs were bleating, up on the fells out of sight, and that sounded like music. Sounded a sweeter song to him then than all the hero’s lays he knew.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of grass and woodsmoke. Then he opened ’em, and looked across the valley. Skin all tingling with the peace of that moment. Couldn’t believe he used to hate this place.
Didn’t seem so bad, now. Didn’t seem so bad at all.
Everyone Serves
‘So you’re standing with me?’ asked Calder, breezy as a spring morning.
‘If there’s still room.’
‘Loyal as Rudd Threetrees, eh?’
Ironhead shrugged. ‘I won’t take you for a fool and say yes. But I know where my best interest lies and it’s at your heels. I’d also point out loyalty’s a dangerous foundation. Tends to wash away in a storm. Self-interest stands in any weather.’
Calder had to nod at that. ‘A sound principle.’ He glanced up at Foss Deep, lately returned to his service following the end of hostilities and an apt display of the power of self-interest in the flesh. Despite his stated distaste for battles he’d somehow acquired, gleaming beneath his shabby coat, a splendid Union breastplate engraved with a golden sun. ‘A man should have some, eh, Deep?’
‘Some what?’
‘Principles.’
‘Oh, I’m a big, big, big believer in ’em. My brother too.’
Shallow took a quick break from furiously picking his fingernails with the point of his knife. ‘I like ’em with milk.’
A slightly uncomfortable silence. Then Calder turned back to Ironhead. ‘Last time we spoke you told me you’d stick with Dow. Then you pissed on my boots.’ He lifted one up, even more battered, gouged and stained from the events of the past few days than Calder was himself. ‘Best bloody boots in the North a week ago. Styrian leather. Now look.’
‘I’ll be more’n happy to buy you a new pair.’
Calder winced at his aching ribs as he stood. ‘Make it two.’
‘Whatever you say. Maybe I’ll get a pair myself and all.’
‘You sure something in steel wouldn’t be more your style?’
Ironhead shrugged. ‘No call for steel boots in peacetime. Anything else?’
‘Just keep your men handy, for now. We need to put a good show on ’til the Union get bored of waiting and slink off. Shouldn’t be long.’
‘Right y’are.’
Calder took a couple of steps away, then turned back. ‘Get a gift for my wife, too. Something beautiful, since my child’s due soon.’
‘Chief.’
‘And don’t feel too bad about it. Everyone serves someone.’
‘Very true.’ Ironhead didn’t so much as twitch. A little disappointing, in fact — Calder had hoped to watch him sweat. But there’d be time for that later, once the Union were gone. There’d be time for all kinds of things. So he gave a lordly nod and smirked off, his two shadows trailing after.
He had Reachey on-side, and Pale-as-Snow. He’d had a little word with Wonderful, and she’d had the same little word with Dow’s Carls, and their loyalty had washed with the rainwater, all right. Most of Tenways’ men had drifted off, and White-Eye Hansul had made his own appeal to self-interest and argued the rest around. Ironhead and Golden still hated each other too much to pose a threat and Stranger-Come-Knocking, for reasons beyond Calder’s ken, was treating him like an old and honoured friend.
Laughing stock to king of the world in the swing of a sword. Luck. Some men have it, some don’t.
‘Time to plumb the depth of Glama Golden’s loyalty,’ said Calder happily. ‘Or his self-interest, anyway.’
They walked down the hillside in the gathering darkness, stars starting to peep out from the inky skies, Calder smirking at the thought of how he’d make Golden squirm. How he’d have that puffed-up bastard tripping over his own tongue trying to ingratiate himself. How much he’d enjoy twisting the screw. They reached a fork in the path and Deep strolled off to the left, around the foot of the Heroes.
‘Golden’s camp is on the right,’ grunted Calder.
‘True,’ said Deep, still walking. ‘You’ve an unchallenged grasp on your rights and lefts, which puts you a firm rung above my brother on the ladder of learning.’
‘They look the bloody same,’ snapped Shallow, and Calder felt something prick at his back. A cold and surprising something, not quite painful but certainly not pleasant. It took him a moment to realise what it was, but when he did all his smugness drained away as though that jabbing point had already made a hole.
How flimsy is arrogance. It only takes a bit of sharp metal to bring it all crashing down.
‘We’re going left.’ Shallow’s point prodded again and Calder set off, hands up, his smirk abandoned in the gloom.
There were plenty of people about. Fires surrounded by half-lit faces. One set playing at dice, another making up ever more bloated lies about their high deeds in the battle, another slapping out stray embers on someone’s cloak. A drunken group of Thralls lurched past but they barely even looked over. No one rushed to Calder’s rescue. They saw nothing to comment on and even if they had, they didn’t care a shit. People don’t, on the whole.
‘Where are we going?’ Though the only real question was whether they’d dug his grave already, or were planning to argue over it after.
‘You’ll find out.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ll get there.’
‘No. Why are you doing this?’
They burst out laughing together, as though that was quite the joke. ‘Do you think we were watching you by accident, over at Caul Reachey’s camp?’
‘No, no, no,’ hummed Shallow. ‘No.’
They were moving away from the Heroes, now. Fewer people, fewer fires. Hardly any light but the circle of crops picked out by Deep’s torch. Any hope of help fading into the black behind them along with the bragging and the songs. If Calder was going to be saved he’d have to do it himself. They hadn’t even bothered to take his sword away from him. But who was he fooling? Even if his right hand hadn’t been useless, Shallow could’ve cut his throat a dozen times before he got it drawn. Across the darkened fields he could pick out the line of trees far to the north. Maybe if he ran…
‘No.’ Shallow’s knife pricked at Calder’s side again. ‘No nee no no no.’
‘Really no,’ said Deep.
‘Look, maybe we can come to an arrangement. I’ve got money…’
‘There’s no pockets deep enough to outbid our employer. Your best bet is just to follow along like a good boy.’ Calder rather doubted that but, clever as he liked to think he was, he had no better ideas. ‘We’re sorry about this, you know. We’ve naught but respect for you just as we’d naught but respect for your father.’
‘What good is your sorry going to do me?’
Deep’s shoulders shrugged. ‘A little less than none, but we always make a point of saying it.’
‘He thinks that lends us class,’ said Shallow.
‘A noble air.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Calder. ‘You’re a right pair of fucking heroes.’
‘It’s a pitiable fellow who ain’t a hero to someone,’ said Deep. ‘Even if it’s only himself.’
‘Or Mummy,’ said Shallow.
‘Or his brother.’ Deep grinned over his shoulder. ‘How did your brother feel about you, my lordling?’
Calder thought about Scale, fighting against the odds on that bridge, waiting for help that never came. ‘I’m
