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.
The Right Thing
‘Is it true?’ asked Drofd.
‘Eh?’
‘Is it true?’ The lad nodded towards Skarling’s Finger, standing proud on its own tump of hill, casting no more’n a stub of shadow since it was close to midday. ‘That Skarling Hoodless is buried under there?’
‘Doubt it,’ said Craw. ‘Why would he be?’
‘Ain’t that why they call it Skarling’s Finger, though?’
‘What else would they call it?’ asked Wonderful. ‘Skarling’s Cock?’
Brack raised his thick brows. ‘Now you mention it, it does look a bit like a…’
Drofd cut him off. ‘No, I mean, why call it that if he ain’t buried there?’
Wonderful looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the North. He might’ve been in the running. ‘There’s a stream near my husband’s farm — my farm — they call ‘Skarling’s Beck. There’s probably fifty others in the North. Most likely there’s a legend he wet his manly thirst in their clear waters before some speech or charge or noble stand from the songs. Daresay he did no more’n piss in most of ’em if he ever even came within a day’s ride. That’s what it is to be a hero. Everyone wants a little bit of you.’ She nodded at Whirrun, kneeling before the Father of Swords with hands clasped and eyes closed. ‘In fifty years there’ll more’n likely be a dozen Whirrun’s Becks scattered across farms he never went to, and numbskulls will point at ’em, all dewy-eyed, and ask — ‘‘Is it true Whirrun of Bligh’s buried under that stream?’’’ She walked off, shaking her cropped head.
Drofd’s shoulders slumped. ‘I only bloody asked, didn’t I? I thought that was why they called ’em the Heroes, ’cause there are heroes buried under ’em.’
‘Who cares who’s buried where?’ muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. ‘Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.’
Brack nodded. ‘Less with every time the story’s told.’
‘Eh?’
‘Bethod, let’s say,’ said Craw. ‘You’d think to hear the tales he was the most evil bastard ever set foot in the North.’
‘Weren’t he?’
‘All depends on who you ask. His enemies weren’t keen on him, and the dead know he made a lot o’ the bastards. But look at all he did. More’n Skarling Hoodless ever managed. Bound the North together. Built the roads we march on, half the towns. Put an end to the warring between the clans.’
‘By starting wars with the Southerners.’
‘Well, true. There’s two sides to every coin, but there’s my very point. People like simple stories.’ Craw frowned at the pink marks down the edges of his nails. ‘But people ain’t simple.’
Brack slapped Drofd on the back and near made him fall. ‘Except for you, eh, boy?’
‘Craw!’ Wonderful’s voice had that note in it made everyone turn. Craw sprang up, or as close as he got to springing these days, and hurried over to her, wincing as his knee crunched like breaking twigs, sending stings right up into his back.
