It was true there were few defences. A fence of rough-cut logs had once ringed the town but had been partly torn down to allow for growth. The roof of the wooden watchtower was crusted with moss and someone had secured their washing line to one of its supports. The Ghosts had long ago been driven out of this country and the townsfolk evidently expected no other threat. They would soon discover their error.
Jubair’s eyes slid back to Sufeen. ‘I tire of your carping. Give the signal.’
The scout had reluctance in his eyes, and bitterness, but he obeyed, taking out the mirror and crawling to the edge of the treeline to signal Cosca and the others. That was well for him. If he had not obeyed, Jubair would most likely have killed him, and he would have been right so to do.
He tipped his head back and smiled at the blue sky through the black branches, the black leaves. He could do anything and it would be right, for he had made himself a willing puppet of God’s purpose and in so doing freed himself. He alone free, surrounded by slaves. He was the best man in the Near Country. The best man in the Circle of the World. He had no fear, for God was with him.
God was everywhere, always.
How could it be otherwise?
Checking he wasn’t observed, Brachio tugged the locket from his shirt and snapped it open. The two tiny portraits were blistered and faded ’til anyone else would’ve seen little more than smudges, but Brachio knew them. He touched those faces with a gentle fingertip and in his mind they were as they’d been when he left—soft, perfect and smiling, too long ago.
‘Don’t worry, my babies,’ he cooed to them. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
A man has to choose what matters and leave everything else to the dogs. Worry about all of it and you’ll do no good at all. He was the only man in the Company with any sense. Dimbik was a preening mope. Jubair and sanity were entire strangers to each other. For all his craft and cunning, Cosca was a dreamer—this shit with the biographer was proof enough of that.
Brachio was the best of them because he knew what he was. No high ideals, no grand delusions. He was a sensible man with sensible ambitions, doing what he had to, and he was content. His daughters were all that mattered. New dresses, and good food, and good dowries, and good lives. Better lives than the hell he’d lived—
‘Captain Brachio!’ Cosca’s braying voice, loud as ever, snatched him back to the now. ‘There is the signal!’
Brachio snapped the locket closed, wiped his damp eyes on the back of his fist, and straightened the bandolier that held his knives. Cosca had wedged a boot in one stirrup and now bounced once, twice, three times before dragging on his gilt saddle horn. His bulging eyes came level with it before he froze. ‘Could somebody—’
Sergeant Friendly slipped a hand under Cosca’s arse and twitched him effortlessly into the saddle. Once there, the Old Man spent a moment getting his wind back, then, with some effort, drew his blade and hefted it high. ‘Unsheathe your swords!’ He considered that. ‘Or cheaper weapons! Let us… do some
Brachio pointed towards the crest of the hill and bellowed, ‘Ride!’ With a rousing cheer the front rank spurred their horses and thundered off in a shower of dirt and dry grass. Cosca, Lorsen, Brachio and the rest, as befitted commanders, trotted after.
‘That’s it?’ Brachio heard Sworbreck muttering as the shabby valley, and its patchy fields, and the dusty little settlement came into view below. Maybe he’d been expecting a mile-high fortress with domes of gold and walls of adamant. Maybe it would’ve become one by the time he’d finished writing the scene. ‘It looks…’
‘Doesn’t it?’ snapped Temple.
Brachio’s Styrians were already streaming across the fields towards the town at a greedy gallop while Jubair’s Kantics swarmed at it from the other direction, their horses black dots against a rising storm of dust.
‘Look at them go!’ Cosca swept off his hat and gave it a wave. ‘The brave boys, eh? There’s vim and brio for you! How I wish I could still charge in there with the rest of them!’
‘Really?’ Brachio remembered leading a charge and it had been tough, sore, dangerous work, with vim and brio both conspicuous by their absence.
Cosca thought about it for a moment, then jammed his hat back on his balding head and fumbled his sword back into its sheath. ‘No. Not really.’
They made their way down at a walk.
If there had been any resistance, by the time they reached Squaredeal it was over.
A man sat in the dust by the road, bloody hands pressed to his face, blinking at Sworbreck as he rode past. A sheep pen had been broken open and the sheep all needlessly slaughtered, a dog already busy among the fluffy corpses. A wagon had been tipped on its side, one wheel still creaking hopelessly around in the air while a Kantic and a Styrian mercenary argued savagely in terms neither could understand over the scattered contents. Two other Styrians were trying to kick the door of a forge from its hinges. Another had climbed onto the roof and was digging clumsily at it, using his axe like a shovel. Jubair sat on his huge horse in the centre of the street, pointing with his outsize sword and booming orders, along with some incomprehensible utterances about the will of God.
Sworbreck’s pencil hovered, his fingertips worrying at its string binding, but he could think of nothing to write. In the end he scratched out, absurdly,
‘What are those idiots up to?’ murmured Temple. Several Kantics had roped a team of mules to one of the struts of the town’s moss-crusted watchtower and were whipping them into a lather in an attempt to pull it down. So far they had failed.
Sworbreck had observed that many of the men found it enjoyable simply to break things. The greater the effort required in putting them back together, the greater the pleasure. As if to illustrate this rule, four of Brachio’s men had knocked someone to the ground and were administering a leisurely beating while a fat man in an apron tried without success to calm them.
Sworbreck had rarely observed violence of even the mildest sort. A dispute over narrative structure between two authors of his acquaintance had turned quite ugly, but that scarcely seemed to qualify now. Finding himself suddenly dropped into the midst of battle, as it were, Sworbreck felt both cold and hot at once. Both terribly fearful and terribly excited. He shied away from the spectacle, yet longed to see more. Was that not what he had come for, after all? To witness blood and ordure and savagery at its most intense? To smell the guts drying and hear the wails of the brutalised? So he could say that he had seen it. So he could bring conviction and authenticity to his work. So he could sit in the fashionable salons of Adua and airily declaim on the dark truths of warfare. Perhaps those were not the highest of motives, but certainly not the lowest on show. He made no claim to be the best man in the Circle of the World, after all.
Merely the best writer.
Cosca swung from his saddle, grunted as he twisted the life into his venerable hips, then, somewhat stiffly, advanced on the would-be peacemaker in the apron. ‘Good afternoon! I am Nicomo Cosca, captain general of the Company of the Gracious Hand.’ He indicated the four Styrians, elbows and sticks rising and falling as they continued their beating. ‘I see you have already met some of my brave companions.’
‘Name’s Clay,’ said the fat man, jowls trembling with fear. ‘I own the store here—’
‘A store? Excellent! May we browse?’ Brachio’s men were already carrying supplies out by the armload under the watchful eye of Sergeant Friendly. No doubt ensuring any thieving from the Company remained within acceptable limits. Thieving outside the Company was, it appeared, entirely to be encouraged. Sworbreck shuffled his pencil around. A further note about the lack of heroism seemed superfluous.
‘Take whatever you need,’ said Clay, showing his flour-dusted palms. ‘There’s no call for violence.’ A pause, broken by the crashing of glass and wood and the whimpering of the man on the ground as he was occasionally and unenthusiastically kicked. ‘Might I ask why you’re here?’
Lorsen stepped forward. ‘We are here to root out disloyalty, Master Clay. We are here to stamp out rebellion.’
‘You’re… from the Inquisition?’
Lorsen said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes.
Clay swallowed. ‘There’s no rebellion here, I assure you.’ Though Sworbreck sensed a falseness in his voice. Something more than understandable nervousness. ‘We’re not interested in politics—’
