The Great Leveller by Joe Abercrombie
‘Of course, Inquisitor,’ said Dimbik. The two flatbowmen raised their weapons to point them at Cosca. They looked slightly surprised that they were doing it, but they did it nonetheless.
Friendly looked up from his dice and frowned slightly. ‘Two,’ he said.
Cosca gazed slack-jawed at Dimbik. ‘So that’s how it is?’ The bottle dropped from his nerveless fingers, clattered to the floor and rolled away, dribbling liquor. ‘That’s how it is, is it?’
‘How else would it be?’ said Dimbik. ‘Sergeant Cog?’
That venerable soldier stepped forward, for once, with an impressive degree of military snap. ‘Sir?’
‘Please disarm Master Cosca, Master Friendly, and Master Sworbreck.’
‘Place them in irons for the trip,’ said Lorsen. ‘They will face trial on our return.’
‘Why me?’ squeaked Sworbreck, eyes wide as saucers.
‘Why not you?’ Corporal Bright looked the author over and, finding no weapon, he jerked the pencil from his hand, tossed it on the floor and made great show of grinding it under his heel.
‘Prisoner?’ muttered Friendly. For some reason he had the faintest smile on his face as the manacles were snapped around his wrists.
‘I’ll be back!’ snarled the Old Man, spraying spit over his shoulder as Cog dragged him wriggling away, empty scabbard flapping. ‘Laugh while you can, because Nicomo Cosca always laughs last! I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you! I will not be disappointed again! I will—’ The door swung shut upon him.
‘Who was that drunkard?’ asked Sarmis.
‘Nicomo Cosca, your Excellency,’ muttered Temple, still on his knees and with one hand pressed to his bloody mouth. ‘Infamous soldier of fortune.’
The Legate grunted. ‘Never heard of him.’
Lorsen placed one hand upon his breast and bowed low. ‘Your Excellency, I pray that you accept my apologies for any and all inconveniences, trespasses and—’
‘You have eight weeks to leave Imperial territory,’ said Sarmis. ‘Any of you found within our borders after that time will be buried alive.’ He slapped dust from his breastplate. ‘Have you such a thing as a bath?’
‘Of course, your Excellency,’ murmured the Mayor, virtually grovelling. ‘We will do the very best we can.’ She turned her eyes to Dimbik as she ushered the Legate towards the stairs. ‘Get out,’ she hissed.
The brand-new captain general was by no means reluctant to oblige. With the greatest of relief, he and his men spilled into the street and prepared their tired mounts for the trip out of town. Cosca had been manhandled into his saddle, sparse hair in disarray, gazing down at Dimbik with a look of stunned upset.
‘I remember when I took you on,’ he muttered. ‘Drunk, and spurned, and worthless. I graciously offering my hand.’ He attempted to mime the offering of his hand but was prevented by his manacles.
Dimbik smoothed down his hair. ‘Times change.’
‘Here is justice, eh, Sworbreck? Here is loyalty! Take a good look, all of you, this is where charity gets you! The fruits of polite behaviour and thought for your fellow man!’
‘For pity’s sake, someone shut him up,’ snapped Lorsen, and Cog leaned from his saddle and stuffed a pair of socks in Cosca’s mouth.
Dimbik leaned closer to the Inquisitor. ‘It might be best if we were to kill them. Cosca still has friends among the rest of the Company, and—’
‘A point well made and well taken, but no. Look at him.’ The infamous mercenary did indeed present a most miserable picture, sitting hunched on horseback with hands manacled behind him, his torn and muddied cloak all askew, the gilt on his breastplate all peeling and rust showing beneath, his wrinkled skin blotchy with rash, one of Cog’s socks dangling from his mouth. ‘Yesterday’s man if ever there was one. And in any case, my dear Captain General . . .’ Dimbik stood tall and straightened his uniform at the title. He very much enjoyed the ring of it. ‘We need someone to blame.’
In spite of the profound pain in his stomach, the ache in his legs, the sweat spreading steadily under his armour, he remained resplendently erect upon the balcony, rigid as a mighty oak, until long after the mercenaries had filed away into the haze. Would the great Legate Sarmis, ruthless commander, undefeated general, right hand of the Emperor, feared throughout the Circle of the World, have allowed himself to display the least trace of weakness, after all?
It felt an age of agony before the Mayor stepped out onto the balcony with Temple behind her, and spoke the longed for words ‘They’re gone.’
Every part of him sagged and he gave a groan from the very bottom of his being. He removed that ridiculous helmet, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. He could scarcely recall having donned a more absurd costume in all his many years in the theatre. No garlands of flowers flung by an adoring audience, perhaps, as had littered the broad stage of Adua’s House of Drama after his every appearance as the First of the Magi, but his satisfaction was no less complete.
‘I told you I had one more great performance in me!’ said Lestek.
‘And so you did,’ said the Mayor.
‘You both provided able support, though, for amateurs. I daresay you have a future in the theatre.’
‘Did you have to hit me?’ asked Temple, probing at his split lip.
‘Someone had to,’ muttered the Mayor.
‘Ask yourself rather, would the terrible Legate Sarmis have struck you, and blame him for your pains,’ said Lestek. ‘A performance is all in the details, my boy, all in the details! One must inhabit the role entirely. Which occurs to me, do thank my little legion before they disperse, it was an ensemble effort.’
‘For five carpenters, three bankrupt prospectors, a barber and a drunk, they made quite an honour guard,’ said Temple.
‘That drunk scrubbed up surprisingly well,’ said Lestek.
‘A good find,’ added the Mayor.
‘It really worked?’ Shy South had limped up to lean against the door frame.
‘I told you it would,’ said Temple.
‘But you obviously didn’t believe it.’
‘No,’ he admitted, peering up at the skies. ‘There really must be a God.’
‘Are you sure they’ll believe it?’ asked the Mayor. ‘Once they’ve joined up with the rest of their Company and had time to think it over?’
‘Men believe what they want to,’ said Temple. ‘Cosca’s done. And those bastards want to go home.’
‘A victory for culture over barbarity!’ said Lestek, flicking the plume on the helmet.
‘A victory for law over chaos,’ said Temple, fanning himself with his worthless treaty.
‘A victory for lying,’ said the Mayor, ‘and only by the narrowest of margins.’
Shy South shrugged and said, with her talent for simplicity, ‘A win’s a win.’
‘All too true!’ Lestek took a long breath through his nose and, even with the pain, even though he knew he did not have long left, perhaps because he knew it, he breathed out with the deepest fulfilment. ‘As a young man I found happy endings cloying but, call me soppy, with age, I have come to appreciate them more and more.’
The Cost
Shy scooped up water and splashed it on her face, and groaned at the cold of it, just this side of ice. She worked her fingertips into her sore eyelids, and her aching cheeks, and her battered mouth. Stayed there, bent over the basin, her faint reflection sent scattering by the drops from her face. The water was pink with blood. Hard to say where from exactly. The last few months had left her beaten as a prizefighter. Just without the prize.
There was the long rope-burn coiling around one forearm and the new cut down the other, blood spotted through the bandage. Her hands were ripped up front and back, crack-nailed and scab-knuckled. She picked at the scar under her ear, a keepsake from that Ghost out on the plains. He’d almost got the whole ear to remember her by. She felt the lumps and scabs on her scalp, the nicks on her face, some of them she couldn’t even re
She looked down into the street and watched the children for a moment. Majud had found them some new clothes – dark suit and shirt for Pit, green dress with lace at the sleeves for Ro. Better than Shy had ever been able to buy them. They might’ve passed for some rich man’s children if it hadn’t been for their shaved heads, the dark fuzz just starting to grow back. Curnsbick was pointing to his vast new building, talking with big, enthusiastic gestures, Ro watching and listening solemnly, taking it all in, Pit kicking a stone about the mud.
Shy sniffed, and swallowed, and splashed more water on her face. Couldn’t be crying if her eyes were wet already, could she? She should’ve been leaping with joy. In spite of the odds, the hardships, the dangers, she’d got them back.
But all she could think of was the cost.
The people killed. A few she’d miss and a lot she wouldn’t. Some she’d even have called evil, but no one’s evil to themselves, are they? They were still people dead, could do no good now, could make no amends and right no wrongs, people who’d taken a lifetime to make, plucked out from the world and turned to mud. Sangeed and his Ghosts. Papa Ring and his crooks. Waerdinur and his Dragon People. Leef left under the dirt out on the plains, and Grega Cantliss doing the hanged man’s dance, and Brachio with the arrows in him, and—
She stuck her face in the cloth and rubbed, hard, like she could rub them all away, but they were stuck tight to her. Tattooed into her sure as the rebel slogans into Corlin’s arms.
Was it her fault? Had she set it all rolling when she came out here like the kicked pebble that starts the landslide? Or was it Cantliss’ fault, or Waerdinur’s, or Lamb’s? Was it everyone’s? Her head hurt from trying to pull apart the tapestry of everything happened and follow her own nasty little thread through it, sifting for blame like a fevered miner dredging at a stream-bed. No point picking at it any more than at a scab. But still, now it was behind her, she couldn’t stop looking back.
She limped to the bed and sat with a groaning of old springs, arms around herself, wincing and twitching at flashes of things happened like they were happening now.
Cantliss smashing her head against a table leg. Her knife sliding into flesh. Grunting in her face. Things she’d had to do. Wrestling with a crazy Ghost. Leef without his ears. Sangeed’s head coming off, thud. It had been them or her. Looking down at that girl she’d shot, not much older’n Ro. Arrow in a horse and the rider tumbling. No choice, she’d had no choice. Lamb flinging her against the wall, Waerdinur’s skull split, click, and she was flying from the wagon, and over, and over, and over—
She jerked her head up at a knock, wiped her eyes on her bandage. ‘Who’s there?’ Doing her best to sound like it was any other morning.
‘Your lawyer.’ Temple swung the door open, that earnest look on his face which she could never quite be sure was genuine. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ve had easier years.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Guess it’s a little late to ask you to keep that wagon on the road.’
‘A little.’ He came and sat down on the bed next to her. Didn’t feel uncomfortable. You go through what they’d been through together, maybe uncomfortable goes off the menu. ‘The Mayor wants us gone. She says we’re bad luck.’
‘Hard to argue with her. I’m surprised she hasn’t killed you.’
‘I suppose she still might.’
‘Just need to wait a little longer.’ Shy grunted as she wormed her foot into her boot, trying to work out how bad the ankle hurt. Bad enough she stopped trying. ‘Just ’til Lamb comes back.’
There was a silence then. A silence in which Temple didn’t say, ‘Do you really think he’s coming back?’ Instead he just nodded, as if Lamb coming was as sure as tomorrow, and she was grateful for that much. ‘Then where are you heading?’
‘That’s a question.’ New lives out west didn’t look much different to the old ones. No short cuts to riches, leastways, or none a sane woman might want to take. And it was no place for children neither. She’d never thought farming would look like the comfortable option, but now she shrugged. ‘The Near Country for me, I reckon. It’s no easy life but I’ve spotted nothing easier.’
‘I hear Dab Sweet and Crying Rock are putting together a Fellowship for the trip back. Majud’s going along, aiming to make some deals in Adua. Lord Ingelstad too.’
‘Any Ghosts turn up his wife can frown ’em to death.’
‘She’s staying. I hear she bought Camling’s Hostelry for a song.’
‘Good for her.’
‘The rest will be heading east within the week.’
‘Now? ’Fore the weather breaks?’
‘Sweet says now’s the time, before the meltwater swells the rivers and the Ghosts get tetchy again.’
She took a long breath. Could’ve done with a year or two in bed but life hadn’t often served her what she ordered. ‘Might be I’ll sign up.’
Temple looked across from under his brows. Nervous, almost. ‘Maybe . . . I’ll tag on?’
‘Can’t stop you, can I?’
‘Would you want to?’
She thought about that. ‘No. Might need someone to ride drag. Or jump out of a window. Or drive a wagon full of gold off a road.’
He puffed himself up. ‘As it happens, I am expert in all three. I’ll talk to Sweet and let him know we’ll be joining up. I suppose it’s possible he won’t value my skills as highly as you do, though . . . I might have to buy my way in.’
They looked at each other for a moment. ‘You coming up a little short?’
‘You didn’t exactly give me time to pack. I’ve nothing but the clothes I’m wearing.’
‘Lucky for you I’m always willing to help out.’ She reached into her pocket and drew out a few of the ancient coins she’d taken while the wagon sped across the plateau. ‘Will that cover it?’
‘I’d say so.’ He took them between finger and thumb but she didn’t let go.
‘Reckon that’s about two hundred marks you owe.’
He stared at her. ‘Are you trying to upset me?
‘I can do that without trying.’ And she let go the coins.
‘I suppose a person should stick to what they’re good at.’ He smiled, and flicked one of the coins spinning up and snatched it from the air. ‘Seems I’m at my best in debt.’
‘Tell you what.’ She grabbed a bottle from the table by her bed and wedged it in her shirt pocket. ‘I’ll pay you a mark to help me downstairs.’
Outside a sleety drizzle had set in, falling brown around Curnsbick’s belching chimneys, his workmen struggling in the mush on the far side of the street. Temple helped her to the rail and she leaned against it, watching. Funny thing. She didn’t want to let go of him.
‘I’m bored,’ said Pit.
‘One day, young man, you will learn what a luxury it is to be bored.’ Temple offered him his hand. ‘Why not help me seek out that noted scout and frontiersman, Dab Sweet? There may even be gingerbread in it for you. I have recently come into some money.’
‘All right.’ Temple lifted the boy onto his shoulders and they set off down the rattling porches at half a jog, Pit laughing as he bounced.
He had a touch with the children, had Temple. More than she had, now, it seemed. Shy hopped to the bench against the front of the house and dropped onto it, stretched her hurt leg out in front of her and eased back. She grunted as she let her muscles go soft by slow degrees, and finally pulled the cork from her bottle with that echoing thwop that sets your mouth watering. Oh, the simple joy of doing nothing. Thinking nothing. She reckoned she could allow herself a rest.
It had been hard work, the last few months.
She lowered that bottle, looking up the street, liquor burning at the cuts in her mouth in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. There was a rider coming thro
She took another sip from her bottle. ‘I was wondering when you’d turn up.’
‘You can stop,’ grunted Lamb, stopping himself, his old horse looking like it didn’t have another stride in it. ‘The children all right?’
‘They’re as well as they were.’
‘How about you?’
‘Don’t know when I was last all right, but I’m still just about alive. You?’
‘Just about.’ He clambered down from his horse, teeth gritted, not even bothering to tie it up. ‘Say one thing for me . . . say I’m a survivor.’ He held his ribs as he limped up the steps and onto the porch. He looked at the bench, then his sword, realised he wouldn’t be able to sit with it on, started struggling with the buckle on the belt, his knuckles scabbed raw and two of the fingers he still had bandaged together and held stiff.
‘By . . . the . . . fucking—’
‘Here.’ She leaned and flicked the buckle open and he pulled the sword off, belt dangling, cast about for somewhere to put it, then gave up and dropped it on the boards, sank down beside her and slowly, slowly stretched his legs out next to hers.
‘Savian?’ she asked.
Lamb shook his head a little. Like shaking it a lot would hurt him. ‘Where’s Cosca?’
‘Gone.’ She passed him the bottle. ‘Temple lawyered him off.’
‘Lawyered him?’
‘With a little help from the Mayor and a final performance of remarkable quality.’
‘Well, I never did.’ Lamb took a long swig and wiped his scabbed lips, looking across the street at Curnsbick’s manufactory. A couple of doors down, above an old card-hall, they were hauling up a sign reading Valint and Balk, Bankers. Lamb took another swallow. ‘Times sure are changing.’