The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (109 page)

‘I … I …’ It was the one called Worth, and he was in a fix. Tunny knew the signs, of course. The shifting from one leg to another, the pale features, the slightly dewy eyes. No time to spare.

He jerked his thumb towards the latrine pits. ‘Go!’ The lad took off like a scared rabbit, hopping bow-legged through the mud. ‘But make sure you crap in the proper place!’ Tunny turned to wag one lecturing finger at the rest of the litter.
‘Always
crap in the proper place. This is a principle of soldiering of far greater importance than any rubbish about marching, or weapons, or ground.’ Even at this distance Worth’s long groan could be heard, followed by some explosive farting. ‘Trooper Worth is fighting his first engagement with our real enemy out here. An implacable, merciless, liquid foe.’ He slapped a hand down on the shoulder of the nearest trooper. Yolk, as it happened, who nearly collapsed under the added weight. ‘Sooner or later, I’ve no doubt, you will all be called upon to fight your own battle of the latrines. Courage, boys, courage. Now, while we wait for Worth to force out the enemy or die bravely in the attempt, would any of you boys care for a friendly game of cards?’ He produced the deck from nowhere, fanning it out under the recruits’ surprised eyes, or eye in Klige’s case, the mesmerising effect only mildly damaged by Trooper Worth’s ongoing arse music. ‘We’ll just play for honour. To begin with. Nothing you can’t afford to lose, eh? Nothing you can’t … Uh-oh.’

General Jalenhorm had emerged from his headquarters, jacket wide open, hair in disarray, face flushed beetroot red, and shouting. He was always shouting, but this time he appeared, for once, to have a purpose. Gorst came after him, hunched and silent.

‘Uh-oh.’ Jalenhorm stomped one way, seemed to think better of it, swivelled, roared at nobody, struggled with a button, slapped an assisting hand angrily away. Staff officers began to scatter from the house in all
directions like birds whacked from the brush, chaos spreading rapidly from the general and infecting the entire camp.

‘Damn it,’ muttered Tunny, shouldering his way into his bracers. ‘We’d best get ready to move.’

‘We just got here, Corporal,’ grumbled Yolk, pack half way off.

Tunny took hold of the strap and tugged it back over Yolk’s shoulder, turned him by it to face towards the general. Jalenhorm was trying to shake his fist at a well-presented officer and button his own jacket at the same time, and failing. ‘You have before you a perfect demonstration of the workings of the army – the chain of command, trooper, each man shitting on the head of the man below. The much-loved leader of our regiment, Colonel Vallimir, is just getting shat on by General Jalenhorm. Colonel Vallimir will shit on his own officers, and it won’t take long to roll downhill, believe me. Within a minute or two, First Sergeant Forest will arrive to position his bared buttocks above my undeserving head. Guess what that means for you lot?’ The lads stayed silent for a moment, then Klige raised a tentative hand. ‘The question was meant to be rhetorical, numbskull.’ He carefully lowered it again. ‘For that you get to carry my pack.’

Klige’s shoulders slumped.

‘You. Ladderlugger.’

‘Lederlingen, Corporal Tunny.’

‘Whatever. Since you love volunteering so much, you just volunteered to take my other pack. Yolk?’

‘Sir?’ Plain to see he could hardly stand under the weight of his own gear.

Tunny sighed. ‘You carry the hammock.’

B
eck raised the axe high and snarled as he brought it down, split that log in two and pretended all the while it was some Union soldier’s head. Pretended there was blood spraying from it rather’n splinters. Pretended the babbling of the brook was the sound of men cheering for him and the leaves across the grass were women swooning at his feet. Pretended he was a great hero, like his father had been, won himself a high name on the battlefield and a high place at the fire and in the songs. He was the hardest bastard in the whole damn North, no doubt. Far as pretending went.

He tossed the split wood onto the pile, stooped down to drag up another log. Wiped his forehead on his sleeve and frowned across the valley, humming to himself from the Lay of Ripnir. Somewhere out there beyond the hills, Black Dow’s army was fighting. Out there beyond the hills high deeds were being done and tomorrow’s songs written. He spat into his palms, rough from wood-axe, and plough, and scythe, and shovel, and washboard even. He hated this valley and the people in it. Hated this farm and the work he did on it.

He was made to fight, not chop logs.

He heard footsteps slapping, saw his brother struggling up the steep path from the house, bent over. Back from the village already, and it looked like he’d run the whole way. Beck’s axe went up into the bright sky and came down, and one more Southerner’s skull was laid to waste. Festen made it to the top of the path and stood there, bent over, shaking hands on his wobbly knees, round cheeks blotchy pink, struggling for breath.

‘What’s the hurry?’ asked Beck, bending for more wood.

‘There’s … there’s …’ Festen fought to talk and breathe and stand up all at once. ‘There’s men in the village!’ he got out in a rush.

‘What sort o’ men?’

‘Carls! Reachey’s Carls!’

‘What?’ The axe hovered over Beck’s head, forgotten.

‘Aye. And they got a weapontake on!’

Beck stood there for a moment longer, then tossed the axe down on the pile of split logs and strode for the house. Strode fast and hard, his skin all
singing. So fast Festen had to trot along to keep up, asking, ‘What you going to do?’ over and over and getting no reply.

Past the pen and the staring goats and the five big tree stumps all hacked and scarred from years of Beck’s blade practice every morning. Into the smoke-smelling darkness of the house, slashes of sunlight through the ill-fitting shutters, across bare boards and bald old furs. Wood creaked under his boots as he strode to his chest, knelt, pushed back the lid, tore his clothes out of the way with small patience. Lifted it with fingers tender as a lover’s. The only thing he cared for.

Gold glimmered in the gloom and he wrapped his fingers around the hilt, feeling the perfect balance of it, slid a foot-length of steel from the scabbard. Smiled at that sound, that scraping, singing sound that set his already jangling nerves to thrill. How often had he smiled down like this, polishing, sharpening, polishing, dreaming of this day, and now it was come. He slapped the sword back in its sheath, turned … and froze.

His mother stood in the doorway, watching. A black shadow with the white sky behind.

‘I’m taking my father’s sword,’ he snapped, shaking the hilt at her.

‘He was killed with that sword.’

‘It’s mine to take!’

‘It is.’

‘You can’t make me stay here no more.’ He stuffed a few things in the pack he kept ready. ‘You said this summer!’

‘I did.’

‘You can’t stop me going!’

‘Do you see me trying?’

‘By my age Shubal the Wheel had been seven years on campaign!’

‘Lucky him.’

‘It’s time. It’s past time!’

‘I know.’ She watched as he took his bow down, unstrung and wrapped up with a few shafts. ‘It’ll be cold nights, next month or two. Best take my good cloak with you.’

That caught him off guard. ‘I … no, you should keep it.’

‘I’d be happier knowing you had it.’

He didn’t want to argue in case he lost his nerve. Off all big and bold to face down a thousand thousand Southerners but scared of the one woman who’d birthed him. So he snatched her good green-dyed cloak down from the peg and over his shoulder as he stalked for the door. Treated it like nothing even though he knew it was the best thing she had.

Festen was standing outside, nervous, not really understanding what was happening. Beck ruffled his red hair for him. ‘You’re the man here, now. Get them logs chopped and I’ll bring you something back from the wars.’

‘They’ve got nothing there we need,’ said his mother, eyeing him from
the shadows. Not angry, like she used to be. Just sad. He’d hardly realised ’til that moment how much bigger’n her he was now. The top of her head hardly came up to his neck, even.

‘We’ll see.’ He took the two steps down to the ground outside, under the mossy eaves of the house, couldn’t help turning back. ‘Well, then.’

‘One last thing, Beck.’ She leaned down, and kissed him on his forehead. The softest of kisses, gentle as the rain. She touched his cheek, and she smiled. ‘My son.’

He felt the tightness of tears in his throat, and he was guilty for what he’d said, and joyful to get his way at last, and angry for all the months he hadn’t, and sad to go, and afraid, and excited all at once. He could hardly make his face show one thing or another for all the different ways it was pulled. He touched the back of her hand quickly, and he turned before he started weeping and strode away down the path, and off to war.

Strode the way he thought his father might’ve.

The weapontake weren’t quite what Beck had hoped for.

Rain flitted down, not enough to make anyone wet, really, but enough to make everyone squint and hunch, to damp down the feel of the whole business. And the feel was pretty damn soggy already. Folk who’d come to join up, or been made to come, more likely, stood in things that might’ve started off as rows but had melted into squelching, jostling, grumbling tangles. Most of ’em were young lads, too young for this by Beck’s reckoning. Lads who might never have seen the next valley let alone a battle. Most of the rest were grey with age. A few cripples of one kind or another rounded out the numbers. At the edge of the crowd some of Reachey’s Carls stood leaning on spears or sat mounted, looking every bit as unimpressed by the new recruits as Beck was. All in all, it was a long, low way from the noble band of brothers he’d been hoping to play a hero’s part in.

He shook his head, one fist holding his mother’s cloak tight at his neck, the other underneath it, gripping the warm hilt of his father’s sword. He didn’t belong with this lot. Maybe Skarling Hoodless had started out with an unpromising crowd, and made an army of ’em that beat the Union, but Beck couldn’t see anyone telling high tales about this gathering of the hopeless. At one point he’d seen a new-made crew shambling by and two little lads at the front only had one spear between ’em. A weapontake without enough weapons to go round, you don’t hear much about that in the songs.

For some reason, most likely on account of daydreaming it so often, he’d been half-expecting old Caul Reachey himself to be looking on, a man who’d fought in every battle since whenever, a man who did everything the old way. Maybe catching Beck’s eye or giving him a slap on the back. Here’s the kind o’ lad we need! Everyone look at this lad! Let’s find us some
more like him! But there was no sign of Reachey. Or anyone else who knew what they were doing. For a moment he looked at the muddy way he’d come, and gave some hard thought to heading back to the farm. He could be home before dawn—

‘Come to join up?’ A short man but heavy in the shoulder, hair and stubble full of grey, a mace at his belt looked like it had seen some action. He stood with his weight all on one leg, like the other might not take it.

Beck weren’t about to look the fool. He packed away any thoughts of quitting. ‘I’ve come to fight.’

‘Good for you. My name’s Flood, and I’ll be taking charge o’ this little crew when it’s mustered.’ He pointed out an unpromising row of boys, some with worn bows or hatchets, most with nothing but the clothes they stood in and those in a sorry state. ‘You want to do more’n talk about fighting, get in line.’

‘Reckon I will.’ Flood looked like he might know a sword from a sow at least, and one line looked pretty much as bad as another. So Beck swaggered up, chest out, and pushed his way in among the lads at the back. He fair towered over ’em, young as they were. ‘I’m Beck,’ he said.

‘Colving,’ muttered one. Couldn’t have been more’n thirteen and tubby with it, staring about wide-eyed, looking scared of everything.

‘Stodder,’ mumbled around a mouthful of some rotten-looking meat by a hangdog lad with a fat lower lip, wet and dangling like he was touched in the head.

‘I’m Brait,’ piped a boy even smaller’n Colving, ragged as a beggar, dirty toes showing through the end of one split boot. Beck was getting ready to feel sorry for him until he realised how bad he smelled. Brait offered his skinny hand but Beck didn’t take it. He was busy sizing up the last of the group, older’n the others with a bow over his shoulder and a scar through one dark eyebrow. Probably just fell off a wall, but it made him look more dangerous than he’d any right to. Beck wished he had a scar.

‘What about you?’

‘Reft.’ He’d this knowing little grin on his face Beck didn’t much like the look of. Felt right away like he was being laughed at.

‘Something funny?’

Reft waved a hand at the muddle all around ’em. ‘Something not funny?’

‘You laughing at me?’

‘Not everything’s about you, friend.’

Beck weren’t sure if this lad was making him look a fool, or if he was doing it to himself, or if he was just hacked off ’cause none of this matched his hopes, but he was getting angry, and fast. ‘You might want to watch your fucking—’