The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (116 page)

Aliz blinked. ‘You’re so knowledgeable …’

Finree very much wanted to say, ‘yes, I am’ but settled for a careless shrug. There was no magic to it. She simply listened, observed, and made sure she never spoke until she knew what she was speaking of. Knowledge is the root of power, after all.

Aliz sighed. ‘War is terrible, isn’t it?’

‘It blights the landscape, throttles commerce and industry, kills the innocent and rewards the guilty, thrusts honest men into poverty and lines the pockets of profiteers, and in the end produces nothing but corpses, monuments and tall tales.’ Finree neglected to mention that it also offered enormous opportunities, however.

‘So many men injured,’ said Aliz. ‘So many dead.’

‘An awful thing.’ Though dead men leave spaces into which the nimble-footed can swiftly step. Or into which nimble wives can swiftly manoeuvre their husbands …

‘And all these people. Losing their homes. Losing everything.’ Aliz was gazing moist-eyed at a miserable procession coming the other way, forced from the track by the soldiers and obliged to toil through their choking dust.

They were mostly women, though it was not easy to tell, they were so ragged. Some old men, and some children along with them. Northern, certainly. Poor, undoubtedly. Beyond poor, for they had virtually nothing,
their faces pinched with hunger, jaws dangling with exhaustion, clutching at heartbreakingly meagre possessions. They did not look at the Union soldiers tramping the other way with hatred, or even with fear. They looked too desperate to register emotion of any kind.

Finree did not know who they were running from exactly, or where they were going. What horror had set them in motion or what others they might still face. Shaken from their homes by the blind tremors of war. Looking at them, Finree felt shamefully secure, revoltingly lucky. It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.

‘Something should be done,’ murmured Aliz, wistfully.

Finree clenched her teeth. ‘You’re right.’ She gave her horse the spurs, possibly flicking a few specks of mud over Aliz’ white dress, covered the ground in no time and slid her mount into the knot of officers that was the frequently misfiring brain of the division.

They spoke the language of war up here. Timing and supply. Weather and morale. Rates of march and orders of battle. It was no foreign tongue to Finree, and even as she slipped her horse between them she noticed mistakes, oversights, inefficiencies. She had been brought up in barracks, and mess halls, and headquarters, had spent longer in the army than most of the officers here and knew as much about strategy, tactics and logistics as any of them. Certainly a great deal more than Lord Governor Meed, who until last year had never presided over anything more dangerous than a formal banquet.

He rode at the very centre of the press, under a standard bearing the crossed hammers of Angland, and wearing a magnificent azure uniform rigged with gold braid, better suited to an actor in a tawdry production than a general on campaign. Despite all that money wasted on tailoring, his splendid collars never seemed quite to fit and his sinewy neck always stuck from them like a turtle’s from its shell.

He had lost his three nephews years ago at the Battle of Black Well and his brother, the previous lord governor, not long after. He had nursed an insurmountable hatred for Northmen ever since and been such a keen advocate of war he had outfitted half his division at his own expense. Hatred of the enemy was no qualification for command, however. Quite the reverse.

‘Lady Brock, how wonderful that you could join us,’ he said, with mild disdain.

‘I was simply taking part in the advance and you all got in my way.’ The officers chuckled with, in Hal’s case, a slightly desperate note. He gave her a pointed look sideways, and she gave him one back. ‘I and some of the other ladies noticed the refugees on our left. We were hoping you could be prevailed upon to spare them some food?’

Meed turned his watery eyes on the miserable file with the scorn one
might have for a trail of ants. ‘I am afraid the welfare of my soldiers must come first.’

‘Surely these strapping fellows could afford to miss a meal in a good cause?’ She thumped Colonel Brint’s breastplate and made him give a nervous laugh.

‘I have assured Marshal Kroy that we will be in position outside Osrung by midnight. We cannot stop.’

‘It could be done in—’

Meed turned rudely away from her. ‘Ladies and their charitable projects, mmm?’ he tossed to his officers, provoking a round of sycophantic laughter.

Finree cut through it with a shrill titter of her own. ‘Men and their playing at war, mmm?’ She slapped Captain Hardrick on the shoulder with her gloves, hard enough to make him wince. ‘What
silly, womanly nonsense,
to try to save a life or two. Now I see it! We should be letting them drop like flies by the roadside, spreading fire and pestilence wherever possible and leaving their country a blasted wasteland. That will teach them the proper respect for the Union and its ways, I am sure!
There’s
soldiering!’ She looked around at the officers, eyebrows raised. At least they had stopped laughing. Meed, in particular, had never looked more humourless, which took some doing.

‘Colonel Brock,’ he forced through tight lips. ‘I think your wife might be more comfortable riding with the other ladies.’

‘I was about to suggest it,’ said Hal, pulling his horse in front of hers and bringing them both to a sharp halt while Meed’s party carried on up the track. ‘What the
hell
are you doing?’ he hissed under his breath.

‘The man’s a callous idiot! A farmer playing at soldiers!’

‘We have to work with what we have, Fin! Please, don’t bait him. For me! My bloody nerves won’t stand it!’

‘I’m sorry.’ Impatience back to guilt, yet again. Not for Meed, of course, but for Hal, who had to be twice as good, twice as brave and twice as hardworking as anyone else simply to stay free of his father’s suffocating shadow. ‘But I hate to see things done badly on account of some old fool’s pride when they could just as easily be done well.’

‘Did you consider that it’s bad enough having an amateur general without having one who’s a bloody laughing stock besides? Maybe with some support he’d do better.’

‘Maybe,’ she muttered, unconvinced.

‘Can’t you stay with the other wives?’ he wheedled. ‘Please, just for now?’

‘That prattling coven?’ She screwed up her face. ‘All they talk about is who’s barren, who’s unfaithful, and what the queen’s wearing. They’re idiots.’

‘Have you ever noticed that everyone’s an idiot but you?’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘You see it too?’

Hal took a hard breath. ‘I love you. You know I do. But think about who you’re actually helping. You could have fed those people if you’d trodden softly.’ He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘I’ll talk to the quartermaster, try to arrange something.’

‘Aren’t you a hero.’

‘I try, but bloody hell, you don’t make it easy. Next time, for me, please, think about saying something bland. Talk about the weather, maybe!’ As he rode off back towards the head of the column.

‘Shit on the weather,’ she muttered at his back, ‘and Meed too.’ She had to admit Hal had a point, though. She wasn’t doing herself, or her husband, or the Union cause, or even the refugees any good by irritating Lord Governor Meed.

She had to destroy him.

‘U
p you get, old man.’

Craw was half in a dream still. At home, wherever that was. A young man, or retired. Was it Colwen smiling at him from the corner? Turning wood on the lathe, curled shavings scattering, crunching under his feet. He grunted, rolled over, pain flaring up his side, stinging him with panic. He tried to rip back his blanket.

‘What’s the—’

‘It’s all right.’ Wonderful had a hand on his shoulder. ‘Thought I’d let you sleep in.’ She had a long scab down the other side of her head now, stubble hair clumped with dried blood. ‘Thought you could use it.’

‘I could use a few hours yet.’ Craw gritted his teeth against ten different aches as he tried to sit up, first fast then very, very slow. ‘Bloody hell, but war’s a young man’s business.’

‘What’s to do?’

‘Not much.’ She handed him a flask and he sluiced water around his foul mouth and spat. ‘No sign of Hardbread. We buried Athroc.’ He paused, flask half way to his mouth, slowly let it drop. There was a heap of fresh dirt at the foot of one of the stones on the far side of the Heroes. Brack and Scorry stood in front of it, shovels in their hands. Agrick was between the two, looking down.

‘You say the words yet?’ asked Craw, knowing they wouldn’t have but still hoping.

‘Waiting for you.’

‘Good,’ he lied, and clambered up, gripping to her forearm. It was a grey morning with a nip in the wind, low clouds pawing at the craggy summits of the fells, mist still clinging to the creases in their sides, shrouding the bogs down in the valley’s bottom.

Craw limped to the grave, shifting his hips, trying to wriggle away from the pain in his joints. He’d rather have gone anywhere else, but there are some things you can’t wriggle away from. They were all drifting over there, gathering in a half-circle. All sad and quiet. Drofd trying to cram down a whole crust of bread at once, wiping his hands on his shirt. Whirrun with hood drawn up, cuddling the Father of Swords like a man might cuddle his
sick child. Yon with a face even grimmer’n usual, which took some doing. Craw found his place at the foot of the grave, between Agrick and Brack. The hillman’s face had lost its usual ruddy glow, the bandage on his leg showing a big fresh stain.

‘That leg all right?’ he asked.

‘Scratch,’ said Brack.

‘Bleeding a lot for a scratch, ain’t it?’

Brack smiled at him, tattoos on his face shifting. ‘Call that a lot?’

‘Guess not.’ Not compared to Hardbread’s nephew when Whirrun cut him in half, anyway. Craw glanced over his shoulder, towards where they’d piled the corpses in the lee of the crumbling wall. Out of sight, maybe, but not forgotten. The dead. Always the dead. Craw looked at the black earth, wondering what to say. Looked at the black earth like it had answers in it. But there’s nothing in the earth but darkness.

‘Strange thing.’ His voice came out a croak, he had to cough to clear it. ‘The other day Drofd was asking me whether they call these stones the Heroes ’cause there are Heroes buried here. I said not. But maybe there’s one buried here now.’ Craw winced saying it, not out of sadness but ’cause he knew he was talking shit. Stupid shit wouldn’t have fooled a child. But the dozen all nodded, Agrick with a tear-track down his cheek.

‘Aye,’ said Yon.

You can say things at a grave would get you laughed out of a tavern, and be treated like you’re brimming over with wisdom. Craw felt every word was a knife he had to stick in himself, but there was no stopping.

‘Hadn’t been with us long, Athroc, but he made his mark. Won’t be forgot.’ Craw thought on all the other lads he’d buried, faces and names worn away by the years, and couldn’t even guess the number of ’em. ‘He stood with his crew. Fought well.’ Died badly, hacked with an axe, on ground that meant nothing. ‘Did the right thing. All you can ask of a man, I reckon. If there’s any—’

‘Craw!’ Shivers was standing maybe thirty strides away on the south side of the circle.

‘Not now!’ he hissed back.

‘Aye,’ said Shivers. ‘Now.’

Craw hurried over, the grey valley opening up between two of the stones. ‘What am I looking— Uh.’ Beyond the river, at the foot of Black Fell, there were horsemen on the brown strip of the Uffrith Road. Riding fast towards Osrung, smudges of dust rising behind. Could’ve been forty. Could’ve been more.

‘And there.’

‘Shit.’ Another couple of score coming the other way, towards the Old Bridge. Taking the crossings. Getting around both sides of the Heroes. The surge of worry was almost a pain in Craw’s chest. ‘Where’s Scorry at?’ Staring about like he’d put something down and couldn’t remember
where. Scorry was right behind him, holding up one finger. Craw breathed out slow, patting him on the shoulder. ‘There you are. There you are.’

‘Chief,’ muttered Drofd.

Craw followed his pointing finger. The road south from Adwein, sloping down into the valley from the fold between two fells, was busy with movement. He snapped his eyeglass open and peered towards it. ‘It’s the Union.’

‘How many, d’you reckon?’

The wind swept some mist away and, for just a moment, Craw could see the column stretching back between the hills, men and metal, spears prickling and flags waving above. Stretching back far as he could see.

‘Looks like all of ’em,’ breathed Wonderful.

Brack leaned over. ‘Tell me we ain’t fighting this time.’

Craw lowered his eyeglass. ‘Sometimes the right thing to do is run like fuck. Pack up!’ he bellowed. ‘Right now! We’re moving out!’

His crew always kept most of their gear stowed and they were busy packing the rest quick sharp, Scorry with a jaunty marching tune on the go. Jolly Yon was stomping the little fire out with one boot while Whirrun watched, already packed since all he owned was the Father of Swords and he had it in one hand.