The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (215 page)

‘That, or you expected to find a carpenter here but now perceive the local workmanship to be . . . inferior.’ Temple cocked a brow at the building beside the plot, every door and window-frame at its own wrong angle, leaning sideways even with the support of an ancient stone block half-sunk in the ground. ‘Perhaps you would like a place of business that will not wash away in the next shower. Does the weather get harsh here, do you suppose, in winter?’

A brief pause while the wind blew up chill and made the canvas of the tents flap and the wood of the surrounding buildings creak alarmingly. ‘What fee would you demand?’ asked Majud.

Temple had been giving serious consideration to the idea of slipping away and leaving his debt to Shy South forever stalled at seventy-six marks. But the sad fact was he had nowhere to slip to and no one to slip with, and was even more useless alone than in company. That left him with money to find. ‘Three marks a day.’ A quarter of what Cosca used to pay him, but ten times his wages riding drag.

Majud clicked his tongue. ‘Ridiculous. That is the lawyer in you speaking.’

‘He is a close friend of the carpenter.’

‘How do I know your work will be worth the price?’

‘I challenge you to find anyone less than entirely satisfied with the quality of my joinery.’

‘You have built no houses here!’

‘Then yours shall be unique. Customers will flock to see it.’

‘One and a half marks a day. Any more and Curnsbick will have my head!’

‘I would hate to have your death upon my conscience. Two it is, with meals and lodging provided.’ And Temple held out his hand.

Majud regarded it without enthusiasm. ‘Shy South has set an ugly precedent for negotiation.’

‘Her ruthlessness approaches Master Curnsbick’s. Perhaps they should go into business together.’

‘If two jackals can share a carcass.’ They shook. Then they considered the plot again. The intervening time had in no way improved it.

‘The first step would be to clear the ground,’ said Majud.

‘I agree. Its current state is a veritable offence against God. Not to mention public health.’ Another occupant had emerged from a structure of mildewed cloth sagging so badly that it must have been virtually touching the mud inside. This one wore nothing but a long grey beard not quite long enough to protect his dignity, or at least everyone else’s, and a belt with a large knife sheathed upon it. He sat down in the dirt and started chewing savagely at a bone. ‘Master Lamb’s help might come in useful there also.’

‘Doubtless.’ Majud clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I shall seek out the Northman while you begin the clearance.’

‘Me?’

‘Who else?’

‘I am a carpenter, not a bailiff!’

‘A day ago you were a priest and cattleman and a moment before that a lawyer! A man of your varied talents will, I feel sure, find a way.’ And Majud was already hopping briskly off down the street.

Temple rolled his eyes from the earthbound refuse to the clean, blue heavens. ‘I’m not saying I don’t deserve it, but you surely love to test a man.’ Then he hitched up his trouser-legs and stepped gingerly towards the naked beggar with the bone, limping somewhat since the buttock Shy pricked on the plains was still troubling him in the mornings.

‘Good day!’ he called.

The man squinted up at him, sucking a strip of gristle from his bone. ‘I don’t fucking think so. You got a drink?’

‘I thought it best to stop.’

‘Then you need a good fucking reason to bother me, boy.’

‘I have a reason. Whether you will consider it a good one I profoundly doubt.’

‘You can but try.’

‘The fact is,’ ventured Temple, ‘we will soon be building on this plot.’

‘How you going to manage that with me here?’

‘I was hoping you could be persuaded to move.’

The beggar checked every part of his bone for further sustenance and, finding none, tossed it at Temple. It bounced off his shirt. ‘You ain’t going to persuade me o’ nothing without a drink.’

‘The thing is, this plot belongs to my employer, Abram Majud, and—’

‘Who says so?’

‘Who . . . says?’

‘Do I fucking stutter?’ The man took out his knife as if he had some everyday task that required one, but the subtext was plain. It really was a very large blade and, given the prevailing filthiness of everything else within ten strides, impressively clean, edge glittering with the morning sun. ‘I asked who says?’

Temple took a wobbly step back. Straight into something very solid. He spun about, expecting to find himself face to face with one of the other tent-dwellers, probably sporting an even bigger knife – God knew there were so many big knives in Crease the distinction between them and swords was a total blur – and was hugely relieved to find Lamb towering over him.

‘
I
say,’ said Lamb to the beggar. ‘You could ignore me. You could wave that knife around a little more. But you might find you’re wearing it up your arse.’

The man looked down at his blade, perhaps wishing he had opted for a smaller one after all. Then he put it sheepishly away. ‘Reckon I’ll just move along.’

Lamb gave that a nod. ‘I reckon.’

‘Can I get my trousers?’

‘You’d fucking better.’

He ducked into his tent and came out buttoning up the most ragged article of clothing Temple ever saw. ‘I’ll leave the tent, if it’s all the same. Ain’t that good a one.’

‘You don’t say,’ said Temple.

The man loitered a moment longer. ‘Any chance of that drink do you—’

‘Get gone,’ growled Lamb, and the beggar scampered off like he’d a mean dog at his heels.

‘There you are, Master Lamb!’ Majud waded over, trouser-legs held up by both hands to display two lean lengths of muddy calf. ‘I was hoping to persuade you to work on my behalf and here I find you already hard at it!’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Lamb.

‘Still, if you could help us clear the site I’d be happy to pay you—’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Truly?’ The watery sun gleamed from Majud’s golden tooth. ‘If you were to do me this favour I would consider you a friend for life!’

‘I should warn you, friend o’ mine can be a dangerous position.’

‘I feel it is worth the risk.’

‘If it’ll save a couple of bits,’ threw in Temple.

‘I got all the money I need,’ said Lamb, ‘but I always been sadly short on friends.’ He frowned over at the vagrant with the underclothes, just poking his head out of his tent and into the light. ‘You!’ And the man darted back inside like a tortoise into its shell.

Majud raised his brows at Temple. ‘If only everyone was so accommodating.’

‘Not everyone has been obliged to sell themselves into slavery.’

‘You could’ve said no.’ Shy was on the rickety porch of the building next door, leaning on the rail with boots crossed and fingers dangling. For a moment Temple hardly recognised her. She had a new shirt, sleeves rolled up with her tanned forearms showing, one with the old rope burn coiled pink around it, a sheepskin vest on top which was no doubt yellow by any reasonable estimation but looked white as a heavenly visitation in the midst of all that dirt. The same stained hat but tipped back, hair less greasy and more red, stirring in the breeze.

Temple stood and looked at her, and found he quite enjoyed it. ‘You look . . .’

‘Clean?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You look . . . surprised.’

‘Little bit.’

‘Did you think I stunk out of choice?’

‘No, I thought you couldn’t help yourself.’

She spat daintily through the gap between her front teeth, narrowly missing his boots. ‘Then you discover your error. The Mayor was kind enough to lend me her bath.’

‘Bathing with the Mayor, eh?’

She winked. ‘Moving up in the world.’

Temple plucked at his own shirt, only held together by the more stubborn stains. ‘Do you think she’d give me a bath?’

‘You could ask. But I reckon there’s about a four in five chance she’d have you killed.’

‘I like those odds. Lots of people are five in five on my untimely death.’

‘Something to do with you being a lawyer?’

‘As of today, I will have you know, I am a carpenter and architect.’

‘Well, your professions slip on and off easy as a whore’s drawers, don’t they?’

‘A man must follow the opportunities.’ He turned to take in the plot with an airy wave. ‘I am contracted to build upon this unrivalled site a residence and place of business for the firm of Majud and Curnsbick.’

‘My congratulations on leaving the legal profession and becoming a respectable member of the community.’

‘Do they have such a thing in Crease?’

‘Not yet, but I reckon it’s on the way. You stick a bunch of drunken murderers together, ain’t long before some turn to thieving, then to lying, then to bad language, and pretty soon to sobriety, raising families and making an honest living.’

‘It’s a slippery slope, all right.’ Temple watched Lamb shepherd a tangle-haired drunkard off the plot, few possessions dragging in the muck behind him. ‘Is the Mayor going to help you find your brother and sister?’

Shy gave a long sigh. ‘Maybe. But she’s got a price.’

‘Nothing comes for free.’

‘Nothing. How’s carpenter’s pay?’

Temple winced. ‘Barely enough to scrape by on, sadly—’

‘Two marks a day, plus benefits!’ called Majud as he dismantled the most recently vacated tent. ‘I’ve known bandits kinder to their victims!’

‘Two marks from that miser?’ Shy gave an approving nod. ‘Well done. I’ll take a mark a day towards the debt.’

‘A mark,’ Temple managed to force out. ‘Very reasonable.’ If there was a God His bounty was only lent, never given.

‘I thought the Fellowship dissolved!’ Dab Sweet pulled his horse up beside the plot, Crying Rock haunting his shoulder. Neither of them appeared to have ventured within spitting range of a bath, or a change of clothes either. Temple found that strangely reassuring. ‘Buckhorm’s out of town with his grass and his water, Lestek’s dressing the theatre for his grand debut and most of the rest split up to dig gold their own way, but here’s the four of you still, inseparable. Warms my heart that I forged such camaraderie out in the wilderness.’

‘Don’t pretend you got a heart,’ said Shy.

‘Got to be something pumps the black poison through my veins, don’t there?’

‘Ah!’ shouted Majud. ‘If it is not the new Emperor of the Plains, the conqueror of great Sangeed, Dab Sweet!’

The scout gave Lamb a nervous sideways glance. ‘I’ve made no effort to spread that rumour.’

‘And yet it has taken to this town like fire to tinder! I have heard half a dozen versions, none particularly close to my own remembrance. Most recently, I was told you shot the Ghost from a mile’s distance and with a stiff side wind.’

‘I heard you impaled him on the horns of an enraged steer,’ said Shy.

‘And in the newest version to reach my ear,’ said Temple, ‘you killed him in a duel over the good name of a woman.’

Sweet snorted. ‘Where the hell do they get this rubbish? Everyone knows there’s no women o’ my acquaintance with a good name. This your plot?’

‘It is,’ said Majud.

‘It is a plot,’ said Crying Rock solemnly.

‘Majud has contracted me to build a shop upon it,’ said Temple.

‘More buildings?’ Sweet wriggled his shoulders. ‘Bloody roofs hanging over you. Walls bearing in on you. How can you take a breath in those things?’

Crying Rock shook her head. ‘Buildings.’

‘A man can’t think of nothing when he’s in one but how to get back out. I’m a wanderer and that’s a fact. Born to be under the sky.’ Sweet watched Lamb drag another wriggling drunk from a tent one-handed and toss him rolling into the street. ‘Man has to be what he is, don’t he?’

Shy frowned up. ‘He can try to be otherwise.’

‘But more often than not it don’t stick. All that trying, day after day, it wears you right through.’ The old scout gave her a wink. ‘Lamb taking up the Mayor’s offer?’

‘We’re thinking on it,’ she snapped back.

Temple looked from one to the other. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘Usually,’ said Shy, still giving Sweet the eyeball. ‘If you’re heading on out of town, don’t let us hold you up.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ The old scout pointed down the main street, busier with traffic as the day wore on, weak sun raising a little steam from the wet mud, the wet horses, the wet roofs. ‘We’re signed up to guide a Fellowship of prospectors into the hills. Always work for guides around Crease. Everyone here wants to be somewhere else.’

‘Not I,’ said Majud, grinning as Lamb kicked another tent over.

‘Oh no.’ Sweet gave the plot a final glance, smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. ‘You lot are right where you belong.’ And he trotted on out of town, Crying Rock at his side.

Words and Graces

S
hy didn’t much care for pretension, and despite having crawled through more than her share was no high enthusiast for dirt. The dining room of Camling’s Hostelry was an unhappy marriage of the two uglier by far than either one alone. The tabletops were buffed to a prissy shine but the floor was caked with boot-mud. The cutlery had bone handles but the walls were spattered hip high with ancient food. There was a gilt-framed painting of a nude who’d found something to smirk about but the plaster behind was blistered with mould from a leak above.

‘State o’ this place,’ muttered Lamb.

‘That’s Crease for you,’ said Shy. ‘Everything upside down.’

On the trail she’d heard the stream-beds in the hills were lined with nuggets, just itching for greedy fingers to pluck them free. Some lucky few who’d struck gold in Crease might’ve dug it from the earth but it looked to Shy like most had found a way to dig it out of other folks. It weren’t prospectors crowding the dining room of Camling’s and forming a grumpy queue besides, it was pimps and gamblers, racketeers and money lenders, and merchants pedalling the same stuff they might anywhere else at half the quality and four times the price.