Before They Are Hanged (55 page)

Neither the meal, nor the company, nor the surroundings were quite what Jezal would have chosen, but the fact was that they had largely run out of food a few days before. Rations in that space of time had included a handful of chalky roots dug from the mountainside by Logen, six tiny eggs stolen by Ferro from a high nest, and some berries of indescribable bitterness which Longfoot had plucked from a tree, apparently at random. Jezal would happily have eaten his plate. He frowned as he hacked at the gristly meat on it, wondering if the plate might indeed be a tastier option.

“Is the ship still seaworthy?” growled Bayaz. Everyone looked up. The first words to have been said in quite some time.

Cawneil’s dark eye regarded him coldly. “Do you mean that ship on which Juvens and his brothers sailed to Shabulyan?”

“What other?”

“Then no. It is not seaworthy. It is rotted to green mulch in its old dock. But do not fear. Another was built, and when that rotted also, another after it. The latest rocks on the tides, tethered to the shore, well-coated with weed and barnacle but kept always crewed and victualled. I have not forgotten my promise to our master. I marked well my obligations.”

Bayaz’ brows drew angrily down. “Meaning, I suppose, that I did not?”

“I did not say so. If you hear a reproach it is your own guilt that goads you, not my accusation. I take no sides, you know that. I never have.”

“You speak as though sloth were the greatest of virtues,” muttered the First of the Magi.

“Sometimes it is, if acting means taking part in your squabbles. You forget, Bayaz, that I have seen all this before, more than once, and a wearisome pattern it seems to me. History repeats itself. Brother fights brother. As Juvens fought Glustrod, as Kanedias fought Juvens, so Bayaz struggles with Khalul. Smaller men in a bigger world, but with no less hatred, and no more mercy. Will this sordid rivalry end even as well as the others? Or will it be worse?”

Bayaz snorted. “Let us not pretend you care, or would drag yourself ten strides from your couch if you did.”

“I do not care. I freely admit it. I was never like you or Khalul, or even like Zacharus or Yulwei. I have no endless ambition, no bottomless arrogance.”

“No, indeed, not you.” Bayaz sucked disgustedly at his gums and tossed his fork clattering down onto his plate. “Only endless vanity and bottomless idleness.”

“Mine are small vices and small virtues. To see the world recast according to my own great designs has never interested me. I have always been content with the world as it is, and so I am a dwarf among giants.” Her heavy-lidded eyes swept slowly over her guests, one by one. “And yet dwarves crush no one underfoot.” Jezal coughed as her searching stare fell on him and gave careful attention to his rubbery meat. “Long is the list of those you have trodden over in pursuit of your ambitions, is it not, my love?”

Bayaz’ displeasure began to weigh on Jezal as heavily as a great stone. “You need not speak in riddles, sister,” growled the old man. “I would have your meaning.”

“Ah, I forgot. You are a straight talker, and cannot abide deception of any kind. You told me so just after you told me you would never leave me, and just before you left me to find another.”

“That was not my choice. You wrong me, Cawneil.”

“
I
wrong
you
?” she hissed, and now her anger pressed hard at Jezal from the other side. “How, brother? Did you not leave? Did you not find another? Did you not steal from the Maker, first his secrets, then his daughter?” Jezal squirmed and hunched his shoulders, feeling as squeezed as a nut in a vice. “Tolomei, do you remember her?”

Bayaz’ frown grew frostier yet. “I have made my mistakes, and still pay for them. Not a day passes that I do not think of her.”

“How outrageously noble of you!” sneered Cawneil. “No doubt she would swoon with gratitude, if she could hear you now! I think on that day too, now and then. The day the Old Time ended. How we gathered outside the House of the Maker, thirsty for vengeance. How we put forth all of our Art and all of our anger, and could not make a scratch upon the gates. How you whispered to Tolomei in the night, begging her to let you in.” She pressed her withered hands to her chest. “Such tender words you used. Words I never dreamed were in you. Even an old cynic like me was moved. How could an innocent like Tolomei deny you, whether it was her father’s gates or her own legs she was opening? And what was her reward, eh, brother, for her sacrifices? For helping you, for trusting you, for loving you? It must have been quite the dramatic scene! The three of you, up on the roof. A foolish young woman, her jealous father, and her secret lover.” She snorted bitter laughter. “Never a happy formula, but it can rarely have ended quite so badly. Father and daughter both. The long drop to the bridge!”

“Kanedias had no mercy in him,” growled Bayaz, “even for his own child. Before my eyes he threw his daughter from the roof. We fought, and I cast him down in flames. So was our master avenged.”

“Oh, well done!” Cawneil clapped her hands in mock delight. “Everyone loves a happy ending! Tell me only one thing more. What was it that made you weep so long for Tolomei, when I could never make you shed a tear? Did you decide you like your women pure, eh, brother?” And she fluttered her eyelashes in an ironical show, one strangely unsettling on that ancient face. “Innocence? That most fleeting and worthless of virtues. One to which I have never laid claim.”

“Perhaps then, sister, the one thing you have never laid?”

“Oh, very good, my old love, very fine. It was always your ready wit that I enjoyed, above all else. Khalul was the more skilful lover, of course, but he never had your passion, nor your daring.” She speared a chunk of meat viciously with her fork. “Travelling to the edge of the World, at your age? To steal that thing our master forbade? Courage indeed.”

Bayaz sneered his contempt down the table. “What would you know of courage? You, who have loved no one in all these long years but yourself? Who have risked nothing, and given nothing, and made nothing? You, who have let all the gifts our master gave you rot! Keep your stories in the dust, sister. No one cares, and me least of all.”

The two Magi glared at each other in icy silence, the atmosphere heavy with their seething fury. The feet of Ninefingers’ chair squealed gently as he edged it cautiously away from the table. Ferro sat opposite, her face locked in a frown of the deepest suspicion. Malacus Quai had his teeth bared, his fierce eyes fixed on his master. Jezal could only sit and hold his breath, hoping that the incomprehensible argument did not end with anyone on fire. Especially not him.

“Well,” ventured Brother Longfoot, “I for one would like to thank our host for this excellent meal…” The two old Magi locked him simultaneously with their pitiless gazes. “Now that we are close… to our final… destination… er…” And the Navigator swallowed and stared down at his plate. “Never mind.”

Ferro sat naked, one leg drawn up against her chest, picking at a scab on her knee, and frowning.

She frowned at the heavy walls of the room, imagining the great weight of old stone all round her. She remembered frowning at the walls of her cell in Uthman’s palace, pulling herself up to look through the tiny window, feeling the sun on her face and dreaming of being free. She remembered the chafing iron on her ankle, and the long thin chain, so much stronger than it had looked. She remembered struggling with it, and chewing on it, and dragging at her foot until the blood ran from her torn skin. She hated walls. For her, they had always been the jaws of a trap.

Ferro frowned at the bed. She hated beds, and couches, and cushions. Soft things make you soft, and she did not need them. She remembered lying in the darkness on a soft bed when she was first made a slave. When she was still a child, and small, and weak. Lying in the darkness and weeping to be alone. Ferro dug savagely at the scab and felt blood seep from underneath. She hated that weak, foolish, child who had allowed herself to be trapped. She despised the memory of her.

Ferro frowned most of all at Ninefingers, lying on his back with the blankets rucked and rumpled round him, his head tipped back and his mouth hanging open, eyes closed, breath hissing soft in his nose, one pale arm flung out wide at an uncomfortable-looking angle. Sleeping like a child. Why had she fucked him? And why did she keep doing it? She should never have touched him. She should never have spoken to him. She did not need him, the ugly, big pink fool.

She needed no one.

Ferro told herself she hated all these things, and that her hatred could never fade. But however she curled her lip, and frowned, and picked her scabs, it was hard to feel the same. She looked at the bed, at the dark wood shining in the glow from the embers in the fireplace, at the shifting blobs of shadow in the wrinkled sheet. What difference would it really make to anyone, if she lay there rather than on the cold, wide mattress in her own room? The bed was not her enemy. So she got up from the chair, and padded over and slid down into it with her back to Ninefingers, taking care not to wake him. Not for his sake, of course.

But she had no wish to explain herself.

She wriggled her shoulders, moving backwards towards him where it was warmer. She heard him grunt in his sleep, felt him roll. She tensed to spring out of the bed, holding her breath. His arm slid over her side and he muttered something in her ear, meaningless sleep sounds, breath hot on her neck.

His big warm body pressed up tight against her back no longer made her feel so trapped. The weight of his pale hand resting gently against her ribs, his heavy arm around her felt almost… good. That made her frown.

Nothing good ever lasts for long.

And so she slid her hand over the back of his and felt his fingers, and the stump of the one that was missing, pressing into the spaces between hers, and she pretended that she was safe, and whole. Where was the harm? She held on to the hand tightly, and pressed it to her chest.

Because she knew it would not be for long.

Before the Storm

“Welcome, gentlemen. General Poulder, General Kroy. Bethod has retreated as far as the Whiteflow, and it does not seem likely that he will find any more favourable ground on which to face us.” Burr took a sharp breath, sweeping the gathering with a grave expression. “I think it very likely that there will be a battle tomorrow.”

“Good show!” shouted Poulder, slapping his thigh with great aplomb.

“My men are ready,” murmured Kroy, lifting his chin one regulation inch. The two generals, and the many members of their respective staffs, glowered at each other across the wide space of Burr’s tent, every man trying to outdo his opposite number with his boundless enthusiasm for combat. West felt his lip curling as he watched them. Two gangs of children in a schoolyard could scarcely have behaved with less maturity.

Burr raised his eyebrows and turned to his maps. “Luckily for us, the architects who built the fortress at Dunbrec also surveyed the surrounding land in some detail. We are blessed with highly accurate charts. Furthermore, a group of Northmen have recently defected to our cause, bringing with them detailed information on Bethod’s forces, position, and intentions.”

“Why should we believe the word of a pack of Northern dogs,” sneered General Kroy, “who have no loyalty even to their own king?”

“Had Prince Ladisla been more willing to listen to them, sir,” intoned West, “he might still be with us. As might his division.” General Poulder chuckled heartily to himself and his staff joined him. Kroy, predictably, was less amused. He shot a deadly glare across the tent, one which West returned with an icy blankness.

Burr cleared his throat, and soldiered on. “Bethod holds the fortress of Dunbrec.” The point of his stick tapped at the black hexagon. “Positioned to cover the only significant road out of Angland, where it fords the river Whiteflow, our border with the North. The road approaches the fortress from the west, cutting eastwards down a wide valley between two wooded ridges. The body of Bethod’s forces are encamped near the fortress, but he means to mount an attack, westward up the road, as soon as we show our faces.” And Burr’s stick slashed along the dark line, swishing against the heavy paper. “The valley through which the road passes is bare, open grass with some gorse and rocky outcroppings, and will give him ample room for manoeuvre.” He turned back to the assembled officers, stick clenched tight, and placed his fists firmly on the table before him. “I mean to fall into his trap. Or at least… to seem to. General Kroy?”

Kroy finally broke off glowering at West to reply with a sullen, “Yes, Lord Marshal?”

“Your division is to deploy astride the road and push steadily eastwards towards the fortress, encouraging Bethod to launch his attack. Slowly and steadily, with no heroics. General Poulder’s division, meanwhile, will have worked its way through the trees on top of the northern ridge, here,” and his stick tapped at the green blocks of the wooded high ground, “just forward of General Kroy’s position.”

“Just
forward
of General Kroy’s position,” grinned Poulder, as though he was being shown special favour. Kroy scowled with disgust.

“
Just
forward, yes,” continued Burr. “When Bethod’s forces are entirely occupied in the valley, it shall be your task to attack them from above, and take them in the flank. It is important that you wait until the Northmen have been fully engaged, General Poulder, so that we can surround them, overwhelm them, and hope to bag the majority at one throw. If they are allowed to retire to the fords the fortress will cover their retreat, and we will be unable to pursue. Reducing Dunbrec might take us months.”

“Of course, my Lord Marshal,” exclaimed Poulder, “my division will wait until the last moment, you may depend upon it!”

Kroy snorted. “That should present no difficulty. Arriving late is a specialty of yours, I understand. There would be no need for a battle if you had intercepted the Northmen last week, rather than allowing them to get around you!”

Poulder bristled. “Easy for you to say, while you were sitting on the right wing doing nothing! It’s fortunate they didn’t pass by in the night! You might have taken their retreat for an assault and fled with your entire division!”

“Gentlemen, please!” roared Burr, smashing the table with his stick. “There will be fighting enough for every man in the army, that I promise you, and if each man does his part there will be ample glory too! We must work together if this plan is to bear fruit!” He burped and grimaced and licked his lips sourly, while the two Generals and their staffs glowered at one another. West would almost have laughed, had men’s lives not hung in the balance, his own among them.

“General Kroy,” said Burr, in the tone of a parent addressing a wayward child. “I wish to make sure that you understand your orders.”

“To deploy my division in line astride the road,” hissed Kroy, “and to advance slowly and in good order, eastwards down the valley towards Dunbrec, drawing Bethod and his savages into an engagement.”

“Indeed. General Poulder?”

“To move my division out of sight through the trees,
just ahead
of General Kroy’s regiments, so that at the last moment I can charge down on the Northern scum and take them in the flank.”

Burr managed a smile. “Correct.”

“An excellent plan, Lord Marshal, if I may!” Poulder tugged happily at his moustaches. “You can depend upon it that my horse will cut them to pieces. To! Pieces!”

“I am afraid you will not have any cavalry, General,” said West in an emotionless monotone. “The woods are dense and horse will be useless to you there. They might even alert the Northmen to your presence. A risk we cannot take.”

“But… my cavalry,” muttered Poulder, stricken with woe. “My best regiments!”

“They will be kept here, sir,” droned West, “near Marshal Burr’s headquarters, and under his direct control, as a reserve. They will be deployed if they are needed.” Now it was Poulder’s fury he met with a stonewall stare, while the faces of Kroy and his staff broke out in broad, neat, utterly joyless smiles.

“I hardly think—” hissed Poulder.

Burr cut him off. “That is my decision. There is one last point that you should all bear in mind. There are some reports that Bethod has called on reinforcements. Some manner of wild men, savages from across the mountains to the north. Keep your eyes open and your flanks well screened. You will receive word from me tomorrow when it is time to move, most likely before first light. That is all.”

“Can we really rely on them to do what they are told?” muttered West as he watched the two surly groups file from the tent.

“What choice do we have?” The Marshal threw himself into a chair with a grimace and rested his hands on his belly, frowning up at the great map. “I wouldn’t worry. Kroy has no option but to move down the valley and fight.”

“What about Poulder? I wouldn’t put it past him to find some excuse to stay sitting in the woods.”

The Lord Marshal grinned as he shook his head. “And leave Kroy to do all the fighting? What if he were to beat the Northmen on his own, and take all the glory for himself? No. Poulder could never risk that. This plan gives them no choice but to work together.” He paused, looking up at West. “You might want to treat the pair of them with a touch more respect.”

“Do you think they deserve it, sir?”

“Of course not. But if, for instance, we should lose tomorrow, one of them will most likely step into my boots. Then where will you be?”

West grinned. “I’ll be finished, sir. But my being polite now won’t change that. They hate me for what I am, not what I say. I might as well say what I please while I can.”

“I suppose you might at that. They’re a damn nuisance, but their folly can be predicted. It’s Bethod that worries me. Will he do what we want him to?” Burr burped, and swallowed, and burped again. “Damn this damn indigestion!”

Threetrees and the Dogman were sprawled on a bench outside the tent flap, an odd pair in amongst the well-starched press of officers and guards.

“Smells like battle to me,” said Threetrees as West strode up to them.

“Indeed.” West pointed after Kroy’s black-uniformed staff. “Half the army are going down the valley tomorrow morning, hoping to draw Bethod into a fight.” He pointed to Poulder’s crimson entourage. “The other half are going up into the trees, and hope to surprise them before they can get away.”

Threetrees nodded slowly to himself. “Sounds like a good plan.”

“Nice and simple,” said the Dogman. West winced. He could hardly bear to look at the man.

“We’d have no plan at all if you hadn’t brought us that information,” he managed to say through gritted teeth. “Are you sure we can trust it?”

“Sure as we can be,” said Threetrees.

Dogman grinned. “Shivers is alright, and from what I’ve scouted up, I reckon it’s true. No promises, course.”

“Of course not. You deserve a rest.”

“We wouldn’t say no.”

“I’ve arranged a position for you up at the far left of the line, at the end of General Poulder’s division, up in the trees, on the high ground. You should be well out of the action there. The safest place in the whole army tomorrow, I shouldn’t wonder. Dig in and make yourself a fire, and if things go right, we’ll talk again over Bethod’s dead body.” And he held out his hand.

Threetrees grinned as he took it. “Now that’s our kind of language, Furious. You take care, now.” He and the Dogman started to trudge away up the slope towards the tree line.

“Colonel West?”

He knew who it was before he turned. There weren’t many women in the camp that would have had much to say to him. Cathil, standing in the slush, a borrowed coat wrapped round her. She looked somewhat furtive, somewhat shamefaced, but the sight of her still somehow brought up a sudden surge of anger and embarrassment.

It was unfair, he knew. He had no rights over her. It was unfair, but that only made it worse. All he could think of was the side of the Dogman’s face and her grunting, uh… uh… uh. So horribly surprising. So horribly disappointing. “You’d better go with them,” said West with an icy formality, scarcely able to bring himself to say anything at all. “Safest place.” He turned away but she brought him up short.

“It was you, wasn’t it, outside the tent… the other night?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it was. I simply came to check if there was anything you needed,” he lied. “I really had no idea… who you would be with.”

“I certainly never meant for you to—”

“The Dogman?” he muttered, face suddenly crunching up with incomprehension. “Him? I mean… why?” Why him instead of me, was what he wanted to say, but he managed to stop himself.

“I know… I know you must think—”

“You’ve no need to explain yourself to me!” he hissed, though he knew he’d just asked her to. “Who cares what I think?” He spat it out with a deal more venom than he had intended, but his own loss of control only made him angrier, and he lost more. “I don’t care what you choose to fuck!”

She winced and stared down at the ground beside his feet. “I didn’t mean to… well. I owe you a lot, I know. It’s just that… you’re too angry for me. That’s all.”

West stared at her as she trudged off up the hill alter the Northmen, hardly able to believe his ears. She was happy to bed that stinking savage, but
he
was too angry? It was so unfair he almost choked on his rage.