The Collected Joe Abercrombie (124 page)

‘Where are we?’ he muttered, through the twinges. It was less painful to talk than it had been, but he still had to speak quietly, carefully, the words thick and stumbling like some village halfwit’s.

Bayaz nodded over his shoulder towards the great expanse of water. ‘This is the first of the three lakes. We are well on the way to Aulcus. More than half of our journey is behind us, I would say.’

Jezal swallowed. Halfway was hardly the greatest reassurance he could have asked for. ‘How long was—’

‘I can’t work with you flapping your lips, fool,’ hissed Ferro. ‘Do I leave you like this, or do you shut up?’

Jezal shut up. She peeled the dressing carefully from his face, peered down at the brown blood on the cloth, sniffed it, wrinkled her nose and tossed it away, then stared angrily at his mouth for a moment. He swallowed, watching her dark face for any sign of what she might be thinking. He would have given his teeth for a mirror at that moment, if he had still had a full set. ‘How bad is it?’ he muttered at her, tasting blood on his tongue.

She scowled up at him. ‘You’ve confused me with someone who cares.’

A sob coughed up from his throat. Tears stung at his eyes, he had to look away and blink to stop himself crying. He was a pitiable specimen, alright. A brave son of the Union, a bold officer of the King’s Own, a winner of the Contest, no less, and he could scarcely keep from weeping.

‘Hold this,’ snapped Ferro’s voice.

‘Uh,’ he whispered, trying to press the sobs down into his chest and stop them cracking his voice. He held one end of the fresh bandage against his face while she wrapped it round his head and under his jaw, round and round, holding his mouth near shut.

‘You’ll live.’

‘Is that supposed to be a comfort?’ he mumbled.

She shrugged as she turned away. ‘There are plenty who don’t.’

Jezal almost envied them as he watched her stalk off through the waving grass. How he wished Ardee was here. He remembered the last sight of her, looking up at him in the soft rain with that crooked smile. She would never have left him like this, helpless and in pain. She would have spoken soft words, and touched his face, and looked at him with her dark eyes, and kissed him gently, and . . . sentimental shit. Probably she had found some other idiot to tease, and confuse, and make miserable, and had never paid him so much as a second thought. He tortured himself with the thought of her laughing at some other man’s jokes, smiling into some other man’s face, kissing some other man’s mouth. She would never want him now, that was sure. No one would want him. He felt his lip trembling again, his eyes tingling.

‘All the great heroes of old, you know – the great kings, the great generals – they all faced adversity from time to time.’ Jezal looked up. He had almost forgotten that Bayaz was there. ‘Suffering is what gives a man strength, my boy, just as the steel most hammered turns out the hardest.’

The old man winced as he squatted down beside Jezal. ‘Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a king, one need only treat everyone else like one.’ And he placed a hand on Jezal’s shoulder. Perhaps it was supposed to be a fatherly and reassuring touch, but he could feel it trembling through his shirt. Bayaz let it rest there for a moment as though he had not the strength to move it, then pushed himself slowly up, stretched his legs, and shuffled off.

Jezal stared vacantly after him. A few weeks ago he would have been left fuming silently by such a lecture. Now he sat limp and absorbed it meekly. He hardly knew who he was any more. It was difficult to maintain any sense of superiority in the face of his utter dependence on other people. And people of whom, until recently, he had held such a very low opinion. He was no longer under any illusions. Without Ferro’s savage doctoring, and Ninefingers’ clumsy nursing, he would most likely have been dead.

The Northman was walking over, boots crunching in the shingle. Time to go back in the cart. Time for more squeaking and jolting. Time for more pain. Jezal gave a long, ragged, self-pitying sigh, but stopped himself halfway through. Self-pity was for children and halfwits.

‘Alright, you know the drill.’ Jezal leaned forward and Ninefingers hooked his arm behind his back, the other under his knees, lifted him up over the side of the cart without even breathing hard and dumped him unceremoniously among the supplies. Jezal caught his big, dirty, three-fingered hand as he was moving away, and the Northman turned to look at him, one heavy brow lifted. Jezal swallowed. ‘Thank you,’ he muttered.

‘What, for this?’

‘For everything.’

Ninefingers looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged. ‘Nothing to it. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated, and you can’t go far wrong. That’s what my father told me. Forgot that advice, for a long time, and I done things I can never make up for.’ He gave a long sigh. ‘Still, it doesn’t hurt to try. My experience? You get what you give, in the end.’

Jezal blinked at Ninefingers’ broad back as he walked over to his horse. You treat folk the way you’d want to be treated. Could Jezal honestly say that he had ever done that much? He thought about it as the cart set off, axles shrieking, carelessly at first, and then with deepening worry.

He had bullied his juniors, pandered to his seniors. He had often screwed money from friends who could not afford it, had taken advantage of girls, then brushed them off. He had never once thanked his friend West for any of his help, and would happily have bedded his sister behind his back if she had let him. He realised, with increasing horror, that he could scarcely think of a single selfless thing that he had ever done.

He shifted uncomfortably against the sacks of fodder in the cart. You get what you give, in the long run, and manners cost nothing. From now on, he would think of others first. He would treat everyone as if they were his equal. But later, of course. There would be plenty of time to be a better man when he could eat again. He touched one hand to the bandages on his face, scratched absently at them then had to stop himself. Bayaz was riding just behind the cart, looking out across the water.

‘You saw it?’ Jezal muttered at him.

‘Saw what?’

‘This.’ He jabbed a finger at his face.

‘Ah, that. Yes, I saw it.’

‘How bad is it?’

Bayaz cocked his head on one side. ‘Do you know? All in all, I believe I like it.’

‘You like it?’

‘Not now, perhaps, but the stitches will come out, the swelling will go down, the bruises will fade, the scabs will heal and drop away. I would guess your jaw will never quite regain its shape, and your teeth, of course, will not grow back, but what you lose in boyish charm you will gain, I have no doubt, in a certain danger, a flair, a rugged mystery. People respect a man who has seen action, and your appearance will be very far from ruined. I daresay girls could still be persuaded to swoon for you, if you were to do anything worth swooning over.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. All in all, I think it will serve.’

‘Serve?’ muttered Jezal, one hand pressed against his bandages. ‘Serve what?’

But Bayaz’ mind had wandered off. ‘Harod the Great had a scar, you know, across his cheek, and it never did him any harm. You don’t see it on the statues, of course, but people respected him the more for it, in life. Truly a great man, Harod. He had a shining reputation for being fair and trustworthy, and indeed he often was. But he knew how not to be, when the situation demanded it.’ The Magus chuckled to himself. ‘Did I tell you of the time he invited his two greatest enemies to negotiate with him? He had them feuding one with the other before the day was out, and later they destroyed each other’s armies in battle, leaving him to claim victory over both without striking a blow. He knew, you see, that Ardlic had a beautiful wife . . .’

Jezal lay back in the cart. Bayaz had, in fact, told him that story before, but there seemed no purpose in saying so. He was actually enjoying hearing it for a second time, and it was hardly as though there was anything better for him to do. There was something calming in the repetitive droning of the old man’s deep voice, especially now the sun was breaking through the clouds. His mouth was barely even hurting, if he kept it still.

So Jezal lay back against a sack of straw, head turned to the side, rocking gently with the movement of the cart, and watched the land slide by. Watched the wind in the grass. Watched the sun on the water.

One Step at a Time

W
est gritted his teeth as he dragged himself up the freezing slope. His fingers were numb, and weak, and trembling from clawing at the chill earth, the icy tree roots, the freezing snow for handholds. His lips were cracked, his nose was endlessly running, the rims of his nostrils were horribly sore. The very air cut into his throat and nipped at his lungs, smoked back out in tickling wheezes. He wondered if giving his coat to Ladisla had been the worst decision of his life. He decided it probably had been. Except for saving the selfish bastard in the first place, of course.

Even when he had been training for the Contest, five hours a day, he had never imagined that he could be so tired. Next to Threetrees, Lord Marshal Varuz seemed an almost laughably soft taskmaster. West was shaken awake before dawn every morning and scarcely allowed to rest until after the last light faded. The Northmen were machines, every one of them. Men carved from wood who never got tired, who felt no pain. Every one of West’s muscles ached from their merciless pace. He was covered in bruises and scratches from a hundred falls and scrambles. His feet were raw and blistered in his wet boots. Then there was the familiar pulsing in the head, throbbing away to the rhythm of his laboured heartbeat, mingling unpleasantly with the burning of the wound on his scalp.

The cold, the pain, and the fatigue were bad enough, but still worse was the overwhelming sense of shame, and guilt, and failure that crushed him down with every step. He had been sent with Ladisla to make sure there were no disasters. The result had been a disaster on a scale almost incomprehensible. An entire division massacred. How many children without fathers? How many wives without husbands? How many parents without sons? If only he could have done more, he told himself for the thousandth time, bunching his bloodless hands into fists. If only he could have convinced the Prince to stay behind the river, all those men might not be dead. So many dead. He hardly knew whether to pity or envy them.

‘One step at a time,’ he muttered to himself as he clambered up the slope. That was the only way to look at it. If you clenched your teeth hard enough, and took enough strides, you could get anywhere. One painful, weary, freezing, guilty step at a time. What else could you do?

No sooner had they finally made it to the top of the hill than Prince Ladisla flung himself down against the roots of a tree, as he did at least once an hour. ‘Colonel West, please!’ He gasped for air, breath steaming round his puffy face. He had two lines of glistening snot on his pale top lip, just like a toddler. ‘I can go no further! Tell them . . . tell them to stop, for pity’s sake!’

West cursed under his breath. The Northmen were annoyed enough as it was, and making less and less effort to disguise the fact, but, like it or not, Ladisla was still his commander. Not to mention the heir to the throne. West could hardly order him to get up. ‘Threetrees!’ he wheezed.

The old warrior frowned over his shoulder. ‘You better not be asking me to stop, lad.’

‘We have to.’

‘By the dead! Again? You Southerners got no bones in you at all! No wonder Bethod gave you such a kicking. If you bastards don’t learn to march he’ll be giving you another, I can tell you that!’

‘Please. Just for a moment.’

Threetrees glared down at the sprawling Prince and shook his head with disgust. ‘Alright, then. You can sit a minute, if that’ll get you moving the quicker, but don’t get used to it, you hear? We’ve not covered half the ground we need to today, if we’re to keep ahead of Bethod.’ And he stalked off to shout at the Dogman.

West sank down onto his haunches, working his numb toes, cupping his icy hands and blowing into them. He wanted to sprawl out like Ladisla, but he knew from harsh experience that if he stopped moving, starting up again would be all the more painful. Pike and his daughter stood over them, scarcely even too far out of breath. It was harsh proof, if any were really needed, that working metal in a penal colony was better preparation for slogging across brutal country than a life of uninterrupted ease.

Ladisla seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘You’ve no idea how hard this is for me!’ he blurted.

‘No, of course!’ snapped West, his patience worn down to a stub. ‘You’ve got the extra weight of my coat to carry!’

The Prince blinked, then looked down at the wet ground, his jaw muscles working silently. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I realise I owe you my life, of course. Not used to this sort of thing, you see. Not used to it at all.’ He plucked at the frayed and filthy lapels of the coat and gave a sorry chuckle. ‘My mother always told me that a man should be well presented under all circumstances. I wonder what she’d make of this.’ West noticed he didn’t offer to give it back, though.