The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (195 page)

‘Is it true?’ Pit asked her. ‘Is no one following?’

‘Shy’s following.’ Ro never doubted it because, you’d best believe, Shy was not a person to be told how things would be. But what Ro didn’t say was that she half-hoped Shy wasn’t following, because she didn’t want to see her sister shot through with arrows, and didn’t really know what she could do about all this, ’cause even with the three that left, and the two that took most of the horses off to sell when they got on the boat, and the one that Blackpoint killed, Cantliss still had thirteen men. She didn’t see what anyone could do about it.

She wished Lamb was with them, though, because he could’ve smiled and said, ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry none,’ like he did when there was a storm and she couldn’t sleep. That would’ve been fine.

Conscience and the Cock-Rot

‘
P
raying?’

Sufeen sighed. ‘No, I am kneeling here with my eyes closed cooking porridge. Yes, I am praying.’ He opened one eye a crack and aimed it at Temple. ‘Care to join me?’

‘I don’t believe in God, remember?’ Temple realised he was picking at the hem of his shirt again and stopped himself. ‘Can you honestly say He ever raised a finger to help you?’

‘You don’t have to
like
God to believe. Besides, I know I am past help.’

‘What do you pray for, then?’

Sufeen dabbed his face with his prayer cloth, eyeing Temple over the fringe. ‘I pray for you, brother. You look as if you need it.’

‘I’ve been feeling . . . a little jumpy.’ Temple realised he was worrying at his sleeve now, and tore his hand away. For God’s sake, would his fingers not be happy until they had unravelled every shirt he possessed? ‘Do you ever feel as if there is a dreadful weight hanging over you . . .’

‘Often.’

‘. . . and that it might fall at any moment . . .’

‘All the time.’

‘. . . and you just don’t know how to get out from under it?’

‘But you
do
know.’ There was a pause while they watched each other.

‘No,’ said Temple, taking a step away. ‘No, no.’

‘The Old Man listens to you.’

‘No!’

‘You could talk to him, get him to stop this—’

‘I tried, he didn’t want to hear!’

‘Perhaps you didn’t try hard enough.’ Temple clapped his hands over his ears and Sufeen dragged them away. ‘The easy way leads nowhere!’

‘You talk to him, then!’

‘I’m just a scout!’

‘I’m just a lawyer! I never claimed to be a righteous man.’

‘No righteous man does.’

Temple tore himself free and strode off through the trees. ‘If God wants this stopped, let Him stop it! Isn’t He all-powerful?’

‘Never leave to God what you can do yourself!’ he heard Sufeen call, and hunched his shoulders as though the words were sling-stones. The man was starting to sound like Kahdia. Temple only hoped things didn’t end the same way.

Certainly no one else in the Company appeared keen to avoid violence. The woods were alive with eager fighting men, tightening worn-out straps, sharpening weapons, stringing bows. A pair of Northmen were slapping each other to pink-faced heights of excitement. A pair of Kantics were at prayers of their own, kneeling before a blessing stone they had placed with great care on a tree-stump, the wrong way up. Every man takes God for his ally, regardless of which way he faces.

The towering wagon had been drawn up in a clearing, its hardworking horses at their nosebags. Cosca was draped against one of its wheels, outlining his vision for the attack on Averstock to an assembly of the Company’s foremost members, switching smoothly between Styrian and common and with expressive gestures of hand and hat for the benefit of those who spoke neither. Sworbreck crouched over a boulder beside him with pencil poised to record the great man at work.

‘. . . so that Captain Dimbik’s Union contingent can sweep in from the west, alongside the river!’

‘Yes, sir,’ pronounced Dimbik, sweeping a few well-greased hairs back into position with a licked little finger.

‘Brachio will simultaneously bring his men charging in from the east!’

‘Simulta what now?’ grunted the Styrian, tonguing at a rotten tooth.

‘At the same time,’ said Friendly.

‘Ah.’

‘And Jubair will thrust downhill from the trees, completing the encirclement!’ The feather on Cosca’s hat thrashed as it achieved a metaphorical total victory over the forces of darkness.

‘Let no one escape,’ ground out Lorsen. ‘Everyone must be examined.’

‘Of course.’ Cosca pushed out his lower jaw and scratched thoughtfully at his neck, where a faint speckling of pink rash was appearing. ‘And all plunder declared, assessed and properly noted so that it may be divided according to the Rule of Quarters. Any questions?’

‘How many men will Inquisitor Lorsen torture to death today?’ demanded Sufeen in ringing tones. Temple stared at him open-mouthed, and he was not alone.

Cosca went on scratching. ‘I was thinking of questions relating to our tactics—’

‘As many as is necessary,’ interrupted the Inquisitor. ‘You think I revel in this? The world is a grey place. A place of half-truths. Of half-wrongs and half-rights. Yet there are things worth fighting for, and they must be pursued with all our vigour and commitment. Half-measures achieve nothing.’

‘What if there are no rebels down there?’ Sufeen shook off Temple’s frantic tugging at his sleeve. ‘What if you are wrong?’

‘Sometimes I will be,’ said Lorsen simply. ‘Courage lies in bearing the costs. We all have our regrets, but not all of us can afford to be crippled by them. Sometimes it takes small crimes to prevent bigger ones. Sometimes the lesser evil is the greater good. A man of principle must make hard choices and suffer the consequences. Or you could sit and cry over how unfair it all is.’

‘Works for me,’ said Temple with a laugh of choking falseness.

‘It will not work for me.’ Sufeen wore a strange expression, as if he was looking through the gathering to something in the far distance, and Temple felt an awful foreboding. Even more awful than usual. ‘General Cosca, I want to go down into Averstock.’

‘So do we all! Did you not hear my address?’

‘Before the attack.’

‘Why?’ demanded Lorsen.

‘To talk to the townsfolk,’ said Sufeen. ‘To give them a chance to surrender any rebels.’ Temple winced. God, it sounded ridiculous. Noble, righteous, courageous and ridiculous. ‘To avoid what happened in Squaredeal—’

Cosca was taken aback. ‘I thought we were remarkably well behaved in Squaredeal. A company of kittens could have been no gentler! Would you not say so, Sworbreck?’

The writer adjusted his eyeglasses and stammered out, ‘Admirable restraint.’

‘This is a poor town.’ Sufeen pointed into the trees with a faintly shaking finger. ‘They have nothing worth taking.’

Dimbik frowned as he scraped at a stain on his sash with a fingernail. ‘You can’t know that until you look.’

‘Just give me a chance. I’m begging you.’ Sufeen clasped his hands and looked Cosca in his eye. ‘I’m praying.’

‘Prayer is arrogance,’ intoned Jubair. ‘The hope of man to change the will of God. But God’s plan is set and His words already spoken.’

‘Fuck Him, then!’ snapped Sufeen.

Jubair mildly raised one brow. ‘Oh, you will find it is God who does the fucking.’

There was a pause, the metallic notes of martial preparations drifting between the tree-trunks along with the morning birdsong.

The Old Man sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘You sound determined.’

Sufeen echoed Lorsen’s words. ‘A man of principle must make hard choices and suffer the consequences.’

‘And if I agree to this, what then? Will your conscience continue to prick at our arses all the way across the Near Country and back? Because that could become decidedly tiresome. Conscience can be painful but so can the cock-rot. A grown-up should suffer his afflictions privately and not allow them to become an inconvenience for friends and colleagues.’

‘Conscience and the cock-rot are hardly equivalent,’ snapped Lorsen.

‘Indeed,’ said Cosca, significantly. ‘The cock-rot is rarely fatal.’

The Inquisitor’s face had turned even more livid than usual. ‘Am I to understand you are considering this folly?’

‘You are, and I am. The town is surrounded, after all, no one is going anywhere. Perhaps this can make all our lives a little easier. What do you think, Temple?’

Temple blinked. ‘Me?’

‘I am looking at you and using your name.’

‘Yes, but . . . me?’ There was a good reason why he had stopped making hard choices. He always made the wrong ones. Thirty years of scraping through the poverty and fear between disasters to end up in this fix was proof enough of that. He looked from Sufeen, to Cosca, to Lorsen, and back. Where was the greatest profit? Where the least danger? Who was actually . . . right? It was damned difficult to pick the easy way from this tangle. ‘Well . . .’

Cosca puffed out his cheeks. ‘The man of conscience and the man of doubts. God help us indeed. You have one hour.’

‘I must protest!’ barked Lorsen.

‘If you must, you must, but I won’t be able to hear you with all this noise.’

‘What noise?’

Cosca stuck his fingers in his ears. ‘Blah-lee-lah-lee-lah-lee-lah-lee-lah . . . !’

He was still doing it as Temple hurried away through the towering trees after Sufeen, their boots crunching on fallen sticks, rotten cones, browned pine needles, the sound of the men fading to leave only the rustling of the branches high above, the twitter and warble of birds.

‘Have you gone mad?’ hissed Temple, struggling to keep up.

‘I have gone sane.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Talk to them.’

‘To who?’

‘Whoever will listen.’

‘You won’t put the world right with talk!’

‘What will you use, then? Fire and sword? Papers of Engagement?’

They passed the last group of puzzled sentries, Bermi giving a questioning look from among them and Temple offering only a helpless shrug in return, then they were out into the open, sunlight suddenly bright on their faces. The few dozen houses of Averstock clung to a curve in the river below. ‘Houses’ was being generous to most of them. They were little better than shacks, with dirt between. They were no better than shacks, with shit between, and Sufeen was already striding purposefully downhill in their direction.

‘What the hell is he up to?’ hissed Bermi from the shadowy safety of the trees.

‘I think he’s following his conscience,’ said Temple.

The Styrian looked unconvinced. ‘Conscience is a shitty navigator.’

‘I’ve often told him so.’ Yet Sufeen showed no sign of slowing in his pursuit of it. ‘Oh God,’ muttered Temple, wincing up at the blue heavens. ‘Oh God, oh God.’ And he bounded after, grass thrashing about his calves, patched with little white flowers the name of which he did not know.

‘Self-sacrifice is not a noble thing!’ he called as he caught up. ‘I have seen it, and it’s an ugly, pointless thing, and nobody thanks you for it!’

‘Perhaps God will.’

‘If there is a God, He has bigger things to worry about than the likes of us!’

Sufeen pressed on, looking neither left or right. ‘Go back, Temple. This is not the easy way.’

‘That I fucking realise!’ He caught a fistful of Sufeen’s sleeve. ‘Let’s both go back!’

Sufeen shook him off and carried on. ‘No.’

‘Then I’m coming!’

‘Good.’

‘Fuck!’ Temple hurried to catch up again, the town getting steadily closer and looking less and less like a thing he wished to risk his life for. ‘What’s your plan? There is a plan, yes?’

‘There is . . . part of one.’

‘That’s not very reassuring.’

‘Reassuring you was not my aim.’

‘Then you have
fucking
succeeded, my friend.’ They passed under the arch of rough-trimmed timbers that served for a gate, a sign creaking beneath it that read
Averstock
. They skirted around the boggiest parts of the boggy main street, between the slumping little buildings, most of warped pine, all on one storey and some barely that.

‘God, this is a poor place,’ muttered Sufeen.

‘It puts me in mind of home,’ whispered Temple. Which was far from a good thing. The sun-baked lower city of Dagoska, the seething slums of Styria, the hard-scrabble villages of the Near Country. Every nation was rich in its own way, but poor in the same.

A woman skinned a fly-blown carcass that might have been rabbit or cat and Temple got the feeling she was not bothered which. A pair of half-naked children mindlessly banged wooden swords together in the street. A long-haired ancient whittled a stick on the stoop of one of the few stone-built houses, a sword that was definitely not a toy leaning against the wall behind him. They all watched Temple and Sufeen with sulky suspicion. Some shutters clattered closed and Temple’s heart started to pound. Then a dog barked and he nearly shat, sweat standing cold on his brow as a stinking breeze swept past. He wondered if this was the stupidest thing he had ever done in a life littered with idiocy. High on the list, he decided, and still with ample time to bully its way to the top.