The Great Leveller Read online

  Which was how Benna Murcatto saved his sister’s life.

  She bounced from the corpse, three-quarters senseless, and down the steep mountainside, over and over, flailing like a broken doll. Rocks, and roots, and hard earth clubbed, punched, crushed her, as if she was battered apart with a hundred hammers.

  She tore through a patch of bushes, thorns whipping and clutching. She rolled, and rolled, down the sloping earth in a cloud of dirt and leaves. She tumbled over a tree root, crumpled on a mossy rock. She slid slowly to a stop, on her back, and was still.

  ‘Huuuurrrrhhh . . .’

  Stones clattered down around her, sticks and gravel. Dust slowly settled. She heard wind, creaking in the branches, crackling in the leaves. Or her own breath, creaking and crackling in her broken throat. The sun flickered through black trees, jabbing at one eye. The other was dark. Flies buzzed, zipping and swimming in the warm morning air. She was down with the waste from Orso’s kitchens. Sprawled out helpless in the midst of the rotten vegetables, and the cooking slime, and the stinking offal left over from the last month’s magnificent meals. Tossed out with the rubbish.

  ‘Huuurrhhh . . .’

  A jagged, mindless sound. She was embarrassed by it, almost, but couldn’t stop making it. Animal horror. Mad despair. The groan of the dead, in hell. Her eye darted desperately around. She saw the wreck of her right hand, a shapeless, purple glove with a bloody gash in the side. One finger trembled slightly. Its tip brushed against torn skin on her elbow. The forearm was folded in half, a broken-off twig of grey bone sticking through bloody silk. It didn’t look real. Like a cheap theatre prop.

  ‘Huurrhhh . . .’

  The fear had hold of her now, swelling with every breath. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t move her tongue in her mouth. She could feel the pain, gnawing at the edge of her mind. A terrible mass, pressing up against her, crushing every part of her, worse, and worse, and worse.

  ‘Huurhh . . . uurh . . .’

  Benna was dead. A streak of wet ran from her flickering eye and she felt it trickle slowly down her cheek. Why was she not dead? How could she not be dead?

  Soon, please. Before the pain got any worse. Please, let it be soon.

  ‘Uurh . . . uh . . . uh.’

  Please, death.

  I

  TALINS

  ‘To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike’

  Diane de Poitiers

  Jappo Murcatto never said why he had such a good sword, but he knew well how to use it. Since his son was by five years his younger child and sickly too, from a tender age he passed on the skill to his daughter. Monzcarro had been her father’s mother’s name, in the days when her family had pretended at nobility. Her own mother had not cared for it in the least, but since she had died giving birth to Benna that scarcely mattered.

  Those were peaceful years in Styria, which were as rare as gold. At ploughing time Monza would hurry behind her father while the blade scraped through the dirt, weeding any big stones from the fresh black earth and throwing them into the wood. At reaping time she would hurry behind her father while his scythe-blade flashed, gathering the cut stalks into sheaves.

  ‘Monza,’ he would say, smiling down at her, ‘what would I do without you?’ She helped with the threshing and tossed the seed, split logs and drew water. She cooked, swept, washed, carried, milked the goat. Her hands were always raw from some kind of work. Her brother did what he could, but he was small, and ill, and could do little. Those were hard years, but they were happy ones.

  When Monza was fourteen, Jappo Murcatto caught the fever. She and Benna watched him cough, and sweat, and wither. One night her father seized Monza by her wrist, and stared at her with bright eyes.

  ‘Tomorrow, break the ground in the upper field, or the wheat won’t rise in time. Plant all you can.’ He touched her cheek. ‘It’s not fair that it should fall to you, but your brother is so small. Watch over him.’ And he was dead.

  Benna cried, and cried, but Monza’s eyes stayed dry. She was thinking about the seed that needing planting, and how she would do it. That night Benna was too scared to sleep alone, and so they slept together in her narrow bed, and held each other for comfort. They had no one else now.

  The next morning, in the darkness, Monza dragged her father’s corpse from the house, through the woods behind and rolled it into the river. Not because she had no love in her, but because she had no time to bury him.

  By sunrise she was breaking the ground in the upper field.

  Land of Opportunity

  First thing Shivers noticed as the boat wallowed in towards the wharves, it was nothing like as warm as he’d been expecting. He’d heard the sun always shone in Styria. Like a nice bath, all year round. If Shivers had been offered a bath like this he’d have stayed dirty, and probably had a few sharp words to say besides. Talins huddled under grey skies, clouds bulging, a keen breeze off the sea, cold rain speckling his cheek from time to time and reminding him of home. And not in a good way. Still, he was set on looking at the sunny side of the case. Probably just a shitty day was all. You get ’em everywhere.

  There surely was a seedy look about the place, though, as the sailors scuttled to make the boat fast to the dock. Brick buildings lined the grey sweep of the bay, narrow windowed, all squashed in together, roofs slumping, paint peeling, cracked-up render stained with salt, green with moss, black with mould. Down near the slimy cobbles the walls were plastered over with big papers, slapped up at all angles, ripped and pasted over each other, torn edges fluttering. Faces on them, and words printed. Warnings, maybe, but Shivers weren’t much of a reader. Specially not in Styrian. Speaking the language was going to be enough of a challenge.

  The waterfront crawled with people, and not many looked happy. Or healthy. Or rich. There was quite the smell. Or to be more precise, a proper reek. Rotten salt fish, old corpses, coal smoke and overflowing latrine pits rolled up together. If this was the home of the grand new man he was hoping to become, Shivers had to admit to being more’n a touch disappointed. For the briefest moment he thought about paying over most of what he had left for a trip straight back home to the North on the next tide. But he shook it off. He was done with war, done with leading men to death, done with killing and all that went along with it. He was set on being a better man. He was going to do the right thing, and this was where he was going to do it.

  ‘Right, then.’ He gave the nearest sailor a cheery nod. ‘Off I go.’ He got no more’n a grunt in return, but his brother used to tell him it was what you gave out that made a man, not what you got back. So he grinned like he’d got a merry send-off, strode down the clattering gangplank and into his brave new life in Styria.

  He’d scarcely taken a dozen paces, staring up at looming buildings on one side, swaying masts on the other, before someone barged into him and near knocked him sideways.

  ‘My apologies,’ Shivers said in Styrian, keeping things civilised. ‘Didn’t see you there, friend.’ The man kept going, didn’t even turn. That prickled some at Shivers’ pride. He had plenty of it still, the one thing his father had left him. He hadn’t lived through seven years of battles, skirmishes, waking with snow on his blanket, shit food and worse singing so he could come down here and get shouldered.

  But being a bastard was crime and punishment both. Let go of it, his brother would’ve told him. Shivers was meant to be looking on the sunny side. So he took a turn away from the docks, down a wide road and into the city. Past a clutch of beggars on blankets, waving stumps and withered limbs. Through a square where a great statue stood of a frowning man, pointing off to nowhere. Shivers didn’t have a clue who he was meant to be, but he looked pretty damn pleased with himself. The smell of cooking wafted up, made Shivers’ guts grumble. Drew him over to some kind of stall where they had sticks of meat over a fire in a can.

  ‘One o’ them,’ said Shivers, pointing. Didn’t seem much else needed saying, so he kept it simple. Less chance of mistak
es. When the cook told him the price he near choked on his tongue. Would’ve got him a whole sheep in the North, maybe even a breeding pair. The meat was half fat and the rest gristle. Didn’t taste near so good as it had smelled, but by that point it weren’t much surprise. It seemed most things in Styria weren’t quite as advertised.

  The rain had started up stronger now, flitting down into Shivers’ eyes as he ate. Not much compared to storms he’d laughed through in the North, but enough to damp his mood a touch, make him wonder where the hell he’d rest his head tonight. It trickled from mossy eaves and broken gutters, turned the cobbles dark, made the people hunch and curse. He came from the close buildings and onto a wide river bank, all built up and fenced in with stone. He paused a moment, wondering which way to go.

  The city went on far as he could see, bridges upstream and down, buildings on the far bank even bigger than on this side – towers, domes, roofs, going on and on, half-shrouded and turned dreamy grey by the rain. More torn papers flapping in the breeze, letters daubed over ’em too with bright coloured paint, streaks running down to the cobbled street. Letters high as a man in places. Shivers peered over at one set, trying to make some sense of it.

  Another shoulder caught him, right in the ribs, made him grunt. This time he whipped round snarling, little meat stick clutched in his fist like he might’ve clutched a blade. Then he took a breath. Weren’t all that long ago Shivers had let the Bloody-Nine go free. He remembered that morning like it was yesterday, the snow outside the windows, the knife in his hand, the rattle as he’d let it fall. He’d let the man who killed his brother live, passed up revenge, all so he could be a better man. Step away from blood. Stepping away from a loose shoulder in a crowd was nothing to sing about.

  He forced half a smile back on and walked the other way, up onto the bridge. Silly thing like the knock of a shoulder could leave you cursing for days, and he didn’t want to poison his new beginning ’fore it even got begun. Statues stood on either side, staring off above the water, monsters of white stone streaky with bird droppings. People flooded past, one kind of river flowing over the other. People of every type and colour. So many he felt like nothing in the midst of ’em. Bound to have a few shoulders catch you in a place like this.

  Something brushed his arm. Before he knew it he’d grabbed someone round the neck, was bending him back over the parapet twenty strides above the churning water, gripping his throat like he was strangling a chicken. ‘Knock me, you bastard?’ he snarled in Northern. ‘I’ll cut your fucking eyes out!’

  He was a little man, and he looked bloody scared. Might’ve been a head shorter’n Shivers, and not much more than half his weight. Getting over the first red flush of rage, Shivers realised this poor fool had barely even touched him. No malice in it. How come he could shrug off big wrongs then lose his temper over nothing? He’d always been his own worst enemy.

  ‘Sorry, friend,’ he said in Styrian, and meaning it too. He let the man slither down, brushed the crumpled front of his coat with a clumsy hand. ‘Real sorry about that. Little . . . what do you call it . . . mistake is all. Sorry. Do you want . . .’ Shivers found he was offering the stick, one last shred of fatty meat still clinging to it. The man stared. Shivers winced. ’Course he didn’t want that. Shivers hardly wanted it himself. ‘Sorry . . .’ The man turned and dashed off into the crowd, looking once over his shoulder, scared, like he’d just survived being attacked by a madman. Maybe he had. Shivers stood on the bridge, frowned down at that brown water churning past. Same sort of water they had in the North, it had to be said.

  Seemed being a better man might be harder work than he’d thought.

  The Bone-Thief

  When her eyes opened, she saw bones. Bones long and short, thick and thin, white, yellow, brown. Covering the peeling wall from floor to ceiling. Hundreds of them. Nailed up in patterns, a madman’s mosaic. Her eyes rolled down, sore and sticky. A tongue of fire flickered in a sooty hearth. On the mantelpiece above, skulls grinned emptily at her, neatly stacked three high.

  Human bones, then. Monza felt her skin turn icy cold.

  She tried to sit up. The vague sense of numb stiffness flared into pain so suddenly she nearly puked. The darkened room lurched, blurred. She was held fast, lying on something hard. Her mind was full of mud, she couldn’t remember how she’d got here.

  Her head rolled sideways and she saw a table. On the table was a metal tray. On the tray was a careful arrangement of instruments. Pincers, pliers, needles and scissors. A small but very businesslike saw. A dozen knives at least, all shapes and sizes. Her widening eyes darted over their polished blades – curved, straight, jagged edges cruel and eager in the firelight. A surgeon’s tools?

  Or a torturer’s?

  ‘Benna?’ Her voice was a ghostly squeak. Her tongue, her gums, her throat, the passages in her nose, all raw as skinned meat. She tried to move again, could scarcely lift her head. Even that much effort sent a groaning stab through her neck and into her shoulder, set off a dull pulsing up her legs, down her right arm, through her ribs. The pain brought fear with it, the fear brought pain. Her breath quickened, shuddering and wheezing through her sore nostrils.

  Click, click.

  She froze, silence prickling at her ears. Then a scraping, a key in a lock. Frantically now she squirmed, pain bursting in every joint, ripping at every muscle, blood battering behind her eyes, thick tongue wedged into her teeth to stop herself screaming. A door creaked open and banged shut. Footsteps on bare boards, hardly making a sound, but each one still a jab of fear in her throat. A shadow reached out across the floor – a huge shape, twisted, monstrous. Her eyes strained to the corners, nothing she could do but wait for the worst.

  A figure came through the doorway, walked straight past her and over to a tall cupboard. A man no more than average height, in fact, with short fair hair. The misshapen shadow was caused by a canvas sack over one shoulder. He hummed tunelessly to himself as he emptied it, placing each item carefully on its proper shelf, then turning it back and forth until it faced precisely into the room.

  If he was a monster, he seemed an everyday sort of one, with an eye for the details.

  He swung the doors gently shut, folded his empty bag once, twice, and slid it under the cupboard. He took off his stained coat and hung it from a hook, brushed it down with a brisk hand, turned and stopped dead. A pale, lean face. Not old, but deeply lined, with harsh cheekbones and eyes hungry bright in bruised sockets.

  They stared at each other for a moment, both seeming equally shocked. Then his colourless lips twitched into a sickly smile.

  ‘You are awake!’

  ‘Who are you?’ A terrified scratch in her dried-up throat.

  ‘My name is not important.’ He spoke with the trace of a Union accent. ‘Suffice it to say I am a student of the physical sciences.’

  ‘A healer?’

  ‘Among other things. As you may have gathered, I am an enthusiast, chiefly, for bones. Which is why I am so glad that you . . . fell into my life.’ He grinned again, but it was like the skulls’ grins, never touching his eyes.

  ‘How did . . .’ She had to wrestle with the words, jaw stiff as rusted hinges. It was like trying to talk with a turd in her mouth, and hardly better tasting. ‘How did I get here?’

  ‘I need bodies for my work. They are sometimes to be found where I found you. But I have never before found one still alive. I would judge you to be a spectacularly lucky woman.’ He seemed to think about it for a moment. ‘It would have been luckier still if you had not fallen in the first place but . . . since you did—’

  ‘Where’s my brother? Where’s Benna?’

  ‘Benna?’

  Memory flooded back in a blinding instant. Blood pumping from between her brother’s clutching fingers. The long blade sliding through his chest while she watched, helpless. His slack face, smeared with red.

  She gave a croaking scream, bucked and twisted. Agony flashed up every limb and made her squirm the more, shud
der, retch, but she was held fast. Her host watched her struggle, waxy face empty as a blank page. She sagged back, spitting and moaning as the pain grew worse and worse, gripping her like a giant vice, steadily tightened.

  ‘Anger solves nothing.’

  All she could do was growl, snatched breaths slurping through her gritted teeth.

  ‘I imagine you are in some pain, now.’ He pulled open a drawer in the cupboard and took out a long pipe, bowl stained black. ‘I would try to get used to it, if you can.’ He stooped and fished a hot coal from the fire with a set of tongs. ‘I fear that pain will come to be your constant companion.’

  The worn mouthpiece loomed at her. She’d seen husk-smokers often enough, sprawling like corpses, withered to useless husks themselves, caring for nothing but the next pipe. Husk was like mercy. A thing for the weak. For the cowardly.

  He smiled his dead-man’s smile again. ‘This will help.’

  Enough pain makes a coward of anyone.

  The smoke burned at her lungs and made her sore ribs shake, each choke sending new shocks to the tips of her fingers. She groaned, face screwing up, struggling again, but more weakly, now. One more cough, and she lay limp. The edge was gone from the pain. The edge was gone from the fear and the panic. Everything slowly melted. Soft, warm, comfortable. Someone made a long, low moan. Her, maybe. She felt a tear run down the side of her face.

  ‘More?’ This time she held the smoke as it bit, blew it tickling out in a shimmering plume. Her breath came slower, and slower, the surging of blood in her head calmed to a gentle lapping.

  ‘More?’ The voice washed over her like waves on the smooth beach. The bones were blurred now, glistening in haloes of warm light. The coals in the grate were precious jewels, sparkling every colour. There was barely any pain, and what there was didn’t matter. Nothing did. Her eyes flickered pleasantly, then even more pleasantly drifted shut. Mosaic patterns danced and shifted on the insides of her eyelids. She floated on a warm sea, honey sweet . . .