Red Country Read online

  Sweet looked less than convinced. ‘He is?’

  ‘I am?’ muttered Leef.

  ‘We’ll all be going free.’ Shy took another swig and tossed the bottle back. ‘It’s that way or no way.’

  Sweet narrowed his eyes as he took his own long, slow drink, then he looked over at Lamb again, sat still in the darkness, just the glimmer of the torch in the corners of his eyes, and sighed. ‘You like to drive a bargain, don’t you?’

  ‘My preferred approach to bad deals is to be where they ain’t.’

  Sweet gave another chuckle, and he nosed his horse forward, and he stuck the bottle in the crook of his arm, pulled off his glove with his teeth and slapped his hand into hers. ‘Deal. Reckon I’m going to like you, girl. What’s your name?’

  ‘Shy South.’

  Sweet raised that brow again. ‘Shy?’

  ‘It’s a name, old man, not a description. Now hand me back that bottle.’

  And so they headed off into the night, Dab Sweet telling tales in his grinding bass, talking a lot and saying nothing and laughing a fair bit too just as though they hadn’t left two men murdered not an hour before, passing the bottle about ’til it was done and Shy tossed it away into the night with a warmth in her belly. When Averstock was just a few lights behind she reined her horse back to a walk and dropped in beside the closest thing she’d ever had to a father.

  ‘Your name hasn’t always been Lamb, has it?’

  He looked at her, and then away. Hunching down further. Pulling his coat tighter. Thumb slipping out between his fingers over and over, rubbing at the stump of the middle one. The missing one. ‘We all got a past,’ he said.

  Too true, that.

  The Stolen

  The children were left in a silent huddle each time Cantliss went to round up more. Rounding ’em up, that’s what he called it, like they was just unclaimed cattle and no killing was needed. No doing what they’d done at the farm. No laughing about it after when they brought more staring little ones. Blackpoint was always laughing, a lopsided laugh with two of the front teeth missing. Like he’d never heard a joke so funny as murder.

  At first Ro tried to guess at where they were. Maybe even leave some sign for those who must be coming after. But the woods and the fields gave way to just a scrubby emptiness in which a bush was quite the landmark. They were headed west, she gathered that much, but no more. She had Pit to think about and the other children too and she tried to keep them fed and cleaned and quiet the best she could.

  The children were all kinds, none older than ten. There’d been twenty-one ’til that boy Care had tried to run and Blackpoint came back from chasing him all bloody. So they were down to twenty and no one tried to run after that.

  There was a woman with them called Bee who was all right even if she did have scars on her arms from surviving the pox. She held the children sometimes. Not Ro, ’cause she didn’t need holding, and not Pit, ’cause he had Ro to hold, but some of the younger ones, and she whispered at them to hush when they cried ’cause she was scared as piss of Cantliss. He’d hit her time to time, and after when she was wiping the blood from her nose she’d make excuses for him. She’d say how he’d had a hard life and been abandoned by his folks and beaten as a child and other such. That sounded to Ro like it should make you slower rather’n quicker to beat others, but she guessed everyone’s got their excuses. Even if they’re feeble ones.

  The way Ro saw it, Cantliss had nothing in him worth a damn. He rode up front in his fancy tailored clothes like he was some big man with important doings to be about, ’stead of a child-thief and murderer and lowest of the low, aiming to make himself look special by gathering even lower scum about him for a backdrop. At night he’d get a great big fire built ’cause he loved to watch things burn, and he’d drink, and once he’d set to drinking his mouth would get a bitter twist and he’d complain. About how life weren’t fair and how he’d been tricked out of an inheritance by a banker and how things never seemed to go his way.

  They stopped for a day beside wide water flowing and Ro asked him, ‘Where are you taking us?’ and he just said, ‘Upstream.’ A keelboat had tied off at the bank and upstream they’d gone, poled and roped and rowed by a set of men all sinew while the flat land slid by, and way, way off north through the haze three blue peaks showed against the sky.

  Ro thought at first it would be a mercy, not to have to ride no more, but now all they could do was sit. Sit under a canopy up front and watch the water and the land drift past and feel their old lives dwindle further and further off, the faces of the folks they’d known harder to bring to mind, until the past all felt like a dream and the future an unknown nightmare.

  Blackpoint would get off now and again with his bow, a couple of the others with him, and they’d come back later with meat they’d hunted up. Rest of the time he sat smoking, and watched the children, and grinned for hours at a spell. When Ro saw the missing teeth in that grin she thought about him shooting Gully and leaving him swinging there on the tree full of arrows. When she thought about that she wanted to cry, but she knew she couldn’t because she was one of the oldest and the little ones were looking to her to be strong and that’s what she meant to be. She reckoned if she didn’t cry that was her way of beating them. A little victory, maybe, but Shy always said a win’s a win.

  Few days on the boat and they saw something burning far off across the grass, plumes of smoke trickling up and fading in that vastness of above and the black dots of birds circling, circling. The chief boatman said they should turn back and he was worried about Ghosts and Cantliss just laughed, and shifted the knife in his belt, and said there was things closer at hand for a man to worry on and that was all the conversation.

  That evening one of the men had shaken her wakeful and started talking about how she reminded him of someone, smiling though there was something wrong in his eye and his breath sour with spirits, and he’d caught hold of her arm and Pit had hit him hard as he could which wasn’t that hard. Bee woke and screamed and Cantliss came and dragged the man away and Blackpoint kicked him ’til he stopped moving and tossed him in the river. Cantliss shouted at the others to leave the goods well alone and just use their fucking hands, ’cause no bastard would be costing him money, you could bet on that.

  She knew she should never have said nothing about it but she couldn’t help herself then and she’d burst out, ‘My sister’s following, you can bet on that if you want to bet! She’ll find you out!’

  She’d thought Cantliss might hit her then but all he’d done was look at her like she was the latest of many afflictions fate had forced upon him and said, ‘Little one, the past is gone, like to that water flowing by. The sooner you put it from your pinprick of a mind the happier you’ll be. You got no sister now. No one’s following.’ And he went off to stand on the prow, tutting as he tried to rub the spotted blood out of his fancy clothes with a damp rag.

  ‘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.

  II

  FELLOWSHIP

  ‘What a wild life, and what a fresh kind of existence! But, ah, the discomforts!’

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Conscience and the Cock-Rot

  ‘Praying?’

  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 wron
g 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.