08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

‘What did these bastards do?’ asked Clover, frowning up at the bodies.

‘They was on the Dogman’s side,’ said Greenway, nodding like a family dangling from a tree was a job well done.

Couple of Thralls had dragged a cupboard from the farmhouse, now they shoved it over in the dirt and started hacking at it with axes. Clover squinted at ’em, bemused.

‘What is it they think an axe will reveal that opening the doors won’t?’

‘Hidden stuff. Gold, maybe.’

‘Gold? You’re having a laugh.’

Greenway frowned a pouty frown – aside from sneers, it was his one expression. ‘Silver, then.’

‘Silver? If these bastards had silver, let alone gold, why the hell would they be up here farming for a pittance? They’d be in town, drunk, which is where I should bloody be.’

‘Best to be sure,’ said one of the men.

‘Oh, aye,’ said Clover. ‘Daresay you’ll be burning the house once you’ve found nothing, ’cause fire is pretty.’

The man glanced over at Greenway, somewhat sheepish, and scratched his head. Seemed that was exactly what he’d been planning.

‘And if Stour wants somewhere to sleep tonight, he can curl up in the ashes, can he?’ Clover strolled past, shaking his head. What a waste. Waste of people, waste of things, waste of effort. But that was war for you. Nothing he hadn’t seen a dozen times before. If the Great Wolf wanted to decorate his new land with corpses and have creaking ropes for music, then who was he to complain?

The king-in-waiting was a little further on with Wonderful, considering the view while he chewed on a stolen apple.

‘Don’t like the looks of this,’ said Clover, folding his arms tight. ‘Not one bit.’

‘No,’ said Wonderful. ‘It fucking stinks.’

The road dropped into a grassy valley ahead, a steep hill on either side. One had some old ruin clinging to its rocky top, the other was bigger and shallower, red bracken giving the crown a dried-blood look Clover didn’t much care for.

Between the two fells, down in the valley’s bottom, a little bridge crossed a stream. Looked like there might be a few Union men tangled up on both sides of it. Clover’s eyes weren’t all they once had been, but he thought he could see a flag waving above them.

Stour’s eyes were sharper, and thoughtfully narrowed in its direction. ‘You reckon that’s Leo dan Brock’s standard down there?’

Clover felt his heart sinking. It was getting to be a familiar feeling around Black Calder’s son. ‘Could be someone else’s?’ he tried, hopefully. ‘No one’s in particular?’

‘No, it’s his.’ Stour worked the words around and spat ’em out. ‘The Young Lion. What kind o’ name is that?’

‘Ridiculous.’ Clover held up his hands and fluttered the fingers. ‘The Great Wolf! Now that’s a name.’

Wonderful made a little squeak. She had her lips pressed together tight like she was trying not to shit herself. Stour frowned at her, then at Clover.

‘Are you making light o’ me, you old fucker?’

Clover looked dumbstruck. ‘Man like me, make light of a man like you? I wouldn’t dare. I’m agreeing the Young Lion is a stupid name for a man to have. For one thing, he’s not a lion, is he? For another he’s, what, twenty-ish?’

‘About that,’ said Wonderful.

‘So … considering the lifespan of a lion …’ Clover squinted up at the grey sky, no idea how long a lion lived, ‘probably … maybe … he’d be quite an old lion, would he?’

He kept his face blank as fresh snow, counting on the short attention span common to famous warriors and, indeed, soon enough, the Great Wolf forgot all about it, fully occupied glowering down the valley, towards that bridge. Towards that standard. He gave a great sniff. ‘Let’s have a poke at those bastards.’

All of a sudden, Wonderful looked like shitting herself for very different reasons. ‘Don’t know about that, Chief. You sure?’

‘Ever known me to not be sure?’

In Clover’s experience, only idiots were ever sure about anything. He nodded up towards that ruined tower above the bridge, the red-topped fell on the other side. ‘Could be a trap. If they’ve got men waiting on those hills, we’d be putting ourselves in a right pickle.’

‘No doubt,’ said Wonderful, jaw set tight.

Stour gave an irritated hiss. ‘Everything looks like a trap to you two.’

‘Act that way,’ said Clover, ‘you’ll never be surprised.’

‘You’ll never surprise your enemy, either. Bring up a couple of hundred Carls, Wonderful.’ And Stour bunched his fists, white-knuckle tight, like he couldn’t wait to start throwing punches. ‘Let’s give those bastards a poke.’

She pointed that brow of hers at Clover but he could only shrug, so she turned and bellowed at one of the scouts to bring up more men. What else could she do? Getting folk to do what your chief says is what being a second is all about. Whether or not your chief’s a prick is beside the point.

Rikke crouched on the roof of the broken tower, twitching, chewing, fretting, even more nervous than before. Almost too nervous to bear.