Best Served Cold

Not long after, a half-dozen guards came shoving through the crowd, herding folk away with their spears, clearing a muddy path to the gate. An officer came frowning with ’em, Monza just behind his shoulder. No doubt she’d sown a few coins, and this was the harvest.

“You six, with the cart there.” The officer pointed a gloved finger at Shivers and the rest. “You’re coming in. You six and no one else.”

There were some angry mutters from the rest stood about the gate. Somebody gave the cart a kick as it started moving. “Shit on this! It ain’t right! I paid my taxes to Salier all my life, and I get left out?” Someone snatched at Shivers’ arm as he tried to lead his horse after. A farmer, from what he could tell in the torchlight and the spitting rain, even more desperate than most. “Why should these bastards be let through? I’ve got my family to-”

Shivers smashed his fist into the farmer’s face. He caught him by his coat as he fell and dragged him up, followed the first punch with another, knocked him sprawling on his back in the ditch by the road. Blood bubbled down his face, black in the dusk as he tried to push himself up. You start some trouble, it’s best to start it and finish it all at once. A bit of sharp violence can save you a lot worse down the line. That’s the way Black Dow would’ve handled it. So Shivers stepped forwards quick, planted his boot on the man’s chest and shoved him back into the mud.

“Best stay where y’are.” A few others stood behind, dark outlines of men, a woman with two children around her legs. One lad looking straight at him, bent over like he was thinking of doing something about it all. The farmer’s son, maybe. “I do this shit for a living, boy. You feel a pressing need to lie down?”

The lad shook his head. Shivers took hold of his horse’s bridle again, clicked his tongue and made for the archway. Not too fast. Good and ready in case anyone was fool enough to test him. But they were already back to shouting before he’d got a stride or two, calling out how they were special, why they should be let in while the rest were left to the wolves. A man getting his front teeth knocked out was nothing to cry about in all this. Those that hadn’t seen far worse guessed they’d be seeing it soon enough, and all their care was to make sure they weren’t on the sharp end of it. He followed the others, blowing on his skinned knuckles, under the archway and into the darkness of the long tunnel.

Shivers tried to remember what the Dogman had told him, a hundred years ago it seemed now, back in Adua. Something about blood making more blood, and it not being too late to be better’n that. Not too late to be a good man. Rudd Threetrees had been a good man, none better. He’d stuck to the old ways all his life, never took the easy path, if he thought it was the wrong one. Shivers was proud to say he’d fought beside the man, called him chief, but in the end, what had Threetrees’ honour got him? A few misty-eyed mentions around the fire. That, and a hard life, and a place in the mud at the end of it. Black Dow had been as cold a bastard as Shivers ever knew. A man who never faced an enemy if he could take him in the back, burned villages without a second thought, broke his own oaths and spat on the results. A man as merciful as the plague, and with a conscience the size of a louse’s cock. Now he sat in Skarling’s chair with half the North at his feet and the other half feared to say his name.

They came out from the tunnel and into the city. Water spattered from broken gutters and onto worn cobbles. A wet procession of men, women, mules, carts, waiting to get out, watching them as they tramped the other way. Shivers tipped his head back, eyes narrowed against the rain flitting down into his face as they went under a great tower, soaring up into the black night. Must’ve been three times the height of the tallest thing in Carleon, and it weren’t even the biggest one around.

He glanced sideways at Monza, the way he’d got so good at doing. She had her usual frown, eyes fixed right ahead, light from passing torches shifting across the hard bones in her face. She set her mind to a thing, and did whatever it took. Shit on conscience and consequences both. Vengeance first, questions later.

He moved his tongue around in his mouth and spat. The more he saw, the more he saw she was right. Mercy and cowardice were the same. No one was giving prizes for good behaviour. Not here, not in the North, not anywhere. You want a thing, you have to take it, and the greatest man is the one that snatches most. Maybe it would’ve been nice if life was another way.

But it was how it was.

– 

M onza was stiff and aching, just like always. She was angry and tired, just like always. She needed a smoke, worse than ever. And just to sprinkle some spice on the evening, she was getting wet, cold and saddle-sore besides.