Joe Abercrombie - Red Country

The mood now verged on the ugly. Temple noted some of Jubair’s men, threading watchfully through the crowd. ‘We start out tomorrow morning!’ roared Cosca. ‘But for tonight each man will receive one hundred marks as a bonus to spend as he sees fit!’ Some amelioration of the upset at that. ‘Let us not spoil our triumph with sour dissent! Remain united, and we can leave this benighted country rich beyond the dreams of greed. Turn against each other, and failure, shame and death will be our just deserts.’ Cosca thumped one fist against his breastplate. ‘I think, as ever, only of the safety of our noble brotherhood! The sooner your booty is tallied, the sooner the fun begins!’

‘What of the rebels?’ rang out a piercing voice. Inquisitor Lorsen was shoving his way through the press towards the wagon, and from the look on his gaunt face the fun would not be starting any time soon. ‘Where are the rebels, Cosca?’

‘The rebels? Ah, yes. The strangest thing. We scoured Ashranc from top to bottom. Would you use the word “scoured”, Temple?’

‘I would,’ said Temple. They had smashed anything that might hold a coin, let alone a rebel.

‘But no sign of them?’ growled Lorsen.

‘We were deceived!’ Cosca thumped the parapet in frustration. ‘Damn, but these rebels are a slippery crowd! The alliance between them and the Dragon People was a ruse.’

‘Their ruse or yours?’

‘Inquisitor, you wrong me! I am as disappointed as you are—’

‘I hardly think so!’ snapped Lorsen. ‘You have lined your own pockets, after all.’

Cosca spread his hands in helpless apology. ‘That’s mercenaries for you.’

A scattering of laughter from the Company but their employer was in no mood to participate. ‘You have made me an accomplice to robbery! To murder! To massacre!’

‘I held no dagger to your neck. Superior Pike did ask for chaos, as I recall—’

‘To a purpose! You have perpetrated mindless slaughter!’

‘Mind ful slaughter would surely be even worse?’ Cosca burst out in a chuckle but Lorsen’s black-masked Practicals, scattered about the shadows, lacked all sense of humour.

The Inquisitor waited for silence. ‘Do you believe in anything?’

‘Not if I can help it. Belief alone is nothing to be proud of, Inquisitor. Belief without evidence is the very hallmark of the savage.’

Lorsen shook his head in amazement. ‘You truly are disgusting.’

‘I would be the last to disagree, but you fail to see that you are worse. No man capable of greater evil than the one who thinks himself in the right. No purpose more evil than the higher purpose. I freely admit I am a villain. That’s why you hired me. But I am no hypocrite.’ Cosca gestured at the ragged remnants of his Company, fallen silent to observe the confrontation. ‘I have mouths to feed. You could just go home. If you are set on doing good, make something to be proud of. Open a bakery. Fresh bread every morning, there’s a noble cause!’

Inquisitor Lorsen’s thin lip curled. ‘There truly is nothing in you of what separates man from animal, is there? You are bereft of conscience. An utter absence of morality. You have no principle beyond the selfish.’

Cosca’s face hardened as he leaned forwards. ‘Perhaps when you have faced as many disappointments and suffered as many betrayals as I, you will see it—there is no principle beyond the selfish, Inquisitor, and men are animals. Conscience is a burden we choose to bear. Morality is the lie we tell ourselves to make its bearing easier. There have been many times in my life when I have wished it was not so. But it is so.’

Lorsen slowly nodded, bright eyes fixed on Cosca. ‘There will be a price for this.’

‘I am counting on it. Though it seems an almost ludicrous irrelevance now, Superior Pike promised me fifty thousand marks.’

‘For the capture of the rebel leader Conthus!’

‘Indeed. And there he is.’

There was a scraping of steel, a clicking of triggers, a rattling of armour as a dozen of Jubair’s men stepped forward. A circle of drawn swords, loaded flatbows, levelled polearms all suddenly pointed in towards Lamb, Sweet, Shy and Savian. Gently, Majud drew the wideeyed children close to him.

‘Master Savian!’ called Cosca. ‘I deeply regret that I must ask you to lay down your weapons. Any and all, if you please!’

Betraying no emotion, Savian slowly reached up to undo the buckle on the strap across his chest, flatbow and bolts clattering to the mud. Lamb watched him do it, and calmly bit into a leg of chicken. No doubt that was the easy way, to stand and watch. God knew, Temple had taken that way often enough. Too often, perhaps…

He dragged himself up onto the wagon to hiss in Cosca’s ear. ‘You don’t have to do this!’

‘Have to? No.’

‘Please! How does it help you?’

‘Help me ?’ The Old Man raised one brow at Temple as Savian unbuttoned his coat and one by one shed his other weapons. ‘It helps me not at all. That is the very essence of selflessness and charity.’

Temple could only stand blinking.

‘Are you not always telling me to do the right thing?’ asked Cosca. ‘Did we not sign a contract? Did we not accept Inquisitor Lorsen’s noble cause as our own? Did we not lead him a merry chase up and down this forsaken gulf of distance? Pray be silent, Temple. I never thought to say this, but you are impeding my moral growth.’ He turned away to shout, ‘Would you be kind enough to roll up your sleeves, Master Savian?’

Savian cleared his throat, metal rattling as the mercenaries nervously shifted, took the button at his collar and undid it, then the next, then the next, the fighters and pedlars and whores all watching the drama unfold in silence. Hedges too, Temple noticed, for some reason with a smile of feverish delight on his face. Savian shrugged his shirt off and stood stripped to the waist, and his whole body from his pale neck to his pale hands was covered in writing, in letters large and tiny, in slogans in a dozen languages: Death to the Union, Death to the King. The only good Midderlander is a dead one. Never kneel. Never surrender. No Mercy. No Peace. Freedom. Justice. Blood. He was blue with them.

‘I only asked for the sleeves,’ said Cosca, ‘but I feel the point is made.’

Savian gave the faintest smile. ‘What if I said I’m not Conthus?’

‘I doubt we’d believe you.’ The Old Man looked over at Lorsen, who was staring at Savian with a hungry intensity. ‘In fact, I very much doubt we would. Do you have any objections, Master Sweet?’

Sweet blinked around at all that sharpened metal and opted for the easy way. ‘Not me. I’m shocked as anyone at this surprising turn of events.’

‘You must be quite discomfited to learn you’ve been travelling with a mass-murderer all this time.’ Cosca grinned. ‘Well, two, in fact, eh Master Lamb?’ The Northman still picked at his drumstick as though there was no steel pointed in his direction. ‘Anything to say on behalf of your friend?’

‘Most o’ my friends I’ve killed,’ said Lamb around a mouthful. ‘I came for the children. The rest is mud.’

Cosca pressed one sorry hand to his breastplate. ‘I have stood where you stand, Master Savian, and entirely sympathise. We all are alone in the end.’

‘It’s a hard fucking world,’ said Savian, looking neither right nor left.

‘Seize him,’ growled Lorsen, and his Practicals swarmed forwards like dogs off the leash. For a moment it looked as if Shy’s hand was creeping towards her knife but Lamb held her arm with his free hand, eyes on the ground as the Practicals marched Savian towards the fort. Inquisitor Lorsen followed them inside, smiled grimly out into the camp and slammed the door with a heavy bang.