Joe Abercrombie - Red Country

A couple of nail-eyed thugs blocked the bottom of the stairs but Sweet called, ‘These two are here to see the Mayor!’ and bundled them up with a deal of back-slappery, along a balcony overlooking the swarming hall and to a heavy door flanked by two more hard faces.

‘Here we go,’ said Sweet, and knocked.

It was a woman who answered. ‘Welcome to Crease,’ she said.

She wore a black dress with a shine to the fabric, long-sleeved and buttoned all the way to her throat. Late in her forties was Shy’s guess, hair streaked with grey. She must’ve been quite the beauty in her day, though, and her day weren’t entirely past either. She took Shy’s hand in one of hers and clasped it with the other one besides and said, ‘You must be Shy. And Lamb.’ She gave Lamb’s weathered paw the same treatment, and he thanked her too late in a creaky voice and took his battered hat off as an afterthought, sparse hair overdue for a cut left flapping at all angles.

But the woman smiled like she’d never been treated to so gallant a gesture. She shut the door and with its solid click into the frame the madness outside was shut away and all was calm and reasonable. ‘Do sit. Master Sweet has told me of your troubles. Your stolen children. A terrible thing.’ And she had such pain in her face you’d have thought it was her babies had vanished.

‘Aye,’ muttered Shy, not sure what to do with that much sympathy.

‘Would either of you care for a drink?’ She poured four healthy measures of spirit without need for an answer. ‘Please forgive this place, it’s a struggle to get good furniture out here, as you can imagine.’

‘Guess we’ll manage,’ said Shy, even though it was about the most comfortable chair she’d ever sat in and about the nicest room besides, Kantic hangings at the windows, candles in lamps of coloured glass, a great desk with a black leather top just a little stained with bottle rings.

She’d real fine manners, Shy thought, this woman, as she handed out the drinks. Not that haughty, down-the-nose kind that idiots thought lifted you above the crowd. The kind that made you feel you were worth something even if you were dog-tired and dog-filthy and had near worn the arse out of your trousers and not even you could tell how many hundred miles of dusty plain you’d covered since your last bath.

Shy took a sip, noted the drink was just as far out of her class as everything else, cleared her throat and said, ‘We were hoping to see the Mayor.’

The woman perched herself against the edge of the desk—Shy had a feeling she’d have looked comfortable sitting on an open razor—and said, ‘You are.’

‘Hoping?’

‘Seeing her.’

Lamb shifted awkwardly in his chair, like it was too comfortable for him to be comfortable in.

‘You’re a woman?’ asked Shy, head somewhat scrambled from the hell outside and the clean calm in here.

The Mayor only smiled. She did that a lot but somehow you never tired of it. ‘They have other words for what I am on the other side of the street, but, yes.’ She tossed down her drink in a way that suggested it wasn’t her first, wouldn’t be her last and wouldn’t make much difference either. ‘Sweet tells me you’re looking for someone.’

‘Man by the name of Grega Cantliss,’ said Shy.

‘I know Cantliss. Preening scum. He robs and murders for Papa Ring.’

‘Where can we find him?’ asked Lamb.

‘I believe he’s been out of town. But I expect he’ll be back before long.’

‘How long are we talking about?’ asked Shy.

‘Forty-three days.’

That kicked the guts out of her. She’d built herself up to good news, or at least to news. Kept herself going with thoughts of Pit and Ro’s smiling faces and happy hugs of reunion. Should’ve known better but hope’s like damp—however much you try to keep it out there’s always a little gets in. She knocked back the balance of her drink, not near so sweet now, and hissed, ‘Shit.’

‘We’ve come a long way.’ Lamb carefully placed his own glass on the desk, and Shy noticed with a hint of worry his knuckles were white with pressure. ‘I appreciate your hospitality, no doubt I do, but I ain’t in any mood to fuck around. Where’s Cantliss?’

‘I’m rarely in the mood to fuck around either.’ The rough word sounded double harsh in the Mayor’s polished voice, and she held Lamb’s eye like manners or no she wasn’t someone to be pushed. ‘Cantliss will be back in forty-three days.’

Shy had never been one to mope. A moment to tongue at the gap between her teeth and dwell on all the unfairness the world had inflicted on her undeserving carcass and she was on to the what nexts. ‘Where’s the magic in forty-three days?’

‘That’s when things are coming to a head here in Crease.’

Shy nodded towards the window and the sounds of madness drifting through. ‘Strikes me they always are.’

‘Not like this one.’ The Mayor stood and offered out the bottle.

‘Why not?’ said Shy, and Lamb and Sweet were turning nothing down either. Refusing to drink in Crease seemed wrong-headed as refusing to breathe. Especially when the drink was so fine and the air so shitty.

‘Eight years we’ve been here, Papa Ring and I, staring across the street at each other.’ The Mayor drifted to the window and looked out at the babbling carnage below. She had a trick of walking so smooth and graceful it seemed it must done with wheels rather’n legs. ‘There was nothing on the map out here but a crease when we arrived. Twenty shacks among the ruins, places where trappers could see out the winter.’

Sweet chuckled. ‘You were quite a sight among ’em.’

‘They soon got used to me. Eight years, while the town grew up around us. We outlasted the plague, and four raids by the Ghosts, and two more by bandits, and the plague again, and after the big fire came through we rebuilt bigger and better and were ready when they found the gold and the people started coming. Eight years, staring across the street at each other, and snapping at each other, and in the end all but at war.’

‘You going to come near a point?’ asked Shy.

‘Our feud was getting bad for business. We agreed to settle it according to mining law, which is the only kind out here for the moment, and I can assure you people take it very seriously. We treated the town as a plot with two rival claims, winner takes all.’

‘Winner of what?’ asked Lamb.

‘A fight. Not my choice but Papa Ring manoeuvred me into it. A fight, man against man, bare-fisted, in a Circle marked out in the old amphitheatre.’

‘A fight in the Circle,’ muttered Lamb. ‘To the death, I daresay?’

‘I understand more often than not that’s where these things end up. Master Sweet tells me you may have some experience in that area.’

Lamb looked over at Sweet, then glanced at Shy, then back to the Mayor and grunted, ‘Some.’

There was a time, not all that long ago, Shy would’ve laughed her arse off at the notion of Lamb in a fight to the death. Nothing could’ve been less funny now.

Sweet was chuckling as he put down his empty glass, though. ‘I reckon we can drop the pretence, eh?’

‘What pretence?’ asked Shy.

‘Lamb,’ said Sweet. ‘That’s what. You know what I call a wolf wearing a sheep mask?’

Lamb looked back at him. ‘I’ve a feeling you can’t keep it to yourself.’

‘A wolf.’ The old scout wagged a finger across the room, looking quite decidedly pleased with himself. ‘I’d a crazy guess about you the moment I saw a big nine-fingered Northman kill the hell out o’ two drifters back in Averstock. When I saw you crush Sangeed like a beetle I was sure. I must admit it did occur when I asked you along that you and the Mayor might be the answer to each other’s problems—’