Mark Lawrence - The Wheel of Osheim

“Fuck that!” My turn to drop the scroll-case as though it were hot. “. . . your stewardness.”

“‘Highness’ is the correct form of address when the steward is of noble birth . . . if we’re being formal, Jalan.”

“Fuck that, your highness.” I sat back and exhaled, then wiped the sweat from my brow. “Look, I know you meant well and all. It’s nice that you wanted to do something for me by way of thanks for the key-but really-what do I know about defending cities? I mean it’s soldiery-there must be dozens of better qualified people-”

“Hundreds I should think.” Garyus said it a little too enthusiastically for my liking. “But since when was a monarchy about rewarding individual merit? Promote from within, is our mantra.”

He had a point. The Kendeths’s continued rule depended upon the carefully constructed lie that we were innately better at doing it than any other candidates, and also the idea that God himself wanted us to do it.

“It’s a nice gesture, Great-uncle, but I’d really rather not.” Being marshal sounded as though it might involve far more work than I was interested in-which was none at all. My plans involved mainly wine, women, and song. In fact, forget the song. “I’m hardly suited.”

Garyus smiled his crooked smile and looked toward the bright slice of the outside world visible between the curtains. “I’m hardly suited to being steward now am I? Ruling Vermillion-all of Red March in fact- yet hidden away lest I demoralize our troops with my physical imperfections. But here I am, by your grandmother’s command. Which, incidentally, is where your appointment comes from. I’m not so cruel as to separate you from your vices, Jalan.”

“Grandmother? She made me marshal?” The last time I’d seen her she seemed so close to ordering my execution that the headsman probably had his whetstone out.

“She did.” Garyus nodded his ponderous head. “There’s a uniform you know? And you’ll be in charge of your brother Martus.”

“I’m in!”

The uniform turned out to be a baton of office and an ageing sash of yellow silk with a number of worryingly bloodlike stains on it. Over the course of the next few days I came to appreciate the cruelty of Grandmother’s revenge. After the initial joy of informing Martus that he was now my subordinate came an endless round of official duties. I had to inspect the wall guard, deal with engineers and their tiresome opinions about what needed repairing or knocking down, and officiate over disputes between the resident city guard and my brother’s newly arrived infantry.

I would have told them all to go hang, but my assistant, Captain Renprow, proved annoyingly persistent, an example of the “raised on merit” class of energetic low-born types that the system needs in order to function but who have to be watched closely. Additionally, continued reports of rag-a-maul and ghouls in the poor quarter acted as an added incentive. If there’s one thing that will get me to do half an honest day’s work it’s the conviction that doing so will make me safer.

“What are rag-a-maul, Renprow?” I leaned back in my chair, my feet in their shiny boots on my shiny marshal’s desk.

Renprow, a short dark man with short dark hair, frowned, favouring me with a stare that put me uncomfortably in mind of Snorri. “You don’t know? I’ve passed you a dozen reports . . . you attended that strategy meeting yesterday, and-”

“Of course I know. I just wanted your opinion on the subject, Renprow. Humour me.”

“Well.” He pursed his lips. “Some kind of malicious ghost. People describe them as miniature whirlwinds raising rags and dust. Whirlwinds so full of sharp edges they can flay a man, and when the wind drops the victim is possessed and runs around on a murderous rampage until they’re put down.” He puffed out his cheek and tapped two fingers to it. “That about covers it.”

“And these incidents are peculiar to Vermillion?”

“We’ve had reports far and wide, but we do seem to have a higher incidence in the city. Perhaps just because the population is so much larger.” He paused. “My father’s people know them too. But they call them wind-stick devils, and they’re very rare.” Renprow had a heritage that began far south of Liba, giving him command of many odd facts.

“Well.” I swung my boots off the desk and glanced around the room. The marshal’s manse was a spacious building but had been unoccupied for so long that most of the furniture had wandered off. “If that concludes our business for the day?” The sun had passed its zenith and I had a flamehaired beauty to visit, a sweet girl named Lola, or Lulu, or something.

Renprow’s mouth twitched into a shortlived smile as if I’d been attempting a joke. “Your next appointment is with the menonites in the Appan suburb. They’re proving resistant to the idea of disinterring their cemeteries. After that-”

“We still have dead in the ground?” I stood up fast enough to knock the chair over. “Have the guard do it for them!” I’d seen what happened when the dead come clambering back from where they’ve been put. “Better still, have Martus’s soldiers do it. I want every corpse burned. Immediately! And if they have to make more corpses to do it . . . that’s fine. As long as they burn those too.” I shivered at memories I’d been trying to bury-like the Vermillion dead they weren’t buried deep enough.

Renprow picked up a weighty ledger from the shelf by the door and held it across his chest like a shield. “The menonites are unruly at the best of times and numerous. Their sect venerates ancestors to the ninth generation. It would be better if we could negotiate.”

And there went my afternoon, just like the three before it. Smiling and performing for peasant stock, a bunch of ingrates who should be falling over themselves to obey my commands. I sighed and stood. Better to cajole the live ones than have to contend with the dead ones later on. The live ones may smell bad and have irritating opinions but the dead ones smell even worse and hold the opinion that we’re food. “All right. But if they don’t listen I’m sending the soldiers in.” I found myself still shivering despite the heat of the day, visions of the dead crowding in, patient, silent, waiting . . . until the Dead King woke their hunger.

“Jalan!” The door burst open without a knock and Darin stood there, pale and serious.

“My dear brother. And how have you decided to brighten my day? Perhaps some overflowing sewers need my attention?”

“Father is dead.”

“Oh, you liar.” Father wasn’t dead. He didn’t do that sort of thing. I took my cloak from its hook. The day outside looked grey and uninspiring.

“Jalan.” Darin stepped toward me, a hand reaching my shoulder.

“Nonsense.” I brushed his arm aside. “I’ve got menonites to see.” A coldness sat in my stomach and my eyes stung. It made no sense. Firstly he wasn’t dead, and secondly I didn’t even like him. I walked past Darin, aiming for the doorway.

“He’s dead, Jalan.” My brother’s hand settled on my shoulder as I passed him and I stopped, almost at the door, my back to him. For a moment visions of a different time replaced the square outside and rooftops beyond. I saw my father young, standing beside Mother, bending down, a smile on his face, arms open to receive me as I raced toward them.

“No.” For reasons wholly beyond explanation the word stuck in my throat, my mouth trembled and tears filled my eyes.

“Yes.” Darin turned me around and folded his arms about me. Just for a moment, but long enough for me to press the foolishness back where it came from. He released me and with an arm around my shoulders he steered me out into the day.