“Would if this was the alternative,” said Sholla softly, squatting beside the old man. He was sat against the tumbledown wall with his head back like he was sleeping. Except for the arrow in his ribs and his shirt below it soggy black with blood, of course.
“We asked nicely,” whined Dancer. “Then we asked less nicely. Think we did, anyway, you know, the language ain’t my strong point.”
“Remind me what your strong point is, again?” asked Clover.
“Then the old man comes out with an axe so Prettyboy shot him.”
Prettyboy must’ve been named by a real wag since he was, by any standard, a thoroughly ugly man. “Just pointed the bow,” he said, shifting awkwardly on his knees. Everything’s awkward when your hands are tied to your ankles, to be fair. The bow in question lay in the mud not far away, and he gave it a filthy look like it was to blame for the whole business. “But I fumbled the string, you know, and shot him.”
“Then the woman set to screaming and, well…” Dancer winced down at the mud. “It went wrong, is all. You never had anything go wrong, Clover?”
Clover wearily puffed out his cheeks again. “I’ve barely had anything go right.” A scene like this didn’t make him feel sick any more, or angry, or even sad. Just tired. Maybe that’s when you know you’ve been in the bloody business too long, when tragedies start to feel like chores. When some poor bastard’s end of everything becomes your minor pain in the arse. “Could you shut up?” he asked the fat one, and the man cut his sobbing back to snivelling, which if anything was worse.
Clover pronounced every word with care. “It’s ’cause it can all go wrong so easily that you make every effort to be sure it goes right. Like not being drunk. And not drawing your bloody bow till you want to shoot. And knowing who you’re dealing with and where they are, so an old man with an axe comes as no surprise. That type o’ thing!” He’d ended up shouting, and he winced and rubbed at his head, and forced his voice soft again. “The way you came blundering at this, it’s a wonder you didn’t kill each other into the bargain.”
“Shame they didn’t,” grunted Downside. “Would’ve saved us some fucking trouble.”
Clover could not but agree. Even Dancer couldn’t disagree. “Aye, you’re right,” he said, “I know you’re right, Clover. But you bring warriors to a place like this, it’s the type o’ thing that happens.”
“Shit warriors, maybe,” said Sholla, picking her nose.
Dancer shuffled closer on his knees. Not dancing much with his hands tied to his feet, of course. He looked up, big eyes, little voice, wheedle, wheedle. “No chance we could let it go?”
If there had been a time when Clover was impressed by wheedling, it was far in the past. “Not up to me, is it? If Stour lets it go, I guess it’s gone.”
Dancer’s smile withered like blooms in late summer, and he gave a swallow that made a glug, and the fat one let his face drop in the muck and set to sobbing again. Everyone knew by now. Stour Nightfall’s mercy was a thin thread to hang all your hopes on.
“Just went wrong, is all,” muttered Dancer, and Prettyboy struggled to scratch his ear with his shoulder, and failed.
By then they could hear hooves, and the King of the Northmen wrenched his horse around the side of the barn, Greenway and a dozen of his bastards in a jostling crowd behind. Stour reined in savagely, of course, since there’s no finer sport than mistreating the beast who carries you. He propped his arms crosswise on the saddle horn so his great chain with its great diamond brushed his wrists, and glowered at the burned-out house, and the yard strewn with rubbish, and the corpses, and the prisoners with wrists and ankles closely attached, and Clover and his people stood around them with weapons out. He slowly licked the inside of his mouth until he’d gathered what he wanted, then spat it spinning into the mud.
“Well, here’s a mess.”
Dancer kept his eyes on the ground. “Just went wrong.”
“You fucking think?” snarled the Great Wolf, as Greenway and the rest of his men spread out, looking down their noses at the scene with varying measures of contempt. “Is he crying? Is he fucking simple or something? Get this cleared up, Clover, before… Oh, that’s perfect.”
And who should burst from the trees but the Young Lion and a crowd of his bastards. They reined in so Stour and his lot were sneering bitter scorn from one side of the yard, Brock and his lot scowling righteous outrage on the other. Seemed the Young Lion hadn’t reached the point where tragedies became chores. If anything, he tended towards too much feeling.
“What the hell happened?” he growled.
There was an awkward silence, which Clover for some reason felt the need to fill. What he really wanted to say was that if you don’t like dead folk you shouldn’t start wars, but the best he could think of was, “I’m told it went wrong.” He’d thought when Dancer said it nothing could’ve sounded worse, but somehow he managed it.
“So I see!” The Young Lion spurred his snorting warhorse across the farmyard till it loomed over Clover and his kneeling prisoners. “Is this your idea of best behaviour?” he snapped at Stour, pointing to the face-down corpse with the yawning sword-cut across his back.
The Great Wolf was not to be outdone on the bristling, threatening or nursing of offence. “You’re taking a high hand with me, Young Lion!” And he nudged his own horse forward till Clover had to squint up at him. “You asked for killers. As many as I could find. You wanted dogs off the leash in your own backyard. I warned you they might run after rabbits.”
“Rabbits would be one thing.” Brock kicked his horse even closer to Stour and Clover had to duck away lest he be squashed between the two heroes. “Red-handed murder of Union citizens is another! Was it these bastards who did it?” he snarled at the trussed-up men, and they cringed, or wriggled, and the fat one blubbed into the mud, and Prettyboy moved his lips as he offered up some prayer to the dead which Clover very much doubted would help.
“Last I checked, I was King o’ the Northmen.” Stour leaned towards Brock with that mad gleam in his wet eyes, catching hold of his chain and giving it a shake so the diamond he’d torn from his uncle’s cut throat danced. “These fuckers are Northmen. So I’ll say what’s done with ’em.”
For a moment, it looked like the Young Lion might grab the Great Wolf and they’d wrestle their way down from their saddles and set to an ugly rematch of their duel right there in the corpse-scattered farmyard. Then, looking like it took quite the effort, Brock got a grip on himself. He breathed in through manfully clenched teeth and leaned back. “You’re King of the Northmen.” With a jerk on his reins, he pulled his horse away from Stour’s. “But this is the Union. I expect to see justice done.”
“Trust me, Young Lion,” snarled Stour, looking as untrustworthy as any man ever. “I’m all about the justice.”
Brock wrenched his mount around and led his glaring bastards back into the trees at a brisk trot. Clover slowly breathed out. Sholla, who’d had a cautious hand wrapped around the grip of a knife in the back of her belt, leaned to his ear to whisper, “Seems the lion and the wolf ain’t getting on.”