“They can have a king if they want one,” whispered Crummock in his ear, “but I can’t say I do. Especially not the man who killed my son, eh?” Logen felt himself go cold, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his fingers. “What did you think? That I wouldn’t know?” The hillman leaned back to look Logen in the eye. “You slaughtered him before the whole world, now, didn’t you? You butchered little Rond like a sheep for the pot, and him just as helpless as one.”
They were alone in that wide hall, just the two of them, and the shadows, and Skarling’s chair. Logen winced as Crummock’s arms squeezed tighter, round the bruises and the wounds the Feared’s arms had left him. Logen hadn’t the strength left now to fight a cat, and they both knew it. The hillman could’ve crushed him flat, and finished the job the Feared had started. But he only smiled.
“Don’t you worry, now, Bloody-Nine. I’ve got what I wanted, haven’t I? Bethod’s dead and gone, and his Feared, and his witch, and his whole bastard notion of clans united, all back to the mud where they belong. With you in charge, I daresay it’ll be a hundred years before folk in the North stop killing each other. Meantime maybe we up in the hills can have some peace, eh?”
“Course you can,” croaked Logen, through his gritted teeth, grimacing as Crummock pressed him even tighter.
“You killed my son, that’s true, but I’ve got plenty more. You have to weed the weak ones out, don’t you know? The weak and the unlucky. You don’t put a wolf amongst your sheep then cry when you find one eaten, do you?”
Logen could only stare. “You really are mad.”
“Maybe I am, but there’s worse than me out there.” He leaned close again, soft breath in Logen’s ear. “I’m not the one killed the boy, am I?” He let Logen free, and he slapped him on the shoulder. The way a friend might, but there was no friendship in it. “Don’t ever come up in the High Places again, Ninefingers, that’s my advice. I might not be able to give you another friendly reception.” He turned and walked away, slowly, waving one fat finger over his shoulder. “Don’t come up in the High Places again, Bloody-Nine! You’re beloved o’ the moon just a little too much for my taste!”
Leadership
Jezal clattered through the cobbled streets astride a magnificent grey, Bayaz and Marshal Varuz just behind him, a score of Knights of the Body, led by Bremer dan Gorst, following in full war gear. It was strangely unsettling to see the city, usually so brimful with humanity, close to deserted. Only a scattering of threadbare urchins, of nervous city watchmen, of suspicious commoners remained to hurry out of the way of the royal party as they passed. Most of those citizens who had stayed in Adua were well barricaded in their bedrooms, Jezal imagined. He would have been tempted to do the same, had Queen Terez not beaten him to it.
“When did they arrive?” Bayaz was demanding over the clatter of hooves.
“The vanguard appeared before dawn,” Jezal heard Varuz shout back. “And more Gurkish troops have been pouring in down the Keln road all morning. There were a few skirmishes in the districts beyond Casamir’s Wall, but nothing to slow them significantly. They are already halfway to encircling the city.”
Jezal jerked his head round. “Already?”
“The Gurkish always liked to come prepared, your Majesty.” The old soldier urged his horse up beside him. “They have started to construct a palisade around Adua, and have brought three great catapults with them. The same ones that proved so effective in their siege of Dagoska. By noon we will be entirely surrounded.” Jezal swallowed. There was something about the word “surrounded” that caused an uncomfortable tightening in his throat.
The column slowed to a stately walk as they approached the city’s westernmost gate. It was, in an irony that gave Jezal little pleasure, the very same gate through which he had entered the city in triumph before he was crowned High King of the Union. A crowd had gathered in the shadow of Casamir’s Wall, larger even than the one that had greeted him after his strange victory over the peasants. Today, however, there was hardly a mood of celebration. Smiling girls had been replaced by frowning men, fresh flowers with old weapons. Polearms stuck up above the press at all angles in an unruly forest, points and edges glinting. Pikes and pitch forks, bill hooks and boat hooks, brooms with the twigs removed and knives nailed in their places.
There was a smattering of King’s Own padded out by some squinting members of the city watch, a few puffed-up tradesmen with leather jerkins and polished swords, some slouching labourers with antique flatbows and tough expressions. These were the very best of what was on offer. They were accompanied by a random assortment of citizens of both sexes and all ages, equipped with a bewildering range of mismatched armour and weapons. Or nothing at all. It was difficult to tell who was supposed to be a soldier and who a citizen, if, indeed, there was still a difference. Every one of them was looking at Jezal as he smartly dismounted, his golden spurs jingling. Looking to him, he realised, as he began to walk out among them, his well-armoured bodyguard clanking behind.
“These are the defenders of this borough?” murmured Jezal to Lord Marshal Varuz, following at his shoulder.
“Some of them, your Majesty. Accompanied by some enthusiastic townsfolk. A touching spectacle.”
Jezal would happily have traded a touching crowd for an effective one, but he supposed a leader had always to appear indomitable before his followers. Bayaz had told him so often. How doubly, how triply true of a king before his subjects? Especially a king whose grip on his recently won crown might be thought of as slippery at best.
So he stood tall, pointed his scarred chin as high as he dared, flicked out his gilt-edged cloak with one gauntleted hand. He strode through the crowd with the confident swagger he had always used to have, one hand resting on the jewelled pommel of his sword, hoping with every step that no one caught an inkling of the cauldron of fear and doubt behind his eyes. The crowd muttered as he swept past, Varuz and Bayaz hurrying behind. Some made attempts at bows, others did not bother.
“The king!”
“I thought he’d be taller…”
“Jezal the Bastard.” Jezal snapped his head round, but there was no way of telling who spoke.
“That’s Luthar!”
“A cheer for ’is Majesty!” Followed by a half-hearted murmur.
“This way,” said a pale-looking officer before the gate, indicating a staircase with one apologetic hand. Jezal climbed manfully, two stone steps at a time, spurs jingling. He came out onto the roof of the gatehouse and froze, his lip curling with distaste. Who should be standing there but his old friend Superior Glokta, bent over on his cane, his repulsive toothless smile on his face?
“Your Majesty,” he leered, voice heavy with irony. “What an almost overwhelming honour.” He lifted his cane to point towards the far parapet. “The Gurkish are that way.”
Jezal was attempting to frame a suitably acidic reply as his eyes followed Glokta’s stick. He blinked, the muscles of his face going slack. He stepped past the cripple without saying a word. His scarred jaw crept gradually open, and stayed there.
“The enemy,” growled Varuz. Jezal tried to imagine what Logen Ninefingers would have said faced with the sight below him now.
“Shit.”
In the patchwork of damp fields, over the roads and through the hedgerows, between the farms and villages and the few coppices of old trees beyond the city walls, Gurkish troops swarmed in their thousands. The wide paved road towards Keln, curving away southwards through the flat farmland, was a single crawling, glittering, heaving river of marching men. Gurkish soldiers, in column, flooding up and flowing smoothly out to encircle the city in a giant ring of men, wood, and steel. Tall standards stood out above the boiling throng, golden symbols flashing in the watery autumn sunlight. The standards of the Emperor’s legions. Jezal counted ten at his first glance.