‘It is not what he wants that he wishes to discuss, but what you want. My master is a most wise and powerful man. The wisest and most powerful who yet lives in these latter days, perhaps. Doubtless he can help you, with your …’ Sulfur waved one long-fingered hand about as he sought the word. ‘Difficulties.’
‘I appreciate all offers of help, of course.’ They squelched between the guards and back through the gate of the holdfast. ‘But my difficulties end today.’
‘My master will be overjoyed to learn it. But, if I may, the trouble with difficulties solved is that, so often, new difficulties present themselves soon after.’
Bethod snorted at that, too, as he took up a place on the steps, frowning towards the gate, Craw at his shoulder. ‘That much is true enough.’
Sulfur continued to talk in his ear, voice soft and subtle. ‘Should your difficulties ever weigh too heavy to bear alone, my master’s door is always open. You may pay him a visit whenever you wish, at the Great Northern Library.’
‘Thank your master for me, but tell him I have no need of-’ Bethod turned, but the man was gone.
‘Rattleneck’s on his way, Chief.’ Pale-as-Snow was hurrying across the yard, cloak spattered with mud from hard riding. ‘You’ve got his son, aye?’
‘I do.’
‘Ninefingers agreed to give him up?’
‘He did.’
Pale-as-Snow raised his white brows. ‘Well done.’
‘Why wouldn’t he? I’m his Chief.’
‘Of course. And mine. But it’s getting how I don’t know what that mad bastard’ll do one day to the next. Sometimes I look at him and …’ He shivered. ‘I think he might kill me out of pure meanness.’
‘Hard times call for hard men,’ said Craw.
‘That they do, Craw,’ said Pale-as-Snow, ‘and no doubt these times qualify. The dead know I’ve faced some hard men. Fought beside ’em, fought against ’em. Big names. Dangerous bastards.’ He leaned forward, white hair stirred in the breeze, and spat. ‘I never met one scared me like the Bloody-Nine, though. Have you?’
Craw swallowed, and said nothing.
‘Do you trust him?’
‘With my life,’ said Bethod. ‘We all have, haven’t we? More than once. And each time he’s come through.’
‘Aye, and I guess he came through again taking Rattleneck’s son.’ Pale-as-Snow gave a grin. ‘Peace, eh, Chief?’
‘Peace,’ said Bethod, rolling the word around his mouth and savouring the taste of it.
‘Peace,’ muttered Craw. ‘Think I’ll go back to carpentry.’
‘Peace,’ said Pale-as-Snow, shaking his head like he could hardly believe such a thing might happen. ‘Shall I tell Littlebone and Whitesides to stand down, then?’
‘Tell them to stand up,’ said Bethod. He thought he could hear the sound of hooves outside the gates. ‘Get their men ready to fight. All their men.’
‘But-’
‘The wise leader hopes he won’t need his sword. But he keeps it sharp even so.’
Pale-as-Snow smiled. ‘So he does, Chief. Ain’t no point in a blunt one.’
Riders came thundering through the gate. Battle-worn men on battle-ready horses. Men with well-used armour and weapons. Men who wore their frowns like swords. Rattleneck was at the front, balding and running to fat but a big man still, with gold links in his chain-mail shirt and gold rings in his hair and gold at the hilt of his heavy sword.
He spattered mud across the yard and everyone in it as he pulled his horse up savagely and glowered down at Bethod, teeth bared.
Bethod only smiled. He held the upper hand after all. He could afford to. ‘Well met, Rattleneck-’
‘I don’t think so,’ he snapped. ‘Shitly met, I’d say. Shitly fucking met! Curnden bloody Craw, is that you?’
‘Aye,’ said Craw, mildly, hands folded over his sword-belt.
Rattleneck shook his head. ‘Never expected a good man like you to stand for the likes of this.’
Craw only shrugged. ‘There’s always good men on both sides of a good fight.’ Bethod was starting to like him more and more. A reassuring presence. A straight edge in a crooked time. If there’d ever been an opposite of the Bloody-Nine, there he stood.
‘I don’t see too many good men here,’ snapped Rattleneck.
Bethod had told his wife they liked spiteful, prideful, wrathful men in the North, and picked the most childish of the crowd for leaders, and here was the best example one could have asked for, or perhaps the worst, booming away with nostrils flaring wider than his blown horse’s.
Bethod amused himself with the thought but filled his tone to the brim with deep respect. ‘You honour my holdfast with your presence, Rattleneck.’
‘Your holdfast?’ he frothed. ‘Last winter it was Hallum Brownstaff’s!’
‘Yes. But Hallum was rash and he lost it to me, along with his life. I’m glad you came to it, anyway.’
‘Only for my son. Where’s my son?’
‘He’s here.’
The old man worked his mouth. ‘I heard he fought the Bloody-Nine.’
‘And lost.’ Bethod saw the flicker of fear across Rattleneck’s lined face. ‘The folly of youth, to think you’ll win where a hundred better men have gone in the mud.’ He let that hang for a moment. ‘But Ninefingers only knocked him on the head and that’s your family’s least vulnerable spot, eh? He hardly got worse than a scratch. We aren’t the blood-mad bastards you may think.’ Not all of them, anyway. ‘He’s safe. He’s well treated. A perfect guest. He’s down below us now, in my cellar.’ And because it would not do to give him things all his own way, Bethod added, ‘In chains.’
‘I want him back,’ said Rattleneck, and his voice was rough, and his cheek trembled.
‘So would I, in your position. I have sons myself. Get down from your horse, and let’s talk about it.’
They stared at each other across the table. Rattleneck and his Named Men on one side, glaring as if they were about to start a battle rather than make a peace. Bethod on the other, with Pale-as-Snow and Curnden Craw beside him.
‘Will you have wine?’ asked Bethod, gesturing to the jug.
‘Fuck your wine!’ shouted Rattleneck, slapping the cup away so it skittered down the table and shattered against the wall. ‘And fuck your maps, and fuck your talk! I want my son!’
Bethod took a long breath and sighed. How much time did he waste sighing? ‘You can have him.’
As he had hoped, that caught Rattleneck and his men well and truly off guard. They blinked at each other, frowned and grumbled, cast him dark glances, trying to work out the ruse.
‘Eh?’ was the best Rattleneck could manage.
‘What use is he to me? Take him, with my blessing.’
‘And what do you want in return?’
‘Nothing.’ Bethod sat forward, staring into Rattleneck’s grizzled face. ‘I want peace, Rattleneck. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.’ That was a lie, he knew, he’d sought more battles than any man alive, but a good lie’s better than a bad truth, his mother always used to tell him.
‘Peace?’ snorted Blacktoe, one of Rattleneck’s Named Men and a fierce one at that. ‘Did you give peace to them five villages you burned up the valley?’
Bethod met his bright eye, calm and even. He was a rock. ‘We’ve had a war, and in a war folk do things they regret. Folk on both sides. I want no more regrets. So yes, Blacktoe, I want peace, whatever you believe. That’s all I want.’
‘Peace,’ murmured Rattleneck. Bethod was watching his scarred face, and caught it. That twitch of need. That softening of his mouth. That misting of his eye. He recognised it from his own face and knew Rattleneck wanted peace, too. After the blood that had been spilled these last few years, what sane man wouldn’t?
Bethod clasped his hands on the table. ‘Peace now, and the Thralls can go back to their farms, the Carls to their halls. Peace now, and their wives and mothers and children need not struggle with the harvest alone. Peace now, and let us build something.’ And Bethod thumped the table. ‘I’ve seen enough waste, how about you?’