‘Fair point,’ croaked Craw.
‘Got what I want there’d be no bloody talk at all.’ Dow’s face twitched, and he looked over at Ishri, leaning in the shadows against the wall, face a blank, black mask. He ran his tongue around the inside of his sneering mouth and spat. ‘But calmer heads have prevailed. We’ll try peace on, see whether it chafes. Now get that bitch back to her father ’fore I change my mind and cut the bloody cross in her for the fucking exercise.’
Craw edged for the door sideways, like a crab. ‘On my way, Chief.’
Hearts and Minds
‘How long should we spend out here, Corporal?’
‘As short a time as is possible without disgrace, Yolk.’
‘How long’s that?’
‘Until it’s too dark for me to see your gurning visage would be a start.’
‘And we patrol, do we?’
‘No, Yolk, we’ll just walk a few dozen strides and sit down for a while.’
‘Where will we find to sit that isn’t wet as an otter’s—’
‘Shh,’ hissed Tunny, waving at Yolk to get down. There were men in the trees on the other side of the rise. Three men, and two of them in Union uniforms. ‘Huh.’ One was Lance Corporal Hedges. A squinty, mean-spirited rat of a man who’d been with the First for about three years and thought himself quite the rogue but was no better than a nasty idiot. The kind of bad soldier who gives proper bad soldiers a bad name. His gangly sidekick was unfamiliar, probably a new recruit. Hedges’ version of Yolk, which was truly a concept too horrifying to entertain.
They both had swords drawn and pointed at a Northman, but Tunny could tell right off he was no fighter. Dressed in a dirty coat with a belt around it, a bow over one shoulder and some arrows in a quiver, no other weapon visible. A hunter, maybe, or a trapper, he looked somewhat baffled and somewhat scared. Hedges had a black fur in one hand. Didn’t take a great mind to work it all out.
‘Why, Lance Corporal Hedges!’ Tunny grinned wide as he stood and strolled down the bank, his hand loose on the hilt of his sword, just to make sure everyone realised he had one.
Hedges squinted guiltily over at him. ‘Keep out o’ this, Tunny. We found him, he’s ours.’
‘Yours? Where in the rule book does it say prisoners are yours to abuse because you found them?’
‘What do you care about the rules? What’re you doing here, I’d like to know.’
‘As it happens, First Sergeant Forest sent me and Trooper Yolk on patrol to make sure none of our men were out beyond the picket causing mischief. And what should I find but you, out beyond the picket and in the process of robbing this civilian. I call that mischievous. Do you call that mischievous, Yolk?’
‘Well, er …’
Tunny didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You know what General Jalenhorm said. We’re out to win hearts and minds as much as anything else. Can’t have you robbing the locals, Hedges. Just can’t have it. Contrary to our whole approach up here.’
‘General fucking Jalenhorm?’ Hedges snorted. ‘Hearts and minds? You? Don’t make me laugh!’
‘Make you laugh?’ Tunny frowned. ‘Make you laugh? Trooper Yolk, I want you to raise your loaded flatbow and point it at Lance Corporal Hedges.’
Yolk stared. ‘What?’
‘What?’ grunted Hedges.
Tunny threw up an arm. ‘You heard me, point your bow!’
Yolk raised the bow so that the bolt was aimed uncertainly at Hedges’ stomach. ‘Like this?’
‘How else exactly? Lance Corporal Hedges, how’s this for a laugh? I will count to three. If you haven’t handed that Northman back his fur by the time I get there I will order Trooper Yolk to shoot. You never know, you’re only five strides away, he might even hit you.’
‘Now, look—’
‘One.’
‘Look!’
‘Two.’
‘All right! All right.’ Hedges tossed the fur in the Northman’s face then stomped angrily away through the trees. ‘But you’ll fucking pay for this, Tunny, I can tell you that!’
Tunny turned, grinning, and strolled after him. Hedges was opening his mouth for another prize retort when Tunny coshed him across the side of the head with his canteen, which represented a considerable weight when full. It happened so fast Hedges didn’t even try to duck, just went down hard in the mud.
‘You’ll fucking pay for this, Corporal Tunny,’ he hissed, and booted Hedges in the groin to underscore the point. Then he took Hedges’ new canteen, and tucked his own badly dented one into his belt where it had been. ‘Something to keep me in your thoughts.’ He looked up at Hedges’ lanky sidekick, fully occupied gawping. ‘Anything to add, pikestaff?’
‘I … I—’
‘I? What do you think that adds? Shoot him, Yolk.’
‘What?’ squeaked Yolk.
‘What?’ squeaked the tall trooper.
‘I’m joking, idiots! Bloody hell, does no one think at all but me? Drag your prick of a lance corporal back behind the lines, and if I see either one of you out here again I’ll bloody shoot you myself.’ The lanky one helped Hedges up, whimpering, bow-legged and bloody-haired, and the two of them shuffled off into the trees. Tunny waited until they’d disappeared from sight. Then he turned to the Northman and held out his hand. ‘Fur, please.’
To be fair to the man, in spite of any troubles with the language, he fully understood. His face sagged, and he slapped the fur down into Tunny’s hand. It wasn’t that good a one, even, now he got a close look at it, rough-cured and sour-smelling. ‘What else you got there?’ Tunny came closer, one hand on the hilt of his sword, just in case, and started patting the man down.
‘We’re robbing him?’ Yolk had his bow on the Northman now, which meant it was a good deal closer to Tunny than he’d have liked.
‘That a problem? Didn’t you tell me you were a convicted thief?’
‘I told you I didn’t do it.’
‘Exactly what a thief would say! This isn’t robbery, Yolk, it’s war.’ The Northman had some strips of dried meat, Tunny pocketed them. He had a flint and tinder, Tunny tossed them. No money, but that was far from surprising. Coinage hadn’t fully caught on up here.
‘He’s got a blade!’ squeaked Yolk, waving his bow about.
‘A skinning knife, idiot!’ Tunny took it and put it in his own belt. ‘We’ll stick some rabbit blood on it, say it came off a Named Man dead in battle, and you can bet some fool will pay for it back in Adua.’ He took the Northman’s bow and arrows too. Didn’t want him trying a shot at them out of spite. He looked a bit on the spiteful side, but then Tunny probably would’ve looked spiteful himself if he’d just been robbed. Twice. He wondered about taking the trapper’s coat, but it wasn’t much more than rags, and he thought it might have been a Union one in the first place anyway. Tunny had stolen a score of new Union coats out of the quartermaster’s stores back in Ostenhorm, and hadn’t been able to shift them all yet.
‘That’s all,’ he grunted, stepping back. ‘Hardly worth the trouble.’
‘What do we do, then?’ Yolk’s big flatbow was wobbling all over the place. ‘You want me to shoot him?’
‘You bloodthirsty little bastard! Why would you do that?’
‘Well … won’t he tell his friends across the stream we’re over here?’
‘We’ve had, what, four hundred men sitting around in a bog for over a day. Do you really think Hedges has been the only one wandering about? They know we’re here by now, Yolk, you can bet on that.’
‘So … we just let him go?’
‘You want to take him back to camp and keep him as a pet?’
‘No.’
‘You want to shoot him?’