Chapter 9 #3
“Nor you.” That was overstating it a bit.
His face was quite different. At some point, someone had broken both his nose and his chin, and they hadn’t set quite right.
Also, the scar was new. Someone or something had gouged or sliced a chunk the size of the palm of your hand off his left cheek, and the hair didn’t grow there any more.
But it was his expression and the look in his eyes that you remembered about Rotlaug, and that hadn’t changed one bit.
“What are you doing in these parts?” I said. “You’re a long way from Unnsvik.”
He laughed. “So are you,” he said. “Maybe I did what you did. Left to better myself.”
Plenty of scope for that. “Maybe,” I said. “But I don’t think so. How can you improve on perfection?”
“Or maybe,” he said, “I’m here on a job. What do you think?”
“Give me a letter, you mean.”
“That and something else.” He drank half the beer straight from the jug. “Fucking horrible,” he said.
“I think the water’s too hard for successful brewing,” I told him. “What sort of job?”
He turned his head and smiled at me. “I guess I’m what you might call a specialist,” he said.
“Good for you. Doing what?”
He drank the other half. “Pest control,” he said. “Same as in the old country.”
Ah, I thought. And that made sense, too.
All through my childhood I wondered why nobody had strung him up or cut his head off, seeing what a nuisance he was, what with eating children and so on.
I’d assumed it was because if he was killed he’d only come back as a walker and be even more tiresome.
But if he was – well, a specialist – that would explain why he was tolerated. “Old country pests?” I said.
He nodded. “Good money,” he said. “Stupid money. And I felt like a change anyhow. My face don’t fit back home any more, for some reason. Time to move on, see a bit of the world. Can’t say I care for it very much, but what the hell.”
“Pest control,” I repeated. “Are you any good?”
“Yup.”
“It’s true, they have got a problem here at the moment. Who sent for you?”
“Dunno,” he said. “Three arseholes showed up looking for me, offcomers. Priests. They gave me a shitload of money just for listening to them, and said they’d give me a real shitload more if I did them a job. Piss-easy job. So I said yes, and here I am.”
I nodded to the sutler for more beer. “Maybe not as piss-easy as all that,” I said.
“Piss-easy,” he repeated. “I know that. I done it before. I can do it again.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but not these particular walkers.”
He looked at me and grinned. “These same walkers,” he said.
Oh, I thought. “Kotkel.”
“Yup. And your dad.”
“Back home.”
He nodded. “Piece of piss,” he said. “I done them before, so I can do them again.” He looked at me, like a surveyor or a mason considering an angle, or a forester assessing which way a tree will fall. “Actually, it’ll be the third time.”
“Really.”
“Yup. I killed ’em both once, and then I killed ’em again.”
His hand had dropped to his waist. I glanced down and saw a handle.
I knew what it was. Back home we call them hog knives, or Mesoge toothpicks.
Blade a foot long, two inches wide, heavy, with a clipped back edge.
Plain, effective, absolutely no sophistication whatsoever.
“No doubt you had your reasons,” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a fuss about it.
I left home a long time ago, and I’m never going back. ”
That seemed to satisfy him, and he put his hand back on the bench. “The first time you killed them,” I said. “Were they alive?”
He laughed. “Yup,” he said.
“Just out of interest—”
“They tried to push me around,” he said.
“I don’t take kindly to that. They tried to stomp me, so I stomped them back.
So they came out one night when I was asleep and tried to burn me in my house.
Nailed the door and the shutters up, set fire to the thatch.
But I busted out through the hayloft hatch, and then I did them, with my little toothpick. You don’t blame me for that, do you?”
I shrugged. “Clearly the best man won,” I said. “Natural justice.”
“Yeah, well. About six months after that, they started to walk. Did a lot of damage, killed a lot of sheep and a couple of women. Folks blamed me, can’t say why. They said to me, you made this mess; you clear it up. So I did.”
I looked at him. “How?”
That grin again. “Brute force,” he said.
The way he said it made my teeth ache. “You’re good at that, I bet.”
“Yup, me and my little toothpick. Helps if you’ve got the knack, of course. I’ve been doing walkers since I was nineteen years old.”
“Which is why they let you stick around.”
He nodded. “Till recently,” he said. “So it came at a good time, this trip. I got to tell you, I’ve done a lot of walkers, like I said, and your brother and your old man, they’re nothing special.”
“Is that right?”
“You bet. Not like some. There was one fucker at Holmgard, gave me this.” He pointed at his face with his index finger.
“Real sweetheart, he was. Another one, out Jormundale, a woman, stuck a fencepost clean through my leg. Thought I’d had it that time but no, I tickled her up with my little toothpick and down she went, and everything was just fine.
Bet you never knew women can do it too. Not many people know that, but they can.
” He smiled. “I guess the thing is, they know I’m not scared of them.
They know it’s only going to end one way when they see me.
” He tapped his head. “Up here, that’s where the real fighting’s done. They can’t beat me there.”
“Clearly you have a special gift,” I said. “And what a blessing that you were available. Are you sure you don’t know who sent you here?”
“Just three arsehole priests with a shitload of money,” he said.
“Get there fast as you can, they told me, there’s a bonus if you get it done before the Calends.
What the fuck’s a Calends, I said. They told me, first new moon after autumn sowing.
No problem, I said. They even gave me a horse, a real beauty.
And a coat and a hat, and new boots. Didn’t reckon much to sailing on boats, though. Made me chuck my guts.”
“I’ve got a friend who’s like that,” I said. “Doesn’t bother me, for some reason.” The beer arrived. I paid for it and stood up. “Well, it’s been wonderful to see you again, Rotlaug. The very best of luck, and I hope you succeed. You’ll be doing us all a favour. Me especially.”
He nodded. “That’s me,” he said. “All heart.”
“Sure you don’t know who sent you? It wasn’t the abbot, was it? The man who gave you the letter?”
He shook his head. “This arsehole came up to me in a bar,” he said. “Heard I was going this way, and did I know you? Yes, I said. Then give him this letter, he said, and here’s ten deniers. I thought, for ten deniers, why the fuck not?”
“Indeed.”
“I mean, I could’ve used the letter for arsewipe and kept the ten deniers, but I thought, fuck it, I’m going that way anyhow. Also it tickled me, seeing a face from the old country, wondering if you’d shit yourself when you saw me again. You always were chickenshit when you were a kid.”
“Still am,” I said, “and proud of it. So long, Rotlaug. And God speed your little toothpick.”
That made him laugh. I left him to his beer.
I found Svangerd on her knees in some side-chapel. “Guess what,” I said.
“Shh.”
“Sorry.” I lowered my voice. “Guess who’s just turned up. A hero.”
She looked at me. “You what?”
“A genuine hero,” I said. “The stuff of legends. Right now he’s in the Poverty and Persistence drinking himself into a stupor, but in due course I have complete confidence he’ll knuckle down to business and that’ll be that. We’re off the hook.”
“Pull yourself together,” she said, not unkindly, “and try making some sense. Who’s in where and how does it help us?”
I told her. She shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”
I felt as though I’d given her a rose and she’d stuffed it in my ear.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “What we’ve got here is an expert.
A professional. There are people like that, I know.
I heard about them all the time when I was growing up.
There are exceptional people who can subdue walkers, and this Rotlaug is one of them. ”
“According to him.”
“Yes, but it makes sense. If he didn’t have the knack, he’d have been strung up years ago. But he’s got the knack, so he was too valuable to lynch and people learned to put up with him. He’s the genuine article. And like he said, he’s killed them once – well, twice – so he can do it again.”
Her eyes were scepticism in a sapphire setting.
“I doubt it,” she said. “Back in the sticks, maybe. But not here. You still don’t get it, do you?
Those monsters have been brought here by the Evil One, to do his bidding.
They’re not just wildlife any more; they’re soldiers.
It’s about, what’s the word, context. Sorry, but your homeboy is dead meat. ”
I sighed. “I don’t suppose you can understand,” I said.
“After all, it’s a Mesoge thing. It’s a bit like, oh, I don’t know, composing music.
Most of us can’t do it to save our lives; a few people can.
They look just the same as normal people, but they’ve got the knack.
He’s one of them. It’s a known phenomenon, back home. ”
No dice. She frowned. “While we’re on the subject,” she said, “you’re really weird, you know that? Here’s a man who’s just confessed to slaughtering your father and your brother, and you’re actually pleased to see him. How in God’s name did you ever turn out that way?”
Valid point. The truth was, I hadn’t really given it any thought. “I guess that’s what makes these people so special. Their gift is so rare and so precious, you tend to forgive them their peccadillos.”
“Like murdering your family.”