Golden had seen enough.
He squeezed his teeth together and rushed across the Circle. The old man dodged well but Golden still caught him by the ear and followed with a heavy left in the ribs, felt the thud right up his arm, warming every joint. Lamb struck back but Golden brushed it off and as quickly as they’d come together they were apart, circling again, watching, a gust swirling around the theatre and dragging out the torch flames.
He could take a punch, this old man, still moving calm and steady, showing no pain. Golden might have to break him down piece by piece, use his reach, but that was well enough. He was warming to the task. His breath came faster and he growled along with it, his face finding a fighting snarl, sucking in strength and pushing out doubt, all his shame and disappointment made tinder for his anger.
Golden slapped his palms together hard, feinted right then hissed as he darted in, faster and sharper than before, catching the old man with two more long punches, bloodying his bent nose, staggering him and dancing away before he could think of throwing back, the stone bowl ringing with encouragements and insults and fresh odds in a dozen languages.
Golden settled to the work. He had the reach and the weight and the youth but he took nothing for granted. He would be cautious. He would make sure.
This would be his last fight, after all.
‘I’m coming, you bastard, I’m coming!’ shouted Pane, hobbling down the hall on his iffy leg.
Bottom of the pile, that’s what he was. But he guessed every pile needs someone on the bottom, and probably he didn’t deserve to be no higher. The door was jolting in its frame from the blows outside. They should’ve had a slot to look through. He’d said that before but no one took no notice. Probably they couldn’t hear him through that heap of folks on top. So he had to wrestle the bolt back and haul the door open a bit to see who was calling.
There was an old drunk outside. Tall and bony with grey hair plastered to one side of his head and big hands flapping and a tattered coat with what looked like old vomit down one side and fresh down the other. ‘I wanna get fucked,’ he said in a voice like rotten wood splitting.
‘Don’t let me stop you.’ And Pane swung the door shut.
The old man wedged a boot in it and the door bounced back open. ‘I wanna get fucked, I says!’
‘We’re closed.’
‘You’re what?’ The old man craned close, most likely deaf as well as drunk.
Pane heaved the door open wider so he could shout it. ‘There’s a fight on, case you didn’t notice. We’re closed!’
‘I did notice and I don’t care a shit. I want fucking and I want it now. I got dust and I heard tell the Whitehouse is never closed to business. Not never.’
‘Shit,’ hissed Pane. That was true. ‘Never closed,’ Papa Ring was always telling ’em. But then they’d been told to be careful, and triple careful today. ‘Be triple careful today,’ Papa had told them all. ‘I can’t stand a man ain’t careful.’ Which had sounded strange, since no one round here was ever the least bit careful.
‘I want a fuck,’ grunted the old man, hardly able to stand up straight, he was that drunk. Pane pitied the girl got that job, he stank like all the shit in Crease. Usually there’d be three guards at the door but the others had all snuck off to watch the fight and left him on his own, bottom of the bloody heap that he was.
He gave a strangled groan of upset, turned to shriek for someone just a little higher up the heap, and to his great and far from pleasant surprise an arm slipped tight around his neck and a cold point pressed into his throat and he heard the door swing shut behind.
‘Where’s the woman you took?’ The old man’s breath stank like a still but his hands were tight as vices. ‘Shy South, skinny thing with a big mouth. Where is she?’
‘I don’t know nothing about no woman,’ Pane managed to splutter, trying to say it loud enough to get someone’s attention but half-swallowing his words from the pressure.
‘Guess I might as well open you up, then.’ And Pane felt the point of the knife dig into his jaw.
‘Fuck! All right! She’s in the cellar!’
‘Lead on.’ And the old man started moving him. One step, two, and suddenly it just got to Pane what a damn indignity this was on top of everything else, and without thinking he started twisting and thrashing and elbowing away, struggling like this was his moment to get out from under the bottom of that heap and finally be somebody worthy of at least his own respect.
But the old man was made of iron. That knotty hand clamped Pane’s windpipe shut so he couldn’t make more’n a gurgle and he felt the knife’s point burning across his face, right up under his eye.
‘Struggle any more and that eye’s coming out,’ and there was a terrible coldness in the old man’s voice froze all the fight right out. ‘You’re just the fool who opens the door, so I reckon you don’t owe Papa Ring too much. He’s finished anyway. Take me to the woman and do nothing stupid, you’ll live to be the fool who opens someone else’s door. Make sense?’
The hand released enough for him to choke, ‘Makes sense.’ It did make sense, too. That was about as much fight as Pane had showed in his whole life and where’d it got him? He was just the fool who opened the door.
Bottom of the pile.
Golden had bloodied the old man’s face up something fierce. Drizzle was streaking through the light about the torches, cool on his forehead but he was hot inside now, doubts banished. He had Lamb’s measure and even the blood in his mouth tasted like victory.
This would be his last fight. Back to the North with Ring’s money and win back his lost honour and his lost children, cut his revenge out of Cairm Ironhead and Black Calder, the thought of those hated names and faces bringing up the fury in a sudden blaze.
Golden roared and the crowd roared with him, carried him across the Circle as if on the crest of a wave. The old man pushed away one punch and slipped under another, found a hold on Golden’s arm and they slapped and twisted, fingers wriggling for a grip, hands slippery with grease and drizzle, feet shuffling for advantage. Golden strained, and heaved, and finally with a bellow got Lamb off his feet, but the old man hooked his leg as he went down and they crashed together onto the stones, the crowd leaping up in joy as they fell.
Golden was on top. He tried to get a hand around the old man’s throat, fumbled with a notch out of his ear, tried to rip at it but it was too slippery, tried to inch his hand up onto Lamb’s face so he could get his thumbnail in his eye, the way he had with that big miner back in the spring, and of a sudden his head was dragged down and there was a burning, tugging pain in his mouth. He bellowed and twisted and growled, clawed at Lamb’s wrist with his nails and, with a stinging and ripping right through his lip and into his gums he tore himself free and thrashed away.
As Lamb rolled up he saw the old man had yellow hairs caught in one fist and Golden realised he’d torn half his moustache out. There was laughter in the crowd, but all he heard was the laughter years behind him as he trudged from Skarling’s Hall and into exile.
The rage came up white-hot and Golden charged in shrieking, no thoughts except the need to smash Lamb apart with his fists. He caught the old man square in the face and sent him staggering right out of the Circle, folk on the front row of stone benches scattering like starlings. Golden came after him, spewing curses, raining blows, fists knocking Lamb left and right like he was made of rags. The old man’s hands dropped, face slack, eyes glassy, and Golden knew the moment was come. He stepped in, swinging with all his strength, and landed the father of all punches right on the point of Lamb’s jaw.