The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘The ones that needed making. She works for Rogont.’

  Ishri let her head fall to one side, so far that it was almost horizontal. ‘Or perhaps he works for me.’

  ‘I don’t care who’s the rider and who’s the donkey,’ snapped Murcatto, ‘as long as one or the other of you is sending men.’

  ‘He is sending them. Two score of his best.’

  ‘In time?’

  ‘Unless the Thousand Swords come early, and they will not. Their main body are camped six miles distant still. They were held up picking a village clean. Then they just had to burn the place. A destructive little crowd.’ Her gaze fell on Morveer. Those black eyes made him unnecessarily nervous. He did not like the fact that she was wrapped up in bandages. He found himself curious as to why—

  ‘They keep me cool,’ she said. He blinked, wondering whether he might have spoken the question out loud. ‘You did not.’ He felt himself turn cold to the roots of his hair. Just as he had when the nurses uncovered his secret materials at the orphanage, and guessed their purpose. He could not escape the irrational conclusion that this Gurkish devil somehow knew his private thoughts. Knew the things he had done, that he had thought no one would ever know . . .

  ‘I will be in the barn!’ he screeched, voice far more shrill than he had intended. He dragged it down with difficulty. ‘I must prepare, if we are to have visitors tomorrow. Come, Day!’

  ‘I’ll just finish this.’ She had quickly grown accustomed to their visitor, and was busy buttering three slices of bread at once.

  ‘Ah . . . yes . . . I see.’ He stood twitching for a moment, but there was nothing he could achieve by staying but further embarrassment. He stalked towards the door.

  ‘You need your coat?’ asked Day.

  ‘I will be more than warm enough!’

  It was only when he was through the door of the farmhouse and into the darkness, the wind sighing chill across the wheat and straight through his shirt, that he realised he would not be warm enough by any stretch of the imagination. It was too late to return without looking entirely the fool, and that he steadfastly refused to do.

  ‘Not me.’ He cursed most bitterly as he picked his way across the darkened farmyard, wrapping his arms around himself and already beginning to shiver. He had allowed some Gurkish charlatan to unnerve him with simple parlour tricks. ‘Bandaged bitch.’ Well, they would all see. ‘Oh yes.’ He had got the better of the nurses at the orphanage, in the end, for all the whippings. ‘We’ll see who whips who now.’ He peered over his shoulder to make sure he was unobserved. ‘Magic!’ he sneered. ‘I’ll show you a trick or—’

  ‘Eeee!’ His boot squelched, slid, and he went over on his back in a patch of mud. ‘Bah! Damn it to your bastard arse!’ So much for heroic efforts, and new beginnings too.

  The Traitor

  Shivers reckoned it was an hour or two short of dawn. The rain had slacked right off but water still drip-dripped from the new leaves, pattering in the dirt. The air was weighty with chill damp. A swollen stream gurgled near the track, smothering the muddy falls of his horse’s hooves. He knew he was close, could see the faintest ruddy campfire glow at the edges of the slick tree-trunks.

  Dark times are the best for dark business, Black Dow always used to say, and he should’ve known.

  Shivers nudged his horse through the wet night, hoping some drunk sentry didn’t get nervous and serve him up an arrow through the guts. One of those might hurt less than having your eye burned out, but it was nought to look forward to. Luckily, he saw the first guard before the guard saw him, pressed up against a tree, spear resting on his shoulder. He had an oilskin draped right over his head, couldn’t have seen a thing, even if he’d been awake.

  ‘Oy!’ The man jerked round, dropped his spear in the muck. Shivers grinned as he watched him fumbling for it in the dark, arms crossed loose on his saddle-bow. ‘You want to give me a challenge, or shall I just head on and leave you to it?’

  ‘Who goes there?’ he growled, tearing his spear up along with a clump of wet grass.

  ‘My name’s Caul Shivers, and Faithful Carpi’s going to want to talk to me.’

  The Thousand Swords’ camp looked pretty much like camps always do. Men, canvas, metal and mud. Mud in particular. Tents scattered every which way. Horses tethered to trees, breath smoking in the darkness. Spears stacked up one against the other. Campfires, some burning, some down to fizzling embers, the air sharp with their smoke. A few men still awake, wrapped in blankets mostly, on guard or still drinking, frowning as they watched Shivers pass.

  Reminded him of all the cold, wet nights he’d spent in camps across the North and back. Huddled around fires, hoping to the dead the rain didn’t get heavier. Roasting meat, spitted on dead men’s spears. Curled up shivering in the snow under every blanket he could find. Sharpening blades for dark work on the morrow. He saw faces of men dead and gone back to the mud, that he’d shared drink and laughter with. His brother. His father. Tul Duru, that they’d called the Thunderhead. Rudd Threetrees, the Rock of Uffrith. Harding Grim, quieter than the night. Brought up a swell of unexpected pride, those memories. Then a swell of unexpected shame at the work he was about now. More feeling than he’d had since he lost his eye, or he’d expected to have again.

  He sniffed, and his face stung underneath the bandages, and the soft moment slipped away and left him cold again. They stopped at a tent big as a house, lamplight leaking out into the night round the edges of its flap.

  ‘Now you’d best behave yourself in here, you Northern bastard.’ The guard jabbed at Shivers with his own axe. ‘Or I’ll—’

  ‘Fuck yourself, idiot.’ Shivers brushed him out of the way with one arm and pushed on through. Inside it smelled of stale wine, mouldy cloth, unwashed men. Ill-lit by flickering lamps, hung round the edges with slashed and tattered flags, trophies from old battlefields.

  A chair of dark wood set with ivory, stained, scarred and polished with hard use, stood on a pair of crates up at the far end. The captain general’s chair, he guessed. The one that had been Cosca’s, then Monza’s, and now was Faithful Carpi’s. Didn’t look much more than some battered rich man’s dining chair. Surely didn’t look like much to kill folk over, but then small reasons often serve for that.

  There was a long table set up in the midst, men sat down each side. Captains of the Thousand Swords. Rough-looking men, scarred, stained and battered as the chair, and with quite a collection of weapons too, between ’em. But Shivers had smiled in harder company, and he smiled now. Strange thing was, he felt more at home with these lot than he had in months. He knew the rules here, he reckoned, better’n he did with Monza. Seemed as if they’d started out doing some planning, by the maps that were spread across the wood, but some time in the middle of the night the strategy had turned to dice. Now the maps were weighted down with scattered coins, with half-full bottles, with old cups, chipped glasses. One great chart was soaked red with spilled wine.

  A big man stood at the head of the table – a faceful of scars, short hair grey and balding. He had a bushy moustache, the rest of his thick jaw covered in white stubble. Faithful Carpi himself, from what Monza had said. He was shaking the dice in one chunk of fist. ‘Come on, you shits, come on and give me nine!’ They came up one and three, to a few sighs and some laughter. ‘Damn it!’ He tossed some coins down the table to a tall, pock-faced bastard with a hook-nose and the ugly mix of long black hair and a big bald patch. ‘One of these days I’ll work your trick out, Andiche.’

  ‘No trick. I was born under a lucky star.’ Andiche scowled at Shivers, about as friendly a look as a fox spares for a chicken. ‘Who the hell’s this bandaged arsehole?’

  The guard pushed in past Shivers, giving him a dirty look sideways. ‘General Carpi, sir, this Northman says he needs to speak to you.’

  ‘That a fact?’ Faithful spared Shivers a quick glance, then went back to stacking up his coins. ‘And why would I want to speak to the likes of him? Toss me the dice
there, Victus, I ain’t done.’

  ‘That’s the problem with generals.’ Victus was bald as an egg and gaunt as famine, bunches of rings on his fingers and chains round his neck doing nothing to make him look prettier. ‘They never do know when they’re done.’ And he tossed the dice back down the table, couple of his fellows chuckling.

  The guard swallowed. ‘He says he knows who killed Prince Ario!’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you? And who was that?’

  ‘Monzcarro Murcatto.’ Every hard face in the tent turned sharp towards Shivers. Faithful carefully set the dice down, eyes narrowed. ‘Looks like you know the name.’

  ‘Should we hire him for a jester or hang him for a liar?’ Victus grated out.

  ‘Murcatto’s dead,’ another.

  ‘That so? I wonder who it is I been fucking for the past month, then?’

  ‘If you’ve been fucking Murcatto I’d advise you to get back to it.’ Andiche grinned around him. ‘From what her brother told me, no one here can suck a cock as well as she could.’

  A good few chuckles at that. Shivers wasn’t sure what he meant about her brother, but it didn’t matter none. He’d already undone the bandages, and now he dragged the lot off in one go, turned his face towards the lamplight. Such laughter as there was mostly sputtered out. He had the kind of face now put a sharp end to mirth. ‘Here’s what she’s cost me so far. For a handful of silver? Shit on that, I ain’t half the fool she takes me for, and I’ve got my pride, still. I’m done with the bitch.’

  Faithful Carpi was frowning at him. ‘Describe her.’

  ‘Tall, lean, black hair, blue eyes, frowns a lot. Sharp tongue on her.’

  Victus waved one jewel-crusted hand at him. ‘Common knowledge!’

  ‘She’s got a broken right hand, and marks all over. From falling down a mountain, she says.’ Shivers pushed his finger into his stomach, keeping his eyes on Faithful. ‘Got a scar just here, and one matching in her back. Says a friend of hers gave it to her. Stabbed her through with her own dagger.’

  Carpi’s face had turned grim as a gravedigger’s. ‘You know where she is?’

  ‘Hold up just a trice, there.’ Victus looked even less happy than his chief. ‘You saying Murcatto’s alive?’

  ‘I’d heard a rumour,’ said Faithful.

  A huge black-skinned man with long ropes of iron-grey hair stood up sharp from the table. ‘I’d heard all kinds of rumours,’ voice slow and deep as the sea. ‘Rumours and facts are two different things. When were you planning to fucking tell us?’

  ‘When you fucking needed to know, Sesaria. Where is she?’

  ‘At a farm,’ said Shivers. ‘Maybe an hour’s hard ride distant.’

  ‘How many does she have with her?’

  ‘Just four. A whining poisoner and his apprentice, hardly more’n a girl. A red-haired woman name of Vitari and some brown bitch.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  Shivers grinned. ‘Well, that’s why I’m here, ain’t it? To sell you the where exactly.’

  ‘I don’t like the smell of this shit,’ snarled Victus. ‘If you’re asking me—’

  ‘I’m not,’ growled Faithful, without looking round. ‘What’s your price for it?’

  ‘A tenth part of what Duke Orso’s offering on the head o’ Prince Ario’s killer.’

  ‘Just a tenth?’

  ‘I reckon a tenth is plenty more’n I’ll get from her, but not enough to get me killed by you. I want no more’n I can carry away alive.’

  ‘Wise man,’ said Faithful. ‘Nothing we hate more than greed, is there, boys?’ A couple of chuckles, but most were still looking far from happy at their old general’s sudden return from the land of the dead. ‘Alright, then, a tenth part is fair. You’ve a deal.’ And Faithful stepped forwards and slapped his hand into Shivers’, looking him right in the face. ‘If we get Murcatto.’

  ‘You need her dead or alive?’

  ‘Sorry to say, I’d prefer dead myself.’

  ‘Good, so would I. Last thing I want is a running score with that crazy bitch. She don’t forget.’

  Faithful nodded. ‘So it seems. I reckon we can do business, you and me. Swolle?’

  ‘General?’ A man with a heavy beard stepped up.

  ‘Get three-score horsemen ready to ride, and quick, those with the fastest—’

  ‘Might be best to keep it to fewer,’ said Shivers.

  ‘That so? And how would fewer men be better?’

  ‘The way she tells it, she’s got friends here still.’ Shivers let his eye wander round the hard faces in the tent. ‘The way she tells it, there’s plenty o’ men in this camp wouldn’t say no to having her back in charge. The way she tells it, they won victories to be proud of with her, and with you they skulk around and scout, while Orso’s men get all the prizes.’ Faithful’s eyes darted sideways, then back. Enough to let Shivers know he’d touched a wound. There’s no chief in the world so sure of himself he don’t worry some. No chief of men like these, leastways. ‘Best keep it to a few, and them ones you’re sure of. I’ve no problem stabbing Murcatto in the back, I reckon she’s got it coming. Getting stabbed by one o’ these is another matter.’

  ‘Five all told, and four of ’em women?’ Swolle grinned. ‘A dozen should do it.’

  Faithful kept his eyes on Shivers. ‘Still. Make it three score, like I said, just in case there’s more at the party than we’re expecting. I’d be all embarrassed to arrive at a job short-handed.’

  ‘Sir.’ And Swolle shouldered his way out through the tent flap.

  Shivers shrugged. ‘Have it your way.’

  ‘Why, that I will. You can depend on it.’ Faithful turned to his frowning captains. ‘Any of you old bastards want to come out on the hunt?’

  Sesaria shook his big head, long hair swaying. ‘This is your mess, Faithful. You can swing the broom.’

  ‘I’ve foraged enough for one night.’ Andiche was already pushing out through the flap, a few others following in a muttering crowd, some looking suspicious, some looking careless, some looking drunk.

  ‘I too must take my leave, General Carpi.’ The speaker stood out among all these rough, scarred, dirty men, if only ’cause nothing much about him stood out. He had a curly head of hair, no weapon Shivers could see, no scar, no sneer, no fighter’s air of menace in the least. But Faithful still chuckled up to him like he was a man needed respect.

  ‘Master Sulfur!’ Folding his hand in both of his big paws and giving it a squeeze. ‘My thanks for stopping by. You’re always welcome here.’

  ‘Oh, I am loved wherever I go. Easy to remain on good terms with the man who brings the money.’

  ‘Tell Duke Orso, and your people at the bank, they’ve nothing to worry on here. It’ll all be taken care of, like we discussed. Just as soon as I’ve dealt with this little problem.’

  ‘Life does love to throw up problems, doesn’t it?’ Sulfur gave Shivers a splinter of a smile. He had odd-coloured eyes, one blue, one green. ‘Happy hunting, then.’ And he ambled out into the dawn.

  Faithful was back in Shivers’ face right away. ‘An hour’s ride, you said?’

  ‘If you move quick for your age.’

  ‘Huh. How do you know she won’t have missed you by then, slipped away?’

  ‘She’s asleep. Husk sleep. She smokes more o’ that shit every day. Half her time drooling with it, the rest drooling for it. She won’t be waking any time soon.’

  ‘Best to waste no time, though. That woman can cause unpleasant surprises.’

  ‘That’s a fact. And she’s expecting help. Two-score men from Rogont, coming by tomorrow afternoon. They’re planning to shadow you, lay an ambush as you turn south.’

  ‘No better feeling than flipping a surprise around, eh?’ Faithful grinned. ‘And you’ll be riding at the front.’

  ‘For a tenth part o’ the take I’ll ride at the front side-saddle.’

  ‘Just in front will do. Right next to me and you can point out the ground. We hon
est men need to stick together.’

  ‘That we do,’ said Shivers. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Alright.’ Faithful clapped his big hands and rubbed them together. ‘A piss, then I’m getting my armour on.’

  King of Poisons

  ‘Ross?’came Day’s high voice. ‘You awake?’ Morveer exhaled a racking sigh. ‘Merciful slumber has indeed B released me from her soft bosom . . . and back into the frigid embrace of an uncaring world.’

  ‘What?’

  He waved it bitterly away. ‘Never mind. My words fall like seeds . . . on stony ground.’

  ‘You said to wake you at dawn.’

  ‘Dawn? Oh, harsh mistress!’ He threw back his one thin blanket and struggled up from the prickling straw, truly a humble repose for a man of his matchless talents, stretched his aching back and clambered stiffly down the ladder to the floor of the barn. He was forced to concede that he had long been too advanced in years, not to mention too refined in tastes, for haylofts.

  Day had assembled the apparatus during the hours of darkness and now, as the first anaemic flicker of dawn niggled at the narrow windows, the burners were alight. Reagents happily simmered, steam carelessly condensed, distillations merrily dripped into the collecting flasks. Morveer processed around the makeshift table, rapping his knuckles against the wood as he passed, making the glassware clink and tinkle. Everything appeared to be entirely in order. Day had learned her business from a master, after all, perhaps the greatest poisoner in all the wide Circle of the World, who would say nay? But even the sight of the good work well done could not coax Morveer from his maudlin mood.

  He puffed out his cheeks and gave vent to a weary sigh. ‘No one understands me. I am doomed to be misunderstood.’

  ‘You’re a complex person,’ said Day.

  ‘Exactly! Exactly so! You see it!’ Perhaps she alone appreciated that beneath his stern and masterful exterior there were reservoirs of feeling deep as mountain lakes.

  ‘I’ve made tea.’ She held a battered metal mug out to him, steam curling from within. His stomach grumbled unpleasantly.