The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  He swung one way, then heaved himself back the other and got one boot up on top. He twisted himself round, felt the spikes scrape against his thick jerkin, digging at his chest as he dragged himself over.

  And he was up.

  ‘Seventy-eight . . . seventy-nine . . . eighty . . .’ Friendly’s lips moved by themselves as he watched Shivers roll over the parapet and onto the roof of the bank.

  ‘He made it,’ whispered Day, voice squeaky with disbelief.

  ‘And in good time too.’ Morveer chuckled softly. ‘Who would have thought he would climb . . . like an ape.’

  The Northman stood, a darker shape against the dark night sky. He pulled the big flatbow off his back and started to fiddle with it. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t shoot like an ape,’ whispered Day.

  Shivers took aim. Friendly heard the soft click of the bowstring. A moment later he felt the bolt thud into his chest. He snatched hold of the shaft, frowning down. It hardly hurt at all.

  ‘A happy circumstance that it has no point.’ Morveer unhooked the wire from the flights. ‘We would do well to avoid any further mishaps, and your untimely death would seem to qualify.’

  Friendly tossed the blunt bolt away and tied the rope off to the end of the wire.

  ‘You sure that thing will take his weight?’ muttered Day.

  ‘Suljuk silk cord,’ said Morveer smugly. ‘Light as down but strong as steel. It would take all three of us simultaneously, and no one looking up will see a thing.’

  ‘You hope.’

  ‘What do I never take, my dear?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  The black cord hissed through Friendly’s hands as Shivers started reeling the wire back in. He watched it creep out across the space between the roofs, counting the strides. Fifteen and Shivers had the other end. They pulled it tight between them, then Friendly looped it through the iron ring they’d bolted to the roof timbers and began to knot it, once, twice, three times.

  ‘Are you entirely sure of that knot?’ asked Morveer. ‘There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop.’

  ‘Twenty-eight strides,’ said Friendly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The drop.’

  A brief pause. ‘That is not helpful.’

  A taut black line linked the two buildings. Friendly knew it was there, and still he could hardly see it in the darkness.

  Day gestured towards it, curls stirred by the breeze. ‘After you.’

  Morveer fumbled his way over the balustrade, breathing hard. In truth, the trip across the cord had not been a pleasant excursion by any stretch of the imagination. A chilly wind had blown up halfway and set his heart to hammering. There had been a time, during his apprenticeship to the infamous Moumah-yin-Bek, when he had executed such acrobatic exertions with a feline grace, but he suspected it was dwindling rapidly into his past along with a full head of hair. He took a moment to compose himself, wiped chill sweat from his forehead, then realised Shivers was sitting there, grinning at him.

  ‘Is there some manner of a joke?’ demanded Morveer.

  ‘Depends what makes you laugh, I reckon. How long will you be in there?’

  ‘Precisely as long as I need to be.’

  ‘Best move quicker than you did across that rope, then. You might still be climbing in when they open the place tomorrow.’ The Northman was still smiling as he slipped over the parapet and back across the cord, swift and sure for all his bulk.

  ‘If there is a God, he has cursed me through my acquaintance.’ Morveer gave only the briefest consideration to the notion of cutting the knot while the primitive was halfway across, then crept away down a narrow lead channel between low-pitched slopes of slate towards the centre of the building. The great glass roof glowed ahead of him, faint light glittering through thousands of distorting panes. Friendly squatted beside it, already unwinding a second length of cord from around his waist.

  ‘Ah, the modern age.’ Morveer knelt beside Day, pressing his hands gently to the expanse of glass. ‘What will they think of next?’

  ‘I feel blessed to live in such exciting times.’

  ‘So should we all, my dear.’ He carefully peered down into the bank’s interior. ‘So should we all.’ The hallway was barely lit, a single lamp burning at each end, bringing a precious gleam to the gilt frames of the huge paintings but leaving the doorways rich with shadow. ‘Banks,’ he whispered, a ghost of a smile on his face, ‘always trying to economise.’

  He pulled out his glazing tools and began to prise away the lead with pliers, lifting each piece of glass out carefully with blobs of putty. The brilliance of his dexterity was quite undimmed by age, and it took him mere moments to remove nine panes, to snip the lead latticework with pincers and peel it back to leave a diamond-shaped hole ample for his purposes.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ he murmured. The light from the guard’s lantern crept up the panelled walls of the hallway, brought a touch of dawn to the dark canvases. His footsteps echoed as he passed by underneath them, giving vent to a booming yawn, his long shadow stretching out over the marble tiles. Morveer applied the slightest blast of air to his blowpipe.

  ‘Gah!’ The guard clapped a hand to the top of his head and Morveer ducked away from the window. There were footsteps below, a scuffling, a gurgle, then the loud thump and clatter of a toppling body. On peering back through the aperture the guard was plainly visible, spreadeagled on his back, lit lamp on its side by one outstretched hand.

  ‘Excellent,’ breathed Day.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘However much we talk about science, it always seems like magic.’

  ‘We are, one might say, the wizards of the modern age. The rope, if you please, Master Friendly.’ The convict tossed one end of the silken cord over, the other still knotted around his waist. ‘You are sure you can take my weight?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was indeed a sense of terrible strength about the silent man that lent even Morveer a level of confidence. With the rope secured by a knot of his own devising, he lowered first one soft shoe and then the other into the diamond-shaped opening. He worked his hips through, then his shoulders, and he was inside the bank.

  ‘Lower away.’ And down he drifted, as swiftly and smoothly as if lowered by a machine. His shoes touched the tiles and he slipped the knot with a jerk of his wrist, slid silently into a shadowy doorway, loaded blowgun ready in one hand. He was expecting but the single guard within the building, but one should never become blinded by expectations.

  Caution first, always.

  His eyes rolled up and down the darkened hallway, his skin tingling with the excitement of the work under way. There was no movement. Only silence so complete it seemed almost a pressure against his prickling ears.

  He looked up, saw Day’s face at the gap and beckoned gently to her. She slid through as nimbly as a circus performer and glided down, their equipment folded around her body in a bandolier of black cloth. When her feet touched the ground she slipped free of the rope and crouched there, grinning.

  He almost grinned back, then stopped himself. It would not do to let her know the warm admiration for her talents, judgement and character that had developed during their three years together. It would not do to let her even suspect the depth of his regard. It was when he did so that people inevitably betrayed his trust. His time in the orphanage, his apprenticeship, his marriage, his working life – all were scattered with the most poignant betrayals. Truly his heart bore many wounds. He would keep matters entirely professional, and thus protect them both. Him from her, and her from herself.

  ‘Clear?’ she hissed.

  ‘As an empty squares board,’ he murmured, standing over the stricken guard, ‘and all according to plan. What do we most despise, after all?’

  ‘Mustard?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Accidents.’

  ‘Correct. There are no such things as happy ones. Get his boots.’

  With considerable effort they manoeuvred him down the hallway to hi
s desk and into his chair. His head flopped back and he began to snore, long moustache fluttering gently around his lips.

  ‘Ahhhhh, he sleeps like a babe. Props, if you please.’

  Day handed him an empty spirits bottle and Morveer placed it carefully on the tiles beside the guard’s boot. She passed him a half-full bottle, and he removed the stopper and sloshed a generous measure down the front of the guard’s studded leather jerkin. Then he placed it carefully on its side by his dangling fingers, spirits leaking out across the tiles in an acrid puddle.

  Morveer stepped back and framed the scene with his hands. ‘The tableau . . . is prepared. What employer does not suspect his nightwatchman of partaking, against his express instructions, of a measure or two after dark? Observe the slack features, the reek of strong spirits, the loud snoring. Ample grounds, upon his discovery at dawn, for his immediate dismissal. He will protest his innocence, but in the total absence of any evidence-’ he rummaged through the guard’s hair with his gloved fingers and plucked the spent needle from his scalp ‘-no further suspicions will be aroused. All perfectly as normal. Except it will not be normal, will it? Oh no. The silent halls of the Westport office . . . of the Banking House of Valint and Balk . . . will conceal a deadly secret.’ He blew out the flame of the guard’s lantern, sinking them into deeper darkness. ‘This way, Day, and do not dither.’

  They crept together down the hallway, a pair of silent shadows, and stopped beside the heavy door to Mauthis’ office. Day’s picks gleamed as she bent down to work the lock. It only took a moment for her to turn the tumblers with a meaty clatter, and the door swung silently open.

  ‘Poor locks for a bank,’ as she slid her picks away.

  ‘They put the good locks where the money is.’

  ‘And we’re not here to steal.’

  ‘Oh no, no, we are rare thieves indeed. We leave gifts behind us.’ He padded around Mauthis’ monstrous desk and swung the heavy ledger open, taking care not to move it so much as a hair from its position. ‘The solution, if you please.’

  She handed him the jar, full almost to the brim with thin paste, and he carefully twisted the cork out with a gentle thwop. He used a fine paintbrush for the application. The very tool for an artist of his incalculable talents. The pages crackled as he turned them, giving a flick of the brush to the corners of each and every one.

  ‘You see, Day? Swift, smooth and precise, but with every care. With every care, most of all. What kills most practitioners of our profession?’

  ‘Their own agents.’

  ‘Precisely so.’ With every care, therefore, he swung the ledger closed, its pages already close to dry, slid the paintbrush away and pressed the cork back into the jar.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Day. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Go?’ Morveer’s smile widened. ‘Oh no, my dear, we are far from finished. You must still earn your supper. We have a long night’s work ahead of us. A very long . . . night’s . . . work.’

  ‘Here.’

  Shivers nearly jumped clean over the parapet, he was that shocked, lurched round, heart in his mouth. Murcatto crouched behind, grinning, breath leaving a touch of smoke about her shadowy face.

  ‘By the dead but you gave me a scare!’ he hissed.

  ‘Better than what those guards would’ve given you.’ She crept to the iron ring and tugged at the knot. ‘You made it up there, then?’ More’n a touch of surprise in her voice.

  ‘You ever doubt I’d do it?’

  ‘I thought you’d break your skull, if you even got high enough to fall.’

  He tapped his head with a finger. ‘Least vulnerable part o’ me. Shake our friends off?’

  ‘Halfway to bloody Lord Sabeldi Street, I did. If I’d known they’d be that easily led I’d have hooked them in the first place.’

  Shivers grinned. ‘Well, I’m glad you hooked ’em in the end, or they’d most likely have hooked me.’

  ‘Couldn’t have that. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.’ Shivers wriggled his shoulders, uncomfortable. It was easy to forget at times that the work they were about was killing a man. ‘Cold, eh?’

  He snorted. ‘Where I come from, this is a summer day.’ He dragged the cork from the bottle and held it out to her. ‘This might help keep you warm.’

  ‘Well, that’s very thoughtful of you.’ She took a long swallow, and he watched the thin muscles in her neck shifting.

  ‘I’m a thoughtful man, for one out of a gang of hired killers.’

  ‘I’ll have you know that some hired killers are very nice people.’ She took another swig, then handed the bottle back. ‘None of this crew, of course.’

  ‘Hell, no, we’re shits to a man. Or woman.’

  ‘They’re in there? Morveer and his little echo?’

  ‘Aye, a while now, I reckon.’

  ‘And Friendly with them?’

  ‘He’s with them.’

  ‘Morveer say how long he’d be?’

  ‘Him, tell me anything? I thought I was the optimist.’

  They crouched in cold silence, close together by the parapet, looking across at the dark outline of the bank. For some reason he felt very nervy. Even more than you’d expect going about a murder. He stole a sideways glance at her, then didn’t look away quite quick enough when she looked at him.

  ‘Not much for us to do but wait and get colder, then,’ she said.

  ‘Not much, I reckon. Unless you want to cut my hair any shorter.’

  ‘I’d be scared to get the scissors out in case you tried to strip.’

  That brought a laugh from him. ‘Very good. Reckon that earns you another pull.’ He held out the bottle.

  ‘I’m quite the humorist, for a woman who hires killers.’ She came closer to take it. Close enough to give him a kind of tingle in the side that was near her. Close enough that he could feel the breath in his throat all of a sudden, coming quick. He looked away, not wanting to make a fool of himself any more than he’d been doing the last couple of weeks. Heard her tip the bottle, heard her drink. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Not a worry. Anything I can do, Chief, just let me know.’

  When he turned his head she was looking right at him, lips pressed together in a hard line, eyes fixed on his, that way she had, like she was working out how much he was worth. ‘There is one other thing.’

  Morveer pushed the last lips of lead into position with consummate delicacy and stowed his glazing tools.

  ‘Will that do?’ asked Day.

  ‘I doubt it will deflect a rainstorm, but it will serve until tomorrow. By then I suspect they will have considerably greater worries than a leaking window.’ He rolled the last smudges of putty away from the glass, then followed his assistant across the rooftop to the parapet. Friendly had already negotiated the cord, a squat shape on the other side of a chasm of empty air. Morveer peered over the edge. Beyond the spikes and the ornamental carvings, the smooth stone pillar dropped vertiginously to the cobbled lane. One of the groups of guards slogged past it, lamps bobbing.

  ‘What about the rope?’ Day hissed once they were out of earshot. ‘When the sun comes up someone will—’

  ‘No detail overlooked.’ Morveer grinned as he produced the tiny vial from an inside pocket. ‘A few drops will burn through the knot some time after we have crossed. We need only wait at the far side and reel it in.’

  As far as could be ascertained by darkness, his assistant appeared unconvinced. ‘What if it burns more quickly than—’

  ‘It will not.’

  ‘Seems like an awful chance, though.’

  ‘What do I never take, my dear?’

  ‘Chances, but—’

  ‘You go first, then, by all means.’

  ‘You can count on it.’ Day swung quickly under the rope and swarmed across, hand over hand. It took her no longer than a count of thirty to make it to the other side.

  Morveer uncorked the little bottle and allowed a few drops to fall onto the knots. Considering it, he allowed a few m
ore. He had no desire to wait until sunup for the cursed thing to come apart. He allowed the next patrol to pass below, then clambered over the parapet with, it had to be admitted, a good deal less grace than his assistant had displayed. Still, there was no need for undue haste. Caution first, always. He took the rope in his gloved hands, swung beneath it, hooked one shoe over the top, lifted the other—

  There was a harsh ripping sound, and the wind blew suddenly cold about his knee.

  Morveer peered down. His trouser-leg had caught upon a spike bent upwards well above the others, and torn almost as far as his rump. He thrashed his foot, trying to untangle it, but only succeeded in entrapping it more thoroughly.

  ‘Damn it.’ Plainly, this had not been part of the plan. Faint smoke was curling now from the balustrade around which the rope was knotted. It appeared the acid was acting more swiftly than anticipated.

  ‘Damn it.’ He swung himself back to the roof of the bank and perched beside the smoking knot, gripping the rope with one hand. He slid his scalpel from an inside pocket, reached forwards and cut the flapping cloth away from the spike with a few deft strokes. One, two, three and it was almost done, neat as a surgeon. The final stroke and—

  ‘Ah!’ He realised with annoyance, then mounting horror, that he had nicked his ankle with the blade. ‘Damn it!’ The edge was tainted with Larync tincture and, since the stuff had always given him a swell of nausea in the mornings, he had allowed his resistance to it to fade. It would not be fatal. Not of itself. But it might cause him to drop off a rope, and he had developed no immunity to a flailing plunge onto hard, hard cobblestones. The irony was bitter indeed. Most practitioners of his profession were killed, after all, by their own agents.