The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  He pulled one glove off with his teeth and fumbled through his many pockets for that particular antidote, gurgling curses around the leather, swaying this way and that as the chill wind gusted up and spread gooseflesh all the way down his bare leg. Tiny tubes of glass rattled against his fingertips, each one etched with a mark that enabled him to identify it by touch.

  Under the circumstances, though, the operation was still a testing one. He burped and felt a rush of nausea, a sudden painful shifting in his stomach. His fingers found the right mark. He let the glove fall from his mouth, pulled the phial from his coat with a trembling hand, dragged the cork out with his teeth and sucked up the contents.

  He gagged on the bitter extract, spluttered sour spit down onto the faraway cobbles. He clung tight to the rope, fighting dizziness, the black street seeming to tip round and around him. He was a child again, and helpless. He gasped, whimpered, clung on with both hands. As desperately as he had clung to his mother’s corpse when they came to take him.

  Slowly the antidote had its effect. The dark world steadied, his stomach ceased its mad churning. The lane was beneath him, the sky above, back in their customary positions. His attention was drawn sharply to the knots again, smoking more than ever now and making a slight hissing sound. He could distinctly smell the acrid odour as they burned through.

  ‘Damn it!’ He hooked both legs over the rope and set off, pitifully weak from the self-administered dose of Larync. The air hissed in his throat, tightened now by the unmistakable grip of fear. If the cord burned through before he reached the other side, what then? His guts cramped up and he had to pause for a moment, teeth gritted, wobbling up and down in empty air.

  On again, but he was lamentably fatigued. His arms trembled, his hands shuffled, bare palm and bare leg burning from friction. Well beyond halfway now, and creeping onwards. He let his head hang back, sucking in air for one more effort. He saw Friendly, an arm out towards him, big hand no more than a few strides distant. He saw Day, staring, and Morveer wondered with some annoyance if he could detect the barest hint of a smile on her shadowy face.

  Then there was a faint ripping sound from the far end of the rope.

  The bottom dropped out of Morveer’s stomach and he was falling, falling, swinging downwards, chill air whooshing in through his gaping mouth. The side of the crumbling building plunged towards him. He started to let go a mad wail, just like the one he made when they tore him from his mother’s dead hand. There was a sickening impact that drove his breath out, cut his scream off, tore the cord from his grasping hands.

  There was a crashing, a tearing of wood. He was falling, clawing at the air, mind a cauldron of mad despair, eyes bulging sightless. Falling, arms flailing, legs kicking helplessly, the world reeling around him, wind rushing at his face. Falling, falling . . . no further than a stride or two. His cheek slapped against floorboards, fragments of wood clattering down around him.

  ‘Eh?’ he muttered.

  He was shocked to find himself snatched around the neck, dragged into the air and rammed against a wall with bowel-loosening force, breath driven out in a long wheeze for the second time in a few moments.

  ‘You! What the fuck?’ Shivers. The Northman was, for some reason still obscure, entirely naked. The grubby room behind him was dimly lit by some coals banked up in a grate. Morveer’s eyes wandered down to the bed. Murcatto was in it, propped up on her elbows, rumpled shirt hanging open, breasts flattened against her ribs. She peered at him with no more than a mild surprise, as if she’d opened her front door to see a visitor she had not been expecting until later.

  Morveer’s mind clicked into place. Despite the embarrassment of the position, the residual pulsing of mortal terror and the tingling scratches on his face and hands, he began to chuckle. The rope had snapped ahead of time and, by some freak but hugely welcome chance, he had swung down in a perfect arc and straight through the rotten shutters of one of the rooms in the crumbling house. One had to appreciate the irony.

  ‘It seems there is such a thing as a happy accident after all!’ he cackled.

  Murcatto squinted over from the bed, eyes somewhat unfocused. She had a set of curious scars, he noticed, following the lines of her ribs on one side.

  ‘Why you smoking?’ she croaked.

  Morveer’s eyes slid to the husk-pipe on the boards beside the bed, a ready explanation for her lack of surprise at the unorthodox manner of his entrance. ‘You are confused, but it is easy to see why. I believe it is you that has been smoking. That stuff is absolute poison, you realise. Absolute—’

  Her arm stretched out, limp finger pointing towards his chest. ‘Smoking, idiot.’ He looked down. A few acrid wisps were curling up from his shirt.

  ‘Damn it!’ he squeaked as Shivers took a shocked step back and let him fall. He tore his jacket off, fragments of glass from the shattered acid bottle tinkling to the boards. He scrabbled with his shirt, the front of which had begun to bubble, ripped it open and flung it on the floor. It lay there, smoking noticeably and filling the grubby chamber with a foul reek. The three of them stared at it, by a turn of fate that surely no one could have anticipated, all now at least half-naked.

  ‘My apologies.’ Morveer cleared his throat. ‘Plainly, this was not part of the plan.’

  Repaid in Full

  Monza frowned at the bed, and she frowned at Shivers in it. He lay flat out, blanket rumpled across his stomach. One big long arm hung off the edge of the mattress, white hand lying limp on its back against the floorboards. One big foot stuck from under the blanket, black crescents of dirt under the nails. His face was turned towards her, peaceful as a child’s, eyes shut, mouth slightly open. His chest, and the long scar across it, rose and fell gently with his breathing.

  By the light of day, it all seemed like a serious error.

  She tossed the coins at Shivers and they jingled onto his chest and scattered across the bed. He jerked awake, blinking around.

  ‘Whassis?’ He stared blearily down at the silver stuck to his chest.

  ‘Five scales. More than a fair price for last night.’

  ‘Eh?’ He pushed sleep out of his eye with two fingers. ‘You’re paying me?’ He shoved the coins off his skin and onto the blanket. ‘I feel something like a whore.’

  ‘Aren’t you one?’

  ‘No. I’ve got some pride.’

  ‘So you’ll kill a man for money, but you won’t suck a cunt for it?’ She snorted. ‘There’s morals for you. You want my advice? Take the five and stick to killing in future. That you’ve got a talent for.’

  Shivers rolled over and dragged the blanket up around his neck. ‘Shut the door on your way out, eh? It’s dreadful cold in here.’

  The blade of the Calvez slashed viciously at the air. Cuts left and right, high and low. She spun in the far corner of the courtyard, boots shuffling across the broken paving, lunging with her left arm, bright point darting out chest-high. Her quick breath smoked around her face, shirt stuck to her back in spite of the cold.

  Her legs were a little better each day. They still burned when she moved quickly, were stiff as old twigs in the morning and ached like fury by evening time, but at least she could almost walk without grimacing. There was some spring in her knees even, for all their clicking. Her shoulder and her jaw were loosening. The coins under her scalp barely hurt when she pressed them.

  Her right hand was as ruined as ever, though. She tucked Benna’s sword under her arm and pulled the glove off. Even that was painful. The twisted thing trembled, weak and pale, the scar from Gobba’s wire lurid purple round the side. She winced as she forced the crooked fingers closed, little one still stubbornly straight. The thought that she’d be cursed with this hideous liability for the rest of her life brought on a sudden rush of fury.

  ‘Bastard,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, and dragged the glove back on. She remembered her father giving her a sword to hold for the first time, no more than eight years old. She remembered how heavy it had felt, how
strange and unwieldy in her right hand. It hardly felt much better now, in her left. But she had no choice but to learn.

  To start from nothing, if that was what it took.

  She faced a rotten shutter, blade out straight towards it, wrist turned flat to the ground. She snapped out three jabs and the point tore three slats from the frame, one above the other. She snarled as she twisted her wrist and slashed downwards, splitting it clean in two, splinters flying.

  Better. Better each day.

  ‘Magnificent.’ Morveer stood in a doorway, a few fresh scratches across one cheek. ‘There is not a shutter in Styria that will dare oppose us.’ He ambled forwards into the courtyard, hands clasped behind him. ‘I daresay you were even more impressive when your right hand still functioned.’

  ‘I’ll worry about that.’

  ‘A great deal, I should think. Recovered from your . . . exertions of last night with our Northern acquaintance?’

  ‘My bed, my business. And you? Recovered from your little drop through my window?’

  ‘No more than a scratch or two.’

  ‘Shame.’ She slapped the Calvez back into its sheath. ‘Is it done?’

  ‘It will be.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘He will be.’

  ‘When?’

  Morveer grinned up at the square of pale sky above them. ‘Patience is the first of virtues, General Murcatto. The bank has only just opened its doors, and the agent I used takes some time to work. Jobs done well are rarely done quickly.’

  ‘But it will work?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely so. It will be . . . masterful.’

  ‘I want to see it.’

  ‘Of course you do. Even in my hands the science of death is never utterly precise, but I would judge about an hour’s time to be the best moment. I strongly caution you to touch nothing within the bank, however.’ He turned away, wagging one finger at her over his shoulder. ‘And take care you are not recognised. Our work together is only just commencing.’

  The banking hall was busy. Dozens of clerks worked at heavy desks, bent over great ledgers, their pens scratching, rattling, scratching again. Guards stood bored about the walls, watching half-heartedly or not watching at all. Monza weaved between primped and pretty groups of wealthy men and women, slid between their oiled and bejewelled rows, Shivers shouldering his way through after. Merchants and shopkeepers and rich men’s wives, bodyguards and lackeys with strongboxes and money bags. As far as she could tell it was an ordinary day’s monumental profits for the Banking House of Valint and Balk.

  The place Duke Orso got his money.

  Then she caught a glimpse of a lean man with a hook nose, speaking to a group of fur-trimmed merchants and with a clerk flanking him on either side, ledgers tucked under their arms. That vulture face sprang from the crowds like a spark in a cellar, and set a fire in her. Mauthis. The man she’d come to Westport to kill. And it hardly needed saying that he looked very much alive.

  Somebody called out over in the corner of the hall but Monza’s eyes were fixed ahead, jaw suddenly clenched tight. She started to push through the queues towards Orso’s banker.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Shivers hissed in her ear, but she shook him off, shoved a man in a tall hat out of her way.

  ‘Give him some air!’ somebody shouted. People were looking around, muttering, craning up to see something, the orderly queues starting to dissolve. Monza kept going, closer now, and closer. Closer than was sensible. She had no idea what she’d do when she got to Mauthis. Bite him? Say hello? She was less than ten paces away – as near as she’d been when he peered down at her dying brother.

  Then the banker gave a sudden wince. Monza slowed, easing carefully through the crowd. She saw Mauthis double over as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He coughed, and again – hard, retching coughs. He took a lurching step and clutched at the wall. People were moving all around, the place echoing with curious whispers, the odd strange shout.

  ‘Stand back!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Turn him over!’

  Mauthis’ eyes shimmered with wet, veins bulging from his thin neck. He clawed at one of the clerks beside him, knees buckling. The man staggered, guiding his master slowly to the floor.

  ‘Sir? Sir?’

  An atmosphere of breathless fascination seemed to have gripped the whole hall, teetering on the brink of fear. Monza edged closer, peering over a velvet-clad shoulder. Mauthis’ starting eyes met hers, and they stared straight at each other. His face was stretched tight, skin turning red, fibres of muscle standing rigid. One quivering arm raised up towards her, one bony finger pointing.

  ‘Muh,’ he mouthed, ‘Muh . . . Muh . . .’

  His eyes rolled back and he started to dance, legs flopping, back arching, jerking madly around on the marble tiles like a landed fish. The men about him stared down, horrified. One of them was doubled up by a sudden coughing fit. People were shouting all over the banking hall.

  ‘Help!’

  ‘Over here!’

  ‘Somebody!’

  ‘Some air, I said!’

  A clerk lurched up from his desk, chair clattering over, hands at his throat. He staggered a few steps, face turning purple, then crashed down, a shoe flying off one kicking foot. One of the clerks beside Mauthis was on his knees, fighting for breath. A woman gave a piercing scream.

  ‘By the dead—’ came Shivers’ voice.

  Pink foam frothed from the banker’s wide-open mouth. His thrashing settled to a twitching. Then to nothing. His body sagged back, empty eyes goggling up over Monza’s shoulder, towards the grinning busts ranged round the walls.

  Two dead. Five left.

  ‘Plague!’ somebody shrieked, and as if a general had roared for the charge on a battlefield, the place was plunged instantly into jostling chaos. Monza was nearly barged over as one of the merchants who’d been talking to Mauthis turned to run. Shivers stepped up and gave him a shove, sent him sprawling on top of the banker’s corpse. A man with skewed eyeglasses clutched at her, bulging eyes horribly magnified in his pink face. She punched on an instinct with her right hand, gasped as her twisted knuckles jarred against his cheek and sent a jolt of pain to her shoulder, chopped at him with the heel of her left and knocked him over backwards.

  No plague spreads quicker than panic, Stolicus wrote, nor is more deadly.

  The veneer of civilisation was peeled suddenly away. The rich and self-satisfied were transformed into animals. Those in the way were flung aside. Those that fell were given no mercy. She saw a fat merchant punch a well-dressed lady in the face and she collapsed with a squeal, was kicked to the wall, wig twisted across her bloody face. She saw an old man huddled on the floor, trampled by the mob. A strongbox banged down, silver coins spilling, ignored, kicked across the floor by milling shoes. It was like the madness of a rout. The screaming and the jostling, the swearing and the stink of fear, the scattering of bodies and broken junk.

  Someone shoved at her and she lashed out with an elbow, felt something crunch, spots of blood on her cheek. She was caught up by the crush like a twig in a river, jabbed at, twisted, torn and tangled. She was carried snarling through the doorway and into the street, feet scarcely touching the ground, people pressing, thrashing, wriggling up against her. She was swept sideways, slipped from the steps, twisted her leg on the cobbles and lurched against the wall of the bank.

  She felt Shivers grab her by the elbow and half-lead, half-carry her off. A couple of the bank’s guards stood, trying ineffectually to stem the flow of panic with the hafts of their halberds. There was a sudden surge in the crowd and Monza was carried back. Between flailing arms she saw a man quivering on the ground, coughing red foam onto the cobbles. A wall of horrified, fascinated faces twitched and bobbed as people fought to get away from him.

  Monza felt dizzy, mouth sour. Shivers strode beside her, breathing fast through his nose, glancing back over his shoulder. They rounded the corner of the bank and made for the cr
umbling house, the maddened clamour fading behind them. She saw Morveer, standing at a high window like a wealthy patron enjoying the theatre from his private box. He grinned down, and waved with one hand.

  Shivers growled something in his own tongue as he heaved the heavy door open and Monza came after him. She snatched up the Calvez and made straight for the stairs, taking them two at a time, hardly noticing the burning in her knees.

  Morveer still stood by the window when she got there, his assistant cross-legged on the table, munching her way through half a loaf of bread. ‘There seems to be quite the ruckus down in the street!’ The poisoner turned into the room, but his smile vanished as he saw Monza’s face. ‘What? He’s alive?’

  ‘He’s dead. Dozens of them are.’

  Morveer’s eyebrows went up by the slightest fraction. ‘An establishment of that nature, the books will be in constant movement around the building. I could not take the risk that Mauthis would end up working from another. What do I never take, Day?’

  ‘Chances. Caution first, always.’ Day tore off another mouthful of bread, and mumbled around it. ‘That’s why we poisoned them all. Every ledger in the place.’

  ‘This isn’t what we agreed,’ Monza growled.

  ‘I rather think it is. Whatever it takes, you told me, no matter who gets killed along the way. Those are the only terms under which I work. Anything else allows for misunderstandings.’ Morveer looked somewhat puzzled, somewhat amused. ‘I am well aware that some individuals are uncomfortable with wholesale murder, but I certainly never anticipated that you, Monzcarro Murcatto, the Serpent of Talins, the Butcher of Caprile, would be one. You need not worry about the money. Mauthis will cost you ten thousand, as we agreed. The rest are free of—’

  ‘It’s not a question of money, fool!’

  ‘Then what is the question? I undertook a piece of work, as commissioned by you, and was successful, so how can I be at fault? You say you never had in mind any such result, and did not undertake the work yourself, so how can you be at fault? The responsibility seems to drop between us, then, like a turd straight from a beggar’s arse and into an open sewer, to be lost from sight for ever and cause nobody any further discomfort. An unfortunate misunderstanding, shall we say? An accident? As if a sudden wind blew up, and a great tree fell, and caught every little insect in that place and squashed . . . them . . . dead !’