The Great Leveller

by Joe Abercrombie

  Vitari snorted. ‘Didn’t stop you taking his coin when it all turned sour with Sefeline of Ospria, as I recall.’

  ‘Why should it have? Paid soldiers can’t be too picky over their employers. You have to blow with the wind in this business. Loyalty on a mercenary is like armour on a swimmer.’ Monza frowned sideways, wondering whether that was meant for her, but Cosca was blathering on as though it meant nothing to anyone. ‘Still, he never suited me much, old Sotorius. It was a wedding of necessity, an unhappy marriage and, once victory was won, a divorce we were both happy to agree to. Peaceful men find little work for mercenaries, and the old Chancellor of Sipani has made a rich and glorious career from peace.’

  Vitari sneered down at the wealthy citizens tramping by below. ‘Looks like he’s hoping to make an export of it.’

  Monza shook her head. ‘One thing Orso will never be buying.’

  The leaders of the League of Eight came next. Orso’s bitter enemies, which had meant Monza’s too, until her tumble down a mountain. They were attended by a regiment of hangers-on, all decked out in a hundred clashing liveries. Duke Rogont rode at the front on a great black charger, reins in one sure hand, giving the occasional nod to the crowds as someone shouted for him. He was a popular man, and was called on to nod often, almost to the point that his head bobbed like a turkey’s. Salier had somehow been wedged into the saddle of a stocky roan beside Rogont, pink jowls bulging out over the gilded collar of his uniform, on one side, then the other, in time to the movement of his labouring mount.

  ‘Who’s the fat man?’ asked Shivers.

  ‘Salier, Grand Duke of Visserine.’

  Vitari sniggered. ‘For another month or two, maybe. He squandered his city’s soldiers in the summer.’ Monza had charged them down on the High Bank, with Faithful Carpi beside her. ‘His city’s food in the autumn.’ Monza had merrily burned the fields about the walls and driven off the farmers. ‘And he’s fast running out of allies.’ Monza had left Duke Cantain’s head rotting on the walls of Borletta. ‘You can almost see him sweating from here, the old bastard.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Cosca. ‘I always liked the man. You should see the galleries in his palace. The greatest collection of art in the world, or so he says. Quite the connoisseur. Kept the best table in Styria too, in his day.’

  ‘It shows,’ said Monza.

  ‘One does wonder how they get him in his saddle.’

  ‘Block and tackle,’ snapped Vitari.

  Monza snorted. ‘Or dig a trench and ride the horse up underneath him.’ ‘What about the other one?’ asked Shivers.

  ‘Rogont, Grand Duke of Ospria.’

  ‘He looks the part.’ True enough. Tall and broad-shouldered with a handsome face and a mass of dark curls.

  ‘Looks it.’ Monza spat again. ‘But not much more.’

  ‘The nephew of my one-time employer, now thankfully deceased, the Duchess Sefeline.’ Cosca had made his neck bleed with his scratching. ‘They call him the Prince of Prudence. The Count of Caution. The Duke of Delay. A fine general, by all accounts, but doesn’t like to gamble.’

  ‘I’d be less charitable,’ said Monza.

  ‘Few people are less charitable than you.’

  ‘He doesn’t like to fight.’

  ‘No good general likes to fight.’

  ‘But every good general has to, from time to time. Rogont’s been pitted against Orso throughout the Years of Blood and never fought more than a skirmish. The man’s the best withdrawer in Styria.’

  ‘Toughest thing to manage, a retreat. Maybe he just hasn’t found his moment yet.’

  Shivers gave a faraway sigh. ‘We’re all of us waiting for our moment.’

  ‘He’s wasted all his chances now,’ said Monza. ‘Once Visserine falls, the way to Puranti is open, and beyond that nothing but Ospria itself, and Orso’s crown. No more delays. The sand’s run through on caution.’

  Rogont and Salier passed underneath them. The two men who, along with honest, honourable, dead Duke Cantain, had formed the League of Eight to defend Styria against Orso’s insatiable ambition. Or to frustrate his rightful claims so they could fight among themselves for whatever was left, depending on who you asked. Cosca had a faraway smile on his face as he watched them go. ‘You live long enough, you see everything ruined. Caprile, a shell of her former glory.’

  Vitari grinned at Monza. ‘That was one of yours, no?’

  ‘Musselia most shamefully capitulated to Orso in spite of her impenetrable walls.’

  Vitari grinned wider. ‘Wasn’t that one of yours too?’

  ‘Borletta fallen,’ Cosca lamented, ‘bold Duke Cantain dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ growled Monza, before Vitari could open her mouth.

  ‘The invincible League of Eight has withered to a company of five and will soon dwindle to a party of four, with three of those far from keen on the whole notion.’

  Monza could just hear Friendly’s whisper, ‘Eight . . . five . . . four . . . three . . .’

  Those three followed now, glittering households trailing them like the wake behind three ducks. Junior partners in the League – Lirozio, the Duke of Puranti, defiant in elaborate armour and even more elaborate moustaches. The young Countess Cotarda of Affoia – a pasty girl whose pale yellow silks weren’t helping her complexion, her uncle and first advisor, some said her first lover, hovering close at her shoulder. Patine came last, First Citizen of Nicante – his hair left wild, dressed in sackcloth with a knotted rope for a belt, to show he was no better than the lowest peasant in his care. The rumour was he wore silken undergarments and slept on a golden bed, and with no shortage of company. So much for the humility of the powerful.

  Cosca was already looking to the next chapter in the procession of greatness. ‘By the Fates. Who are these young gods?’

  They were a magnificent pair, there was no denying that. They rode identical greys with effortless confidence, arrayed in matching white and gold. Her snowy gown clung to her impossibly tall and slender form and spread out behind her, fretted with glittering thread. His gilded breastplate was polished to a mirror-glare, simple crown set with a single stone so big Monza could almost see its facets glittering a hundred strides distant.

  ‘How incredibly fucking regal,’ she sneered.

  ‘One can almost smell the majesty,’ threw in Cosca. ‘I would kneel if I thought my knees could bear it.’

  ‘His August Majesty, the High King of the Union.’ Vitari’s voice was greasy with irony. ‘And his queen, of course.’

  ‘Terez, the Jewel of Talins. She sparkles brightly, no?’

  ‘Orso’s daughter,’ Monza forced out through clenched teeth. ‘Ario and Foscar’s sister. Queen of the Union, and a royal cunt into the bargain.’

  Even though he was a foreigner on Styrian soil, even though Union ambitions were treated with the greatest suspicion here, even though his wife was Orso’s daughter, the crowd found themselves cheering louder for a foreign king than they had for their own geriatric chancellor.

  The people far prefer a leader who appears great, Bialoveld wrote, to one who is.

  ‘Hardly the most neutral of mediators, you’d think.’ Cosca puffed his cheeks out thoughtfully. ‘Bound so tight to Orso and his brood you can hardly see the light between them. Husband, and brother, and son-in-law to Talins?’

  ‘No doubt he considers himself above such earthly considerations.’ Monza’s lip curled as she watched the royal pair approach. It looked as if they’d ridden from the pages of a lurid storybook and out into the drab and slimy city by accident. Wings on their horses were all they needed to complete the fantasy. It was a wonder someone hadn’t glued some on. Terez wore a great necklace of huge stones, flashing so brilliantly in the sun they were painful to look at.

  Vitari was shaking her head. ‘How many jewels can you pile on one woman?’

  ‘Not many more without burying the bitch,’ growled Monza. The ruby that Benna had given her seemed a child’s trinket by comparison.
r />   ‘Jealousy is a terrible thing, ladies.’ Cosca nudged Friendly in the ribs. ‘She seems well enough in my eyes, eh, my friend?’ The convict said nothing. Cosca tried Shivers instead. ‘Eh?’

  The Northman glanced sideways at Monza, then away. ‘Don’t get the fuss, myself.’

  ‘Well, a pretty pair, the two of you! I never met such cold-blooded fighting men. I may be past my prime but I’m nothing like so withered inside as you set of long faces. My heart can still be moved by a young couple in love.’

  Monza doubted there could be that much fire between them, however they might grin at one another. ‘Few years ago now, well before she was a queen in anything but her own mind, Benna had a bet with me that he could bed her.’

  Cosca raised one brow. ‘Your brother always liked to sow his seed widely, as I recall. The results?’

  ‘Turned out he wasn’t her type.’ It had turned out Monza interested her a great deal more than Benna ever could.

  A household even grander than the whole League of Eight had fielded followed respectfully behind the royal couple. A score at least of ladies-in-waiting, each one dripping jewels of her own. A smattering of Lords of Midderland, Angland and Starikland, weighty furs and golden chains about their shoulders. Men-at-arms plodded behind, armour stained with dust from the hooves in front. Each man choking on the dirt of his betters. The ugly truth of power.

  ‘King of the Union, eh?’ mused Shivers, watching the royal couple move off. ‘That there is the most powerful man in the whole Circle of the World?’

  Vitari snorted. ‘That there is the man he stands behind. Everyone kneels to someone. You don’t know too much about politics, do you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Lies. The Cripple rules the Union. That boy with all the gold is the mask he wears.’

  Cosca sighed. ‘If you looked like the Cripple, I daresay you’d get a mask too . . .’

  Such cheering as there was moved off slowly after the king and queen, and left a sullen silence behind it. Quiet enough that Monza could hear the clattering of the wheels as a gilded carriage rattled down the avenue. Several score of grim guardsmen tramped in practised columns to either side, weapons less well polished than the Union’s had been, but better used. A crowd of well-dressed and entirely useless gentlemen followed.

  Monza closed her right fist tight, crooked bones shifting. The pain crept across her knuckles, through her hand, up her arm, and she felt her mouth twist into a grim smile.

  ‘There they are,’ said Cosca.

  Ario sat on the right, draped over his cushions, swaying gently with the movement of the carriage, his customary look of lazy contempt smeared across his face. Foscar sat pale and upright beside him, head starting this way and that at every smallest sound. Preening tomcat and eager puppy dog, placed neatly together.

  Gobba had been nothing. Mauthis had been just a banker. Orso would scarcely have remarked on the new faces around him when they were replaced. But Ario and Foscar were his sons. His precious flesh. His future. If she could kill them, it would be the next best thing to sticking the blade in Orso’s own belly. Her smile grew, imagining his face as they brought him the news.

  Your Excellency! Your sons . . . are dead . . .

  A sudden shriek split the silence. ‘Murderers! Scum! Orso’s bastards!’ Some limbs flailed down in the crowd below, someone trying to break through the cordon of soldiers. ‘You’re a curse on Styria!’ There was a swell of angry mutterings, a nervous ripple spread out through the onlookers. Sotorius might have called himself neutral, but the people of Sipani had no love for Orso or his brood. They knew when he broke the League of Eight, they’d be next. Some men always want more.

  A couple of the mounted gentlemen drew steel. Metal gleamed at the edge of the crowd, there was a thin scream. Foscar was almost standing in the carriage, staring off into the heaving mass of people. Ario pulled him down and slouched back in his seat, careless eyes fixed on his fingernails.

  The disturbance was finished. The carriage rattled off, gentlemen finding their formation again, soldiers in the livery of Talins tramping behind. The last of them passed under the roof of the warehouse, and off down the avenue.

  ‘And the show is over,’ sighed Cosca, pushing himself from the railing and making for the door that led to the stairs.

  ‘I wish it could’ve gone on for ever,’ sneered Vitari as she turned away.

  ‘One thousand eight hundred and twelve,’ said Friendly.

  Monza stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘People. In the parade.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘One hundred and five stones in the queen’s necklace.’

  ‘Did I fucking ask?’

  ‘No.’ Friendly followed the others back to the stairs.

  She stood there alone, frowning into the stiffening wind for a moment longer, glaring off up the avenue as the crowd began to disperse, her fist and her jaw still clenched aching tight.

  ‘Monza.’ Not alone. When she turned her head, Shivers was looking her in the eye, and from closer than she’d have liked. He spoke as if finding the words was hard work. ‘Seems like we haven’t . . . I don’t know. Since Westport . . . I just wanted to ask—’

  ‘Best if you don’t.’ She brushed past him and away.

  Cooking up Trouble

  Nicomo Cosca closed his eyes, licked his smiling lips, breathed in deep through his nose in anticipation and raised the bottle. A drink, a drink, a drink. The familiar promise of the tap of glass against his teeth, the cooling wetness on his tongue, the soothing movement of his throat as he swallowed . . . if only it hadn’t been water.

  He had crept from his sweat-soaked bed and down to the kitchen in his clammy nightshirt to hunt for wine. Or any old piss that could make a man drunk. Something to make his dusty bedroom stop shaking like a carriage gone off the road, banish the ants he felt were crawling all over his skin, sponge away his pounding headache, whatever the costs. Shit on change, and Murcatto’s vengeance too.

  He had hoped that everyone would be in bed, and squirmed with trembling frustration when he had seen Friendly at the stove, making porridge for breakfast. Now, though, he had to admit, he was strangely glad to have found the convict here. There was something almost magical about Friendly’s aura of calmness. He had the utter confidence to stay silent and simply not care what anyone thought. Enough to take Cosca a rare step towards calmness himself. Not silence, though. Indeed he had been talking, virtually uninterrupted, since the first light began to creep through the chinks in the shutters and turn to dawn.

  ‘. . . why the hell am I doing this, Friendly? Fighting, at my age? Fighting! I’ve never enjoyed that part of the business. And on the same side as that self-congratulating vermin Morveer! A poisoner? Stinking way to kill a man, that. And I am acutely aware, of course, that I am breaking the soldier’s first rule.’

  Friendly cocked one eyebrow a fraction as he slowly stirred the porridge. Cosca strongly suspected the convict knew exactly why he had come here, but if he did, he had better manners than to bring it up. Convicts, in the main, are wonderfully polite. Bad manners can be fatal in prison. ‘First?’ he asked.

  ‘Never fight for the weaker side. Much though I have always despised Duke Orso with a flaming passion, there is a huge and potentially fatal gulf between hating the man and actually doing anything about it.’ He thumped his fist gently against the tabletop and made the model of Cardotti’s rattle gently. ‘Particularly on behalf of a woman who already betrayed me once . . .’

  Like a homing pigeon drawn endlessly back to its loved and hated cage, his mind was dragged back through nine wasted years to Afieri. He pictured the horses thundering down the long slope, sun flashing behind them, as he had so many times since in a hundred different stinking rooms, and bone-cheap boarding houses, and broken-down slum taverns across the Circle of the World. A fine pretence, he had thought as the cavalry drew closer, smiling through the haze of drink to see it done so well. He remembered the cold dism
ay as the horsemen did not slow. The sick lurch of horror as they crashed into his own slovenly lines. The mixture of fury, hopelessness, disgust and dizzy drunkenness as he scrambled onto his horse to flee, his ragtag brigade ripped apart around him and his reputation with it. That mixture of fury, hopelessness, disgust and dizzy drunkenness that had followed him as tightly as his shadow ever since. He frowned at the distorted reflection of his wasted face in the bubbly glass of the water bottle.

  ‘The memories of our glories fade,’ he whispered, ‘and rot away into half-arsed anecdotes, thin and unconvincing as some other bastard’s lies. The failures, the disappointments, the regrets, they stay raw as the moments they happened. A pretty girl’s smile, never acted on. A petty wrong we let another take the blame for. A nameless shoulder that knocked us in a crowd and left us stewing for days, for months. For ever.’ He curled his lip. ‘This is the stuff the past is made of. The wretched moments that make us what we are.’

  Friendly stayed silent, and it drew Cosca out better than any coaxing.

  ‘And none more bitter than the moment Monzcarro Murcatto turned on me, eh? I should be taking my revenge on her, instead of helping her take hers. I should kill her, and Andiche, and Sesaria, and Victus, and all my other one-time bastard friends from the Thousand Swords. So what the shit am I doing here, Friendly?’

  ‘Talking.’

  Cosca snorted. ‘As ever. I always had poor judgement where women were concerned.’ He barked with sudden laughter. ‘In truth, I always had dire judgement on every issue. That is what has made my life such a series of thrills.’ He slapped the bottle down on the table. ‘Enough penny philosophy! The fact is I need the chance, I need to change and, much more importantly, I desperately need the money.’ He stood up. ‘Fuck the past. I am Nicomo Cosca, damn it! I laugh in the face of fear!’ He paused for a moment. ‘And I am going back to bed. My earnest thanks, Master Friendly, you make as fine a conversation as any man I’ve known.’