Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of The First Law

by Joe Abercrombie

  How long had he worked to secure that cursed package? Circulating rumours of his business failings when in fact he had never been so successful. Placing himself in Carcolf’s way again and again until finally they appeared to happen upon each other by chance. Wriggling himself into a position of trust while the idiot courier thought him a brainless stooge, clambering by minuscule degrees to a perch from which he could get his eager hands around the package, and then … unhappy fate! Carcolf had slipped free, the cursed bitch, leaving Pombrine with nothing but ruined hopes. But now … happy fate! The thuggery of that loathsome woman Javre had by some fumbling miracle succeeded where his genius had been so unfairly thwarted.

  What did it matter how he had come by it, though? His smile grew wider as he eased the cork free. He had the package. He turned to gaze upon his prize again.

  Pop! An arc of fizzy wine missed his glass and spurted across his Kadiri carpet. He stared open-mouthed. The package was hanging in the air from a hook. Attached to the hook was a gossamer thread. The thread disappeared through a hole in the glass roof high above where he now saw a black shape spreadeagled.

  Pombrine made a despairing lunge, bottle and glass tumbling to the floor and spraying wine, but the package slipped through his clutching fingers and was whisked smoothly upwards out of his reach.

  ‘Guards!’ he roared, shaking his fist. ‘Thief!’

  A moment later he realised, and his rage turned in a flash to withering horror.

  Ishri would soon be on her way.

  With a practised jerk of her wrist, Shev twitched the parcel up and into her waiting glove.

  ‘What an angler,’ she whispered as she thrust it into her pocket and was away across the steeply pitched roof, knee pads sticky with tar doing most of the work. Astride the ridge and she scuttled to the chimney, flicked the rope into the street below, was over the edge in a twinkling and swarming down. Don’t think about the ground, never think about the ground. It’s a nice place to be but you wouldn’t want to get there too quickly …

  ‘What a climber,’ she whispered as she passed a large window, a garishly decorated and gloomily lit salon coming into view, and—

  She gripped tight to the rope and stopped dead, gently swinging.

  She really did have a pressing engagement with not being caught by Pombrine’s guards, but inside the room was one of those sights one couldn’t simply slide past. Four, possibly five or even six naked bodies had formed, with most impressive athleticism, a kind of human sculpture – a grunting tangle of gently shifting limbs. While she was turning her head sideways on to make sense of it, the lynchpin of the arrangement, who Shev took at first glance for a red-haired strongman, looked straight at her.

  ‘Shevedieh?’

  Decidedly not a man, but very definitely strong. Even with hair clipped close there was no mistaking her.

  ‘Javre? What the hell are you doing here?’

  She raised a brow at the naked bodies entwined about her. ‘Is that not obvious?’

  Shev was brought to her senses by the rattle of guards in the street below. ‘You never saw me!’ And she slid down the rope, hemp hissing through her gloves, hit the ground hard and sprinted off just as a group of men with weapons drawn came barrelling around the corner.

  ‘Stop, thief!’

  ‘Get him!’

  And, particularly shrill, Pombrine desperately wailing, ‘My package!’

  Shev jerked the cord at the small of her back and felt the pouch split, the caltrops scattering in her wake, heard the shrieks as a couple of the guards went tumbling. Sore feet they’d have in the morning. But there were still more following.

  ‘Cut him off!’

  ‘Shoot him!’

  She took a sharp left, heard the flatbow string an instant later, the twitter as the bolt glanced from the wall beside her and away into the night. She peeled off her gloves as she ran, one smoking from the friction, and flung them over her shoulder. A quick right, the route well planned in advance, of course, and she sprang up onto the tables outside Verscetti’s, bounding from one to the next with great strides, sending cutlery and glassware flying, the patrons floundering up, tumbling in their shock, a ragged violinist flinging himself for cover.

  ‘What a runner,’ she whispered, and leaped from the last table, over the clutching hands of a guard diving from her left and a reveller from her right, catching the little cord behind the sign that said Verscetti’s as she fell and giving it a good tug.

  There was a flash like lightning as she rolled, an almighty bang as she came up, the murky night at once illuminated, the frontages of the buildings ahead picked out white. There were screams and squeals and a volley of detonations. Behind her, she knew, blossoms of purple fire would be shooting across the street, showers of golden sparks, a display suitable for a baron’s wedding.

  ‘That Qohdam certainly can make fireworks,’ she whispered, resisting the temptation to stop and watch the show and instead slipping down a shadowy snicket, shooing away a mangy cat, scurrying on low for three-dozen strides and ducking into the narrow garden, struggling to keep her quick breath quiet. She ripped open the packet she’d secured among the roots of the dead willow, unfurling the white robe and wriggling into it, pulling up the cowl and waiting in the shadows, the big votive candle in one hand, ears sifting at the night.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered. As the last echoes of her fiery diversion faded she could hear, faintly but coming closer, the calls of Pombrine’s searching guards, doors rattling as they tried them one by one.

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘I think this way!’

  ‘Bloody firework burned my hand! I’m really burned, you know!’

  ‘My package!’

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered. To be caught by these idiots would be among the most embarrassing moments of her career. That time she’d been stuck in a marriage gown halfway up the side of the Mercers’ guildhall in Adua with flowers in her hair but no underwear and a steadily growing crowd of onlookers below would take some beating, but still. ‘Come on, come on, come—’

  Now, from the other direction, she heard the chanting and grinned. The Sisters were always on time. She heard their feet now, the regular tramping blotting out the shouting of Pombrine’s guards and the wailing of a woman temporarily deafened by the fireworks. Louder the feet, louder the heavenly song, and the procession passed the garden, the women all in white, all hooded, lit candles held stiffly before them, ghostly in the gloom as they marched by in unison.

  ‘What a priestess,’ Shev whispered to herself, and threaded from the garden, jostling her way into the midst of the procession. She tipped her candle to the left so its wick touched that of her neighbour. The woman frowned across and Shev winked back.

  ‘Give a girl a light, would you?’

  With a fizzle it caught and she fell into step, adding her own joyous note to the chant as they processed down Caldiche Street and over the Fintine Bridge, the masked revellers parting respectfully to let them through. Pombrine’s place, and the increasingly frantic searching of his guards, and the furious growling of a pair of savagely arguing Northmen dwindled sedately into the mists behind.

  It was dark by the time she slipped silently through her own open window, past the stirring drapes, and crept around her comfortable chair. Carcolf was asleep in it, one strand of yellow hair fluttering around her mouth as she breathed. She looked young with eyes closed and face relaxed, shorn of that habitual sneer she had for everything. Young, and very beautiful. Bless this fashion for tight trousers! The candle cast a faint glow in the downy hairs on her cheek, and Shev felt a need to reach up and lay her palm upon that face, and stroke her lips with her thumb—

  But, lover of risks though she was, that would’ve been too great a gamble. So instead she shouted, ‘Boo!’

  Carcolf leaped up like a frog from boiling water, crashed into a table and nearly fell, lurched around, eyes wide. ‘Bloody hell,’ she muttered, taking a shuddering breath. ‘D
o you have to do that?’

  ‘Have to? No.’

  Carcolf pressed one hand to her chest. ‘I think you might have opened the stitches.’

  ‘You unbelievable baby.’ Shev pulled the robe over her head and tossed it away. ‘It barely broke the skin.’

  ‘The loss of your good opinion wounds me more deeply than any blade.’

  Shev unhooked the belts that held her thief’s tools, unbuckled her climbing pads and started to peel off her black clothes, acting as if it was nothing to her whether Carcolf watched or not. But she noted with some satisfaction that it was not until she was slipping on a clean gown that Carcolf finally spoke, and in a voice slightly hoarse besides.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘It has always been a dream of mine to see a Sister of the White disrobe before my eyes, but I was rather wondering whether you found the—’

  Shev tossed over the package and Carcolf snatched it smartly from the air.

  ‘I knew I could rely on you.’ Carcolf felt a little dizzy with relief, not to mention more than a little tingly with desire. She’d always had a weakness for dangerous women.

  Bloody hell, she really was turning into her father …

  ‘You were right,’ said Shev, dropping into the chair she had so recently frightened Carcolf out of. ‘Pombrine had it.’

  ‘I bloody knew it! That slime! So hard to find a good expendable decoy these days.’

  ‘It’s as if you can’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Still. No harm done, eh?’ And Carcolf lifted up her shirt and ever so carefully slid the package into the uppermost of her two cash belts.

  It was Shev’s turn to watch, pretending not to as she poured herself a glass of wine. ‘What’s in the parcel?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s safer if I don’t tell you.’

  ‘You’ve no idea, have you?’

  ‘I’m under orders not to look,’ Carcolf was forced to admit.

  ‘Don’t you ever wonder, though? I mean, the more I’m ordered not to look, the more I want to.’ Shev sat forward, dark eyes glimmering in a profoundly bewitching way, and for an instant Carcolf’s head was filled with an image of the pair of them rolling across the carpet together, laughing as they ripped the package apart between them.

  She dismissed it with difficulty. ‘A thief can wonder. A courier cannot.’

  ‘Could you be any more pompous?’

  ‘It would require an effort.’

  Shev slurped at her wine. ‘Well, it’s your package. I suppose.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘I think I preferred you when you were a criminal.’

  ‘Lies. You relish the opportunity to corrupt me.’

  ‘True enough.’ Shev wriggled down the chair so her long, brown legs slid out from the hem of her gown. ‘Why don’t you stay a while?’ One searching foot found Carcolf’s ankle, and slid gently up the inside of her leg, and down, and up. ‘And be corrupted?’

  Carcolf took an almost painful breath. ‘Damn, but I’d love to.’ The strength of the feeling surprised her, and caught in her throat, and for the briefest moment she almost choked on it. For the briefest moment, she almost tossed the package out of the window, and sank down before the chair, and took Shev’s hand and shared tales she had never told from when she was a girl. For the briefest moment. Then she was Carcolf again, and she stepped smartly away and let Shev’s foot clomp down on the boards. ‘But you know how it is, in my business. Have to catch the tide.’ And she snatched up her new coat and turned as she pulled it on, giving herself time to blink back any hint of tears.

  ‘You should take a holiday.’

  ‘With every job I say so, and when every job ends, I find I get … twitchy.’ Carcolf sighed as she fastened the buttons. ‘I’m just not made for sitting still.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Let’s not pretend you’re any different.’

  ‘Let’s not pretend. I’ve been considering a move myself. Adua, perhaps, or back to the South—’

  ‘I’d much rather you stayed here,’ Carcolf found she had said, then tried to pass it off with a carefree wave. ‘Who else would get me out of messes when I visit? You’re the one person in this whole damn city I trust.’ That was a complete lie, of course, she didn’t trust Shev in the least. A good courier trusts no one, and Carcolf was the very best. But she was a great deal more comfortable with lies than with truth.

  She could see in Shev’s smile that she understood the whole situation perfectly. ‘So sweet.’ She caught Carcolf’s wrist as she turned to leave with a grip that was not to be ignored. ‘My money?’

  ‘How silly of me.’ Carcolf handed her the purse.

  Without even looking inside, Shev said, ‘And the rest.’

  Carcolf sighed once more and tossed the other purse on the bed, gold flashing in the lamplight as coins spilled across the white sheet. ‘You’d be upset if I didn’t try.’

  ‘Your care for my delicate feelings is touching. I daresay I’ll see you next time you’re here?’ she asked as Carcolf put her hand on the lock.

  ‘I shall count the moments.’

  Just then she wanted a kiss more than anything, but she was not sure her resolve was strong enough for only one, so though it was a wrench she blew a kiss instead and pulled the door to behind her. She slipped swiftly across the shadowed court and out through the heavy gate onto the street, hoping it would be a while before Shevedieh took a closer look at the coins inside the first purse. Perhaps a cosmic punishment was thus incurred, but it was worth it just for the thought of the look on her face.

  The day had been a bloody fiasco, but she supposed it could have been a great deal worse. She still had ample time to make it to the ship before they lost the tide. Carcolf pulled up her hood, wincing at the pain from that freshly stitched scratch, and from that entirely unreasonable ulcer, and from that cursed chafing seam, then strode off through the misty night, neither too fast nor too slow, entirely inconspicuous.

  Damn, but she hated Sipani.

  Carleon, Summer 570

  ‘What’s peace, Father?’

  Bethod blinked down at his older son. Eleven years, and Scale had scarcely seen peace in his lifetime. Moments of it, maybe. Glimpses through a haze of blood. As he struggled to answer, Bethod realised he hardly remembered what peace felt like himself any more.

  How long had he been living in fear?

  He squatted before Scale and thought of his own father squatting before him, twisted with sickness and old beyond his years. ‘Some men will break a thing just because they can,’ he had whispered. ‘But war must be a leader’s last resort. Fight a war, you’ve lost already.’

  In spite of all his victories, all the odds beaten and the enemies put in the mud, all the ransoms claimed and the land taken, Bethod had been losing for years. He saw that now.

  ‘Peace,’ he said, ‘is when the feuds are all settled, and the blood debts are paid, and everyone is content with how things are. More or less content, anyway. Peace is when … when no one’s fighting any more.’

  Scale thought about that, frowning. Bethod loved him, of course he did, but even he had to admit the boy wasn’t the quickest. ‘Then … who wins?’

  ‘Everyone,’ said Calder.

  Bethod raised his brows. His younger son was as quick as his older was slow. ‘That’s right. Peace means everyone wins.’

  ‘But Rattleneck’s sworn there’ll be no peace ’til you’re dead,’ said Scale.

  ‘He has. But Rattleneck is one of those men who swears oaths quickly. Given time he may think better of it. Especially since I have his son in chains downstairs.’

  ‘You have him?’ snapped out Ursi from the corner of the room, stopping brushing her hair long enough to train one eye on him. ‘I thought he was Ninefingers’ prisoner?’

  ‘Ninefingers will give him to me.’ Bethod tossed that breezily to his wife as if it was a thing done with a snap of his fingers, rather than a t
rial he was having to scrape together the courage for. What kind of a Chieftain feared to ask a favour of his own champion?

  ‘Order him to do it.’ The man’s words sounded strange in Calder’s high child’s voice. ‘Make him do it.’

  ‘I cannot order him in this. Rattleneck’s son is Ninefingers’ prisoner. He was taken in battle, and Named Men have their ways.’ Not to mention that Bethod wasn’t sure Ninefingers would obey, or what to do if he refused, and the thought of putting it to the test sank him in dread. ‘There are rules.’

  ‘Rules are for those who follow,’ said Calder.

  ‘Rules must be for all, and for those who lead most of all. Without rules, every man stands alone, owning only what he can tear from the world with one hand and grip with the other. Chaos.’

  Calder nodded. ‘I see.’ And Bethod knew he did. So little alike, his two sons. Scale sturdy, blond and bullish. Calder slight, dark and cunning. Each so like their mothers, Bethod sometimes wondered whether there was anything of him in them.

  ‘What’ll we do with peace?’ asked Scale.

  ‘Build.’ Bethod smiled as he thought about his plans, turned over so often he could see them like things already done. ‘We’ll send the men back to their land, back to their trades, back to their families in time for the harvest. Then we’ll set them to pay us taxes.’

  ‘Taxes?’

  ‘They’re a Southern thing,’ said Calder. ‘Money.’

  ‘Each man gives his Chieftain some of what he has,’ said Bethod. ‘And we’ll use that money to clear forests, and dig mines, and put walls about our towns. Then we’ll build a great road from Carleon to Uffrith.’

  ‘A road?’ muttered Scale, not seeing the glamour in packed earth.

  ‘Men can travel twice as fast on it,’ snapped Calder, starting to lose patience.

  ‘Fighting men?’ asked Scale, hopefully.

  ‘If need be,’ said Bethod. ‘But also carts and goods, livestock and messages.’ He pointed towards the window, bright in the darkness, as though they might all glimpse a better future through it. ‘That road will be the spine of the nation we’ll build. That road will knit the North together. I might have won battles, but it’s that road I’ll be remembered for. It’s that road that will change the world.’