Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  The woman snorted. “Because you haven’t the guts for it. That and you like money too much.”

  “All true, regrettably.” They might’ve talked like old friends, but Sajaam’s hand hadn’t left the knife. “What do you want?”

  “Your help killing some men.”

  “The Butcher of Caprile needs my help killing, eh? As long as none of them are too close to Duke Orso-”

  “He’ll be the last.”

  “Oh, you mad bitch.” Sajaam slowly shook his head. “How you love to test me, Monzcarro. How you always loved to test us all. You’ll never do it. Never, not if you wait until the sun burns out.”

  “What if I could, though? Don’t tell me it hasn’t been your fondest wish all these years.”

  “All these years when you were spreading fire and murder across Styria in his name? Happy to take his orders and his coin, lick his arse like a puppy dog with a new bone? Is it those years you mean? I don’t recall you offering your shoulder for me to weep upon.”

  “He killed Benna.”

  “Is that so? The bills said Duke Rogont’s agents got you both.” Sajaam was pointing out some old papers stirring on the wall behind her shoulder. A woman’s face on ’em, and a man’s. Shivers realised, and with a sharp sinking in his gut, the woman’s face was hers. “Killed by the League of Eight. Everyone was so very upset.”

  “I’m in no mood for jokes, Sajaam.”

  “When were you ever? But it’s no joke. You were a hero round these parts. That’s what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short. Orso gave the big speech, said we all had to fight harder than ever to avenge you, and everyone wept. I am sorry about Benna. I always liked the boy. But I made peace with my devils. You should do the same.”

  “The dead can forgive. The dead can be forgiven. The rest of us have better things to do. I want your help, and I’m owed. Pay up, bastard.”

  They frowned at each other for a long moment. Then the old man heaved up a long sigh. “I always said you’d be the death of me. What’s your price?”

  “A point in the right direction. An introduction here or there. That’s what you do, now, isn’t it?”

  “I know some people.”

  “Then I need to borrow a man with a cold head and a good arm. A man who won’t get flustered at blood spilled.”

  Sajaam seemed to think about that. Then he turned his head and called over his shoulder. “You know a man like that, Friendly?”

  Footsteps scraped out of the darkness from the way Shivers had come. Seemed there’d been someone following them, and doing it well. The woman slid into a fighting crouch, eyes narrowed, left hand on her sword hilt. Shivers would’ve reached for a weapon too, if he’d had one, but he’d sold all his own in Uffrith and given the knife over to Sajaam. So he settled for a nervous twitching of his fingers, which wasn’t a scrap of use to anyone.

  The new arrival trudged up, stooped over, eyes down. He was a half-head or more shorter than Shivers but had a fearsome solid look to him, thick neck wider than his skull, heavy hands dangling from the sleeves of a heavy coat.

  “Friendly,” Sajaam was all smiles at the surprise he’d pulled, “this is an old friend of mine, name of Murcatto. You’re going to work for her a while, if you have no objection.” The man shrugged his weighty shoulders. “What did you say your name was, again?”

  “Shivers.”

  Friendly’s eyes flickered up, then back to the floor, and stayed there. Sad eyes and strange. Silence for a moment.

  “Is he a good man?” asked Murcatto.

  “This is the best man I know of. Or the worst, if you stand on his wrong side. I met him in Safety.”

  “What had he done to be locked in there with the likes of you?”

  “Everything and more.”

  More silence. “For a man called Friendly, he’s not got much to say.”

  “My very thoughts when I first met him,” said Sajaam. “I suspect the name was meant with some irony.”

  “Irony? In a prison?”

  “All kinds of people end up in prison. Some of us even have a sense of humour.”

  “If you say so. I’ll take some husk as well.”

  “You? More your brother’s style, no? What do you want husk for?”

  “When did you start asking your customers why they want your goods, old man?”

  “Fair point.” He pulled something from his pocket, tossed it to her and she snatched it out of the air.

  “I’ll let you know when I need something else.”

  “I shall tick off the hours! I always swore you’d be the death of me, Monzcarro.” Sajaam turned away. “The death of me.”

  Shivers stepped in front of him. “My knife.” He didn’t understand the fine points of what he’d heard, but he could tell when he was caught up in something dark and bloody. Something where he was likely to need a good blade.

  “My pleasure.” Sajaam slapped it back into Shivers’ palm, and it weighed heavy there. “Though I advise you to find a larger blade if you plan on sticking with her.” He glanced round at them, slowly shaking his head. “You three heroes, going to put an end to Duke Orso? When they kill you, do me a favour? Die quickly and keep my name out of it.” And with that cheery thought he ambled off into the night.

  When Shivers turned back, the woman called Murcatto was looking him right in the eye. “What about you? Fishing’s a bastard of a living. Almost as hard as farming, and even worse-smelling.” She held out her gloved hand and silver glinted in the palm. “I can still use another man. You want to take your scale? Or you want fifty more?”

  Shivers frowned down at that shining metal. He’d killed men for a lot less, when he thought about it. Battles, feuds, fights, in all settings and all weathers. But he’d had reasons, then. Not good ones, always, but something to make it some kind of right. Never just murder, blood bought and paid for.

  “This man we’re going to kill… what did he do?”

  “He got me to pay fifty scales for his corpse. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Not for me.”

  She frowned at him for a long moment. That straight-ahead look that was already giving him the worries, somehow. “So you’re one of them, eh?”

  “One o’ what?”

  “One of those men that like reasons. That need excuses. You’re a dangerous crowd, you lot. Hard to predict.” She shrugged. “But if it helps. He killed my brother.”

  Shivers blinked. Hearing those words, from her mouth, brought that day right back somehow, sharper than he’d remembered it for years. Seeing his father’s grey face, and knowing. Hearing his brother was killed, when he’d been promised mercy. Swearing vengeance over the ashes in the long hall, tears in his eyes. An oath he’d chosen to break, so he could walk away from blood and be a better man.

  And here she was, out of nowhere, offering him another chance at vengeance. He killed my brother. Felt as if he would’ve said no to anything else. But maybe he just needed the money.

  “Shit on it, then,” he said. “Give me the fifty.”

  Six and One

  The dice came up six and one. The highest dice can roll and the lowest. A fitting judgement on Friendly’s life. The pit of horror to the heights of triumph. And back.

  Six and one made seven. Seven years old, when Friendly committed his first crime. But six years later that he was first caught, and given his first sentence. When they first wrote his name in the big book, and he earned his first days in Safety. Stealing, he knew, but he could hardly remember what he stole. He certainly could not remember why. His parents had worked hard to give him all he needed. And yet he stole. Some men are born to do wrong, perhaps. The judges had told him so.

  He scooped the dice up, rattled them in his fist, then let them free across the stones again, watched them as they tumbled. Always that same joy, that anticipation. Dice just thrown can be anything until they stop rolling. He watched them turning, chances, odds, his life and the life of the Northman. A
ll the lives in the great city of Talins turning with them.

  Six and one.

  Friendly smiled, a little. The odds of throwing six and one a second time were one in eighteen. Long odds, some would say, looking forward into the future. But looking into the past, as he was now, there was no chance of any other numbers. What was coming? Always full of possibilities. What was past? Done, and hardened, like dough turned to bread. There was no going back.

  “What do the dice say?”

  Friendly glanced up as he gathered the dice with the edge of his hand. He was a big man, this Shivers, but with none of that stringiness tall men sometimes get. Strong. But not like a farmer, or a labourer. Not slow. He understood the work. There were clues, and Friendly knew them all. In Safety, you have to reckon the threat a man poses in a moment. Reckon it, and deal with it, and never blink.

  A soldier, maybe, and fought in battles, by his scars, and the set of his face, and the look in his eye as they waited to do violence. Not comfortable, but ready. Not likely to run or get carried away. They are rare, men that keep a sharp head when the trouble starts. There was a scar on his thick left wrist that, if you looked at it a certain way, was like the number seven. Seven was a good number today.

  “Dice say nothing. They are dice.”

  “Why roll ’em, then?”

  “They are dice. What else would I do with them?”

  Friendly closed his eyes, closed his fist around the dice and pressed them to his cheek, feeling their warm, rounded edges against his palm. What numbers did they hold for him now, waiting to be released? Six and one again? A flicker of excitement. The odds of throwing six and one for a third time were three hundred and twenty-four to one. Three hundred and twenty-four was the number of cells in Safety. A good omen.

  “They’re here,” whispered the Northman.

  There were four of them. Three men and a whore. Friendly could hear the vague tinkling of her night-bell on the chill air, one of the men laughing. They were drunk, shapeless outlines lurching down the darkened alley. The dice would have to wait.

  He sighed, wrapped them carefully in their soft cloth, once, twice, three times, and he tucked them up tight, safe into the darkness of his inside pocket. He wished that he was tucked up tight, safe in the darkness, but things were what they were. There was no going back. He stood and brushed the street scum from his knees.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Shivers.

  Friendly shrugged. “Six and one.”

  He pulled his hood up and started walking, hunched over, hands thrust into his pockets. Light from a high window cut across the group as they came closer. Four grotesque carnival masks, leering with drunken laughter. The big man in the centre had a soft face with sharp little eyes and a greedy grin. The painted woman tottered on her high shoes beside him. The man on the left smirked across at her, lean and bearded. The one on the right was wiping a tear of happiness from his grey cheek.

  “Then what?” he shrieked through his gurgling, far louder than there was a need for.

  “What d’you think? I kicked him ’til he shat himself.” More gales of laughter, the woman’s falsetto tittering a counterpoint to the big man’s bass. “I said, Duke Orso likes men who say yes, you lying-”

  “Gobba?” asked Friendly.

  His head snapped round, smile fading from his soft face. Friendly stopped. He had taken forty-one steps from the place where he rolled the dice. Six and one made seven. Seven times six was forty-two. Take away the one…

  “Who’re you?” growled Gobba.

  “Six and one.”

  “What?” The man on the right made to shove Friendly away with a drunken arm. “Get out of it, you mad fu-”

  The cleaver split his head open to the bridge of his nose. Before his mate on the left’s mouth had fallen all the way open, Friendly was across the road and stabbing him in the body. Five times the long knife punched him through the guts, then Friendly stepped back and slashed his throat on the backhand, kicked his legs away and brought him tumbling to the cobbles.

  There was a moment’s pause as Friendly breathed out, long and slow. The first man had the single great wound yawning in his skull, a black splatter of brains smeared over his crossed eyes. The other had the five stab wounds in his body, and blood pouring from his cut throat.

  “Good,” said Friendly. “Six and one.”

  The whore started screaming, spots of dark blood across one powdered cheek.

  “You’re a dead man!” roared Gobba, taking a stumbling step back, fumbling a bright knife from his belt. “I’ll kill you!” But he did not come on.

  “When?” asked Friendly, blades hanging loose from his hands. “Tomorrow?”

  “I’ll-”

  Shivers’ stick cracked down on the back of Gobba’s skull. A good blow, right on the best spot, crumpling his knees easily as paper. He flopped down, slack cheek thumping against the cobbles, knife clattering from his limp fist, out cold.

  “Not tomorrow. Not ever.” The woman’s shriek sputtered out. Friendly turned his eyes on her. “Why aren’t you running?” She fled into the darkness, teetering on her high shoes, whimpering breath echoing down the street, her night-bell jangling after.

  Shivers frowned down at the two leaking corpses in the road. The two pools of blood worked their way along the cracks between the cobblestones, touched, mingled and became one. “By the dead,” he muttered in his Northern tongue.

  Friendly shrugged. “Welcome to Styria.”

  Bloody Instructions

  Monza stared down at her gloved hand, lips curled back hard from her teeth, and flexed the three fingers that still worked-in and out, in and out, gauging the pattern of clicks and crunches that came with every closing of her fist. She felt oddly calm considering that her life, if you could call it a life, was balanced on a razor’s edge.

  Never trust a man beyond his own interests, Verturio wrote, and the murder of Grand Duke Orso and his closest was no one’s idea of an easy job. She couldn’t trust this silent convict any further than she could trust Sajaam, and that was about as far as she could piss. She had a creeping feeling the Northman was halfway honest, but she’d thought that about Orso, with results that had hardly been happy. It would’ve been no great surprise to her if they’d brought Gobba in smiling, ready to drag her back to Fontezarmo so they could drop her down the mountain a second time.

  She couldn’t trust anyone. But she couldn’t do it alone.

  Hurried footsteps scuffled up outside. The door banged open and three men came through. Shivers was on the right, Friendly on the left. Gobba hung between them, head dangling, an arm over each of their shoulders, his boot-toes scraping through the sawdust scattered across the ground. So it seemed she could trust the pair of them this far, at least.

  Friendly dragged Gobba to the anvil-a mass of scarred black iron bolted down in the centre of the floor. Shivers had a length of chain, a manacle on each end, looping it round and round the base. All the while he had this fixed frown. As if he’d got some morals, and they were stinging.

  Nice things, morals, but prone to chafe at times like this.

  The two men worked well together for a beggar and a convict. No time or movement wasted. No sign of nerves, given they were going about a murder. But then Monza had always had a knack for picking the right men for a job. Friendly snapped the manacles shut on the bodyguard’s thick wrists. Shivers reached out and turned the knob on the lamp, the flame fluttering up behind the glass, light spilling out around the grubby forge.

  “Wake him up.”

  Friendly flung a bucket of water in Gobba’s face. He coughed, dragged in a breath, shook his head, drops flicking from his hair. He tried to stand and the chain rattled, snatching him back down. He glared around, little eyes hard.

  “You stupid bastards! You’re dead men, the pair of you! Dead! Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I work for?”

  “I know.” Monza did her best to walk smoothly, the way she used to, but couldn’
t quite manage it. She limped into the light, pushing back her hood.

  Gobba’s fat face crinkled up. “No. Can’t be.” His eyes went wide. Then wider still. Shock, then fear, then horror. He lurched back, chains clinking. “No!”

  “Yes.” And she smiled, in spite of the pain. “How fucked are you? You’ve put weight on, Gobba. More than I’ve lost, even. Funny, how things go. Is that my stone you’ve got there?”

  He had the ruby on his little finger, red glimmer on black iron. Friendly reached down, twisted it off and tossed it over to her. She snatched it out of the air with her left hand. Benna’s last gift. The one they’d smiled at together as they rode up the mountain to see Duke Orso. The thick band was scratched, bent a little, but the stone still sparkled bloodily as ever, the colour of a slit throat.

  “Somewhat damaged when you tried to kill me, eh, Gobba? But weren’t we all?” It took her a while to fumble it onto her left middle finger, but in the end she twisted it past the knuckle. “Fits this hand just as well. Piece of luck, that.”

  “Look! We can make a deal!” There was sweat beading Gobba’s face now. “We can work something out!”

  “I already did. Don’t have a mountain to hand, I’m afraid.” She slid the hammer from the shelf-a short-hafted lump hammer with a block of heavy steel for a head-and felt her knuckles shift as she closed her gloved hand tight around it. “So I’m going to break you apart with this, instead. Hold him, would you?” Friendly folded Gobba’s right arm and forced it onto the anvil, clawing fingers spread out pale on the dark metal. “You should’ve made sure of me.”

  “Orso’ll find out! He’ll find out!”

  “Of course he will. When I throw him off his own terrace, if not before.”

  “You’ll never do it! He’ll kill you!”

  “He already did, remember? It didn’t stick.”

  Veins stood out on Gobba’s neck as he struggled, but Friendly had him fast, for all his bulk. “You can’t beat him!”