Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  “And carefully, now, my dear, so very, very carefully. Your life hangs by a filament. Your life, and mine too.”

  She pressed her tongue into her lower lip, ever so carefully twisted the condenser free and set it down on the tray. The rest of the apparatus followed, piece by slow piece. She had fine, soft hands, Morveer’s apprentice. Nimble yet steady, as indeed they were required to be. She pressed a cork carefully into the flask and held it up to the light, the sunshine making liquid diamonds of that tiny dribble of fluid, and she smiled. An innocent, a pretty, yet an entirely forgettable smile. “It doesn’t look much.”

  “That is the entire point. It is without colour, odour or taste. And yet the most infinitesimal drop consumed, the softest mist inhaled, the gentlest touch upon the skin, even, will kill a man in minutes. There is no antidote, no remedy, no immunity. Truly… this is the King of Poisons.”

  “The King of Poisons,” she breathed, with suitable awe.

  “Keep this knowledge close to your heart, my dear, to be used only in the extreme of need. Only against the most dangerous, suspicious and cunning of targets. Only against those intimately acquainted with the poisoner’s art.”

  “I understand. Caution first, always.”

  “Very good. That is the most valuable of lessons.” Morveer sat back in his chair, making a steeple of his fingers. “Now you know the deepest of my secrets. Your apprenticeship is over, but… I hope you will continue, as my assistant.”

  “I’d be honoured to stay in your service. I still have much to learn.”

  “So do we all, my dear.” Morveer jerked his head up at the sound of the gate bell tinkling in the distance. “So do we all.”

  Two figures were approaching the house down the long path through the orchard, and Morveer snapped open his eyeglass and trained it upon them. A man and a woman. He was very tall, and powerful-looking with it, wearing a threadbare coat, long hair swaying. A Northman, from his appearance.

  “A primitive,” he muttered, under his breath. Such men were prone to savagery and superstition, and he held them in healthy contempt.

  He trained the eyeglass on the woman, now, though she was dressed much like a man. She looked straight towards the house, unwavering. Straight towards him, it almost seemed. A beautiful face, without doubt, edged with coal-black hair. But it was a hard and unsettling variety of beauty, further sharpened by a brooding appearance of grim purpose. A face that at once issued a challenge and a threat. A face that, having been glimpsed, one would not quickly forget. She did not compare with Morveer’s mother in beauty, of course, but who could? His mother had almost transcended the human in her goodly qualities. Her pure smile, kissed by the sunlight, was etched forever into Morveer’s memory as if it were a “Visitors?” asked Day.

  “The Murcatto woman is here.” He snapped his fingers towards the table. “Clear all this away. With the very greatest care, mark you! Then bring wine and cakes.”

  “Do you want anything in them?”

  “Only plums and apricots. I mean to welcome my guests, not kill them.” Not until he had heard what they had to say, at least.

  While Day swiftly cleared the table, furnished it with a cloth and drew the chairs back in around it, Morveer took some elementary precautions. Then he arranged himself in his chair, highly polished knee-boots crossed in front of him and hands clasped across his chest, very much the country gentleman enjoying the winter air of his estate. Had he not earned it, after all?

  He rose with his most ingratiating smile as his visitors came in close proximity to the house. The Murcatto woman walked with the slightest hint of a limp. She covered it well, but over long years in the trade Morveer had sharpened his perceptions to a razor point, and missed no detail. She wore a sword on her right hip, and it appeared to be a good one, but he paid it little mind. Ugly, unsophisticated tools. Gentlemen might wear them, but only the coarse and wrathful would stoop to actually use one. She wore a glove on her right hand, suggesting she had something she was keen to hide, because her left was bare, and sported a blood-red stone big as his thumbnail. If it was, as it certainly appeared to be, a ruby, it was one of promisingly great value.

  “I am-”

  “You are Monzcarro Murcatto, once captain general of the Thousand Swords, recently in the service of Duke Orso of Talins.” Morveer thought it best to avoid that gloved hand, and so he offered out his left, palm upwards, in a gesture replete with humbleness and submission. “A Kantic gentleman of our mutual acquaintance, one Sajaam, told me to expect your visit.” She gave it a brief shake, firm and businesslike. “And your name, my friend?” Morveer leaned unctuously forwards and folded the Northman’s big right hand in both of his.

  “Caul Shivers.”

  “Indeed, indeed, I have always found your Northern names delightfully picturesque.”

  “You’ve found ’em what now?”

  “Nice.”

  “Oh.”

  Morveer held his hand a moment longer, then let it free. “ Pray have a seat.” He smiled upon Murcatto as she worked her way into her chair, the barest phantom of a grimace on her face. “I must confess I was expecting you to be considerably less beautiful.”

  She frowned at that. “I was expecting you to be less friendly.”

  “Oh, I can be decidedly unfriendly when it is called for, believe me.” Day silently appeared and slid a plate of sweet cakes onto the table, a tray with a bottle of wine and glasses. “But it is hardly called for now, is it? Wine?”

  His visitors exchanged a loaded glance. Morveer grinned as he pulled the cork and poured himself a glass. “The two of you are mercenaries, but I can only assume you do not rob, threaten and extort from everyone you meet. Likewise, I do not poison my every acquaintance.” He slurped wine noisily, as though to advertise the total safety of the operation. “Who would pay me then? You are safe.”

  “Even so, you’ll forgive us if we pass.”

  Day reached for a cake. “Can I-”

  “Gorge yourself.” Then to Murcatto. “You did not come here for my wine, then.”

  “No. I have work for you.”

  Morveer examined his cuticles. “The deaths of Grand Duke Orso and sundry others, I presume.” She sat in silence, but it suited him to speak as though she had demanded an explanation. “It scarcely requires a towering intellect to make the deduction. Orso declares you and your brother killed by agents of the League of Eight. Then I hear from your friend and mine Sajaam that you are less deceased than advertised. Since there has been no tearful reunion with Orso, no happy declaration of your miraculous survival, we can assume the Osprian assassins were in fact… a fantasy. The Duke of Talins is a man of notoriously jealous temper, and your many victories made you too popular for your master’s taste. Do I come close to the mark?”

  “Close enough.”

  “My heartfelt condolences, then. Your brother, it would appear, could not be with us, and I understood you were inseparable.” Her cold blue eyes had turned positively icy now. The Northman loomed grim and silent beside her. Morveer carefully cleared his throat. Blades might be unsophisticated tools, but a sword through the guts killed clever men every bit as thoroughly as stupid ones. “You understand that I am the very best at my trade.”

  “A fact,” said Day, detaching herself from her sweetmeat for a moment. “An unchallengeable fact.”

  “The many persons of quality upon whom I have utilised my skills would so testify, were they able, but, of course, they are not.”

  Day sadly shook her head. “Not a one.”

  “Your point?” asked Murcatto.

  “The best costs money. More money than you, having lost your employer, can, perhaps, afford.”

  “You’ve heard of Somenu Hermon?”

  “The name is familiar.”

  “Not to me,” said Day.

  Morveer took it upon himself to explain. “Hermon was a destitute Kantic immigrant who rose to become, supposedly, the richest merchant in Musselia. The luxury of his lifest
yle was notorious, his largesse legendary.”

  “And?”

  “Alas, he was in the city when the Thousand Swords, in the pay of Grand Duke Orso, captured Musselia by stealth. Loss of life was kept to a minimum, but the city was plundered, and Hermon never heard from again. Nor was his money. The assumption was that this merchant, as merchants often do, greatly exaggerated his wealth, and beyond his gaudy and glorious accoutrements possessed… precisely… nothing.” Morveer took a slow sip of wine, peering at Murcatto over the rim of his glass. “But others would know far better than I. The commanders of that particular campaign were… what were the names now? A brother and sister… I believe?”

  She stared straight back at him, eyes undeviating. “Hermon was far wealthier than he pretended to be.”

  “Wealthier?” Morveer wriggled in his chair. “ Wealthier? Oh my! The advantage to Murcatto! See how I squirm at the mention of so infinite a sum of bountiful gold! Enough to pay my meagre fees two dozen times and more, I do not doubt! Why… my overpowering greed has left me quite…” He lifted his open hand and slapped it down against the table with a bang. “ Paralysed. ”

  The Northman toppled slowly sideways, slid from his chair and thumped onto the patchy turf beneath the fruit trees. He rolled gently over onto his back, knees up in the air in precisely the form he had taken while sitting, body rigid as a block of wood, eyes staring helplessly upwards.

  “Ah,” observed Morveer as he peered over the table. “The advantage to Morveer, it would seem.”

  Murcatto’s eyes flicked sideways, then back. A flurry of twitches ran up one side of her face. Her gloved hand trembled on the tabletop by the slightest margin, and then lay still.

  “It worked,” murmured Day.

  “How could you doubt me?” Morveer, liking nothing better than a captive audience, could not resist explaining how it had been managed. “Yellowseed oil was first applied to my hands.” He held them up, fingers outspread. “In order to prevent the agent affecting me, you understand. I would not want to find myself suddenly paralysed, after all. That would be a decidedly unpleasant experience!” He chuckled to himself, and Day joined him at a higher pitch while she bent down to check the Northman’s pulse, second cake wedged between her teeth. “The active ingredient was a distillation of spider venom. Extremely effective, even on touch. Since I held his hand for longer, your friend has taken a much heavier dose. He’ll be lucky to move today… if I choose to let him move again, of course. You should have retained the power of speech, however.”

  “Bastard,” Murcatto grunted through frozen lips.

  “I see that you have.” He rose, slipped around the table and perched himself beside her. “I really must apologise, but you understand that I am, as you have been, a person at the precarious summit of my profession. We of extraordinary skills and achievements are obliged to take extraordinary precautions. Now, unimpeded by your ability to move, we can speak with absolute candour on the subject of

  … Grand Duke Orso.” He swilled around a mouthful of wine, watched a little bird flit between the branches. Murcatto said nothing, but it hardly mattered. Morveer was happy to speak for them both.

  “You have been done a terrible wrong, I see that. Betrayed by a man who owed you so much. Your beloved brother killed and you rendered

  … less than you were. My own life has been littered with painful reverses, believe me, so I entirely empathise. But the world is brimming with the awful and we humble individuals can only alter it by

  … small degrees.” He frowned over at Day, munching noisily.

  “What?” she grunted, mouth full.

  “Quietly if you must, I am trying to expound.” She shrugged, licking her fingers with entirely unnecessary sucking sounds. Morveer gave a disapproving sigh. “The carelessness of youth. She will learn. Time marches in only one direction for us all, eh, Murcatto?”

  “Spare me the fucking philosophy,” she forced through tight lips.

  “Let us confine ourselves to the practical, then. With your notable assistance, Orso has made himself the most powerful man in Styria. I would never pretend to have your grasp of all things military, but it scarcely takes Stolicus himself to perceive that, following your glorious victory at the High Bank last year, the League of Eight are on the verge of collapse. Only a miracle will save Visserine when summer comes. The Osprians will treat for peace or be crushed, depending on Orso’s mood, which, as you know far better than most, tends towards crushings. By the close of the year, barring accidents, Styria will have a king at last. An end to the Years of Blood.” He drained his glass and waved it expansively. “Peace and prosperity for all and sundry! A better world, surely? Unless one is a mercenary, I suppose.”

  “Or a poisoner.”

  “On the contrary, we find more than ample employment in peacetime too. In any case, my point is that killing Grand Duke Orso-quite apart from the apparent impossibility of the task-seems to serve nobody’s interests. Not even yours. It will not bring your brother back, or your hand, or your legs.” Her face did not flicker, but that might merely have been due to paralysis. “The attempt will more than likely end in your death, and possibly even in mine. My point is that you have to stop this madness, my dear Monzcarro. You have to stop it at once, and give it no further thought.”

  Her eyes were pitiless as two pots of poison. “Only death will stop me. Mine, or Orso’s.”

  “No matter the cost? No matter the pain? No matter who’s killed along the path?”

  “No matter,” she growled.

  “I find myself entirely convinced as to your level of commitment.”

  “Everything.” The word was a snarl.

  Morveer positively beamed. “Then we can do business. On that basis, and no other. What do I never deal in, Day?”

  “Half-measures,” his assistant murmured, eyeing the one cake left on the plate.

  “Correct. How many do we kill?”

  “Six,” said Murcatto, “including Orso.”

  “Then my rate shall be ten thousand scales per secondary, payable upon proof of their demise, and fifty thousand for the Duke of Talins himself.”

  Her face twitched slightly. “Poor manners, to negotiate while your client is helpless.”

  “Manners would be ludicrous in a conversation about murder. In any case, I never haggle.”

  “Then we have a deal.”

  “I am so glad. Antidote, please.”

  Day pulled the cork from a glass jar, dipped the very point of a thin knife into the syrupy reduction in its bottom and handed it to him, polished handle first. He paused, looking into Murcatto’s cold blue eyes.

  Caution first, always. This woman they called the Serpent of Talins was dangerous in the extreme. If Morveer had not known it from her reputation, from their conversation, from the employment she had come to engage him for, he could have seen it at a single glance. He most seriously considered the possibility of giving her a fatal jab instead, throwing her Northern friend in the river and forgetting the whole business.

  But to kill Grand Duke Orso, the most powerful man in Styria? To shape the course of history with one deft twist of his craft? For his deed, if not his name, to echo through the ages? What finer way to crown a career of achieving the impossible? The very thought made him smile the wider.

  He gave a long sigh. “I hope I will not come to regret this.” And he jabbed the back of Murcatto’s hand with the point of the knife, a single bead of dark blood slowly forming on her skin.

  Within a few moments the antidote was already beginning to take effect. She winced as she turned her head slowly one way, then the other, worked the muscles in her face. “I’m surprised,” she said.

  “Truly? How so?”

  “I was expecting a Master Poisoner.” She rubbed at the mark on the back of her hand. “Who’d have thought I’d get such a little prick?”

  Morveer felt his grin slip. It only took him a moment to regain his composure, of course. Once he had silenced Day’s
giggle with a sharp frown. “I hope your temporary helplessness was not too great an inconvenience. I am forgiven, am I not? If the two of us are to cooperate, I would hate to have to labour beneath a shadow.”

  “Of course.” She worked the movement back into her shoulders, the slightest smile at one corner of her mouth. “I need what you have, and you want what I have. Business is business.”

  “Excellent. Magnificent. Un… paralleled.” And Morveer gave his most winning smile.

  But he did not believe it for a moment. This was a most deadly job, and with a most deadly employer. Monzcarro Murcatto, the notorious Butcher of Caprile, was not a person of the forgiving variety. He was not forgiven. He was not even in the neighbourhood. From now on it would have to be caution first, second and third.

  Science and Magic

  Shivers pulled his horse up at the top of the rise. The country sloped away, a mess of dark fields with here or there a huddled farm or village, a stand of bare trees. No more’n a dozen miles distant, the line of the black sea, the curve of a wide bay, and along its edge a pale crust of city. Tiny towers clustered on three hills above the chilly brine, under an iron-grey sky.

  “Westport,” said Friendly, then clicked his tongue and moved his horse on.

  The closer they came to the damn place the more worried Shivers got. And the more sore, cold and bored besides. He frowned at Murcatto, riding on her own ahead, hood up, a black figure in a black landscape. The cart’s wheels clattered round on the road. The horses clopped and snorted. Some crows caw-cawed from the bare fields. But no one was talking.

  They’d been a grim crowd all the way here. But then they’d a grim purpose in mind. Nothing else but murder. Shivers wondered what his father would’ve made of that. Rattleneck, who’d stuck to the old ways tight as a barnacle to a boat and always looked for the right thing to do. Killing a man you never met for money didn’t seem to fit that hole however you twisted it around.