Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  You chose to run, you’d best run fast.

  But there were plenty who’d chosen to run into the city for refuge, and found to their great dismay it was a dead end. They lined the streets in places. They filled the doorways, huddled under blankets against the rain. They crammed the shadowy arcades of an empty market in their dozens, cowering as a column of soldiers tramped past, armour beaded up with moisture, gleaming by torchlight. Sounds came echoing through the murk. Crashes of breaking glass or tearing wood. Angry shouts, or fearful. Once or twice an outright scream.

  Monza guessed a few of the city’s own people were making an early start on the sacking. Settling a score or two, or snatching a few things they’d always envied while the eyes of the powerful were fixed on their own survival. This was one of those rare moments when a man could get something for free, and there’d be more and more taking advantage of it as Orso’s army gathered outside the city. The stuff of civilisation, already starting to dissolve.

  Monza felt eyes following her and the rest of the merry band as they rode slowly through the streets. Fearful eyes, suspicious eyes, and the other kind-trying to judge if they were soft enough or rich enough to be worth robbing. She kept the reins in her right hand, for all it hurt her to tug at them, so her left could rest on her thigh, close to the hilt of her sword. The only law in Visserine now was at the edge of a blade. And the enemy hadn’t even arrived yet.

  I have seen hell, Stolicus wrote, and it is a great city under siege.

  Up ahead the road passed under a marble arch, a long rivulet of water spattering from its high keystone. A mural was painted on the wall above. Grand Duke Salier sat enthroned at the top, optimistically depicted as pleasantly plump rather than massively obese. He held one hand up in blessing, a heavenly light radiating from his fatherly smile. Beneath him an assortment of Visserine’s citizens, from the lowest to the highest, humbly enjoyed the benefits of his good governance. Bread, wine, wealth. Under them, around the top of the archway, the words charity, justice, courage were printed in gold letters high as a man. Someone with an appetite for truth had managed to climb up there and daub over them in streaky red, greed, torture, cowardice.

  “The arrogance of that fat fucker Salier.” Vitari grinned sideways at her, orange hair black-brown with rain. “Still, I reckon he’s made his last boast, don’t you?”

  Monza only grunted. All she could think about as she looked into Vitari’s sharp-boned face was how far she could trust her. They might be in the middle of a war, but the greatest threats were still more than likely from within her own little company of outcasts. Vitari? Here for the money-ever a risky motivation since there’s always some bastard with deeper pockets. Cosca? How can you trust a notoriously treacherous drunk you once betrayed yourself? Friendly? Who knew how the hell that man’s mind worked?

  But they were all tight as family beside Morveer. She stole a glance over her shoulder, caught him frowning at her from the seat of his cart. The man was poison, and the moment he could profit by it he’d murder her easily as crushing a tick. He was already suspicious of the choice to come into Visserine, but the last thing she wanted was to share her reasoning. That Orso would have Eider’s letter by now. Would have offered a king’s ransom of Valint and Balk’s money for her death and got half the killers in the Circle of the World scouring Styria hoping to put her head in a bag. Along with the heads of anyone who’d helped her, of course.

  The chances were high they’d be safer in the middle of a battle than outside it.

  Shivers was the only one she could even halfway trust. He rode hunched over, big and silent beside her. His babble had been quite the irritation in Westport, but now it had dried up, strange to say, it had left a gap. He’d saved her life, in foggy Sipani. Monza’s life wasn’t all it had been, but a man saving it still raised him a damn sight higher in her estimation.

  “You’re quiet, all of a sudden.”

  She could hardly see his face in the darkness, just the hard set of it, shadows in his eye sockets, in the hollows under his cheeks. “Don’t reckon I’ve much to say.”

  “Never stopped you before.”

  “Well. I’m starting to see all kinds o’ things different.”

  “That so?”

  “You might think it comes easy to me, but it’s an effort, trying to stay hopeful. An effort that don’t ever seem to pay off.”

  “I thought being a better man was its own reward.”

  “I guess it ain’t reward enough for all the work. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a war.”

  “Believe me, I know what a war looks like. I’ve been living in one most of my life.”

  “Well, what are the odds o’ that? Me too. From what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty, a war ain’t really the place for bettering yourself. I’m thinking I might try it your way, from now on.”

  “Pick out a god and praise him! Welcome to the real world!” She wasn’t sure she didn’t feel a twinge of disappointment though, for all her grinning. Monza might have given up on being a decent person long ago, but somehow she liked the idea that she could have pointed one out. She pulled on her reins and eased her horse up, the cart clattering to a halt behind her. “We’re here.”

  The place she and Benna had bought in Visserine was an old one, built before the city had good walls, and rich men each took their own care to guard what was theirs. A stone tower-house on five storeys, hall and stables to one side, with slit windows on the ground floor and battlements on the high roof. It stood big and black against the dark sky, a very different beast from the low brick-and-timber houses that crowded in close around it. She lifted the key to the studded door, then frowned. It was open a crack, light gathering on the rough stone down its edge. She put her finger to her lips and pointed towards it.

  Shivers raised one big boot and kicked it shuddering open, wood clattering on the other side as something was barged out of the way. Monza darted in, left hand on the hilt of her sword. The kitchen was empty of furniture and full of people. Grubby and tired-looking, every one of them staring at her, shocked and fearful, in the light of one flickering candle. The nearest, a stocky man with one arm in a sling, stumbled up from an empty barrel and caught hold of a length of wood.

  “Get back!” he screamed at her. A man in a dirty farmer’s smock took a stride towards her, waving a hatchet.

  Shivers stepped around Monza’s shoulder, ducking under the lintel and straightening up, big shadow shifting across the wall behind him, his heavy sword drawn and gleaming down by his leg. “You get back.”

  The farmer did as he was told, scared eyes fixed on that length of bright metal. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Me?” snapped Monza. “This is my house, bastard.”

  “Eleven of them,” said Friendly, slipping through the doorway on the other side.

  As well as the two men there were two old women and a man even older, bent right over, gnarled hands dangling. There was a woman about Monza’s age, a baby in her arms and two little girls sat near her, staring with big eyes, like enough to be twins. A girl of maybe sixteen stood by the empty fireplace. She had a rough-forged knife out that she’d been gutting a fish with, her other arm across a boy, might’ve been ten or so, pushing him behind her shoulder.

  Just a girl, looking out for her little brother.

  “Put your sword away,” Monza said.

  “Eh?”

  “No one’s getting killed tonight.”

  Shivers raised one heavy brow at her. “Now who’s the optimist?”

  “Lucky for you I bought a big house.” The one with his arm in a sling looked like the head of the family, so she fixed her eye on him. “There’s room for all of us.”

  He let his club drop. “We’re farmers from up the valley, just looking for somewhere safe. Place was like this when we found it, we didn’t steal nothing. We’ll be no trouble-”

  “You’d better not be. This all of you?”

  “My name’s Furli. That’s m
y wife-”

  “I don’t need your names. You’ll stay down here, and you’ll stay out of our way. We’ll be upstairs, in the tower. You don’t come up there, you understand? That way no one gets hurt.”

  He nodded, fear starting to mix with relief. “I understand.”

  “Friendly, get the horses stabled, and that cart off the street.” Those farmers’ hungry faces-helpless, weak, needy-made Monza feel sick. She kicked a broken chair out of the way then started up the stairs, winding into the darkness, her legs stiff from a day in the saddle. Morveer caught up with her on the fourth landing, Cosca and Vitari just behind him, Day at the back, a trunk in her arms. Morveer had brought a lamp with him, light pooling on the underside of his unhappy face.

  “Those peasants are a decided threat to us,” he murmured. “A problem easily solved, however. It will hardly be necessary to utilise the King of Poisons. A charitable contribution of a loaf of bread, dusted with Leopard Flower of course, and they would cease to-”

  “No.”

  He blinked. “If your intention is to leave them at liberty down there, I must most strongly protest at-”

  “Protest away. Let’s see if I care a shit. You and Day can take that room.” As he turned to peer into the darkness, Monza snatched the lamp out of his hand. “Cosca, you’re on the second floor with Friendly. Vitari, seems like you get to sleep alone next door.”

  “Sleeping alone.” She kicked some fallen plaster away across the boards. “Story of my life.”

  “I will to my cart, then, and bring my equipment into the Butcher of Caprile’s hostel for displaced peasantry.” Morveer was shaking his head with disgust as he turned for the stairs.

  “Do that,” snapped Monza at his back. She loitered for a moment, until she’d heard his boots scrape down a few flights and out of earshot. Until, apart from Cosca’s voice burbling away endlessly to Friendly downstairs, it was quiet on the landing. Then she followed Day into her room and gently pushed the door closed. “We need to talk.”

  The girl had opened her trunk and was just getting a chunk of bread out of it. “What about?”

  “The same thing we talked about in Westport. Your employer.”

  “Picking at your nerves, is he?”

  “Don’t tell me he isn’t picking at yours.”

  “Every day for three years.”

  “Not an easy man to work for, I reckon.” Monza took a step into the room, holding the girl’s eye. “Sooner or later a pupil has to step out from her master’s shadow, if she’s ever going to become the master herself.”

  “That why you betrayed Cosca?”

  That gave Monza a moment’s pause. “More or less. Sometimes you have to take a risk. Grasp the nettle. But then you’ve got much better reasons even than I had.” Said offhand, as though it was obvious.

  Day’s turn to pause. “What reasons?”

  Monza pretended to be surprised. “Well… because sooner or later Morveer will betray me, and go over to Orso.” She wasn’t sure of it, of course, but it was high time she guarded herself against the possibility.

  “That so?” Day wasn’t smiling any longer.

  “He doesn’t like the way I do things.”

  “Who says I like the way you do things?”

  “You don’t see it?” Day only narrowed her eyes, food, for once, forgotten in her hand. “If he goes to Orso, he’ll need someone to blame. For Ario. A scapegoat.”

  Now she got the idea. “No,” she snapped. “He needs me.”

  “How long have you been with him? Three years, did you say? Managed before, didn’t he? How many assistants do you think he’s had? See a lot of them around, do you?”

  Day opened her mouth, blinked, then thoughtfully shut it.

  “Maybe he’ll stick, and we’ll stay a happy family and part friends. Most poisoners are good sorts, when you get to know them.” Monza leaned down close to whisper. “But when he tells you he’s going over to Orso, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She left Day frowning at her chunk of bread, slipped quietly through the door and brushed it shut with her fingertips. She peered down the stairwell, but there was no sign of Morveer, only the handrail spiralling down into the shadows. She nodded to herself. The seed was planted now, she’d have to see what sprouted from it. She pushed her tired legs up the narrow steps to the top of the tower, through the creaking door and into the high chamber under the roof, faint sound of rain drumming above.

  The room where she and Benna had spent a happy month together, in the midst of some dark years. Away from the wars. Laughing, talking, watching the world from the wide windows. Pretending at how life might have been if they’d never taken up warfare, and somehow made it rich some other way. She found she was smiling, despite herself. The little glass figure still gleamed in its niche above the door. Their household spirit. She remembered Benna grinning over his shoulder as he pushed it up there with his fingertips.

  So it can watch over you while you sleep, the way you’ve always watched over me.

  Her smile leaked away, and she walked to the window and dragged open one of the flaking shutters. Rain had thrown a grey veil across the dark city, pelting down now, spattering against the sill. A stroke of distant lightning picked out the tangle of wet roofs below for an instant, the grey outlines of other towers looming from the murk. A few moments later the thunder crackled sullen and muffled across the city.

  “Where do I sleep?” Shivers stood in the doorway, arm up on the frame and some blankets over one shoulder.

  “You?” She glanced up to the little glass statue above his head, then back to Shivers’ face. Maybe she’d had high standards, long ago, but back then she’d had Benna, and both her hands, and an army behind her. She had nothing behind her now but six well-paid misfits, a good sword and a lot of money. A general should keep her distance from her troops, maybe, and a wanted woman from everyone, but Monza wasn’t a general anymore. Benna was dead, and she needed something. You can weep over your misfortunes, or you can pick yourself up and make the best of things, shit though they may be. She elbowed the shutter closed, sank down wincing on the bed and set the lamp on the floor.

  “You’re in here, with me.”

  His brows went up. “I am?”

  “That’s right, optimist. Your lucky night.” She leaned back on her elbows, old bed-frame creaking, and stuck one foot up at him. “Now shut the door and help me get my fucking boots off.”

  Rats in a Sack

  Cosca squinted as he stepped out onto the roof of the tower. Even the sunlight seemed set on tormenting him, but he supposed he richly deserved it. Visserine was spread out around him: jumbles of brick-and-timber houses, villas of cream-coloured stone, the green tops of leafing trees where the parks and broad avenues were laid out. Everywhere windows glinted, statues of coloured glass on the rooflines of the grandest buildings catching the morning sun and shining like jewels. Other towers were widely scattered, dozens of them, some far taller than the one he stood on, each casting its own long shadow across the sprawl.

  Southwards the grey-blue sea, the smoke of industry still rising from the city’s famous glass-working district on its island just offshore, the gliding specks of seabirds circling above it. To the east the Visser was a dark snake glimpsed through the buildings, four bridges linking the two halves of the city. Grand Duke Salier’s palace squatted jealously on an island in its midst. A place where Cosca had spent many enjoyable evenings, an honoured guest of the great connoisseur himself. When he had still been loved, feared and admired. So long ago it seemed another man’s life.

  Monza stood motionless at the parapet, framed by the blue sky. The blade of her sword and her sinewy left arm made a line, perfectly straight, from shoulder to point. The steel shone bright, the ruby on her middle finger glittered bloody, her skin gleamed with sweat. Her vest stuck to her with it. She let the sword drop as he came closer, as he lifted the wine jug and took a long, cool swallow.

  “I wondered how long it would t
ake you.”

  “Only water in it, more’s the pity. Did you not witness my solemn oath never to touch wine again?”

  She snorted. “That I’ve heard before, with small results.”

  “I am in the slow and agonising process of mending my ways.”

  “I’ve heard that too, with even smaller ones.”

  Cosca sighed. “Whatever must a man do to be taken seriously?”

  “Keep his word once in his life?”

  “My fragile heart, so often broken in the past! Can it take such a buffeting?” He wedged one boot up on the battlements beside her. “I was born in Visserine, you know, no more than a few streets away. A happy childhood but a wild youth, full of ugly incidents. Including the one that obliged me to flee the city to seek my fortune as a paid soldier.”

  “Your whole life has been full of ugly incidents.”

  “True enough.” He had few pleasant memories, in fact. And most of those, Cosca realised as he peered sideways at Monza, had involved her. Most of the best moments of his life, and the very worst of all. He took a sharp breath and shielded his eyes with a hand, looking westwards, past the grey line of the city walls and out into the patchwork of fields beyond. “No sign of our friends from Talins yet?”

  “Soon. General Ganmark isn’t a man to turn up late to an engagement.” She paused for a moment, frowning, as always. “When are you going to say you told me?”

  “Told you what?”

  “About Orso.”

  “You know what I told you.”

  “Never trust your own employer.” A lesson he had learned at great cost from Duchess Sefeline of Ospria. “And now I’m the one paying your wages.”

  Cosca made an effort at a grin, though it hurt his sore lips to do it. “But we are fittingly suspicious in all our dealings with each other.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t trust you to carry my shit to the stream.”

  “A shame. Your shit smells sweet as roses, I am sure.” He leaned back against the parapet and blinked into the sun. “Do you remember how we used to spar, in the mornings? Before you got too good.”