Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  Shivers’ one eye stared levelly back into his for what seemed a very long time. Then the Northman reached out, and for the briefest moment Morveer wondered if he was about to receive his first punch in the face for many years. But instead Shivers only folded his big hand round Morveer’s with exaggerated care, tipping the pan so soup spilled out into his bowl. He picked up his spoon, dipped it in his soup, blew delicately on it and slurped up the contents. “It’s good. Mushroom, is it?”

  “Er… yes, it is.”

  “Nice.” Shivers held Morveer’s eye a moment longer before letting go his hand.

  “Thank you.” Morveer hefted the ladle. “Now, does anyone not want soup?”

  “Me!” The voice barked out of nowhere like boiling water squirted in Morveer’s ear. He jerked away, the pan tumbling, hot soup flooding out across the table and straight into Vitari’s lap. She leaped up with a screech, wet cutlery flying. Murcatto’s chair went clattering over as she lurched out of it, fumbling for her sword. Day dropped a half-eaten slice of bread as she took a shocked step back towards the door. Morveer whipped around, dripping ladle clutched pointlessly in one fist A Gurkish woman stood smiling beside him, arms folded. Her skin was smooth as a child’s, flawless as dark glass, eyes midnight black.

  “Wait!” barked Murcatto, one hand up. “Wait. She’s a friend.”

  “She’s no friend of mine!” Morveer was still desperately trying to understand how she could have appeared from nothing in such a manner. There was no door near her, the window was tightly shuttered and barred, the floor and ceiling intact.

  “You have no friends, poisoner,” she purred at him. Her long, brown coat hung open. Underneath, her body seemed to be swaddled entirely in white bandages.

  “Who are you?” demanded Day. “And where the hell did you come from?”

  “They used to call me the East Wind.” The woman displayed two rows of utterly perfect white teeth as she turned one finger gracefully round and round. “But now they call me Ishri. I come from the sun-bleached South.”

  “She meant-” began Morveer.

  “Magic,” murmured Shivers, the only member of the party who had remained in his seat. He calmly raised his spoon and slurped up another mouthful. “Pass the bread, eh?”

  “Damn your bread!” he snarled back. “And your magic too! How did you get in here?”

  “One of them.” Vitari had a table-knife in her fist, eyes narrowed to deadly slits as the remains of the soup dripped from the table and tapped steadily on the floor. “An Eater.”

  The Gurkish woman pushed one fingertip through the spilled soup and curled her tongue around it. “We must all eat something, no?”

  “I don’t care to be on the menu.”

  “You need not worry. I am very picky about my food.”

  “I tangled with your kind before, in Dagoska.” Morveer did not fully understand what was being said, a sensation which was among his least favourite, but Vitari seemed worried, and that made him worried. She was by no means a woman prone to high-blown fancies. “What deals have you been making, Murcatto?”

  “The ones that needed making. She works for Rogont.”

  Ishri let her head fall to one side, so far that it was almost horizontal. “Or perhaps he works for me.”

  “I don’t care who’s the rider and who’s the donkey,” snapped Murcatto, “as long as one or the other of you is sending men.”

  “He is sending them. Two score of his best.”

  “In time?”

  “Unless the Thousand Swords come early, and they will not. Their main body are camped six miles distant still. They were held up picking a village clean. Then they just had to burn the place. A destructive little crowd.” Her gaze fell on Morveer. Those black eyes made him unnecessarily nervous. He did not like the fact that she was wrapped up in bandages. He found himself curious as to why “They keep me cool,” she said. He blinked, wondering whether he might have spoken the question out loud. “You did not.” He felt himself turn cold to the roots of his hair. Just as he had when the nurses uncovered his secret materials at the orphanage, and guessed their purpose. He could not escape the irrational conclusion that this Gurkish devil somehow knew his private thoughts. Knew the things he had done, that he had thought no one would ever know…

  “I will be in the barn!” he screeched, voice far more shrill than he had intended. He dragged it down with difficulty. “I must prepare, if we are to have visitors tomorrow. Come, Day!”

  “I’ll just finish this.” She had quickly grown accustomed to their visitor, and was busy buttering three slices of bread at once.

  “Ah… yes… I see.” He stood twitching for a moment, but there was nothing he could achieve by staying but further embarrassment. He stalked towards the door.

  “You need your coat?” asked Day.

  “I will be more than warm enough!”

  It was only when he was through the door of the farmhouse and into the darkness, the wind sighing chill across the wheat and straight through his shirt, that he realised he would not be warm enough by any stretch of the imagination. It was too late to return without looking entirely the fool, and that he steadfastly refused to do.

  “Not me.” He cursed most bitterly as he picked his way across the darkened farmyard, wrapping his arms around himself and already beginning to shiver. He had allowed some Gurkish charlatan to unnerve him with simple parlour tricks. “Bandaged bitch.” Well, they would all see. “Oh yes.” He had got the better of the nurses at the orphanage, in the end, for all the whippings. “We’ll see who whips who now.” He peered over his shoulder to make sure he was unobserved. “Magic!” he sneered. “I’ll show you a trick or-”

  “Eeee!” His boot squelched, slid, and he went over on his back in a patch of mud. “Bah! Damn it to your bastard arse!” So much for heroic efforts, and new beginnings too.

  The Traitor

  Shivers reckoned it was an hour or two short of dawn. The rain had slacked right off but water still drip-dripped from the new leaves, pattering in the dirt. The air was weighty with chill damp. A swollen stream gurgled near the track, smothering the muddy falls of his horse’s hooves. He knew he was close, could see the faintest ruddy campfire glow at the edges of the slick tree-trunks.

  Dark times are the best for dark business, Black Dow always used to say, and he should’ve known.

  Shivers nudged his horse through the wet night, hoping some drunk sentry didn’t get nervous and serve him up an arrow through the guts. One of those might hurt less than having your eye burned out, but it was nought to look forward to. Luckily, he saw the first guard before the guard saw him, pressed up against a tree, spear resting on his shoulder. He had an oilskin draped right over his head, couldn’t have seen a thing, even if he’d been awake.

  “Oy!” The man jerked round, dropped his spear in the muck. Shivers grinned as he watched him fumbling for it in the dark, arms crossed loose on his saddle-bow. “You want to give me a challenge, or shall I just head on and leave you to it?”

  “Who goes there?” he growled, tearing his spear up along with a clump of wet grass.

  “My name’s Caul Shivers, and Faithful Carpi’s going to want to talk to me.”

  The Thousand Swords’ camp looked pretty much like camps always do. Men, canvas, metal and mud. Mud in particular. Tents scattered every which way. Horses tethered to trees, breath smoking in the darkness. Spears stacked up one against the other. Campfires, some burning, some down to fizzling embers, the air sharp with their smoke. A few men still awake, wrapped in blankets mostly, on guard or still drinking, frowning as they watched Shivers pass.

  Reminded him of all the cold, wet nights he’d spent in camps across the North and back. Huddled around fires, hoping to the dead the rain didn’t get heavier. Roasting meat, spitted on dead men’s spears. Curled up shivering in the snow under every blanket he could find. Sharpening blades for dark work on the morrow. He saw faces of men dead and gone back to the mud, that he’d shared dr
ink and laughter with. His brother. His father. Tul Duru, that they’d called the Thunderhead. Rudd Threetrees, the Rock of Uffrith. Harding Grim, quieter than the night. Brought up a swell of unexpected pride, those memories. Then a swell of unexpected shame at the work he was about now. More feeling than he’d had since he lost his eye, or he’d expected to have again.

  He sniffed, and his face stung underneath the bandages, and the soft moment slipped away and left him cold again. They stopped at a tent big as a house, lamplight leaking out into the night round the edges of its flap.

  “Now you’d best behave yourself in here, you Northern bastard.” The guard jabbed at Shivers with his own axe. “Or I’ll-”

  “Fuck yourself, idiot.” Shivers brushed him out of the way with one arm and pushed on through. Inside it smelled of stale wine, mouldy cloth, unwashed men. Ill-lit by flickering lamps, hung round the edges with slashed and tattered flags, trophies from old battlefields.

  A chair of dark wood set with ivory, stained, scarred and polished with hard use, stood on a pair of crates up at the far end. The captain general’s chair, he guessed. The one that had been Cosca’s, then Monza’s, and now was Faithful Carpi’s. Didn’t look much more than some battered rich man’s dining chair. Surely didn’t look like much to kill folk over, but then small reasons often serve for that.

  There was a long table set up in the midst, men sat down each side. Captains of the Thousand Swords. Rough-looking men, scarred, stained and battered as the chair, and with quite a collection of weapons too, between ’em. But Shivers had smiled in harder company, and he smiled now. Strange thing was, he felt more at home with these lot than he had in months. He knew the rules here, he reckoned, better’n he did with Monza. Seemed as if they’d started out doing some planning, by the maps that were spread across the wood, but some time in the middle of the night the strategy had turned to dice. Now the maps were weighted down with scattered coins, with half-full bottles, with old cups, chipped glasses. One great chart was soaked red with spilled wine.

  A big man stood at the head of the table-a faceful of scars, short hair grey and balding. He had a bushy moustache, the rest of his thick jaw covered in white stubble. Faithful Carpi himself, from what Monza had said. He was shaking the dice in one chunk of fist. “Come on, you shits, come on and give me nine!” They came up one and three, to a few sighs and some laughter. “Damn it!” He tossed some coins down the table to a tall, pock-faced bastard with a hook-nose and the ugly mix of long black hair and a big bald patch. “One of these days I’ll work your trick out, Andiche.”

  “No trick. I was born under a lucky star.” Andiche scowled at Shivers, about as friendly a look as a fox spares for a chicken. “Who the hell’s this bandaged arsehole?”

  The guard pushed in past Shivers, giving him a dirty look sideways. “General Carpi, sir, this Northman says he needs to speak to you.”

  “That a fact?” Faithful spared Shivers a quick glance, then went back to stacking up his coins. “And why would I want to speak to the likes of him? Toss me the dice there, Victus, I ain’t done.”

  “That’s the problem with generals.” Victus was bald as an egg and gaunt as famine, bunches of rings on his fingers and chains round his neck doing nothing to make him look prettier. “They never do know when they’re done.” And he tossed the dice back down the table, couple of his fellows chuckling.

  The guard swallowed. “He says he knows who killed Prince Ario!”

  “Oh, you do, do you? And who was that?”

  “Monzcarro Murcatto.” Every hard face in the tent turned sharp towards Shivers. Faithful carefully set the dice down, eyes narrowed. “Looks like you know the name.”

  “Should we hire him for a jester or hang him for a liar?” Victus grated out.

  “Murcatto’s dead,” another.

  “That so? I wonder who it is I been fucking for the past month, then?”

  “If you’ve been fucking Murcatto I’d advise you to get back to it.” Andiche grinned around him. “From what her brother told me, no one here can suck a cock as well as she could.”

  A good few chuckles at that. Shivers wasn’t sure what he meant about her brother, but it didn’t matter none. He’d already undone the bandages, and now he dragged the lot off in one go, turned his face towards the lamplight. Such laughter as there was mostly sputtered out. He had the kind of face now put a sharp end to mirth. “Here’s what she’s cost me so far. For a handful of silver? Shit on that, I ain’t half the fool she takes me for, and I’ve got my pride, still. I’m done with the bitch.”

  Faithful Carpi was frowning at him. “Describe her.”

  “Tall, lean, black hair, blue eyes, frowns a lot. Sharp tongue on her.”

  Victus waved one jewel-crusted hand at him. “Common knowledge!”

  “She’s got a broken right hand, and marks all over. From falling down a mountain, she says.” Shivers pushed his finger into his stomach, keeping his eyes on Faithful. “Got a scar just here, and one matching in her back. Says a friend of hers gave it to her. Stabbed her through with her own dagger.”

  Carpi’s face had turned grim as a gravedigger’s. “You know where she is?”

  “Hold up just a trice, there.” Victus looked even less happy than his chief. “You saying Murcatto’s alive?”

  “I’d heard a rumour,” said Faithful.

  A huge black-skinned man with long ropes of iron-grey hair stood up sharp from the table. “I’d heard all kinds of rumours,” voice slow and deep as the sea. “Rumours and facts are two different things. When were you planning to fucking tell us?”

  “When you fucking needed to know, Sesaria. Where is she?”

  “At a farm,” said Shivers. “Maybe an hour’s hard ride distant.”

  “How many does she have with her?”

  “Just four. A whining poisoner and his apprentice, hardly more’n a girl. A red-haired woman name of Vitari and some brown bitch.”

  “Where exactly?”

  Shivers grinned. “Well, that’s why I’m here, ain’t it? To sell you the where exactly.”

  “I don’t like the smell of this shit,” snarled Victus. “If you’re asking me-”

  “I’m not,” growled Faithful, without looking round. “What’s your price for it?”

  “A tenth part of what Duke Orso’s offering on the head o’ Prince Ario’s killer.”

  “Just a tenth?”

  “I reckon a tenth is plenty more’n I’ll get from her, but not enough to get me killed by you. I want no more’n I can carry away alive.”

  “Wise man,” said Faithful. “Nothing we hate more than greed, is there, boys?” A couple of chuckles, but most were still looking far from happy at their old general’s sudden return from the land of the dead. “Alright, then, a tenth part is fair. You’ve a deal.” And Faithful stepped forwards and slapped his hand into Shivers’, looking him right in the face. “If we get Murcatto.”

  “You need her dead or alive?”

  “Sorry to say, I’d prefer dead myself.”

  “Good, so would I. Last thing I want is a running score with that crazy bitch. She don’t forget.”

  Faithful nodded. “So it seems. I reckon we can do business, you and me. Swolle?”

  “General?” A man with a heavy beard stepped up.

  “Get three-score horsemen ready to ride, and quick, those with the fastest-”

  “Might be best to keep it to fewer,” said Shivers.

  “That so? And how would fewer men be better?”

  “The way she tells it, she’s got friends here still.” Shivers let his eye wander round the hard faces in the tent. “The way she tells it, there’s plenty o’ men in this camp wouldn’t say no to having her back in charge. The way she tells it, they won victories to be proud of with her, and with you they skulk around and scout, while Orso’s men get all the prizes.” Faithful’s eyes darted sideways, then back. Enough to let Shivers know he’d touched a wound. There’s no chief in the world so sure of hims
elf he don’t worry some. No chief of men like these, leastways. “Best keep it to a few, and them ones you’re sure of. I’ve no problem stabbing Murcatto in the back, I reckon she’s got it coming. Getting stabbed by one o’ these is another matter.”

  “Five all told, and four of ’em women?” Swolle grinned. “A dozen should do it.”

  Faithful kept his eyes on Shivers. “Still. Make it three score, like I said, just in case there’s more at the party than we’re expecting. I’d be all embarrassed to arrive at a job short-handed.”

  “Sir.” And Swolle shouldered his way out through the tent flap.

  Shivers shrugged. “Have it your way.”

  “Why, that I will. You can depend on it.” Faithful turned to his frowning captains. “Any of you old bastards want to come out on the hunt?”

  Sesaria shook his big head, long hair swaying. “This is your mess, Faithful. You can swing the broom.”

  “I’ve foraged enough for one night.” Andiche was already pushing out through the flap, a few others following in a muttering crowd, some looking suspicious, some looking careless, some looking drunk.

  “I too must take my leave, General Carpi.” The speaker stood out among all these rough, scarred, dirty men, if only ’cause nothing much about him stood out. He had a curly head of hair, no weapon Shivers could see, no scar, no sneer, no fighter’s air of menace in the least. But Faithful still chuckled up to him like he was a man needed respect.

  “Master Sulfur!” Folding his hand in both of his big paws and giving it a squeeze. “My thanks for stopping by. You’re always welcome here.”