She scowled sideways. “Fuck yourself.”
“When I must.” He looked straight back at her. “But I’d much rather have help.”
* * *
You look almost as bitter as I feel.”
“Eh?” Shivers prised his scowl from the happy couple. “Ah.” There was a woman talking to him. “Oh.” She was very good to look at, so much that she seemed to have a glow about her. Then he saw everything had a glow. He was drunk as shit.
She seemed different from the rest, though. Necklace of red stones round her long neck, white dress that hung loose, like the ones he’d seen black women wearing in Westport, but she was very pale. There was something easy in the way she stood, no stiff manners to her. Something open in her smile. For a moment, it almost had him smiling with her. First time in a while.
“Is there space here?” She spoke Styrian with a Union accent. An outsider, like him.
“You want to sit… with me?”
“Why not, do you carry the plague?”
“With my luck I wouldn’t be surprised.” He turned the left side of his face towards her. “This seems to keep most folk well clear o’ me by itself, though.”
Her eyes moved over it, then back, and her smile didn’t flicker. “We all have our scars. Some of us on the outside, some of us-”
“The ones on the inside don’t take quite such a toll on the looks, though, eh?”
“I’ve found that looks are overrated.”
Shivers looked her slowly up and down, and enjoyed it. “Easy for you to say, you’ve plenty to spare.”
“Manners.” She puffed out her cheeks as she looked round the hall. “I’d despaired of finding any among this crowd. I swear, you must be the only honest man here.”
“Don’t count on it.” Though he was grinning wide enough. There was never a bad time for flattery from a fine-looking woman, after all. He had his pride. She held out one hand to him and he blinked at it. “I kiss it, do I?”
“If you like. It won’t dissolve.”
It was soft and smooth. Nothing like Monza’s hand-scarred, tanned, callused as any Named Man’s. Even less like her other one, twisted as a nettle root under that glove. Shivers pressed his lips to the woman’s knuckles, caught a giddy whiff of scent. Like flowers, and something else that made the breath sharpen in his throat.
“I’m, er… Caul Shivers.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“We’ve met before, though briefly. Carlot dan Eider is my name.”
“Eider?” Took him a moment to place it. A half-glimpsed face in the mist. The woman in the red coat, in Sipani. Prince Ario’s lover. “You’re the one that Monza-”
“Beat, blackmailed, destroyed and left for dead? That would be me.” She frowned up towards the high table. “Monza, is it? Not only first-name terms, but an affectionate shortening. The two of you must be very close.”
“Close enough.” Nowhere near as close as they had been, though, in Visserine. Before they took his eye.
“And yet she sits up there, with the great Duke Rogont, and you sit down here, with the beggars and the embarrassments.”
Like she knew his own thoughts. His fury flickered up again and he tried to steer the talk away from it. “What brings you here?”
“After the carnage in Sipani I had no other choices. Duke Orso is doubtless offering a pretty price for my head. I’ve spent the last three months expecting every person I passed to stab me, poison me, throttle me, or worse.”
“Huh. I know that feeling.”
“Then you have my sympathy.”
“The dead know I could do with some.”
“You can have all mine, for what that’s worth. You’re just as much a piece in this sordid little game as I am, no? And you’ve lost even more than I. Your eye. Your face.”
She didn’t seem to move, but she seemed to keep getting closer. Shivers hunched his shoulders. “I reckon.”
“Duke Rogont is an old acquaintance. A somewhat unreliable man, though undoubtedly a handsome one.”
“I reckon,” he managed to grate out.
“I was forced to throw myself upon his mercy. A hard landing, but some succour, for a while. Though it seems he has found a new diversion now.”
“Monza?” The fact he’d been thinking it himself all night didn’t help any. “She ain’t like that.”
Carlot dan Eider gave a disbelieving snort. “Really? Not a treacherous, murdering liar who’ll use anyone and anything to get her way? She betrayed Nicomo Cosca, no, and stole his chair? Why do you think Duke Orso tried to kill her? Because it was his chair she was planning to steal next.” The drink had made him half-stupid, he couldn’t think of a thing to say to it. “Why not use Rogont to get her way? Or is she in love with someone else?”
“No,” he growled. “Well… how would I know-fucking no! You’ve got it twisted!”
She touched one hand to her pale chest. “ I have it twisted? There’s a reason why they call her the Snake of Talins! A snake loves nothing but itself!”
“You’d say anything. She used you in Sipani. You hate her!”
“I’d shed no tears over her corpse, that’s true. The man who put a blade in her could have my gratitude and more besides. But that doesn’t make me a liar.” She was halfway to whispering in his ear. “Monzcarro Murcatto, the Butcher of Caprile? They murdered children there.” He could almost feel her breath on him, his skin tingling with having her so near, anger and lust all mangled hot together. “Murdered! In the streets! She wasn’t even faithful to her brother, from what I hear-”
“Eh?” Shivers wished he’d drunk less, the hall was getting some spin to it.
“You didn’t know?”
“Know what?” An odd mix of curiosity, and fear, and disgust creeping up on him.
Eider laid one hand on his arm, close enough that he caught another waft of scent-sweet, dizzying, sickening. “She and her brother were lovers.” She purred the last word, dragging it out long.
“What?” His scarred cheek was burning like he’d been slapped.
“Lovers. They used to sleep together, like husband and wife. They used to fuck each other. It’s no kind of secret. Ask anyone. Ask her.”
Shivers found he could hardly breathe. He should’ve known it. Few things made sense now had tripped him at the time. He had known it, maybe. But still he felt tricked. Betrayed. Laughed at. Like a fish tickled from a stream and left choking. After all he’d done for her, after all he’d lost. The rage boiled up in him so hot he could hardly keep hold of himself.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” He flung Eider’s hand off. “You think I don’t see you goading me?” He was up from his bench somehow, standing over her, hall tipping around him, blurred lights and faces swaying. “You take me for a fool, woman? D’you set me at nothing?”
Instead of cringing back she came forwards, pressing against him almost, eyes seeming big as dinner plates. “Me? You’ve made no sacrifices for me! Am I the one who’s cut you off? Am I the one who sets you at nothing?”
Shivers’ face was on fire. The blood was battering at his skull, so hard it felt like it might pop his eye right out. Except it was burned out already. He gave a strangled sort of a yelp, throat closed up with fury. He staggered back, since it was that or throttle her, lurched straight into a servant, knocking his silver tray from his hands, glasses falling, bottle shattering, wine spraying.
“Sir, I most humbly-”
Shivers’ left fist thudded into his ribs and twisted him sideways, right crunched into the man’s face before he could fall. He bounced off the wall and sprawled in the wreckage of his bottles. There was blood on Shivers’ fist. Blood, and a white splinter between his fingers. A piece of tooth. What he wanted, more’n anything, was to kneel over this bastard, take his head in his hands and smash it against the beautiful carvings on the wall until his brains came out. He almost did it.
But instead he made himself turn. Made himself turn and stumble awa
y.
* * *
Time crawled.
Monza lay on her side, back to Shivers, at the very edge of the bed. Keeping as much space between them as she possibly could without rolling onto the floor. The first traces of dawn were creeping from between the curtains now, turning the room dirty grey. The wine was wearing through and leaving her more nauseous, weary, hopeless than ever. Like a wave washing up on a dirty beach that you hope will wash it clean, but only sucks back out and leaves a mass of dead fish behind it.
She tried to think what Benna would have said. What he’d have done, to make her feel better. But she couldn’t remember what his voice had sounded like anymore. He was leaking away, and taking the best of her with him. She thought of him a boy, long ago, small and sickly and helpless. Needing her to take care of him. She thought of him a man, laughing, riding up the mountain to Fontezarmo. Still needing her to take care of him. She knew what colour his eyes had been. She knew there had been creases at their corners, from smiling often. But she couldn’t see his smile.
Instead the faces that came to her in all their bloodied detail were the five men she’d killed. Gobba, fumbling at Friendly’s garrotte with his great bloated, ruined hands. Mauthis, flapping around on his back like a puppet, gurgling pink foam. Ario, hand to his neck as black blood spurted from him. Ganmark, grinning up at her, stuck through the back with Stolicus’ outsize sword. Faithful, drowned and dripping, dangling from his waterwheel, no worse than her.
The faces of the five men she’d killed, and of the two she hadn’t. Eager little Foscar, barely even a man himself. And Orso, of course. Grand Duke Orso, who’d loved her like a daughter.
Monza, Monza, what would I do without you…
She tore the blankets back and swung her sweaty legs from the bed, dragged her trousers on, shivering though it was too hot, head pounding with worn-out wine.
“What you doing?” came Shivers’ croaky voice.
“Need a smoke.” Her fingers were trembling so badly she could hardly turn the lamp up.
“Maybe you should be smoking less, think of that?”
“Thought of it.” She fumbled with the lump of husk, wincing as she moved her ruined fingers. “Decided against.”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“Go to sleep, then.”
“Shitty fucking habit.” He was sitting up on the side of the bed, broad back to her, head turned so he was frowning out of the corner of his one good eye.
“You’re right. Maybe I should take up knocking servants’ teeth out instead.” She picked up her knife and started hacking husk into the bowl of the pipe, scattering dust. “Rogont wasn’t much impressed, I can tell you that.”
“Wasn’t long ago you weren’t much impressed with him, as I recall. Seems your feelings about folk change with the wind, though, don’t it?”
Her head was splitting. She’d no wish to talk to him, let alone argue. But it’s at times like those people bite each other hardest. “What’s eating at you?” she snapped, knowing full well already and not wanting to hear about it either.
“What d’you think?”
“You know what, I’ve my own problems.”
“You leaving me, is what!”
She’d have jumped at the chance. “Leaving you?”
“Tonight! Down with the shit while you sat up there lording it with the Duke of Delay!”
“You think I was in charge of the fucking seating?” she sneered at him. “He put me there to make him look good, is all.”
There was a pause. He turned his head away from her, shoulders hunching. “Well. I guess looking good ain’t something I can help with these days.”
She twitched-awkward, annoyed. “Rogont can help me. That’s all. Foscar’s out there, with Orso’s army. Foscar’s out there…” And he had to die, whatever the costs.
“Vengeance, eh?”
“They killed my brother. I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. You know how I feel.”
“No. I don’t.”
She frowned. “What about your brother? Thought you said the Bloody-Nine killed him? I thought-”
“I hated my fucking brother. Folk called him Skarling reborn, but the man was a bastard. He’d show me how to climb trees, and fish, nick me under the chin and laugh when our father was there. When he was gone, he used to kick me ’til I couldn’t breathe. He said I’d killed our mother. All I did was be born.” His voice was hollow, no anger left in it. “When I heard he was dead, I wanted to laugh, but I cried instead because everyone else was. I swore vengeance on his killer and all the rest ’cause, well, there’s a form to be followed, ain’t there? Wouldn’t want to fall short. But when I heard the Bloody-Nine nailed my bastard of a brother’s head up, I didn’t know whether I hated the man for doing it, or hated that he’d robbed me o’ the chance, or wanted to kiss him for the favour like you’d kiss… a brother, I guess…”
For a moment she was about to get up, go to him, put her hand on his shoulder. Then his one eye moved towards her, cold and narrow. “But you’d know all about that, I reckon. Kissing your brother.”
The blood pounded suddenly behind her eyes, worse than ever. “What my brother was to me is my fucking business!” She realised she was stabbing at him with the knife, tossed it away across the table. “I’m not in the habit of explaining myself. I don’t plan to start with the men I hire!”
“That’s what I am to you, is it?”
“What else would you be?”
“After what I’ve done for you? After what I’ve lost?”
She flinched, hands trembling worse than ever. “Well paid, aren’t you?”
“Paid?” He leaned towards her, pointing at his face. “How much is my eye worth, you evil cunt?”
She gave a strangled growl, jerked up from the chair, snatched up the lamp, turned her back on him and made for the door to the balcony.
“Where you going?” His voice had turned suddenly wheedling, as if he knew he’d stepped too far.
“Clear of your self-pity, bastard, before I’m sick!” She ripped the door open and stepped out into the cold air.
“Monza-” He was sitting slumped on the bed, the saddest sort of look on his face. On the half of it that still worked, anyway. Broken. Hopeless. Desperate. Fake eye pointing off sideways. He looked as if he was about to weep, to fall down, to beg to be forgiven.
She slammed the door shut. It suited her to have an excuse. She preferred the passing guilt of turning her back on him to the endless guilt of facing him. Much, much preferred it.
The view from the balcony might well have been among the most breathtaking in the world. Ospria dropped away below, a madman’s maze of streaky copper roofs, each one of the four tiers of the city surrounded by its own battlemented walls and towers. Tall buildings of old, pale stone crowded tight behind them, narrow-windowed and striped with black marble, pressed in alongside steeply climbing streets, crooked alleys of a thousand steps, deep and dark as the canyons of mountain streams. A few early lights shone from scattered windows, flickering dots of sentries’ torches moved on the walls. Beyond them the valley of the Sulva was sunk in the shadows of the mountains, only the faintest glimmer of the river in its bottom. At the summit of the highest hill on the other side, against the dark velvet of the sky, perhaps the pinpricks of the campfires of the Thousand Swords.
Not a place for anyone with a fear of heights.
But Monza had other things on her mind. All that mattered was to make nothing matter, and as fast as she could. She crabbed down into the deepest corner, hunched jealously over her lamp and her pipe like a freezing man over a last tongue of fire. She gripped the mouthpiece in her teeth, lifted the rattling hood with trembling hands, leaned forwards A sudden gust came up, swirled into the corner, whipped her greasy hair in her eyes. The flame fluttered and went out. She stayed there, frozen, staring at the dead lamp in achy confusion, then sweaty disbelief. Her face went slack with horror as the implications fumbled their way into her thum
ping head.
No flame. No smoke. No way back.
She sprang up, took a step towards the parapet and flung the lamp out across the city with all her strength. She tilted her head back, taking a great breath, grabbed the parapet, rocked forwards and screamed her lungs out. Screamed her hatred at the lamp as it tumbled down, at the wind that had blown it out, at the city spread out below her, at the valley beyond it, at the world and everyone in it.
In the distance, the angry sun was beginning to creep up behind the mountains, staining the sky around their darkened slopes with blood.
No More Delays
Cosca stood before the mirror, making the final adjustments to his fine lace collar, turning his five rings so the jewels faced precisely outwards, adjusting each bristle of his beard to his satisfaction. It had taken him an hour and a half, by Friendly’s calculation, to make ready. Twelve passes of the razor against the sharpening strap. Thirty-one movements to trim away the stubble. One tiny nick left under his jaw. Thirteen tugs of the tweezers to purge the nose hairs. Forty-five buttons done up. Four pairs of hooks and eyes. Eighteen straps to tighten and buckles to fasten.
“And all is ready. Master Friendly, I wish you to take the post of first sergeant of the brigade.”
“I know nothing about war.” Nothing except that it was madness, and threw him out of all compass.
“You need know nothing. The role would be to keep close to me, to keep silent but sinister, to support and follow my lead where necessary and most of all to watch my back and yours. The world is full of treachery, my friend! The odd bloody task too, and on occasion to count out sums of money paid and received, to take inventory of the numbers of men, weapons and sundries at our disposal…”
That was, to the letter, what Friendly had done for Sajaam, in Safety then outside it. “I can do that.”
“Better than any man alive, I never doubt! Could you begin by fastening this buckle for me? Bloody armourers. I swear they only put it there to vex me.” He jerked his thumb at the side strap on his gilded breastplate, stood tall and held his breath, sucking in his gut as Friendly tugged it closed. “Thank you, my friend, you are a rock! An anchor! An axle of calm about which I madly spin. Whatever would I do without you?”
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