Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  She’d marked Duke Orso’s lessons well. Gold, to steel, to more gold-such was the righteous spiral of politics. Resistance, apathy and scorn from all quarters only made her shove harder. She took a perverse satisfaction in the apparent impossibility of the task, the work pushed the pain to one side, and the husk with it, and kept her sharp. It had been a long, long time since she’d made anything grow.

  “You look… very beautiful.”

  “What?” Cotarda had glided up silently beside her and was offering a nervous smile. “Oh. Likewise,” grunted Monza, barely even looking.

  “White suits you. They tell me I’m too pale for white.” Monza winced. Just the kind of mindless twittering she had no stomach for tonight. “I wish I was like you.”

  “Some time in the sun would do it.”

  “No, no. Brave.” Cotarda looked down at her pale fingers, twisting them together. “I wish I was brave. They tell me I’m powerful. One would have thought being powerful would mean one need not be scared of anything. But I’m afraid all the time. Especially at events.” The words spilled out of her to Monza’s mounting discomfort. “Sometimes I can’t move for the weight of it. All the fear. I’m such a disappointment. What can I do about that? What would you do?”

  Monza had no intention of discussing her own fears. That would only feed them. But Cotarda blathered on regardless.

  “I’ve no character at all, but where does one get character from? Either you have it or you don’t. You have. Everyone says you have. Where did you get it? Why don’t I have any? Sometimes I think I’m cut out of paper, just acting like a person. They tell me I’m an utter coward. What can I do about that? Being an utter coward?”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, then Monza shrugged. “Act like you’re not.”

  The doors were pulled open.

  Musicians somewhere out of sight struck up a stately refrain as she and Cotarda stepped out into the vast bowl of the Senate House. Though there was no roof, though the stars would soon show in the blue-black sky above, it was hot. Hot, and clammy as a tomb, and the perfumed stink of flowers caught at Monza’s tight throat and made her want to retch. Thousands of candles burned in the darkness, filling the great arena with creeping shadows, making gilt glimmer, gems glitter, turning the hundreds upon hundreds of smiling faces that soared up on all sides into leering masks. Everything was outsize-the crowd, the rustling banners behind them, the venue itself. Everything was overdone, like a scene from a lurid fantasy.

  A hell of a lot of effort just to watch one man put on a new hat.

  The audience were a varied lot. Styrians made up the bulk, rich and powerful men and women, merchants and minor nobility from across the land. A smattering of famous artists, diplomats, poets, craftsmen, soldiers-Rogont wanted no one excluded who might reflect some extra glory onto him. Guests from abroad occupied most of the better seats, down near the front, come to pay their respects to the new King of Styria, or to try to wangle some advantage from his elevation, at least. There were merchant captains of the Thousand Isles with golden hoops through their ears. There were heavy-bearded Northmen, bright-eyed Baolish. There were natives of Suljuk in vivid silks, a pair of priestesses from Thond where they worshipped the sun, heads shaved to yellow stubble. There were three nervous-seeming Aldermen of Westport. The Union, unsurprisingly, was notable by its utter absence, but the Gurkish delegation had willingly spread out to fill their space. A dozen ambassadors from the Emperor Uthman-ul-Dosht, heavy with gold. A dozen priests from the Prophet Khalul, in sober white.

  Monza walked through them all as if they weren’t there, shoulders back, eyes fixed ahead, the cold sneer on her mouth she’d always worn when she was most terrified. Lirozio and Patine approached with equal pomposity down a walkway opposite. Sotorius waited by the chair that was the golden centrepiece of the entire event, leaning heavily on a staff. The old man had sworn he’d be consigned to hell before he walked down a ramp.

  They reached the circular platform, gathering under the expectant gaze of several thousand pairs of eyes. The five great leaders of Styria who’d enjoy the honour of crowning Rogont, all dressed with a symbolism that a mushroom couldn’t have missed. Monza was in pearly white, with the cross of Talins across her chest in sparkling fragments of black crystal. Cotarda wore Affoian scarlet. Sotorius had golden cockleshells around the hem of his black gown, Lirozio the bridge of Puranti on his gilded cape. They were like bad actors representing the cities of Styria in some cheap morality play, except at vast expense. Even Patine had shed any pretence at humility, and swapped his rough-spun peasant cloth for green silk, fur and sparkling jewels. Six rings were the symbol of Nicante, but he must have been sporting nine at the least, one with an emerald the size of Friendly’s dice.

  At close quarters, none of them looked particularly pleased with their role. Like a group who’d agreed, while blind drunk, to jump into the freezing sea in the morning but now, with the sober dawn, were thinking better of it.

  “Well,” grunted Monza, as the musicians brought their piece to an end and the last notes faded. “Here we are.”

  “Indeed.” Sotorius swept the murmuring crowd with rheumy eyes. “Let us hope the crown is large. Here comes the biggest head in Styria.”

  An ear-splitting fanfare blasted out from behind. Cotarda flinched, stumbled, would’ve fallen if Monza hadn’t seized her elbow on an instinct. The doors at the very back of the hall were opened, and as the blaring sound of trumpets faded a strange singing began, a pair of voices, high and pure, floating out over the audience. Rogont stepped smiling through into the Senate House, and his guests broke out into well-organised applause.

  The king-in-waiting, all in Osprian blue, looked about him with humble surprise as he began to descend the steps. All this, for me? You shouldn’t have! When of course he’d planned every detail himself. Monza wondered for a moment, and not for the first time, whether Rogont would turn out to be a far worse king than Orso might’ve been. No less ruthless, no more loyal, but a lot more vain, and less sense of humour every day. He pressed favoured hands in his, laying a generous palm on a lucky shoulder or two as he passed. The unearthly singing serenaded him as he came through the crowd.

  “Can I hear spirits?” muttered Patine, with withering scorn.

  “You can hear boys with no balls,” replied Lirozio.

  Four men in Osprian livery unlocked a heavy door behind the platform and passed inside, came out shortly afterwards struggling under the weight of an inlaid case. Rogont made a swift pass around the front row, pressing the hands of a few chosen ambassadors, paying particular attention to the Gurkish delegation and stretching the applause to breaking point. Finally he mounted the steps to the platform, smiling the way the winner of a vital hand of cards smiles at his ruined opponents. He held his arms out to the five of them. “My friends, my friends! The day is finally here!”

  “It is,” said Sotorius, simply.

  “Happy day!” sang Lirozio.

  “Long hoped for!” added Patine.

  “Well done?” offered Cotarda.

  “My thanks to you all.” Rogont turned to face his guests, silenced their clapping with a gentle motion of his hands, swept his cloak out behind him, lowered himself into his chair and beckoned Monza over. “No congratulations from you, your Excellency?”

  “Congratulations,” she hissed.

  “As graceful as always.” He leaned closer, murmuring under his breath. “You did not come to me last night.”

  “Other commitments.”

  “Truly?” Rogont raised his brows as though amazed that anything could possibly be more important than fucking him. “I suppose a head of state has many demands upon her time. Well.” He waved her scornfully away.

  Monza ground her teeth. At that moment, she would’ve been more than willing to piss on him.

  The four porters set down their burden behind the throne, one of them turned the key in the lock and lifted the lid with a showy flourish. A sigh went up from
the crowd. The crown lay on purple velvet inside. A thick band of gold, set all around with a row of darkly gleaming sapphires. Five golden oak leaves sprouted from it, and at the front a larger sixth curled about a monstrous, flashing diamond, big as a chicken’s egg. So large Monza felt a strange desire to laugh at it.

  With the expression of a man about to clear a blocked latrine with his hand, Lirozio reached into the case and grasped one of the golden leaves. A resigned shrug of the shoulders and Patine did the same. Then Sotorius and Cotarda. Monza took hold of the last in her gloved right fist, poking little finger looking no better for being sheathed in white silk. She glanced across the faces of her supposed peers. Two forced smiles, a slight sneer and an outright scowl. She wondered how long it would take for these proud princes, so used to being their own masters, to tire of this less favourable arrangement.

  By the look of things, the yoke was already starting to chafe.

  Together, the five of them lifted the crown and took a few lurching steps forwards, Sotorius having to awkwardly negotiate the case, dragging each other clumsily about by the priceless symbol of majesty. They made it to the chair, and between them raised the crown high over Rogont’s head. They paused there for a moment, as if by mutual agreement, perhaps wondering if there was still some way out of this. The whole great space was eerily silent, every man and woman holding their breath. Then Sotorius gave a resigned nod, and together the five of them lowered the crown, seated it carefully on Rogont’s skull and stepped away.

  Styria, it seemed, was one nation.

  Its king rose slowly from the chair and spread his arms wide, palms open, staring straight ahead as though he could see right through the ancient walls of the Senate House and into a brilliant future.

  “Our fellow Styrians!” he bellowed, voice ringing from the stones. “Our humble subjects! And our friends from abroad, all welcome here!” Mostly Gurkish friends, but since the Prophet had stretched to such a large diamond for his crown… “The Years of Blood are at an end!” Or they soon would be, once Monza had spilled Orso’s. “No longer will the great cities of our proud land struggle one against the other!” That remained to be seen. “But will stand as brothers eternal, bound willingly by happy ties of friendship, of culture, of common heritage. Marching together!” In whatever direction Rogont dictated, presumably. “It is as if… Styria wakes from a nightmare. A nightmare nineteen years long. Some among us, I am sure, can scarcely remember a time without war.” Monza frowned, thinking of her father’s plough turning the black earth.

  “But now… the wars are over! And all of us won! Every one of us.” Some won more than others, it needed hardly to be said. “Now is the time for peace! For freedom! For healing!” Lirozio noisily cleared his throat, wincing as he tugged at his embroidered collar. “Now is the time for hope, for forgiveness, for unity!” And abject obedience, of course. Cotarda was staring at her hand. Her pale palm was mottled pink, almost deep enough to match her scarlet dress. “Now is the time for us to forge a great state that will be the envy of the world! Now is the time-” Lirozio had started to cough, beads of sweat showing on his ruddy face. Rogont frowned furiously sideways at him. “Now is the time for Styria to become-” Patine bent forwards and gave an anguished groan, lips curled back from his teeth.

  “One nation…” Something was wrong, and everyone was beginning to see it. Cotarda lurched backwards, stumbled. She caught the gilded railing, chest heaving, and sank to the floor with a rustling of red silk. The audience gave a stunned collective gasp.

  “One nation…” whispered Rogont. Chancellor Sotorius sank trembling to his knees, one pink-stained hand clutching at his withered throat. Patine was crouched on all fours now, face bright red, veins bulging from his neck. Lirozio toppled onto his side, back to Monza, his breath a faint wheeze. His right arm stretched out behind him, the twitching hand blotched pink. Cotarda’s leg kicked faintly, then she was still. All the while the crowd stayed silent. Transfixed. Not sure if this was some demented part of the show. Some awful joke. Patine sagged onto his face. Sotorius fell backwards, spine arched, heels of his shoes squeaking against the polished wood, then flopped down limp.

  Rogont stared at Monza and she stared back, as frozen and helpless as she had been when she watched Benna die. He opened his mouth, raised one hand towards her, but no breath moved. His forehead, beneath the fur-trimmed rim of the crown, had turned angry red.

  The crown. They all had touched the crown. Her eyes rolled down to her gloved right hand. All except her.

  Rogont’s face twisted. He took one step, his ankle buckled and he pitched onto his face, bulging eyes staring sightlessly off to the side. The crown popped from his skull, bounced once, rolled across the inlaid platform to its edge and clattered to the floor below. Someone in the audience gave a single, ear-splitting scream.

  There was the whoosh of a counterweight falling, a rattle of wood, and a thousand white songbirds were released from cages concealed around the edge of the chamber, rising up into the clear night air in a beautiful, twittering storm.

  It was just as Rogont had planned.

  Except that of the six men and women destined to unite Styria and bring an end to the Years of Blood, only Monza was still alive.

  All Dust

  Shivers took more’n a little satisfaction in the fact Grand Duke Rogont was dead. Maybe it should’ve been King Rogont, but it didn’t matter much which you called him now, and that thought tickled Shivers’ grin just a bit wider.

  You can be as great a man as you please while you’re alive. Makes not a straw of difference once you go back to the mud. And it only takes a little thing. Might happen in a silly moment. An old friend of Shivers’ fought all seven days at the battle in the High Places and didn’t get a nick. Scratched himself on a thorn leaving the valley next morning, got the rot in his hand, died babbling a few nights after. No point to it. No lesson. Except watch out for thorns, maybe.

  But then a noble death like Rudd Threetrees won for himself, leading the charge, sword in his fist as the life left him-that was no better. Maybe men would sing a song about it, badly, when they were drunk, but for him who died, death was death, same for everyone. The Great Leveller, the hillmen called it. Lords and beggars made equal.

  All of Rogont’s grand ambitions were dirt. His power was mist, blown away on the dawn breeze. Shivers, no more’n a one-eyed killer, not fit to lick the king-in-waiting’s boots clean yesterday, this morning was the better man by far. He was still casting a shadow. If there was a lesson, it was this-you have to take what you can while you still have breath. The earth holds no rewards but darkness.

  They rode from the tunnel and into the outer ward of Fontezarmo, and Shivers gave a long, soft whistle.

  “They done some building work.”

  Monza nodded. “Some knocking down, at least. Seems the Prophet’s gift did the trick.”

  It was a fearsome weapon, this Gurkish sugar. A great stretch of the walls on their left had vanished, a tower tilted madly at the far end, cracks up its side, looking sure to follow the rest down the mountain any moment. A few leafless shrubs clung to the ragged cliff-edge where the walls had been, clawing at empty air. Shivers reckoned there’d been gardens, but the flaming shot the catapults had been lobbing in the last few weeks had turned ’em mostly to burned-up bramble, split tree-stump and scorched-out mud, all smeared down and puddle-pocked by last night’s rain.

  A cobbled way led through the midst of this mess, between a half-dozen stagnant fountains and up to a black gate, still sealed tight. A few twisted shapes lay round some wreckage, bristling with arrows. Dead men round a torched ram. Scanning along the battlements above, Shivers’ practised eye picked out spears, bows, armour twinkling. Seemed the inner wall was still firm held, Duke Orso no doubt tucked in tight behind it.

  They rode around a big heap of damp canvas weighted down with stones, patches of rainwater in the folds. As Shivers passed he saw there were boots sticking out of one end, a few pairs of
dirty bare feet, all beaded up with wet.

  Seemed one of Volfier’s lads was a fresh recruit, went pale when he saw them dead men. Strange, but seeing him all broken up just made Shivers wonder when he got so comfortable around a corpse or two. To him they were just bits of the scenery now, no more meaning than the broken tree-stumps. It was going to take more’n a corpse or two to spoil his good mood that morning.

  Monza reined her horse in and slid from the saddle. “Dismount,” grunted Volfier, and the rest followed her.

  “Why do some of ’em have bare feet?” The boy was still staring at the dead.

  “Because they had good boots,” said Shivers. The lad looked down at his own foot-leather, then back to those wet bare feet, then put one hand over his mouth.

  Volfier clapped the boy on the back and made him start, gave Shivers a wink while he did it. Seemed baiting the new blood was the same the world over. “Boots or no boots, don’t make no difference once they’ve killed you. Don’t worry, boy, you get used to it.”

  “You do?”

  “If you’re lucky,” said Shivers, “you’ll live long enough.”

  “If you’re lucky,” said Monza, “you’ll find another trade first. Wait here.”

  Volfier gave her a nod. “Your Excellency.” And Shivers watched her pick her way around the wreckage and off.

  “Get on top of things in Talins?” he muttered.

  “Hope so,” grunted the scarred sergeant. “Got the fires put out, in the end. Made us a deal with the criminals in the Old Quarter they’d keep an eye on things there for a week, and we wouldn’t keep an eye for a month after.”