The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country

by Joe Abercrombie

  Sixty clerks or more attended identical desks loaded with identical heaps of papers, each with a huge, leather-bound ledger open before him. All manner of men, with all colours of skin, some sporting the skullcaps, turbans or characteristic hairstyles of one Kantic sect or other. The only prejudice here was in favour of those who could turn the fastest coin. Pens rattled in ink bottles, nibs scratched on heavy paper, pages crackled as they were turned. Merchants stood in clumps and haggles, conversing in whispers. Nowhere was a single coin in evidence. The wealth here was made of words, of ideas, of rumours and lies, too valuable to be held captive in gaudy gold or simple silver.

  It was a setting intended to awe, to amaze, to intimidate, but Morveer was not a man to be intimidated. He belonged here perfectly, just as he did everywhere and nowhere. He swaggered past a long queue of well-dressed supplicants with the air of studied self-satisfaction that always accompanied new money. Friendly lumbered in his wake, strongbox held close, and Day tiptoed demurely at the rear.

  Morveer snapped his fingers at the nearest clerk. ‘I have an appointment with . . .’ He consulted his letter for effect. ‘One Mauthis. On the subject of a sizeable deposit.’

  ‘Of course. If you would wait for one moment.’

  ‘One, but no more. Time and money are the same.’

  Morveer inconspicuously studied the arrangements for security. It would have been an understatement to call them daunting. He counted twelve armed men stationed around the hall, as comprehensively equipped as the King of the Union’s bodyguard. There had been another dozen outside the towering double-doors.

  ‘The place is a fortress,’ muttered Day under her breath.

  ‘But considerably better defended,’ replied Morveer.

  ‘How long is this going to take?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Already? For pity’s sake! You will not starve if you—Wait.’

  A tall man had emerged from a high archway, gaunt-faced with a prominent beak of a nose and thinning grey hair, arrayed in sombre robes with a heavy fur collar. ‘Mauthis,’ murmured Morveer, from Murcatto’s exhaustive description. ‘Our intended.’

  He was walking behind a younger man, curly haired and with a pleasant smile, not at all richly dressed. So unexceptional, in fact, he would have had a fine appearance for a poisoner. And yet Mauthis, though supposedly in charge of the bank, hurried after with hands clasped, as though he was the junior. Morveer sidled closer, bringing them within earshot.

  ‘. . . Master Sulfur, I hope you will inform our superiors that everything is under complete control.’ Mauthis had, perhaps, the very slightest note of panic in his voice. ‘Absolute and complete—’

  ‘Of course,’ answered the one called Sulfur, offhand. ‘Though I rarely find our superiors need informing as to how things stand. They are watching. If everything is under complete control, I am sure they will already be satisfied. If not, well . . .’ He smiled wide at Mauthis, and then at Morveer, and Morveer noticed he had different-coloured eyes, one blue, one green. ‘Good day.’ And he strode away and was soon lost in the crowds.

  ‘May I be of assistance?’ grated Mauthis. He looked as if he had never laughed in his life. He was running out of time to try it now.

  ‘I certainly hope you may. My name is Reevrom, a merchant of Puranti.’ Morveer tittered inwardly at his own joke, as he did whenever he utilised the alias, but his face showed nothing but the warmest bonhomie as he offered his hand.

  ‘Reevrom. I have heard of your house. A privilege to make your acquaintance.’ Mauthis disdained to shake it, and kept a carefully inoffensive distance between them. Evidently a cautious man. Just as well, for his sake. The tiny spike on the underside of Morveer’s heavy middle-finger ring was loaded with scorpion venom in a solution of Leopard Flower. The banker would have sat happily through their meeting, then dropped dead within the hour.

  ‘This is my niece,’ continued Morveer, not in the least downhearted by his failed attempt. ‘I have been entrusted with the responsibility of escorting her to an introduction with a potential suitor.’ Day looked up from beneath her lashes with perfectly judged shyness. ‘And this is my associate.’ He glanced sideways at Friendly and the man frowned back. ‘I do him too much credit. My bodyguard, Master Charming. He is not a great conversationalist, but when it comes to bodyguarding, he is . . . barely adequate in truth. Still, I promised his old mother that I would take him under my—’

  ‘You have come here on a matter of business?’ droned Mauthis.

  Morveer bowed. ‘A sizeable deposit.’

  ‘I regret that your associates must remain behind, but if you would care to follow me we would, of course, be happy to accept your deposit and prepare a receipt.’

  ‘Surely my niece—’

  ‘You must understand that, in the interests of security, we can make no exceptions. Your niece will be perfectly comfortable here.’

  ‘Of course, of course you will, my dear. Master Charming! The strongbox! ’ Friendly handed the metal case over to a bespectacled clerk, left tottering under its weight. ‘Now wait here, and get up to no mischief!’ Morveer gave a heavy sigh as he followed Mauthis into the depths of the building, as though he had insurmountable difficulties securing competent help. ‘My money will be safe here?’

  ‘The bank’s walls are at no point less than twelve feet in thickness. There is only one entrance, guarded by a dozen well-armed men during the day, sealed at night with three locks, made by three different locksmiths, the keys kept by three separate employees. Two parties of men constantly patrol the exterior of the bank until morning. Even then the interior is kept under watch by a most sharp-eyed and competent guard.’ He gestured towards a bored-looking man in a studded leather jerkin, seated at a desk to the side of the hallway.

  ‘He is locked in?’

  ‘All night.’

  Morveer worked his mouth with some discomfort. ‘Most comprehensive arrangements.’

  He pulled out his handkerchief and pretended to cough daintily into it. The silk was soaked in Mustard Root, one of an extensive range of agents to which he had himself long since developed an immunity. He needed only a few moments unobserved, then he could clasp it to Mauthis’ face. The slightest inhalation and the man would cough himself to bloody death within moments. But the clerk laboured along between them with the strongbox in his arms, and not the slightest opportunity was forthcoming. Morveer was forced to tuck the lethal cloth away, then narrow his eyes as they turned into a long hallway lined with huge paintings. Light poured in from above, the very roof, far overhead, fashioned from a hundred thousand diamond panes of glass.

  ‘A ceiling of windows!’ Morveer turned slowly round and round, head back. ‘Truly a wonder of architecture!’

  ‘This is an entirely modern building. Your money could not be more secure anywhere, believe me.’

  ‘The depths of ruined Aulcus, perhaps?’ joked Morveer, as an overblown artist’s impression of the ancient city passed by on their left.

  ‘Not even there.’

  ‘And making a withdrawal would be considerably more testing, I imagine! Ha ha. Ha ha.’

  ‘Quite so.’ The banker did not display even the inkling of a smile. ‘Our vault door is a foot thickness of solid Union steel. We do not exaggerate when we say this is the safest place in the Circle of the World. This way.’

  Morveer was ushered into a voluminous chamber panelled with oppressively dark wood, ostentatious yet still uncomfortable, tyrannised by a desk the size of a poor man’s house. A sombre oil was set above a looming fireplace: a heavyset bald man glowering down as though he suspected Morveer of being up to no good. Some Union bureaucrat of the dusty past, he suspected. Zoller, maybe, or Bialoveld.

  Mauthis took up a high, hard seat and Morveer found one opposite while the clerk lifted the lid of the strongbox and began to count out the money, using a coin-stacker with practised efficiency. Mauthis watched, scarcely blinking. At no stage did he touc
h either case or coins himself. A cautious man. Damnably, infuriatingly cautious. His slow eyes slid across the desk.

  ‘Wine?’

  Morveer raised an eyebrow at the distorted glassware behind the windows of a towering cabinet. ‘Thank you, no. I become quite flustered under its influence, and between the two of us have frequently embarrassed myself. I decided, in the end, to abstain entirely, and stick to selling it to others. The stuff is . . . poison.’ And he gave a huge smile. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’ He slid an unobtrusive hand into a hidden pocket within his jacket where the vial of Star Juice was waiting. It would be a small effort to mount a diversion and introduce a couple of drops to Mauthis’ glass while he was—

  ‘I too avoid it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Morveer released the vial and instead plucked a folded paper from his inside pocket quite as if that had been his intention from the first. He unfolded it and pretended to read while his eyes darted about the office. ‘I counted five thousand . . .’ He took in the style of lock upon the door, the fashion of its construction, the frame within which it was set. ‘Two hundred . . .’ The tiles from which the floor was made, the panels on the walls, the render of the ceiling, the leather of Mauthis’ chair, the coals on the unlit fire. ‘And twelve scales.’ Nothing seemed promising.

  Mauthis showed no emotion at the number. Fortunes and small change, all one. He opened the heavy cover of a huge ledger upon his desk. He licked one finger and flicked steadily through the pages, paper crackling. Morveer felt a warm satisfaction spread out from his stomach to every extremity at the sight, and it was only with an effort that he prevented himself from whooping with triumph. He settled for a prim smile. ‘Takings from my last trip to Sipani. Wine from Ospria is always a profitable venture, even in these uncertain times. Not everyone has our temperance, Master Mauthis, I am happy to say!’

  ‘Of course.’ The banker licked his finger once again as he turned the last few pages.

  ‘Five thousand, two hundred and eleven,’ said the clerk.

  Mauthis’ eyes flickered up. ‘Trying to get away with something?’ ‘Me?’ Morveer passed it off with a false chuckle. ‘Damn that man Charming, he can’t count for anything! I swear he has no feel for numbers whatsoever.’

  The nib of Mauthis’ pen scratched across the ledger; the clerk hurried over and blotted the entry as his master neatly, precisely, emotionlessly prepared the receipt. The clerk carried it to Morveer and offered it to him along with the empty strongbox.

  ‘A note for the full amount in the name of the Banking House of Valint and Balk,’ said Mauthis. ‘Redeemable at any reputable mercantile institution in Styria.’

  ‘Must I sign anything?’ asked Morveer hopefully, his fingers closing around the pen in his inside pocket. It doubled as a highly effective blowgun, the needle concealed within containing a lethal dose of—

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well.’ Morveer smiled as he folded the paper and slid it away, taking care that it did not catch on the deadly edge of his scalpel. ‘Better than gold, and a great deal lighter. For now, then, I take my leave. It has been a decided pleasure.’ And he held out his hand again, poisoned ring glinting. No harm in making the effort.

  Mauthis did not move from his chair. ‘Likewise.’

  Evil Friends

  It had been Benna’s favourite place in Westport. He’d dragged her there twice a week while they were in the city. A shrine of mirrors and cut glass, polished wood and glittering marble. A temple to the god of male grooming. The high priest – a small, lean barber in a heavily embroidered apron – stood sharply upright in the centre of the floor, chin pointed to the ceiling, as though he’d been expecting them that very moment to enter.

  ‘Madam! A delight to see you again!’ He blinked for a moment. ‘Your husband is not with you?’

  ‘My brother.’ Monza swallowed. ‘And no, he . . . won’t be back. I’ve an altogether tougher challenge for you—’

  Shivers stepped through the doorway, gawping about as fearfully as a sheep in a shearing pen. She opened her mouth to speak but the barber cut her off. ‘I believe I see the problem.’ He made a sharp circuit of Shivers while the Northman frowned down at him. ‘Dear, dear. All off?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All off,’ said Monza, taking the barber by the elbow and pressing a quarter into his hand. ‘Go gently, though. I doubt he’s used to this and he might startle.’ She realised she was making him sound like a horse. Maybe that was giving him too much credit.

  ‘Of course.’ The barber turned, and gave a sharp intake of breath. Shivers had already taken his new shirt off and was looming pale and sinewy in the doorway, unbuckling his belt.

  ‘He means your hair, fool,’ said Monza, ‘not your clothes.’

  ‘Uh. Thought it was odd, but, well, Southern fashions . . .’ Monza watched him as he sheepishly buttoned his shirt back up. He had a long scar from his shoulder across his chest, pink and twisted. She might’ve thought it ugly once, but she’d had to change her opinions on scars, along with a few other things.

  Shivers lowered himself into the chair. ‘Had this hair all my life.’

  ‘Then it is past time you were released from its suffocating embrace. Head forwards, please.’ The barber produced his scissors with a flourish and Shivers lurched out of his seat.

  ‘You think I’m letting a man I never met near my face with a blade?’

  ‘I must protest! I trim the heads of Westport’s finest gentlemen!’

  ‘You.’ Monza caught the barber’s shoulder as he backed away and marched him forwards. ‘Shut up and cut hair.’ She slipped another quarter into his apron pocket and gave Shivers a long look. ‘You, shut up and sit still.’

  He sidled back into the chair and clung so tight to its arms that the tendons stood from the backs of his hands. ‘I’m watching you,’ he growled.

  The barber gave a long sigh and with lips pursed began to work.

  Monza wandered around the room while the scissors snip-snipped behind her. She walked along a shelf, absently pulling the stoppers from the coloured bottles, sniffing at the scented oils inside. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. A hard face, still. Thinner, leaner, sharper even than she used to be. Eyes sunken from the nagging pain up her legs, from the nagging need for the husk that made the pain go away.

  You look especially beautiful this morning, Monza . . .

  The idea of a smoke stuck in her mind like a bone in her craw. Each day the need crept up on her earlier. More time spent sick, sore and twitchy, counting the minutes until she could creep off and be with her pipe, sink back into soft, warm nothingness. Her fingertips tingled at the thought, tongue working hungrily around her dry mouth.

  ‘Always worn it long. Always.’ She turned back into the room. Shivers was wincing like a torture victim as tufts of cut hair tumbled down and built up on the polished boards under the chair. Some men clam up when they’re nervous. Some men blather. It seemed Shivers was in the latter camp. ‘Guess my brother had long hair and I went and did the same. Used to try and copy him. Looked up to him. Little brothers, you know . . . What was your brother like?’

  She felt her cheek twitch, remembering Benna’s grinning face in the mirror, and hers behind it. ‘He was a good man. Everyone loved him.’

  ‘My brother was a good man. Lot better’n me. My father thought so, anyway. Never missed a chance to tell me . . . I mean, just saying, nothing strange ’bout long hair where I come from. Folk got other things to cut in a war than their hair, I guess. Black Dow used to laugh at me, ’cause he’d always hacked his right off, so as not to get in the way in a fight. But then he’d give a man shit about anything, Black Dow. Hard mouth. Hard man. Only man harder was the Bloody-Nine his self. I reckon—’

  ‘For someone with a weak grip on the language, you like to talk, don’t you? You know what I reckon?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘People talk a lot when they’ve nothing to say.’

  Shivers heaved out a
sigh. ‘Just trying to make tomorrow that bit better than today is all. I’m one of those . . . you’ve got a word for it, don’t you?’

  ‘Idiots?’

  He looked sideways at her. ‘It was a different one I had in mind.’ ‘Optimists.’

  ‘That’s the one. I’m an optimist.’

  ‘How’s it working out for you?’

  ‘Not great, but I keep hoping.’

  ‘That’s optimists. You bastards never learn.’ She watched Shivers’ face emerging from that tangle of greasy hair. Hard-boned, sharp-nosed, with a nick of a scar through one eyebrow. It was a good face, in so far as she cared. She found she cared more than she’d thought she would. ‘You were a soldier, right? What do they call them up in the North . . . a Carl?’

  ‘I was a Named Man, as it goes,’ and she could hear the pride in his voice.

  ‘Good for you. So you led men?’

  ‘I had some looking to me. My father was a famous man, my brother too. A little some of that rubbed off, maybe.’

  ‘So why throw it away? Why come down here to be nothing?’

  He looked at her in the mirror while the scissors clicked round his face. ‘Morveer said you were a soldier yourself. A famous one.’

  ‘Not that famous.’ It was only half a lie. Infamous was closer to it.

  ‘That’d be a strange job for a woman, where I come from.’

  She shrugged. ‘Easier than farming.’

  ‘So you know war, am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Daresay you’ve seen some battles. You’ve seen men killed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you’ve seen what goes with it. The marches, the waiting, the sickness. Folk raped, robbed, crippled, burned out who’ve done nought to deserve it.’