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

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘I don’t have a place anywhere without a war. That much I’ve proved.’

  ‘Then I fear for you.’

  Shivers snorted. ‘I’m lucky to have you watching my back.’

  ‘I wish I could do more. But you know how the Butcher of Caprile solves her problems, and Duke Rogont has scant regard for honest men . . .’

  ‘I have nothing but the highest regard for honest men, but fighting stripped to the waist? It’s so . . .’ Rogont grimaced as though he’d tasted off milk. ‘Cliché. You wouldn’t catch me doing it.’

  ‘What, fighting?’

  ‘How dare you, woman, I am Stolicus reborn! You know what I mean. Your Northern accomplice, with the . . .’ Rogont waved a lazy hand at the left side of his face. ‘Eye. Or lack thereof.’

  ‘Jealous, already?’ she muttered, sick at even coming near the subject.

  ‘A little. But it’s his jealousy that concerns me. This is a man much prone to violence.’

  ‘It’s what I took him on for.’

  ‘Perhaps the time has come to lay him off. Mad dogs savage their owner more often than their owner’s enemies.’

  ‘And their owner’s lovers first of all.’

  Rogont nervously cleared his throat. ‘We certainly would not want that. He seems firmly attached to you. When a barnacle is firmly attached to the hull of a ship, it is sometimes necessary to remove it with a sudden, unexpected and . . . decisive force.’

  ‘No!’ Her voice stabbed out far sharper than she’d had in mind. ‘No. He’s saved my life. More than once, and risked his life to do it. Just yesterday he did it, and today have him killed? No. I owe him.’ She remembered the smell as Langrier pushed the brand into his face, and she flinched. It should’ve been you. ‘No! I’ll not have him touched.’

  ‘Think about it.’ Rogont padded slowly towards her. ‘I understand your reluctance, but you must see it’s the safe thing to do.’

  ‘The prudent thing?’ she sneered at him. ‘I’m warning you. Leave him be.’

  ‘Monzcarro, please understand, it’s your safety I’m—Oooof!’ She sprang up from the chair, kicking his foot away, caught his arm as he lurched onto his knees and twisted his wrist behind his shoulder blade, forced him down until she was squatting over his back, his face squashed against the cool marble.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me say no? If it’s sudden, unexpected and decisive force I want . . .’ She twisted his hand a little further and he squeaked, struggled helplessly. ‘I can manage it myself.’

  ‘Yes! Ah! Yes! I quite clearly see that!’

  ‘Good. Don’t bring him up again.’ She let go of his wrist and he lay there for a moment, breathing hard. He wriggled onto his back, rubbing gently at his hand, looking up with a hurt frown as she straddled his stomach.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘Maybe I enjoyed doing it.’ She looked over her shoulder. His cock was half-hard, nudging at the back of her leg. ‘I’m not sure you didn’t.’

  ‘Now that you mention it . . . I must confess I rather relish being looked down on by a strong woman.’ He brushed her knees with his fingertips, ran his hands slowly up the insides of her scarred thighs to the top, and then gently back down. ‘I don’t suppose . . . you could be persuaded . . . to piss on me, at all?’

  Monza frowned. ‘I don’t need to go.’

  ‘Perhaps . . . some water, then? And afterwards—’

  ‘I think I’ll stick to the pot.’

  ‘Such a waste. The pot will not appreciate it.’

  ‘Once it’s full you can do what you like with it, how’s that?’

  ‘Ugh. Not at all the same thing.’

  Monza slowly shook her head as she stepped off him. ‘A pretend grand duchess, pissing on a would-be king. You couldn’t make it up.’

  ‘Enough.’ Shivers was covered with bruises, grazes, scratches. A bastard of a gash across his back, just where it was hardest to scratch. Now his cock was going soft they were all niggling at him again in the sticky heat, stripping his patience. He was sick of talking round and round it, when it was lying between ’em, plain as a rotting corpse in the bed. ‘You want Murcatto dead, you can out and say it.’

  She paused, mouth half-open. ‘You’re surprisingly blunt.’

  ‘No, I’m about as blunt as you’d expect for a one-eyed killer. Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why do you need her dead so bad? I’m an idiot, but not that big an idiot. I don’t reckon a woman like you is drawn to my pretty face. Nor my sense of humour neither. Maybe you want yourself some revenge for what we did to you in Sipani. Everyone likes revenge. But that’s just part of it.’

  ‘No small part . . .’ She let one fingertip trail slowly up his leg. ‘As far as being drawn to you, I was always more interested in honest men than pretty faces, but I wonder . . . can I trust you?’

  ‘No. If you could I wouldn’t be much suited to the task, would I?’ He caught hold of her trailing finger and twisted it towards him, dragged her wincing face close. ‘What’s in it for you?’

  ‘Ah! There’s a man in the Union! The man I work for, the one who sent me to Styria in the first place, to spy on Orso!’

  ‘The Cripple?’ Vitari had said the name. The man who stood behind the King of the Union.

  ‘Yes! Ah! Ah!’ She squealed as he twisted her finger further, then he let it go and she snatched it back, holding it to her chest, bottom lip stuck out at him. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘Maybe I enjoyed doing it. Go on.’

  ‘When Murcatto made me betray Orso . . . she made me betray the Cripple too. Orso I can live with as an enemy, if I must—’

  ‘But not this Cripple?’

  She swallowed. ‘No. Not him.’

  ‘A worse enemy than the great Duke Orso, eh?’

  ‘Far worse. Murcatto is his price. She threatens to rip apart all his carefully woven plans to bring Talins into the Union. He wants her dead.’ The smooth mask had slipped and she had this look, shoulders slumped, staring down wide-eyed at the sheet. Hungry, and sick, and very, very scared. Shivers liked seeing it. Might’ve been the first honest look he’d seen since he landed in Styria. ‘If I can find a way to kill her, I get my life,’ she whispered.

  ‘And I’m your way.’

  She looked back up at him, and her eyes were hard. ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘I could’ve done it today.’ He’d thought of splitting her head with his axe. He’d thought of planting his boot on her face and shoving her under the water. Then she’d have had to respect him. But instead he’d saved her. Because he’d been hoping. Maybe he still was . . . but hoping had made a fool of him. And Shivers was good and sick of looking the fool.

  How many men had he killed? In all those battles, skirmishes, desperate fights up in the North? Just in the half-year since he came to Styria, even? At Cardotti’s, in the smoke and the madness? Among the statues in Duke Salier’s palace? In the battle just a few hours back? It might’ve been a score. More. And women among ’em. He was steeped in blood, deep as the Bloody-Nine himself. Didn’t seem likely that adding one more to the tally would cost him a place among the righteous. His mouth twisted.

  ‘I could do it.’ It was plain as the scar on his face that Monza cared nothing for him. Why should he care anything for her? ‘I could do it easily.’

  ‘Then do it.’ She crept forwards on her hands and knees, mouth half-open, pale tits hanging heavy, looking him right in his one eye. ‘For me.’ Her nipples brushed against his chest, one way then the other as she crawled over him. ‘For you.’ Her necklace of blood-red stones clicked gently against his chin. ‘For us.’

  ‘I’ll need to pick my moment.’ He slid his hand down her back and up onto her arse. ‘Caution first, eh?’

  ‘Of course. Nothing done well is ever . . . rushed.’

  His head was full of her scent, sweet smell of flowers mixed with the sharp smell of fucking. ‘She owes me money,’ he growled, the last objection.
/>
  ‘Ah, money. I used to be a merchant, you know. Buying. Selling.’ Her breath was hot on his neck, on his mouth, on his face. ‘And in my long experience, when people begin to talk prices, the deal is already done.’ She nuzzled at him, lips brushing the mass of scar down his cheek. ‘Do this thing for me, and I promise you’ll get all you could ever spend.’ The cool tip of her tongue lapped gently at the raw flesh round his metal eye, sweet and soothing. ‘I have an arrangement . . . with the Banking House . . . of Valint and Balk . . .’

  So Much for Nothing

  Silver gleamed in the sunlight with that special, mouth-watering twinkle that somehow only money has. A whole strongbox full of it, stacked in plain sight, drawing the eyes of every man in the camp more surely than if a naked countess had been sprawled suggestively upon the table. Piles of sparking, sparkling coins, freshly minted. Some of the cleanest currency in Styria, pressed into some of its grubbiest hands. A pleasing irony. The coins carried the scales on one side, of course, traditional symbol of Styrian commerce since the time of the New Empire. On the other, the stern profile of Grand Duke Orso of Talins. An even more pleasing irony, to Cosca’s mind, that he was paying the men of the Thousand Swords with the face of the man they had but lately betrayed.

  In a pocked and spattered, squinting and scratching, coughing and slovenly line the soldiers and staff of the first company of the first regiment of the Thousand Swords passed by the makeshift table to receive their unjust deserts. They were closely supervised by the chief notary of the brigade and a dozen of its most reliable veterans, which was just as well, because during the course of the morning Cosca had witnessed every dispiriting trick imaginable.

  Men approached the table on multiple occasions in different clothes, giving false names or those of dead comrades. They routinely exaggerated, embellished or flat-out lied in regards to rank or length of service. They wept for sick mothers, children or acquaintances. They delivered a devastating volley of complaints about food, drink, equipment, runny shits, superiors, the smell of other men, the weather, items stolen, injuries suffered, injuries given, perceived slights on non-existent honour and on, and on, and on. Had they demonstrated the same audacity and persistence in combat that they did in trying to prise the slightest dishonest pittance from their commander they would have been the greatest fighting force of all time.

  But First Sergeant Friendly was watching. He had worked for years in the kitchens of Safety, where dozens of the world’s most infamous swindlers vied daily with each other for enough bread to survive, and so he knew every low trick, con and stratagem practised this side of hell. There was no sliding around his basilisk gaze. The convict did not permit a single shining portrait of Duke Orso to be administered out of turn.

  Cosca shook his head in deep dismay as he watched the last man trudge away, the unbearable limp for which he had demanded compensation miraculously healed. ‘By the Fates, you would have thought they’d be glad of the bonus! It isn’t as if they had to fight for it! Or even steal it themselves! I swear, the more you give a man, the more he demands, and the less happy he becomes. No one ever appreciates what he gets for nothing. A pox on charity!’ He slapped the notary on the shoulder, causing him to scrawl an untidy line across his carefully kept page.

  ‘Mercenaries aren’t all they used to be,’ grumbled the man as he sourly blotted it.

  ‘No? To my eye they seem very much as violent-tempered and mean-spirited as ever. “Things aren’t what they used to be” is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave.’

  ‘So everything stays the same?’ asked the notary, looking sadly up.

  ‘Some men get better, some get worse.’ Cosca heaved a weighty sigh. ‘But on the grand scale, I have observed no significant changes. How many of our heroes have we paid now?’

  ‘That’s all of Squire’s company, of Andiche’s regiment. Well, Andiche’s regiment that was.’

  Cosca put a hand over his eyes. ‘Please, don’t speak of that brave heart. His loss still stabs at me. How many have we paid?’

  The notary licked his fingers, flipped over a couple of crackling leaves of his ledger, started counting the entries. ‘One, two, three—’

  ‘Four hundred and four,’ said Friendly.

  ‘And how many persons in the Thousand Swords?’

  The notary winced. ‘Counting all ancillaries, servants and tradesmen?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Whores too?’

  ‘Counting them first, they’re the hardest workers in the whole damned brigade!’

  The lawyer squinted skywards. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Twelve thousand, eight-hundred and nineteen,’ said Friendly.

  Cosca stared at him. ‘I’ve heard it said a good sergeant is worth three generals, but you may well be worth three dozen, my friend! Thirteen thousand, though? We’ll be here tomorrow night still!’

  ‘Very likely,’ grumbled the notary, flipping over the page. ‘Crapstane’s company of Andiche’s regiment will be next. Andiche’s regiment . . . as was . . . that is.’

  ‘Meh.’ Cosca unscrewed the cap of the flask Morveer had thrown at him in Sipani, raised it to his lips, shook it and realised it was empty. He frowned at the battered metal bottle, remembering with some discomfort the poisoner’s sneering assertion that a man never changes. So much discomfort, in fact, that his need for a drink was sharply increased. ‘A brief interlude, while I obtain a refill. Get Crapstane’s company lined up.’ He stood, grimacing as his aching knees crunched into life, then cracked a smile. A large man was walking steadily towards him through the mud, smoke, canvas and confusion of the camp.

  ‘Why, Master Shivers, from the cold and bloody North!’ The Northman had evidently given up on fine dressing, wearing a leather jack and rough-spun shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows. His hair, neat as any Musselian dandy’s when Cosca first laid eyes upon the man, had grown back to an unkempt tangle, heavy jaw fuzzed with a growth between beard and stubble. None of it did anything to disguise the mass of scar covering one side of his face. It would take more than hair to hide that. ‘My old partner in adventure!’ Or murder, as was in fact the case. ‘You have a twinkle in your eye.’ Literally he did, for bright metal in the Northman’s empty socket was catching the noon sun and shining with almost painful brightness. ‘You look well, my friend, most well!’ Though he looked, in fact, a mutilated savage.

  ‘Happy face, happy heart.’ The Northman showed a lopsided smile, burned flesh shifting only by the smallest margin.

  ‘Quite so. Have a smile for breakfast, you’ll be shitting joy by lunch. Were you in the battle?’

  ‘That I was.’

  ‘I thought as much. You have never struck me as a man afraid to roll up his sleeves. Bloody, was it?’

  ‘That it was.’

  ‘Some men thrive on blood, though, eh? I daresay you’ve known a few who were that way.’

  ‘That I have.’

  ‘And where is your employer, my infamous pupil, replacement and predecessor, General Murcatto?’

  ‘Behind you,’ came a sharp voice.

  He spun about. ‘God’s teeth, woman, but you haven’t lost the knack of creeping up on a man!’ He pretended at shock to smother the sentimental welling-up that always accompanied her appearance, and threatened to make his voice crack with emotion. She had a long scratch down one cheek, some bruising on her face, but otherwise looked well. Very well. ‘My joy to see you alive knows no bounds, of course.’ He swept off his hat, feather drooping apologetically, and kneeled in the dirt in front of her. ‘Say you forgive me my theatrics. You see now I was thinking only of you all along. My fondness for you is undiminished.’

  She snorted at that. ‘Fondness, eh?’ More than she could ever know, or he would ever tell her. ‘So this pantomime was for my benefit? I may swoo
n with gratitude.’

  ‘One of your most endearing features was always your readiness to swoon.’ He cranked himself back up to standing. ‘A consequence of your sensitive, womanly heart, I suppose. Walk with me, I have something to show you.’ He led her off through the trees towards the farmhouse, its whitewashed walls gleaming in the midday sun, Friendly and Shivers trailing them like bad memories. ‘I must confess that, as well as doing you a favour, and the sore temptation of placing my boot in Orso’s arse at long last, there were some trifling issues of personal gain to consider.’

  ‘Some things never change.’

  ‘Nothing ever does, and why should it? A considerable quantity of Gurkish gold was on offer. Well, you know it was, you were the first to offer it. Oh, and Rogont was kind enough to promise me, in the now highly likely event that he is crowned King of Styria, the Grand Duchy of Visserine.’

  He was deeply satisfied by her gasp of surprise. ‘You? Grand fucking Duke of Visserine?’

  ‘I probably won’t use the word fucking on my decrees, but otherwise, correct. Grand Duke Nicomo sounds rather well, no? After all, Salier is dead.’

  ‘That much I know.’

  ‘He had no heirs, not even distant ones. The city was plundered, devastated by fire, its government collapsed, much of the populace fled, killed or otherwise taken advantage of. Visserine is in need of a strong and selfless leader to restore her to her glories.’

  ‘And instead they’ll have you.’

  He allowed himself a chuckle. ‘But who better suited? Am I not a native of Visserine?’

  ‘A lot of people are. You don’t see them helping themselves to its dukedom.’

  ‘Well, there’s only one, and it’s mine.’

  ‘Why do you even want it? Commitments? Responsibilities? I thought you hated all that.’

  ‘I always thought so, but my wandering star led me only to the gutter. I have not had a productive life, Monzcarro.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘I have frittered my gifts away on nothing. Self-pity and self-hatred have led me by unsavoury paths to self-neglect, self-injury and the very brink of self-destruction. The unifying theme?’