Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  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.”

  Monza thought of her own field burning, all those years ago. “You’ve got a point, you can out and say it.”

  “That blood only makes more blood. That settling one score only starts another. That war gives a bastard of a sour taste to any man that’s not half-mad, and it only gets worse with time.” She didn’t disagree. “So you know why I’d rather be free of it. Make something grow. Something to be proud of, instead of just breaking. Be… a good man, I guess.”

  Snip, snip. Hair tumbled down and gathered on the floor. “A good man, eh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’ve seen dead men yourself?”

  “I’ve seen my share.”

  “You’ve seen a lot together?” she asked. “Stacked up after the plague came through, spread out after a battle?”

  “Aye, I’ve seen that.”

  “Did you notice some of those corpses had a kind of glow about them? A sweet smell like roses on a spring morning?”

  Shivers frowned. “No.”

  “The good men and the bad, then-all looked about the same, did they? They always did to me, I can tell you that.” It was his turn to stay quiet. “If you’re a good man, and you try to think about what the right thing is every day of your life, and you build things to be proud of so bastards can come and burn them in a moment, and you make sure and say thank you kindly each time they kick the guts out of you, do you think when you die, and they stick you in the mud, you turn into gold?”

  “What?”

  “Or do you turn to fucking shit like the rest of us?”

  He nodded slowly. “You turn to shit, alright. But maybe you can leave something good behind you.”

  She barked empty laughter at him. “What do we leave behind but things not done, not said, not finished? Empty clothes, empty rooms, empty spaces in the ones who knew us? Mistakes never made right and hopes rotted down to nothing?”

  “Hopes passed on, maybe. Good words said. Happy memories, I reckon.”

  “And all those dead men’s smiles you’ve kept folded up in your heart, they were keeping you warm when I found you, were they? How did they taste when you were hungry? They raise a smile, even, when you were desperate?”

  Shivers puffed out his cheeks. “Hell, but you’re a ray of sunshine. Might be they did me some good.”

  “More than a pocketful of silver would’ve?”

  He blinked at her, then away. “Maybe not. But I reckon I’ll try to keep thinking my way, just the same.”

  “Hah. Good luck, good man.” She shook her head as if she’d never heard such stupidity. Give me only evil men for friends, Verturio wrote. Them I understand.

  A last quick clicking of the scissors and the barber stepped away, dabbing at his own sweaty brow with the back of one sleeve. “And we are all finished.”

  Shivers stared into the mirror. “I look a different man.”

  “Sir looks like a Styrian aristocrat.”

  Monza snorted. “Less like a Northern beggar, anyway.”

  “Maybe.” Shivers looked less than happy. “I daresay that’s a better-looking man there. A cleverer man.” He ran one hand through his short dark hair, frowning at his reflection. “Not sure if I trust that bastard, though.”

  “And to finish…” The barber leaned forwards, a coloured crystal bottle in his hands, and squirted a fine mist of perfume over Shivers’ head.

  The Northman was up like a cat off hot coals. “What the fuck?” he roared, big fists clenched, shoving the man away and making him totter across the room with a squeal.

  Monza burst out laughing. “Looks of a Styrian nobleman, maybe.” She pulled out a couple more quarters and tucked them into the gaping barber’s apron pocket. “The manners might be a while coming, though.”

  * * *

  It was getting dark when they came back to the crumbling mansion, Monza with her hood drawn up and Shivers striding proudly along in his new coat. A cold rain flitted down into the ruined courtyard, a single lamp burned in a window on the first floor. She frowned towards it, and then at Shivers, found the grip of the knife in the back of her belt with her left hand. Best to be ready for every possibility. Up the creaking stairs a peeling door stood ajar, light spilling out across the boards. She stepped up and poked it open with her boot.

  A pair of burning logs in the soot-blackened fireplace barely warmed the chamber on the other side. Friendly stood beside the far window, peering through the shutters towards the bank. Morveer had some sheets of paper spread out on a rickety old table, marking his place with an in
k-spotted hand. Day sat on the tabletop with her legs crossed, peeling an orange with a dagger. “Definite improvement,” she grunted, giving Shivers a glance.

  “Oh, I cannot but agree.” Morveer grinned. “A dirty, long-haired idiot left the building this morning. A clean, short-haired idiot has returned. It must be magic.”

  Monza let go the grip of her knife while Shivers muttered angrily to himself in Northern. “Since you’re not crowing your own praises, I’m guessing the job’s not done.”

  “Mauthis is a most cautious and well-protected man. The bank is far too heavily guarded during the day.”

  “On his way to the bank, then.”

  “He leaves by an armoured carriage with a dozen guards in attendance. To try and intercept them would be too great a risk.”

  Shivers tossed another log on the fire and held his palms out towards it. “At his house?”

  “Pah,” sneered Morveer. “We followed him there. He lives on a walled island in the bay where several of the city’s Aldermen have their estates. The public are not admitted. We have no method of gaining advance access to the building even if we can deduce which one is his. How many guards, servants, family members would be in attendance? All unknown. I flatly refuse to attempt a job of this difficulty on conjecture. What do I never take, Day?”

  “Chances.”

  “Correct. I deal in certainties, Murcatto. That is why you came to me. I am hired for a certain man most certainly dead, not for a butcher’s mess and your target slipped away in the chaos. We are not in Caprile, now-”

  “I know where we are, Morveer. What’s your plan, then?”

  “I have gathered the necessary information and devised a sure means of achieving the desired effect. I need only gain access to the bank during the hours of darkness.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  “How do I plan to do that, Day?”

  “Through the rigorous application of observation, logic and method.”

  Morveer flashed his smug little smile again. “Precisely so.”

  Monza glanced sideways at Benna. Except Benna was dead, and Shivers was in his place. The Northman raised his eyebrows, blew out a long sigh and looked back to the fire. Give me only evil men for friends, Verturio wrote. But there had to be a limit.

  Two Twos

  The dice came up two twos. Two times two is four. Two plus two is four. Add the dice, or multiply, the same result. It made Friendly feel helpless, that thought. Helpless but calm. All these people struggling to get things done, but whatever they did, it turned out the same. The dice were full of lessons. If you knew how to read them.

  The group had formed two twos. Morveer and Day were one pair. Master and apprentice. They had joined together, they stayed together, they laughed together at everyone else. But now Friendly saw that Murcatto and Shivers were forming a pair of their own. They crouched next to each other at the parapet, black outlines against the dim night sky, staring across towards the bank, an immense block of thicker darkness. He had often seen that it was in the nature of people to form pairs. Everyone except him. He was left alone, in the shadows. Maybe there was something wrong with him, the way the judges had said.

  Sajaam had chosen him to form a pair with, in Safety, but Friendly had no illusions. Sajaam had chosen him because he was useful. Because he was feared. As feared as anyone in the darkness. But Sajaam had not pretended any differently. He was the only honest man that Friendly knew, and so it had been an honest arrangement. It had worked so well that Sajaam had made enough money in prison to buy his freedom from the judges. But he was an honest man and so, when he was free, he had not forgotten Friendly. He had come back and bought his freedom too.

  Outside the walls, where there were no rules, things were different. Sajaam had other business, and Friendly was left alone again. He did not mind, though. He was used to it, and had the dice for company. So he found himself here, in the darkness, on a roof in Westport, in the dead of winter. With these two mismatched pairs of dishonest people.

  The guards came in two twos as well, four at a time, and two groups of four, following each other endlessly around the bank all night. It was raining now, a half-frozen sleet spitting down. Still they followed each other, round, and round, and round through the darkness. One party trudged along the lane beneath, well armoured, polearms shouldered.

  “Here they come again,” said Shivers.

  “I see that,” sneered Morveer. “Start a count.”

  Day’s whisper came through the night, high and throaty. “One… two

  … three… four… five…” Friendly stared open-mouthed at her lips moving, the dice forgotten by his limp hand. His own mouth moved silently along with hers. “Twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…”

  “How to reach the roof?” Morveer was musing. “How to reach the roof?”

  “Rope and grapple?” asked Murcatto.

  “Too slow, too noisy, too uncertain. The rope would be left in plain view the entire time, even supposing we could firmly set a grapple. No. We need a method that allows for no accidents.”

  Friendly wished they would shut their mouths so he could listen to Day’s counting. His cock was aching hard from listening to it. “One hundred and twelve… one hundred and thirteen…” He let his eyes close, let his head fall back against the wall, one finger moving back and forth in time. “One hundred and eighty-two… one hundred and eighty-three…”

  “No one could climb up there free,” came Murcatto’s voice. “Not anyone. Too smooth, too sheer. And the spikes to worry on.”

  “I am in complete agreement.”

  “Up from inside the bank, then.”

  “Impossible. Entirely too many eyes. It must be up the walls, then in via the great windows in the roof. At least the lane is deserted during the hours of darkness. That is something in our favour.”

  “What about the other sides of the building?”

  “The north face is considerably busier and better lit. The east contains the primary entrance, with an additional party of four guards posted all night. The south is identical to this face, but without the advantage of our having access to an adjacent roof. No. This wall is our only option.”

  Friendly saw the faint flicker of light down below in the lane. The next patrol, two times two guards, two plus two guards, four guards working their steady way around the bank.

  “All night they keep this up?”

  “There are two other parties of four that relieve them. They maintain their vigil uninterrupted until daybreak.”

  “Two hundred and ninety-one… two hundred and ninety-two… and here comes the next set.” Day clicked her tongue. “Three hundred, give or take.”

  “Three hundred,” hissed Morveer, and Friendly could see his head shaking in the darkness. “Not enough time.”

  “Then how?” snapped Monza.

  Friendly swept the dice up again, felt their familiar edges pressing into his palm. It hardly mattered to him how they got into the bank, or even whether they ever did. His hopes mostly involved Day starting to count again.

  “There must be a way… there must be a-”

  “I can do it.” They all looked round. Shivers was sitting against the parapet, white hands dangling.

  “You?” sneered Morveer. “How?”

  Friendly could just make out the curve of the Northman’s grin in the darkness. “Magic.”

  Plans and Accidents

  The guards grumbled their way down the lane. Four of ’em-breastplates, steel caps, halberd blades catching the light from their swinging lanterns. Shivers pressed himself deep into the doorway as they clattered past, waited a nervy moment, then padded across the lane and into the shadows beside the pillar he’d chosen. He started counting. Three hundred or so, to make it to the top and onto the roof. He looked up. Seemed a bastard of a long way. Why the hell had he said yes to this? Just so he could slap the smile off that idiot Morveer’s face, and show Murcatto he was worth his money?

&
nbsp; “Always my own worst enemy,” he whispered. Turned out he’d too much pride. That and a terrible weakness for fine-looking women. Who’d have thought it?

  He pulled the rope out, two strides long with an eye at one end and a hook at the other. He cast a glance over the windows in the buildings facing him. Most were shuttered against the cold night, but a few were open, a couple still with lights burning inside. He wondered what the chances were of someone looking out and seeing him shinning up the side of a bank. Higher than he’d like, that was sure.

  “Worst fucking enemy.” He got ready to climb up onto the pillar’s base.

  “Somewhere here.”

  “Where, idiot?”

  Shivers froze, rope dangling from his hands. Footsteps now, armour jingling. Bastard guards were coming back. They’d never done that in fifty circuits of the place. For all his chat about science, that bloody poisoner had made an arse of it and Shivers was the one left with his fruits dangling in the wind. He squeezed deeper into the shadows, felt the big flatbow on his back scraping stone. How the hell was he going to explain that? Just a midnight stroll, you know, all in black, taking the old bow for a walk.

  If he bolted they’d see him, chase him, more’n likely stab him with something. Either way they’d know someone had been trying to creep into the bank and that would be the end of the whole business. If he stayed put… same difference, more or less, except the stabbing got a sight more likely.

  The voices came closer. “Can’t be far away, all we bloody do is go round and round…”

  One of ’em must’ve lost something. Shivers cursed his shitty luck, and not for the first time. Too late to run. He closed his fist round the grip of his knife. Footsteps thumped, just on the other side of the pillar. Why’d he taken her silver? Turned out he’d a terrible weakness for money too. He gritted his teeth, waited for “Please!” Murcatto’s voice. She walked out across the lane, hood back, long coat swishing. Might’ve been the first time Shivers had seen her without a sword. “I’m so, so sorry to bother you. I’m only trying to get home, but I seem to have got myself completely lost.”