Best Served Cold

by Джо Аберкромби

  “Before you got too drunk.”

  “Well, I could hardly spar afterwards, could I? There is a limit to how much a man should be willing to embarrass himself before breakfast. Is that a Calvez you have there?”

  She lifted the sword, sun’s gleam gliding along its edge. “I had it made for Benna.”

  “For Benna? What the hell would he do with a Calvez? Use it as a spit and cook apples on it?”

  “He didn’t even do that much, as it goes.”

  “I used to have one, you know. Damn good sword. Lost it in a card game. Drink?” He held out the jug.

  She reached for it. “I could-”

  “Hah!” He flung the water in her face and she yelped, stumbling back, drops flying. He ripped his sword from its sheath and as the jug shattered against the roof he was already swinging. She managed to parry the first cut, ducked desperately under the second, slipped, sprawled, rolled away as Cosca’s blade squealed down the roofing lead where she had been a moment before. She came up in a crouch, sword at the ready.

  “You’re getting soft, Murcatto.” He chuckled as he paced out into the centre of the roof. “You’d never have fallen for the old water in the face ten years ago.”

  “I didn’t fall for it just now, idiot.” She wiped her brow slowly with her gloved hand, water dripping from the ends of her wet hair, never taking her eyes from his. “You got anything more than water in the face, or is that as far as your swordsmanship reaches these days?”

  Not much further, if he was honest. “Why don’t we find out?”

  She sprang forwards and their blades feathered together, metal ringing and scraping. She had a long scar on her bare right shoulder, another curving round her forearm and into her black glove.

  He waved his sword at it. “Fighting left-handed, eh? Hope you’re not taking pity on an old man.”

  “Pity? You know me better than that.” He flicked away a jab, but another came so quickly behind it he only just got out of the way, the blade punching a ragged hole in his shirt before it whipped back out.

  He raised his brows. “Good thing I lost some weight during my last binge.”

  “You could lose more, if you’re asking me.” She circled him, the point of her tongue showing between her teeth.

  “Trying to get the sun behind you?”

  “You never should’ve taught me all those dirty tricks. Care to use your left, even things up a little?”

  “Give up an advantage? You know me better than that!” He feinted right then went the other way and left her lunging at nothing. She was quick, but not near as quick as she had been with her right hand. He trod on her boot as she passed, made her stumble, the point of his sword left a neat scratch across the scar on her shoulder, and made a cross of it.

  She peered down at the little wound, a bead of blood forming at its corner. “You old bastard.”

  “A little something to remember me by.” And he twirled his sword around and slashed ostentatiously at the air. She lunged at him again and their swords rang together, cut, cut, jab and parry. All a touch clumsy, like sewing with gloves on. The time was they had given exhibitions, but it seemed time had done nothing for either of them. “One question…” he murmured, keeping his eyes on hers. “Why did you betray me?”

  “I got tired of your fucking jokes.”

  “I deserved to be betrayed, of course. Every mercenary ends up stabbed in the front or the back. But by you?” He jabbed at her, followed it with a cut that made her shuffle back, wincing. “After all I taught you? All I gave you? Safety, and money, and a place to belong? I treated you like my own daughter!”

  “Like your mother, maybe. You’ve left out getting so drunk you’d shit in your clothes. I owed you, but there’s a limit.” She circled him, looking for an opening, no more than the thickness of a finger between the points of their swords. “I might’ve followed you to hell, but I wasn’t taking my brother there with me.”

  “Why not? He’d have been right at home.”

  “Fuck yourself!” She tricked him with a feint, switched angle and forced him to hop away with all the grace of a dying frog. He had forgotten how much work swordplay required. His lungs were burning already, shoulder, forearm, wrist, hand, all aching with a vengeance. “If it hadn’t been me it would’ve been one of the other captains. Sesaria! Victus! Andiche!” She pushed home each hated name with a sharp cut, jarring the sword in his hand. “They were all falling over themselves to be rid of you at Afieri!”

  “Can we not mention that damn place!” He parried her next effort and switched smartly to the attack with something close to his old vigour, driving her back towards the corner of the roof. He needed to bring this to a close before he died of exhaustion. He lunged again and caught her sword on his. He drove her off balance against the parapet, bent her back over the battlements, guards scraping together until their faces were no more than a few inches apart, the long drop to the street looming into view behind her head. He could feel her quick breath on his cheek. For the briefest moment he almost kissed her, and he almost pushed her off the roof. Perhaps it was only because he could not decide which to do that he did neither one.

  “You were better with your right hand,” he hissed.

  “You were better ten years ago.” She slid from under his sword and her gloved little finger came from nowhere and poked him in the eye.

  “Eeeee!” he squealed, free hand clapped to his face. Her knee thudded almost silently into his fruits and sent a lance of pain through his belly as far as his neck. “Oooooof…” He tottered, blade clattering from his clutching fingers, bent over, unable to breathe. “A little something to remember me by.” And the glittering point of Monza’s sword left him a burning scratch across his cheek.

  “Gah!” He sank down slowly to the roofing lead. Back on his knees. There really is no place like home…

  Through the savage pain he heard slow clapping coming from the stairway. “Vitari,” he croaked, squinting over at her as she ambled out into the sunlight. “Why is it… you always find me… at my lowest moments?”

  “Because I enjoy them so.”

  “You bitches don’t know your luck… that you’ll never feel the pain… of a blow to the fruits.”

  “Try childbirth.”

  “A charming invitation… if I were a little less bruised in the relevant areas, I would definitely take you up on it.”

  But, as so often, his wit was wasted. Vitari’s attention was already fixed far beyond the battlements, and Monza’s too. Cosca dragged himself up, bow-legged. A long column of horsemen had crested a rise to the west of the city, framed between two nearby towers, a cloud of dust rising from the hooves of their horses and leaving a brown smear across the sky.

  “They’re here,” said Vitari. From somewhere behind them a bell began to ring, soon joined by others.

  “And there,” said Monza. A second column had appeared. And a pillar of smoke, drifting up beyond a hill to the north.

  Cosca stood as the sun slowly rose into the blue sky, no doubt administering a healthy dose of sunburn to his spreading bald patch, and watched Duke Orso’s army steadily deploy in the fields outside the city. Regiment after regiment smoothly found their positions, well out of bowshot from the walls. A large detachment forded the river to the north and completed the encirclement. The horse screened the foot as they formed neat lines, then fell back behind them, no doubt to set about the business of ravaging anything carelessly left unravaged last season.

  Tents began to appear, and carts too as the supplies came up, stippling the muddy land behind the lines. The tiny defenders at the walls could do nothing but watch as the Talinese dug in around them, as orderly as the workings of a gigantic clock. Not Cosca’s style, of course, even when sober. More engineering than artistry, but one had to admire the discipline.

  He spread his arms wide. “Welcome, one and all, to the siege of Visserine!”

  The others had all gathered on the roof to watch Ganmark’s grip on the ci
ty tighten. Monza stood with her left hand on her hip, gloved right slack on the pommel of her sword, black hair stirring around her scowl. Shivers was on Cosca’s other side, staring balefully out from under his brows. Friendly sat near the door to the stairs, rolling his dice between his crossed legs. Day and Vitari muttered to each other further along the parapet. Morveer looked even more sour than usual, if that was possible.

  “Can no one’s sense of humour withstand so small a thing as a siege? Cheer up, my comrades!” Cosca gave Shivers a hearty clap on his broad back. “It isn’t every day you get to see so large an army handled so well! We should all congratulate Monza’s friend General Ganmark on his exceptional patience and discipline. Perhaps we should pen him a letter.”

  “My dear General Ganmark.” Monza worked her mouth, curled her tongue and blew spit over the battlements. “Yours ever, Monzcarro Murcatto.”

  “A simple missive,” observed Morveer, “but no doubt he will treasure it.”

  “Lot o’ soldiers down there,” Shivers grunted.

  Friendly’s voice drifted gently over. “Thirteen thousand four hundred, or thereabouts.”

  “Mostly Talinese troops.” Cosca waved at them with the eyeglass. “Some regiments from Orso’s older allies-flags of Etrisani on the right wing, there, near the water, and some others of Cesale in the centre. All regulars, though. No sign of our old comrades-in-arms, the Thousand Swords. Shame. It would be fine to renew some old friendships, wouldn’t it, Monza? Sesaria, Victus, Andiche. Faithful Carpi too, of course.” Renew old friendships… and be revenged on old friends.

  “The mercenaries will be away to the east.” Monza jerked her head across the river. “Holding off Duke Rogont and his Osprians.”

  “Great fun for all involved, no doubt. But we, at least, are here.” Cosca gestured towards the crawling soldiers outside the city. “General Ganmark, one presumes, is there. The plan, to bring us all together in a happy reunion? We presume you have a plan?”

  “Ganmark is a cultured man. He has a taste for art.”

  “And?” demanded Morveer.

  “No one has more art than Grand Duke Salier.”

  “His collection is impressive.” Cosca had admired it on several occasions, or at any rate pretended to, while admiring his wine.

  “The finest in Styria, they say.” Monza strode to the opposite parapet, looking towards Salier’s palace on its island in the river. “When the city falls, Ganmark will make straight for the palace, eager to rescue all those priceless works from the chaos.”

  “To steal them for himself,” threw in Vitari.

  Monza’s jaw was set even harder than usual. “Orso will want to be done with this siege quickly. Leave as much time as possible to put an end to Rogont. Finish the League of Eight for good and claim his crown before winter comes. That means breaches, and assaults, and bodies in the streets.”

  “Marvellous!” Cosca clapped his hands. “Streets may boast noble trees, and stately buildings, but they never feel complete without a dusting of corpses, do they?”

  “We take armour, uniforms, weapons from the dead. When the city falls, which will be soon, we disguise ourselves as Talinese. We find our way into the palace, and while Ganmark is going about the rescue of Salier’s collection and his guard is down…”

  “Kill the bastard?” offered Shivers.

  There was a pause. “I believe I perceive the most minute of flaws in the scheme.” Morveer’s whining words were like nails driven into the back of Cosca’s skull. “Grand Duke Salier’s palace will be among the best-guarded locations in Styria at the present moment, and we are not in it. Nor likely to receive an invitation.”

  “On the contrary, I have one already.” Cosca was gratified to find them all staring at him. “Salier and I were quite close some years ago, when he employed me to settle his boundary issues with Puranti. We used to dine together once a week and he assured me I was welcome whenever I found myself in the city.”

  The poisoner’s face was a caricature of contempt. “Would this, by any chance, have been before you became a wine-ravaged sot?”

  Cosca waved one careless hand while filing that slight carefully away with the rest. “During my long and most enjoyable transformation into one. Like a caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly. In any case, the invitation still stands.”

  Vitari narrowed her eyes at him. “How the hell do you plan to make use of it?”

  “I imagine I will address the guards at the palace gate, and say something along the lines of-‘I am Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune, and I am here for dinner.’ ”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, quite as if he had contributed a giant turd rather than a winning idea.

  “Forgive me,” murmured Monza, “but I doubt your name opens doors the way it used to.”

  “ Latrine doors, maybe.” Morveer gave a sneering shake of his head. Day chuckled softly into the wind. Even Shivers had a dubious curl to his lip.

  “Vitari and Morveer, then,” snapped Monza. “That’s your job. Watch the palace. Find us a way in.” The two of them gave each other an unenthusiastic frown. “Cosca, you know something about uniforms.”

  He sighed. “Few men more. Every employer wants to give you one of their own. I had one from the Aldermen of Westport cut from cloth of gold, about as comfortable as a lead pipe up the-”

  “Something less eye-catching might be better suited to our purpose.”

  Cosca drew himself up and snapped out a vibrating salute. “General Murcatto, I will do my straining utmost to obey your orders!”

  “Don’t strain. Man of your age, you might rupture something. Take Friendly with you, once the assaults begin.” The convict shrugged, and went back to his dice.

  “We will most nobly strip the dead to their naked arses!” Cosca turned towards the stairs, but was brought up short by the sight in the bay. “Ah! Duke Orso’s fleet has joined the fun.” He could just see ships moving on the horizon, white sails marked with the black cross of Talins.

  “More guests for Duke Salier,” said Vitari.

  “He always was a conscientious host, but I’m not sure even he can be prepared for so many visitors at once. The city is entirely cut off.” And Cosca grinned into the wind.

  “A prison,” said Friendly, and almost with a smile of his own.

  “We are helpless as rats in a sack!” snapped Morveer. “You speak quite as if that were a good thing.”

  “Five times I have been under siege, and always quite relished the experience. It has a wonderful way of limiting the options. Of freeing the mind.” Cosca took a long breath in through his nose and blew it happily out. “When life is a cell, there is nothing more liberating than captivity.”

  The Forlorn Hope

  Fire.

  Visserine by night had become a place of flame and shadow. An endless maze of broken walls, fallen roofs, jutting rafters. A nightmare of disembodied cries, ghostly shapes flitting through the darkness. Buildings loomed, gutted shells, the eyeless gaps of window and doorway screaming open, fire spurting out, licking through, tickling at the darkness. Charred beams stabbed at the flames and they stabbed back. Showers of white sparks climbed into the black skies, and a black snow of ash fell softly the other way. The city had new towers now, crooked towers of smoke, glowing with the light of the fires that gave them birth, smudging out the stars.

  “How many did we get the last time?” Cosca’s eyes gleamed yellow from the flames across the square. “Three was it?”

  “Three,” croaked Friendly. They were safe in the chest in his room: the armour of two Talinese soldiers, one with the square hole left by a flatbow bolt, and the uniform of a slight young lieutenant he had found crushed under a fallen chimney. Bad luck for him, but then Friendly supposed it was his side throwing the fire everywhere.

  They had catapults beyond the walls, five on the west side of the river, and three on the east. They had catapults on the twenty-two white-sailed ships in the harbour. The first night,
Friendly had stayed up until dawn watching them. They had thrown one hundred and eighteen burning missiles over the walls, scattering fires about the city. Fires shifted, and burned out, and split, and merged one with another, and so they could not be counted. The numbers had deserted Friendly, and left him alone and afraid. It had taken but six short days, three nights times two, for peaceful Visserine to turn to this.

  The only part of the city untouched was the island on which Duke Salier’s palace stood. There were paintings there, Murcatto said, and other pretty things that Ganmark, the leader of Orso’s army, the man they were here to kill, wished to save. He would burn countless houses, and countless people in them, and order murder night and day, but these dead things of paint had to be protected. Friendly thought this was a man who should be put in Safety, so that the world outside could be a safer place. But instead he was obeyed, and admired, and the world burned. It seemed all turned around, all wrong. But then Friendly could not tell right from wrong, the judges had told him so.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes,” lied Friendly.

  Cosca flashed a crazy grin. “Then to the breach, dear friend, once more!” And he trotted off down the street, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other clasping his hat to his head. Friendly swallowed, then followed, lips moving silently as he counted the steps he took. He had to count something other than the ways he could die.

  It only grew worse the closer they got to the city’s western edge. The fires rose up in terrible magnificence, creaking and roaring, towering devils, gnawing at the night. They burned Friendly’s eyes and made them weep. Or perhaps he wept anyway, to see the waste of it. If you wanted a thing, why burn it? And if you did not want it, why fight to take it from someone else? Men died in Safety. They died there all the time. But there was no waste like this. There was not enough there to risk destroying what there was. Each thing was valued.

  “Bloody Gurkish fire!” Cosca cursed as they gave another roaring blaze a wide berth. “Ten years ago no one had dreamed of using that stuff as a weapon. Then they made Dagoska an ash-heap with it, knocked holes in the walls of the Agriont with it. Now no sooner does a siege begin than everyone’s clamouring to blow things up. We liked to torch a building or two in my day, just to get things moving, but nothing like this. War used to be about making money. Some degree of modest misery was a regrettable side effect. Now it’s just about destroying things, and the more thoroughly the better. Science, my friend, science. Supposed to make life easier, I thought.”