The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country (54 page)

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Authors: Joe Abercrombie

Tags: #Fantasy, #Omnibus

BOOK: The Great Leveller: Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country
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‘Cosca, Cosca,’ she murmured. ‘What will I do without you?’
V
 
PURANTI
 
‘For mercenaries are disunited, thirsty for power, undisciplined, and disloyal; they are brave among their friends and cowards before the enemy; they have no fear of God, they do not keep faith with their fellow men; they avoid defeat just as long as they avoid battle; in peacetime you are despoiled by them and in wartime by the enemy’
 
Niccolò Machiavelli
F
or two years, half the Thousand Swords pretended to fight the other half.
Cosca, when he was sober enough to speak, boasted that never before in history had men made so much for doing so little. They sucked the coffers of Nicante and Affoia bone dry, then turned north when their hopes were dashed by the sudden outbreak of peace, seeking new wars to profit from, or ambitious employers to begin them.
No employer was more ambitious than Orso, the new Grand Duke of Talins, kicked to power after his elder brother was kicked by his favourite horse. He was all too eager to sign a Paper of Engagement with the well-known mercenary Monzcarro Murcatto. Especially since his enemies in Etrea had but lately hired the infamous Nicomo Cosca to lead their troops.
It proved difficult to bring the two to battle, however. Like two cowards circling before a brawl, they spent a whole season in ruinously expensive manoeuvrings, doing much harm to the farmers of the region but little to each other. They were finally urged together in ripe wheat-fields near the village of Afieri, where a battle seemed sure to follow. Or something that looked very like one.
But that evening Monza had an unexpected visitor to her tent. None other than Duke Orso himself.
‘Your Excellency, I had not expected—’
‘No need for pleasantries. I know what Nicomo Cosca has planned for tomorrow.’
Monza frowned. ‘I imagine he plans to fight, and so do I.’
‘He plans no such thing, and neither do you. The pair of you have been making fools of your employers for the past two years. I do not care to be made a fool of. I can see fake battles in the theatre at a fraction of the cost. That is why I will pay you twice to fight him in earnest.’
Monza had not been expecting this. ‘I . . .’
‘You have loyalty to him, I know. I respect that. Everyone must stick at something in their lives. But Cosca is the past, and I have decided that you are the future. Your brother agrees with me.’
Monza had certainly not been expecting that. She stared at Benna, and he grinned back. ‘It’s better like this. You deserve to lead.’
‘I can’t . . . the other captains will never—’
‘I spoke to them already,’ said Benna. ‘All except Faithful, and that old dog will follow along when he sees how the wind’s blowing. They’re sick of Cosca, and his drinking, and his foolishness. They want a long contract and a leader they can be proud of. They want you.’
The Duke of Talins was watching. She could not afford to seem reluctant. ‘Then I accept, of course. You had me at paid twice,’ she lied.
Orso smiled. ‘I have a feeling you and I will do well for one another, General Murcatto. I will look forward to news of your victory tomorrow.’ And he left.
When the tent flap dropped Monza cuffed her brother across the face and knocked him to the ground. ‘What have you done, Benna? What have you done?’
He looked sullenly up at her, one hand to his bloody mouth. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘No you fucking didn’t! You thought you’d be. I hope you are.’
But there was nothing she could do but forgive him, and make the best of it. He was her brother. The only one who really knew her. And Sesaria, Victus, Andiche and most of the other captains had agreed. They were tired of Nicomo Cosca. So there could be no turning back. The next day, as dawn slunk out of the east and they prepared for the coming battle, Monza ordered her men to charge in earnest. What else could she do?
By evening she was sitting in Cosca’s chair, with Benna grinning beside her and her newly enriched captains drinking to her first victory. Everyone laughed but her. She was thinking of Cosca, and all he had given her, what she had owed him and how she had paid him back. She was in no mood to celebrate.
Besides, she was captain general of the Thousand Swords. She could not afford to laugh.
Sixes
 
T
he dice came up a pair of sixes. In the Union they call that score suns, like the sun on their flag. In Baol they call it twice won, because the house pays double on it. In Gurkhul they call it the Prophet or the Emperor, depending where a man’s loyalty lies. In Thond it is the golden dozen. In the Thousand Isles, twelve winds. In Safety they call two sixes the jailer, because the jailer always wins. All across the Circle of the World men cheer for that score, but to Friendly it was no better than any other. It won him nothing. He turned his attention back to the great bridge of Puranti, and the men crossing it.
The faces of the statues on their tall columns might have worn to pitted blobs, the roadway might have cracked with age and the parapet crumbled, but the six arches still soared tall and graceful, scornful of the dizzy drop below. The great piers of rock from which they sprang, six times six strides high, still defied the battering waters. Six hundred years old and more, but the Imperial bridge was still the only way across the Pura’s deep gorge at this time of year. The only way to Ospria by land.
The army of Grand Duke Rogont marched across it in good order, six men abreast. The regular tramp, tramp of their boots was like a mighty heartbeat, accompanied by the jingle and clatter of arms and harness, the occasional calls of officers, the steady murmur of the watching crowd, the rushing throb of the river far below. They had been marching across it all morning, now, by company, by battalion, by regiment. Moving forests of spear tips, gleaming metal and studded leather. Dusty, dirty, determined faces. Proud flags hanging limp on the still air. Their six-hundredth rank had passed not long before. Some four thousand men across already and at least as many more to follow. Six, by six, by six, they came.
‘Good order. For a retreat.’ Shivers’ voice had withered to a throaty whisper in Visserine.
Vitari snorted. ‘If there’s one thing Rogont knows how to manage it’s a retreat. He’s had enough practice.’
‘One must appreciate the irony,’ observed Morveer, watching the soldiers pass with a look of faint scorn. ‘Today’s proud legions march over the last vestiges of yesterday’s fallen empire. So it always is with military splendour. Hubris made flesh.’
‘How incredibly profound.’ Murcatto curled her lip. ‘Why, travelling with the great Morveer is both pleasure and education.’
‘I am philosopher and poisoner all in one. I pray you not to worry, though, my fee covers both. Remunerate me for my bottomless insights, the poison comes free of charge.’
‘Does our luck have no end?’ she grated back.
‘Does it even have a beginning?’ murmured Vitari.
The group was down to six, and those more irritable than ever. Murcatto, hood drawn up, black hair hanging lank from inside, only her pointed nose and chin and hard mouth visible. Shivers, half his head still bandaged and the other half milk-pale, his one eye sunk in a dark ring. Vitari, sitting on the parapet with her legs stretched out and her shoulders propped against a broken column, freckled face tipped back towards the bright sun. Morveer, frowning down at the churning water, his apprentice leaning nearby. And Friendly, of course. Six. Cosca was dead. In spite of his name, Friendly rarely kept friends long.
‘Talking of remuneration,’ Morveer droned on, ‘we should visit the nearest bank and have a note drawn up. I hate to have debts outstanding between myself and an employer. It leaves a sour taste on our otherwise honey-sweet relationship.’
‘Sweet,’ grunted Day, around a mouthful, though whether she was talking about her cake or the relationship, it was impossible to say.
‘You owe me for my part in General Ganmark’s demise, a peripheral yet vital one, since it prevented you from partaking in a demise of your own. I have also to replace the equipment so carelessly lost in Visserine. Need I once again point out that, had you allowed me to remove our problematic farmers as I desired, there would have been no—’
‘Enough,’ hissed Murcatto. ‘I don’t pay you to be reminded of my mistakes. ’
‘I imagine that service too is free of charge.’ Vitari slid down from the parapet. Day swallowed the last of her cake and licked her fingers. They all made ready to move, except for Friendly. He stayed, looking down at the water.
‘Time to move,’ said Murcatto.
‘Yes. I am going back to Talins.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Sajaam was sending word to me here, but there is no letter.’
‘It’s a long way to Talins. There’s a war—’
‘This is Styria. There’s always a war.’
There was a pause while she looked at him, her eyes almost hidden in her hood. The others watched, none showing much feeling at his going. People rarely did, when he went, and nor did he. ‘You’re sure?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He had seen half of Styria – Westport, Sipani, Visserine and much of the country in between, and hated it all. He had felt shiftless and scared sitting in Sajaam’s smoke-house, dreaming of Safety. Now those long days, the smell of husk, the endless cards and posturing, the routine rounds of the slums collecting money, the occasional moments of predictable and well-structured violence, all seemed like some happy dream. There was nothing for him out here, where every day was under a different sky. Murcatto was chaos, and he wanted no more of her.
‘Take this then.’ She pulled a purse out from her coat.
‘I am not here for your money.’
‘Take it anyway. It’s a lot less than you deserve. Might make the journey easier.’ He let her press it into his hand.
‘Luck be at your back,’ said Shivers.
Friendly nodded. ‘The world is made of six, today.’
‘Six be at your back, then.’
‘It will be, whether I want it or not.’ Friendly swept up the dice with the side of his hand, wrapped them carefully in their cloth and tucked them down inside his jacket. Without a backward glance he slipped off through the crowds lining the bridge, against the endless current of soldiers, over the endless current of water. He left both behind, struck on into the smaller, meaner part of the city on the river’s western side. He would pass the time by counting the number of strides it took him to reach Talins. Since he said his goodbyes he had made already three hundred and sixty-six—
‘Master Friendly!’ He jerked round, frowning, hands itching ready to move to knife and cleaver. A figure leaned lazily in a doorway off the street, arms and boots crossed, face all in shadow. ‘Whatever are the odds of meeting you here?’ The voice sounded terribly familiar. ‘Well, you would know the odds better than me, I’m sure, but a happy chance indeed, on that we can agree.’
‘We can,’ said Friendly, beginning to smile as he realised who it was.
‘Why, I feel almost as if I threw a pair of sixes . . .’
The Eye-Maker
 
A
bell tinkled as Shivers shoved the door open and stepped through into the shop, Monza at his shoulder. It was dim inside, light filtering through the window in a dusty shaft and falling across a marble counter, shadowy shelves down one wall. At the back, under a hanging lamp, was a big chair with a leather pad to rest your head on. Might’ve looked inviting, except for the straps to hold the sitter down. On a table beside it a neat row of instruments were laid out. Blades, needles, clamps, pliers. Surgeon’s tools.
That room might’ve given him a cold tremble fit to match his name once, but no more. He’d had his eye burned out of his face, and lived to learn the lessons. The world hardly seemed to have any horrors left. Made him smile, to think how scared he’d always been before. Scared of everything and nothing. Smiling tugged at the great wound under his bandages and made his face burn, so he stopped.
The bell brought a man creeping through a side door, hands rubbing nervously together. Small and dark-skinned with a sorry face. Worried they were here to rob him, more’n likely, what with Orso’s army not far distant. Everyone in Puranti seemed worried, scared they’d lose what they had. Apart from Shivers himself. He hadn’t much to lose.
‘Sir, madam, can I be of assistance?’
‘You’re Scopal?’ asked Monza. ‘The eye-maker?’
‘I am Scopal,’ he bent a nervous bow, ‘scientist, surgeon, physician, specialising in all things relating to the vision.’
Shivers undid the knot at the back of his head. ‘Good enough.’ And he started unwinding the bandages. ‘Fact is I’ve lost an eye.’
That perked the surgeon up. ‘Oh, don’t say lost, my friend!’ He came forwards into the light from the window. ‘Don’t say lost until I have had a chance to view the damage. You would be amazed at what can be achieved! Science is leaping forwards every day!’

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