Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

“Share hearth and heart’s truth,” he recited softly. “Break bread and sup under a shared sky. Or would you rather not? ”

It was as if a wind off the steppe blew in through the open door behind him. The locking power of the formal phrasing, the cold touch of the double-edged offer. Back in the day , Egar told him once, way it was between the Ish and us, you’d hear that shit about as often just before it really kicked off as you would before everyone sat down to share meat. No one old enough to remember those days will piss on the norms if they can help it .

“No, I mean it, scar-face.” Voice slower and quieted a little this time, because Shendanak, possibly for the first time in years, was suddenly facing something he wasn’t sure how to measure. “Who the fuck are you, really?”

Ringil kept his gaze nailed to the other man’s eyes.

“The warmth of my fire,” he said quietly, “is yours.”

Like arm-wrestling the hulking, confident guy who hasn’t understood how muscle works. Ringil felt the moment bend and then break, like cheap metal. Felt the tension go out of the other man in a gush, felt the arm go down.

“As grateful kin”—the words came grudgingly out of Shendanak’s throat—“I take my place.”

“Good.” Ringil inclined his head, made a courtly gesture at the seat the other man wasn’t using. “Then why don’t you take that place, brother. Be still, keep counsel, and we can deal with these city dwellers in a manner more appropriate to the horsemen they have forgotten how to be.”

“What exactly are you two jabbering about?” snapped a well-fed face farther down the table.

Ringil didn’t switch his gaze, didn’t need to. He kept his tone cold but mannered, dropped back into Tethanne. “That need not concern you, my lord Kaptal.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my northern friend.” This not from Yilmar Kaptal himself, but another, less heavily jowled individual seated at his side. Menith Tand leaned his spare, gray-maned countenance forward and made an inclusive gesture around the table. “Whatever is said in this room concerns us all. We are here, all of us, in good faith, to underwrite a venture of imperial charter. No one said anything about partisan allegiances or League mercenaries.”

Shendanak snorted. “Fucking partisan, is it? Fucking prick.”

“I’m a little surprised to see you uncomfortable with League mercenary involvement, my lord Tand.” Ringil took a couple more steps into the room. Made the space his own, as if the Ravensfriend still hung on his back. “Do you not hire such men in great numbers to bring your slaves down from the north?”

Tand grinned mirthlessly back. “Yes. And many of them with accents and Tethanne far worse than yours. But they all answer to me for their coin. Who do you answer to, my friend?”

Archeth cleared her throat. “Gentlemen and lady, may I present to you his lordship Ringil of the Glades House Eskiath in Trelayne, once ranked knight commander in the alliance armies and decorated hero of the victory at Gallows Gap.”

Low muttering around the table, like the scurry of rats. Ringil saw Noyal Rakan stiffen and murmur something to his aide. Elsewhere, in querying tones, he caught the words hero, dragon , and faggot in about equal measure.

Well, fame took some unpredictable postures when you fucked him. And he was a fickle boy at best.

“That’s who he is, kir -Archeth,” Tand said laconically. “I asked who he answers to.”

Archeth gave him a blank look, and paced a couple of moments before she spoke. “My lord Ringil has agreed to act as guide and captain for the expedition north. His contract, then, is with me, and with the imperial charter. Does that suffice?”

Across the table from Tand and Kaptal, Nethena Gral wrinkled her famously smooth, pale brow—a couple of court poets, Ringil was told, had made allusion to it—and gestured irritably at Noyal Rakan.

“It was my understanding, my lady Archeth, that the Throne Eternal had command of this expedition, and were, so to speak, the Emperor’s blessing and protecting hand in the venture. Is this then no longer the case?”

Ringil raised a hand to his jaw, made a seemingly innocuous stroking gesture with it. The agreed signal. On his flank, he felt Archeth subside as she saw it.

“Honored lady Gral,” he said. “The Emperor’s blessing here in Yhelteth is no doubt a wondrous bounty, to be sought by any wise citizen. North and west of Tlanmar, however, and paired with a League florin, it will buy you a florin’s worth of salt.”

A taut silence stretched behind the words. Ringil kept half an eye on Captain Noyal Rakan, saw the aide bristle with affront, but Rakan himself stay quiet and watchful.

Down the table, someone cleared a throat.

“Some,” said Yilmar Kaptal carefully. “Would call that an insult to the majesty of the Burnished Throne.”

Ringil shrugged. “Some would call it truth.”

More quiet. What gazes were not fixed on Ringil darted around the room, meeting one another, querying, seeking alliance, shying away again.

Then, abruptly, Menith Tand chuckled.

“He’s completely right, of course.” The slaver looked around at the assembled company. “Isn’t he? Come on, maybe not all of you have been up there, but who here hasn’t read the court records on the northwestern march? He’s completely right, and what’s more we all know it, and we’re all sitting here thinking it. So—”

He clapped his hands on the word, once, sharply. Rubbed them briskly together.

“—shall we just welcome our new captain and war hero, as his rank and exploits dictate, and then get to some serious planning? Because I for one grow bored with this constant measuring of male members in place of intelligent debate.”

IT WOULD TAKE LONGER THAN THAT, OF COURSE. HE’D SOWN THE SEEDS, but the crop would be a while in sprouting.

Imperial summons had brought them all to the first meeting, curiosity and the promise of potential wealth kept them attached, as did an unwillingness to be the first to jump ship in case a hated rival should stay, and garner fame and fortune in their absence. It was a powerful binding force in a group so fractious, but it was unstable and unreliable in the longer term. About as safe as the winds around the Gergis cape was Shanta’s sour opinion. Could die out from under us at any minute, leave us becalmed and going nowhere. Or turn about and fling us on the rocks before we even get a start. Needs a very cool hand on the helm .

Well, he’d made a start. Form an outsider bond with Shendanak, but keep it wrapped and opaque beneath the language gap. Throw a line to Tand with his well-traveled merchant sophistication and connection to the League territories. But keep a vague menace about it all. Neutralize the rivalry between the two men by the simple expedient of giving them Gil to worry about instead. Then dare the others to seek confrontation when they had just seen the two most vociferous of the company prefer to stand down. Lubricate the whole with court charm, and leaven with warrior bluntness. Force unity from the mix with that same unspoken threat and promise you’d summon for any ragtag command you got stuck with— this is the thing you are a part of now, and it belongs to me; fracture it and you call me out. And you wouldn’t want that .

This shit he could do in his sleep.

With the rest of his attention, he worried about Egar.

Still somewhere in the city, Imrana thinks . Archeth didn’t have much detail; even now she was playing catch-up like everyone else. The story of Saril Ashant’s murder in his own bedchamber had rocked the court from top to bottom, but Imrana had enough connections to stanch the flow of further information down to a trickle. And her long years as an independent woman at court had taught her the nimble art of trusting no one any further than you absolutely had to. Archeth got a terse summons and a few minutes’ audience in which Imrana sketched the events of Egar’s last visit. He shows up at the crack of dawn with some little trollop in tow, some hard-luck case he’s rescued from sadistic priests and their evil sorcery—