Джо Аберкромби - Best Served Cold

“You?”

“And you, my friend, and you! Nothing is more valuable to the ruler of a great city than an honest man who can count.”

Friendly took one last longing look back, the gatehouse already disappearing into the trees. “Perhaps they’ll start it up again, one day.”

“Perhaps they will. But in the meantime I can make noble use of your talents in Visserine. I have entirely rightful claims. Born in the city, you know. There’ll be work there. Lots of… work.”

Friendly frowned sideways. “Are you drunk?”

“Ludicrously, my friend, quite ludicrously so. This is the good stuff. The old grape spirit.” Cosca took another swig and smacked his lips. “Change, Friendly… change is a funny thing. Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity…” He waved his flask around for a moment, then shrugged. “They change back.”

Few days after they’d thrown him in there, they’d set up a gallows just outside. He could see it from the little window in his cell, if he climbed up on the pallet and pressed his face to the bars. A man might wonder why a prisoner would go to all that trouble to taunt himself, but somehow he had to. Maybe that was the point. It was a big wooden platform with a crossbeam and four neat nooses. Trapdoors in the floor so they only had to kick a lever to snap four necks at a go, easy as snapping twigs. Quite a thing. They had machines for planting crops, and machines for printing paper, and it seemed they had machines for killing folk too. Maybe that’s what Morveer had meant when he spouted off about science, all those months ago.

They’d hanged a few men right after the fortress fell. Some who’d worked for Orso, given some offence someone needed vengeance for. A couple of the Thousand Swords as well, must’ve stepped onto some dark ground indeed, since there weren’t many rules to break during a sack. But no one had swung for a long time now. Seven weeks, or eight. Maybe he should’ve counted the days, but what difference would counting ’em have made? It was coming, of that much he was sure.

Every morning when the first light crept into the cell and Shivers woke, he wondered if that would be the morning they’d hang him.

Sometimes he wished he hadn’t turned on Monza. But only because it had come out the way it had. Not because he regretted any part of what he’d done. Probably his father wouldn’t have approved of it. Probably his brother would’ve sneered and said he expected no better. No doubt Rudd Threetrees would’ve shook his head, and said justice would come for it. But Threetrees was dead, and justice with him. Shivers’ brother had been a bastard with a hero’s face, and his sneers meant nothing no more. And his father had gone back to the mud and left him to work out his own way of doing things. So much for the good men, and the right thing too.

From time to time he wondered whether Carlot dan Eider got away from the mess his failure must’ve left her in, or whether the Cripple caught up with her. He wondered whether Monza got to kill Orso, and whether it had been all she hoped for. He wondered who that bastard had been who came out of nowhere and knocked him across the hall. Didn’t seem likely he’d ever find out the answers now. But that’s how life is. You don’t always get all the answers.

He was up at the window when he heard keys rattling down the corridor, and he almost smiled at the relief of knowing it was time. He hopped down from his pallet, right leg still stiff where Friendly had stuck his knife in it, stood up tall and faced the metal gate.

He hadn’t thought she’d come herself, but he was glad she had. Glad for the chance to look her in the eye one more time, even if they had the jailer and a half-dozen guards for company. She looked well, no doubt of that, not so gaunt as she used to, nor so hard. Clean, smooth, sleek and rich. Like royalty. Hard to believe she ever had aught to do with him.

“Well, look at you,” he said. “Grand Duchess Monzcarro. How the hell did you come out o’ this mess so fine?”

“Luck.”

“There you go. Never had much myself.” The jailer unlocked the gate and pushed it squealing open. Two of the guards came in, snapped manacles shut round Shivers’ wrists. He didn’t see much purpose in making a fight of it. Would’ve been just an embarrassment all round. They marched him out into the corridor to face her.

“Quite the trip we’ve been on, ain’t it, Monza, you and I?”

“Quite the trip,” she said. “You lost yourself, Shivers.”

“No. I found myself. You going to hang me now?” He didn’t feel much joy at the thought, but not much sorrow either. Better’n rotting in that cell, he reckoned.

She watched him for a long moment. Blue eyes, and cold. Looked at him like she did the first time they met. Like nothing he could do would surprise her. “No.”

“Eh?” Hadn’t been expecting that. Left him disappointed, almost. “What, then?”

“You can go.”

He blinked. “I can what?”

“Go. You’re free.”

“Didn’t think you still cared.”

“Who says I ever did? This is for me, not you. I’ve had enough vengeance.”

Shivers snorted. “Well, who’d have fucking thought it? The Butcher of Caprile. The Snake of Talins. The good woman, all along. I thought you didn’t have much use for the right thing. I thought mercy and cowardice were the same.”

“Mark me down a coward, then. That I can live with. Just don’t ever come back here. My cowardice has limits.” She twisted the ring off her finger. The one with the big, blood-red ruby in it, and tossed it in the dirty straw at his feet. “Take it.”

“Alright.” He bent down and dug it out of the muck, wiped it on his shirt. “I ain’t proud.” Monza turned and walked away, towards the stairway, towards the lamplight spilling from it. “So that’s how this ends, is it?” he called after her. “That’s the ending?”

“You think you deserve something better?” And she was gone.

He slid the ring onto his little finger and watched it sparkle. “Something worse.”

“Move, then, bastard,” snarled one of the guards, waving a drawn sword.

Shivers grinned back. “Oh, I’m gone, don’t you worry on that score. I’ve had my fill of Styria.”

He smiled as he stepped out of the darkness of the tunnel and onto the bridge that led away from Fontezarmo. He scratched at his itching face, took in a long breath of cold, free air. All things considered, and well against the run of luck, he reckoned he’d come out alright. Might be he’d lost an eye down here in Styria. Might be he was leaving no richer than when he’d stepped off the boat. But he was a better man, of that he’d no doubt. A wiser man. Used to be he was his own worst enemy. Now he was everyone else’s.

He was looking forward to getting back to the North, finding some work that suited him. Maybe he’d make a stop in Uffrith, pay his old friend Vossula a little visit. He set off down the mountain, away from the fortress, boots crunching in the grey dust.

Behind him, the sunrise was the colour of bad blood.