Joe Abercrombie - Best Served Cold

“I know some people.”

“Then I need to borrow a man with a cold head and a good arm. A man who won’t get flustered at blood spilled.”

Sajaam seemed to think about that. Then he turned his head and called over his shoulder. “You know a man like that, Friendly?”

Footsteps scraped out of the darkness from the way Shivers had come. Seemed there’d been someone following them, and doing it well. The woman slid into a fighting crouch, eyes narrowed, left hand on her sword hilt. Shivers would’ve reached for a weapon too, if he’d had one, but he’d sold all his own in Uffrith and given the knife over to Sajaam. So he settled for a nervous twitching of his fingers, which wasn’t a scrap of use to anyone.

The new arrival trudged up, stooped over, eyes down. He was a half-head or more shorter than Shivers but had a fearsome solid look to him, thick neck wider than his skull, heavy hands dangling from the sleeves of a heavy coat.

“Friendly,” Sajaam was all smiles at the surprise he’d pulled, “this is an old friend of mine, name of Murcatto. You’re going to work for her a while, if you have no objection.” The man shrugged his weighty shoulders. “What did you say your name was, again?”

“Shivers.”

Friendly’s eyes flickered up, then back to the floor, and stayed there. Sad eyes and strange. Silence for a moment.

“Is he a good man?” asked Murcatto.

“This is the best man I know of. Or the worst, if you stand on his wrong side. I met him in Safety.”

“What had he done to be locked in there with the likes of you?”

“Everything and more.”

More silence. “For a man called Friendly, he’s not got much to say.”

“My very thoughts when I first met him,” said Sajaam. “I suspect the name was meant with some irony.”

“Irony? In a prison?”

“All kinds of people end up in prison. Some of us even have a sense of humour.”

“If you say so. I’ll take some husk as well.”

“You? More your brother’s style, no? What do you want husk for?”

“When did you start asking your customers why they want your goods, old man?”

“Fair point.” He pulled something from his pocket, tossed it to her and she snatched it out of the air.

“I’ll let you know when I need something else.”

“I shall tick off the hours! I always swore you’d be the death of me, Monzcarro.” Sajaam turned away. “The death of me.”

Shivers stepped in front of him. “My knife.” He didn’t understand the fine points of what he’d heard, but he could tell when he was caught up in something dark and bloody. Something where he was likely to need a good blade.

“My pleasure.” Sajaam slapped it back into Shivers’ palm, and it weighed heavy there. “Though I advise you to find a larger blade if you plan on sticking with her.” He glanced round at them, slowly shaking his head. “You three heroes, going to put an end to Duke Orso? When they kill you, do me a favour? Die quickly and keep my name out of it.” And with that cheery thought he ambled off into the night.

When Shivers turned back, the woman called Murcatto was looking him right in the eye. “What about you? Fishing’s a bastard of a living. Almost as hard as farming, and even worse-smelling.” She held out her gloved hand and silver glinted in the palm. “I can still use another man. You want to take your scale? Or you want fifty more?”

Shivers frowned down at that shining metal. He’d killed men for a lot less, when he thought about it. Battles, feuds, fights, in all settings and all weathers. But he’d had reasons, then. Not good ones, always, but something to make it some kind of right. Never just murder, blood bought and paid for.

“This man we’re going to kill… what did he do?”

“He got me to pay fifty scales for his corpse. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not for me.”

She frowned at him for a long moment. That straight-ahead look that was already giving him the worries, somehow. “So you’re one of them, eh?”

“One o’ what?”

“One of those men that like reasons. That need excuses. You’re a dangerous crowd, you lot. Hard to predict.” She shrugged. “But if it helps. He killed my brother.”

Shivers blinked. Hearing those words, from her mouth, brought that day right back somehow, sharper than he’d remembered it for years. Seeing his father’s grey face, and knowing. Hearing his brother was killed, when he’d been promised mercy. Swearing vengeance over the ashes in the long hall, tears in his eyes. An oath he’d chosen to break, so he could walk away from blood and be a better man.

And here she was, out of nowhere, offering him another chance at vengeance. He killed my brother. Felt as if he would’ve said no to anything else. But maybe he just needed the money.

“Shit on it, then,” he said. “Give me the fifty.”

Six and One

T he dice came up six and one. The highest dice can roll and the lowest. A fitting judgement on Friendly’s life. The pit of horror to the heights of triumph. And back.

Six and one made seven. Seven years old, when Friendly committed his first crime. But six years later that he was first caught, and given his first sentence. When they first wrote his name in the big book, and he earned his first days in Safety. Stealing, he knew, but he could hardly remember what he stole. He certainly could not remember why. His parents had worked hard to give him all he needed. And yet he stole. Some men are born to do wrong, perhaps. The judges had told him so.

He scooped the dice up, rattled them in his fist, then let them free across the stones again, watched them as they tumbled. Always that same joy, that anticipation. Dice just thrown can be anything until they stop rolling. He watched them turning, chances, odds, his life and the life of the Northman. All the lives in the great city of Talins turning with them.

Six and one.

Friendly smiled, a little. The odds of throwing six and one a second time were one in eighteen. Long odds, some would say, looking forward into the future. But looking into the past, as he was now, there was no chance of any other numbers. What was coming? Always full of possibilities. What was past? Done, and hardened, like dough turned to bread. There was no going back.

“What do the dice say?”

Friendly glanced up as he gathered the dice with the edge of his hand. He was a big man, this Shivers, but with none of that stringiness tall men sometimes get. Strong. But not like a farmer, or a labourer. Not slow. He understood the work. There were clues, and Friendly knew them all. In Safety, you have to reckon the threat a man poses in a moment. Reckon it, and deal with it, and never blink.

A soldier, maybe, and fought in battles, by his scars, and the set of his face, and the look in his eye as they waited to do violence. Not comfortable, but ready. Not likely to run or get carried away. They are rare, men that keep a sharp head when the trouble starts. There was a scar on his thick left wrist that, if you looked at it a certain way, was like the number seven. Seven was a good number today.

“Dice say nothing. They are dice.”

“Why roll ’em, then?”

“They are dice. What else would I do with them?”

Friendly closed his eyes, closed his fist around the dice and pressed them to his cheek, feeling their warm, rounded edges against his palm. What numbers did they hold for him now, waiting to be released? Six and one again? A flicker of excitement. The odds of throwing six and one for a third time were three hundred and twenty-four to one. Three hundred and twenty-four was the number of cells in Safety. A good omen.

“They’re here,” whispered the Northman.

There were four of them. Three men and a whore. Friendly could hear the vague tinkling of her night-bell on the chill air, one of the men laughing. They were drunk, shapeless outlines lurching down the darkened alley. The dice would have to wait.