Joe Abercrombie - Best Served Cold

Shenkt hit the nearest man on the helmet and stove it deep into his shoulders, blood spraying from the crumpled visor, axe dropping slowly from his twisting hand. The next had an open helm, the look of surprise just forming as Shenkt’s fist drove a dent into his breastplate so deep that it bent his backplate out with a groan of twisted metal. He sprang to the table, marble floor splitting under his boots as he came down. The nearest of the two remaining archers slowly raised his flatbow as though to use it as a shield. Shenkt’s hand split it in half, string flailing, tore the man’s helmet off and sent it hurtling up into the ceiling, his body tumbling sideways, spraying blood, to crumple against the wall in a shower of plaster. Shenkt seized hold of the other archer and tossed him out of one of the high windows, sparkling fragments tumbling down, bouncing, spinning, breaking apart, deep clangour of shattering glass making the air hum.

The last but one had his sword raised, flecks of spit floating from his twisted lips as he gave his war cry. Shenkt caught him by the wrist, hurled him upside-down across the room and into his final comrade. They were mangled together, a tangle of dented armour, crashed into a set of shelves, gilded books ripped open, loose papers spewing into the air, gently fluttering down as Shenkt breathed out, and let time find its course again.

The spinning flatbow fell, bounced from the tiles and clattered away into a corner. Grand Duke Orso stood just where he had before, beside the round table with its map of Styria, the sparkling crown sitting in its centre. His mouth fell open.

“I never leave a job half-done,” said Shenkt. “But I was never working for you.”

–

M onza got to her feet, staring at the bodies tangled, scattered, twisted about the far end of the hall. Papers fluttered down like autumn leaves, from a bookcase shattered around a mass of bloody armour, cracks lancing out through the marble walls all about it.

She stepped around the upended table. Past the bodies of mercenaries and guards. Over Secco’s corpse, his smeared brains gleaming in one of the long stripes of sunlight from the high windows.

Orso watched her come in silence, the great painting of him proudly claiming victory at the Battle of Etrea looming ten strides high over his shoulder. The little man and his outsized myth.

The bone-thief stood back, hands spattered with blood to the elbow, watching them. She didn’t know what he had done, or how, or why. It didn’t matter now.

Her boots crunched on broken glass, on splintered wood, ripped paper, shattered pottery. Everywhere black spots of blood were scattered and her soles soaked them up and left bloody footprints behind her. Like the bloody trail she’d left across Styria, to come here. To stand on the spot where they killed her brother.

She stopped, a sword’s length away from Orso. Waiting, she hardly knew what for. Now the moment had come, the moment she’d strained for with every muscle, endured so much pain, spent so much money, wasted so many lives to reach, she found it hard to move. What would come after?

Orso raised his brows. He picked up the crown from the table with exaggerated care, the way a mother might pick up a newborn baby. “This was to be mine. This almost was mine. This is what you fought for, all those years. And this is what you kept from me, in the end.” He turned it slowly around in his hands, the jewels sparkling. “When you build your life around only one thing, love only one person, dream only one dream, you risk losing everything at a stroke. You built your life around your brother. I built mine around a crown.” He gave a heavy sigh, pursed his lips, then tossed the circle of gold aside and watched it rattle round and round on the map of Styria. “Now look at us. Both equally wretched.”

“Not equally.” She lifted the scuffed, notched, hard-used blade of the Calvez. The blade she’d had made for Benna. “I still have you.”

“And when you have killed me, what will you live for then?” His eyes moved from the sword to hers. “Monza, Monza… what will you do without me?”

“I’ll think of something.”

The point punctured his jacket with a faint pop, slid effortlessly through his chest and out of his back. He gave a gentle grunt, eyes widening, and she slid the blade free. They stood there, opposite each other, for a moment.

“Oh.” He touched one finger to dark cloth and it came away red. “Is that all?” He looked up at her, puzzled. “I was expecting… more.”

He crumpled all at once, knees dropping against the polished floor, then he toppled forwards and the side of his face thumped damply against the marble beside her boot. The one eye she could see rolled slowly towards her, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. Then he was still.

Seven out of seven. It was done.

Seeds

I t was a winter’s morning, cold and clear, and Monza’s breath smoked on the air.

She stood outside the chamber where they killed her brother. On the terrace they threw her from. Her hands resting on the parapet they’d rolled her off. Above the mountainside that had broken her apart. She felt that nagging ache still up the bones of her legs, across the back of her gloved hand, down the side of her skull. She felt that prickling need for the husk-pipe that she knew would never quite fade. It was far from comfortable, staring down that long drop towards the tiny trees that had snatched at her as she fell. That was why she came here every morning.

A good leader should never be comfortable, Stolicus wrote.

The sun was climbing, now, and the bright world was full of colour. The blood had drained from the sky and left it a vivid blue, white clouds crawling high above. To the east, the forest crumbled away into a patchwork of fields-squares of fallow green, rich black earth, golden-brown stubble. Her fields. Further still and the river met the grey sea, branching out in a wide delta, choked with islands. Monza could just make out the suggestion of tiny towers there, buildings, bridges, walls. Great Talins, no bigger than her thumbnail. Her city.

That idea still seemed a madman’s ranting.

“Your Excellency.” Monza’s chamberlain lurked in one of the high doorways, bowing so low he almost tongued the stone. The same man who’d served Orso for fifteen years, had somehow come through the sack of Fontezarmo unscathed, and now had made the transition from master to mistress with admirable smoothness. Monza had stolen Orso’s city, after all, his palace, some of his clothes, even, with a few adjustments. Why not his retainers too? Who knew their jobs better?

“What is it?”

“Your ministers are here. Lord Rubine, Chancellor Grulo, Chancellor Scavier, Colonel Volfier and… Mistress Vitari.” He cleared his throat, looking somewhat pained. “Might I enquire whether Mistress Vitari has a specific title yet?”

“She handles those things no one with a specific title can.”

“Of course, your Excellency.”

“Bring them in.”

The heavy doors were swung open, faced with beaten copper engraved with twisting serpents. Not the works of art Orso’s lion-face veneers had been, perhaps, but a great deal stronger. Monza had made sure of that. Her five visitors strutted, strode, bustled and shuffled through, their footsteps echoing around the chill marble of Orso’s private audience hall. Two months in, and still she couldn’t think of it as hers.

Vitari came first, with much the same dark clothes and smirk she’d worn when Monza first met her in Sipani. Volfier was next, walking stiffly in his braided uniform. Scavier and Grulo competed with each other to follow him. Old Rubine laboured along at the rear, bent under his chain of office, taking his time getting to the point, as always.