The Collected Joe Abercrombie (315 page)

Probably it would have been better if he had simply retired to the mountains and lived as a hermit, where he could injure nobody’s feelings. But the thin air had never suited his delicate constitution. So he had resolved, once more, to make a heroic effort at camaraderie. To be more compliant, more graceful, more indulgent of the shortcomings of others. He had taken the first step, therefore, while the rest of the party were out surveying the land for signs of the Thousand Swords, by pretending at a headache and preparing a pleasant surprise, in the form of his mother’s recipe for mushroom soup. Perhaps the only tangible thing which she had left her only son.

He nicked his finger while slicing, singed his elbow upon the hot stove, both of which events almost caused him to forsake his new beginning in a torrent of unproductive rage. But by the time he heard the horses returning to the farm, just as the sun was sinking and the shadows in the yard outside were stretching out, he had the table set, two stubs of candle casting a welcoming glow, two loaves of bread sliced and the pot of soup at the ready, exuding a wholesome fragrance.

‘Excellent.’ His rehabilitation was assured.

His new vein of optimism did not survive the arrival of the diners, however. When they entered, incidentally without removing their boots and therefore treading mud across his gleaming floor, they looked towards his lovingly cleaned kitchen, his carefully laid table, his laboriously prepared potage with all the enthusiasm of convicts being shown the executioner’s block.

‘What’s this?’ Murcatto’s lips were pushed out and her brows drawn down in even deeper suspicion than usual.

Morveer did his best to float over it. ‘This is an apology. Since our number-obsessed cook has returned to Talins, I thought I might occupy the vacuum and prepare dinner. My mother’s recipe. Sit, sit, pray sit!’ He hurried round dragging out chairs and, notwithstanding some uncomfortable sideways glances, they all found seats.

‘Soup?’ Morveer advanced on Shivers with pan and ladle at the ready.

‘Not for me. You did, what do you call it . . .’

‘Paralyse,’ said Murcatto.

‘Aye. You paralysed me that time.’

‘You mistrust me?’ he snapped.

‘Almost by definition,’ said Vitari, watching him from under her ginger brows. ‘You’re a poisoner.’

‘After all we have been through together? You mistrust me, over a little paralysis?’ He was making heroic efforts to repair the foundering ship of their professional relationship, and nobody appreciated it one whit. ‘If my intention was to poison you, I would simply sprinkle Black Lavender on your pillow and lull you to a sleep that would never end. Or put Amerind thorns in your boots, Larync on the grip of your axe, Mustard Root in your water flask.’ He leaned down towards the Northman, knuckles white around the ladle. ‘There are a thousand thousand ways that I could kill you and you would never suspect the merest shadow of a thing. I would not go to all the trouble of cooking you dinner!’

Shivers’ one eye stared levelly back into his for what seemed a very long time. Then the Northman reached out, and for the briefest moment Morveer wondered if he was about to receive his first punch in the face for many years. But instead Shivers only folded his big hand round Morveer’s with exaggerated care, tipping the pan so soup spilled out into his bowl. He picked up his spoon, dipped it in his soup, blew delicately on it and slurped up the contents. ‘It’s good. Mushroom, is it?’

‘Er . . . yes, it is.’

‘Nice.’ Shivers held Morveer’s eye a moment longer before letting go his hand.

‘Thank you.’ Morveer hefted the ladle. ‘Now, does anyone not want soup?’

‘Me!’ The voice barked out of nowhere like boiling water squirted in Morveer’s ear. He jerked away, the pan tumbling, hot soup flooding out across the table and straight into Vitari’s lap. She leaped up with a screech, wet cutlery flying. Murcatto’s chair went clattering over as she lurched out of it, fumbling for her sword. Day dropped a half-eaten slice of bread as she took a shocked step back towards the door. Morveer whipped around, dripping ladle clutched pointlessly in one fist—

A Gurkish woman stood smiling beside him, arms folded. Her skin was smooth as a child’s, flawless as dark glass, eyes midnight black.

‘Wait!’ barked Murcatto, one hand up. ‘Wait. She’s a friend.’

‘She’s no friend of mine!’ Morveer was still desperately trying to understand how she could have appeared from nothing in such a manner. There was no door near her, the window was tightly shuttered and barred, the floor and ceiling intact.

‘You have no friends, poisoner,’ she purred at him. Her long, brown coat hung open. Underneath, her body seemed to be swaddled entirely in white bandages.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Day. ‘And where the hell did you come from?’

‘They used to call me the East Wind.’ The woman displayed two rows of utterly perfect white teeth as she turned one finger gracefully round and round. ‘But now they call me Ishri. I come from the sun-bleached South.’

‘She meant—’ began Morveer.

‘Magic,’ murmured Shivers, the only member of the party who had remained in his seat. He calmly raised his spoon and slurped up another mouthful. ‘Pass the bread, eh?’

‘Damn your bread!’ he snarled back. ‘And your magic too! How did you get in here?’

‘One of them.’ Vitari had a table-knife in her fist, eyes narrowed to deadly slits as the remains of the soup dripped from the table and tapped steadily on the floor. ‘An Eater.’

The Gurkish woman pushed one fingertip through the spilled soup and curled her tongue around it. ‘We must all eat something, no?’

‘I don’t care to be on the menu.’

‘You need not worry. I am very picky about my food.’

‘I tangled with your kind before, in Dagoska.’ Morveer did not fully understand what was being said, a sensation which was among his least favourite, but Vitari seemed worried, and that made him worried. She was by no means a woman prone to high-blown fancies. ‘What deals have you been making, Murcatto?’

‘The ones that needed making. She works for Rogont.’

Ishri let her head fall to one side, so far that it was almost horizontal. ‘Or perhaps he works for me.’

‘I don’t care who’s the rider and who’s the donkey,’ snapped Murcatto, ‘as long as one or the other of you is sending men.’

‘He is sending them. Two score of his best.’

‘In time?’

‘Unless the Thousand Swords come early, and they will not. Their main body are camped six miles distant still. They were held up picking a village clean. Then they just had to burn the place. A destructive little crowd.’ Her gaze fell on Morveer. Those black eyes made him unnecessarily nervous. He did not like the fact that she was wrapped up in bandages. He found himself curious as to why—

‘They keep me cool,’ she said. He blinked, wondering whether he might have spoken the question out loud. ‘You did not.’ He felt himself turn cold to the roots of his hair. Just as he had when the nurses uncovered his secret materials at the orphanage, and guessed their purpose. He could not escape the irrational conclusion that this Gurkish devil somehow knew his private thoughts. Knew the things he had done, that he had thought no one would ever know . . .

‘I will be in the barn!’ he screeched, voice far more shrill than he had intended. He dragged it down with difficulty. ‘I must prepare, if we are to have visitors tomorrow. Come, Day!’

‘I’ll just finish this.’ She had quickly grown accustomed to their visitor, and was busy buttering three slices of bread at once.

‘Ah . . . yes . . . I see.’ He stood twitching for a moment, but there was nothing he could achieve by staying but further embarrassment. He stalked towards the door.

‘You need your coat?’ asked Day.

‘I will be more than warm enough!’

It was only when he was through the door of the farmhouse and into the darkness, the wind sighing chill across the wheat and straight through his shirt, that he realised he would not be warm enough by any stretch of the imagination. It was too late to return without looking entirely the fool, and that he steadfastly refused to do.

‘Not me.’ He cursed most bitterly as he picked his way across the darkened farmyard, wrapping his arms around himself and already beginning to shiver. He had allowed some Gurkish charlatan to unnerve him with simple parlour tricks. ‘Bandaged bitch.’ Well, they would all see. ‘Oh yes.’ He had got the better of the nurses at the orphanage, in the end, for all the whippings. ‘We’ll see who whips who now.’ He peered over his shoulder to make sure he was unobserved. ‘Magic!’ he sneered. ‘I’ll show you a trick or—’

‘Eeee!’ His boot squelched, slid, and he went over on his back in a patch of mud. ‘Bah! Damn it to your bastard arse!’ So much for heroic efforts, and new beginnings too.

The Traitor

S
hivers reckoned it was an hour or two short of dawn. The rain had slacked right off but water still drip-dripped from the new leaves, pattering in the dirt. The air was weighty with chill damp. A swollen stream gurgled near the track, smothering the muddy falls of his horse’s hooves. He knew he was close, could see the faintest ruddy campfire glow at the edges of the slick tree-trunks.

Dark times are the best for dark business, Black Dow always used to say, and he should’ve known.

Shivers nudged his horse through the wet night, hoping some drunk sentry didn’t get nervous and serve him up an arrow through the guts. One of those might hurt less than having your eye burned out, but it was nought to look forward to. Luckily, he saw the first guard before the guard saw him, pressed up against a tree, spear resting on his shoulder. He had an oilskin draped right over his head, couldn’t have seen a thing, even if he’d been awake.

‘Oy!’ The man jerked round, dropped his spear in the muck. Shivers grinned as he watched him fumbling for it in the dark, arms crossed loose on his saddle-bow. ‘You want to give me a challenge, or shall I just head on and leave you to it?’

‘Who goes there?’ he growled, tearing his spear up along with a clump of wet grass.

‘My name’s Caul Shivers, and Faithful Carpi’s going to want to talk to me.’

The Thousand Swords’ camp looked pretty much like camps always do. Men, canvas, metal and mud. Mud in particular. Tents scattered every which way. Horses tethered to trees, breath smoking in the darkness. Spears stacked up one against the other. Campfires, some burning, some down to fizzling embers, the air sharp with their smoke. A few men still awake, wrapped in blankets mostly, on guard or still drinking, frowning as they watched Shivers pass.

Reminded him of all the cold, wet nights he’d spent in camps across the North and back. Huddled around fires, hoping to the dead the rain didn’t get heavier. Roasting meat, spitted on dead men’s spears. Curled up shivering in the snow under every blanket he could find. Sharpening blades for dark work on the morrow. He saw faces of men dead and gone back to the mud, that he’d shared drink and laughter with. His brother. His father. Tul Duru, that they’d called the Thunderhead. Rudd Threetrees, the Rock of Uffrith. Harding Grim, quieter than the night. Brought up a swell of unexpected pride, those memories. Then a swell of unexpected shame at the work he was about now. More feeling than he’d had since he lost his eye, or he’d expected to have again.

He sniffed, and his face stung underneath the bandages, and the soft moment slipped away and left him cold again. They stopped at a tent big as a house, lamplight leaking out into the night round the edges of its flap.

‘Now you’d best behave yourself in here, you Northern bastard.’ The guard jabbed at Shivers with his own axe. ‘Or I’ll—’

‘Fuck yourself, idiot.’ Shivers brushed him out of the way with one arm and pushed on through. Inside it smelled of stale wine, mouldy cloth, unwashed men. Ill-lit by flickering lamps, hung round the edges with slashed and tattered flags, trophies from old battlefields.

A chair of dark wood set with ivory, stained, scarred and polished with hard use, stood on a pair of crates up at the far end. The captain general’s chair, he guessed. The one that had been Cosca’s, then Monza’s, and now was Faithful Carpi’s. Didn’t look much more than some battered rich man’s dining chair. Surely didn’t look like much to kill folk over, but then small reasons often serve for that.

There was a long table set up in the midst, men sat down each side. Captains of the Thousand Swords. Rough-looking men, scarred, stained and battered as the chair, and with quite a collection of weapons too, between ’em. But Shivers had smiled in harder company, and he smiled now. Strange thing was, he felt more at home with these lot than he had in months. He knew the rules here, he reckoned, better’n he did with Monza. Seemed as if they’d started out doing some planning, by the maps that were spread across the wood, but some time in the middle of the night the strategy had turned to dice. Now the maps were weighted down with scattered coins, with half-f bottles, with old cups, chipped glasses. One great chart was soaked red with spilled wine.

A big man stood at the head of the table – a faceful of scars, short hair grey and balding. He had a bushy moustache, the rest of his thick jaw covered in white stubble. Faithful Carpi himself, from what Monza had said. He was shaking the dice in one chunk of fist. ‘Come on, you shits, come on and give me nine!’ They came up one and three, to a few sighs and some laughter. ‘Damn it!’ He tossed some coins down the table to a tall, pock-faced bastard with a hook-nose and the ugly mix of long black hair and a big bald patch. ‘One of these days I’ll work your trick out, Andiche.’