organised the assault, in fact.”
“Then-”
“I just wanted to hear you ask. I must say I am surprised you did, though. The mere idea that the Thousand Swords would do the hard work of a siege, have one of the richest palaces in Styria at their mercy and walk away without a scrap of booty? Have you lost your reason? I couldn’t prise these greedy bastards away with a spade. We’re attacking at dawn tomorrow, with or without you, and we’ll be picking this place clean. More than likely my boys will have the lead off the roofs by lunchtime. Rule of Quarters, and all that.”
“And Orso?”
“Orso is yesterday’s man.” Cosca sat back and patted his goat fondly on her flank. “Do as you please with him.”
The Inevitable
The dice came up two and one.
Three years ago today, Sajaam bought Friendly’s freedom from Safety. Three years he had been homeless. He had followed three people, two men and one woman, all across Styria and back. In that time, the place he had hated least was the Thousand Swords, and not just because it had a number in its name, though that was, of course, a good start.
There was order, here, up to a point. Men had given tasks with given times to do them, knew their places in the big machine. The company was all neatly quantified in the notary’s three ledgers. Number of men under each captain, length of service, amount of pay, times reported, equipment hired. Everything could be counted. There were rules, up to a point, explicit and implied. Rules about drinking, gambling and fighting. Rules about use of whores. Rules about who sat where. Who could go where, and when. Who fought and who did not. And the all- important Rule of Quarters, controlling the declaration and assignment of booty, enforced with eagle-eyed discipline.
When rules were broken there were fixed punishments, understood by all. Usually a number of lashes of the whip. Friendly had watched a man whipped for pissing in the wrong place, yesterday. It did not seem such a crime, but Victus had explained to everyone, you start off pissing where you please, then you shit where you please, then everyone dies of the plague. So it had been three lashes. Two and one.
Friendly’s favourite place was the mess. There was a comforting routine to mealtimes that put him in mind of Safety. The frowning cooks in their stained aprons. The steam from the great pots. The rattle and clatter of knives and spoons. The slurp and splutter of lips, teeth, tongues. The line of jostling men, all asking for more than their share and never getting it.
The men who would be in the scaling parties this morning got two extra meatballs and an extra spoon of soup. Two and one. Cosca had said it was one thing to get poked off a ladder with a spear, but he could not countenance a man falling off from hunger.
“We’ll be attacking within the hour,” he said now.
Friendly nodded.
Cosca took a long breath, pushed it out through his nose and frowned around him. “Ladders, mainly.” Friendly had watched them being made, over the last few days. Twenty-one of them. Two and one. Each had thirty-one rungs, except for one, which had thirty-two. One, two, three. “Monza will be going with them. She wants to be the first to Orso. Entirely determined. She’s set firm on vengeance.”
Friendly shrugged. She always had been.
“In all honesty, I worry for her.”
Friendly shrugged. He was indifferent.
“A battle is a dangerous place.”
Friendly shrugged. That seemed obvious.
“My friend, I want you to stick near her, in the fighting. Make sure no harm comes to her.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Cosca slapped Friendly on his shoulder. “The only shield I need is the universally high regard in which men hold me.”
“You sure?”
“No, but I’ll be where I always am. Well behind the fighting with my flask for company. Something tells me she’ll need you more. There are enemies still, out there. And Friendly…”
“Yes?”
“Watch closely and take great care. The fox is most dangerous when at bay-that Orso will have some deadly tricks in store, well…” and he puffed out his cheeks, “it’s inevitable. Watch out, in particular… for Morveer.”
“Alright.” Murcatto would have him and Shivers watching her. A party of three, as it had been when they killed Gobba. Two watching one. He wrapped the dice up and slid them down into his pocket. He watched the steam rise as the food was ladled out. Listened to the men grumbling. Counted the complaints.
The washed-out grey of dawn was turning to golden daylight, sun creeping over the battlements at the top of the wall they’d all have to climb, its gaptoothed shadow slowly giving ground across the ruined gardens.
They’d be going soon. Shivers shut his eye and grinned into the sun. Tipped his head back and stuck his tongue out. It was getting colder as the year wore down. Felt almost like a fine summer morning in the North. Like mornings he’d fought great battles in. Mornings he’d done high deeds, and a few low ones too.
“You seem happy enough,” came Monza’s voice, “for a man about to risk his life.”
Shivers opened his eye and turned his grin on her. “I’ve made peace with myself.”
“Good for you. That’s the hardest war of all to win.”
“Didn’t say I won. Just stopped fighting.”
“I’m starting to think that’s the only victory worth a shit,” she muttered, almost to herself.
Ahead of them, the first wave of mercenaries were ready to go, stood about their ladders, big shields on their free arms, twitchy and nervous, which was no surprise. Shivers couldn’t say he much fancied their job. They weren’t making the least effort to hide what they had planned. Everyone knew what was coming, on both sides of the wall.
Close round Shivers, the second wave were getting ready too. Giving blades a last stroke with the whetstone, tightening straps on armour, telling a last couple of jokes and hoping they weren’t the last they ever told. Shivers grinned, watching them at it. Rituals he’d seen a dozen times before and more. Felt almost like home.
“You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place?” he asked. “That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it’d all… fit. Be right.”
Monza narrowed her eyes at the inner walls. “All my life, more or less.”
“All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain’t no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I’ve learned… just to stick in the place I’m at. Just to be the man I am.”
“And what are you?”
He looked down at the axe across his knees. “A killer, I reckon.”
“That all?”
“Honestly? Pretty much.” He shrugged. “That’s why you took me on, ain’t it?”
She frowned at the ground. “What happened to being an optimist?”
“Can’t I be an optimistic killer? A man once told me-the man who killed my brother, as it goes-that good and evil are a matter of where you stand. We all got our reasons. Whether they’re decent ones all depends on who you ask, don’t it?”
“Does it?”
