“Family, rather!” The old mercenary waved his fork wildly enough to have someone’s eye out. “We fought side by side as noble members of the Thousand Swords, most famous mercenary brigade in the Circle of the World!” Monza frowned sideways at him. His old bloody stories were bringing back things done and choices made she’d sooner have left in the past. “We fought across Styria and back, while Sazine was captain general. Those were the days to be a mercenary! Before things started to get… complicated.”
Vitari snorted. “You mean bloody.”
“Different words for the same thing. People were richer back then, and scared more easily, and the walls were all lower. Then Sazine took an arrow in the arm, then lost the arm, then died, and I was voted to the captain general’s chair.” Cosca poked his stew around. “Burying that old wolf, I realised that fighting was too much hard work, and I, like most persons of quality, wished to do as little of it as possible.” He gave Monza a twitchy grin. “So we split the brigade in two.”
“You split the brigade in two.”
“I took one half, and Monzcarro and her brother Benna took the other, and we spread a rumour we’d had a falling out. We hired ourselves out to both sides of every argument we could find-and we found plenty-and… pretended to fight.”
“Pretended?” muttered Shivers.
Cosca’s trembling knife and fork jabbed at each other in the air. “We’d march around for weeks at a time, picking the country clean all the while, mount the odd harmless skirmish for the show of it, then leave off at the end of each season a good deal richer but with no one dead. Well, a few of the rot, maybe. Every bit as profitable as having at the business in earnest, though. We even mounted a couple of fake battles, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“Until Monza took an engagement with Grand Duke Orso of Talins, and decided she was done with fake battles. Until she decided to mount a proper charge, with swords well sharpened and swung in earnest. Until you decided to make a difference, eh, Monza? Shame you never told me we weren’t faking anymore. I could’ve warned my boys and saved some lives that day.”
“Your boys.” She snorted. “Let’s not pretend you ever cared for anyone’s life but your own.”
“There have been a few others I valued higher. I never profited by it, though, and neither did they.” Cosca hadn’t taken his bloodshot eyes from Monza’s. “Which of your own people turned on you? Faithful Carpi, was it? Not so faithful in the end, eh?”
“He was as faithful as you could wish for. Right up until he stabbed me.”
“And now he’s taken the captain general’s chair, no doubt?”
“I hear he’s managed to wedge his fat arse into it.”
“Just as you slipped your skinny one into it after mine. But he couldn’t have taken anything without the consent of some other captains, could he? Fine lads, those. That bastard Andiche. That big leech Sesaria. That sneering maggot Victus. Were those three greedy hogs still with you?”
“They still had their faces in the trough. All of them turned on me, I’m sure, just the way they turned on you. You’re telling me nothing I don’t know.”
“No one thanks you, in the end. Not for the victories you bring them. Not for the money you make them. They get bored. And the first sniff of something better-”
Monza was out of patience. A leader can’t afford to look soft. Especially not a woman. “For such an expert on people, it’s a wonder you ended up a friendless, penniless drunk, eh, Cosca? Don’t pretend I didn’t give you a thousand chances. You wasted them all, like you wasted everything else. The only question that interests me is-are you set on wasting this one too? Can you do as I fucking tell you? Or are you set on being my enemy?”
Cosca only gave a sad smile. “In our line of work, enemies are things to be proud of. If experience has taught the two of us anything, it’s that your friends are the ones you need to watch. My congratulations to the cook.” He tossed his fork down in his bowl, got up and strutted from the kitchen in almost a straight line. Monza frowned at the sullen faces he left around the table.
Never fear your enemies, Verturio wrote, but your friends, always.
A Few Bad Men
The warehouse was a draughty cavern, cold light finding chinks in the shutters and leaving bright lines across the dusty boards, across the empty crates piled up in one corner, across the old table in the middle of the floor. Shivers dropped into a rickety chair next to it, felt the grip of the knife Monza had given him pressing at his calf. A sharp reminder of what he’d been hired for. Life was getting way more dark and dangerous than back home in the North. As far as being a better man went, he was going backwards, and quicker every day.
So why the hell was he still here? Because he wanted Monza? He had to admit it, and the fact she’d been cold with him since Westport only made him want her more. Because he wanted her money? That too. Money was a damn good thing for buying stuff. Because he needed the work? He did. Because he was good at the work? He was.
Because he enjoyed the work?
Shivers frowned. Some men aren’t stamped out for doing good, and he was starting to reckon he might be one of ’em. He was less and less sure with every day that being a better man was worth all the effort.
The sound of a door banging tugged him from his thoughts, and Cosca came down the creaking wooden steps from the rooms where they were sleeping, scratching slowly at the splatter of red rash up the side of his neck.
“Morning.”
The old mercenary yawned. “So it seems. I can barely remember the last one of these I saw. Nice shirt.”
Shivers twitched at his sleeve. Dark silk, with polished bone buttons and clever stitching round the cuff. A good stretch fancier than he’d have picked out, but Monza had liked it. “Hadn’t noticed.”
“I used to be one for fine clothes myself.” Cosca dropped into a rickety chair next to Shivers. “So did Monza’s brother, for that matter. He had a shirt just like that one, as I recall.”
Shivers weren’t sure what the old bastard was getting at, but he was sure he didn’t like it. “And?”
“Spoken much about her brother, has she?” Cosca had a strange little smile, like he knew something Shivers didn’t.
“She told me he’s dead.”
“So I hear.”
“She told me she’s not happy about it.”
“Most decidedly not.”
“Something else I should know?”
“I suppose we could all be wiser than we are. I’ll leave that up to her, though.”
“Where is she?” snapped Shivers, patience drying up.
“Monza?”
“Who else?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to see her face that doesn’t have to. But not to worry. I have hired fighting men all across the Circle of the World. And my fair share of entertainers too, as it goes. Do you have any issue with my taking charge of the proceedings?”
Shivers had a pile of issues with it. It was plain the only thing Cosca had taken charge of for a good long while was a bottle. After the Bloody-Nine killed his brother, and cut his head off, and had it nailed up on a standard, Shivers’ father had taken to drinking. He’d taken to drinking, and rages, and having the shakes. He’d stopped making good choices, and he’d lost the respect of his people, and he’d wasted all he’d built, and died leaving Shivers nought but sour memories.
“I don’t trust a man who drinks,” he growled, not bothered about dressing it up. “A man takes to drinking, then he gets weak, then his mind goes.”
Cosca sadly shook his head. “You have it back to front. A man’s mind goes, then he gets weak, then he takes to drink. The bottle is the symptom, not the cause. But though I am touched to my core by your concern, you
