Best Served Cold

But they were all tight as family beside Morveer. She stole a glance over her shoulder, caught him frowning at her from the seat of his cart. The man was poison, and the moment he could profit by it he’d murder her easily as crushing a tick. He was already suspicious of the choice to come into Visserine, but the last thing she wanted was to share her reasoning. That Orso would have Eider’s letter by now. Would have offered a king’s ransom of Valint and Balk’s money for her death and got half the killers in the Circle of the World scouring Styria hoping to put her head in a bag. Along with the heads of anyone who’d helped her, of course.

The chances were high they’d be safer in the middle of a battle than outside it.

Shivers was the only one she could even halfway trust. He rode hunched over, big and silent beside her. His babble had been quite the irritation in Westport, but now it had dried up, strange to say, it had left a gap. He’d saved her life, in foggy Sipani. Monza’s life wasn’t all it had been, but a man saving it still raised him a damn sight higher in her estimation.

“You’re quiet, all of a sudden.”

She could hardly see his face in the darkness, just the hard set of it, shadows in his eye sockets, in the hollows under his cheeks. “Don’t reckon I’ve much to say.”

“Never stopped you before.”

“Well. I’m starting to see all kinds o’ things different.”

“That so?”

“You might think it comes easy to me, but it’s an effort, trying to stay hopeful. An effort that don’t ever seem to pay off.”

“I thought being a better man was its own reward.”

“I guess it ain’t reward enough for all the work. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a war.”

“Believe me, I know what a war looks like. I’ve been living in one most of my life.”

“Well, what are the odds o’ that? Me too. From what I’ve seen, and I’ve seen plenty, a war ain’t really the place for bettering yourself. I’m thinking I might try it your way, from now on.”

“Pick out a god and praise him! Welcome to the real world!” She wasn’t sure she didn’t feel a twinge of disappointment though, for all her grinning. Monza might have given up on being a decent person long ago, but somehow she liked the idea that she could have pointed one out. She pulled on her reins and eased her horse up, the cart clattering to a halt behind her. “We’re here.”

The place she and Benna had bought in Visserine was an old one, built before the city had good walls, and rich men each took their own care to guard what was theirs. A stone tower-house on five storeys, hall and stables to one side, with slit windows on the ground floor and battlements on the high roof. It stood big and black against the dark sky, a very different beast from the low brick-and-timber houses that crowded in close around it. She lifted the key to the studded door, then frowned. It was open a crack, light gathering on the rough stone down its edge. She put her finger to her lips and pointed towards it.

Shivers raised one big boot and kicked it shuddering open, wood clattering on the other side as something was barged out of the way. Monza darted in, left hand on the hilt of her sword. The kitchen was empty of furniture and full of people. Grubby and tired-looking, every one of them staring at her, shocked and fearful, in the light of one flickering candle. The nearest, a stocky man with one arm in a sling, stumbled up from an empty barrel and caught hold of a length of wood.

“Get back!” he screamed at her. A man in a dirty farmer’s smock took a stride towards her, waving a hatchet.

Shivers stepped around Monza’s shoulder, ducking under the lintel and straightening up, big shadow shifting across the wall behind him, his heavy sword drawn and gleaming down by his leg. “You get back.”

The farmer did as he was told, scared eyes fixed on that length of bright metal. “Who the hell are you?”

“Me?” snapped Monza. “This is my house, bastard.”

“Eleven of them,” said Friendly, slipping through the doorway on the other side.

As well as the two men there were two old women and a man even older, bent right over, gnarled hands dangling. There was a woman about Monza’s age, a baby in her arms and two little girls sat near her, staring with big eyes, like enough to be twins. A girl of maybe sixteen stood by the empty fireplace. She had a rough-forged knife out that she’d been gutting a fish with, her other arm across a boy, might’ve been ten or so, pushing him behind her shoulder.

Just a girl, looking out for her little brother.

“Put your sword away,” Monza said.

“Eh?”

“No one’s getting killed tonight.”

Shivers raised one heavy brow at her. “Now who’s the optimist?”

“Lucky for you I bought a big house.” The one with his arm in a sling looked like the head of the family, so she fixed her eye on him. “There’s room for all of us.”

He let his club drop. “We’re farmers from up the valley, just looking for somewhere safe. Place was like this when we found it, we didn’t steal nothing. We’ll be no trouble-”

“You’d better not be. This all of you?”