Best Served Cold

A grunt. The sound of liquid spattering against stone. She might’ve joined him if her bladder hadn’t been knotted up tight with fear. She pushed up on her toes again, legs aching, wrists, arms, sides burning with every breath.

“You got a plan?” Shivers’ words sank away and died on the buried air.

“What fucking plan do you think I’d have? They think we’re spies in their city, working for the enemy. They’re sure of it! They’re going to try and get us to talk, and when we don’t have anything to say they want to hear, they’re going to fucking kill us!” An animal growl, more rattles. “You think they didn’t plan for you struggling?”

“What d’you want me to do?” His voice was strangled, shrill, as if he was on the verge of sobbing. “Hang here and wait for them to start cutting us?”

“I…” She felt the unfamiliar thickness of tears at the back of her own throat. She didn’t have the shadow of an idea of a way clear of this. Helpless. How could you get more helpless than chained up naked, deep underground, in the pitch darkness? “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”

There was the clatter of a lock turning and Monza jerked her head up, skin suddenly prickling. A door creaked open and light stabbed at her eyes. A figure came down stone steps, boots scraping, a torch flickering in his hand. Another came behind him.

“Let’s see what we’re doing, shall we?” A woman’s voice. Langrier, the one who’d caught them in the first place. The one who’d knocked Monza down the stairs and taken her ring. The other one was Pello, with the moustache. They were both dressed like butchers, stained leather aprons and heavy gloves. Pello went around the room, lighting torches. They didn’t need torches, they could’ve had lamps. But torches are that bit more sinister. As if, at that moment, Monza needed scaring. Light crept out across rough stone walls, slick with moisture, splattered with green moss. There were a couple of tables about, heavy cast-iron implements on them. Unsubtle-looking implements.

She’d felt better when it was dark.

Langrier bent over a brazier and got it lit, blowing patiently on the coals, orange glow flaring across her soft face with each breath.

Pello wrinkled his nose. “Which one of you pissed?”

“Him,” said Langrier. “But what’s the difference?” Monza watched her slide a few lengths of iron into the furnace, and felt her throat close up tight. She looked sideways at Shivers, and he looked back at her, and said nothing. There was nothing to say. “More than likely they’ll both be pissing soon enough.”

“Alright for you, you don’t have to mop it up.”

“I’ve mopped up worse.” She looked at Monza, and her eyes were bored. No hate in them. Not much of anything. “Give them some water, Pello.”

The man offered a jug. She would’ve liked to spit in his face, scream obscenities, but she was thirsty, and it was no time for pride. So she opened her mouth and he stuck the spout in it, and she drank, and coughed, and drank, and water trickled down her neck and dripped to the cold flags between her bare feet.

Langrier watched her get her breath back. “You see, we’re just people, but I have to be honest, that’s probably the last kindness you’ll be getting out of us if you’re not helpful.”

“It’s a war, boy.” Pello offered the jug to Shivers. “A war, and you’re on the other side. We don’t have the time to be gentle.”

“Just give us something,” said Langrier. “Just a little something I can give to my colonel, then we can leave you be, for now, and we’ll all be a lot happier.”

Monza looked her right in the eye, unwavering, and did her best to make her believe. “We’re not with Orso. The opposite. We’re here-”

“You had his uniforms, didn’t you?”

“Only so we could drop in with them if they broke into the city. We’re here to kill Ganmark.”

“Orso’s Union general?” Pello raised his brows at Langrier and she shrugged back.

“It’s either what she said, or they’re spies, working with the Talinese. Here to assassinate the duke, maybe. Now which of those seems the more likely?”

Pello sighed. “We’ve been in this game a long time, and the obvious answer, nine times out of ten, is the right one.”

“Nine times out of ten.” Langrier spread her hands in apology. “So you might have to do better than that.”

“I can’t do any fucking better,” Monza hissed through gritted teeth, “that’s all I-”

Langrier’s gloved fist thudded suddenly into her ribs. “The truth!” Her other fist into Monza’s other side. “The truth!” A punch in the stomach. “The truth! The truth! The truth!” She sprayed spit in Monza’s face as she screamed it, knocking her back and forth, the sharp thumps and Monza’s wheezing grunts echoing dully from the damp walls of the place.