Best Served Cold

The old mercenary took Friendly’s big hand and smiled as he gave it a squeeze. “I am touched beyond words to hear you make the offer. But no, my friend. This I had better handle alone. Give your dice a roll for me.”

“I will.” Friendly stood and strode off towards the rope without a backward glance. Monza watched him go. Her hands, her shoulder, her leg burned, her battered body ached. Her eyes slunk over the bodies scattered across the garden. Sweet victory. Sweet vengeance. Men turned into meat.

“Do me one favour.” Cosca had a sad smile, almost as if he guessed her thoughts.

“You came back for me, didn’t you? I can stretch to one.”

“Forgive me.”

She made a sound-half-snort, half-retch. “I thought I was the one betrayed you?”

“What does it matter now? Treachery is commonplace. Forgiveness is rare. I’d rather go without any debts. Except all the money I owe in Ospria. And Adua. And Dagoska.” He weakly waved one bloody hand. “Let’s say no debts to you, anyway, and leave it at that.”

“That I can do. We’re even.”

“Good. I lived like shit. Glad to see at least I got the dying right. Get on.”

Part of her wanted to stay with him, to be with him when Orso’s men broke through the gate, make sure there really were no debts. But not that big a part. She’d never been prone to sentiment. Orso had to die, and if she was killed here, who’d get it done? She pulled the Calvez from the ground, slid it back into its sheath and turned without another word. Words are poor tools at a time like that. She limped to the rope, tied it off under her hips the best she could, twisted it around her wrist.

“Let’s go!”

From the roof Monza could see right across the city. The wide curve of the Visser and its graceful bridges. The many towers poking at the sky, dwarfed by pillars of smoke still rising from the scattered fires. Day had already got a pear from somebody and was biting happily into it, yellow curls blowing on the breeze, juice gleaming on her chin.

Morveer raised one eyebrow at the carnage down in the garden. “I am relieved to observe that, in my absence, you succeeded in keeping the slaughter under tight control.”

“Some things never change,” she snapped at him.

“Cosca?” asked Vitari.

“Not coming.”

Morveer gave a sickening little grin. “He failed to save his own skin this time? So a drunkard can change after all.”

Rescue or not, Monza would have stabbed him at that moment if she’d had a good hand to do it with. From the way Vitari scowled at the poisoner, she was feeling much the same. She jerked her spiky head towards the river instead. “We should have the tearful reunion down in the boat. The city’s full of Orso’s troops. High time we were floating out to sea.”

Monza took one last look back. All was still down in the garden. Salier had slid from the fallen statue’s pedestal and rolled onto his back, arms outstretched as if welcoming a dear old friend. Ganmark knelt in a wide slick of blood, impaled on The Warrior’s great bronze blade, head dangling. Cosca’s eyes were closed, hands resting in his lap, a slight smile still on his tipped-back face. Cherry blossom wafted down and settled across his stolen uniform.

“Cosca, Cosca,” she murmured. “What will I do without you?”

V

P URANTI

“For mercenaries are disunited, thirsty for power, undisciplined, and disloyal; they are brave among their friends and cowards before the enemy; they have no fear of God, they do not keep faith with their fellow men; they avoid defeat just as long as they avoid battle; in peacetime you are despoiled by them and in wartime by the enemy”

Niccolo Machiavelli

F or two years, half the Thousand Swords pretended to fight the other half. Cosca, when he was sober enough to speak, boasted that never before in history had men made so much for doing so little. They sucked the coffers of Nicante and Affoia bone dry, then turned north when their hopes were dashed by the sudden outbreak of peace, seeking new wars to profit from, or ambitious employers to begin them.

No employer was more ambitious than Orso, the new Grand Duke of Talins, kicked to power after his elder brother was kicked by his favourite horse. He was all too eager to sign a Paper of Engagement with the well-known mercenary Monzcarro Murcatto. Especially since his enemies in Etrea had but lately hired the infamous Nicomo Cosca to lead their troops.

It proved difficult to bring the two to battle, however. Like two cowards circling before a brawl, they spent a whole season in ruinously expensive manoeuvrings, doing much harm to the farmers of the region but little to each other. They were finally urged together in ripe wheat-fields near the village of Afieri, where a battle seemed sure to follow. Or something that looked very like one.

But that evening Monza had an unexpected visitor to her tent. None other than Duke Orso himself.

“Your Excellency, I had not expected-”

“No need for pleasantries. I know what Nicomo Cosca has planned for tomorrow.”

Monza frowned. “I imagine he plans to fight, and so do I.”