Best Served Cold

They turned away grumbling. He snorted cold snot up and spat it out. Aside from some stale bread it was the only thing to have passed his lips that morning, and going in the wrong direction. He’d come with a pocketful of silver, and a faceful of smiles, and a swelling chestful of happy hope. Ten weeks in Styria, and all three of those were emptied to the bitter dregs.

Vossula had told him the people of Talins were friendly as lambs, welcomed foreigners like guests. He’d found nothing but scorn, and a lot of folk keen to use any rotten trick to relieve him of his dwindling money. They weren’t just handing out second chances on the street corners here. No more’n they had been in the North.

A boat had come in now, was tying off at the quay, fishers scurrying over and around it, hauling at ropes and cursing at sailcloth. Shivers felt the rest of the desperate perking up, wondering if there might be a shift of work for one of ’em. He felt a dismal little flare of hope in his own chest, however hard he tried to keep it down, and stood up keen on tiptoes to watch.

Fish slid from the nets onto the dockside, squirming silver in the watery sun. It was a good, honest trade, fishing. A life on the salty brine where no sharp words are spoken, all men set together against the wind, plucking the shining bounty from the sea, and all that. A noble trade, or so Shivers tried to tell himself, in spite of the stink. Any trade that’d have him seemed pretty noble about then.

A man weathered as an old gatepost hopped down from the boat and strutted over, all self-importance, and the beggars jostled each other to catch his eye. The captain, Shivers guessed.

“Need two hands,” he said, pushing his battered cap back and looking those hopeful, hopeless faces over. “You, and you.”

Hardly needed saying Shivers weren’t one of ’em. His head sagged along with the rest as he watched the lucky pair hurrying back to the boat after its captain. One was the bastard he gave his bread to, didn’t so much as look round, let alone put in a word for him. Maybe it was what you gave out that made a man, not what you got back, like Shivers’ brother used to say, but getting back’s a mighty good thing to stop you starving.

“Shit on this.” And he started after them, picking his way between the fishers sorting their flapping catch into buckets and barrows. Wearing the friendliest grin he could muster, he walked up to where the captain was busying himself on the deck. “Nice boat you got here,” he tried, though it was a slimy tub of shit far as he could see.

“And?”

“Would you think of taking me on?”

“You? What d’you know about fish?”

Shivers was a proven hand with axe, blade, spear and shield. A Named Man who’d led charges and held lines across the North and back. Who’d taken a few bad wounds and given out a lot of worse. But he was set on doing better’n that, and he was clinging to the notion tight as a drowning man to driftwood.

“I used to fish a lot, when I was a boy. Down by the lake, with my father.” His bare feet crunching in the shingle. The light glistening on the water. His father’s smile, and his brother’s.

But the captain didn’t come over nostalgic. “Lake? Sea-fishing’s what we do, boy.”

“Sea-fishing, I’ve got to say, I’ve had no practice at.”

“Then why you wasting my bloody time? I can get plenty of Styrian fishers for my measure, the best hands, all with a dozen years at sea.” He waved at the idle men lining the dock, looked more like they’d spent a dozen years in an ale-cup. “Why should I give work to some Northern beggar?”

“I’ll work hard. Had some bad luck is all. I’m just asking for a chance.”

“So are we all, but I’m not hearing why I should be the one to give it you.”

“Just a chance is-”

“Away from my boat, you big pale bastard!” The captain snatched up a length of rough wood from the deck and had himself a step forwards, as if he was set to beat a dog. “Get off, and take your bad luck with you!”

“I may be no kind of fisher, but I’ve always had a talent for making men bleed. Best put that stick down before I make you fucking eat it.” Shivers gave a look to go with the warning. A killing look, straight out of the North. The captain faltered, stopped, stood there grumbling. Then he tossed his stick away and started shouting at one of his own people.

Shivers hunched his shoulders and didn’t look back. He trudged to the mouth of an alley, past the torn bills pasted on the walls, the words daubed over ’em. Into the shadows between the crowded buildings, and the sounds of the docks went muffled at his back. It had been the same story with the smiths, and with the bakers, and with every damn trade in this damn city. There’d even been a cobbler who’d looked like a good enough sort until he told Shivers to fuck himself.