Best Served Cold

“Better than any man alive, I never doubt! Could you begin by fastening this buckle for me? Bloody armourers. I swear they only put it there to vex me.” He jerked his thumb at the side strap on his gilded breastplate, stood tall and held his breath, sucking in his gut as Friendly tugged it closed. “Thank you, my friend, you are a rock! An anchor! An axle of calm about which I madly spin. Whatever would I do without you?”

Friendly did not understand the question. “The same things.”

“No, no. Not the same. Though we are not long acquainted, I feel there is… an understanding between us. A bond. We are much alike, you and I.”

Friendly sometimes felt he feared every word he had to speak, every new person and every new place. Only by counting everything and anything could he claw by his fingernails from morning to night. Cosca, by sharp contrast, drifted effortlessly through life like blossom on the wind. The way that he could talk, smile, laugh, make others do the same seemed like magic as surely as when Friendly had seen the Gurkish woman Ishri form from nowhere. “We are nothing alike.”

“You see my point exactly! We are entire opposites, like earth and air, yet we are both… missing something… that others take for granted. Some part of that machinery that makes a man fit into society. But we each miss different cogs on the wheel. Enough that we may make, perhaps, between the two of us, one half-decent human.”

“One whole from two halves.”

“An extraordinary whole, even! I have never been a reliable man-no, no, don’t try to deny it.” Friendly had not. “But you, my friend, are constant, clear-sighted, single-minded. You are… honest enough… to make me more honest.”

“I’ve spent most of my life in prison.”

“Where you did more to spread honesty among Styria’s most dangerous convicts than all the magistrates in the land, I do not doubt!” Cosca slapped Friendly on his shoulder. “Honest men are so very rare, they are often mistaken for criminals, for rebels, for madmen. What were your crimes, anyway, but to be different?”

“Robbery the first time, and I served seven years. When they caught me again there were eighty-four counts, with fourteen murders.”

Cosca cocked an eyebrow. “But were you truly guilty?”

“Yes.”

He frowned for a moment, then waved it away. “Nobody’s perfect. Let’s leave the past behind us.” He gave his feather a final flick, jammed his hat onto his head at its accustomed rakish angle. “How do I look?”

Black pointed knee-boots set with huge golden spurs in the likeness of bull’s heads. Breastplate of black steel with golden adornments. Black velvet sleeves slashed with yellow silk, cuffs of Sipanese lace hanging at the wrists. A sword with flamboyant gilded basketwork and matching dagger, slung ridiculously low. An enormous hat, its yellow feather threatening to brush the ceiling. “Like a pimp who lost his mind in a military tailor’s.”

Cosca broke out in a radiant grin. “Precisely the look I was aiming at! So to business, Sergeant Friendly!” He strode forwards, flung the tent flap wide and stepped through into the bright sunlight.

Friendly stuck close behind. It was his job, now.

– 

T he applause began the moment he stepped up onto the big barrel. He had ordered every officer of the Thousand Swords to attend his address, and here they were indeed; clapping, whooping, cheering and whistling to the best of their ability. Captains to the fore, lieutenants crowding further back, ensigns clustering at the rear. In most bodies of fighting men these would have been the best and brightest, the youngest and highest born, the bravest and most idealistic. This being a brigade of mercenaries, they were the polar opposite. The longest serving, the most steeped in vice, the slyest back-stabbers, most practised grave-robbers and fastest runners, the men with fewest illusions and most betrayals under their belts. Cosca’s very own constituency, in other words.

Sesaria, Victus and Andiche lined up beside the barrel, all three clapping gently, the biggest, blackest crooks of the lot. Unless you counted Cosca himself, of course. Friendly stood not far behind, arms tightly folded, eyes darting over the crowd. Cosca wondered if he was counting them, and decided it was a virtual certainty.

“No, no! No, no! You do me too much honour, boys! You shame me with your fond attentions!” And he waved the adulation down, fading into an expectant silence. A mass of scarred, pocked, sunburned and diseased faces turned towards him, waiting. As hungry as a gang of bandits. They were one.