Best Served Cold

“Not much. You go into a smoke-house and ask for a man called Sajaam. You say Nicomo demands his presence at the usual place. You bring him to me.” She paused for a moment. “Then you help me kill a man.”

It was no surprise, if he was honest with himself for once. There was only one kind of work that he was really good at. Certainly only one kind that anyone would pay him fifty scales for. He’d come here to be a better man. But it was just like the Dogman had told him. Once your hands are bloody, it ain’t so easy to get ’em clean.

Something poked his thigh under the table and he near jumped out of his chair. The pommel of a long knife lay between his legs. A fighting knife, steel crosspiece gleaming orange, its sheathed blade in the woman’s gloved hand.

“Best take it.”

“I didn’t say I’d kill anyone.”

“I know what you said. The blade’s just to show Sajaam you mean business.”

He had to admit he didn’t much care for a woman surprising him with a knife between his thighs. “I didn’t say I’d kill anyone.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Right then. Just as long as you know.” He snatched the blade from her and slid it down inside his coat.

– 

T he knife pressed against his chest as he walked up, nuzzling at him like an old lover back for more. Shivers knew it was nothing to be proud of. Any fool can carry a knife. But even so, he wasn’t sure he didn’t like the weight of it against his ribs. Felt like being someone again.

He’d come to Styria looking for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do. Shivers couldn’t say he’d ever seen a place with a less honest look about it than this one. A heavy door in a dirty, bare, windowless wall, with a big man standing guard on each side. Shivers could tell it in the way they stood-they had weapons, and were right on the edge of putting ’em to use. One was a dark-skinned Southerner, black hair hanging around his face.

“Need something?” he asked, while the other gave Shivers the eyeball.

“Here to see Sajaam.”

“You armed?” Shivers slid out the knife, held it up hilt first, and the man took it off him. “With me, then.” The hinges creaked as the door swung open.

The air was thick on the other side, hazy with sweet smoke. It scratched at Shivers’ throat and made him want to cough, prickled at his eyes and made them water. It was dim and quiet, too sticky warm for comfort after the nip outside. Lamps of coloured glass threw patterns across the stained walls-green, and red, and yellow flares in the murk. The place was like a bad dream.

Curtains hung about, dirty silk rustling in the gloom. Folk sprawled on cushions, half-dressed and half-asleep. A man lay on his back, mouth wide open, pipe dangling from his hand, trace of smoke still curling from the bowl. A woman was pressed against him, on her side. Both their faces were beaded with sweat, slack as corpses. Looked like an uneasy cross between delight and despair, but tending towards the latter.

“This way.” Shivers followed his guide through the haze and down a shadowy corridor. A woman leaning in a doorway watched him pass with dead eyes, saying nothing. Someone was grunting somewhere, “Oh, oh, oh,” almost bored.

Through a curtain of clicking beads and into another big room, less smoky but more worrying. Men were scattered about it, an odd mix of types and colours. Judging by their looks, all used to violence. Eight were sitting at a table strewn with glasses, bottles and small money, playing cards. More lounged about in the shadows. Shivers’ eye fell right away on a nasty-looking hatchet in easy reach of one, and he didn’t reckon it was the only weapon about. A clock was nailed up on the wall, innards dangling, swinging back and forth, tick, tock, tick, loud enough to set his nerves jangling even worse.

A big man sat at the head of the table, the chief’s place if this had been the North. An old man, face creased like leather past its best. His skin was oily dark, short hair and beard dusted with iron grey. He had a gold coin he was fiddling with, flipping it across his knuckles from one side of his hand back to the other. The guide leaned down to whisper in his ear, then handed across the knife. His eyes and the eyes of the others were on Shivers, now. A scale was starting to seem a small reward for the task, all of a sudden.

“You Sajaam?” Louder than Shivers had in mind, voice squeaky from the smoke.

The old man’s smile was a yellow curve in his dark face. “Sajaam is my name, as all my sweet friends will confirm. You know, you can tell an awful lot about a man from the style of weapon he carries.”

“That so?”

Sajaam slid the knife from its sheath and held it up, candlelight glinting on steel. “Not a cheap blade, but not expensive either. Fit for the job, and no frills at the edges. Sharp, and hard, and meaning business. Am I close to the mark?”

“Somewhere round it.” It was plain he was one of those who loved to prattle on, so Shivers didn’t bother to mention that it weren’t even his knife. Less said, sooner he could be on his way.