Best Served Cold

Cosca’s trembling knife and fork jabbed at each other in the air. “We’d march around for weeks at a time, picking the country clean all the while, mount the odd harmless skirmish for the show of it, then leave off at the end of each season a good deal richer but with no one dead. Well, a few of the rot, maybe. Every bit as profitable as having at the business in earnest, though. We even mounted a couple of fake battles, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“Until Monza took an engagement with Grand Duke Orso of Talins, and decided she was done with fake battles. Until she decided to mount a proper charge, with swords well sharpened and swung in earnest. Until you decided to make a difference, eh, Monza? Shame you never told me we weren’t faking anymore. I could’ve warned my boys and saved some lives that day.”

“Your boys.” She snorted. “Let’s not pretend you ever cared for anyone’s life but your own.”

“There have been a few others I valued higher. I never profited by it, though, and neither did they.” Cosca hadn’t taken his bloodshot eyes from Monza’s. “Which of your own people turned on you? Faithful Carpi, was it? Not so faithful in the end, eh?”

“He was as faithful as you could wish for. Right up until he stabbed me.”

“And now he’s taken the captain general’s chair, no doubt?”

“I hear he’s managed to wedge his fat arse into it.”

“Just as you slipped your skinny one into it after mine. But he couldn’t have taken anything without the consent of some other captains, could he? Fine lads, those. That bastard Andiche. That big leech Sesaria. That sneering maggot Victus. Were those three greedy hogs still with you?”

“They still had their faces in the trough. All of them turned on me, I’m sure, just the way they turned on you. You’re telling me nothing I don’t know.”

“No one thanks you, in the end. Not for the victories you bring them. Not for the money you make them. They get bored. And the first sniff of something better-”

Monza was out of patience. A leader can’t afford to look soft. Especially not a woman. “For such an expert on people, it’s a wonder you ended up a friendless, penniless drunk, eh, Cosca? Don’t pretend I didn’t give you a thousand chances. You wasted them all, like you wasted everything else. The only question that interests me is-are you set on wasting this one too? Can you do as I fucking tell you? Or are you set on being my enemy?”

Cosca only gave a sad smile. “In our line of work, enemies are things to be proud of. If experience has taught the two of us anything, it’s that your friends are the ones you need to watch. My congratulations to the cook.” He tossed his fork down in his bowl, got up and strutted from the kitchen in almost a straight line. Monza frowned at the sullen faces he left around the table.

Never fear your enemies, Verturio wrote, but your friends, always.

A Few Bad Men

T he warehouse was a draughty cavern, cold light finding chinks in the shutters and leaving bright lines across the dusty boards, across the empty crates piled up in one corner, across the old table in the middle of the floor. Shivers dropped into a rickety chair next to it, felt the grip of the knife Monza had given him pressing at his calf. A sharp reminder of what he’d been hired for. Life was getting way more dark and dangerous than back home in the North. As far as being a better man went, he was going backwards, and quicker every day.

So why the hell was he still here? Because he wanted Monza? He had to admit it, and the fact she’d been cold with him since Westport only made him want her more. Because he wanted her money? That too. Money was a damn good thing for buying stuff. Because he needed the work? He did. Because he was good at the work? He was.

Because he enjoyed the work?

Shivers frowned. Some men aren’t stamped out for doing good, and he was starting to reckon he might be one of ’em. He was less and less sure with every day that being a better man was worth all the effort.

The sound of a door banging tugged him from his thoughts, and Cosca came down the creaking wooden steps from the rooms where they were sleeping, scratching slowly at the splatter of red rash up the side of his neck.

“Morning.”

The old mercenary yawned. “So it seems. I can barely remember the last one of these I saw. Nice shirt.”

Shivers twitched at his sleeve. Dark silk, with polished bone buttons and clever stitching round the cuff. A good stretch fancier than he’d have picked out, but Monza had liked it. “Hadn’t noticed.”

“I used to be one for fine clothes myself.” Cosca dropped into a rickety chair next to Shivers. “So did Monza’s brother, for that matter. He had a shirt just like that one, as I recall.”

Shivers weren’t sure what the old bastard was getting at, but he was sure he didn’t like it. “And?”

“Spoken much about her brother, has she?” Cosca had a strange little smile, like he knew something Shivers didn’t.

“She told me he’s dead.”

“So I hear.”

“She told me she’s not happy about it.”

“Most decidedly not.”

“Something else I should know?”