"The Cripple?" Vitari had said the name. The man who stood behind the King of the Union.
"Yes! Ah! Ah!" She squealed as he twisted her finger further, then he let it go and she snatched it back, holding it to her chest, bottom lip stuck out at him. "You didn't have to do that."
"Maybe I enjoyed doing it. Go on."
"When Murcatto made me betray Orso… she made me betray the Cripple too. Orso I can live with as an enemy, if I must—"
"But not this Cripple?"
She swallowed. "No. Not him."
"A worse enemy than the great Duke Orso, eh?"
"Far worse. Murcatto is his price. She threatens to rip apart all his carefully woven plans to bring Talins into the Union. He wants her dead." The smooth mask had slipped and she had this look, shoulders slumped, staring down wide-eyed at the sheet. Hungry, and sick, and very, very scared. Shivers liked seeing it. Might've been the first honest look he'd seen since he landed in Styria. "If I can find a way to kill her, I get my life," she whispered.
"And I'm your way."
She looked back up at him, and her eyes were hard. "Can you do it?"
"I could've done it today." He'd thought of splitting her head with his axe. He'd thought of planting his boot on her face and shoving her under the water. Then she'd have had to respect him. But instead he'd saved her. Because he'd been hoping. Maybe he still was… but hoping had made a fool of him. And Shivers was good and sick of looking the fool.
How many men had he killed? In all those battles, skirmishes, desperate fights up in the North? Just in the half-year since he came to Styria, even? At Cardotti's, in the smoke and the madness? Among the statues in Duke Salier's palace? In the battle just a few hours back? It might've been a score. More. And women among 'em. He was steeped in blood, deep as the Bloody-Nine himself. Didn't seem likely that adding one more to the tally would cost him a place among the righteous. His mouth twisted.
"I could do it." It was plain as the scar on his face that Monza cared nothing for him. Why should he care anything for her? "I could do it easily."
"Then do it." She crept forwards on her hands and knees, mouth half-open, pale tits hanging heavy, looking him right in his one eye. "For me." Her nipples brushed against his chest, one way then the other as she crawled over him. "For you." Her necklace of blood-red stones clicked gently against his chin. "For us."
"I'll need to pick my moment." He slid his hand down her back and up onto her arse. "Caution first, eh?"
"Of course. Nothing done well is ever… rushed."
His head was full of her scent, sweet smell of flowers mixed with the sharp smell of fucking. "She owes me money," he growled, the last objection.
"Ah, money. I used to be a merchant, you know. Buying. Selling." Her breath was hot on his neck, on his mouth, on his face. "And in my long experience, when people begin to talk prices, the deal is already done." She nuzzled at him, lips brushing the mass of scar down his cheek. "Do this thing for me, and I promise you'll get all you could ever spend." The cool tip of her tongue lapped gently at the raw flesh round his metal eye, sweet and soothing. "I have an arrangement… with the Banking House… of Valint and Balk…"
So Much for Nothing
Silver gleamed in the sunlight with that special, mouth-watering twinkle that somehow only money has. A whole strongbox full of it, stacked in plain sight, drawing the eyes of every man in the camp more surely than if a naked countess had been sprawled suggestively upon the table. Piles of sparking, sparkling coins, freshly minted. Some of the cleanest currency in Styria, pressed into some of its grubbiest hands. A pleasing irony. The coins carried the scales on one side, of course, traditional symbol of Styrian commerce since the time of the New Empire. On the other, the stern profile of Grand Duke Orso of Talins. An even more pleasing irony, to Cosca's mind, that he was paying the men of the Thousand Swords with the face of the man they had but lately betrayed.
In a pocked and spattered, squinting and scratching, coughing and slovenly line the soldiers and staff of the first company of the first regiment of the Thousand Swords passed by the makeshift table to receive their unjust deserts. They were closely supervised by the chief notary of the brigade and a dozen of its most reliable veterans, which was just as well, because during the course of the morning Cosca had witnessed every dispiriting trick imaginable.
Men approached the table on multiple occasions in different clothes, giving false names or those of dead comrades. They routinely exaggerated, embellished or flat-out lied in regards to rank or length of service. They wept for sick mothers, children or acquaintances. They delivered a devastating volley of complaints about food, drink, equipment, runny shits, superiors, the smell of other men, the weather, items stolen, injuries suffered, injuries given, perceived slights on non-existent honour and on, and on, and on. Had they demonstrated the same audacity and persistence in combat that they did in trying to prise the slightest dishonest pittance from their commander they would have been the greatest fighting force of all time.
But First Sergeant Friendly was watching. He had worked for years in the kitchens of Safety, where dozens of the world's most infamous swindlers vied daily with each other for enough bread to survive, and so he knew every low trick, con and stratagem practised this side of hell. There was no sliding around his basilisk gaze. The convict did not permit a single shining portrait of Duke Orso to be administered out of turn.
Cosca shook his head in deep dismay as he watched the last man trudge away, the unbearable limp for which he had demanded compensation miraculously healed. "By the Fates, you would have thought they'd be glad of the bonus! It isn't as if they had to fight for it! Or even steal it themselves! I swear, the more you give a man, the more he demands, and the less happy he becomes. No one ever appreciates what he gets for nothing. A pox on charity!" He slapped the notary on the shoulder, causing him to scrawl an untidy line across his carefully kept page.
"Mercenaries aren't all they used to be," grumbled the man as he sourly blotted it.
"No? To my eye they seem very much as violent-tempered and mean-spirited as ever. ‘Things aren't what they used to be' is the rallying cry of small minds. When men say things used to be better, they invariably mean they were better for them, because they were young, and had all their hopes intact. The world is bound to look a darker place as you slide into the grave."
"So everything stays the same?" asked the notary, looking sadly up.
"Some men get better, some get worse." Cosca heaved a weighty sigh. "But on the grand scale, I have observed no significant changes. How many of our heroes have we paid now?"
"That's all of Squire's company, of Andiche's regiment. Well, Andiche's regiment that was."
Cosca put a hand over his eyes. "Please, don't speak of that brave heart. His loss still stabs at me. How many have we paid?"
The notary licked his fingers, flipped over a couple of crackling leaves of his ledger, started counting the entries. "One, two, three—"
"Four hundred and four," said Friendly.
"And how many persons in the Thousand Swords?"
The notary winced. "Counting all ancillaries, servants and tradesmen?"
"Absolutely."
"Whores too?"
"Counting them first, they're the hardest workers in the whole damned brigade!"
The lawyer squinted skywards. "Er…"
"Twelve thousand, eight hundred and nineteen," said Friendly.
Cosca stared at him. "I've heard it said a good sergeant is worth three generals, but you may well be worth three dozen, my friend! Thirteen thousand, though? We'll be here tomorrow night still!"