Friendly's favourite place was the mess. There was a comforting routine to mealtimes that put him in mind of Safety. The frowning cooks in their stained aprons. The steam from the great pots. The rattle and clatter of knives and spoons. The slurp and splutter of lips, teeth, tongues. The line of jostling men, all asking for more than their share and never getting it.
The men who would be in the scaling parties this morning got two extra meatballs and an extra spoon of soup. Two and one. Cosca had said it was one thing to get poked off a ladder with a spear, but he could not countenance a man falling off from hunger.
"We'll be attacking within the hour," he said now.
Friendly nodded.
Cosca took a long breath, pushed it out through his nose and frowned around him. "Ladders, mainly." Friendly had watched them being made, over the last few days. Twenty-one of them. Two and one. Each had thirty-one rungs, except for one, which had thirty-two. One, two, three. "Monza will be going with them. She wants to be the first to Orso. Entirely determined. She's set firm on vengeance."
Friendly shrugged. She always had been.
"In all honesty, I worry for her."
Friendly shrugged. He was indifferent.
"A battle is a dangerous place."
Friendly shrugged. That seemed obvious.
"My friend, I want you to stick near her, in the fighting. Make sure no harm comes to her."
"What about you?"
"Me?" Cosca slapped Friendly on his shoulder. "The only shield I need is the universally high regard in which men hold me."
"You sure?"
"No, but I'll be where I always am. Well behind the fighting with my flask for company. Something tells me she'll need you more. There are enemies still, out there. And Friendly…"
"Yes?"
"Watch closely and take great care. The fox is most dangerous when at bay—that Orso will have some deadly tricks in store, well…" and he puffed out his cheeks, "it's inevitable. Watch out, in particular… for Morveer."
"Alright." Murcatto would have him and Shivers watching her. A party of three, as it had been when they killed Gobba. Two watching one. He wrapped the dice up and slid them down into his pocket. He watched the steam rise as the food was ladled out. Listened to the men grumbling. Counted the complaints.
The washed-out grey of dawn was turning to golden daylight, sun creeping over the battlements at the top of the wall they'd all have to climb, its gaptoothed shadow slowly giving ground across the ruined gardens.
They'd be going soon. Shivers shut his eye and grinned into the sun. Tipped his head back and stuck his tongue out. It was getting colder as the year wore down. Felt almost like a fine summer morning in the North. Like mornings he'd fought great battles in. Mornings he'd done high deeds, and a few low ones too.
"You seem happy enough," came Monza's voice, "for a man about to risk his life."
Shivers opened his eye and turned his grin on her. "I've made peace with myself."
"Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win."
"Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting."
"I'm starting to think that's the only victory worth a shit," she muttered, almost to herself.
Ahead of them, the first wave of mercenaries were ready to go, stood about their ladders, big shields on their free arms, twitchy and nervous, which was no surprise. Shivers couldn't say he much fancied their job. They weren't making the least effort to hide what they had planned. Everyone knew what was coming, on both sides of the wall.
Close round Shivers, the second wave were getting ready too. Giving blades a last stroke with the whetstone, tightening straps on armour, telling a last couple of jokes and hoping they weren't the last they ever told. Shivers grinned, watching them at it. Rituals he'd seen a dozen times before and more. Felt almost like home.
"You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place?" he asked. "That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all… fit. Be right."
Monza narrowed her eyes at the inner walls. "All my life, more or less."
"All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned… just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am."
"And what are you?"
He looked down at the axe across his knees. "A killer, I reckon."
"That all?"
"Honestly? Pretty much." He shrugged. "That's why you took me on, ain't it?"
She frowned at the ground. "What happened to being an optimist?"
"Can't I be an optimistic killer? A man once told me—the man who killed my brother, as it goes—that good and evil are a matter of where you stand. We all got our reasons. Whether they're decent ones all depends on who you ask, don't it?"
"Does it?"
"I would've thought you'd say so, of all people."
"Maybe I would've, once. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe those are just the lies we tell ourselves, so we can live with what we've done."
Shivers couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.
"What's funny?"
"I don't need excuses, Chief, that's what I'm trying to tell you. What's the name for it, when a thing's bound to happen? There's a word for it, ain't there, when there's no stopping something? No avoiding it, whatever you try to do?"
"Inevitable," said Monza.
"That's it. The inevitable." Shivers chewed happily on the word like a mouthful of good meat. "I'm happy with what's done. I'm happy with what's coming."
A shrill whistle cut through the air. All together, with a rattling of armour, the first wave knelt in parties of a dozen and took up their long ladders between them. They started to jog forwards, in piss-poor order if Shivers was honest, slipping and sliding across the slimy gardens. Others followed after, none too eager, sharpshooters with flatbows aiming to keep the archers on the walls busy. There were a few grunts, some calls of "steady" and the rest, but a quiet rush, on the whole. It wouldn't have seemed right, really, giving your war cry while you ran at a wall. What do you do when you get there? You can't keep shouting all the way up a ladder.
"There they go." Shivers stood, lifted his axe and shook it above his head. "Go on! Go on, you bastards!"
They made it halfway across the gardens before Shivers heard a floating shriek of, "Fire!" A moment later a clicking rattle from the walls. Bolts flitted down into the charging men. There were a couple of screams, sobs, a few boys dropped, but most kept pressing forwards, faster'n ever now. Mercenaries with bows of their own knelt, sent a volley back, pinging from battlements or flying right over.
The whistle went again and the next wave started forwards, the men who'd drawn the happy task of climbing. Light-armoured mostly, so they'd move nice and nimble. The first party had made it to the foot of the walls, were starting to raise their ladder. One of 'em dropped with a bolt in his neck, but the rest managed to push the thing the whole way. Shivers watched it swing over and clatter into the parapet. Other ladders started going up. More movement at the top of the walls, men leaning out with rocks and chucking them down. Bolts fell among the second wave, but most of 'em were getting close to the walls now, crowding round, starting to climb. There were six ladders up, then ten. The next one fell apart when it hit the battlements, bits of wood dropping on the shocked boys who'd raised it. Shivers had to chuckle.
More rocks dropped. A man tumbled from halfway up a ladder, his legs folding every which way underneath him, started shrieking away. There was plenty of shouting all round now, and no mistake. Some defenders on a tower roof upended a big vat of boiling water into the faces of a party trying to raise a ladder below. They made a hell of a noise, ladder toppling, running about clutching their heads like madmen.