The Collected Joe Abercrombie (262 page)

‘Not only me.’

‘Curse your modesty. Benna has played his part, and our good friend General Ganmark, and Faithful too, but no one could deny this is your work. Your commitment, your single-mindedness, your swiftness to act! You shall have a great triumph, just as the heroes of ancient Aulcus did. You shall ride through the streets of Talins and my people will shower you with flower petals in honour of your many victories.’ Benna was grinning, but Monza couldn’t join him. She’d never had much taste for congratulations. ‘They will cheer far louder for you, I think, than they ever will for my own sons. They will cheer far louder even than they do for me, their rightful lord, to whom they owe so much.’ It seemed that Orso’s smile slipped, and his face looked tired, and sad, and worn without it. ‘They will cheer, in fact, a little too loudly for my taste.’

There was the barest flash of movement at the corner of her eye, enough to make her bring up her hand on an instinct.

The wire hissed taut around it, snatching it up under her chin, crushing it chokingly tight against her throat.

Benna started forwards. ‘Mon—’ Metal glinted as Prince Ario stabbed him in the neck. He missed his throat, caught him just under the ear.

Orso carefully stepped back as blood speckled the tiles with red. Foscar’s mouth fell open, wine glass dropping from his hand, shattering on the floor.

Monza tried to scream, but only spluttered through her half-shut windpipe, made a sound like a honking pig. She fished at the hilt of her dagger with her free hand but someone caught her wrist, held it fast. Faithful Carpi, pressed up tight against her left side.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered in her ear, pulling her sword from its scabbard and flinging it clattering across the room.

Benna stumbled, gurgling red drool, one hand clutched to the side of his face, black blood leaking out between white fingers. His other hand fumbled for his sword while Ario watched him, frozen. He drew a clumsy foot of steel before General Ganmark stepped up and stabbed him, smoothly and precisely – once, twice, three times. The thin blade slid in and out of Benna’s body, the only sound the soft breath from his gaping mouth. Blood shot across the floor in long streaks, began to leak out into his white shirt in dark circles. He tottered forwards, tripped over his own feet and crashed down, half-drawn sword scraping against the marble underneath him.

Monza strained, every muscle trembling, but she was held helpless as a fly in honey. She heard Gobba grunting with effort in her ear, his stubbly face rubbing against her cheek, his great body warm against her back. She felt the wire cut slowly into the sides of her neck, deep into the side of her hand, caught fast against her throat. She felt the blood running down her forearm, into the collar of her shirt.

One of Benna’s hands crawled across the floor, reaching out for her. He lifted himself an inch or two, veins bulging from his neck. Ganmark leaned forwards and calmly ran him through the heart from behind. Benna quivered for a moment, then sagged down and was still, pale cheek smeared with red. Dark blood crept out from under him, worked its way along the cracks between the tiles.

‘Well.’ Ganmark leaned down and wiped his sword on the back of Benna’s shirt. ‘That’s that.’

Mauthis watched, frowning. Slightly puzzled, slightly irritated, slightly bored. As though examining a set of figures that wouldn’t quite add.

Orso gestured at the body. ‘Get rid of that, Ario.’

‘Me?’ The prince’s lip curled.

‘Yes, you. And you can help him, Foscar. The two of you must learn what needs to be done to keep our family in power.’

‘No!’ Foscar stumbled away. ‘I’ll have no part of this!’ He turned and ran from the room, his boots slapping against the marble floor.

‘That boy is soft as syrup,’ muttered Orso at his back. ‘Ganmark, help him.’

Monza’s bulging eyes followed them as they dragged Benna’s corpse out through the doors to the terrace, Ganmark grim and careful at the head end, Ario cursing as he daintily took one boot, the other smearing a red trail after them. They heaved Benna up onto the balustrade and rolled him off. Like that he was gone.

‘Ah!’ squawked Ario, waving one hand. ‘Damn it! You scratched me!’

Ganmark stared back at him. ‘I apologise, your Highness. Murder can be a painful business.’

The prince looked around for something to wipe his bloody hands on. He reached for the rich hangings beside the window.

‘Not there!’ snapped Orso. ‘That’s Kantic silk, at fifty scales a piece!’

‘Where, then?’

‘Find something else, or leave them red! Sometimes I wonder if your mother told the truth about your paternity, boy.’ Ario wiped his hands sulkily on the front of his shirt while Monza stared, face burning from lack of air. Orso frowned over at her, a blurred black figure through the wet in her eyes, the hair tangled across her face. ‘Is she still alive? Whatever are you about, Gobba?’

‘Fucking wire’s caught on her hand,’ hissed the bodyguard.

‘Find another way to be done with her, then, lackwit.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Faithful pulled the dagger from her belt, still pinning her wrist with his other hand. ‘I really am sorry.’

‘Just get to it!’ growled Gobba.

The blade went back, steel glinting in a shaft of light. Monza stomped down on Gobba’s foot with all the strength she had left. The bodyguard grunted, grip slipping on the wire, and she dragged it away from her neck, growling, twisting hard as Carpi stabbed at her.

The blade went well wide of the mark, slid in under her bottom rib. Cold metal, but it felt burning hot, a line of fire from her stomach to her back. It slid right through and the point pricked Gobba’s gut.

‘Gah!’ He let go the wire and Monza whooped in air, started shrieking mindlessly, lashed at him with her elbow and sent him staggering. Faithful was caught off guard, fumbled the knife as he pulled it out of her and sent it spinning across the floor. She kicked at him, missed his groin and caught his hip, bent him over. She snatched at a dagger on his belt, pulled it from its sheath, but her cut hand was clumsy and he caught her wrist before she could ram the blade into him. They wrestled with it, teeth bared, gasping spit in each other’s faces, lurching back and forth, their hands sticky with her blood.

‘Kill her!’

There was a crunch and her head was full of light. The floor cracked against her skull, slapped her in the back. She spat blood, mad screams guttering to a long drawn croak, clawing at the smooth floor with her nails.

‘Fucking bitch!’ The heel of Gobba’s big boot cracked down on her right hand and sent pain lancing up her forearm, tore a sick gasp from her. His boot crunched again across her knuckles, then her fingers, then her wrist. At the same time Faithful’s foot was thudding into her ribs, over and over, making her cough and shudder. Her shattered hand twisted, turned sideways on. Gobba’s heel crashed down and crushed it flat into the cold marble with a splintering of bone. She flopped back, hardly able to breathe, the room turning over, history’s painted winners grinning down.

‘You stabbed me, you dumb old bastard! You stabbed me!’

‘You’re hardly even cut, fathead! You should’ve kept a hold on her!’

‘I should stab the useless pair of you!’ hissed Orso’s voice. ‘Just get it done!’

Gobba’s great fist came down, dragged Monza up by her throat. She tried to grab at him with her left hand but all her strength had leaked out through the hole in her side, the cuts in her neck. Her clumsy fingertips only smeared red traces across his stubbly face. Her arm was dragged away, twisted sharply behind her back.

‘Where’s Hermon’s gold?’ came Gobba’s rough voice. ‘Eh, Murcatto? What did you do with the gold?’

Monza forced her head up. ‘Lick my arse, cocksucker.’ Not clever, perhaps, but from the heart.

‘There never was any gold!’ snapped Faithful. ‘I told you that, pig!’

‘There’s this much.’ One by one, Gobba twisted the battered rings from her dangling fingers, already bloating, turning angry purple, bent and shapeless as rotten sausages. ‘Good stone, that,’ he said, peering at the ruby.

‘Seems a waste of decent flesh, though. Why not give me a moment with her? A moment’s all it would take.’

Prince Ario tittered. ‘Speed isn’t always something to be proud of.’

‘For pity’s sake!’ Orso’s voice. ‘We’re not animals. Off the terrace and let us be done. I am late for breakfast.’

She felt herself dragged, head lolling. Sunlight stabbed at her. She was lifted, limp boots scraping on stone. Blue sky turning. Up onto the balustrade. The breath scraped at her nose, shuddered in her chest. She twisted, kicked. Her body, struggling vainly to stay alive.

‘Let me make sure of her.’ Ganmark’s voice.

‘How sure do we need to be?’ Blurry through the bloody hair across her eyes she saw Orso’s lined face. ‘I hope you understand. My great-grandfather was a mercenary. A low-born fighting man, who seized power by the sharpness of his mind and sword together. I cannot allow another mercenary to seize power in Talins.’

She meant to spit in his face, but all she did was blow bloody drool down her own chin. ‘Fuck yourse—’

Then she was flying.

Her torn shirt billowed and flapped against her tingling skin. She turned over, and over, and the world tumbled around her. Blue sky with shreds of cloud, black towers at the mountain top, grey rock face rushing past, yellow-green trees and sparkling river, blue sky with shreds of cloud, and again, and again, faster, and faster.

Cold wind ripped at her hair, roared in her ears, whistled between her teeth along with her terrified breath. She could see each tree, now, each branch, each leaf. They surged up towards her. She opened her mouth to scream—

Twigs snatched, grabbed, lashed at her. A broken branch knocked her spinning. Wood cracked and tore around her as she plunged down, down, and crashed into the mountainside. Her legs splintered under her plummeting weight, her shoulder broke apart against firm earth. But rather than dashing her brains out on the rocks, she only shattered her jaw against her brother’s bloody chest, his mangled body wedged against the base of a tree.

Which was how Benna Murcatto saved his sister’s life.

She bounced from the corpse, three-quarters senseless, and down the steep mountainside, over and over, flailing like a broken doll. Rocks, and roots, and hard earth clubbed, punched, crushed her, as if she was battered apart with a hundred hammers.

She tore through a patch of bushes, thorns whipping and clutching. She rolled, and rolled, down the sloping earth in a cloud of dirt and leaves. She tumbled over a tree root, crumpled on a mossy rock. She slid slowly to a stop, on her back, and was still.

‘Huuuurrrrhhh . . .’

Stones clattered down around her, sticks and gravel. Dust slowly settled. She heard wind, creaking in the branches, crackling in the leaves. Or her own breath, creaking and crackling in her broken throat. The sun flickered through black trees, jabbing at one eye. The other was dark. Flies buzzed, zipping and swimming in the warm morning air. She was down with the waste from Orso’s kitchens. Sprawled out helpless in the midst of the rotten vegetables, and the cooking slime, and the stinking offal left over from the last month’s magnificent meals. Tossed out with the rubbish.

‘Huuurrhhh . . .’

A jagged, mindless sound. She was embarrassed by it, almost, but couldn’t stop making it. Animal horror. Mad despair. The groan of the dead, in hell. Her eye darted desperately around. She saw the wreck of her right hand, a shapeless, purple glove with a bloody gash in the side. One finger trembled slightly. Its tip brushed against torn skin on her elbow. The forearm was folded in half, a broken-off twig of grey bone sticking through bloody silk. It didn’t look real. Like a cheap theatre prop.

‘Huurrhhh . . .’

The fear had hold of her now, swelling with every breath. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t move her tongue in her mouth. She could feel the pain, gnawing at the edge of her mind. A terrible mass, pressing up against her, crushing every part of her, worse, and worse, and worse.

‘Huurhh . . . uurh . . .’

Benna was dead. A streak of wet ran from her flickering eye and she felt it trickle slowly down her cheek. Why was she not dead? How could she not be dead?

Soon, please. Before the pain got any worse. Please, let it be soon.

‘Uurh . . . uh . . . uh.’

Please, death.

I

TALINS

‘To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike’

Diane de Poitiers

J
appo Murcatto never said why he had such a good sword, but he knew well
how to use it. Since his son was by five years his younger child and sickly too, from a tender age he passed on the skill to his daughter. Monzcarro had been her father’s mother’s name, in the days when her family had pretended at nobility. Her own mother had not cared for it in the least, but since she had died giving birth to Benna that scarcely mattered.