The Collected Joe Abercrombie (266 page)

Vengeance, then.

Fish out of Water

T
he cold wind swept in from the sea and gave the docks of Talins a damn good blasting. Or a damn bad one, depending how well dressed you were. Shivers weren’t that well dressed at all. He pulled his thin coat tight round his shoulders, though he might as well not have bothered, for all the good it did him. He narrowed his eyes and squinted miserably into the latest gust. He was earning his name today, alright. He had been for weeks.

He remembered sitting warm by the fire, up in the North in a good house in Uffrith, with a belly full of meat and a head full of dreams, talking to Vossula about the wondrous city of Talins. He remembered it with some bitterness, because it was that bloody merchant, with his dewy eyes and his honey tales of home, who’d talked him into this nightmare jaunt to Styria.

Vossula had told him that the sun always shone in Talins. That was why Shivers had sold his good coat before he set off. Didn’t want to end up sweating, did he? Seemed now, as he shivered like a curled-up autumn leaf only just still clinging to its branch, that Vossula had been doing some injury to the truth.

Shivers watched the restless waves chew at the quay, throwing icy spray over the few rotting skiffs stirring at their rotting wharves. He listened to the hawsers creaking, to the ill seabirds croaking, to the wind making a loose shutter rattle, to the grunts and grumbles of the men around him. All of ’em huddled on the docks for the sniff of a chance at work, and there’d never been in one place such a crowd of sad stories. Grubby and gaunt, ragged clothes and pinched-in faces. Desperate men. Men just like Shivers, in other words. Except they’d been born here. He’d been stupid enough to choose this.

He slid the last hard heel of bread from his inside pocket as carefully as a miser breaking out his hoard, took a nibble from the end, making sure to taste every crumb of it. Then he caught the man nearest to him staring, licking his pale lips. Shivers felt his shoulders slump, broke some off and handed it over.

‘Thanks, friend,’ as he wolfed it down.

‘No bother,’ said Shivers, though he’d spent hours chopping logs for it. Quite a lot of painful bother, in fact. The rest of ’em were all looking now, big sad eyes like pups needed feeding. He threw up his hands. ‘If I had bread for everyone, why the fuck would I be stood here?’

They turned away grumbling. He snorted cold snot up and spat it out. Aside from some stale bread it was the only thing to have passed his lips that morning, and going in the wrong direction. He’d come with a pocketful of silver, and a faceful of smiles, and a swelling chestful of happy hope. Ten weeks in Styria, and all three of those were emptied to the bitter dregs.

Vossula had told him the people of Talins were friendly as lambs, welcomed foreigners like guests. He’d found nothing but scorn, and a lot of folk keen to use any rotten trick to relieve him of his dwindling money. They weren’t just handing out second chances on the street corners here. No more’n they had been in the North.

A boat had come in now, was tying off at the quay, fishers scurrying over and around it, hauling at ropes and cursing at sailcloth. Shivers felt the rest of the desperate perking up, wondering if there might be a shift of work for one of ’em. He felt a dismal little flair of hope in his own chest, however hard he tried to keep it down, and stood up keen on tiptoes to watch.

Fish slid from the nets onto the dockside, squirming silver in the watery sun. It was a good, honest trade, fishing. A life on the salty brine where no sharp words are spoken, all men set together against the wind, plucking the shining bounty from the sea, and all that. A noble trade, or so Shivers tried to tell himself, in spite of the stink. Any trade that’d have him seemed pretty noble about then.

A man weathered as an old gatepost hopped down from the boat and strutted over, all self-importance, and the beggars jostled each other to catch his eye. The captain, Shivers guessed.

‘Need two hands,’ he said, pushing his battered cap back and looking those hopeful, hopeless faces over. ‘You, and you.’

Hardly needed saying Shivers weren’t one of ’em. His head sagged along with the rest as he watched the lucky pair hurrying back to the boat after its captain. One was the bastard he gave his bread to, didn’t so much as look round, let alone put in a word for him. Maybe it was what you gave out that made a man, not what you got back, like Shivers’ brother used to say, but getting back’s a mighty good thing to stop you starving.

‘Shit on this.’ And he started after them, picking his way between the fishers sorting their flapping catch into buckets and barrows. Wearing the friendliest grin he could muster, he walked up to where the captain was busying himself on the deck. ‘Nice boat you got here,’ he tried, though it was a slimy tub of shit far as he could see.

‘And?’

‘Would you think of taking me on?’

‘You? What d’you know about fish?’

Shivers was a proven hand with axe, blade, spear and shield. A Named Man who’d led charges and held lines across the North and back. Who’d taken a few bad wounds and given out a lot of worse. But he was set on doing better’n that, and he was clinging to the notion tight as a drowning man to driftwood.

‘I used to fish a lot, when I was a boy. Down by the lake, with my father.’ His bare feet crunching in the shingle. The light glistening on the water. His father’s smile, and his brother’s.

But the captain didn’t come over nostalgic. ‘Lake? Sea-fishing’s what we do, boy.’

‘Sea-fishing, I’ve got to say, I’ve had no practice at.’

‘Then why you wasting my bloody time? I can get plenty of Styrian fishers for my measure, the best hands, all with a dozen years at sea.’ He waved at the idle men lining the dock, looked more like they’d spent a dozen years in an ale-cup. ‘Why should I give work to some Northern beggar?’

‘I’ll work hard. Had some bad luck is all. I’m just asking for a chance.’

‘So are we all, but I’m not hearing why I should be the one to give it you.’

‘Just a chance is—’

‘Away from my boat, you big pale bastard!’ The captain snatched up a length of rough wood from the deck and had himself a step forwards, as if he was set to beat a dog. ‘Get off, and take your bad luck with you!’

‘I may be no kind of fisher, but I’ve always had a talent for making men bleed. Best put that stick down before I make you fucking eat it.’ Shivers gave a look to go with the warning. A killing look, straight out of the North. The captain faltered, stopped, stood there grumbling. Then he tossed his stick away and started shouting at one of his own people.

Shivers hunched his shoulders and didn’t look back. He trudged to the mouth of an alley, past the torn bills pasted on the walls, the words daubed over ’em. Into the shadows between the crowded buildings, and the sounds of the docks went muffled at his back. It had been the same story with the smiths, and with the bakers, and with every damn trade in this damn city. There’d even been a cobbler who’d looked like a good enough sort until he told Shivers to fuck himself.

Vossula had said there was work everywhere in Styria, all you had to do was ask. It seemed, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, that Vossula had been lying out of his arse the whole way. Shivers had asked him all kinds of questions. But it occurred to him now, as he sank down on a slimy doorstep with his worn-out boots in the gutter and some fish-heads for company, he hadn’t asked the one question he should’ve. The one question staring him in the face ever since he got here.

Tell me, Vossula – if Styria’s such a slice of wonder, why the hell are you up here in the North?

‘Fucking Styria,’ he hissed in Northern. He had that pain behind his nose meant he was close to weeping, and he was that far gone he was scarcely even shamed. Caul Shivers. Rattleneck’s son. A Named Man who’d faced death in all weathers. Who’d fought beside the biggest names in the North – Rudd Threetrees, Black Dow, the Dogman, Harding Grim. Who’d led the charge against the Union near the Cumnur. Who’d held the line against a thousand Shanka at Dunbrec. Who’d fought seven days of murder up in the High Places. He almost felt a smile tugging at his mouth to think of the wild, brave times he’d come out alive from. He knew he’d been shitting himself the whole way, but what happy days those seemed now. Least he hadn’t been alone.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Four men were ambling into the alley from the docks, the way he’d come. They had that sorry look men can get when they’ve got mischief in mind. Shivers hunched into his doorway, hoping whatever mischief they were planning didn’t include him.

His heart took a downward turn as they gathered in a half-circle, standing over him. One had a bloated-up red nose, the kind you get from too much drinking. Another was bald as a boot-toe, had a length of wood held by his leg. A third had a scraggy beard and a mouthful of brown teeth. Not a pretty set of men, and Shivers didn’t reckon they had anything pretty in mind.

The one at the front grinned down, a nasty-looking bastard with a pointed rat-face. ‘What you got for us?’

‘I wish I’d something worth the taking. But I’ve not. You might as well just go your way.’

Rat Face frowned at his bald mate, annoyed they might get nothing. ‘Your boots, then.’

‘In this weather? I’ll freeze.’

‘Freeze. See if I care a shit. Boots, now, before we give you a kicking for the sport of it.’

‘Fucking Talins,’ mouthed Shivers under his breath, the ashes of self-pity in his throat suddenly flaring up hot and bloody. It gnawed at him to come this low. Bastards had no use for his boots, just wanted to make themselves feel big. But it’d be a fool’s fight four against one, and with no weapon handy. A fool’s choice to get killed for some old leather, however cold it was.

He crouched down, muttering as he started to pull his boots off. Then his knee caught Red Nose right in his fruits and doubled him over with a breathy sigh. Surprised himself as much as he did them. Maybe going bare-foot was more’n his pride would stretch to. He smashed Rat Face on the chin, grabbed him by the front of his coat and rammed him back into one of his mates, sent them sprawling over together, yelping like cats in a rainstorm.

Shivers dodged the bald bastard’s stick as it came down and shrugged it off his shoulder. The man came stumbling past, off balance, mouth wide open. Shivers planted a punch right on the point of his hanging chin and snapped his head up, then hooked his legs away with one boot, sent him squawking onto his back and followed him down. Shivers’ fist crunched into his face – two, three, four times, and made a right mess of it, spattering blood up the arm of Shivers’ dirty coat.

He scrambled away, leaving Baldy spitting teeth into the gutter. Red Nose was still curled up wailing with his hands between his legs. But the other two had knives out now, sharp metal glinting. Shivers crouched, fists clenched, breathing hard, eyes flicking from one of ’em to the other and his anger wilting fast. Should’ve just given his boots over. Probably they’d be prising them off his cold, dead feet in a short and painful while. Bloody pride, that rubbish only did a man harm.

Rat Face wiped blood from under his nose. ‘Oh, you’re a dead man now, you Northern fuck! You’re good as a—’ His leg suddenly went from underneath him and he fell, shrieking, knife bouncing from his hand.

Someone slid out of the shadows behind him. Tall and hooded, sword held loose in a pale left fist, long, thin blade catching such light as there was in the alley and glinting murder. The last of the boot-thieves still standing, the one with the shitty teeth, stared at that length of steel with eyes big as a cow’s, his knife looking a piss-poor tool all of a sudden.

‘You might want to run for it.’ Shivers frowned, caught off guard. A woman’s voice. Brown Teeth didn’t need telling twice. He turned and sprinted off down the alley.

‘My leg!’ Rat Face was yelling, clutching at the back of his knee with one bloody hand. ‘My fucking leg!’

‘Stop whining or I’ll slit the other one.’

Baldy was lying there, saying nothing. Red Nose had finally fought his way moaning to his knees.

‘Want my boots, do you?’ Shivers took a step and kicked him in the fruits again, lifted him up and put him back down mewling on his face. ‘There’s one of ’em, bastard!’ He watched the newcomer, blood swooshswooshing behind his eyes, not sure how he came through that without getting some steel in his guts. Not sure if he might not still. This woman didn’t have the look of good news. ‘What d’you want?’ he growled at her.

‘Nothing you’ll have trouble with.’ He could see the corner of a smile inside her hood. ‘I might have some work for you.’

A big plate of meat and vegetables in some kind of gravy, slabs of doughy bread beside. Might’ve been good, might not have been, Shivers was too busy ramming it into his face to tell. Most likely he looked a right animal, two weeks unshaved, pinched and greasy from dossing in doorways, and not even good ones. But he was far past caring how he looked, even with a woman watching.

She still had her hood up, though they were out of the weather now. She stayed back against the wall, where it was dark. She tipped her head forwards when folk came close, tar-black hair hanging across one cheek. He’d worked out a notion of her face anyway, in the moments when he could drag his eyes away from his food, and he reckoned it was a good one.

Strong, with hard bones in it, a fierce line of jaw and a lean neck, a blue vein showing up the side. Dangerous, he reckoned, though that wasn’t such a clever guess since he’d seen her slit the back of a man’s knee with small regret. Still, there was something in the way her narrow eyes held him that made him nervous. Calm and cold, as if she’d already got his full measure, and knew just what he’d do next. Knew better’n he did. She had three long marks down one cheek, old cuts still healing. She had a glove on her right hand, and scarcely used it. A limp too he’d noticed on the way here. Caught up in some dark business, maybe, but Shivers didn’t have so many friends he could afford to be picky. Right then, anyone who fed him had the full stretch of his loyalty.