The Collected Joe Abercrombie (328 page)

All Business

T
he upper ford was a patch of slow-moving water, sparkling in the morning sun as it broke up in the shallows. A faint track led from the far bank between a few scattered buildings, then through an orchard and up the long slope to a gate in the black-banded outermost wall of Ospria. All seemingly deserted. Rogont’s foot were mostly committed to the savage fight at the lower ford. Only a few small units hung back to guard the archers, loading and firing into the mass of men in the midst of the river as fast as they possibly could.

The Osprian cavalry were waiting in the shadow of the walls as a last reserve, but too few, and too far away. The Thousand Swords’ path to victory appeared unguarded. Cosca stroked gently at his neck. In his judgement, now was the perfect moment to attack.

Andiche evidently agreed. ‘Getting hot down there. Should I tell the men to mount up?’

‘Let’s not trouble them quite yet. It’s still early.’

‘You sure?’

Cosca turned to look evenly back at him. ‘Do I look unsure?’ Andiche puffed out his pitted cheeks, then stomped off to confer with some of his own officers. Cosca stretched out, hands clasped behind his head, and watched the battle slowly develop. ‘What was I saying?’

‘A chance to leave all this behind,’ said Friendly.

‘Ah yes! I had the chance to leave all this behind. Yet I chose to come back. Change is not a simple thing, eh, Sergeant? I entirely see and understand the pointlessness and waste of it all, yet I do it anyway. Does that make me worse or better than the man who does it thinking himself ennobled by a righteous cause? Or the man who does it for his own profit, without the slightest grain of thought for right or wrong? Or are we all the same?’

Friendly only shrugged.

‘Men dying. Men maimed. Lives destroyed.’ He might as well have been reciting a list of vegetables for all the emotion he felt. ‘I have spent half my life in the business of destruction. The other half in the dogged pursuit of self-destruction. I have created nothing. Nothing but widows, orphans, ruins and misery, a bastard or two, perhaps, and a great deal of vomit. Glory? Honour? My piss is worth more, that at least makes nettles grow.’ But if his aim was to prick his own conscience into wakefulness it still slumbered on regardless. ‘I have fought in many battles, Sergeant Friendly.’

‘How many?’

‘A dozen? A score? More? The line between battle and skirmish is a fuzzy one. Some of the sieges dragged on, with many engagements. Do those count as one, or several?’

‘You’re the soldier.’

‘And even I don’t have the answers. In war, there are no straight lines. What was I saying?’

‘Many battles.’

‘Ah, yes! Many! And though I have tried always to avoid becoming closely involved in the fighting, I have often failed. I am fully aware of what it’s like in the midst of that mêlée. The flashing blades. Shields cloven and spears shattered. The crush, the heat, the sweat, the stink of death. The tiny heroics and the petty villainies. Proud flags and honourable men crushed underfoot. Limbs lopped off, showers of blood, split skulls, spilled guts, and all the rest.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Reasonable to suppose some drownings too, under the circumstances.’

‘How many, would you say?’

‘Difficult to be specific.’ Cosca thought of the Gurkish drowning in the channel at Dagoska, brave men swept out to sea, their corpses washed up on every tide, and gave a long sigh. ‘Still, I find I can watch without much sentiment. Is it ruthlessness? Is it the fitting detachment of command? Is it the configuration of the stars at my birth? I find myself always sanguine in the face of death and danger. More so than at any other time. Happy when I should be horrified, fearful when I should be calm. I am a riddle, to be sure, even to myself. I am a back-to-front man, Sergeant Friendly!’ He laughed, then chuckled, then sighed, then was silent. ‘A man upside down and inside out.’

‘General.’ Andiche was leaning over him again, lank hair hanging.

‘What, for pity’s sake? I am trying to philosophise!’

‘The Osprians are fully engaged. All their foot are tackling Foscar’s troops. They’ve no reserves but a few horse.’

Cosca squinted down towards the valley. ‘I see that, Captain Andiche. We all quite clearly see that. There is no need to state the obvious.’

‘Well . . . we’ll sweep those bastards away, no trouble. Give me the order and I’ll see to it. We’ll get no easier chance.’

‘Thank you, but it looks dreadfully hot out there now. I am quite comfortable where I am. Perhaps later.’

‘But why not—’

‘It amazes me, that after so long on campaign, the whole business of the chain of command still confounds you! You will find it far less worrisome if, rather than trying to anticipate my orders, you simply wait for me to give them. It really is the simplest of military principles.’

Andiche scratched his greasy head. ‘I understand the concept.’

‘Then act according to it. Find a shady spot, man, take the weight from your feet. Stop running to nowhere. Take a lesson from my goat. Do you see her fussing?’

The goat lifted her head from the grass between the olive trees for a moment, and bleated.

Andiche put his hands on his hips, winced, stared down at the valley, up at Cosca, frowned at the goat, then turned away and walked off, shaking his head.

‘Everyone rushing, rushing, Sergeant Friendly, do we get no peace? Is a quiet moment out of the sun really too much to ask? What was I saying?’

‘Why isn’t he attacking?’

When Monza had seen the Thousand Swords easing onto the brow of the hill, the tiny shapes of men, horses, spears black against the blue morning sky, she’d known they were about to charge. To splash happily across the upper ford and take Rogont’s men in the flank, just the way she’d said they would. Just the way she’d have done. To put a bloody end to the battle, to the League of Eight, to her hopes, such as they were. No man was quicker to pluck the easy fruit than Nicomo Cosca, and none quicker to wolf it down than the men she used to lead.

But the Thousand Swords only sat there, in plain view, on top of Menzes Hill, and waited. Waited for nothing. Meanwhile Foscar’s Talinese struggled on the banks of the lower ford, at push of pike with Rogont’s Osprians, water, ground and slope all set against them, arrows raining down on the men behind the front line with punishing regularity. Bodies were carried by the current, limp shapes washing up on the bank of the river, bobbing in the shallows below the ford.

Still the Thousand Swords didn’t move.

‘Why show himself in the first place, if he doesn’t mean to come down?’ Monza chewed at her lip, not trusting it. ‘Cosca’s no fool. Why give away the surprise?’

Duke Rogont only shrugged. ‘Why complain about it? The longer he waits, the better for us, no? We have enough to worry on with Foscar.’

‘What’s he up to?’ Monza stared up at the mass of horsemen ranged across the crest of the hill, beside the olive grove. ‘What’s that old bastard about?’

Colonel Rigrat whipped his well-lathered horse between the tents, sending idle mercenaries scattering, and reined the beast in savagely not far away. He slid from the saddle, nearly fell, tore his boot from the stirrup and stormed up, ripping off his gloves, face flushed with sweaty fury. ‘Cosca! Nicomo Cosca, damn you!’

‘Colonel Rigrat! A fine morning, my young friend! I hope all is well?’

‘Well? Why are you not attacking?’ He stabbed one finger down towards the river, evidently having misplaced his baton. ‘We are engaged in the valley! Most hotly engaged!’

‘Why, so you are.’ Cosca rocked forwards and rose smoothly from the captain general’s chair. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we were to discuss this away from the men. Not good form, to bicker. Besides, you’re scaring my goat.’

‘What?’

Cosca patted the animal gently on the back as he passed. ‘She’s the only one who truly understands me. Come to my tent. I have fruit there! Andiche! Come join us!’

He strode off, Rigrat blustering after, Andiche falling into puzzled step behind. Past Nocau, on guard before the flap with his great scimitar drawn, and into the cool, dim interior of the tent, draped all around with the victories of the past. Cosca ran the back of his hand affectionately down one swathe of threadbare cloth, edges blackened by fire. ‘The flag that hung upon the walls of Muris, during the siege . . . was it truly a dozen years ago?’ He turned to see Friendly sidle through the flap after the others and lurk near the entrance. ‘I brought it down from the highest parapet with my own hand, you know.’

‘After you tore it from the hand of the dead hero who was up there first,’ said Andiche.

‘Whatever is the purpose of dead heroes, if not to pass on stolen flags to more prudent fellows in the rank behind?’ He snatched the bowl of fruit from the table and shoved it under Rigrat’s nose. ‘You look ill, Colonel. Have a grape.’

The man’s trembling face was rapidly approaching grape colour. ‘Grape? Grape?’ He lashed at the flap with his gloves. ‘I demand that you attack at once! I flatly demand it!’

‘Attack.’ Cosca winced. ‘Across the upper ford?’

‘Yes!’

‘According to the excellent plan you laid out to me last night?’

‘Yes, damn it! Yes!’

‘In all honesty, nothing would please me more. I love a good attack, ask anyone, but the problem is . . . you see . . .’ Pregnant silence stretched out as he spread his hands wide. ‘I took such an enormous sum of money from Duke Rogont’s Gurkish friend not to.’

Ishri came from nowhere. Solidified from the shadows at the edges of the tent, slid from the folds in the ancient flags and strutted into being. ‘Greetings,’ she said. Rigrat and Andiche both stared at her, equally stunned.

Cosca peered up at the gently flapping roof of the tent, tapping at his pursed lips with one finger. ‘A dilemma. A moral quandary. I want so badly to attack, but I cannot attack Rogont. And I can scarcely attack Foscar, when his father has also paid me so handsomely. In my youth I jerked this way and that just as the wind blew me, but I am trying earnestly to change, Colonel, as I explained to you the other evening. Really, in all good conscience, the only thing I can do is sit here.’ He popped a grape into his mouth. ‘And do nothing.’

Rigrat gave a splutter and made a belated grab for his sword, but Friendly’s big fist was already around the hilt, knife gleaming in his other hand. ‘No, no, no.’ The colonel froze as Friendly slid his sword carefully from its sheath and tossed it across the tent.

Cosca snatched it from the air and took a couple of practice swipes. ‘Fine steel, Colonel, I congratulate you on your choice of blades, if not of strategy.’

‘You were paid by both? To fight neither?’ Andiche was smiling ear to ear as he draped one arm around Cosca’s shoulders. ‘My old friend! Why didn’t you tell me? Damn, but it’s good to have you back!’

‘Are you sure?’ Cosca ran him smoothly through the chest with Rigrat’s sword, right to the polished hilt. Andiche’s eyes bulged, his mouth dropped open and he dragged in a great long wheeze, his pockmarked face twisted, trying to scream. But all that came out was a gentle cough.

Cosca leaned close. ‘You think a man can turn on me? Betray me? Give my chair to another for a few pieces of silver, then smile and be my friend? You mistake me, Andiche. Fatally. I may make men laugh, but I’m no clown.’

The mercenary’s coat glistened with dark blood, his trembling face had turned bright red, veins bulging in his neck. He clawed weakly at Cosca’s breastplate, bloody bubbles forming on his lips. Cosca let go the hilt, wiped his hand on Andiche’s sleeve and shoved him over. He fell on his side, spitted, gave a gentle groan and stopped moving.

‘Interesting.’ Ishri squatted over him. ‘I am rarely surprised. Surely Murcatto is the one who stole your chair. You let her go free, no?’

‘On reflection, I doubt the facts of my betrayal quite match the story. But in any case, a man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he finds entirely beyond sufferance. And if there’s one thing I absolutely cannot abide, it’s disloyalty. You have to stick at something in your life.’

‘Disloyalty?’ screeched Rigrat, finally finding his voice. ‘You’ll pay for this, Cosca, you treacherous—’

Friendly’s knife thumped into his neck and out, blood showered across the floor of the tent and spattered the Musselian flag that Sazine had taken the day the Thousand Swords were formed.

Rigrat fell to his knees, one hand clutched to his throat, blood pouring down the sleeve of his jacket. He flopped forwards onto his face, trembled for a moment, then was still. A dark circle bloomed out through the material of the groundsheet and merged with the one already creeping from Andiche’s corpse.

‘Ah,’ said Cosca. He had been planning to ransom Rigrat back to his family. It did not seem likely now. ‘That was . . . ungracious of you, Friendly.’

‘Oh.’ The convict frowned at his bloody knife. ‘I thought . . . you know. Follow your lead. I was being first sergeant.’

‘Of course you were. I take all the blame myself. I should have been more specific. I have ever suffered from . . . unspecificity? Is that a word?’

Friendly shrugged. So did Ishri.