Best Served Cold

by Joe Abercrombie

“One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.” The fingers of her good hand plucked and scrabbled uselessly at his fist. “Love is a fine cushion to rest upon, but only hate can make you a better person.

“I was expecting a Master Poisoner.” She rubbed at the mark on the back of her hand. “Who’d have thought I’d get such a little prick?”

Folk got other things to cut in a war than their hair, I guess. Black Dow used to laugh at me, ’cause he’d always hacked his right off, so as not to get in the way in a fight. But then he’d give a man shit about anything, Black Dow. Hard mouth. Hard man. Only man harder was the Bloody-Nine his self. I reckon—”

Friendly wished they would shut their mouths so he could listen to Day’s counting. His cock was aching hard from listening to it.

Shivers rolled over and dragged the blanket up around his neck. “Shut the door on your way out, eh? It’s dreadful cold in here.”

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness” Joseph Conrad

“Oh, I don’t work for the Cripple anymore.” Vitari leaned in close. “I’ve gone freelance.”

“It was. He was a good chief for keeping folk alive, the Dogman. Best I took orders from, I reckon.”

“You need to learn to live a little,” grunted Shivers. “Get some fucking brio in.”

“Lies. The Cripple rules the Union. That boy with all the gold is the mask he wears.” Cosca sighed. “If you looked like the Cripple, I daresay you’d get a mask too…”

The poisoner raised one eyebrow at it. “I do not appreciate drunks throwing knives at me. What if your aim had been off?” Cosca grinned. “It was. We wait.”

“I imagine I will address the guards at the palace gate, and say something along the lines of—‘I am Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune, and I am here for dinner.’” There was an uncomfortable silence, quite as if he had contributed a giant turd rather than a winning idea.

Duke Salier was busy reminiscing on past glories, as men are prone to do when their glories are far behind them. One of Cosca’s own favourite pastimes, and, if it was even a fraction as boring when he did it, he resolved to give it up.

He might’ve had one eye less than before, but he saw things clearer. The pain had swept away all his doubts, his fears, his questions, his choices. All that shit had been dead weight on him. All that shit was weakness, and lies, and a waste of effort. He’d made himself think things were complicated when they were beautifully, awfully simple. His axe had all the answers he needed.

Monza jerked her head at Friendly. “Your turn.” He crouched there for a moment, not moving, then looked to Cosca. “Do you want me to stay?”

You make yourself too hard, you make yourself brittle too. Crack once, crack all to pieces.

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.”

“Do you know the best thing about all this?” Cosca’s voice boomed in his ears, Cosca’s grin swam above him. “Now I can start drinking again.”

“Kill her?” he asked again. “After I carried her from the mountain? After I mended her bones and stitched her back together? After I protected her from your hirelings in Puranti?”