Bloody Instructions

Monza stared down at her gloved hand, lips curled back hard from her teeth, and flexed the three fingers that still worked—in and out, in and out, gauging the pattern of clicks and crunches that came with every closing of her fist. She felt oddly calm considering that her life, if you could call it a life, was balanced on a razor's edge.

Never trust a man beyond his own interests, Verturio wrote, and the murder of Grand Duke Orso and his closest was no one's idea of an easy job. She couldn't trust this silent convict any further than she could trust Sajaam, and that was about as far as she could piss. She had a creeping feeling the Northman was halfway honest, but she'd thought that about Orso, with results that had hardly been happy. It would've been no great surprise to her if they'd brought Gobba in smiling, ready to drag her back to Fontezarmo so they could drop her down the mountain a second time.

She couldn't trust anyone. But she couldn't do it alone.

Hurried footsteps scuffled up outside. The door banged open and three men came through. Shivers was on the right, Friendly on the left. Gobba hung between them, head dangling, an arm over each of their shoulders, his boot-toes scraping through the sawdust scattered across the ground. So it seemed she could trust the pair of them this far, at least.

Friendly dragged Gobba to the anvil—a mass of scarred black iron bolted down in the centre of the floor. Shivers had a length of chain, a manacle on each end, looping it round and round the base. All the while he had this fixed frown. As if he'd got some morals, and they were stinging.

Nice things, morals, but prone to chafe at times like this.

The two men worked well together for a beggar and a convict. No time or movement wasted. No sign of nerves, given they were going about a murder. But then Monza had always had a knack for picking the right men for a job. Friendly snapped the manacles shut on the bodyguard's thick wrists. Shivers reached out and turned the knob on the lamp, the flame fluttering up behind the glass, light spilling out around the grubby forge.

“Wake him up.”

Friendly flung a bucket of water in Gobba's face. He coughed, dragged in a breath, shook his head, drops flicking from his hair. He tried to stand and the chain rattled, snatching him back down. He glared around, little eyes hard.

“You stupid bastards! You're dead men, the pair of you! Dead! Don't you know who I am? Don't you know who I work for?”

“I know.” Monza did her best to walk smoothly, the way she used to, but couldn't quite manage it. She limped into the light, pushing back her hood.

Gobba's fat face crinkled up. “No. Can't be.” His eyes went wide. Then wider still. Shock, then fear, then horror. He lurched back, chains clinking. “No!”

“Yes.” And she smiled, in spite of the pain. “How fucked are you? You've put weight on, Gobba. More than I've lost, even. Funny, how things go. Is that my stone you've got there?”

He had the ruby on his little finger, red glimmer on black iron. Friendly reached down, twisted it off and tossed it over to her. She snatched it out of the air with her left hand. Benna's last gift. The one they'd smiled at together as they rode up the mountain to see Duke Orso. The thick band was scratched, bent a little, but the stone still sparkled bloodily as ever, the colour of a slit throat.

“Somewhat damaged when you tried to kill me, eh, Gobba? But weren't we all?” It took her a while to fumble it onto her left middle finger, but in the end she twisted it past the knuckle. “Fits this hand just as well. Piece of luck, that.”

“Look! We can make a deal!” There was sweat beading Gobba's face now. “We can work something out!”

“I already did. Don't have a mountain to hand, I'm afraid.” She slid the hammer from the shelf—a short-hafted lump hammer with a block of heavy steel for a head—and felt her knuckles shift as she closed her gloved hand tight around it. “So I'm going to break you apart with this, instead. Hold him, would you?” Friendly folded Gobba's right arm and forced it onto the anvil, clawing fingers spread out pale on the dark metal. “You should've made sure of me.”

“Orso'll find out! He'll find out!”

“Of course he will. When I throw him off his own terrace, if not before.”

“You'll never do it! He'll kill you!”

“He already did, remember? It didn't stick.”

Veins stood out on Gobba's neck as he struggled, but Friendly had him fast, for all his bulk. “You can't beat him!”

“Maybe not. I suppose we'll see. There's only one thing I can tell you for sure.” She raised the hammer high. “You won't.”

The head came down on his knuckles with a faintly metallic crunch—once, twice, three times. Each blow jarred her hand, sent pain shooting up her arm. But a lot less pain than shot up Gobba's. He gasped, yelped, trembled, Friendly's slack face pressed up against his taut one. Gobba jerked back from the anvil, his hand turning sideways on. Monza felt herself grinning as the hammer hissed down and crushed it flat. The next blow caught his wrist and turned it black.

“Looks worse even than mine did.” She shrugged. “Well. When you pay a debt, it's only good manners to add some interest. Get the other hand.”

“No!” squealed Gobba, dribbling spit. “No! Think of my children!”

“Think of my brother!”

The hammer smashed his other hand apart. She aimed each blow carefully, taking her time, both eyes on the details. Fingertips. Fingers. Knuckles. Thumb. Palm. Wrist.

“Six and six,” grunted Friendly, over Gobba's roars of pain.

The blood was surging in Monza's ears. She wasn't sure she'd heard him right. “Eh?”

“Six times, and six times.” He let go of Orso's bodyguard and stood, brushing his palms together. “With the hammer.”

“And?” she snapped at him, no clue how that mattered.

Gobba was bent over the anvil, legs braced, dragging on the manacles and spraying spit as he tried vainly to shift the great thing with all his strength, blackened hands flopping.

She leaned towards him. “Did I tell you to get up?” The hammer split his kneecap with a sharp bang. He crumpled onto the floor on his back, was dragging in the air to scream when the hammer crunched into his leg again and snapped it back the wrong way.

“Hard work, this.” She winced at a twinge in her shoulder as she dragged her coat off. “But then I'm not as limber as I was.” She rolled her black shirtsleeve up past the long scar on her forearm. “You always did tell me you knew how to make a woman sweat, eh, Gobba? And to think I laughed at you.” She wiped her face on the back of her arm. “Shows you what I know. Unhook him.”

“You sure?” asked Friendly.

“Worried he'll bite your ankles? Let's make a chase of it.” The convict shrugged, then leaned down to unlock the cuffs around Gobba's wrists. Shivers was frowning at her from the darkness. “Something wrong?” she snapped at him.

He stayed silent.

Gobba dragged himself to nowhere through the dirty sawdust with his elbows, broken leg slithering along behind. He made a kind of mindless groan while he did it. Something like the ones she'd made when she lay broken at the foot of the mountain beneath Fontezarmo.

“Huuuurrrrhhhh …”

Monza wasn't enjoying this half as much as she'd hoped, and it was making her angrier than ever. Something about those groans was intensely annoying. Her hand was pulsing with pain. She forced a smile onto her face and limped after him, pretended to enjoy it more.

“I've got to say I'm disappointed. Didn't Orso always like to boast about what a hard man he had for a bodyguard? I suppose now we'll find out how hard you really are. Softer than this hammer, I'd—”

Her foot slipped and she yelped as she went over on her ankle, tottered against the brick-lined side of a furnace, put her left hand down to steady herself. It took her a moment to realise the thing was still scalding hot.

“Shit!” Stumbling back the other way like a clown, kicking a bucket and sending dirty water showering up the side of her leg. “Fuck!”

She leaned down over Gobba and lashed petulantly at him with the hammer, suddenly, stupidly angry she'd embarrassed herself. “Bastard! Bastard!” He grunted and gurgled as the steel head thudded into his ribs. He tried to curl up and half-dragged her over on top of him, twisting her leg.

Pain lanced up her hip and made her screech. She dug at the side of his head with the haft of the hammer until she'd torn his ear half-off. Shivers took a step forwards but she'd already wrenched herself free. Gobba blubbered, somehow dragged himself up to sitting, back against a big water butt. His hands had swollen up to twice the size they had been. Purple, flopping mittens.

“Beg!” she hissed. “Beg, you fat fucker!”

But Gobba was too busy staring at the mincemeat on the end of his arms, and screaming. Hoarse, short, slobbery screams.

“Someone might hear.” Friendly looked like he didn't care much either way.

“Better shut him up, then.”

The convict leaned over the barrel from behind with a wire between his fists, hooked Gobba under the neck and dragged him up hard, cutting his bellows down to slippery splutters.

Monza squatted in front of him so their faces were level, her knees burning as she watched the wire cut into his fat neck. Just the way it had cut into hers. The scars it had left on her itched. “How does it feel?” Her eyes flickered over his face, trying to squeeze some sliver of satisfaction from it. “How does it feel?” Though no one knew better than her. Gobba's eyes bulged, his jowls trembled, turning from pink, to red, to purple. She pushed herself up to standing. “I'd say it's a waste of good flesh. But it isn't.”

She closed her eyes and let her head drop back, sucked a long breath in through her nose as she tightened her grip on the hammer, lifted it high.

“Betray me and leave me alive?”

It came down between Gobba's piggy eyes with a sharp bang like a stone slab splitting. His back arched, his mouth yawned wide but no sound came out.

“Take my hand and leave me alive?”

The hammer hit him in the nose and caved his face in like a broken egg. His body crumpled, shattered leg jerking, jerking.

“Kill my brother and leave me alive?”

The last blow broke his skull wide open. Black blood bubbled down his purple skin. Friendly let go the wire and Gobba slid sideways. Gently, gracefully almost, he rolled over onto his front, and was still.

Dead. You didn't have to be an expert to see that. Monza winced as she forced her aching fingers open and the hammer clattered down, its head gleaming red, a clump of hair stuck to one corner.

One dead. Six left.

“Six and one,” she muttered to herself. Friendly stared at her, eyes wide, and she wasn't sure why.

“What's it like?” Shivers, watching her from the shadows.

“What?”

“Revenge. Does it feel good?”

Monza wasn't sure she felt much of anything beyond the pain pulsing through her burned hand and her broken hand, up her legs and through her skull. Benna was still dead, she was still broken. She stood there frowning, and didn't answer.

“You want me to get rid of this?” Friendly waved an arm at the corpse, a heavy cleaver gleaming in his other hand.

“Make sure he won't be found.”

Friendly grabbed Gobba's ankle and started dragging him back towards the anvil, leaving a bloody trail through the sawdust. “Chop him up. Into the sewers. Rats can have him.”

“Better than he deserves.” But Monza felt the slightest bit sick. She needed a smoke. Getting to that time of day. A smoke would settle her nerves. She pulled out a small purse, the one with fifty scales in it, and tossed it to Shivers.

Coins snapped together inside as he caught it. “That's it?”

“That's it.”

“Right.” He paused, as though he wanted to say something but couldn't think what. “Sorry about your brother.”

She looked at his face in the lamplight. Really looking, trying to guess him out. He knew next to nothing about her or Orso. Next to nothing about anything, at a first glance. But he could fight, she'd seen that. He'd walked into Sajaam's place alone, and that took courage. A man with courage, with morals, maybe. A man with pride. That meant he might have some loyalty too, if she could get a grip on it. And loyal men were a rare commodity in Styria.

She'd never spent much time alone. Benna had always been beside her. Or behind her, at any rate. “You're sorry.”

“That's right. I had a brother.” He started to turn for the door.

“You need more work?” She kept her eyes fixed on his as she came forwards, and while she did it she slid her good hand around behind her back and found the handle of the knife there. He knew her name, and Orso's, and Sajaam's, and that was enough to get them all killed ten times over. One way or another, he had to stay.

“More work like this?” He frowned down at the bloodstained sawdust under her boots.

“Killing. You can say it.” She thought about whether to stab him down into the chest or up under the jaw, or wait until he'd turned and take his back. “What did you think it'd be? Milking a goat?”

He shook his head, long hair swaying. “Might sound foolish to you, but I came here to be a better man. You got your reasons, sure, but this feels like a bastard of a stride in the wrong direction.”

“Six more men.”

“No. No. I'm done.” As if he was trying to convince himself. “I don't care how much—”

“Five thousand scales.”

His mouth was already open to say no again, but this time the word didn't come. He stared at her. Shocked at first, then thoughtful. Working out how much money that really was. What it might buy him. Monza had always had a knack for reckoning a man's price. Every man has one.

She took a step forwards, looking up into his face. “You're a good man, I see that, and a hard man too. That's the kind of man I need.” She let her eyes flick down to his mouth, and then back up. “Help me. I need your help, and you need my money. Five thousand scales. Lot easier to be a better man with that much money behind you. Help me. I daresay you could buy half the North with that. Make a king of yourself.”

“Who says I want to be a king?”

“Be a queen, if you please. I can tell you what you won't be doing, though.” She leaned in, so close she was almost breathing on his neck. “Begging for work. You ask me, it's not right, a proud man like you in that state. Still.” And she looked away. “I can't force you.”

He stood there, weighing the purse. But she'd already taken her hand off her knife. She already knew his answer. Money is a different thing to every man, Bialoveld wrote, but always a good thing.

When he looked up his face had turned hard. “Who do we kill?”

The time was she'd have smirked sideways to see Benna smirking back at her. We won again. But Benna was dead, and Monza's thoughts were on the next man to join him. “A banker.”

“A what?”

“A man who counts money.”

“He makes money counting money?”

“That's right.”

“Some strange fashions you folk have down here. What did he do?”

“He killed my brother.”

“More vengeance, eh?”

“More vengeance.”

Shivers gave a nod. “Reckon I'm hired, then. What do you need?”

“Give Friendly a hand taking out the rubbish, then we're gone tonight. No point loitering in Talins.”

Shivers looked towards the anvil, and he took a sharp breath. Then he pulled out the knife she'd given him, walked over to where Friendly was starting work on Gobba's corpse.

Monza looked down at her left hand, rubbed a few specks of blood from the back. Her fingers were trembling some. From killing a man earlier, from not killing one just now, or from needing a smoke, she wasn't sure.

All three, maybe.