The Life of the Drinker

A drink, a drink, a drink. Where can a man find a drink?”

Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune, tottered against the wall of the alley, rooting through his purse yet again with quivering fingers. There was still nothing in it but a tuft of grey fluff. He dug it out, blew it from his fingertips and watched it flutter gently down. All his fortune.

“Bastard purse!” He flung it in the gutter in a feeble rage. Then he thought better of it and had to stoop to pick it up, groaning like an old man. He was an old man. A lost man. A dead man, give or take a final rattle of breath. He sank slowly to his knees, gazing at his broken reflection in the black water gathered between the cobblestones.

He would have given all he owned for the slightest taste of liquor. He owned nothing, it had to be said. But his body was his, still. His hands, which had raised up princes to the heights of power and flung them down again. His eyes, which had surveyed the turning points of history. His lips, which had softly kissed the most celebrated beauties of the age. His itching cock, his aching guts, his rotting neck, he would happily have sold it all for a single measure of grape spirit. But it was hard to see where he would find a buyer.

“I have become myself … an empty purse.” He raised his leaden arms imploringly and roared into the murky night. “Someone give me a fucking drink!”

“Stop your mouth, arsehole!” a rough voice called back, and then, with the clatter of shutters closing, the alley plunged into deeper gloom.

He had dined at the tables of dukes. He had sported in the beds of countesses. Cities had trembled at the name of Cosca.

“How did it ever come … to this?” He clambered up, swallowing the urge to vomit. He smoothed his hair back from his throbbing temples, fumbled with the limp ends of his moustaches. He made for the lane with something approaching his famous swagger of old. Out between the ghostly buildings and into a patch of lamplight in the mist, moist night breeze tickling at his sore face. Footsteps approached and Cosca lurched round, blinking.

“Good sir! I find myself temporarily without funds, and wonder whether you would be willing to advance me a small loan until—”

“Away and piss, beggar.” The man shoved past, barging him against the wall.

Cosca's skin flushed with greasy outrage. “You address none other than Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune!” The effect was somewhat spoiled by the brittle cracking of his ravaged voice. “Captain general of the Thousand Swords! Ex-captain general, that is.” The man made an obscene gesture as he disappeared into the fog. “I dined … at the beds … of dukes!” Cosca collapsed into a fit of hacking coughs and was obliged to bend over, shaking hands on his shaking knees, aching ribcage going like a creaky bellows.

Such was the life of the drinker. A quarter on your arse, a quarter on your face, a quarter on your knees and the rest of your time bent over. He finally hawked up a great lump of phlegm, and with one last cough blew it spinning from his sore tongue. Would this be his legacy? Spit in a hundred thousand gutters? His name a byword for petty betrayal, avarice and waste? He straightened with a groan of the purest despair, staring up into nothingness, even the stars denied him by Sipani's all-cloaking fog.

“One last chance. That's all I'm asking.” He had lost count of the number of last chances he had wasted. “Just one more. God!” He had never believed in God for an instant. “Fates!” He had never believed in Fates either. “Anyone!” He had never believed in anything much beyond the next drink. “Just one … more … chance.”

“Alright. One more.”

Cosca blinked. “God? Is that … you?”

Someone chuckled. A woman's voice, and a sharp, mocking, most ungodlike sort of a chuckle. “You can kneel if you like, Cosca.”

He squinted into the sliding mist, pickled brains spurred into something approaching activity. Someone knowing his name was unlikely to be a good thing. His enemies far outnumbered his friends, and his creditors far outnumbered both. He fished drunkenly for the hilt of his gilded sword, then realised he had pawned it months ago in Ospria and bought a cheap one. He fished drunkenly for the hilt of that instead, then realised he had pawned that one when he first reached Sipani. He let his shaky hand drop. Not much lost. He doubted he could have swung a blade even if he'd had one.

“Who the bloody hell's out there? If I owe you money, make ready”—his stomach lurched and he gave vent to a long, acrid burp—”to die?”

A dark shape rose suddenly from the murk at his side and he spun, tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, head cracking against the wall and sending a blinding flash across his vision.

“So you're alive, still. You are alive, aren't you?” A long, lean woman, a sharp face mostly in shadow, spiky hair tinted orange. His mind fumbled sluggishly to recognition.

“Shylo Vitari, well I never.” Not an enemy, perhaps, but certainly not a friend. He propped himself up on one elbow, but from the way the street was spinning, decided that was far enough. “Don't suppose you might consent … to buy a man a drink, might you?”

“Goat's milk?”

“What?”

“I hear it's good for the digestion.”

“They always said you had a flint for a heart, but I never thought even you would be so cold as to suggest I drink milk, damn you! Just one more shot of that old grape spirit.” A drink, a drink, a drink. “Just one more and I'm done.”

“Oh, you're done alright. How long you been drunk this time?”

“I've a notion it was summer when I started. What is it now?”

“Not the same year, that's sure. How much money have you wasted?”

“All there is and more. I'd be surprised if there's a coin in the world that hasn't been through my purse at some point. But I seem to be out of funds right now, so if you could just spare some change—”

“You need to make a change, not spend some.”

He drew himself up, as far as his knees at least, and jabbed at his chest with a crabbing finger. “Do you suppose the shrivelled, piss-soaked, horrified better part of me, the part that screams to be released from this torture, doesn't know that?” He gave a helpless shrug, aching body collapsing on itself. “But for a man to change he needs the help of good friends, or, better yet, good enemies. My friends are all long dead, and my enemies, I am forced to admit … have better things to do.”

“Not all of us.” Another woman's voice, but one that sent a creeping shiver of familiarity down Cosca's back. A figure formed out of the gloom, mist sucked into smoky swirls after her flicking coat-tails.

“No …” he croaked.

He remembered the moment he first laid eyes on her: a wild-haired girl of nineteen with a sword at her hip and a bright stare rich with anger, defiance and the slightest fascinating hint of contempt. There was a hollowness to her face now, a twist of pain about her mouth. The sword hung on the other side, gloved right hand resting slack on the pommel. Her eyes still had that unwavering sharpness, but there was more anger, more defiance and a long stretch more contempt. Who could blame her for that? Cosca was beyond contemptible, and knew it.

He had sworn a thousand times to kill her, of course, if he ever saw her again. Her, or her brother, or Andiche, Victus, Sesaria, Faithful Carpi or any of the other treacherous bastards from the Thousand Swords who had once betrayed him. Stolen his place from him. Sent him fleeing from the battlefield at Afieri with his reputation and his clothes both equally tattered.

He had sworn a thousand times to kill her, but Cosca had broken all manner of oaths in his life, and the sight of her brought no rage. Instead what welled up in him was a mixture of worn-out self-pity, sappy joy and, most of all, piercing shame at seeing in her face how far he had fallen. He felt the ache in his nose, behind his cheeks, tears welling in his stinging eyes. For once he was grateful that they were red as wounds at the best of times. If he wept, no one could tell the difference.

“Monza.” He tried to tug his filthy collar straight, but his hands were shaking too badly to manage it. “I must confess I heard you were dead. I was meaning to take revenge, of course—”

“On me or for me?”

He shrugged. “Difficult to remember … I stopped on the way for a drink.”

“Smells like it was more than one.” There was a hint of disappointment in her face that pricked at his insides almost worse than steel. “I heard you finally got yourself killed in Dagoska.”

He managed to lift one arm high enough to wave her words away. “There have always been false reports of my death. Wishful thinking, on the part of my many enemies. Where is your brother?”

“Dead.” Her face did not change.

“Well. I'm sorry for that. I always liked the boy.” The lying, gutless, scheming louse.

“He always liked you.” They had detested each other, but what did it matter now?

“If only his sister had felt as warmly about me, things might be so much different.”

“ 'Might be' takes us nowhere. We've all got … regrets.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, her standing, him on his knees. Not quite how he had pictured their reunion in his dreams. “Regrets. The cost of the business, Sazine used to tell me.”

“Perhaps we should put the past behind us.”

“I can hardly remember yesterday,” he lied. The past weighed on him like a giant's suit of armour.

“The future, then. I've a job for you, if you'll take it. Reckon you're up to a job?”

“What manner of job?”

“Fighting.”

Cosca winced. “You always were far too attached to fighting. How often did I tell you? A mercenary has no business getting involved with that nonsense.”

“A sword is for rattling, not for drawing.”

“There's my girl. I've missed you.” He said it without thinking, had to cough down his shame and nearly coughed up a lung.

“Help him up, Friendly.”

A big man had silently appeared while they were talking, not tall but heavyset, with an air of calm strength about him. He hooked Cosca under his elbow and pulled him effortlessly to his feet.

“That's a strong arm and a good deed,” he gurgled over a rush of nausea. “Friendly is your name? Are you a philanthropist?”

“A convict.”

“I see no reason why a man cannot be both. My thanks in any case. Now if you could just point us in the direction of a tavern—”

“The taverns will have to wait for you,” said Vitari. “No doubt causing a slump in the wine industry. The conference begins in a week and we need you sober.”

“I don't do sober anymore. Sober hurts. Did someone say conference?”

Monza was still watching him with those disappointed eyes. “I need a good man. A man with courage and experience. A man who won't mind crossing Grand Duke Orso.” The corner of her mouth curled up. “You're as close as we could find at short notice.”

Cosca clung to the big man's arm while the misty street tipped around. “From that list, I have … experience?”

“I'll take one of four, if he needs money too. You need money, don't you, old man?”

“Shit, yes. But not as much as I need a drink.”

“Do the job right and we'll see.”

“I accept.” He found he was standing tall, looking down at Monza now, chin held high. “We should have a Paper of Engagement, just like the old days. Written in swirly script, with all the accoutrements, the way Sajaam used to write them. Signed with red ink and … where can a man find a notary this time of night?”

“Don't worry. I'll take your word.”

“You must be the only person in Styria who would ever say that to me. But as you please.” He pointed decisively down the street. “This way, my man, and try to keep up.” He boldly stepped forwards, his leg buckled and he squawked as Friendly caught him.

“Not that way,” came the convict's slow, deep voice. He slid one hand under Cosca's arm and half-led him, half-carried him in the opposite direction.

“You are a gentleman, sir,” muttered Cosca.

“I am a murderer.”

“I see no reason why a man cannot be both …” Cosca strained to focus on Vitari, loping along up ahead, then at the side of Friendly's heavy face. Strange companions. Outsiders. Those no one else would find a use for. He watched Monza walking, the purposeful stride he remembered from long ago turned slightly crooked. Those who were willing to cross Grand Duke Orso. And that meant madmen, or those with no choices. Which was he?

The answer was in easy reach. There was no reason a man could not be both.