‘Javre, I need to talk to you-’
‘Let me introduce you!’ Javre swept a loose arm at the Union soldiers and very nearly took the sleeping man’s head off with a backhand. ‘This little beauty is my good old friend Shevedieh! Used to be a henchman of mine.’
‘Javre.’
‘Sidekick, then. Whatever. We travelled half the Circle of the World together! All kinds of adventures.’
‘Javre.’
‘Disasters, then. Whatever. These shits are among the finest soldiers of His August Majesty the High King of the Union. The beardy bastard is Lieutenant Forest.’ He nodded to Shev with a good-natured grin. ‘This stringy one is Lance Corporal Yolk.’ The sleeping man stirred faintly, tongue moving against his cracked lips with vague squelching sounds. ‘And this lucky fucker-’
‘Skilful fucker,’ grunted the ratty man around a chagga pipe gripped in his yellowed teeth.
‘Is Sergeant Tunny.’
‘Corporal,’ he said, peering through his haze of smoke at the cards.
‘Got himself demoted again,’ said Forest. ‘Over a goose and a whore, would you believe.’
‘She was worth it,’ said Tunny. ‘And the whore wasn’t bad, either. Fire, by the way.’ And he laid his cards down with a snap.
‘Tits of the Mother!’ snarled Javre. ‘Again?’
‘There’s a certain spot …’ muttered Tunny, pipe waggling between his teeth, ‘between too drunk and not drunk enough …’ as he scooped up scattered winnings in a dozen different currencies, ‘where I’m a hell of a card player. The trick, as with so much in life, is keeping the balance just right.’
‘Luck,’ mused Javre as she watched him gather the harvest through narrowed, red-rimmed, absurdly bloodshot eyes, ‘has always been the one thing missing from my life.’
‘Javre-’
‘Let me guess!’ Bandages trailed through spilled beer as she flung up a hand. ‘You are dunked to your scrawny neck in some species of shit and have run straight back to me to fetch the shovel.’
Shevedieh opened her mouth to make an elaborate retort, thought a moment, and decided against. ‘Basically, yes. Horald’s taken Carcolf. Now he wants me out on Carp Island.’ She forced the words through clenched teeth. ‘I could really use your help-’
Javre gave a snort so explosive snot spattered down her chapped top lip. She did not appear to notice. ‘See, boys? You give them everything!’ And she beat her chest with a fist so hard it left a great pink mark. ‘You give them your heart and they spit it in your face!’
‘How can you spit a heart?’ asked Shev, but Javre was not interested in unmixing her metaphors.
‘The moment they get in trouble, oh, the fucking moment? Straight back to Mummy!’ She glared unsteadily at Shev. ‘Well, Mummy is fucking busy!’
‘Mummy is fucking embarrassing herself.’
‘That is Mummy’s fucking prerogative. Shuffle those cards, Tunny, you cunny.’ He did no more than raise a brow as he set to shuffling. ‘I thought you were all done with me and had fine new friends. What of the grand duchess, the Snake of Talins, the Butcher of Caprile? Mother to a king, I hear.’
‘Bless his eternal Majesty,’ grunted Tunny out of the corner of his mouth, flicking cards to each of the four players, conscious and otherwise.
‘I only met the woman twice,’ said Shev. ‘I doubt she knows my name.’
‘But her all-powerful Minister of Whispers, Shylo Vitari, surely does. Can she not reach from the shadows and pluck your lover from danger?’
‘She’s on her way south to Sipani.’
‘What of your grinning merchant friend, Majud? He has deep pockets.’
‘It’s getting him to reach into them that’s the problem.’
‘That Northman you were working with, then? The one with the eye. Or … without it.’ Javre accidentally poked herself while waving at her face with her cards, had to clap a hand over her running eye, but at least she accidentally wiped the snot from her lip, too. ‘Trembles?’
‘Shivers.’ Shev gave a little shiver of her own at the memory of that scarred face, the expression on it as he killed those three Sipanese who’d been chasing her. Or the terrible lack of expression. ‘Some help it’s better to do without,’ she muttered.
‘You can do without mine, then.’ Javre raised the glass towards her mouth in a wobbly hand, face fixed in concentration. Shev slapped it from her fingers and it shattered in the corner.
‘I need you sober.’
Javre gave a snort. ‘That is never going to happen, Shevedieh. If I get my way, that is never going to happen again.’
‘Here,’ said Tunny, holding out his own glass, ‘have mine-’
Shev slapped it from his hand and it shattered in almost exactly the same spot as the last one. He frowned, slowly removing the pipe from his mouth for the first time. ‘Bloody hell, girl, I wish you wouldn’t-’
Javre shoved her fist under his nose, cards crushed in it, red eyes bulging, lips curling back and spraying spit. ‘Talk to my friend like that again, you fucking cocksucker, you will be picking your teeth from my knuckles!’
Tunny peered down at that great, scarred hand, one of his eyebrows going up, ever so slowly. ‘Madam, I’m a soldier. The last thing I want is a fight.’
Forest cleared his wet throat and somewhat unsteadily rose. ‘Ladies, with great respect, I think that puts an end to the evening. We’ve an early start tomorrow. Back to Midderland after our defeat, you know.’ He jabbed Yolk with his elbow and the little man started awake.
‘I raise!’ he shouted, staring wildly about. ‘I raise!’ Then he flopped from his chair onto hands and knees and was sick on the floor.
Tunny was already sweeping his winnings into a battered hat. Forest caught Yolk by the belt and began to drag him away, still desperately trying to raise.
‘An honour,’ said Tunny as he backed towards the door through the pool of puke, almost falling over the snoring figure. ‘An absolute fucking honour.’
‘I will see you on the battlefield!’ shouted Javre.
Tunny winced and waved one finger round and round. ‘Let’s say nearby!’ And he was gone into the smoky murk.
‘You have spoiled my fun, Shevedieh, as always.’ Javre uncurled her fingers. A couple of the ruined cards dropped out. A couple of others were stuck to her palm and she had to shake them off. ‘I trust you are bloody well pleased with yourself.’
‘You’ve spoiled your own fun, as always, and I’m about as far from pleased as it’s possible to be, since you ask.’ She slid into Yolk’s chair. ‘No one else is going to help me, Javre. They don’t trust Carcolf. They don’t want Horald to kill them.’
Javre gave another snort and had to wipe more snot from under her scabbed nose with her scabbed knuckles. ‘On the Great Leveller I am ambivalent, as you know, but if you think I trust that wiggling snake any more than the plague-’
‘I don’t think we’re ever going to see eye to eye on her, do you?’
‘It is hard to see eye to eye with someone a foot shorter than you. She looks like a snake, moves like a snake, thinks like a snake. She saw you coming, Shevedieh, just like she always does, and she thought dinner. In spite of all the wrongs she has made you lick up down the years, she only had to swagger that round arse past you once and you were hooked all over again. She sank that ship with you on it, lest we forget!’
‘It’s different this time,’ muttered Shev, not sure whether the words hurt so much because they were false, or because they were true.