‘Ario will sit, and smirk, and listen, and nod. Scatter a little trail of hopes that his father will make peace. Right up until Orso’s troops appear outside the walls of Visserine.’
Vitari lifted her cup again, narrow eyes on Monza. ‘And the Thousand Swords alongside them.’
‘Salier and Rogont and all the rest will know that well enough. They’re no fools. Misers and cowards, maybe, but no fools. They’re only playing for time to manoeuvre.’
‘Manoeuvre?’ asked Shivers, chewing on the strange word.
‘Wriggle,’ said Vitari, showing him her teeth again. ‘Orso won’t make peace, and the League of Eight aren’t looking for it. The only man who’s come here hoping for anything but fog is his August Majesty, but they say he’s got a talent for self-deception.’
‘Comes with the crown,’ said Monza, ‘but he’s nothing to me. Ario and Foscar are my business. What will they be about, other than feeding lies to their brother-in-law?’
‘There’s going to be a masked ball in honour of the king and queen at Sotorius’ palace on the first night of the conference. Ario and Foscar will be there.’
‘That’ll be well guarded,’ said Shivers, doing his best to keep up. Didn’t help that he thought he could hear a child crying somewhere.
Vitari snorted. ‘A dozen of the best-guarded people in the world, all sharing a room with their bitterest enemies? There’ll be more soldiers than at the Battle of Adua, I’ll be bound. Hard to think of a spot where the brothers would be less vulnerable.’
‘What else, then?’ snapped Monza.
‘We’ll see. I’m no friend of Ario’s, but I know someone who is. A close, close friend.’
Monza’s black brows drew in. ‘Then we should be talking to—’
The door creaked suddenly open and Shivers spun round, hatchet already halfway out.
A child stood in the doorway. A girl maybe eight years old, dressed in a too-long shift with bony ankles and bare feet sticking out the bottom, red hair poking from her head in a tangled mess. She stared at Shivers, then Monza, then Vitari with wide blue eyes. ‘Mama. Cas is crying.’
Vitari knelt down and smoothed the little girl’s hair. ‘Never you mind, baby, I hear. Try and soothe him. I’ll be up soon as I can, and sing to you all.’
‘Alright.’ The girl gave Shivers another look, and he pushed his axe away, somewhat shamefaced, and tried to make a grin. She backed off and pulled the door shut.
‘My boy’s got a cough,’ said Vitari, her voice with its hard edge again. ‘One gets ill, then they all get ill, then I get ill. Who’d be a mother, eh?’
Shivers lifted his brows. ‘Can’t say I’ve got the equipment.’
‘Never had much luck with family,’ said Monza. ‘Can you help us?’
Vitari’s eyes flickered over to Shivers, and back. ‘Who else you got along with you?’
‘A man called Friendly, as muscle.’
‘Good, is he?’
‘Very,’ said Shivers, thinking of the two men hacked bloody on the streets of Talins. ‘Bit strange, though.’
‘You need to be in this line of work. Who else?’
‘A poisoner and his assistant.’
‘A good one?’
‘According to him. Name of Morveer.’
‘Gah!’ Vitari looked as if she’d the taste of piss in her mouth. ‘Castor Morveer? That bastard’s about as trustworthy as a scorpion.’
Monza looked back, hard and level. ‘Scorpions have their uses. Can you help us, I asked?’
Vitari’s eyes were two slits, shining in the firelight. ‘I can help you, but it’ll cost. If we can get the job done, something tells me I won’t be welcome in Sipani any more.’
‘Money isn’t a problem. Just as long as you can get us close. You know someone who can help with that?’
Vitari drained her mug, then tossed the dregs hissing onto the coals. ‘Oh, I know all kinds of people.’
The Arts of Persuasion
It was early, and the twisting streets of Sipani were quiet. Monza hunched in a doorway, coat wrapped tight around her, hands wedged under her armpits. She’d been hunched there for an hour at least, steadily getting colder, breathing fog into the foggy air. The edges of her ears and her nostrils tingled unpleasantly. It was a wonder the snot hadn’t frozen in her nose. But she could be patient. She had to be.
Nine-tenths of war is waiting, Stolicus wrote, and she felt he’d called it low.
A man wheeled past a barrow heaped with straw, tuneless whistling deadened by the thinning mist, and Monza’s eyes slid after him until he became a murky outline and was gone. She wished Benna was with her.
And she wished he’d brought his husk pipe with him.
She shifted her tongue in her dry mouth, trying to push the thought out of her mind, but it was like a splinter under her thumbnail. The painful, wonderful bite at her lungs, the taste of the smoke as she let it curl from her mouth, her limbs growing heavy, the world softening. The doubt, the anger, the fear all leaking away . . .
Footsteps clapped on wet flagstones and a pair of figures rose out of the gloom. Monza stiffened, fists clenching, pain flashing through her twisted knuckles. A woman in a bright red coat edged with gold embroidery. ‘Hurry up!’ Snapped in a faint Union accent to a man lumbering along behind with a heavy trunk on one shoulder. ‘I do not mean to be late again—’
Vitari’s shrill whistle cut across the empty street. Shivers slid from a doorway, loomed up behind the servant and pinned his arms. Friendly came out of nowhere and sank four heavy punches into his gut before he could even shout, sent him to the cobbles blowing vomit.
Monza heard the woman gasp, caught a glimpse of her wide-eyed face as she turned to run. Before she’d gone a step Vitari’s voice echoed out of the gloom ahead. ‘Carlot dan Eider, unless I’m much mistaken!’
The woman in the red coat backed towards the doorway where Monza was standing, one hand held up. ‘I have money! I can pay you!’
Vitari sauntered out of the murk, loose and easy as a mean cat in her own garden. ‘Oh, you’ll pay alright. I must say I was surprised when I learned Prince Ario’s favourite mistress was in Sipani. I heard you could hardly be dragged from his bedchamber.’ Vitari herded her towards the doorway and Monza backed off, into the dim corridor, wincing at the sharp pains through her legs as she started to move.
‘Whatever the League of Eight are paying, I’ll—’
‘I don’t work for them, and I’m hurt by the assumption. Don’t you remember me? From Dagoska? Don’t you remember trying to sell the city to the Gurkish? Don’t you remember getting caught?’ And Monza saw her let something drop and clatter against the cobbles – a cross-shaped blade, dancing and rattling on the end of a chain.
‘Dagoska?’ Eider’s voice had a note of strange terror in it now. ‘No! I’ve done everything he asked! Everything! Why would he—’
‘Oh, I don’t work for the Cripple any more.’ Vitari leaned in close. ‘I’ve gone freelance.’
The woman in the red coat stumbled back over the threshold and into the corridor. She turned and saw Monza waiting, gloved hand slack on the pommel of her sword. She stopped dead, ragged breath echoing from the damp walls. Vitari shut the door behind them, latch dropping with a final-sounding click.
‘This way.’ She gave Eider a shove and she nearly fell over her own coat-tails. ‘If it please you.’ Another shove as she found her feet and she sprawled through the doorway on her face. Vitari dragged her up by one arm and Monza followed them slowly into the room beyond, jaw clenched tight.
Like her jaw, the room had seen better days. The crumbling plaster was stained with black mould, bubbling up with damp, the stale air smelled of rot and onions. Day leaned back in one corner, a carefree smile on her face as she buffed a plum the colour of a fresh bruise against her sleeve. She offered it to Eider.
‘Plum?’
‘What? No!’
‘Suit yourself. They’re good though.’
??
?Sit.’ Vitari shoved Eider into the rickety chair that was the only furniture. Usually a good thing, getting the only seat. But not now. ‘They say history moves in circles but who’d ever have thought we’d meet like this again? It’s enough to bring tears to our eyes, isn’t it? Yours, anyway.’
Carlot dan Eider didn’t look like crying any time soon, though. She sat upright, hands crossed in her lap. Surprising composure, under the circumstances. Dignity, almost. She was past the first flush of youth, but a most striking woman still, and everything carefully plucked, painted and powdered to make the best show of it. A necklace of red stones flashed around her throat, gold glittered on her long fingers. She looked more like a countess than a mistress, as out of place in the rotting room as a diamond ring in a rubbish heap.
Vitari prowled slowly around the chair, leaning down to hiss in her ear. ‘You’re looking well. Always did know how to land on your feet. Quite the tumble, though, isn’t it? From head of the Guild of Spicers to Prince Ario’s whore?’
Eider didn’t even flinch. ‘It’s a living. What do you want?’
‘Just to talk.’ Vitari’s voice purred low and husky as a lover’s. ‘Unless we don’t get the answers we want. Then I’ll have to hurt you.’
‘No doubt you’ll enjoy that.’
‘It’s a living.’ She punched Ario’s mistress suddenly in the ribs, hard enough to twist her in the chair. She doubled up, gasping, and Vitari leaned over her, bringing her fist up again. ‘Another?’
‘No!’ Eider held her hand up, teeth bared, eyes flickering round the room then back to Vitari. ‘No . . . ah . . . I’ll be helpful. Just . . . just tell me what you need to know.’
‘Why are you down here, ahead of your lover?’
‘To make arrangements for the ball. Costumes, masks, all kinds of—’
Vitari’s fist thumped into her side in just the same spot, harder than the first time, the sharp thud echoing off the damp walls. Eider whimpered, arms wrapped around herself, took a shuddering breath then coughed it out, face twisted with pain. Vitari leaned down over her like a black spider over a bound-up fly. ‘I’m losing patience. Why are you here?’
‘Ario’s putting on . . . another kind of celebration . . . afterwards. For his brother. For his brother’s birthday.’
‘What kind of celebration?’
‘The kind for which Sipani is famous.’ Eider coughed again, turned her head and spat, a few wet specks settling across the shoulder of her beautiful coat.
‘Where?’
‘At Cardotti’s House of Leisure. He’s hired the whole place for the night. For him, and for Foscar, and for their gentlemen. He sent me here to make the arrangements.’
‘He sent his mistress to hire whores?’
Monza snorted. ‘Sounds like Ario. What arrangements?’
‘To find entertainers. To make the place ready. To make sure it’s safe. He . . . trusts me.’
‘More fool him.’ Vitari chuckled. ‘I wonder what he’d do if he knew who you really worked for, eh? Who you really spy for? Our mutual friend at the House of Questions? Our crippled friend from his Majesty’s Inquisition? Keeping an eye on Styrian business for the Union, eh? You must have trouble remembering who you’re supposed to betray from week to week.’
Eider glowered back at her, arms still folded around her battered ribs. ‘It’s a living.’
‘A dying, if Ario learns the truth. One little note is all it would take.’
‘What do you want?’
Monza stepped from the shadows. ‘I want you to help us get close to Ario, and to Foscar. I want you to let us into Cardotti’s House of Leisure on the night of this celebration of yours. When it comes to arranging the entertainments, I want you to hire who we say, when we say, how we say. Do you understand?’
Eider’s face was very pale. ‘You mean to kill them?’ No one spoke, but the silence said plenty. ‘Orso will guess I betrayed him! The Cripple will know I betrayed him! There aren’t two worse enemies in the Circle of the World! You might as well kill me now!’
‘Alright.’ The blade of the Calvez rang gently as she drew it. Eider’s eyes went wide.
‘Wait—’
Monza reached out, resting the glinting point of the sword in the hollow between Eider’s collarbones, and gently pushed. Ario’s mistress arched back over the chair, hands opening and closing helplessly.
‘Ah! Ah!’ Monza twisted her wrist, steel flashing as the slender blade tilted one way and the other, the point grinding, digging, screwing ever so slowly into Eider’s neck. A line of dark blood trickled from the wound it made and crept down her breastbone. Her squealing grew more shrill, more urgent, more terrified. ‘No! Ah! Please! No!’
‘No?’ Monza held her there, pinned over the back of the chair. ‘Not quite ready to die after all? Not many of us are, when it comes to the moment.’ She slid the Calvez free and Eider rocked forwards, touching one trembling fingertip to her bloody neck, breath coming in ragged gasps.
‘You don’t understand. It isn’t just Orso! It isn’t just the Union! They’re both backed by the bank. By Valint and Balk. Owned by the bank. The Years of Blood are no more than a sideshow to them. A skirmish. You’ve no idea whose garden you’re pissing in—’
‘Wrong.’ Monza leaned down and made Eider shrink back. ‘I don’t care. There’s a difference.’
‘Now?’ asked Day.
‘Now.’
The girl’s hand darted out and pricked Eider’s ear with a glinting needle. ‘Ah!’
Day yawned as she slipped the splinter of metal into an inside pocket. ‘Don’t worry, it’s slow-working. You’ve got at least a week.’
‘Until what?’
‘Until you get sick.’ Day took a bite out of her plum and juice ran down her chin. ‘Bloody hell,’ she muttered, catching it with a fingertip.
‘Sick?’ breathed Eider.
‘Really, really sick. A day after that you’ll be deader than Juvens.’
‘Help us, you get the antidote, and at least the chance to run.’ Monza rubbed the blood from the point of Benna’s sword with gloved thumb and forefinger. ‘Try and tell anyone what we’re planning, here or in the Union, Orso, or Ario, or your friend the Cripple, and . . .’ She slid the blade back into its sheath and slapped the hilt home with a sharp snap. ‘One way or another, Ario will be short one mistress.’
Eider stared round at them, one hand still pressed to her neck. ‘You evil bitches.’
Day gave the plum pit a final suck then tossed it away. ‘It’s a living.’
‘We’re done.’ Vitari dragged Ario’s mistress to her feet by one elbow and started marching her towards the door.
Monza stepped in front of them. ‘What will you be telling your battered manservant, when he comes round?’
‘That . . . we were robbed?’
Monza held out her gloved hand. Eider’s face fell even further. She unclasped her necklace and dropped it into Monza’s palm, then followed it with her rings. ‘Convincing enough?’
‘I don’t know. You seem like the kind of woman to put up a struggle.’ Monza punched her in the face. She squawked, stumbled, would’ve fallen if Vitari hadn’t caught her. She looked up, blood leaking from her nose and her split lip, and for an instant she had this strange expression. Hurt, yes. Afraid, of course. But more angry than either one. Like the look Monza had herself, maybe, when they threw her from the balcony.
‘Now we’re done,’ she said.
Vitari yanked at Eider’s elbow and dragged her out into the hallway, towards the front door, their footsteps scraping against the grubby boards. Day gave a sigh, then pushed herself away from the wall and brushed plaster-dust from her backside. ‘Nice and neat.’
‘No thanks to your master. Where is he?’
‘I prefer employer, and he said there were some errands he had to run.’
‘Errands?’
‘That a problem?’
‘I paid for the master, not the dog.’
Day grin
ned. ‘Woof, woof. There’s nothing Morveer can do that I can’t.’
‘That so?’
‘He’s getting old. Arrogant. That rope burning through was nearly the death of him, in Westport. I wouldn’t want any carelessness like that to interfere with your business. Not for what you’re paying. No one worse to have next to you than a careless poisoner.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score.’
Day shrugged. ‘Accidents happen all the time in our line of work. Especially to the old. It’s a young person’s trade, really.’ She sauntered out into the corridor, passed Vitari stalking back the other way. The look of glee was long gone from her sharp face, and the swagger with it. She lifted one black boot and shoved the chair angrily away into one corner.
‘There’s our way in, then,’ she said.
‘Seems so.’
‘Just what I promised you.’
‘Just what you promised.’
‘Ario and Foscar, both together, and a way to get to them.’
‘A good day’s work.’
They looked at each other, and Vitari ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth as if it tasted bitter. ‘Well.’ She shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘It’s a living.’
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 A 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.