Sex and Death

By darkness, Cardotti's House of Leisure was a different world. A fantasy land, as far removed from drab reality as the moon. The gaming hall was lit by three hundred and seventeen flickering candles. Friendly had counted them as they were hoisted up on tinkling chandeliers, bracketed to gleaming sconces, twisted into glittering candlesticks.

The sheets had been flung back from the gaming tables. One of the dealers was shuffling his cards, another was sitting, staring into space, a third carefully stacking up his counters. Friendly counted silently along with him. At the far end of the room an old man was oiling the lucky wheel. Not too lucky for those that played it, by Friendly's assessment of the odds. That was the strange thing about games of chance. The chances were always against the player. You might beat the numbers for a day, but you could never beat them in the end.

Everything shone like hidden treasure, and the women most of all. They were dressed now, and masked, transformed by warm candlelight into things barely human. Long, thin limbs oiled and powdered and dusted with glitter, eyes shining darkly through the eyeholes of gilded masks, lips and nails painted black-red like blood from a fatal wound.

The air was full of strange, frightening smells. There had been no women in Safety, and Friendly felt greatly on edge. He calmed himself by rolling the dice over and over, and adding the scores one upon another. He had reached already four thousand two hundred and …

One of the women swept past, her ruffled dress swishing against the Gurkish carpet, one long, bare leg sliding out from the blackness with each step. Two hundred and … His eyes seemed glued to that leg, his heart beating very fast. Two hundred and … twenty-six. He jerked his eyes away and back to the dice.

Three and two. Utterly normal, and nothing to worry about. He straightened, and stood waiting. Outside the window, in the courtyard, the guests were beginning to arrive.

Welcome, my friends, welcome to Cardotti's! We have everything a growing boy needs! Dice and cards, games of skill and chance are this way! For those who relish the embrace of mother husk, that door! Wine and spirits on demand. Drink deep, my friends! There will be various entertainments mounted here in the yard throughout the evening! Dancing, juggling, music … even perhaps a little violence, for those with a taste for blood! As for female companionship, well … that you will find throughout the building …”

Men were pouring into the courtyard in a masked and powdered flow. The place was already heaving with expensively tailored bodies, the air thick with their braying chatter. The band were sawing out a merry tune in one corner of the yard, the jugglers flinging a stream of sparkling glasses high into the air in another. Occasionally one of the women would strut through, whisper to someone, lead him away into the building. And upstairs, no doubt. Cosca could not help wondering … could he be spared for a few moments?

“Quite utterly charmed,” he murmured, tipping his hat at a willowy blonde as she swayed past.

“Stick to the guests!” she snarled viciously in his face.

“Only trying to lift the mood, my dear. Only trying to help.”

“You want to help, you can suck a prick or two! I've enough to get through!” Someone touched her on the shoulder and she turned, smiling radiantly, took him by the arm and swept away.

“Who are all these bastards?” Shivers, muttering in his ear. “Three or four dozen, weren't we told, a few armed but not keen to fight? There must be twice that many in already!”

Cosca grinned as he clapped the Northman on the shoulder. “I know! Isn't it a thrill when you throw a party and you get more guests than you expected? Somebody's popular!”

Shivers did not look amused. “I don't reckon it's us! How do we keep control of all this?”

“What makes you think I have the answers? In my experience, life rarely turns out the way you expect. We must bend with the circumstances, and simply do our best.”

“Maybe six guards, weren't we told? So who are they?” The Northman jerked his head towards a grim-looking knot of men gathered in one corner, all with polished breastplates over their padded black jackets, with serious masks of plain steel, serious swords and long knives at their hips, serious frowns on their chiselled jaws. Their eyes darted carefully about the yard as though looking for threats.

“Hmmm,” mused Cosca. “I was wondering the same thing.”

“Wondering?” The Northman's big fist was uncomfortably tight round Cosca's arm. “When does wondering turn into shitting yourself?”

“I've often wondered.” Cosca peeled the hand away. “But it's a funny thing. I simply don't get scared.” He made off through the crowd, clapping backs, calling for drinks, pointing out attractions, spreading good humour wherever he went. He was in his element, now. Vice, and high living, but danger too.

He feared old age, failure, betrayal and looking a fool. Yet he never feared before a fight. Cosca's happiest moments had been spent waiting for battles to begin. Watching the countless Gurkish march upon the walls of Dagoska. Watching the forces of Sipani deploy before the Battle of the Isles. Scrambling onto his horse by moonlight when the enemy sallied from the walls of Muris. Danger was the thing he most enjoyed. Worries for the future, purged. Failures of the past, erased. Only the glorious now remained. He closed his eyes and sucked in air, felt it tingling pleasantly in his chest, heard the excited babbling of the guests. He scarcely even felt the need for a drink anymore.

He snapped his eyes open to see two men stepping through the gate, others scraping away to make grovelling room for them. His Highness Prince Ario was dressed in a scarlet coat, silken cuffs drooping from his embroidered sleeves in a manner that implied he would never have to grip anything for himself. A spray of multicoloured feathers sprouted from the top of his golden mask, thrashing like a peacock's tail as he looked about him, unimpressed.

“Your Highness!” Cosca swept off his hat and bowed low. “We are truly, truly honoured by your presence.”

“Indeed you are,” said Ario. “And by the presence of my brother.” He wafted a languid hand at the man beside him, dressed all in spotless white with a mask in the form of half a golden sun, somewhat twitchy and reluctant-seeming, Cosca rather thought. Foscar, no doubt, though he had grown a beard which very much suited him. “Not to mention that of our mutual friend, Master Sulfur.”

“Alas, I cannot stay.” A nondescript fellow had slipped in behind the two brothers. He had a curly head of hair, a simple suit and a faint smile. “So much to do. Never the slightest peace, eh?” And he grinned at Cosca. Inside the holes of his plain mask, his eyes were different colours: one blue, one green. “I must to Talins tonight, and speak to your father. We cannot allow the Gurkish a free hand.”

“Of course not. Damn those Gurkish bastards. Good journey to you, Sulfur.” Ario gave the slightest bow of his head.

“Good journey,” growled Foscar, as Sulfur turned for the gate.

Cosca jammed his hat back on his head. “Well, your two honours are certainly most welcome! Please, enjoy the entertainments! Everything is at your disposal!” He sidled closer, flashing his most mischievous grin. “The top floor of the building has been reserved for you and your brother. Your Highness will find, I rather think, a particularly surprising diversion in the Royal Suite.”

“There, brother. Let us see if, in due course, we can divert you from your cares.” Ario frowned towards the band. “By the heavens, could that woman not have found some better music?”

The thickening throng parted to let the brothers pass. Several sneering gentlemen followed in their wake, as well as four more of the grim men with their swords and armour. Cosca frowned after their shining backplates as they stepped through the door into the gaming hall.

Nicomo Cosca felt no fear, that was a fact. But a measure of sober concern at all these well-armed men seemed only prudent. Monza had asked for control, after all. He hopped over to the entrance and touched one of the guards outside upon his arm. “No more in tonight. We are full.” He shut the gate in the man's surprised face, turned the key in the lock and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. Prince Ario's friend Master Sulfur would have the honour of being the last man to pass through the front gate tonight.

He flung one arm up at the band. “Something livelier lads, strike up a tune! We are here to entertain!”

Morveer knelt, hunched in the darkness of the attic, peering from the eaves of the roof into the courtyard far below. Men in ostentatious attire formed knots that swelled, dissolved, shifted and flowed in and out through the two doors that led into the building. They glittered and gleamed in pools of lamplight. Ribald exclamations and hushed chatter, poor music and good-natured laughter floated up through the night, but Morveer was not inclined to celebrate.

“Why so many?” he whispered. “We were anticipating less than half this number. Something … is awry.”

A gout of incandescent flame went up into the frigid night and there was an eruption of clapping. That imbecile Ronco, endangering his own existence and that of every other person in the yard. Morveer slowly shook his head. If that was a good idea then he was the Emperor of—

Day hissed at him, and he fumbled his way back across the rafters, old wood creaking gently, and applied his eye to one of the holes. “Someone's coming.”

A group of eight persons emerged from the stairway, all of them masked. Four were evidently guards, armoured in highly polished breastplates. Two were even more evidently women employed by Cardotti's. It was the final two men that were of interest to Morveer.

“Ario and Foscar,” whispered Day.

“So it would undoubtedly appear.” Orso's sons exchanged a brief word while their guards took up positions flanking the two doors. Then Ario bowed low, his snigger echoing faintly around the attic. He swaggered down the corridor to the second door, one of the women on each arm, leaving his brother to approach the Royal Suite.

Morveer frowned. “Something is most seriously awry.”

It was an idiot's idea of what a king's bedchamber might look like. Everything was overpatterned, gaudy with gold and silver thread. The bed was a monstrous four-poster suffocated with swags of crimson silk. An obese cabinet burst with coloured liquor bottles. The ceiling was crusted with shadowy mouldings and an enormous, tinkling chandelier that hung too low. The fireplace was carved like a pair of naked women holding up a plate of fruit, all in green marble.

There was a huge canvas in a gleaming frame on one wall—a woman with an improbable bosom bathing in a stream, and seeming to enjoy it a lot more than was likely. Monza never had understood why getting out a tit or two made for a better painting. But painters seemed to think it did, so tits is what you got.

“That bloody music's giving me a headache,” Vitari grumbled, hooking a finger under her corset and scratching at her side.

Monza jerked her head sideways. “That fucking bed's giving me a headache. Especially against that wallpaper.” A particularly vile shade of azure blue and turquoise stripes with gilt stars splashed across them.

“Enough to drive a woman to smoking.” Vitari prodded at the ivory pipe lying on the marbled table beside the bed, a lump of husk in a cut-glass jar beside it. Monza hardly needed it drawn to her attention. For the last hour her eyes had rarely been off it.

“Mind on the job,” she snapped, jerking her eyes away and back towards the door.

“Always.” Vitari hitched up her skirt. “Not easy with these bloody clothes. How does anyone—”

“Shhh.” Footsteps, coming down the corridor outside.

“Our guests. You ready?”

The grips of the two knives jabbed at the small of Monza's back as she shifted her hips. “Bit late for second thoughts, no?”

“Unless you've decided you'd rather fuck them instead.”

“I think we'll stick to murder.” Monza slid her right hand up the window frame in what she hoped was an alluring pose. Her heart was thumping, the blood surging painfully loud in her ears.

The door creaked ever so slowly open, and a man stepped through into the room. He was tall and dressed all in white, his golden mask in the shape of half a rising sun. He had an impeccably trimmed beard, which failed to disguise a ragged scar down his chin. Monza blinked at him. He wasn't Ario. He wasn't even Foscar.

“Shit,” she heard Vitari breathe.

Recognition hit Monza like spit in the face. It wasn't Orso's son, but his son-in-law. None other than the great peacemaker himself, his August Majesty, the High King of the Union.

***

Ready?” asked Cosca.

Shivers cleared his throat one more time. It had felt like there was something stuck in it ever since he'd walked into this damn place. “Bit late for second thoughts, no?”

The old mercenary's mad grin spread even wider. “Unless you've decided you'd rather fuck them instead. Gentlemen! Ladies! Your attention, please!” The band stopped playing and the violin began to hack out a single, sawing note. It didn't make Shivers feel much better.

Cosca jabbed with his cane, clearing the guests out of the circle they'd marked in the middle of the yard. “Step back, my friends, for you are in the gravest danger! One of the great moments of history is about to be acted out before your disbelieving eyes!”

“When do I get a fuck?” someone called, to ragged laughter.

Cosca leaped forwards, nearly took the man's eye out on the end of his cane. “Once someone dies!” The drum had joined in now, whack, whack, whack. Folk pressed round the circle by flickering torchlight. A ring of masks—birds and beasts, soldiers and clowns, leering skulls and grinning devils. Men's faces underneath—drunk, bored, angry, curious. At the back, Barti and Kummel teetered on each other's shoulders, whichever was on top clapping along with the drumbeats.

“For your education, edification and enjoyment …” Shivers hadn't a clue what that meant. “Cardotti's House of Leisure presents to you …” He took a rough breath, hefting sword and shield, and pushed through into the circle. “The infamous duel between Fenris the Feared …” Cosca flicked his cane out towards Greylock as he lumbered into the circle from the other side. “And Logen Ninefingers!”

“He's got ten fingers!” someone called, making a ripple of drunken laughter.

Shivers didn't join 'em. Greylock might've been a long way less frightening than the real Feared had been, but he was a long way clear of a comforting sight still, big as a house with that mask of black iron over his face, left side of his shaved head and his great left arm painted blue. His club looked awful heavy and very dangerous, right then, clutched in those big fists. Shivers had to keep telling himself they were on the same side. Just pretending was all. Just pretending.

“You gentlemen would be well advised to make room!” shouted Cosca, and the three Gurkish dancers pranced round the edge of the circle, black-cat masks over their black faces, herding the guests towards the walls. “There may be blood!”

“There'd better be!” Another wave of laughter. “I didn't come here to watch a pair of idiots dance with each other!”

The onlookers whooped, whistled, booed. Mostly booed. Shivers somehow doubted his plan—hop around the circle for a few minutes flailing at the air, then stab Greylock between his arm and his side while the big man burst a bladder of pig blood—was going to get these fuckers clapping. He remembered the real duel, outside the walls of Carleon with the fate of all the North hanging on the outcome. The cold morning, the breath smoking on the air, the blood in the circle. The Carls gathered round the edge, shaking their shields, screaming and roaring. He wondered what those men would've made of this nonsense. Life took you down some strange paths, alright.

“Begin!” shouted Cosca, springing back into the crowd.

Greylock gave a mighty roar and came charging forwards, swinging the club and swinging it hard. Gave Shivers the bastard of a shock. He got his shield up in time, but the weight of the blow knocked him clean over, sliding across the ground on his arse, left arm struck numb. He sprawled out, all tangled up with his sword, nicked his eyebrow on the edge. Lucky not to get the point in his eye. He rolled, the club crashing down where he'd lain a moment before and sending stone chips flying. Even as he was clambering up, Greylock was at him again, looking like he meant deadly business, and Shivers had to scramble away with all the dignity of a cat in a wolf-pen. He didn't remember this being what they discussed. Seemed the big man meant to give these bastards a show to remember after all.

“Kill him!” Someone laughed.

“Give us some blood, you idiots!”

Shivers tightened his hand round the grip of the sword. He suddenly had a bad feeling. Even worse'n before.

Rolling dice normally made Friendly feel calm, but not tonight. He had a bad feeling. Even worse than before. He watched them tumble, clatter, spin, their clicking seeming to dig at his clammy skin, and come to rest.

“Two and four,” he said.

“We see the numbers!” snapped the man with the mask like a crescent moon. “Damn dice hate me!” He tossed them angrily over, bouncing against the polished wood.

Friendly frowned as he scooped them up and rolled them gently back. “Five and three. House wins.”

“It seems to be making a habit of it,” growled the one with the mask like a ship, and some of their friends muttered angrily. They were all of them drunk. Drunk and stupid. The house always makes a habit of winning, which is why it hosts games of chance in the first place. But it was hardly Friendly's job to educate them on that point. Someone at the far end of the room cried out with shrill delight as the lucky wheel brought up their number. A few of the card players clapped with mild disdain.

“Bloody dice.” Crescent Moon slurped from his glass of wine as Friendly carefully gathered up the counters and added them to his own swelling stacks. He was having trouble breathing, the air was so thick with strange smells—perfume, and sweat, and wine, and smoke. He realised his mouth was hanging open, and snapped it shut.

The King of the Union looked from Monza, to Vitari, and back—handsome, regal and most extremely unwelcome. Monza realised her mouth was hanging open, and snapped it shut.

“I mean no disrespect, but one of you will be more than adequate and I have … always had a weakness for dark hair.” He gestured to the door. “I hope I will not offend by asking you to leave us. I will make sure you are paid.”

“How generous.” Vitari glanced sideways and Monza gave her the tiniest shrug, her mind flipping around like a frog in hot water as it sought desperately for a way clear of this self-made trap. Vitari pushed herself away from the wall and strutted to the door. She brushed the front of the king's coat with the back of her hand on the way past. “Curse my red-haired mother,” she sneered. The door clicked shut.

“A most …” The king cleared his throat. “Pleasing room.”

“You're easily pleased.”

He snorted with laughter. “My wife would not say so.”

“Few wives say good things about their husbands. That's why they come to us.”

“You misunderstand. I have her blessing. My wife is expecting our third child and therefore … well, that hardly interests you.”

“I'll seem interested whatever you say. That's what I'm paid for.”

“Of course.” The king rubbed his hands somewhat nervously together. “Perhaps a drink.”

She nodded towards the cabinet. “There they are.”

“Do you need one?”

“No.”

“No, of course, why would you?” Wine gurgled from the bottle. “I suppose this is nothing new for you.”

“No.” Though in fact it was hard to remember the last time she'd been disguised as a whore in a room with a king. She had two choices. Bed him, or murder him. Neither one held much appeal. Killing Ario would make trouble enough. To kill a king—even Orso's son-in-law—would be asking for a great deal more.

When faced with two dark paths, Stolicus wrote, a general should always choose the lighter. She doubted these were quite the circumstances he'd had in mind, but that changed nothing. She slid one hand around the nearest bedpost, lowered herself until she was sitting awkwardly on the garish covers. Then her eye fell on the husk pipe.

When faced with two dark paths, Farans wrote, a general should always find a third.

“You seem nervous,” she murmured.

The king had made it as far as the foot of the bed. “I must confess it's been a long time since I visited … a place like this one.”

“Something to calm you, then.” She turned her back on him before he had the chance to say no, and began to fill the pipe. It didn't take her long to make it ready. She did it every night, after all.

“Husk? I'm not sure that I—”

“You need your wife's blessing for this too?” She held it out to him.

“Of course not.”

She stood, lifting the lamp, holding his eye, and set the flame to the bowl. His first breath in he coughed out straight away. The second not much later. The third he managed to hold, then blow out in a plume of white smoke.

“Your turn,” he croaked, pressing the pipe back into her hand as he sank down on the bed, smoke still curling up from the bowl and tickling her nose.

“I …” Oh, how she wanted it. She was trembling with her need for it. “I …” Right there, right in her hand. But this was no time to indulge herself. She needed to stay in control.

His mouth curled up in a gormless grin. “Whose blessing do you need?” he croaked. “I promise I won't tell a … oh.”

She was already setting the flame to the grey-brown flakes, sucking the smoke in deep, feeling it burn at her lungs.

“Damn boots,” the king was saying as he tried to drag his highly polished footwear off. “Don't bloody fit me. You pay … a hundred marks … for some boots … you expect them to—” One flew off and clattered into the wall, leaving a bright trace behind it. Monza was finding it hard to stand up.

“Again.” She held the pipe out.

“Well … where's the harm?” Monza stared at the lamp flame as it flared up. Shimmering, shining, all the colours of a hoard of priceless jewels, the crumbs of husk glowing orange, turning from sweet brown to blazing red to used-up grey ash. The king breathed a long plume of sweet-smelling smoke in her face and she closed her eyes and sucked it in. Her head was full of it, swelling with it, ready to burst open.

“Oh.”

“Eh?”

He stared around. “That is … rather …”

“Yes. Yes it is.” The room was glowing. The pains in her legs had become pleasurable tickles. Her bare skin fizzed and tingled. She sank down, mattress creaking under her rump. Just her and the King of the Union, perched on an ugly bed in a whorehouse. What could've been more comfortable?

The king licked lazily at his lips. “My wife. The queen. You know. Did I mention that? Queen. She does not always—”

“Your wife likes women,” Monza found she'd said. Then she snorted with laughter, and had to wipe some snot off her lip. “She likes them a lot.”

The king's eyes were pink inside the eyeholes of his mask. They crawled lazily over her face. “Women? What were we talking of?” He leaned forwards. “I don't feel … nervous … anymore.” He slid one clumsy hand up the side of her leg. “I think …” he muttered, working his tongue around his mouth. “I … think …” His eyes rolled up and he flopped back on the bed, arms outspread. His head tipped slowly sideways, mask skewing across his face, and he was still, faint snoring echoing in Monza's ears.

He looked so peaceful there. She wanted to lie down. She was always thinking, thinking, worrying, thinking. She needed to rest. She deserved to. But there was something nagging at her—something she needed to do first. What was it? She drifted to her feet, swaying uncertainly.

Ario.

“Uh. That's it.” She left his Majesty sprawled across the bed and made for the door, the room tipping one way and then the other, trying to catch her out. Tricky bastard. She bent down and tore one of the high shoes off, tottered sideways and nearly fell. She flung the other away and it floated gently through the air, like an anchor sinking through water. She had to force her eyes open wide as she looked at the door, because there was a mosaic of blue glass between her and the world, candle flames beyond it leaving long, blinding smears across her sight.

Morveer nodded to Day, and she nodded back, a deeper black shape crouched in the fizzing darkness of the attic, the slightest strip of blue light across her grin. Behind her, the joists, the laths, the rafters were all black outlines touched down the edges with the faintest glow. “I will deal with the pair beside the Royal Suite,” he whispered. “You … take the others.”

“Done, but when?”

When was the question of paramount importance. He put his eye to the hole, blowpipe in one hand, fingertips of the other rubbing nervously against his thumb. The door to the Royal Suite opened and Vitari emerged from between the guards. She frowned up, then walked away down the corridor. There was no sign of Murcatto, no sign of Foscar, no further sign of anything. This was not part of the plan, of that Morveer was sure. He had still to kill the guards, of course, he had been paid to do so and always followed through on a contracted task. That was one thing among many that separated him from the obscene likes of Nicomo Cosca. But when, when, when …

Morveer frowned. He was sure he could hear the vague sound of someone chewing. “Are you eating?”

“Just a bun.”

“Well stop it! We are at work, for pity's sake, and I am trying to think! Is an iota of professionalism too much to ask?”

Time stretched out to the vague accompaniment of the incompetent musicians down in the courtyard, but with the exception of the guards rocking gently from side to side, there was no further sign of movement. Morveer slowly shook his head. In this case, it seemed, as in so many, one moment was much like another. He breathed in deep, lifted the pipe to his lips, taking aim on the furthest of his allotted pair—

The door to Ario's chamber banged open. The two women emerged, one still adjusting her skirts. Morveer held his breath, cheeks puffed out. They pulled the door shut then made off down the corridor. One of the guards said something to the other, and he laughed. There was the most discreet of hisses as Morveer discharged his pipe, and the laughter was cut short.

“Ah!” The nearest guard pressed one hand to his scalp.

“What?”

“Something … I don't know, stung me.”

“Stung you? What would've—” It was the other guard's turn to rub at his head. “Bloody hell!”

The first had found the needle in his hair, and now held it up to the light. “A needle.” He fumbled for his sword with a clumsy hand, lurched back against the wall and slid down onto his backside. “I feel all …”

The second guard took an unsteady stride into the corridor, reached up at nothing, then pitched over on his face, arm outstretched. Morveer allowed himself the slightest nod of satisfaction, then crept over to Day, crouching over two of the holes with her blowpipe in her hand.

“Success?” he asked.

“Of course.” She held the bun in the other, and now took a bite from it. Through the hole Morveer saw the two guards beside Ario's suite slumped motionless.

“Fine work, my dear. But that, alas, is all the work with which we were trusted.” He began to gather up their equipment.

“Should we stay, see how it goes?”

“I see no reason so to do. The best we can hope for is that men will die, and that I have witnessed before. Frequently. Take it from me. One death is much like another. You have the rope?”

“Of course.”

“Never too soon to secure the means of escape.”

“Caution first, always.”

“Precisely so.”

Day uncoiled the cord from her pack and made one end of it fast around a heavy joist. She lifted one foot and kicked the little window from its frame. Morveer heard the sound of it splashing down into the canal behind the building.

“Most neatly done. What would I do without you?”

Die!” And Greylock came charging across the circle with that great lump of wood high over his head. Shivers gasped along with the crowd, only just scrambled clear in time, felt the wind of it ripping at his face. He caught the big man in a clumsy hug and they tottered together round the outside of the circle.

“What the fuck are you after?” Shivers hissed in his ear.

“Vengeance!” Greylock dealt him a knee in the side then flung him off.

Shivers stumbled away, finding his balance, picking his brains for some slight he'd given the man. “Vengeance? For what, you mad bastard?”

“For Uffrith!” He slapped his great foot down, feinting, and Shivers hopped back, peering over the top of his shield.

“Eh? No one got killed there!”

“You sure?”

“A couple o' men down on the docks, but—”

“My brother! No more'n fourteen years old!”

“I had no part o' that, you great turd! Black Dow did them killings!”

“Black Dow ain't before me now, and I swore to my mother I'd make someone pay. You'd a big enough part for me to knock it out o' you, fucker!” Shivers gave a girlish kind of squeak as he ducked back from another great sweep, heard men cheering around him, as keen for blood as the watchers might be at a real duel.

Vengeance, then. A double-edged blade if ever there was one. You never could tell when that bastard was going to cut you. Shivers stood, blood creeping down the side of his face from a knock he took just before, and all he could think was how fucking unfair it was. He'd tried to do the right thing, just the way his brother had always told him he should. He'd tried to be a better man. Hadn't he? This was where good intentions put you. Right in the shit.

“But I just … I done my best!” he bellowed in Northern.

Greylock sent spit spinning through the mouth-hole of his mask. “So did my brother!” He came on, club coming down in a blur. Shivers ducked round it, jerked his shield up hard and smashed the rim under the big man's jaw, sent him staggering back, spluttering blood.

Shivers still had his pride. That much he'd kept for himself. He was damned if he was going to be put in the mud by some great thick bastard who couldn't tell a good man from a bad. He felt the fury boiling up his throat, the way it used to back home in the North, when the battle was joined and he was in the thick of it.

“Vengeance, is it?” he screamed. “I'll show you fucking vengeance!”

Cosca winced as Shivers caught a blow on his shield and staggered sideways. He snarled something extremely angry-sounding in Northern, lashed at the air with his sword and missed Greylock by no more than the thickness of a finger, almost chopping deep into the onlookers on the backswing and making them shuffle nervously away.

“Amazing stuff!” someone frothed. “It looks almost real! I must hire them for my daughter's wedding …”

It was true, the Northmen were mounting a good show. Rather too good. They circled warily, eyes fixed on each other, one of them occasionally jabbing forwards with foot or weapon. The furious, concentrated caution of men who knew the slightest slip could mean death. Shivers had his hair matted to the side of his face with blood. Greylock had a long scratch through the leather on his chest and a cut under his chin where the shield-rim had cracked him.

The onlookers had stopped yelling obscenities, cooing and gasping instead, eyes locked hungrily on the fighters, caught between wanting to press forwards to see, and press back when the weapons were swung. They felt something on the air in the courtyard. Like the weight of the sky before a great storm. Genuine, murderous rage.

The band had more than got the trick of the battle music, the fiddle stabbing as Shivers slashed with the sword, drum booming whenever Greylock heaved his great club, adding significantly to the near-unbearable tension.

Quite clearly they were trying to kill each other, and Cosca had not the ghost of a notion how to stop them. He winced as the club crashed into Shivers' shield again and nearly knocked him off his feet. He glanced worriedly up towards the stained-glass windows high above the yard.

Something told him they were going to leave more than two corpses behind tonight.

The corpses of the two guards lay beside the door. One was sitting up, staring at the ceiling. The other lay on his face. They hardly looked dead. Just sleeping. Monza slapped her own face, tried to shake the husk out of her head. The door wobbled towards her and a hand in a black glove reached out and grabbed the knob. Damn it. She needed to do that. She stood there, swaying, waiting for the hand to let go.

“Oh.” It was her hand. She turned it and the door came suddenly open. She fell through, almost pitched on her face. The room swam around her, walls flowing, melting, streaming waterfalls. Flames crackled, sparkling crystal in a fireplace. One window was open and music floated in, men shouting from down below. She could see the sounds, happy smears curling in around the glass, reaching across the changing space between, tickling at her ears.

Prince Ario lay on the bed, stark naked, body white on the rumpled cover, legs and arms spread out wide. His head turned towards her, the spray of feathers on his mask making long shadows creep across the glowing wall behind.

“More?” he murmured, taking a lazy swallow from a wine bottle.

“I hope we haven't … tired you out … already.” Monza's own voice seemed to boom out of a faraway bucket as she padded towards the bed, a ship tossing on a choppy red sea of soft carpet.

“I daresay I can rise to the occasion,” said Ario, fumbling with his cock. “You seem to have the advantage of me, though.” He waved a finger at her. “Too many clothes.”

“Uh.” She shrugged the fur from her shoulders and it slithered to the floor.

“Gloves off.” He swatted with his hand. “Don't care for them.”

“Nor me.” She pulled them off, tickling at her forearms. Ario was staring at her right hand. She held it up in front of her eyes, blinked at it. There was a long, pink scar down her forearm, the hand a blotchy claw, palm squashed, fingers twisted, little one sticking out stubbornly straight.

“Ah.” She'd forgotten about that.

“A crippled hand.” Ario wriggled eagerly down the bed towards her, his cock and the feathers sprouting from his head waggling from side to side with the movements of his hips. “How terribly … exotic.”

“Isn't it?” The memory of Gobba's boot crunching down across it flashed through her mind and snatched her into the cold moment. She felt herself smile. “No need for this.” She took hold of the feathers and plucked the mask from his head, tossed it away into the corner.

Ario grinned at her, pink marks around his eyes where the mask had sat. She felt the glow of the husk leaking from her mind as she stared into his face. She saw him stabbing her brother in the neck, heaving him off the terrace, complaining at being cut. And here he was, before her now. Orso's heir.

“How rude.” He clambered up from the bed. “I must teach you a lesson.”

“Or maybe I'll teach you one.”

He came closer, so close that she could smell his sweat. “Bold, to bandy words with me. Very bold.” He reached out and ran one finger up her arm. “Few women are as bold as that.” Closer, and he slipped his other hand into the slit in her skirts, up her thigh, squeezing at her arse. “I almost feel as if I know you.”

Monza took hold of the corner of her mask with her ruined right hand as Ario drew her closer still. “Know me?” She slid her other fist gently behind her back, found the grip of one of the knives. “Of course you know me.”

She pulled her mask away. Ario's smile lingered for a moment longer as his eyes flickered over her face. Then they went staring wide.

“Somebody—!”

A hundred scales on this next throw!” Crescent Moon bellowed, holding the dice up high. The room grew quiet as people turned to watch.

“A hundred scales.” It meant nothing to Friendly. None of it was his money, and money only interested him as far as counting it went. Losses and gains were exactly the same.

Crescent Moon rattled the dice in his hand. “Come on, you shits!” The man flung them recklessly across the table, bouncing and tumbling.

“Five and six.”

“Hah!” Moon's friends whooped, chuckled, slapped him on the back as though he had achieved something fine by throwing one number instead of another.

The one with the mask like a ship threw his arms in the air. “Have that!”

The one with the fox mask made an obscene gesture.

The candles seemed to have grown uncomfortably bright. Too bright to count. The room was very hot, close, crowded. Friendly's shirt was sticking to him as he scooped up the dice and tossed them gently back. A few gasps round the table. “Five and six. House wins.” People often forgot that any one score is just as likely as any other, even the same score. So it was not entirely a shock that Crescent Moon lost his sense of perspective.

“You cheating bastard!”

Friendly frowned. In Safety he would have cut a man who spoke to him like that. He would have had to, so that others would have known not to try. He would have started cutting him and not stopped. But they were not in Safety now, they were outside. Control, he had been told. He made himself forget the warm handle of his cleaver, pressing into his side. Control. He only shrugged. “Five and six. The dice don't lie.”

Crescent Moon grabbed hold of Friendly's wrist as he began to sweep up the counters. He leaned forwards and poked him in the chest with a drunken finger. “I think your dice are loaded.”

Friendly felt his face go slack, the breath hardly moving in his throat, it had constricted so painfully tight. He could feel every drop of sweat tickling at his forehead, at his back, at his scalp. A calm, cold, utterly unbearable rage seared through every part of him. “You think my dice are what?” he could barely whisper.

Poke, poke, poke. “Your dice are liars.”

“My dice … are what?” Friendly's cleaver split the crescent mask in half and the skull underneath it wide open. His knife stabbed the man with the ship over his face through his gaping mouth and the point emerged from the back of his head. Friendly stabbed him again, and again, squelch, squelch, the grip of the blade turning slippery. A woman gave a long, shrill scream.

Friendly was vaguely aware that everyone in the hall was gaping at him, four times three times four of them, or more, or less. He flung the dice table over, sending glasses, counters, coins flying. The man with the fox mask was staring, eyes wide inside the eyeholes, spatters of dark brains across his pale cheek.

Friendly leaned forwards into his face. “Apologise!” he roared at the very top of his lungs. “Apologise to my fucking dice!”

***

Somebody—!”

Ario's cry turned to a breathy wheeze of an in-breath. He stared down, and she did too. Her knife had gone in the hollow where his thigh met his body, just beside his wilting cock, and was buried in him to the grip, blood running out all over her fist. For the shortest moment he gave a hideous, high-pitched shriek, then the point of Monza's other knife punched in under his ear and slid out of the far side of his neck.

Ario stayed there, eyes bulging, one hand plucking weakly at her bare shoulder. The other crept trembling up and fumbled at the handle of the blade. Blood leaked out of him thick and black, oozing between his fingers, bubbling down his legs, running down his chest in dark, treacly streaks, leaving his pale skin all smeared and speckled with red. His mouth yawned, but his scream was nothing but a soft farting sound, breath squelching around the wet steel in his throat. He tottered back, his other arm fishing at the air, and Monza watched him, fascinated, his white face leaving a bright trace across her vision.

“Three dead,” she whispered. “Four left.”

His bloody thighs slapped against the windowsill and he fell, head smashing against the stained glass and knocking the window wide. He tumbled through and out into the night.

The club came over, a blow that could've smashed in Shivers' skull like an egg. But it was tired, sloppy, left Greylock's side open. Shivers ducked it, already spinning, snarling as he whipped the heavy sword round. It cut into the big man's blue-painted forearm with a meaty thump, hacked it off clean, carried on through and chopped deep into the side of his stomach. Blood showered from the stump and into the faces of the onlookers. The club clattered to the cobbles, hand and wrist along with it. Someone gave a thin shriek. Someone else laughed.

“How'd they do that?”

Then Greylock started squealing like he'd caught his foot in a door. “Fuck! It hurts! Ah! Ah! What's my … by the—”

He reached around with the one hand he had left, fumbling at the gash in his side, dark mush bulging out. He lurched forwards onto one knee, head tipping back, and started to scream. Until Shivers' sword hit his mask right in the forehead and made a clang that cut his roar off dead, left a huge dent between the eyeholes. The big man crashed over on his back, his boots flew up in the air, then thumped down.

And that was the end of the evening's entertainment.

The band spluttered out a last few wobbly notes, then the music died. Apart from some vague yelling leaking from the gaming hall, the yard was silent. Shivers stared down at Greylock's corpse, blood bubbling out from beneath the stoved-in mask. His fury had suddenly melted, leaving him only with a painful arm, a scalp prickling with cold sweat and a healthy sense of creeping horror.

“Why do things like this always happen to me?”

“Because you're a bad, bad man,” said Cosca, peering over his shoulder.

Shivers felt a shadow fall across his face. He was just looking up when a naked body crashed down headfirst into the circle from above, showering the already gaping crowd with blood.