“Surely my niece-”
“You must understand that, in the interests of security, we can make no exceptions. Your niece will be perfectly comfortable here.”
“Of course, of course you will, my dear. Master Charming! The strongbox!” Friendly handed the metal case over to a bespectacled clerk, left tottering under its weight. “Now wait here, and get up to no mischief!” Morveer gave a heavy sigh as he followed Mauthis into the depths of the building, as though he had insurmountable difficulties securing competent help. “My money will be safe here?”
“The bank’s walls are at no point less than twelve feet in thickness. There is only one entrance, guarded by a dozen well-armed men during the day, sealed at night with three locks, made by three different locksmiths, the keys kept by three separate employees. Two parties of men constantly patrol the exterior of the bank until morning. Even then the interior is kept under watch by a most sharp-eyed and competent guard.” He gestured towards a bored- looking man in a studded leather jerkin, seated at a desk to the side of the hallway.
“He is locked in?”
“All night.”
Morveer worked his mouth with some discomfort. “ Most comprehensive arrangements.”
He pulled out his handkerchief and pretended to cough daintily into it. The silk was soaked in Mustard Root, one of an extensive range of agents to which he had himself long since developed an immunity. He needed only a few moments unobserved, then he could clasp it to Mauthis’ face. The slightest inhalation and the man would cough himself to bloody death within moments. But the clerk laboured along between them with the strongbox in his arms, and not the slightest opportunity was forthcoming. Morveer was forced to tuck the lethal cloth away, then narrow his eyes as they turned into a long hallway lined with huge paintings. Light poured in from above, the very roof, far overhead, fashioned from a hundred thousand diamond panes of glass.
“A ceiling of windows!” Morveer turned slowly round and round, head back. “Truly a wonder of architecture!”
“This is an entirely modern building. Your money could not be more secure anywhere, believe me.”
“The depths of ruined Aulcus, perhaps?” joked Morveer, as an overblown artist’s impression of the ancient city passed by on their left.
“Not even there.”
“And making a withdrawal would be considerably more testing, I imagine! Ha ha. Ha ha.”
“Quite so.” The banker did not display even the inkling of a smile. “Our vault door is a foot thickness of solid Union steel. We do not exaggerate when we say this is the safest place in the Circle of the World. This way.”
Morveer was ushered into a voluminous chamber panelled with oppressively dark wood, ostentatious yet still uncomfortable, tyrannised by a desk the size of a poor man’s house. A sombre oil was set above a looming fireplace: a heavyset bald man glowering down as though he suspected Morveer of being up to no good. Some Union bureaucrat of the dusty past, he suspected. Zoller, maybe, or Bialoveld.
Mauthis took up a high, hard seat and Morveer found one opposite while the clerk lifted the lid of the strongbox and began to count out the money, using a coin-stacker with practised efficiency. Mauthis watched, scarcely blinking. At no stage did he touch either case or coins himself. A cautious man. Damnably, infuriatingly cautious. His slow eyes slid across the desk.
“Wine?”
Morveer raised an eyebrow at the distorted glassware behind the windows of a towering cabinet. “Thank you, no. I become quite flustered under its influence, and between the two of us have frequently embarrassed myself. I decided, in the end, to abstain entirely, and stick to selling it to others. The stuff is… poison.” And he gave a huge smile. “But don’t let me stop you.” He slid an unobtrusive hand into a hidden pocket within his jacket where the vial of Star Juice was waiting. It would be a small effort to mount a diversion and introduce a couple of drops to Mauthis’ glass while he was “I too avoid it.”
“Ah.” Morveer released the vial and instead plucked a folded paper from his inside pocket quite as if that had been his intention from the first. He unfolded it and pretended to read while his eyes darted about the office. “I counted five thousand…” He took in the style of lock upon the door, the fashion of its construction, the frame within which it was set. “Two hundred…” The tiles from which the floor was made, the panels on the walls, the render of the ceiling, the leather of Mauthis’ chair, the coals on the unlit fire. “And twelve scales.” Nothing seemed promising.
Mauthis showed no emotion at the number. Fortunes and small change, all one. He opened the heavy cover of a huge ledger upon his desk. He licked one finger and flicked steadily through the pages, paper crackling. Morveer felt a warm satisfaction spread out from his stomach to every extremity at the sight, and it was only with an effort that he prevented himself from whooping with triumph. He settled for a prim smile. “Takings from my last trip to Sipani. Wine from Ospria is always a profitable venture, even in these uncertain times. Not everyone has our temperance, Master Mauthis, I am happy to say!”
“Of course.” The banker licked his finger once again as he turned the last few pages.
“Five thousand, two hundred and eleven,” said the clerk.
Mauthis’ eyes flickered up. “Trying to get away with something?”
“Me?” Morveer passed it off with a false chuckle. “Damn that man Charming, he can’t count for anything! I swear he has no feel for numbers whatsoever.”
The nib of Mauthis’ pen scratched across the ledger; the clerk hurried over and blotted the entry as his master neatly, precisely, emotionlessly prepared the receipt. The clerk carried it to Morveer and offered it to him along with the empty strongbox.
“A note for the full amount in the name of the Banking House of Valint and Balk,” said Mauthis. “Redeemable at any reputable mercantile institution in Styria.”
“Must I sign anything?” asked Morveer hopefully, his fingers closing around the pen in his inside pocket. It doubled as a highly effective blow-gun, the needle concealed within containing a lethal dose of “No.”
“Very well.” Morveer smiled as he folded the paper and slid it away, taking care that it did not catch on the deadly edge of his scalpel. “Better than gold, and a great deal lighter. For now, then, I take my leave. It has been a decided pleasure.” And he held out his hand again, poisoned ring glinting. No harm in making the effort.
Mauthis did not move from his chair. “Likewise.”
Evil Friends
It had been Benna’s favourite place in Westport. He’d dragged her there twice a week while they were in the city. A shrine of mirrors and cut glass, polished wood and glittering marble. A temple to the god of male grooming. The high priest-a small, lean barber in a heavily embroidered apron-stood sharply upright in the centre of the floor, chin pointed to the ceiling, as though he’d been expecting them that very moment to enter.
“Madam! A delight to see you again!” He blinked for a moment. “Your husband is not with you?”
“My brother.” Monza swallowed. “And no, he… won’t be back. I’ve an altogether tougher challenge for you-”
Shivers stepped through the doorway, gawping about as fearfully as a sheep in a shearing pen. She opened her mouth to speak but the barber cut her off. “I believe I see the problem.” He made a sharp circuit of Shivers while the Northman frowned down at him. “Dear, dear. All off?”
“What?”
“All off,” said Monza, taking the barber by the elbow and pressing a quarter into his hand. “Go gently, though. I doubt he’s used to this and he might startle.” She realised she was making him sound like a horse. Maybe that was giving him too much credit.
“Of course.” The barber turned, and gave a sharp intake of breath. Shivers had already taken his new shirt off and was looming pale and sinewy in the doorway, unbuckling his belt.
“He means your hair, fool,” said Monza, “not your clothes.”
“Uh. Thought it was odd, but, well, Southern fashions…” Monza watched him as he sheepishly buttoned his shirt back up. He had a long scar from his shoulder across his chest, pink and twisted. She might’ve thought it ugly once, but she’d had to change her opinions on scars, along with a few other things.
