A last quick clicking of the scissors and the barber stepped away, dabbing at his own sweaty brow with the back of one sleeve. “And we are all finished.”
Shivers stared into the mirror. “I look a different man.”
“Sir looks like a Styrian aristocrat.”
Monza snorted. “Less like a Northern beggar, anyway.”
“Maybe.” Shivers looked less than happy. “I daresay that’s a better-looking man there. A cleverer man.” He ran one hand through his short dark hair, frowning at his reflection. “Not sure if I trust that bastard, though.”
“And to finish…” The barber leaned forwards, a coloured crystal bottle in his hands, and squirted a fine mist of perfume over Shivers’ head.
The Northman was up like a cat off hot coals. “What the fuck?” he roared, big fists clenched, shoving the man away and making him totter across the room with a squeal.
Monza burst out laughing. “Looks of a Styrian nobleman, maybe.” She pulled out a couple more quarters and tucked them into the gaping barber’s apron pocket. “The manners might be a while coming, though.”
It was getting dark when they came back to the crumbling mansion, Monza with her hood drawn up and Shivers striding proudly along in his new coat. A cold rain flitted down into the ruined courtyard, a single lamp burned in a window on the first floor. She frowned towards it, and then at Shivers, found the grip of the knife in the back of her belt with her left hand. Best to be ready for every possibility. Up the creaking stairs a peeling door stood ajar, light spilling out across the boards. She stepped up and poked it open with her boot.
A pair of burning logs in the soot-blackened fireplace barely warmed the chamber on the other side. Friendly stood beside the far window, peering through the shutters towards the bank. Morveer had some sheets of paper spread out on a rickety old table, marking his place with an ink-spotted hand. Day sat on the tabletop with her legs crossed, peeling an orange with a dagger. “Definite improvement,” she grunted, giving Shivers a glance.
“Oh, I cannot but agree.” Morveer grinned. “A dirty, long-haired idiot left the building this morning. A clean, short-haired idiot has returned. It must be magic.”
Monza let go the grip of her knife while Shivers muttered angrily to himself in Northern. “Since you’re not crowing your own praises, I’m guessing the job’s not done.”
“Mauthis is a most cautious and well-protected man. The bank is far too heavily guarded during the day.”
“On his way to the bank, then.”
“He leaves by an armoured carriage with a dozen guards in attendance. To try and intercept them would be too great a risk.”
Shivers tossed another log on the fire and held his palms out towards it. “At his house?”
“Pah,” sneered Morveer. “We followed him there. He lives on a walled island in the bay where several of the city’s Aldermen have their estates. The public are not admitted. We have no method of gaining advance access to the building even if we can deduce which one is his. How many guards, servants, family members would be in attendance? All unknown. I flatly refuse to attempt a job of this difficulty on conjecture. What do I never take, Day?”
“Chances.”
“Correct. I deal in certainties, Murcatto. That is why you came to me. I am hired for a certain man most certainly dead, not for a butcher’s mess and your target slipped away in the chaos. We are not in Caprile, now-”
“I know where we are, Morveer. What’s your plan, then?”
“I have gathered the necessary information and devised a sure means of achieving the desired effect. I need only gain access to the bank during the hours of darkness.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“How do I plan to do that, Day?”
“Through the rigorous application of observation, logic and method.”
Morveer flashed his smug little smile again. “Precisely so.”
Monza glanced sideways at Benna. Except Benna was dead, and Shivers was in his place. The Northman raised his eyebrows, blew out a long sigh and looked back to the fire. Give me only evil men for friends, Verturio wrote. But there had to be a limit.
Two Twos
The dice came up two twos. Two times two is four. Two plus two is four. Add the dice, or multiply, the same result. It made Friendly feel helpless, that thought. Helpless but calm. All these people struggling to get things done, but whatever they did, it turned out the same. The dice were full of lessons. If you knew how to read them.
The group had formed two twos. Morveer and Day were one pair. Master and apprentice. They had joined together, they stayed together, they laughed together at everyone else. But now Friendly saw that Murcatto and Shivers were forming a pair of their own. They crouched next to each other at the parapet, black outlines against the dim night sky, staring across towards the bank, an immense block of thicker darkness. He had often seen that it was in the nature of people to form pairs. Everyone except him. He was left alone, in the shadows. Maybe there was something wrong with him, the way the judges had said.
Sajaam had chosen him to form a pair with, in Safety, but Friendly had no illusions. Sajaam had chosen him because he was useful. Because he was feared. As feared as anyone in the darkness. But Sajaam had not pretended any differently. He was the only honest man that Friendly knew, and so it had been an honest arrangement. It had worked so well that Sajaam had made enough money in prison to buy his freedom from the judges. But he was an honest man and so, when he was free, he had not forgotten Friendly. He had come back and bought his freedom too.
Outside the walls, where there were no rules, things were different. Sajaam had other business, and Friendly was left alone again. He did not mind, though. He was used to it, and had the dice for company. So he found himself here, in the darkness, on a roof in Westport, in the dead of winter. With these two mismatched pairs of dishonest people.
The guards came in two twos as well, four at a time, and two groups of four, following each other endlessly around the bank all night. It was raining now, a half-frozen sleet spitting down. Still they followed each other, round, and round, and round through the darkness. One party trudged along the lane beneath, well armoured, polearms shouldered.
“Here they come again,” said Shivers.
“I see that,” sneered Morveer. “Start a count.”
Day’s whisper came through the night, high and throaty. “One… two
… three… four… five…” Friendly stared open-mouthed at her lips moving, the dice forgotten by his limp hand. His own mouth moved silently along with hers. “Twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four…”
“How to reach the roof?” Morveer was musing. “How to reach the roof?”
“Rope and grapple?” asked Murcatto.
“Too slow, too noisy, too uncertain. The rope would be left in plain view the entire time, even supposing we could firmly set a grapple. No. We need a method that allows for no accidents.”
Friendly wished they would shut their mouths so he could listen to Day’s counting. His cock was aching hard from listening to it. “One hundred and twelve… one hundred and thirteen…” He let his eyes close, let his head fall back against the wall, one finger moving back and forth in time. “One hundred and eighty-two… one hundred and eighty-three…”
“No one could climb up there free,” came Murcatto’s voice. “Not anyone. Too smooth, too sheer. And the spikes to worry on.”
“I am in complete agreement.”
