“That’s the rumour. He’s brought together a conference to negotiate terms, between Grand Duke Orso and the League of Eight. He’s got all their leaders coming-those who are still alive, at least, Rogont and Salier at the front. He’s got old Sotorius to play host-neutral ground here in Sipani, is the thinking. And he’s got his brothers-in- law on their way, to speak for their father.”
Monza craned forwards, eager as a buzzard at a carcass. “Ario and Foscar both?”
“Ario and Foscar both.”
“They’re going to make peace?” asked Shivers, and soon regretted saying anything. The two women each gave him their own special kind of sneer.
“This is Sipani,” said Vitari. “All we make here is fog.”
“And that’s all anyone will be making at this conference, you can depend on that.” Monza eased herself back into her chair, scowling. “Fogs and whispers.”
“The League of Eight is splitting at the seams. Borletta fallen. Cantain dead. Visserine will be under siege when the weather breaks. No talk’s going to change that.”
“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 anymore.”
“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.
