need not worry on my account. I feel a great deal steadier today!” He spread his hands out above the tabletop. It was true they weren’t shaking as bad as they had been. A gentle quiver rather than a mad jerk. “I’ll be back to my best before you know it.”
“I can hardly wait to see that.” Vitari strutted out from the kitchen, arms folded.
“None of us can, Shylo!” And Cosca slapped Shivers on the arm. “But enough about me! What criminals, footpads, thugs and other such human filth have you dug from the slimy backstreets of old Sipani? What fighting entertainers have you for our consideration? Musicians who murder? Deadly dancers? Singers with swords? Jugglers who… who…”
“Kill?” offered Shivers.
Cosca’s grin widened. “Brusque and to the point, as always.”
“Brusque?”
“Thick.” Vitari slid into the last chair and unfolded a sheet of paper on the scarred tabletop. “First up, there’s a band I found playing for bits near the docks. I reckon they make a fair stretch more from robbing passers-by than serenading them, though.”
“Rough-and-tumble fellows, eh? The very type we need.” Cosca stretched out his scrawny neck like a cock about to crow. “Enter!”
The door squealed open and five men wandered in. Even where Shivers came from they would’ve been reckoned a rough-looking set. Greasy-haired. Pock-faced. Rag-dressed. Their eyes darted about, narrow and suspicious, dirty hands clutching a set of stained instruments. They shuffled up in front of the table, one of them scratching his groin, another prodding at a nostril with his drumstick.
“And you are?” asked Cosca.
“We’re a band,” the nearest said.
“And has your band a name?”
They looked at each other. “No. Why would it?”
“Your own names, then, if you please, and your specialities both as entertainer and fighter.”
“My name’s Solter. I play the drum, and the mace.” Flicking his greasy coat back to show the dull glint of iron. “I’m better with the mace, if I’m honest.”
“I’m Morc,” said the next in line. “Pipe, and cutlass.”
“Olopin. Horn, and hammer.”
“Olopin, as well.” Jerking a thumb sideways. “Brother to this article. Fiddle, and blades.” Whipping a pair of long knives from his sleeves and spinning ’em round his fingers.
The last had the most broken nose Shivers had ever seen, and he’d seen some bad ones. “Gurpi. Lute, and lute.”
“You fight with your lute?” asked Cosca.
“I hits ’em with it just so.” The man showed off a sideways swipe, then flashed two rows of shit-coloured teeth. “There’s a great-axe hidden in the body.”
“Ouch. A tune, then, if you please, my fellows, and make it something lively!”
Shivers weren’t much for music, but even he could tell it was no fine playing. The drum was out of time. The pipe was tuneless tooting. The lute was flat, probably on account of all the ironware inside. But Cosca nodded along, eyes shut, like he’d never heard sweeter music.
“My days, what multi-talented fellows you are!” he shouted after a couple of bars, bringing the din to a stuttering halt. “You’re hired, each one of you, at forty scales per man for the night.”
“Forty… scales… a man?” gawped the drummer.
“Paid on completion. But it will be tough work. You will undoubtedly be called upon to fight, and possibly even to play. It may have to be a fatal performance, for our enemies. You are ready for such a commitment?”
“For forty scales a man?” They were all grinning now. “Yes, sir, we are! For that much we’re fearless.”
“Good men. We know where to find you.”
Vitari leaned across as the band made their way out. “Ugly set of bastards.”
“One of the many advantages of a masked revel,” whispered Cosca. “Stick ’em in motley and no one will be any the wiser.”
Shivers didn’t much care for the idea of trusting his life to those lot. “They’ll notice the playing, no?”
Cosca snorted. “People don’t visit Cardotti’s for the music.”
“Shouldn’t we have checked how they fight?”
“If they fight like they play we should have no worries.”
“They play about as well as runny shit.”
“They play like lunatics. With luck they fight the same way.”
“That’s no kind of-”
“I hardly thought of you as the fussy type.” Cosca peered at Shivers down his long nose. “You need to learn to live a little, my friend. All victories worth the winning are snatched with vim and brio!”
“With who?”
“Carelessness,” said Vitari.
“Dash,” said Cosca. “And seizing the moment.”
“And what do you make of all this?” Shivers asked Vitari. “Vim and whatever.”
“If the plan goes smoothly we’ll get Ario and Foscar away from the others and-” She snapped her fingers with a sharp crack. “Won’t matter much who strums the lute. Time’s running out. Four days until the great and good of Styria descend on Sipani for their conference. I’d find better men, in an ideal world. But this isn’t one.”
Cosca heaved a throaty sigh. “It most certainly is not. But let’s not be downhearted-a few moments in and we’re five men to the good! Now, if I could just get a glass of wine we’d be well on our way to-”
“No wine,” growled Vitari.
“It’s coming to something when a man can’t even wet his throat.” The old mercenary leaned close enough that Shivers could pick out the broken veins across his cheeks. “Life is a sea of sorrows, my friend. Enter!”
The next man barely fit through the warehouse door, he was that big. A few fingers taller than Shivers but a whole lot weightier. He had thick stubble across his great chunk of jaw and a mop of grey curls though he didn’t seem old. His heavy hands fussed with each other as he came towards the table, a bit stooped like he was shamed of his own size, boards giving a complaining creak every time one of his great boots came down.
Cosca whistled. “My, my, that is a big one.”
“Found him in a tavern down by the First Canal,” said Vitari, “drunk as shit but everyone too scared to move him. Hardly speaks a word of Styrian.”
Cosca leaned towards Shivers. “Perhaps you might take the lead with this one? The brotherhood of the North?”
Shivers didn’t remember there being that much brotherhood up there in the cold, but it was worth a try. The words felt strange in his mouth, it was that long since he’d used them. “What’s your name, friend?”
The big man looked surprised to hear Northern. “Greylock.” He pointed at his hair. “S’always been this colour.”
“What brought you all the way down here?”
“Come looking for work.”
“What sort o’ work?”
“Whatever’ll have me, I reckon.”
“Even if it’s bloody?”
“Likely it will be. You’re a Northman?”
“Aye.”
“You look like a Southerner.”
Shivers frowned, drew his fancy cuffs back and out of sight under the table. “Well, I’m not one. Name’s Caul Shivers.”
Greylock blinked. “Shivers?”
“Aye.” He felt a flush of pleasure that the man knew his name. He still had his pride, after all. “You heard o’ me?”
“You was at Uffrith, with the Dogman?”
“That’s right.”
