“Soon.”
“They’re getting everyone together downstairs. We need to be off to Cardotti’s. Lay the groundwork. The importance of preparation and all that.” It sounded as if she was talking with her mouth full. It would, in fact, have been a surprise had she not been.
“I will catch up with you!” He heard her footsteps moving off. There, at least, was one person with the requisite admiration for his magisterial skills, who rendered him the fitting respect, exceeded his lofty expectations. He was coming to rely on her a great deal, he realised, both practically and emotionally. More than was cautious, perhaps.
But even a man of Morveer’s extraordinary talents could not manage everything himself. He gave a long sigh, and turned from the mirror.
The entertainers, or the killers, for they were both, were scattered around the warehouse floor. Twenty-five of them, if Friendly counted himself. The three Gurkish dancers sat crossed-legged-two with their ornate cat-face masks pushed up on their oiled black hair. The last had her mask down, eyes glistening darkly behind the slanted eyeholes, rubbing carefully at a curved dagger. The band were already dressed in smart black jackets and tights striped grey and yellow, their silvered masks in the shape of musical notes, practising a jig they had finally managed to play half-decently.
Shivers stood nearby in a stained leather tunic with balding fur on the shoulders, a big round wooden shield on his arm and a heavy sword in the other hand. Greylock loomed opposite, an iron mask covering his whole face, a great club set with iron studs in his fists. Shivers was talking fast in Northern, showing how he was going to swing his sword, how he wanted Greylock to react, practising the show they would put on.
Barti and Kummel, the acrobats, wore tight-fitting chequered motley, arguing with each other in the tongue of the Union, one of them passionately waving a short stabbing sword. The Incredible Ronco watched from behind a mask painted vivid red, orange and yellow, like dancing flames. Beyond him the three jugglers were filling the air with a cascade of shining knives, flashing and flickering in the half-darkness. Others lounged against crates, sat cross-legged on the floor, capered about, sharpened blades, tinkered with costumes.
Friendly hardly recognised Cosca himself, dressed in a velvet coat heavy with silver embroidery, a tall hat on his head and a long black cane in his hand with a heavy golden knob on the end. The rash on his neck was disguised with powder. His greying moustaches were waxed to twinkling curves, his boots were polished to a glistening shine, his mask was crusted with splinters of sparkling mirror, but his eyes sparkled more.
He swaggered towards Friendly with the smirk of a ringmaster at a circus. “My friend, I hope you are well. My thanks again for your ear this morning.”
Friendly nodded, trying not to grin. There was something almost magical about Cosca’s aura of good humour. He had the utter confidence to talk, and talk, and know he would be listened to, laughed with, understood. It almost made Friendly want to talk himself.
Cosca held something out. A mask in the shape of a pair of dice, showing double one with eyeholes where the spots should have been. “I hoped you might do me the favour of minding the dice table tonight.”
Friendly took the mask from him with a trembling hand. “I would like that very much.”
Their mad crew wound through the twisting streets as the morning mists were clearing-down grey alleys, over narrow bridges, through hazy, rotting gardens and along damp tunnels, footfalls hollow in the gloom. The treacherous water was never far off, Shivers wrinkling his nose at the salt stink of the canals.
Half the city was masked and in costume, and it seemed they all had something to celebrate. Folk who weren’t invited to the great ball in honour of Sipani’s royal visitors had their own revels planned, and a lot of ’em were getting started good and early. Some hadn’t gone too wild with their costumes-holiday coats and dresses with a plain mask around their eyes. Some had gone wild, then further still-huge trousers, high shoes, gold and silver faces locked up in animal snarls and madman grins. Put Shivers in mind of the Bloody-Nine’s face when he fought in the circle, devil smile spattered with blood. That did nothing for his nerves. Didn’t help he was wearing fur and leather like he used to in the North, carrying a heavy sword and shield not much different from ones he’d used in earnest. A crowd poured past all covered in yellow feathers, masks with great beaks, squawking like a flock of crazy seagulls. That did nothing for his nerves either.
Off in the mist, half-glimpsed round corners and across hazy squares, there were stranger shapes still, their hoots and warbles echoing down the wooden alleyways. Monsters and giants. Made Shivers’ palms itch, thinking of the way the Feared rose out of the mist up at Dunbrec, bringing death with him. These were just silly bastards on stilts, of course, but still. You put a mask on a person, something weird happens. Changes the way they act along with the way they look. Sometimes they don’t seem like people at all no more, but something else.
Shivers wouldn’t have liked the flavour of it even if they hadn’t been planning murder. Felt like the city was built on the borders of hell and devils were spilling out into the streets, mixing with the everyday and no one acting like there was much special about it. He had to keep reminding himself that, of all the strange and dangerous- seeming crowds, his was much the strangest and most dangerous they were likely to happen across. If there were devils in the city, he was one of the worst. Wasn’t actually that comforting a thought, once it’d taken root.
“This way, my friends!” Cosca led them across a square planted with four clammy, leafless trees and a building loomed up from the gloom-a large wooden building on three sides of a courtyard. The same building that had been sitting on the kitchen table at the warehouse the last few days. Four well-armed guards were frowning around a gate of iron bars, and Cosca sprang smartly up the steps towards them, heels clicking. “A fine morning to you, gentlemen!”
“Cardotti’s is closed today,” the nearest growled back, “and tonight too.”
“Not to us.” Cosca took in the mismatched troupe with a sweep of his cane. “We are the entertainers for this evening’s private function, selected and hired especially for the purpose by Prince Ario’s consort, Carlot dan Eider. Now open that gate quick sharp, we have a great deal of preparation to attend to. In we come, my children, and don’t dally! People must be entertained!”
The yard was bigger’n Shivers had been expecting, and a lot more of a disappointment too, since this was supposed to be the best brothel in the world. A stretch of mossy cobbles with a couple of rickety tables and chairs, painted in flaking gilt. Lines were strung from upstairs windows, sheets flapping sluggishly as they dried. A set of wine-barrels were badly stacked in one corner. A bent old man was sweeping with a worn-out broom, a fat woman was giving what might’ve been some underwear a right thrashing on a washboard. Three skinny women sat about a table, bored. One had an open book in her hand. Another frowned at her nails as she worked ’em with a file. The last slouched in her chair, watching the entertainers file in while she blew smoke from a little clay chagga pipe.
Cosca sighed. “There’s nothing more mundane, or less arousing, than a whorehouse in the daytime, eh?”
“Seems not.” Shivers watched the jugglers find a space over in one corner and start to unpack their tools, gleaming knives among ’em.
“I’ve always thought it must be a fine enough life, being a whore. A successful one, at any rate. You get the days off, and when finally you are called upon to work you can get most of it done lying down.”
“Not much honour in it,” said Shivers.
“Shit at least makes flowers grow. Honour isn’t even that useful.”
“What happens when you get old, though, and no one wants you no more? Seems to me all you’re doing is putting off the despair and leaving a pack of regrets behind you.”
Below Cosca’s mask, his smile had a sad twist. “That’s all any of us are doing, my friend. Every business is the same, and ours is no different. Soldiering, killing, whatever you want to call it. No one wants you when you get old.” He strutted past Shivers and into the courtyard, cane flicking backwards and forwards with each stride. “One way or another, we’re all of us whores!” He snatched a fancy cloth from a pocket, waved it at the three women as he passed and gave a bow. “Ladies. A most profound honour.”
“Silly old cock,” Shivers heard one of them mutter in Northern, before she went back to her pipe. The band
