“Well… where’s the harm?” Monza stared at the lamp flame as it flared up. Shimmering, shining, all the colours of a hoard of priceless jewels, the crumbs of husk glowing orange, turning from sweet brown to blazing red to used-up grey ash. The king breathed a long plume of sweet-smelling smoke in her face and she closed her eyes and sucked it in. Her head was full of it, swelling with it, ready to burst open.
“Oh.”
“Eh?”
He stared around. “That is… rather…”
“Yes. Yes it is.” The room was glowing. The pains in her legs had become pleasurable tickles. Her bare skin fizzed and tingled. She sank down, mattress creaking under her rump. Just her and the King of the Union, perched on an ugly bed in a whorehouse. What could’ve been more comfortable?
The king licked lazily at his lips. “My wife. The queen. You know. Did I mention that? Queen. She does not always-”
“Your wife likes women,” Monza found she’d said. Then she snorted with laughter, and had to wipe some snot off her lip. “She likes them a lot.”
The king’s eyes were pink inside the eyeholes of his mask. They crawled lazily over her face. “Women? What were we talking of?” He leaned forwards. “I don’t feel… nervous… anymore.” He slid one clumsy hand up the side of her leg. “I think…” he muttered, working his tongue around his mouth. “I… think…” His eyes rolled up and he flopped back on the bed, arms outspread. His head tipped slowly sideways, mask skewing across his face, and he was still, faint snoring echoing in Monza’s ears.
He looked so peaceful there. She wanted to lie down. She was always thinking, thinking, worrying, thinking. She needed to rest. She deserved to. But there was something nagging at her-something she needed to do first. What was it? She drifted to her feet, swaying uncertainly.
Ario.
“Uh. That’s it.” She left his Majesty sprawled across the bed and made for the door, the room tipping one way and then the other, trying to catch her out. Tricky bastard. She bent down and tore one of the high shoes off, tottered sideways and nearly fell. She flung the other away and it floated gently through the air, like an anchor sinking through water. She had to force her eyes open wide as she looked at the door, because there was a mosaic of blue glass between her and the world, candle flames beyond it leaving long, blinding smears across her sight.
Morveer nodded to Day, and she nodded back, a deeper black shape crouched in the fizzing darkness of the attic, the slightest strip of blue light across her grin. Behind her, the joists, the laths, the rafters were all black outlines touched down the edges with the faintest glow. “I will deal with the pair beside the Royal Suite,” he whispered. “You… take the others.”
“Done, but when?”
When was the question of paramount importance. He put his eye to the hole, blowpipe in one hand, fingertips of the other rubbing nervously against his thumb. The door to the Royal Suite opened and Vitari emerged from between the guards. She frowned up, then walked away down the corridor. There was no sign of Murcatto, no sign of Foscar, no further sign of anything. This was not part of the plan, of that Morveer was sure. He had still to kill the guards, of course, he had been paid to do so and always followed through on a contracted task. That was one thing among many that separated him from the obscene likes of Nicomo Cosca. But when, when, when…
Morveer frowned. He was sure he could hear the vague sound of someone chewing. “Are you eating?”
“Just a bun.”
“Well stop it! We are at work, for pity’s sake, and I am trying to think! Is an iota of professionalism too much to ask?”
Time stretched out to the vague accompaniment of the incompetent musicians down in the courtyard, but with the exception of the guards rocking gently from side to side, there was no further sign of movement. Morveer slowly shook his head. In this case, it seemed, as in so many, one moment was much like another. He breathed in deep, lifted the pipe to his lips, taking aim on the furthest of his allotted pair The door to Ario’s chamber banged open. The two women emerged, one still adjusting her skirts. Morveer held his breath, cheeks puffed out. They pulled the door shut then made off down the corridor. One of the guards said something to the other, and he laughed. There was the most discreet of hisses as Morveer discharged his pipe, and the laughter was cut short.
“Ah!” The nearest guard pressed one hand to his scalp.
“What?”
“Something… I don’t know, stung me.”
“Stung you? What would’ve-” It was the other guard’s turn to rub at his head. “Bloody hell!”
The first had found the needle in his hair, and now held it up to the light. “A needle.” He fumbled for his sword with a clumsy hand, lurched back against the wall and slid down onto his backside. “I feel all…”
The second guard took an unsteady stride into the corridor, reached up at nothing, then pitched over on his face, arm outstretched. Morveer allowed himself the slightest nod of satisfaction, then crept over to Day, crouching over two of the holes with her blowpipe in her hand.
“Success?” he asked.
“Of course.” She held the bun in the other, and now took a bite from it. Through the hole Morveer saw the two guards beside Ario’s suite slumped motionless.
“Fine work, my dear. But that, alas, is all the work with which we were trusted.” He began to gather up their equipment.
“Should we stay, see how it goes?”
“I see no reason so to do. The best we can hope for is that men will die, and that I have witnessed before. Frequently. Take it from me. One death is much like another. You have the rope?”
“Of course.”
“Never too soon to secure the means of escape.”
“Caution first, always.”
“ Precisely so.”
Day uncoiled the cord from her pack and made one end of it fast around a heavy joist. She lifted one foot and kicked the little window from its frame. Morveer heard the sound of it splashing down into the canal behind the building.
“Most neatly done. What would I do without you?”
“Die!” And Greylock came charging across the circle with that great lump of wood high over his head. Shivers gasped along with the crowd, only just scrambled clear in time, felt the wind of it ripping at his face. He caught the big man in a clumsy hug and they tottered together round the outside of the circle.
“What the fuck are you after?” Shivers hissed in his ear.
“Vengeance!” Greylock dealt him a knee in the side then flung him off.
Shivers stumbled away, finding his balance, picking his brains for some slight he’d given the man. “Vengeance? For what, you mad bastard?”
“For Uffrith!” He slapped his great foot down, feinting, and Shivers hopped back, peering over the top of his shield.
“Eh? No one got killed there!”
“You sure?”
“A couple o’ men down on the docks, but-”
“My brother! No more’n fourteen years old!”
“I had no part o’ that, you great turd! Black Dow did them killings!”
“Black Dow ain’t before me now, and I swore to my mother I’d make someone pay. You’d a big enough part for me to knock it out o’ you, fucker!” Shivers gave a girlish kind of squeak as he ducked back from another great
