“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.