“That’s the idea, I reckon. You look, er…” He struggled for the word.

“Like a whore?”

“A damn pricey one, maybe.”

“I’d hate to look a cheap one. I’m headed upstairs, to wait for our guests. All goes well, I’ll see you at the warehouse.”

“Aye. If all goes well.” Shivers’ life had a habit of not going well. He frowned up at those stained-glass windows. “You going to be alright?”

“Oh, I can handle Ario. I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“I know, but, I’m just saying… if you need me closer—”

“Stick your tiny mind to keeping things under control down here. Let me worry about me.”

“I’m worried enough that I can spare some.”

“Thought you were an optimist,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Maybe you talked me out of it,” he muttered at her back. He didn’t like it much when she spoke to him that way, but he liked it a lot better’n when she wouldn’t speak to him at all. He saw Greylock glowering at him as he turned, and stabbed an angry finger at the big bastard. “Don’t just stand there! Let’s get this damn fake circle marked out, ’fore we get old!”

Monza was a long way from comfortable as she teetered through the gambling hall, Cosca beside her. She wasn’t used to the high shoes. She wasn’t used to the draught around her legs. Corsets were torture at the best of times, and it hardly helped that this one had two of the bones removed and replaced with long, thin knives, the points up between her shoulder blades and the grips hidden in the small of her back. Her ankles, and her knees, and her hips were already throbbing. The notion of a smoke tickled at the back of her mind, just like always, but she forced it away. She’d endured enough pain, these past few months. A little more was a light price to pay if it got her close to Ario. Close enough to stick a blade in his sneering face. The thought alone put some swagger back into her step.

Carlot dan Eider waited for them at the end of the room, standing with regal superiority between two card tables covered with grey sheets, wearing a red dress fit for an empress of legend.

“Will you look at the two of us?” sneered Monza as she came close. “A general dressed like a whore and a whore dressed like a queen. Everyone’s pretending to be someone else tonight.”

“That’s politics.” Ario’s mistress frowned over at Cosca. “Who’s this?”

“Magister Eider, what a delightful and unexpected honour.” The old mercenary bowed as he swept his hat off, exposing his scabrous, sweat-beaded bald patch. “I never dreamed the two of us would meet again.”

“You!” Eider stared coldly back at him. “I might have known you’d be caught up in this. I thought you died in Dagoska!”

“So did I, but it turned out I was only very, very drunk.”