Shivers raised one big boot and kicked it shuddering open, wood clattering on the other side as something was barged out of the way. Monza darted in, left hand on the hilt of her sword. The kitchen was empty of furniture and full of people. Grubby and tired-looking, every one of them staring at her, shocked and fearful, in the light of one flickering candle. The nearest, a stocky man with one arm in a sling, stumbled up from an empty barrel and caught hold of a length of wood.

“Get back!” he screamed at her. A man in a dirty farmer’s smock took a stride towards her, waving a hatchet.

Shivers stepped around Monza’s shoulder, ducking under the lintel and straightening up, big shadow shifting across the wall behind him, his heavy sword drawn and gleaming down by his leg. “You get back.”

The farmer did as he was told, scared eyes fixed on that length of bright metal. “Who the hell are you?”

“Me?” snapped Monza. “This is my house, bastard.”

“Eleven of them,” said Friendly, slipping through the doorway on the other side.

As well as the two men there were two old women and a man even older, bent right over, gnarled hands dangling. There was a woman about Monza’s age, a baby in her arms and two little girls sat near her, staring with big eyes, like enough to be twins. A girl of maybe sixteen stood by the empty fireplace. She had a rough-forged knife out that she’d been gutting a fish with, her other arm across a boy, might’ve been ten or so, pushing him behind her shoulder.

Just a girl, looking out for her little brother.

“Put your sword away,” Monza said.

“Eh?”

“No one’s getting killed tonight.”

Shivers raised one heavy brow at her. “Now who’s the optimist?”

“Lucky for you I bought a big house.” The one with his arm in a sling looked like the head of the family, so she fixed her eye on him. “There’s room for all of us.”

He let his club drop. “We’re farmers from up the valley, just looking for somewhere safe. Place was like this when we found it, we didn’t steal nothing. We’ll be no trouble—”

“You’d better not be. This all of you?”

“My name’s Furli. That’s my wife—”

“I don’t need your names. You’ll stay down here, and you’ll stay out of our way. We’ll be upstairs, in the tower. You don’t come up there, you understand? That way no one gets hurt.”

He nodded, fear starting to mix with relief. “I understand.”

“Friendly, get the horses stabled, and that cart off the street.” Those farmers’ hungry faces—helpless, weak, needy—made Monza feel sick. She kicked a broken chair out of the way then started up the stairs, winding into the darkness, her legs stiff from a day in the saddle. Morveer caught up with her on the fourth landing, Cosca and Vitari just behind him, Day at the back, a trunk in her arms. Morveer had brought a lamp with him, light pooling on the underside of his unhappy face.