She stretched out. “Maybe beneath this harsh yet beautiful shell I’m really still a soft-hearted farmer’s daughter, only wanting to do good. You think of that?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“Anyway, what’s my choice? Put them out on the street, they might start talking. Safer here, where they owe us something.”

“They’re safest of all in the mud.”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and put all our minds at rest, then, killer? Shouldn’t be a problem for the hero that used to carry Black Now’s luggage.”

“Dow.”

“Whoever. Best put some trousers on first, though, eh?”

“I’m not saying we should’ve killed ’em or nothing, I’m just pointing out the fact. Mercy and cowardice are the same, I heard.”

“I’ll do what needs doing, don’t worry. I always have. But I’m not Morveer. I’m not murdering eleven farmers just for my convenience.”

“Nice to hear, I guess. All those little people dying in the bank didn’t seem to bother you none, long as one of ’em was Mauthis.”

She frowned. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“Nor the folk at Cardotti’s.”

“Cardotti’s didn’t go quite the way I had in mind either, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed pretty good. The Butcher of Caprile, they call you, no? What happened there?”

“What needed doing.” She remembered riding up in the dusk, the stab of worry as she saw the smoke over the city. “Doing it and liking it are different things.”

“Same results, no?”

“What the hell would you know about it? I don’t remember you being there.” She shook the memory off and slid from the bed. The careless warmth of the last smoke was wearing through and she felt strangely awkward in her own scarred skin, crossing the room with his eyes on her, stark naked but for the glove still on her right hand. The city, and its towers, and its fires spread out beyond the window, blurred through the bubbly glass panes in the closed half. “I didn’t bring you up here to remind me of my mistakes. I’ve made enough of the bastards.”

“Who hasn’t? Why did you bring me up here?”

“Because I’ve an awful weakness for big men with tiny minds, what do you think?”

“Oh, I try not to think much, makes my tiny mind hurt. But I’m starting to get the feeling you might not be quite so hard as you make out.”

“Who is?” She reached out and touched the scar on his chest. Fingertip trailing through hair, over rough, puckered skin.

“We’ve all got our wounds, I guess.” He slid his hand down the long scar on her hip bone, and her stomach clenched up tight. That gambler’s mix of fear and excitement still, with a trace of disgust mixed in.

“Some worse than others.” The words sour in her mouth.

“Just marks.” His thumb slid across the scars on her ribs, one by one. “They don’t bother me any.”

She pulled the glove off her crooked right hand and stuck it in his face. “No?”