“Look.” Andiche rested one lazy hand on the arm of the captain general’s chair and dusted the seat off with the other. “We don’t doubt for a moment that when it comes to a fight, you’re the best damn general a man could ask for.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Victus’ face twisted into a snarl. “We don’t want to fight! We want to make… fucking… money!”

“Who ever brought you more money than me?”

“Ahem,” came a voice right in her ear. Monza jerked round, and froze, hand halfway to the hilt of her sword. Standing just behind her, with a faintly embarrassed smile, was Nicomo Cosca.

He’d shaved off his moustache, and all his hair besides, left only a black and grey stubble over his knobbly skull, his sharp jaw. The rash had faded to a faint pink splash up the side of his neck. His eyes were less sunken, his face no longer trembling or beaded with sweat. But the smile was the same. The faint little smile and the playful gleam in his dark eyes. The same he used to have, when she first met him.

“A delight to see you both well.”

“Uh,” grunted Shivers. Monza found she’d made a kind of strangled cough, but no words came with it.

“I am in resplendent health, your concern for my welfare is most touching.” Cosca strolled past, slapping a puzzled-looking Shivers on the back, more captains of the Thousand Swords pushing their way through the flap after him and spreading out around the edges of the tent. Men whose names, faces, qualities, or lack of them, she knew well. A thick-set man with a stoop, a worn coat and almost no neck came at the rear. He raised his heavy brows at her as he passed.

“Friendly?” she hissed. “I thought you were going back to Talins!”

He shrugged, as if it was nothing. “Didn’t make it all the way.”

“So I fucking see!”

Cosca stepped up onto the packing cases and turned to the assembly with a self-satisfied flourish. He’d acquired a grand black breastplate with golden scrollwork from somewhere, a sword with a gilded hilt, fine black boots with shining buckles. He settled himself into the captain general’s chair with as much pomp as an Emperor into his throne, Friendly standing watchful beside the cases, arms crossed. As Cosca’s arse touched the wood the tent broke into polite applause, every captain tapping their fingers against their palms as daintily as fine ladies attending the theatre. Just as they had for Monza, when she stole the chair. If she hadn’t felt suddenly so sick she might almost have laughed.

Cosca waved away the applause while obviously encouraging it. “No, no, really, entirely undeserved. But it’s good to be back.”

“How the hell—”

“Did I survive? The wound, it appears, was not quite so fatal as we all supposed. The Talinese took me, on account of my uniform, for one of their own, and bore me directly to an excellent surgeon, who was able to staunch the bleeding. I was two weeks abed, then slipped out of a window. I made contact in Puranti with my old friend Andiche, who I had gathered might be desirous of a change in command. He was, and so were all his noble fellows.” He gestured to the captains scattered about the tent, then to himself. “And here I am.”