“They think I’m dead in Talins, and don’t care into the bargain.” She hardly cared herself.

“On the contrary, agents of mine are in the process of making the citizens well aware of your triumphant survival. Bills posted at every crossroads dispute Duke Orso’s story, charge him with your attempted murder and proclaim your imminent return. The people care deeply, believe me, with that bottomless passion common folk sometimes have for great figures they have never met, and never will. If nothing else, it turns them further against Orso, and gives him difficulties at home.”

“Politics, eh?” She drained her glass. “Small gestures, when war is knocking at your gates.”

“We all make the gestures we can. But in war and politics both you are still an asset to be courted.” His smile was back now, and broader than ever. “Besides, what extra reason should a man require to keep cunning and beautiful women close at hand?”

She scowled sideways. “Fuck yourself.”

“When I must.” He looked straight back at her. “But I’d much rather have help.”

You look almost as bitter as I feel.”

“Eh?” Shivers prised his scowl from the happy couple. “Ah.” There was a woman talking to him. “Oh.” She was very good to look at, so much that she seemed to have a glow about her. Then he saw everything had a glow. He was drunk as shit.

She seemed different from the rest, though. Necklace of red stones round her long neck, white dress that hung loose, like the ones he’d seen black women wearing in Westport, but she was very pale. There was something easy in the way she stood, no stiff manners to her. Something open in her smile. For a moment, it almost had him smiling with her. First time in a while.

“Is there space here?” She spoke Styrian with a Union accent. An outsider, like him.

“You want to sit… with me?”

“Why not, do you carry the plague?”

“With my luck I wouldn’t be surprised.” He turned the left side of his face towards her. “This seems to keep most folk well clear o’ me by itself, though.”

Her eyes moved over it, then back, and her smile didn’t flicker. “We all have our scars. Some of us on the outside, some of us—”

“The ones on the inside don’t take quite such a toll on the looks, though, eh?”

“I’ve found that looks are overrated.”

Shivers looked her slowly up and down, and enjoyed it. “Easy for you to say, you’ve plenty to spare.”

“Manners.” She puffed out her cheeks as she looked round the hall. “I’d despaired of finding any among this crowd. I swear, you must be the only honest man here.”

“Don’t count on it.” Though he was grinning wide enough. There was never a bad time for flattery from a fine-looking woman, after all. He had his pride. She held out one hand to him and he blinked at it. “I kiss it, do I?”