“Ask him yourself. I didn’t come here to swap questions, old man. Nicomo demands your presence in the usual place, and that’s all. Now get off your fat black arse before I lose my temper.”

There was a long and ugly pause, while everyone had a think about that.

“I like it,” grunted Sajaam. “You like that?” he asked one of his thugs.

“It’s alright, I guess, if that style o’ thing appeals.”

“On occasion. Large words and bluster and hairy-chested manliness. Too much gets boring with great speed, but a little can sometimes make me smile. So Nicomo demands my presence, does he?”

“He does,” said Shivers, no choice but to let the current drag him where it pleased, and hope to wash up whole.

“Well, then.” The old man tossed his cards down on the table and slowly stood. “Let it never be said old Sajaam reneged on a debt. If Nicomo is calling… the usual place it is.” He pushed the knife Shivers had brought through his belt. “I’ll keep hold of this though, hmmm? Just for the moment.”

It was late when they got to the place the woman had showed him and the rotten garden was dark as a cellar. Far as Shivers could tell it was empty as one too. Just torn papers twitching on the night air, old news hanging from the slimy bricks.

“Well?” snapped Sajaam. “Where’s Cosca?”

“Said she’d be here,” Shivers muttered, half to himself.

“She?” His hand was on the hilt of the knife. “What the hell are you—”

“Over here, you old prick.” She slid out from behind a tree-trunk and into a scrap of light, hood back. Now Shivers saw her clearly, she was even finer-looking than he’d thought, and harder-looking too. Very fine, and very hard, with a sharp red line down the side of her neck, like the scars you see on hanged men. She had this frown—brows drawn in hard, lips pressed tight, eyes narrowed and fixed in front. Like she’d decided to break a door down with her head, and didn’t care a shit for the results.

Sajaam’s face had gone slack as a soaked shirt. “You’re alive.”

“Still sharp as ever, eh?”

“But I heard—”

“No.”

Didn’t take long for the old man to scrape himself together. “You shouldn’t be in Talins, Murcatto. You shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of Talins. Most of all, you shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of me.” He cursed in some language Shivers didn’t know, then tipped his face back towards the dark sky. “God, God, why could you not have sent me an honest life to lead?”

The woman snorted. “Because you haven’t the guts for it. That and you like money too much.”

“All true, regrettably.” They might’ve talked like old friends, but Sajaam’s hand hadn’t left the knife. “What do you want?”

“Your help killing some men.”

“The Butcher of Caprile needs my help killing, eh? As long as none of them are too close to Duke Orso—”