Inside the flat they heard A’Meer’s neighbor going about her business. The floors were thin—only a layer of timber boards and whatever covering the whore chose to put down—and Kosar tried to ignore the sounds as A’Meer prepared him a warm drink. As he sat and drank, listening to the sated couple mumbling above them, A’Meer rooted beneath her bed and dragged out a big leather bag. She opened it up and began laying out weapons. Kosar knew some of them, and others he recognized from her description of the fight with the Red Monk. These were blades that had been slicked with a Monk’s blood. Here was a slideshock that had been buried in its neck. Each weapon was wrapped in oilcloth, and they were all clean and greased. Beside them she laid a selection of sheathes and scabbards, equally well maintained. And beside them, other things that looked like nothing he had seen before.

A’Meer came to him suddenly. She straddled him on his chair and kissed him, fiercely and passionately, as if it were the last kiss either of them would ever know. Within a few seconds they were ripping at each other’s clothes, revealing themselves to each other for the first time in several years. The familiarity was there, they both remembered what the other liked, and when A’Meer sank onto him Kosar saw the scar across her throat, put there by the Monk.

As they made love Kosar glanced across at the weapons and other fighting paraphernalia arrayed across her bed. The newfound knowledge added a chill and a thrill to the sex.

THEY LEFT A’MEER’S flat just before dawn. It had taken her a while to dress and strap on the web of leather and fur belts, straps and pockets she needed to carry all of her weapons. She looked even slighter when she had finished. And in her deep, soulful eyes, Kosar saw something akin to fear.

“I’m leaving,” she said, staring around the room. “I’ve been here for years, and now I’m leaving. We first made love in this room, Kosar, many moons ago. I’ve been settled here longer than anywhere in my life, other than Hess. I have friends in this place. Pavisse is a shit heap, but some of the people aren’t bad. Some of them, believe it or not, want to make things better. Though most of them have forgotten how.”

“You’ll be back,” Kosar said, but as A’Meer offered a weak smile he knew how hollow that sounded.

“Curse it, I haven’t worn this stuff for ages,” she said, shrugging her shoulders to settle the gear better across her shoulders and hips. “I feel different already. Bastard things chafe and rub. And last night has worn me out. But there’s always a time to move on. The Monks will have followed him here, you know.”