There was enough smoke to fog the room, but it was warm and dry at least. Temper loosened his cloak. To either side men talked, laughed, and drank. A much larger crowd than usual, and younger, more rowdy. Anji passed, a brownstone jug on one hip, refilling mugs. She gave Temper a harried nod, already weary. He smiled back, but she’d passed on. Poor gal, she’d been spoiled by the regular crowd of quiet old duffers who’d nurse a tumbler of liqueur for two or three bells each. Tonight she was more than earning her keep.

As Temper passed between the long tables he felt the weight of numerous eyes and paused, but no one returned his gaze. Instead, they stared at their cups or the gouged tabletop, murmuring to one another as if they hoped he would just move on like any unwelcome guest. Unusual behaviour from men who appeared hard and ragged enough to have been emptied out of a prison ship, or culled from the press gangs that fed the Empire’s constant need to replenish the oars of the Navy. Temper crossed to his regular seat, sensing the odd charged tension in the air.

Passing the last tables, he glimpsed a crowd of mangy looking fellows dressed in threadbare tunics and cloaks who struck him as nothing more than destitute street-sweepings. These men sat alongside others who suggested the cut of military service with their scars and heavier builds. An unusual crowd for Coop’s. But the old man, Rengel, had warned him to anticipate a night of strangeness.

Someone had taken his regular bench along the rear wall. Considering how crowded the room was, Temper half-expected it, but couldn’t avoid feeling irritated. Couldn’t Coop have kept it for him? What did he pay rent to the damn brewer for anyway? That tiny cell upstairs? The wretched food?

The man occupying his seat wore a leather vest over a padded linen shirt that hung in tatters down over the bench and leggings of iron-studded leather. Oiled leather wristlets half-covered forearms that bore a skein of scar tissue: puckered remnants of scoured flesh, thin pale crescents of bladed edge, and the angry pink mottling of healed burns. Head low to the table, he spoke to a companion shrouded in shadow.

For a moment Temper hesitated. He considered addressing the man. Not that he expected to retrieve his seat, but to challenge him enough to better glimpse his features. The fellow’s face remained averted. Stiffly so, it seemed to Temper. Intangibly, the space between the two momentarily seemed to contract. Coop materialized, stepping through a rear narrow door. He scanned the room, hands tucked behind his leather apron. He waved towards a sole empty table and Temper ambled over; he’d just stood a half-day watch and was damned if he would stay on his feet a moment longer.

Coop sat with him. ‘Sorry about that, Temp.’ He raised a decanter of peach brandy.

Temper nodded. ‘Quite the crowd,’ he offered, but Coop simply poured. He shrugged and raised the tumbler for a toast.