He bared his forearm and displayed a bloody tattoo: a naked woman who wiggled her buttocks when he clenched his fist. Kayleigh also showed off. A green snake with an open maw and a scarlet, forked tongue writhed around his arm, above a spiked bracelet.

‘A tasteful piece,’ Hotspurn said indifferently. ‘And helpful when corpses are being identified. However, you failed with the robbery, my dear Rats. You’ll have to pay the artist for his skill. There was no time to warn you; for seven days, from the first of September, the sign has been a purple split arrow. He has one painted on his wagon.’

Reef swore under his breath and Kayleigh laughed. Giselher waved a hand indifferently.

‘Too bad. If needs must we’ll pay him for his needles and dye. A purple arrow, say you? We’ll remember. If someone rides up with the sign of the arrow between now and tomorrow, he won’t be harmed.’

‘You plan to stay here till tomorrow?’ Hotspurn said with slightly exaggerated astonishment. ‘That’s imprudent, Rats. It’s risky and dangerous!’

‘You what?’

‘Risky and dangerous!’

Giselher shrugged, Iskra snorted and cleared her nose onto the floor. Reef, Kayleigh and Falka looked at Hotspurn as though he’d just declared that the sun had fallen into the river and must be fished out before the crayfish pinched it. Hotspurn understood that he had merely appealed to the reckless pups’ good sense, of which they had little. That he had alerted these braggarts to risk and danger. Braggarts–all reckless bravado–for whom those concepts were utterly alien.

‘They’re coming for you, Rats.’

‘What of it?’

Hotspurn sighed.

Mistle–without having taken the trouble to dress–came over to them and interrupted the discussion. She placed a foot on the bench and–twisting her hips–demonstrated to all and sundry the work of Master Almavera: a crimson rose on a green stem with two leaves, on her inner thigh, right by her groin.

‘Well?’ she asked, hands on hips. Her bracelets, which almost reached her elbows, flashed brilliantly. ‘What do you say?’

‘Exquisite!’ Kayleigh snorted, brushing his hair aside. Hotspurn had noticed that the Rat had rings in his ears. There was no doubt that similar earrings–like studded leather or silk scarves–would soon be the latest thing among the gilded youth in Thurn and the whole of Geso.

‘Your turn, Falka,’ said Mistle. ‘What will you have?’

Falka touched her friend’s thigh, leaned over and examined the tattoo. From very close. Mistle ruffled Falka’s ashen-grey hair tenderly. Falka giggled and, without further ado, began to undress.

‘I want the same rose,’ she said. ‘In the same place as you, darling.’