They opted to wait a few days before enacting the plot, so as not to make it obvious. During those long nights of caravanning through the Wastes, vainly trying to scare up some sort of game for the nobles to hunt that wouldn't actually kill them, Maroto let his imagination drift through scenarios in which Purna actually wanted to screw him. Which would, as a matter of principle, actually make him a whore, but he had known many, many whores over the years, and found them to be a generally good sort. Better to be a whore than a rich girl's plaything, anyway, and she'd hardly have been the first or the worst trick he'd turned in his time.

The long nights and sleeplessly hot days seemed longer with only these thoughts buzzing around in his head like trapped icebees, especially during the desert's twilight hours when the fops were hooting and giggling under their pavilions in the shale dust. Maroto did his best to ignore the glassgazers, taking every opportunity to partake of their food and drink without actually engaging them in conversation. Setting himself up as the stoic, quiet type had been something of a coup, but as the nights had turned into weeks their patience with his taciturnity had grown thin. If he couldn't provide them with adventure, he had damn well better feed them stories of it, but he wasn't big on that, either. Such songs as he'd lived through weren't for the likes of them.

One such evening he was standing in the shade of a collapsible gazebo, picking at a freshly set table of gleaming lamprey caviar and deviled moa eggs, sipping a bloody maram out of a gilt teacup, when Pasha Diggelby and Count Hassan sidled up on either side of him.

"What ho, Hassan, it seems our fearless leader has discovered quite the monstrous nest," Diggelby smirked, his curled goatee drooping in the heat, the bow-bedecked, alabaster-coated lapdog he held in his arm even more ridiculous looking than its master. "Pray, what sort of fell beast deposited these eggs, hmmm? And by stealing its brood, do you mean to entice the creature down upon us, so that we might at last have some of this sport you've been promising?"

"Mrumph," said Maroto. He wasn't actually saying anything, just making noise and letting half-chewed caviar run from his mouth as he spoke in the hope of repulsing these clowns into leaving him alone. "Mra mruphh mra."

It didn't work. Bracing himself on his camel-pizzle swagger stick, Hassan reached up on the tips of his suede boots and dabbed Maroto's chin with a monogrammed napkin. "It would seem our expert hunter has left his manners back on the canyon-top where he treated Purna to a private hunt. Tell us truthfully, oh veteran of a hundred wars, did she sing true when she told of your falling beneath the dragon's claws, of how she saved you from its clutches?"

"Wasn't a dragon," said Maroto, remembering too late that he didn't intend to actually talk to them. "Godguana, is all."

"A godguana!" said Diggelby. "Oh, that sounds even better. So when do we get to bring one down?"

The thought of putting these two in front of a territorial direlizard, with Hassan in his toga and gilded laurel wreath and Diggelby in his baggy pantaloons and carrying a bite-sized dog, brought a long-absent smile to Maroto's lips. Fuck these fucking nobles-if they wanted it so badly, he was only too happy to oblige. "Right now, lads. As soon as you retrieve your weapons and waterskins, we'll scale the far cliff there-the ripper vines will make it easy climbing, so long as you've got good gloves. Don't tell the others, though; we'll spook our quarry if there's more than a few of us along."

Hassan and Diggelby both looked skeptically at the side of the ravine in question. It was two hundred feet of vertical rock to what Maroto suspected to be a false summit. For all their talk, these two idiots didn't have much to say now, did they?

"What's all this about a climb?" said Tapai Purna, rounding the corner of the pavilion and allowing Hassan's stiff-backed Raniputri butler to pour her a frothy flute of bloody maram. Draining his teacup, Maroto wondered where in the First Dark she had found a proper receptacle for her drink-every time he asked for glassware, be it a coupe or a flute, snifter or stein, the hovering servants brought him a teacup. Probably another of the fops' stupid pranks at his expense. "Certainly you two gibs don't mean to go off for a hunt before our guide has espied the horizon? What a fine mess that would be, if you got all the way up to the top, only to be caught by a glass storm, or even better, a swarm!"

"Yes, naturally, we had no plans for an immediate departure," said Hassan, hastily backing away from the table, Diggelby at his side. "We haven't even had breakfast yet."

"You scout the firmament, barbarian, and when you're back down, we can go up," said Diggelby. "Ta."

"Thanks for that," said Maroto. "Now I get to climb twice, assuming they don't weak out."

"You're very welcome," said Purna, sliding the empty teacup off his thick pinky with her slim, kid-gloved fingers. "Don't worry, we'll give them plenty of time to soak up some courage. First, though, let's see about getting you paid, shall we?"

Scrambling up a narrow defile with the mischievous lordling and then leaving her to make a faux lovenest while he summited the increasingly sheer slope was no fun at all. Clear skies improved his mood mildly, and coming back down to find she had packed several bottles of sparkling Eyvindian wine, a partially smushed wedge of pungent, green-veined cheese, and a crock of olives perked it up even more. "Precocious" was certainly not a word Maroto ever would have used to describe himself, but there was something undeniably amusing about sitting on the shelf of sandstone overlooking the camp and punctuating his snacking with lusty roars. Purna's moans and wails would have made a greener fellow blush, but Maroto had long since outgrown such things as being discomfited by a fake orgasm. Between mouthfuls, he gave her pointers-like most youngsters, she was overselling it.

A decent way to kill a morning, then. It brought back happy memories of his too-brief acting career, where he'd first learned how Imperials thought barbarians were supposed to behave. Those had been the days, traveling from one Arm of the Star to the next with Kiki and Carla and Two-eyed Jacques and all the rest, back before he'd ever heard of the Cobalt Company, let alone got mixed up with them... Back before he'd been fool enough to think he could better the world. Before he'd been fool enough to fall in love.

As was always the case, warm memories cooled quickly in Maroto's breast, and he gave a climactic bellow to refocus himself on his current endeavor, which was a lot more enjoyable than stewing in his usual barrel's worth of regrets. Not as enjoyable as actually screwing, mind, but that went without saying. Then again, Purna was slathered in her fashionable corpsepaint, midnight blue designs orbiting out around eyes and mouth, and between that and the imponderable puzzle of her stiff-ribbed petticoats he doubted he would have been able to do the deed, even if she'd been of a mood. It would be like trying to fuck an amorous ghoul after you'd rolled it up in a rug.

Guzzling the dregs from the last bottle, Maroto stood, woozier from the heat than the booze, and extended his hand to Purna. "That ought to be more than sufficient, I'd say. Let's get down before the rocks are too hot to climb."

"One last detail," said Purna, taking his hand and pulling herself to her feet. She sprang upon him with the speed of a devil, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, furiously kissing his throat. He nearly struck her off him in surprise, but then warmed to the ardent attack. He gingerly lowered them both back down to the steep, sandy ground-who knew if a randy ghoul in a rug might be better than your hand, until you try? On his hands and knees over the girl, her lips moved from his neck to his mouth, and Maroto gave a genuine groan at the taste of this pretty wee drag-faced noble.

Then she was away, nibbling his ear, and his fingers clumsily kneaded the layers of whalebone girding her chest, running his hand from her inaccessible bosom to her insulated groin and back up again.

"Rip it," she breathed, the salty musk of wine and olives not exactly sultry, but close enough. Yet as soon as he dug his fingers into the fabric and came away with a handful of lace, ribbons, and drawstrings, she gave a little squeal and dropped her legs and arms from around his body. He almost apologized, but then she wriggled down beneath him, hands and then head pressing up against the thickening throb in his short breeches...

And then she scooted the rest of the way out from under his legs, leaving him straddling a girl-shaped dust angel. Her voice, breathy but not heavy, put the shrivel on him like he'd been touched by a lich. "Perfect! Nobody will doubt our story now."

Clambering up, he had to fess that they both looked... tousled. He peevishly tried to wipe her makeup tracks off his crotch, but only succeeded in rubbing them in. Great. Purna beamed at him as she put her gloves back on. Maroto scowled, knowing exactly what this little tease needed, and being of half a mind to give it to her, here and now, and damn the consequences.

And why shouldn't he? She had it coming, that was beyond question, and better he just take care of the business now, while they were safely away from the rest. A strong talking-to would do her a world of good, yes it fucking would.

Of course, Maroto knew that lecturing the brat was the last way he'd ever get into her bloomers, but the old devil of his pride forced his mouth.

"Being a flirt is one thing, Tapai Purna," he said, wagging his finger at her, "but nobody likes being made the fool. It's an ugly business, leading somebody on. If you don't fancy a fellow or lady or whatever, that's fine as good wine, but making play like you do only to have a laugh at their expense is about the lowest prize you can claim. And if you truly take comfort in such sport, well. I'd expect such behavior from your friends, but thought better of you."

"Oh, tosh. You never would have, if I'd asked, but it was necessary," said Purna, shifting her wig so that it sat off kilter before picking up her wide-brimmed sunhat. "We'll be lucky if Duchess Din doesn't demand to inspect me for your spendings before paying out."

"Buh!" said Maroto, these nobles even loonier than he'd reckoned. Then again, they'd come too far to risk the bet now... "I mean, if you think she might..."

"If she does I'll just say you shot off in my mouth," said Purna, turning her corseted back on him and eyeing the descent. "After giving me lots and lots of scrumptious orgasms, of course. I know you've got your reputation to think of."

Maroto tried to cheer himself up by imagining what might make an orgasm scrumptious, but soon gave up. Too bloody hot for such thoughts, let alone such deeds. So he told himself, anyway. Shaking his bubbly-tickled head, he clambered back down to camp.

The plan worked. They bought the deception. What a fool Maroto was.

Before, he'd been loaded in the one currency these miserable parasites lacked: honor. And now he'd traded it all away for what amounted to a pittance of their collective material fortunes. Well, maybe he hadn't actually been that respectable to start with, but they'd certainly thought highly of him, and in any case he'd been worthier than they, refusing to play their little games.

Well, except for the little game of leading them on a dangerous adventure from which some of them might never return. That little game he'd signed on for without hesitation, and for not a great deal more than he'd just earned from Purna.

Be that as it may, things felt different now, and not for the better. Before, he'd pretended not to give a devil's damn that the coxcombs all whispered and pointed and giggled whenever he was around, but now the jeering note in their attention cut into his ear far more keenly. He wasn't only a rich girl's plaything, he was a lordling's object of ridicule, a second son's punch line, a zir's zinger. He wasn't just a beast, but a trained one, same as any circus bear taught to beg for his breakfast. When the crowds taunted those miserable creatures, did they dream of escaping to some deep, dark den in the Black Cascades, away from the bright lights and cruel attentions, or did they dream of having their claws back, their filed-down teeth sharp again, the chain 'round their necks broken? Did a beast fantasize of revenge on its captors, the same as a barbarian might, or a weirdborn certainly would? Those last were quick enough to turn on their tormentors, Maroto knew.

"Ho, the fancy stallion approacheth!"

It was past midnight several days after the event Maroto had come to think of as the Shaming, and he'd ridden his dromedary to the front of the caravan in hope that Captain Gilleland and his men would prove better company than the arsehole richies. Apparently not. The barb had come from the captain himself, and the dozen other chevaleresses, sellswords, and bodyguards laughed at their ringleader's jest. Unlike the anonymous lesser nobles who had jogged zero memories in Maroto, he had recognized some of their hired muscle, by reputation if nothing else, and from the grudging respect they'd given him he knew that his own ballad-worthy history was known to them as well.

Now they laughed at him, too.

"Find any wondrous caves we could plunder, stallion?"

With the nobles, it was unlikely he would ever climb back into their good graces. They had paid him for adventure, whatever the fuck that meant, and he had failed to deliver any of the expected fortune, glory, or excitement-only lethal heat and ugly terrain. Bad enough, but by throwing his lot in with Tapai Purna, first in a private godguana hunt and then a sexual conspiracy, he'd alienated himself further from the bulk of them by playing favorites, and with an Ugrakari to boot.

"Silent as any stud, eh?"

There was still time to patch things up with these roughnecks, though-take their burns on the chin, make a joke at his own expense. Play it off. No shame in fucking a fair young noble, unless the world had changed beyond recognition. If anything, it would humanize him to these toughs, bring the legend down to their level, make him one of them. How long had it been since he'd ridden with hard folk who thought him equal, rather than better than they, or, sure, as was more often the case of late, their lesser? Maroto sat straighter on his dromedary, giving the heavily armed outriders his stoniest stare.

"Now I know why they hired him-after the way he fucked the Crimson Empire, they figured him to be the best lay on the Star!"

But, and it was a pretty important but, fuck these fucking fucks right in their fucking faces. He had stared down devils, laid low mighty kingdoms, and they dared speak to him thus? He wheeled his camel away from them, knowing if he opened his mouth he would say something that would result in them stopping their steeds and demanding he fight them then and there, for honor's sake. A younger Maroto would have fallen right into the trap, but he wasn't some hornless pup anymore-he would wait until they were safely bedded down for the day, murder the lookouts, and then slit their throats, one by one, starting with the guards and working his way down through the nobles, until he was alone in the Wastes.

Except of course he wouldn't. The thought gave him enough succor to tactically retreat from the hostile situation without his mouth landing him in an unmarked grave, but once he was safely in the shadows between pleasure wagons he let the cowardly notion float up into the broiling night air. What he would actually do was wait until they arrived in Niles, take fops and fop guards alike to an inn, and then promptly instigate an epic bar fight. This would provide him with the opportunity to smash in Captain Gilleland's teeth, and the gold-flecked grills of a few nobles while he was at it, but the city militia wouldn't let it actually progress to a dozen bodyguards chopping him down in cold blood. Probably. In any event, Niles was only a few nights' ride away, and once there he would beat some manners into the lot of these highborns and their dogs.

Except of course he didn't. Before they had even unhitched the wagons and unbuttoned their ruffs at the caravansary in Niles, Maroto strode away into the City on the Edge of Hell, shoving Purna aside when she ran after and tried to talk him into returning to the party.

"You were contracted to take us here and back," said Purna, shrugging off the blow far easier than Maroto expected. "You won't receive any wages for taking us across the Wastes but not providing passage home. They'll make you pay them, in all likelihood, for breaking your contract, and for the food and drink you consumed, to say naught of the inconvenience of-"

"Here." Maroto yanked the purse she had given him and threw it at her feet. He regretted it before it even hit the packed black sand of the street. "I'd rather be a poor man than a rich dog."

"You really shouldn't take everything so seriously," said Purna, making no move to retrieve the purse. More than one veiled passerby was slowing to watch the altercation. "If you like I'll see if I can discourage them from riding you so hard. It would certainly help matters if you could find someone or something for them to fight; I know I've felt worlds better about the whole affair since you and I took down that drag-"

"Lizard!" barked Maroto. "It was just a big fucking lizard, nothing more, and if I had my way I'd feed the lot of you to the godguanas!"

"So there's nothing I can do to convince you to come back?" Her glittery lips pouted. The lecture he'd given her had clearly been a waste of breath. "Tell me your price, and I'll see what I can't muster. I... I really respect you, Maroto. A lot."

"You talk about respect in the same breath you ask what my price is? There is no damn price! I'm done with the Wastes-I'll never set foot there again, ever. And as for you, I'd sooner float through the Sea of Devils on a raft made of meat than sail a pleasure pontoon across Lake Jucifuge with you dandies and your hired goons. You're all alike, and I'm done with you. Forever."

"I thought you were a lot smarter than this," said Purna sadly, plucking up the purse. "And what's in here won't even begin to cover what the lawyers will demand for this gross breach of bond. They'll come for their silver."

"Yes, well, first they'll have to find me," said Maroto, wishing he'd come up with something smarter even as she turned her back on him. Which was rudeness on top of rudeness, since he'd been the one storming off, yet there she went, depriving him of even a proper exit. The small crowd of Usban travelers who had gathered now wandered off, too, leaving Maroto to stand in the middle of the busy street, wishing he hadn't just given up the bulk of his money in an unappreciated gesture.

What meager funds he had left he promptly set to drinking away in the first dive he came to, a wide adobe complex a few blocks from the caravansary. Before long he'd consumed enough to convince himself that this, as with everything else that had led to this moment in his life, wasn't such a bad turnout. He could head farther down into Usba proper, hit the Honeyed Coast at Trve, and pick up work on a ship heading... well, anywhere but here. The Southern Arm was too devil-loved hot for a Flintlander out of the Frozen Savannahs.

The barkeep was evidently Geminidean, and as he served a pair of chain-draped pilgrims recently arrived from the Crimson Empire they filled him in on sundry rumors of import from back home. Maroto initially paid the tonsured women no mind, but then one of their voices sliced through his sun-stewed skull: "... more than a few rebels, though-they're professionals, is the thought, given how effective they are, maybe a mercenary band hired by the Raniputri or Immaculates to stir up trouble."

Nothing exciting, that, but then the other pilgrim interjected: "Hear this, though-they're led by a blue-haired general with the faceplate of a devil dog, and at least one of her captains wore the helm of a Villain, if not more. Need I tell you what color banner they flew?"

For the first time in a very long time, Maroto felt dizzy from more than the drink, and he clung to the basalt bartop.

"That story's older than my firstborn," said the barkeep, nodding at the wench serving mugs of kumis at the other end of the tavern. "I haven't heard it in ages, though; glad to hear it's making a comeback. It'd be a shame if people stopped telling it."

"That's what I told her," said the first pilgrim.

"I heard it from my sister, who heard it from her superior," argued the second. "These are holy women, not song-singers looking to attract a crowd. The company ambushed a garrison outside Agalloch not a month past."

"If not a tall tale, then clever impostors seeking to hijack a legend rather than build a reputation," said the barkeep. "Unless you believe in ghosts, sister?"

"No one knows for sure what became of the Villains after their queen was executed," said the first pilgrim. "So perhaps the captain is genuine, and their leader a fake. That way you're both right."

"I never said I believed it was really her," said the second pilgrim defensively. "Simply that mercenaries waving the Cobalt flag were seen outside Agalloch. Unlike others I could name, I prefer to repeat facts, not speculate on rumors, even when the details of such facts are admittedly scant."

There may have been more to the conversation, but Maroto did not know, for he staggered out of the tavern. From the caravansary, he quickly picked up the trail of the fops. Following their tinny cries through the baking streets, and occasionally stumbling into the walls of the tight-packed houses that scalded like the sides of a tandoor, he eventually caught up to them at an establishment of decidedly grander stature than the one at which he had drunk.

Purna had not gotten around to informing the others of Maroto's desertion, and so all seemed as he had left it. Within an hour he was contentedly asleep on the cool tile floor beneath one of the inn's plush benches, and two dusks later they were rolling back out into the desert, Maroto having successfully convinced the testy nobles that he had a hot tip on some "real adventure" to be found on the Desperate Road: the most direct, and therefore most dangerous, route back across the Panteran Wastes.

CHAPTER.

11.

As Zosia repacked her gear in the customs house on the far side of the wall, the guard who had brokered her admittance sauntered into the brightly lit chamber. Compared to the polished, spotlessly maintained armor of the Immaculates, Zosia's old adventuring kit looked downright shoddy. Choplicker did his tottering, just-an-old-dog-shaking-his-butt approach to the young soldier, who scratched him behind the ears and cooed to the foul monster.

"Thanks again," said Zosia as she pulled the drawstring tight and turned around to maneuver the massive pack from the table onto her aching shoulders. It was full dark now that customs had finally gotten done with her, and she still had to find an inn or flophouse in Linkensterne. "Anywhere cheap and clean you'd recommend in the city?"

"Sure," said the guard, patting Choplicker and straightening up. The fiend whined as she took her hand away. "Let's get moving. You can tell me if you're talking food and drink, men or women or what-have-you, or just a bunk."

"You're my minder?" In the old days many of the isles required an escort for visitors, but on the coast foreigners had been free to come and go as they pleased.

"Bang Lin," said the guard with the faintest suggestion of a bow, her back barely curving. "It's my neck if you're a spy or assassin. Told the captain you seemed friendly, so I get to play chaperone until you prove me right. Or wrong."

"That's one I owe you, then." Depending on how things shook out with Kang-ho it could go either way, but for all their sakes Zosia hoped she proved Bang Lin correct. Anyway, there were worse traveling companions than handsome youths... but as soon as her thoughts started down the path to private chambers instead of a common room, she remembered the weight of her husband's severed head in her hand, the butcher's-stall smell of his hair. The mountain crossing had been cold and lonely enough that she had actually considered letting Choplicker curl up against her when she slept, but it was still too fresh to entertain thoughts of companionship. She'd lost lovers before, plenty of them, but this was something else entirely-the ache had only grown worse with time, and though the thought that she was further fattening up Choplicker turned her stomach, there was nothing she could do to soften the hurt. Not until she had the means to go after the ones responsible for what had happened.

"So long as you don't cause any trouble, we can call it even," said Bang. "What's your dog's name? He's cute."

Choplicker barked his assent at this, nuzzling his head back under Bang's dangling palm. The soldier was delighted. Zosia grimaced.

"I call him a lot of things, but cute ain't one of them. Dumb mutt comes no matter what you say."

"So long as you don't call him late for supper, right?"

"Right," said Zosia, remembering Choplicker as he had been on campaign twenty-odd years before, feasting on the suffering of the dead and dying until his gut dragged on the ground. It might have been comical, like something you'd see on a Samothan woodcut of a half-forgotten fable, but to witness such wanton gluttony, to watch the creature's flesh warp to accommodate its appetite... there was nothing funny about it. "A bath, food, drink, smoke, and a bed. That order."

"We can do that," said Bang, ushering Zosia out the door. "But Linkensterne's liable to be different than you remembered, and not for the better."

"I remember it being a real shithole," said Zosia as she stepped out into the chill night.

"Then maybe it hasn't changed much," said Bang, saluting the customs officer lounging on a bench by the door as they headed up the road.

This had been farm country, but all of the old outlying ranches had been demolished, the buildings scrapped to construct barracks. A string of pink paper lanterns hung from poles leading back to the gate, and ahead of them the lights were strung from the dwarf pines and plum trees that bordered the road cutting through the overgrown fields. The city glowed at the end of the lantern string, the biggest beacon of them all.

The Immaculate influence on Linkensterne had always been stronger than just a few bun-carts and noodlehouses to offset the typical sausage-and-beerhall eateries of the Crimson Empire, and a higher proportion of Immaculate whores than you'd find in the nonspecialty brothels of Nottap or Eyvind. The city proudly displayed its bordertown lineage on its skyline, with half-timbered pagodas and stupa-based, steeple-crowned churches towering above the narrow streets, the sharply angled roofs of Imperial-styled rowhouses bumping end-tiles with the swooping curves of Immaculate construction. Far from feeling as though two cultures had been awkwardly pressed together as you saw in some cities on the Star-places in which the people and the architecture stuck to their own quarters-in Linkensterne it felt as though the city had been jointly raised in harmonious collaboration. The reason for this was simple: it had. A fire had leveled the spot some hundred years before, and a broad mix of Imperial and Immaculate interests had rebuilt it. The city stood as a testament to the potential for two peoples to come together and erect a shared future.

The city was also a total dump, with the exception of the Merchant's Quarter, which was judiciously walled off from the rest of Linkensterne and could only be entered by appointment. The rest of town was run-down and rampant with crime both petty and violent, in contrast to the more sophisticated corruption that took place among the governing merchants. The only thing worse than a royal city was a free one, where the ruling elite rarely forked over the funds for sanitation or a decent municipal militia.

When they tromped into town Zosia could see at a glance how much things had changed. They were entering the Black Earth district, which was on the opposite end of Linkensterne from the Merchant's Quarter, yet the streets were fairly clear of shit and refuse, and a pair of uniformed militia thugs stood on the corner of most intersections. Lit lanterns on lampposts were the rule instead of the exception, and four blocks in Zosia had yet to see anyone lying dead drunk-or just plain dead-on the too-clean street.

"You were right," she said, "things have changed."

"I heard it was a lot of fun before we incorporated it," said Bang wistfully. "Now it's just a broke-down version of an Immaculate city."

"Did a lot of merchants pull up stakes? They can't have been happy about being conquered."

"Oh, they hate the handover like you wouldn't believe, but it's not like they've got a lot of options-you know any other free cities on the Norwest Arm? Me, neither. So most of those crooks stayed put and have tried to make the best of it. Hard as a barnacle's breast, doing shady trades with Immaculate oversight, but a tough tit is better than none at all, eh?"

"That's why the caravans are lined up for days outside the wall." Zosia hadn't been back a day and was already soured on Star politics.

"Days or weeks, depends on who they're here to trade with," said Bang. "Those merchants who were more... receptive to the handover, they get invitations so their guests breeze through customs with a municipal pass instead of waiting in the queue. The merchants who aren't so amenable about Immaculate overseers, well, their goods take a little longer to clear the wall."

"And bad luck for any poor saps waiting on the merchants to provide medicine or supplies, right?" It filled Zosia's mouth with vinegar, all this familiar squabbling, with the commoners caught in the middle.

"Bad luck for some, but good luck for others," said Bang. "Merchants who were on the outs with the old Linkensterne elite have found their prospects much improved by finding new slippers to kiss."