"They always said you had a flint for a heart, but I never thought even you would be so cold as to suggest I drink milk, damn you! Just one more shot of that old grape spirit." A drink, a drink, a drink. "Just one more and I'm done."

"Oh, you're done alright. How long you been drunk this time?"

"I've a notion it was summer when I started. What is it now?"

"Not the same year, that's sure. How much money have you wasted?"

"All there is and more. I'd be surprised if there's a coin in the world that hasn't been through my purse at some point. But I seem to be out of funds right now, so if you could just spare some change-"

"You need to make a change, not spend some."

He drew himself up, as far as his knees at least, and jabbed at his chest with a crabbing finger. "Do you suppose the shrivelled, piss-soaked, horrified better part of me, the part that screams to be released from this torture, doesn't know that?" He gave a helpless shrug, aching body collapsing on itself. "But for a man to change he needs the help of good friends, or, better yet, good enemies. My friends are all long dead, and my enemies, I am forced to admit... have better things to do."

"Not all of us." Another woman's voice, but one that sent a creeping shiver of familiarity down Cosca's back. A figure formed out of the gloom, mist sucked into smoky swirls after her flicking coat-tails.

"No..." he croaked.

He remembered the moment he first laid eyes on her: a wild-haired girl of nineteen with a sword at her hip and a bright stare rich with anger, defiance and the slightest fascinating hint of contempt. There was a hollowness to her face now, a twist of pain about her mouth. The sword hung on the other side, gloved right hand resting slack on the pommel. Her eyes still had that unwavering sharpness, but there was more anger, more defiance and a long stretch more contempt. Who could blame her for that? Cosca was beyond contemptible, and knew it.

He had sworn a thousand times to kill her, of course, if he ever saw her again. Her, or her brother, or Andiche, Victus, Sesaria, Faithful Carpi or any of the other treacherous bastards from the Thousand Swords who had once betrayed him. Stolen his place from him. Sent him fleeing from the battlefield at Afieri with his reputation and his clothes both equally tattered.

He had sworn a thousand times to kill her, but Cosca had broken all manner of oaths in his life, and the sight of her brought no rage. Instead what welled up in him was a mixture of worn-out self-pity, sappy joy and, most of all, piercing shame at seeing in her face how far he had fallen. He felt the ache in his nose, behind his cheeks, tears welling in his stinging eyes. For once he was grateful that they were red as wounds at the best of times. If he wept, no one could tell the difference.

"Monza." He tried to tug his filthy collar straight, but his hands were shaking too badly to manage it. "I must confess I heard you were dead. I was meaning to take revenge, of course-"

"On me or for me?"

He shrugged. "Difficult to remember... I stopped on the way for a drink."

"Smells like it was more than one." There was a hint of disappointment in her face that pricked at his insides almost worse than steel. "I heard you finally got yourself killed in Dagoska."

He managed to lift one arm high enough to wave her words away. "There have always been false reports of my death. Wishful thinking, on the part of my many enemies. Where is your brother?"

"Dead." Her face did not change.

"Well. I'm sorry for that. I always liked the boy." The lying, gutless, scheming louse.

"He always liked you." They had detested each other, but what did it matter now?

"If only his sister had felt as warmly about me, things might be so much different."

" 'Might be' takes us nowhere. We've all got... regrets."

They looked at each other for a long moment, her standing, him on his knees. Not quite how he had pictured their reunion in his dreams. "Regrets. The cost of the business, Sazine used to tell me."

"Perhaps we should put the past behind us."

"I can hardly remember yesterday," he lied. The past weighed on him like a giant's suit of armour.

"The future, then. I've a job for you, if you'll take it. Reckon you're up to a job?"

"What manner of job?"

"Fighting."

Cosca winced. "You always were far too attached to fighting. How often did I tell you? A mercenary has no business getting involved with that nonsense."

"A sword is for rattling, not for drawing."

"There's my girl. I've missed you." He said it without thinking, had to cough down his shame and nearly coughed up a lung.

"Help him up, Friendly."

A big man had silently appeared while they were talking, not tall but heavyset, with an air of calm strength about him. He hooked Cosca under his elbow and pulled him effortlessly to his feet.

"That's a strong arm and a good deed," he gurgled over a rush of nausea. "Friendly is your name? Are you a philanthropist?"

"A convict."

"I see no reason why a man cannot be both. My thanks in any case. Now if you could just point us in the direction of a tavern-"

"The taverns will have to wait for you," said Vitari. "No doubt causing a slump in the wine industry. The conference begins in a week and we need you sober."

"I don't do sober anymore. Sober hurts. Did someone say conference?"

Monza was still watching him with those disappointed eyes. "I need a good man. A man with courage and experience. A man who won't mind crossing Grand Duke Orso." The corner of her mouth curled up. "You're as close as we could find at short notice."

Cosca clung to the big man's arm while the misty street tipped around. "From that list, I have... experience?"

"I'll take one of four, if he needs money too. You need money, don't you, old man?"

"Shit, yes. But not as much as I need a drink."

"Do the job right and we'll see."

"I accept." He found he was standing tall, looking down at Monza now, chin held high. "We should have a Paper of Engagement, just like the old days. Written in swirly script, with all the accoutrements, the way Sajaam used to write them. Signed with red ink and... where can a man find a notary this time of night?"

"Don't worry. I'll take your word."

"You must be the only person in Styria who would ever say that to me. But as you please." He pointed decisively down the street. "This way, my man, and try to keep up." He boldly stepped forwards, his leg buckled and he squawked as Friendly caught him.

"Not that way," came the convict's slow, deep voice. He slid one hand under Cosca's arm and half-led him, half-carried him in the opposite direction.

"You are a gentleman, sir," muttered Cosca.

"I am a murderer."

"I see no reason why a man cannot be both..." Cosca strained to focus on Vitari, loping along up ahead, then at the side of Friendly's heavy face. Strange companions. Outsiders. Those no one else would find a use for. He watched Monza walking, the purposeful stride he remembered from long ago turned slightly crooked. Those who were willing to cross Grand Duke Orso. And that meant madmen, or those with no choices. Which was he?

The answer was in easy reach. There was no reason a man could not be both.

Left Out Friendly's knife flashed and flickered, twenty strokes one way and twenty the other, grazing the whetstone with a sharpening kiss. There was little worse than a blunt knife and little better than a sharp one, so he smiled as he tested the edge and felt that cold roughness against his fingertip. The blade was keen.

"Cardotti's House of Leisure is an old merchant's palace," Vitari was saying, voice chilly calm. "Wood-built, like most of Sipani, round three sides of a courtyard with the Eighth Canal right at its rear."

They had set up a long table in the kitchen at the back of the warehouse, and the six of them sat about it now. Murcatto and Shivers, Day and Morveer, Cosca and Vitari. On the table stood a model of a large wooden building on three sides of a courtyard. Friendly judged that it was one thirty-sixth the size of the real Cardotti's House of Leisure, though it was hard to be precise, and he liked very much to be precise.

Vitari's fingertip trailed along the windows on one side of the tiny building. "There are kitchens and offices on the ground floor, a hall for husk and another for cards and dice." Friendly pressed his hand to his shirt pocket and was comforted to feel his own dice nuzzling against his ribs. "Two staircases in the rear corners. On the first floor thirteen rooms where guests are entertained-"

"Fucked," said Cosca. "We're all adults here, let's call it what it is." His bloodshot eyes flickered up to the two bottles of wine on the shelf, then back. Friendly had noticed they did that a lot.

Vitari's finger drifted up towards the model's roof. "Then, on the top floor, three large suites for the... fucking of the most valued guests. They say the Royal Suite in the centre is fit for an emperor."

"Then Ario might just consider it fit for himself," growled Murcatto.

The group had grown from five to seven, so Friendly cut each of the two loaves into fourteen slices, the blade hissing through the crust and sending up puffs of flour dust. There would be twenty-eight slices in all, four slices each. Murcatto would eat less, but Day would make up for it. Friendly hated to leave a slice of bread uneaten.

"According to Eider, Ario and Foscar will have three or four dozen guests, some of them armed but not keen to fight, as well as six bodyguards."

"She telling the truth?" Shivers' heavy accent.

"Chance may play a part, but she won't lie to us."

"Keeping charge o' that many... we'll need more fighters."

"Killers," interrupted Cosca. "Again, let's call them what they are."

"Twenty, maybe," came Murcatto's hard voice, "as well as you three."

Twenty-three. An interesting number. Heat kissed the side of Friendly's face as he unhooked the door of the old stove and pulled it creaking open. Twenty-three could be divided by no other number, except one. No parts, no fractions. No half-measures. Not unlike Murcatto herself. He hauled the big pot out with a cloth around his hands. Numbers told no lies. Unlike people.

"How do we get twenty men inside without being noticed?"

"It's a revel," said Vitari. "There'll be entertainers. And we'll provide them."

"Entertainers?"

"This is Sipani. Every other person in the city is an entertainer or a killer. Shouldn't be too difficult to find a few who are both."

Friendly was left out of the planning, but he did not mind. Sajaam had asked him to do what Murcatto said, and that was the end of it. He had learned long ago that life became much easier if you ignored what was not right before you. For now the stew was his only concern.

He dipped in his wooden spoon and took a taste, and it was good. He rated it forty-one out of fifty. The smell of cooking, the sight of the steam rising, the sound of the fizzing logs in the stove, it all put him in comforting mind of the kitchens in Safety. Of the stews, and soups, and porridge they used to make in the great vats. Long ago, back when there was an infinite weight of comforting stone always above his head, and the numbers added, and things made sense.

"Ario will want to drink for a while," Murcatto was saying, "and gamble, and show off to his idiots. Then he'll be brought up to the Royal Suite."

Cosca split a crack-lipped grin. "Where women will be waiting for him, I take it?"

"One with black hair and one with red." Murcatto exchanged a hard look with Vitari.

"A surprise fit for an emperor," chuckled Cosca, wetly.

"When Ario's dead, which will be quickly, we'll move next door and pay Foscar the same kind of visit." Murcatto shifted her scowl to Morveer. "They'll have brought guards upstairs to watch things while they're busy. You and Day can handle them."

"Can we indeed?" The poisoner took a brief break from sneering at his fingernails. "A fit purpose for our talents, I am sure."

"Try not to poison half the city this time. We should be able to kill the brothers without raising any unwanted attention, but if something goes wrong, that's where the entertainers come in."

The old mercenary jabbed at the model with a quivery finger. "Take the courtyard first, the gaming and smoking halls, and from there secure the staircases. Disarm the guests and round them up. Politely, of course, and in the best taste. Keep control."

"Control." Murcatto's gloved forefinger stabbed the tabletop. "That's the word I want at the front of your tiny minds. We kill Ario, we kill Foscar. If any of the rest make trouble, you do what you have to, but keep the murder to a minimum. There'll be trouble enough for us afterwards without a bloodbath. You all got that?"

Cosca cleared his throat. "Perhaps a drink would help me to commit it all to-"

"I've got it." Shivers spoke over him. "Control, and as little blood as possible."

"Two murders." Friendly set the pot down in the middle of the table. "One and one, and no more. Food." And he began to ladle portions out into the bowls.

He would have liked very much to ensure that everyone had the exact same number of pieces of meat. The same number of pieces of carrot and onion too, the same number of beans. But by the time he had counted them out the food would have been cold, and he had learned that most people found that level of precision upsetting. It had led to a fight in the mess in Safety once, and Friendly had killed two men and cut a hand from another. He had no wish to kill anyone now. He was hungry. So he satisfied himself by giving each one of them the same number of ladles of stew, and coped with the deep sense of unease it left him.

"This is good," gurgled Day, around a mouthful. "This is excellent. Is there more?"

"Where did you learn to cook, my friend?" Cosca asked.

"I spent three years in the kitchens in Safety. The man who taught me used to be head cook to the Duke of Borletta."

"What was he doing in prison?"

"He killed his wife, and chopped her up, and cooked her in a stew, and ate it."

There was quiet around the table. Cosca noisily cleared his throat. "No one's wife in this stew, I trust?"

"The butcher said it was lamb, and I've no reason to doubt him." Friendly picked up his fork. "No one sells human meat that cheap."

There was one of those uncomfortable silences that Friendly always seemed to produce when he said more than three words at once. Then Cosca gave a gurgling laugh. "Depends on the circumstances. Reminds me of when we found those children, do you remember, Monza, after the siege at Muris?" Her scowl grew even harder than usual, but there was no stopping him. "We found those children, and we wanted to sell them on to some slavers, but you thought we could-"

"Of course!" Morveer almost shrieked. "Hilarious! What could possibly be more amusing than orphan children sold into slavery?"

There was another awkward silence while the poisoner and the mercenary gave each other a deadly glare. Friendly had seen men exchange that very look in Safety. When new blood came in, and prisoners were forced into a cell together. Sometimes two men would just catch each other wrong. Hate each other from the moment they met. Too different. Or too much the same. Things were harder to predict out here, of course. But in Safety, when you saw two men look at each other that way you knew, sooner or later, there would be blood.

A drink, a drink, a drink. Cosca's eyes lurched from that preening louse Morveer and down to the poisoner's full wine glass, around the glasses of the others, reluctantly back to his own sickening mug of water and finally to the wine bottle on the table, where his gaze was gripped as if by burning pincers. A quick lunge and he could have it. How much could he swallow before they wrestled it from his hands? Few men could drink faster when circumstances demanded- Then he noticed Friendly watching him, and there was something in the convict's sad, flat eyes that made him think again. He was Nicomo Cosca, damn it! Or he had been once, at least. Cities had trembled, and so on. He had spent too many years never thinking beyond his next drink. It was time to look further. To the drink after next, at any rate. But change was not easy.

He could almost feel the sweat springing out of his skin. His head was pulsing, booming with pain. He clawed at his itchy neck but that only made it itch the more. He was smiling like a skull, he knew, and talking far too much. But it was smile, and talk, or scream his exploding head off.

"...saved my life at the siege of Muris, eh, Monza? At Muris, was it?" He hardly even knew how his cracking voice had wandered onto the subject. "Bastard came at me out of nowhere. A quick thrust!" He nearly knocked his water cup over with a wayward jab of his finger. "And she ran him through! Right through the heart, I swear. Saved my life. At Muris. Saved my... life..."

And he almost wished she had let him die. The kitchen seemed to be spinning, tossing, tipping wildly like the cabin of a ship in a fatal tempest. He kept expecting to see the wine slosh from the glasses, the stew spray from the bowls, the plates slide from the see-sawing table. He knew the only storm was in his head, yet still found himself clinging to the furniture whenever the room appeared to heel with particular violence.