"Soon."

"They're getting everyone together downstairs. We need to be off to Cardotti's. Lay the groundwork. The importance of preparation and all that." It sounded as if she was talking with her mouth full. It would, in fact, have been a surprise had she not been.

"I will catch up with you!" He heard her footsteps moving off. There, at least, was one person with the requisite admiration for his magisterial skills, who rendered him the fitting respect, exceeded his lofty expectations. He was coming to rely on her a great deal, he realised, both practically and emotionally. More than was cautious, perhaps.

But even a man of Morveer's extraordinary talents could not manage everything himself. He gave a long sigh, and turned from the mirror.

The entertainers, or the killers, for they were both, were scattered around the warehouse floor. Twenty-five of them, if Friendly counted himself. The three Gurkish dancers sat crossed-legged-two with their ornate cat-face masks pushed up on their oiled black hair. The last had her mask down, eyes glistening darkly behind the slanted eyeholes, rubbing carefully at a curved dagger. The band were already dressed in smart black jackets and tights striped grey and yellow, their silvered masks in the shape of musical notes, practising a jig they had finally managed to play half-decently.

Shivers stood nearby in a stained leather tunic with balding fur on the shoulders, a big round wooden shield on his arm and a heavy sword in the other hand. Greylock loomed opposite, an iron mask covering his whole face, a great club set with iron studs in his fists. Shivers was talking fast in Northern, showing how he was going to swing his sword, how he wanted Greylock to react, practising the show they would put on.

Barti and Kummel, the acrobats, wore tight-fitting chequered motley, arguing with each other in the tongue of the Union, one of them passionately waving a short stabbing sword. The Incredible Ronco watched from behind a mask painted vivid red, orange and yellow, like dancing flames. Beyond him the three jugglers were filling the air with a cascade of shining knives, flashing and flickering in the half-darkness. Others lounged against crates, sat cross-legged on the floor, capered about, sharpened blades, tinkered with costumes.

Friendly hardly recognised Cosca himself, dressed in a velvet coat heavy with silver embroidery, a tall hat on his head and a long black cane in his hand with a heavy golden knob on the end. The rash on his neck was disguised with powder. His greying moustaches were waxed to twinkling curves, his boots were polished to a glistening shine, his mask was crusted with splinters of sparkling mirror, but his eyes sparkled more.

He swaggered towards Friendly with the smirk of a ringmaster at a circus. "My friend, I hope you are well. My thanks again for your ear this morning."

Friendly nodded, trying not to grin. There was something almost magical about Cosca's aura of good humour. He had the utter confidence to talk, and talk, and know he would be listened to, laughed with, understood. It almost made Friendly want to talk himself.

Cosca held something out. A mask in the shape of a pair of dice, showing double one with eyeholes where the spots should have been. "I hoped you might do me the favour of minding the dice table tonight."

Friendly took the mask from him with a trembling hand. "I would like that very much."

Their mad crew wound through the twisting streets as the morning mists were clearing-down grey alleys, over narrow bridges, through hazy, rotting gardens and along damp tunnels, footfalls hollow in the gloom. The treacherous water was never far off, Shivers wrinkling his nose at the salt stink of the canals.

Half the city was masked and in costume, and it seemed they all had something to celebrate. Folk who weren't invited to the great ball in honour of Sipani's royal visitors had their own revels planned, and a lot of 'em were getting started good and early. Some hadn't gone too wild with their costumes-holiday coats and dresses with a plain mask around their eyes. Some had gone wild, then further still-huge trousers, high shoes, gold and silver faces locked up in animal snarls and madman grins. Put Shivers in mind of the Bloody-Nine's face when he fought in the circle, devil smile spattered with blood. That did nothing for his nerves. Didn't help he was wearing fur and leather like he used to in the North, carrying a heavy sword and shield not much different from ones he'd used in earnest. A crowd poured past all covered in yellow feathers, masks with great beaks, squawking like a flock of crazy seagulls. That did nothing for his nerves either.

Off in the mist, half-glimpsed round corners and across hazy squares, there were stranger shapes still, their hoots and warbles echoing down the wooden alleyways. Monsters and giants. Made Shivers' palms itch, thinking of the way the Feared rose out of the mist up at Dunbrec, bringing death with him. These were just silly bastards on stilts, of course, but still. You put a mask on a person, something weird happens. Changes the way they act along with the way they look. Sometimes they don't seem like people at all no more, but something else.

Shivers wouldn't have liked the flavour of it even if they hadn't been planning murder. Felt like the city was built on the borders of hell and devils were spilling out into the streets, mixing with the everyday and no one acting like there was much special about it. He had to keep reminding himself that, of all the strange and dangerous-seeming crowds, his was much the strangest and most dangerous they were likely to happen across. If there were devils in the city, he was one of the worst. Wasn't actually that comforting a thought, once it'd taken root.

"This way, my friends!" Cosca led them across a square planted with four clammy, leafless trees and a building loomed up from the gloom-a large wooden building on three sides of a courtyard. The same building that had been sitting on the kitchen table at the warehouse the last few days. Four well-armed guards were frowning around a gate of iron bars, and Cosca sprang smartly up the steps towards them, heels clicking. "A fine morning to you, gentlemen!"

"Cardotti's is closed today," the nearest growled back, "and tonight too."

"Not to us." Cosca took in the mismatched troupe with a sweep of his cane. "We are the entertainers for this evening's private function, selected and hired especially for the purpose by Prince Ario's consort, Carlot dan Eider. Now open that gate quick sharp, we have a great deal of preparation to attend to. In we come, my children, and don't dally! People must be entertained!"

The yard was bigger'n Shivers had been expecting, and a lot more of a disappointment too, since this was supposed to be the best brothel in the world. A stretch of mossy cobbles with a couple of rickety tables and chairs, painted in flaking gilt. Lines were strung from upstairs windows, sheets flapping sluggishly as they dried. A set of wine-barrels were badly stacked in one corner. A bent old man was sweeping with a worn-out broom, a fat woman was giving what might've been some underwear a right thrashing on a washboard. Three skinny women sat about a table, bored. One had an open book in her hand. Another frowned at her nails as she worked 'em with a file. The last slouched in her chair, watching the entertainers file in while she blew smoke from a little clay chagga pipe.

Cosca sighed. "There's nothing more mundane, or less arousing, than a whorehouse in the daytime, eh?"

"Seems not." Shivers watched the jugglers find a space over in one corner and start to unpack their tools, gleaming knives among 'em.

"I've always thought it must be a fine enough life, being a whore. A successful one, at any rate. You get the days off, and when finally you are called upon to work you can get most of it done lying down."

"Not much honour in it," said Shivers.

"Shit at least makes flowers grow. Honour isn't even that useful."

"What happens when you get old, though, and no one wants you no more? Seems to me all you're doing is putting off the despair and leaving a pack of regrets behind you."

Below Cosca's mask, his smile had a sad twist. "That's all any of us are doing, my friend. Every business is the same, and ours is no different. Soldiering, killing, whatever you want to call it. No one wants you when you get old." He strutted past Shivers and into the courtyard, cane flicking backwards and forwards with each stride. "One way or another, we're all of us whores!" He snatched a fancy cloth from a pocket, waved it at the three women as he passed and gave a bow. "Ladies. A most profound honour."

"Silly old cock," Shivers heard one of them mutter in Northern, before she went back to her pipe. The band were already tuning up, making almost as sour a whine as when they were actually playing.

Two tall doorways led from the yard-left to the gaming hall, right to the smoking hall, from those to the two staircases. His eyes crept up the ivy-covered wall, herringbone planks of weather-darkened wood, to the row of narrow windows on the first floor. Rooms for the entertainment of guests. Higher still, to bigger windows of coloured glass, just under the roofline. The Royal Suite, where the most valued visitors were welcomed. Where they planned to welcome Prince Ario and his brother Foscar in a few hours.

"Oy." A touch on his shoulder, and he turned, and stood blinking.

A tall woman stood behind him, a shining black fur draped around her shoulders, long black gloves on her long arms, black hair scraped over to one side and hanging soft and smooth across her white face. Her mask was scattered with chips of crystal, eyes gleaming through the narrow slots and set on him.

"Er..." Shivers had to make himself look away from her chest, the shadow between her tits drawing his eyes like a bear's to a beehive. "Something I can... you know..."

"I don't know, is there?" Her painted lips twisted up at one corner, part sneer and part smile. Seemed as if there was something familiar about that voice. Through the slit in her skirts he could just see the end of a long pink scar on her thigh.

"Monza?" he whispered.

"Who else as fine as this would have anything to say to the likes of you?" She eyed him up and down. "This brings back memories. You look almost as much of a savage as when I first met you."

"That's the idea, I reckon. You look, er..." He struggled for the word.

"Like a whore?"

"A damn pricey one, maybe."

"I'd hate to look a cheap one. I'm headed upstairs, to wait for our guests. All goes well, I'll see you at the warehouse."

"Aye. If all goes well." Shivers' life had a habit of not going well. He frowned up at those stained-glass windows. "You going to be alright?"

"Oh, I can handle Ario. I've been looking forward to it."

"I know, but, I'm just saying... if you need me closer-"

"Stick your tiny mind to keeping things under control down here. Let me worry about me."

"I'm worried enough that I can spare some."

"Thought you were an optimist," she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away.

"Maybe you talked me out of it," he muttered at her back. He didn't like it much when she spoke to him that way, but he liked it a lot better'n when she wouldn't speak to him at all. He saw Greylock glowering at him as he turned, and stabbed an angry finger at the big bastard. "Don't just stand there! Let's get this damn fake circle marked out, 'fore we get old!"

Monza was a long way from comfortable as she teetered through the gambling hall, Cosca beside her. She wasn't used to the high shoes. She wasn't used to the draught around her legs. Corsets were torture at the best of times, and it hardly helped that this one had two of the bones removed and replaced with long, thin knives, the points up between her shoulder blades and the grips hidden in the small of her back. Her ankles, and her knees, and her hips were already throbbing. The notion of a smoke tickled at the back of her mind, just like always, but she forced it away. She'd endured enough pain, these past few months. A little more was a light price to pay if it got her close to Ario. Close enough to stick a blade in his sneering face. The thought alone put some swagger back into her step.

Carlot dan Eider waited for them at the end of the room, standing with regal superiority between two card tables covered with grey sheets, wearing a red dress fit for an empress of legend.

"Will you look at the two of us?" sneered Monza as she came close. "A general dressed like a whore and a whore dressed like a queen. Everyone's pretending to be someone else tonight."

"That's politics." Ario's mistress frowned over at Cosca. "Who's this?"

"Magister Eider, what a delightful and unexpected honour." The old mercenary bowed as he swept his hat off, exposing his scabrous, sweat-beaded bald patch. "I never dreamed the two of us would meet again."

"You!" Eider stared coldly back at him. "I might have known you'd be caught up in this. I thought you died in Dagoska!"

"So did I, but it turned out I was only very, very drunk."

"Not so drunk you couldn't fumble your way to betraying me."

The old mercenary shrugged. "It's always a crying shame when honest people are betrayed. When it happens to the treacherous, though, one cannot avoid a certain sense of... cosmic justice." Cosca grinned from Eider, to Monza, and back. "Three people as loyal as us all on one side? I can hardly wait to see how this turns out."

Monza's guess was that it would turn out bloody. "When will Ario and Foscar get here?"

"When Sotorius' grand ball begins to break up. Midnight, or just before."

"We'll be waiting."

"The antidote," snapped Eider. "I've done my part."

"You'll get it when I get Ario's head on a plate. Not before."

"What if something goes wrong?"

"You'll die along with the rest of us. Better hope things run smoothly."

"What's to stop you from letting me die anyway?"

"My dazzling reputation for fair play and good behaviour."

Unsurprisingly, Eider didn't laugh. "I tried to do the right thing in Dagoska." She jabbed at her chest with a finger. "I tried to do the right thing! I tried to save people! Look what it's cost me!"

"There might be a lesson in there about doing the right thing." Monza shrugged. "I've never had that problem."

"You can joke! Do you know what it's like, to live in fear every moment?"

Monza took a quick step towards her and she shrank back against the wall. "Living in fear?" she snarled, their masks almost scraping together. "Welcome to my fucking life! Now quit whining and smile for Ario and the other bastards at the ball tonight!" She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Then bring him to us. Him and his brother. Do as I tell you, and you might still get a happy ending."

She knew that neither one of them thought that very likely. There'd be precious few happy endings to tonight's festivities.

Day turned the drill one last time, bit squealing through wood, then eased it gently free. A chink of light peeped up into the darkness of the attic and brightly illuminated a circular patch of her cheek. She grinned across at Morveer, and he was touched by a sudden bitter-sweet memory of his mother's smiling face by candlelight. "We're through."

Now was hardly the time for nostalgia. He swallowed the upwelling of emotion and crept over, taking the greatest care to set his feet only upon the rafters. A black-clad leg bursting through the ceiling and kicking wildly would no doubt give Orso's sons and their guards some cause for concern. Peering down through the hole, doubtless invisible among the thick mouldings, Morveer could see an opulent stretch of panelled corridor with a rich Gurkish carpet and two high doorways. A crown was carved into the wood above the nearer one.

"Perfect positioning, my dear. The Royal Suite." From here they had an unobstructed view of guards stationed by either door. He reached into his jacket, and frowned. He patted at his other pockets, panic stabbing at him.

"Damn it! I forgot my spare blowpipe! What if-"

"I brought two extra, just in case."

Morveer pressed one hand to his chest. "Thank the Fates. No! Damn the Fates. Thank your prudent planning. Where would I be without you?"

Day grinned her innocent little grin. "About where you are now, but with less charming company. Caution first, always."

"So true." He dropped his voice back to a whisper. "And here they come." Murcatto and Vitari appeared, both masked, powdered and dressed, or rather undressed, like the many female employees of the establishment. Vitari opened the door beneath the crown and entered. Murcatto glanced briefly up at the ceiling, nodded, then followed her. "They are within. So far all proceeds according to plan." But there was ample time yet for disasters. "The yard?"

Day wriggled on her stomach to the far edge of the attic where roof met rafters, and peered through the holes they had drilled overlooking the building's central courtyard. "Looks as if they're ready to welcome our guests. What now?"

Morveer crept to the minuscule, grubby window and brushed some cobwebs away with the side of one hand. The sun was sinking behind the ragged rooftops, casting a muddy flare over the City of Whispers. "The masked ball should soon be under way at Sotorius' palace." On the far side of the canal, behind Cardotti's House of Leisure, the torches were being lit, lamplight spilling from the windows in the black residences and into the blue evening. Morveer flicked the cobwebs from his fingers with some distaste. "Now we sit here in this mouldering attic, and wait for his Highness Prince Ario to arrive."

Sex and Death By darkness, Cardotti's House of Leisure was a different world. A fantasy land, as far removed from drab reality as the moon. The gaming hall was lit by three hundred and seventeen flickering candles. Friendly had counted them as they were hoisted up on tinkling chandeliers, bracketed to gleaming sconces, twisted into glittering candlesticks.

The sheets had been flung back from the gaming tables. One of the dealers was shuffling his cards, another was sitting, staring into space, a third carefully stacking up his counters. Friendly counted silently along with him. At the far end of the room an old man was oiling the lucky wheel. Not too lucky for those that played it, by Friendly's assessment of the odds. That was the strange thing about games of chance. The chances were always against the player. You might beat the numbers for a day, but you could never beat them in the end.

Everything shone like hidden treasure, and the women most of all. They were dressed now, and masked, transformed by warm candlelight into things barely human. Long, thin limbs oiled and powdered and dusted with glitter, eyes shining darkly through the eyeholes of gilded masks, lips and nails painted black-red like blood from a fatal wound.

The air was full of strange, frightening smells. There had been no women in Safety, and Friendly felt greatly on edge. He calmed himself by rolling the dice over and over, and adding the scores one upon another. He had reached already four thousand two hundred and...

One of the women swept past, her ruffled dress swishing against the Gurkish carpet, one long, bare leg sliding out from the blackness with each step. Two hundred and... His eyes seemed glued to that leg, his heart beating very fast. Two hundred and... twenty-six. He jerked his eyes away and back to the dice.

Three and two. Utterly normal, and nothing to worry about. He straightened, and stood waiting. Outside the window, in the courtyard, the guests were beginning to arrive.

Welcome, my friends, welcome to Cardotti's! We have everything a growing boy needs! Dice and cards, games of skill and chance are this way! For those who relish the embrace of mother husk, that door! Wine and spirits on demand. Drink deep, my friends! There will be various entertainments mounted here in the yard throughout the evening! Dancing, juggling, music... even perhaps a little violence, for those with a taste for blood! As for female companionship, well... that you will find throughout the building..."

Men were pouring into the courtyard in a masked and powdered flow. The place was already heaving with expensively tailored bodies, the air thick with their braying chatter. The band were sawing out a merry tune in one corner of the yard, the jugglers flinging a stream of sparkling glasses high into the air in another. Occasionally one of the women would strut through, whisper to someone, lead him away into the building. And upstairs, no doubt. Cosca could not help wondering... could he be spared for a few moments?

"Quite utterly charmed," he murmured, tipping his hat at a willowy blonde as she swayed past.

"Stick to the guests!" she snarled viciously in his face.

"Only trying to lift the mood, my dear. Only trying to help."

"You want to help, you can suck a prick or two! I've enough to get through!" Someone touched her on the shoulder and she turned, smiling radiantly, took him by the arm and swept away.

"Who are all these bastards?" Shivers, muttering in his ear. "Three or four dozen, weren't we told, a few armed but not keen to fight? There must be twice that many in already!"

Cosca grinned as he clapped the Northman on the shoulder. "I know! Isn't it a thrill when you throw a party and you get more guests than you expected? Somebody's popular!"

Shivers did not look amused. "I don't reckon it's us! How do we keep control of all this?"

"What makes you think I have the answers? In my experience, life rarely turns out the way you expect. We must bend with the circumstances, and simply do our best."

"Maybe six guards, weren't we told? So who are they?" The Northman jerked his head towards a grim-looking knot of men gathered in one corner, all with polished breastplates over their padded black jackets, with serious masks of plain steel, serious swords and long knives at their hips, serious frowns on their chiselled jaws. Their eyes darted carefully about the yard as though looking for threats.

"Hmmm," mused Cosca. "I was wondering the same thing."

"Wondering?" The Northman's big fist was uncomfortably tight round Cosca's arm. "When does wondering turn into shitting yourself?"

"I've often wondered." Cosca peeled the hand away. "But it's a funny thing. I simply don't get scared." He made off through the crowd, clapping backs, calling for drinks, pointing out attractions, spreading good humour wherever he went. He was in his element, now. Vice, and high living, but danger too.