Shenkt said nothing.

"That business in Keln. I understand that was your work. All of that, your work alone. It is said that the things that were left could hardly be called corpses."

Shenkt said nothing.

"You do not confirm it."

Shenkt stared into Duke Orso's face, and said nothing.

"You do not deny it, though."

More nothing.

"I like a tight-lipped man. A man who says little to his friends will say less than nothing to his enemies."

Silence.

"My son is murdered. Thrown from the window of a brothel like rubbish. Many of his friends and associates, my citizens, were also killed. My son-in-law, his Majesty the King of the Union, no less, only just escaped the burning building with his life. Sotorius, the half-corpse Chancellor of Sipani who was their host, wrings his hands and tells me he can do nothing. I am betrayed. I am bereaved. I am... embarrassed. Me!" he screamed suddenly, making the chamber ring, and every person in it flinch.

Every person except Shenkt. "Vengeance, then."

"Vengeance!" Orso smashed the arm of his chair with his fist. "Swift and terrible."

"Swift I cannot promise. Terrible-yes."

"Then let it be slow, and grinding, and merciless."

"It may be necessary to cause some harm to your subjects and their property."

"Whatever it takes. Bring me their heads. Every man, woman or child involved in this, to the slightest degree. Whatever is necessary. Bring me their heads."

"Their heads, then."

"What will be your advance?"

"Nothing."

"Not even-"

"If I complete the job, you will pay me one hundred thousand scales for the head of the ringleader, and twenty thousand for each assistant to a maximum of one quarter of a million. That is my price."

"A very high one!" squeaked the chamberlain. "What will you do with so much money?"

"I will count it and laugh, while considering how a rich man need not answer the questions of idiots. You will find no employer, anywhere, unsatisfied with my work." Shenkt moved his eyes slowly to the half-circle of scum at his back. "You can pay less to lesser men, if you please."

"I will," said Orso. "If one of them should find the killers first."

"I would accept no other arrangement, your Excellency."

"Good," growled the duke. "Go, then. All of you, go! Bring... me... revenge!"

"You are dismissed!" screeched the chamberlain. There was a rustling, rattling, clattering as the assassins rose to leave the great chamber. Shenkt turned and walked back down the carpet towards the great doors, without undue speed, looking neither right nor left.

One of the killers blocked his path, a dark-skinned man of average height but wide as a door, lean slabs of muscle showing through the gap in his brightly coloured shirt. His thick lip curled. "You are Shenkt? I expected more."

"Pray to whatever god you believe in that you never see more."

"I do not pray."

Shenkt leaned close, and whispered in his ear. "I advise you to start."

Although a large room by most standards, General Ganmark's study felt cluttered. An oversized bust of Juvens frowned balefully from above the fireplace, his stony bald spot reflected in a magnificent mirror of coloured Visserine glass. Two monumental vases loomed either side of the desk almost to shoulder height. The walls were crowded with canvases in gilded frames, two of them positively vast. Fine paintings. Far too fine to be squeezed.

"A most impressive collection," said Shenkt.

"That one is by Coliere. It would have burned in the mansion in which I found it. And these two are Nasurins, that by Orhus." Ganmark pointed them out with precise jabs of his forefinger. "His early period, but still. Those vases were made as tribute to the first Emperor of Gurkhul, many hundreds of years ago, and somehow found their way to a rich man's house outside Caprile."

"And from there to here."

"I try to rescue what I can," said Ganmark. "Perhaps when the Years of Blood end, Styria will still have some few treasures worth keeping."

"Or you will."

"Better I have them than the flames. The campaign season begins, and I will be away to Visserine in the morning, to take the city under siege. Skirmishes, sacks and burnings. March and counter-march. Famine and pestilence, naturally. Maim and murder, of course. All with the awful randomness of a stroke from the heavens. Collective punishment. Of everyone, for nothing. War, Shenkt, war. And to think I once dreamed of being an honourable man. Of doing good."

"We all dream of that."

The general raised one eyebrow. "Even you?"

"Even me." Shenkt slid out his knife. A Gurkish butcher's sickle, small but sharp as fury.

"I wish you joy of it, then. The best I can do is strive to keep the waste to the merely... epic."

"These are wasteful times." Shenkt took the little lump of wood from his pocket, dog's head already roughly carved into the front.

"Aren't they all? Wine? It is from Cantain's own cellar."

"No."

Shenkt worked carefully with his knife while the general filled his own glass, woodchips scattering across the floor between his boots, the hindquarters of the dog slowly taking shape. Hardly a work of art like those around him, but it would serve. There was something calming in the regular movements of the curved blade, in the gentle fluttering down of the shavings.

Ganmark leaned against the mantel, drew out the poker and gave the fire a few unnecessary jabs. "You have heard of Monzcarro Murcatto?"

"The captain general of the Thousand Swords. A most successful soldier. I heard she was dead."

"Can you keep a secret, Shenkt?"

"I keep many hundreds."

"Of course you do. Of course." He took a long breath. "Duke Orso ordered her death. Hers and her brother's. Her victories had made her popular in Talins. Too popular. His Excellency feared she might usurp his throne, as mercenaries can do. You are not surprised?"

"I have seen every kind of death, and every kind of motive."

"Of course you have." Ganmark frowned at the fire. "This was not a good death."

"None of them are."

"Still. This was not a good one. Two months ago Duke Orso's bodyguard vanished. No great surprise, he was a foolish man, took little care over his safety, was prone to vice and bad company and had made many enemies. I thought nothing of it."

"And?"

"A month later, the duke's banker was poisoned in Westport, along with half his staff. This was a different matter. He took a very great deal of care over his safety. To poison him was a task of the greatest difficulty, carried out with a formidable professionalism and an exceptional lack of mercy. But he dabbled widely in the politics of Styria, and the politics of Styria is a fatal game with few merciful players."

"True."

"Valint and Balk themselves suspected a long enmity with Gurkish rivals might be the motive."

"Valint and Balk."

"You are familiar with the institution?"

Shenkt paused. "I believe they employed me once. Go on."

"But now Prince Ario, murdered." The general pushed one fingertip under his ear. "Stabbed in the very spot in which he stabbed Benna Murcatto, then thrown down from a high window?"

"You think Monzcarro Murcatto is still alive?"

"A week after his son's death, Duke Orso received a letter. From one Carlot dan Eider, Prince Ario's mistress. We had long suspected she was here to spy for the Union, but Orso tolerated the affair."

"Surprising."

Ganmark shrugged. "The Union is our confirmed ally. We helped them win the latest round of their endless wars against the Gurkish. We both enjoy the backing of the Banking House of Valint and Balk. Not to mention the fact that the King of the Union is Orso's son-in-law. Naturally we send each other spies, by way of neighbourly good manners. If one must entertain a spy, she might as well be a charming one, and Eider was, undeniably, charming. She was with Prince Ario in Sipani. After his death she disappeared. Then the letter."

"And it said?"

"That she was compelled through poison to assist Prince Ario's murderers. That they included among their number a mercenary named Nicomo Cosca and a torturer named Shylo Vitari, and were led by none other than Murcatto herself. Very much alive."

"You believe it?"

"Eider had no reason to lie to us. No letter will save her from his Excellency's wrath if she is found, and she must know it. Murcatto was alive when she went over the balcony, that much I am sure of. I have not seen her dead."

"She is seeking revenge."

Ganmark gave a joyless chuckle. "These are the Years of Blood. Everyone is seeking revenge. The Serpent of Talins, though? The Butcher of Caprile? Who loved nothing in the world but her brother? If she lives, she is on fire with it. There are few more single-minded enemies a man could find."

"Then I should find this woman Vitari, this man Cosca and this serpent Murcatto."

"No one must learn she might still live. If it was known in Talins that Orso was the one who planned her death... there could be unrest. Revolt, even. She was much loved among the people. A talisman. A mascot. One of their own, risen through merit. As the wars drag on and the taxes mount, his Excellency is... less well liked than he could be. I can trust you to keep silent?"

Shenkt kept silent.

"Good. There are associates of Murcatto's still in Talins. Perhaps one of them knows where she is." The general looked up, the orange glow of the fire splashed across one side of his tired face. "But what am I saying? It is your business to find people. To find people, and to..." He stabbed again at the glowing coals and sent up a shower of dancing sparks. "I need not tell you your business, need I?"

Shenkt put away his half-finished carving, and his knife, and turned for the door. "No."

Downwards They came upon Visserine as the sun was dropping down behind the trees and the land was turning black. You could see the towers even from miles distant. Dozens of 'em. Scores. Sticking up tall and slim as lady's fingers into the cloudy blue-grey sky, pricks of light scattered where lamps burned in high windows.

"Lot o' towers," Shivers muttered to himself.

"There always was a fashion for them in Visserine." Cosca grinned sideways at him. "Some date all the way back to the New Empire, centuries old. The greatest families compete to build the tallest ones. It is a point of pride. I remember when I was a boy, one fell before it was finished, not three streets from where I lived. A dozen poor dwellings were destroyed in the collapse. It's always the poor who are crushed under rich men's ambitions. And yet they rarely complain, because... well..."

"They dream of having towers o' their own?"

Cosca chuckled. "Why, yes, I suppose they do. They don't see that the higher you climb, the further you have to fall."

"Men rarely see that 'til the ground's rushing at 'em."

"All too true. And I fear many of the rich men of Visserine will be tumbling soon..."

Friendly lit a torch, Vitari too, and Day a third, set at the front of the cart to light the way. Torches were lit all round them, 'til the road was a trickle of tiny lights in the darkness, winding through the dark country towards the sea. Would've made a pretty picture, at another time, but not now. War was coming, and no one was in a pretty mood.

The closer they came to the city, the more choked the road got with people, and the more rubbish was scattered either side of it. Half of 'em seemed desperate to get into Visserine and find some walls to hide behind, the other half to get out and find some open country to run through. It was a bastard of a choice for farmers, when war was on the way. Stick to your land and get a dose of fire and robbery for certain, with rape or murder more'n likely. Make for a town on the chance they'll find room for you, risk being robbed by your protectors, or caught up in the sack if the place falls. Or run for the hills to hide, maybe get caught, maybe starve, maybe just die of an icy night.

War killed some soldiers, sure, but it left the rest with money, and songs to sing, and a fire to sit around. It killed a lot more farmers, and left the rest with nought but ashes.

Just to lift the mood rain started flitting down through the darkness, spitting and hissing as it fell on the flickering torches, white streaks through the circles of light around 'em. The road turned to sticky mud. Shivers felt the wet tickle his scalp, but his thoughts were far off. Same place they'd tended to stray to these last few weeks. Back to Cardotti's, and the dark work he'd done there.

His brother had always told him it was about the lowest thing a man could do, kill a woman. Respect for womenfolk, and children, sticking to the old ways and your word, that was what set men apart from animals, and Carls from killers. He hadn't meant to do it, but when you swing steel in a crowd you can't duck the blame for the results. The good man he'd come here to be should've been gnawing his nails to the bloody quick over what he'd done. But all he could get in his head when he thought of his blade chopping a bloody chunk out of her ribs, the hollow sound it made, her staring face as she slid dying down the wall, was relief he'd got away with it.

Killing a woman by mistake in a brothel was murder, evil as it got, but killing a man on purpose in a battle was all kinds of noble? A thing to take pride in, sing songs of? Time was, gathered round a fire up in the cold North, that had seemed simple and obvious. But Shivers couldn't see the difference so sharp as he'd used to. And it wasn't like he'd got himself confused. He'd suddenly got it clear. You set to killing folk, there's no right place to stop that means a thing.

"You look as if you've dark thoughts in mind, my friend," said Cosca.

"Don't seem the time for jokes."

The mercenary chuckled. "My old mentor Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards."

"That so? And what became of him?"

"Died of a rotten shoulder."

"Poor punchline."

"Well, if life's a joke," said Cosca, "it's a black one."

"Best not to laugh, then, in case the joke's on you."

"Or trim your sense of humour to match."