The Incredible Ronco cleared his throat. 'Ah. A slightly more . . . vigorous demonstration than I intended.'

'But damned impressive!' Cosca wafted the smoke away from his face.

'Undeniably entertaining, and undeniably deadly. You are hired, sir, at the price of forty scales for the night.'

The man beamed. 'Delighted to be of service!' He bowed even lower this time round. 'Sirs! My lady! I take . . . my leave!'

'You sure about that?' asked Shivers as Ronco strutted to the door. 'Bit of a worry, ain't it? Fire in a wooden building?'

Cosca looked down his nose again. 'I thought you Northmen were all wrath and bad teeth. If things turn sour, fire in a wooden building could be just the equaliser we need.'

'The what we need, now?'

'Leveller,' said Vitari.

That seemed a bad word to pick. They called death the Great Leveller, up in the hills of the North. 'Fire indoors could end up levelling the lot of us, and in case you didn't notice, that bastard weren't too precise. Fire is dangerous.'

'Fire is pretty. He's in.'

'But won't he-'

'Ah.' Cosca held up a silencing hand.

'We should-'

'Ah.'

'Don't tell me-'

'Ah, I said! Do you not have the word "ah" in your country? Murcatto put me in charge of the entertainers and, with the greatest of respect, that means I say who is in. We are not taking votes. You concentrate on mounting a show to make Ario's gentlemen cheer. I'll handle the planning. How does that sound?'

'Like a short cut to disaster,' said Shivers.

'Ah, disaster!' Cosca grinned. 'I can't wait. Who have we to consider in the meantime?'

Vitari cocked one orange brow at her list. 'Barti and Kummel tumblers, acrobats, knife-artists and walkers on the high wire.'

Cosca nudged Shivers in the ribs with his elbow. 'Walkers on the high wire, there you go. How could that end badly?'

The Peacemakers It was a rare clear day in the City of Fogs. The air was crisp and cold, the sky was perfectly blue and the King of the Union's conference of peace was due to begin its noble work. The ragged rooflines, the dirty windows, the peeling doorways were all thick with onlookers, waiting eagerly for the great men of Styria to appear. They trickled down both gutters of the wide avenue below, a multicoloured confusion, pressing up against the grim grey lines of soldiers deployed to hold them back. The hubbub of the crowd was a weight on the air. Thousands of murmuring voices, stabbed through here and there by the shouts of hawkers, bellowed warnings, squeals of excitement. Like the sound of an army before a battle.

Nervously waiting for the blood to start spilling.

Five more dots, perched on the roof of a crumbling warehouse, were nothing to remark upon. Shivers stared down, big hands dangling over the parapet. Cosca had his boot propped carelessly on the cracked stonework, scratching at his scabby neck. Vitari leaned back against the wall, long arms folded. Friendly stood bolt upright to the side, seeming lost in a world of his own. The fact that Morveer and his apprentice were away on their own business gave Monza scant confidence. When she first met the poisoner, she hadn't trusted him at all. Since Westport, she trusted him an awful lot less. And these were her troops. She sucked in a long, bitter breath, licked her teeth and spat down into the crowd below.

When God means to punish a man, the Kantic scriptures say, he sends him stupid friends, and clever enemies.

'That's a lot o' people,' said Shivers, eyes narrowed against the chilly glare. Just the kind of stunning revelation Monza had come to expect from the man. 'An awful lot.'

'Yes.' Friendly's eyes flickered over the crowds, lips moving silently, giving Monza the worrying impression that he was trying to count them.

'This is nothing.' Cosca dismissed half of Sipani with an airy wave. 'You should have seen the throng that packed the streets of Ospria after my victory at the Battle of the Isles! They filled the air with falling flowers! Twice as many, at the least. You should have been there!'

'I was there,' said Vitari, 'and there were half as many at the most.'

'Does pissing on my dreams give you some sick satisfaction?'

'A little.' Vitari smirked at Monza, but she didn't laugh. She was thinking of the triumph they'd put on for her in Talins, after the fall of Caprile. Or the massacre at Caprile, depending on who you asked. She remembered Benna grinning while she frowned, standing in his stirrups and blowing kisses to the balconies. The people chanting her name, even though Orso was riding in thoughtful silence just behind with Ario at his shoulder. She should've seen it coming then . . .

'Here they are!' Cosca shielded his eyes with one hand, leaning out dangerously far over the railing. 'All hail our great leaders!'

The noise of the crowd swelled as the procession came into view. Seven mounted standard-bearers brought up the front, flags on lances all at the exact same angle the illusion of equality deemed necessary for peace talks. The cockleshell of Sipani. The white tower of Ospria. The three bees of Visserine. The black cross of Talins. The symbols of Puranti, Affoia and Nicante stirred lazily in the breeze alongside them. A man in gilded armour rode behind, the golden sun of the Union drooping from his black lance.

Sotorius, Chancellor of Sipani, was the first of the great and good to appear. Or the mean and evil, depending on who you asked. He was truly ancient, with thin white hair and beard, hunched under the weight of the heavy chain of office he'd worn since long before Monza was born. He hobbled along doggedly with the aid of a cane and with the eldest of his many sons, probably in his sixties himself, at his elbow. Several columns of Sipani's leading citizens followed, sun twinkling on jewels and polished leather, bright silk and cloth of gold.

'Chancellor Sotorius,' Cosca was noisily explaining to Shivers. 'According to tradition, the host goes on foot. Still alive, the old bastard.'

'Looks like he needs a rest though,' muttered Monza. 'Someone get the man a coffin.'

'Not quite yet, I think. Half-blind he may be, but he still has clearer sight than most. The long-established master of the middle ground. One way or another he's kept Sipani neutral for two decades. Right through the Years of Blood. Ever since I gave him a bloody nose at the Battle of the Isles!'

Vitari snorted. 'Didn't stop you taking his coin when it all turned sour with Sefeline of Ospria, as I recall.'

'Why should it have? Paid soldiers can't be too picky over their employers. You have to blow with the wind in this business. Loyalty on a mercenary is like armour on a swimmer.' Monza frowned sideways, wondering whether that was meant for her, but Cosca was blathering on as though it meant nothing to anyone. 'Still, he never suited me much, old Sotorius. It was a wedding of necessity, an unhappy marriage and, once victory was won, a divorce we were both happy to agree to. Peaceful men find little work for mercenaries, and the old Chancellor of Sipani has made a rich and glorious career from peace.'

Vitari sneered down at the wealthy citizens tramping by below. 'Looks like he's hoping to make an export of it.'

Monza shook her head. 'One thing Orso will never be buying.'

The leaders of the League of Eight came next. Orso's bitter enemies, which had meant Monza's too, until her tumble down a mountain. They were attended by a regiment of hangers-on, all decked out in a hundred clashing liveries. Duke Rogont rode at the front on a great black charger, reins in one sure hand, giving the occasional nod to the crowds as someone shouted for him. He was a popular man, and was called on to nod often, almost to the point that his head bobbed like a turkey's. Salier had somehow been wedged into the saddle of a stocky roan beside Rogont, pink jowls bulging out over the gilded collar of his uniform, on one side, then the other, in time to the movement of his labouring mount.

'Who's the fat man?' asked Shivers.

'Salier, Grand Duke of Visserine.'

Vitari sniggered. 'For another month or two, maybe. He squandered his city's soldiers in the summer.' Monza had charged them down on the High Bank, with Faithful Carpi beside her. 'His city's food in the autumn.' Monza had merrily burned the fields about the walls and driven off the farmers. 'And he's fast running out of allies.' Monza had left Duke Cantain's head rotting on the walls of Borletta. 'You can almost see him sweating from here, the old bastard.'

'Shame,' said Cosca. 'I always liked the man. You should see the galleries in his palace. The greatest collection of art in the world, or so he says. Quite the connoisseur. Kept the best table in Styria too, in his day.'

'It shows,' said Monza.

'One does wonder how they get him in his saddle.'

'Block and tackle,' snapped Vitari.

Monza snorted. 'Or dig a trench and ride the horse up underneath him.' 'What about the other one?' asked Shivers.

'Rogont, Grand Duke of Ospria.'

'He looks the part.' True enough. Tall and broad-shouldered with a handsome face and a mass of dark curls.

'Looks it.' Monza spat again. 'But not much more.'

'The nephew of my one-time employer, now thankfully deceased, the Duchess Sefeline.' Cosca had made his neck bleed with his scratching. 'They call him the Prince of Prudence. The Count of Caution. The Duke of Delay. A fine general, by all accounts, but doesn't like to gamble.'

'I'd be less charitable,' said Monza.

'Few people are less charitable than you.'

'He doesn't like to fight.'

'No good general likes to fight.'

'But every good general has to, from time to time. Rogont's been pitted against Orso throughout the Years of Blood and never fought more than a skirmish. The man's the best withdrawer in Styria.'

'Toughest thing to manage, a retreat. Maybe he just hasn't found his moment yet.'

Shivers gave a faraway sigh. 'We're all of us waiting for our moment.'

'He's wasted all his chances now,' said Monza. 'Once Visserine falls, the way to Puranti is open, and beyond that nothing but Ospria itself, and Orso's crown. No more delays. The sand's run through on caution.'

Rogont and Salier passed underneath them. The two men who, along with honest, honourable, dead Duke Cantain, had formed the League of Eight to defend Styria against Orso's insatiable ambition. Or to frustrate his rightful claims so they could fight among themselves for whatever was left, depending on who you asked. Cosca had a faraway smile on his face as he watched them go. 'You live long enough, you see everything ruined. Caprile, a shell of her former glory.'

Vitari grinned at Monza. 'That was one of yours, no?'

'Musselia most shamefully capitulated to Orso in spite of her impenetrable walls.'

Vitari grinned wider. 'Wasn't that one of yours too?'

'Borletta fallen,' Cosca lamented, 'bold Duke Cantain dead.'

'Yes,' growled Monza, before Vitari could open her mouth.

'The invincible League of Eight has withered to a company of five and will soon dwindle to a party of four, with three of those far from keen on the whole notion.'

Monza could just hear Friendly's whisper, 'Eight . . . five . . . four . . . three . . .'

Those three followed now, glittering households trailing them like the wake behind three ducks. Junior partners in the League Lirozio, the Duke of Puranti, defiant in elaborate armour and even more elaborate moustaches. The young Countess Cotarda of Affoia a pasty girl whose pale yellow silks weren't helping her complexion, her uncle and first advisor, some said her first lover, hovering close at her shoulder. Patine came last, First Citizen of Nicante his hair left wild, dressed in sackcloth with a knotted rope for a belt, to show he was no better than the lowest peasant in his care. The rumour was he wore silken undergarments and slept on a golden bed, and with no shortage of company. So much for the humility of the powerful.

Cosca was already looking to the next chapter in the procession of greatness. 'By the Fates. Who are these young gods?'

They were a magnificent pair, there was no denying that. They rode identical greys with effortless confidence, arrayed in matching white and gold. Her snowy gown clung to her impossibly tall and slender form and spread out behind her, fretted with glittering thread. His gilded breastplate was polished to a mirror-glare, simple crown set with a single stone so big Monza could almost see its facets glittering a hundred strides distant.

'How incredibly fucking regal,' she sneered.

'One can almost smell the majesty,' threw in Cosca. 'I would kneel if I thought my knees could bear it.'

'His August Majesty, the High King of the Union.' Vitari's voice was greasy with irony. 'And his queen, of course.'

'Terez, the Jewel of Talins. She sparkles brightly, no?'

'Orso's daughter,' Monza forced out through clenched teeth. 'Ario and Foscar's sister. Queen of the Union, and a royal cunt into the bargain.'

Even though he was a foreigner on Styrian soil, even though Union ambitions were treated with the greatest suspicion here, even though his wife was Orso's daughter, the crowd found themselves cheering louder for a foreign king than they had for their own geriatric chancellor.

The people far prefer a leader who appears great, Bialoveld wrote, to one who is.

'Hardly the most neutral of mediators, you'd think.' Cosca puffed his cheeks out thoughtfully. 'Bound so tight to Orso and his brood you can hardly see the light between them. Husband, and brother, and son-in-law to Talins?'

'No doubt he considers himself above such earthly considerations.' Monza's lip curled as she watched the royal pair approach. It looked as if they'd ridden from the pages of a lurid storybook and out into the drab and slimy city by accident. Wings on their horses were all they needed to complete the fantasy. It was a wonder someone hadn't glued some on. Terez wore a great necklace of huge stones, flashing so brilliantly in the sun they were painful to look at.

Vitari was shaking her head. 'How many jewels can you pile on one woman?'

'Not many more without burying the bitch,' growled Monza. The ruby that Benna had given her seemed a child's trinket by comparison.

'Jealousy is a terrible thing, ladies.' Cosca nudged Friendly in the ribs. 'She seems well enough in my eyes, eh, my friend?' The convict said nothing. Cosca tried Shivers instead. 'Eh?'

The Northman glanced sideways at Monza, then away. 'Don't get the fuss, myself.'

'Well, a pretty pair, the two of you! I never met such cold-blooded fighting men. I may be past my prime but I'm nothing like so withered inside as you set of long faces. My heart can still be moved by a young couple in love.'

Monza doubted there could be that much fire between them, however they might grin at one another. 'Few years ago now, well before she was a queen in anything but her own mind, Benna had a bet with me that he could bed her.'

Cosca raised one brow. 'Your brother always liked to sow his seed widely, as I recall. The results?'

'Turned out he wasn't her type.' It had turned out Monza interested her a great deal more than Benna ever could.

A household even grander than the whole League of Eight had fielded followed respectfully behind the royal couple. A score at least of ladies-in-waiting, each one dripping jewels of her own. A smattering of Lords of Midderland, Angland and Starikland, weighty furs and golden chains about their shoulders. Men-at-arms plodded behind, armour stained with dust from the hooves in front. Each man choking on the dirt of his betters. The ugly truth of power.

'King of the Union, eh?' mused Shivers, watching the royal couple move off. 'That there is the most powerful man in the whole Circle of the World?'

Vitari snorted. 'That there is the man he stands behind. Everyone kneels to someone. You don't know too much about politics, do you?'

'About what?'

'Lies. The Cripple rules the Union. That boy with all the gold is the mask he wears.'

Cosca sighed. 'If you looked like the Cripple, I daresay you'd get a mask too . . .'

Such cheering as there was moved off slowly after the king and queen, and left a sullen silence behind it. Quiet enough that Monza could hear the clattering of the wheels as a gilded carriage rattled down the avenue. Several score of grim guardsmen tramped in practised columns to either side, weapons less well polished than the Union's had been, but better used. A crowd of well-dressed and entirely useless gentlemen followed.

Monza closed her right fist tight, crooked bones shifting. The pain crept across her knuckles, through her hand, up her arm, and she felt her mouth twist into a grim smile.

'There they are,' said Cosca.

Ario sat on the right, draped over his cushions, swaying gently with the movement of the carriage, his customary look of lazy contempt smeared across his face. Foscar sat pale and upright beside him, head starting this way and that at every smallest sound. Preening tomcat and eager puppy dog, placed neatly together.

Gobba had been nothing. Mauthis had been just a banker. Orso would scarcely have remarked on the new faces around him when they were replaced. But Ario and Foscar were his sons. His precious flesh. His future. If she could kill them, it would be the next best thing to sticking the blade in Orso's own belly. Her smile grew, imagining his face as they brought him the news.