'You,' said Shenkt. 'Stuttering man. You may live.'

'Fuh . . . fuh . . .'

'You alone are spared. Out, before I reconsider.'

The mumbling beggar dropped his cards, fled whimpering for the door and tumbled through it. Shenkt watched him go. A good thing, even to spare one.

As he turned back, Sajaam was swinging his chair over his head. It burst apart across Shenkt's shoulder, broken pieces bouncing from the floor and clattering away. A futile gesture, Shenkt scarcely even felt it. The edge of his hand chopped into the man's big arm, snapped it like a dead twig, spun him around and sent him rolling over and over across the floor.

Shenkt walked after him, his scuffed work boots making not the slightest sound as they found the gaps between the debris. Sajaam coughed, shook his head, started to worm away on his back, gurgling through gritted teeth, hand dragging behind him the wrong way up. The heels of his embroidered Gurkish slippers kicked at the floor, leaving stuttering trails though the detritus of blood, dust, feathers and splinters that had settled across the whole room like leaves across a forest floor in autumn.

'A man sleeps through most of his life, even when awake. You get so little time, yet still you spend it utterly oblivious. Angry, frustrated, fixated on meaningless nothings. That drawer does not close flush with the front of my desk. What cards does my opponent hold, and how much money can I win from him? I wish I were taller. What will I have for dinner, for I am not fond of parsnips?' Shenkt rolled a mangled corpse out of his way with the toe of one boot. 'It takes a moment like this to jerk us to our senses, to draw our eyes from the mud to the heavens, to root our attention in the present. Now you realise how precious is each moment. That is my gift to you.'

Sajaam reached the back wall and propped himself up against it, worked himself slowly to standing, broken arm hanging limp.

'I despise violence. It is the last tool of feeble minds.' Shenkt stopped a stride away. 'So let us have no more foolishness. Where is Monzcarro Murcatto?'

To give the man his due for courage, he made for the knife at his belt.

Shenkt's pointed finger sank into the hollow where chest met shoulder, just beneath his collarbone. It punched through shirt, skin, flesh, and as the rest of his fist smacked hard against Sajaam's chest and drove him back against the wall, his fingernail was already scraping against the inside surface of his shoulder blade, buried in his flesh right to the knuckles. Sajaam screamed, knife clattering from his dangling fingers.

'No more foolishness, I said. Where is Murcatto?'

'In Visserine the last I heard!' His voice was hoarse with pain. 'In Visserine!'

'At the siege?' Sajaam nodded, bloody teeth clenched tight together. If Visserine had not fallen already, it would have by the time Shenkt got there. But he never left a job half-done. He would assume she was still alive, and carry on the chase. 'Who does she have with her?'

'Some Northman beggar, called himself Shivers! A man of mine named Friendly! A convict! A convict from Safety!'

'Yes?' Shenkt twisted his finger in the man's flesh, blood trickling from the wound and down his hand, around the streaks of gold dried to his forearm, dripping from his elbow, tap, tap, tap.

'Ah! Ah! I put her in touch with a poisoner called Morveer! In Westport, and in Sipani with a woman called Vitari!' Shenkt frowned. 'A woman who can get things done!'

'Murcatto, Shivers, Friendly, Morveer . . . Vitari.'

A desperate nod, spit flying from Sajaam's gritted teeth with every heaving, agonised breath.

'And where are these brave companions bound next?'

'I'm not sure! Gah! She said seven men! The seven men who killed her brother! Ah! Puranti, maybe! Keep ahead of Orso's army! If she gets Ganmark, maybe she'll try for Faithful next, for Faithful Carpi!'

'Maybe she will.' Shenkt jerked his finger free with a faint sucking sound and Sajaam collapsed, sliding down until his rump hit the floor, his shivering, sweat-beaded face twisted with pain.

'Please,' he grunted. 'I can help you. I can help you find her.'

Shenkt squatted down in front of him, blood-smeared hands dangling on the knees of his blood-smeared trousers. 'But you have helped. You can leave the rest to me.'

'I have money! I have money.'

Shenkt said nothing.

'I was planning on turning her in to Orso, sooner or later, once the price was high enough.'

More nothing.

'That doesn't make any difference, does it?'

Silence.

'I told that bitch she'd be the death of me.'

'You were right. I hope that is a comfort.'

'Not much of one. I should have killed her then.'

'But you saw money to be made. Have you anything to say?'

Sajaam stared at him. 'What would I say?'

'Some people want to say things, at the end. Do you?'

'What are you?' he whispered.

'I have been many things. A student. A messenger. A thief. A soldier in old wars. A servant of great powers. An actor in great events. Now?' Shenkt puffed out an unhappy breath as he gazed around at the mangled corpses hunched, sprawled, huddled across the room. 'Now, it seems, I am a man who settles other people's scores.'

The Fencing Master Monza's hands were shaking again, but that was no surprise. The danger, the fear, not knowing if she was going to live out the next moment. Her brother murdered, herself broken, everything she'd worked for gone. The pain, the withering need for husk, trusting no one, day after day, week after week. Then there was all the death she'd been the cause of, in Westport, in Sipani, gathering on her shoulders like a great weight of lead.

The last few months had been enough to make anyone's hands shake. But maybe it was just watching Shivers have his eye burned out and thinking she'd be next.

She looked nervously towards the door between her room and his. He'd be awake soon. Screaming again, which was bad enough, or silent, which was worse. Kneeling there, looking at her with his one eye. That accusing look. She knew she should have been grateful, should have cared for him the way she used to for her brother. But a growing part of her just wanted to kick him and not stop. Maybe when Benna died everything warm, or decent, or human in her had been left rotting on the mountainside with his corpse.

She pulled her glove off and stared at the thing inside. At the thin pink scars where the shattered bones had been put back together. The deep red line where Gobba's wire had cut into her. She curled the fingers into a fist, or something close, except the little one, still pointing off like a signpost to nowhere. It didn't hurt as badly as it used to, but more than enough to bring a grimace to her face, and the pain cut through the fear, crushed the doubts.

'Revenge,' she whispered. Kill Ganmark, that was all that mattered now. His soft, sad face, his weak, watery eyes. Calmly stabbing Benna through the stomach. Rolling his corpse off the terrace. That's that. She squeezed her fist tighter, bared her teeth at it.

'Revenge.' For Benna and for herself. She was the Butcher of Caprile, merciless, fearless. She was the Snake of Talins, deadly as the viper and no more regretful. Kill Ganmark, and then . . .

'Whoever's next.' And her hand was steady.

Running footsteps slapped hard along the hallway outside and away. She heard someone shout in the distance, couldn't make out the words, but couldn't miss the edge of fear in the voice. She crossed to the window and pulled it open. Her room, or her cell, was high up on the north face of the palace. A stone bridge spanned the Visser upstream, tiny dots moving fast across it. Even from this distance she could tell people running for their lives.

A good general gets to know the smell of panic, and suddenly it was reeking. Orso's men must have finally carried the walls. The sack of Visserine had begun. Ganmark would be on his way to the palace, even now, to take possession of Duke Salier's renowned collection.

The door creaked open and Monza spun about. Captain Langrier stood in the doorway in a Talinese uniform, a bulging sack in one hand. She had a sword at one hip and a long dagger at the other. Monza had nothing of the kind, and she found herself acutely aware of the fact. She stood, hands by her sides, trying to look as if every muscle wasn't ready to fight. And die, more than likely.

Langrier moved slowly into the room. 'So you really are Murcatto, eh?'

'I'm Murcatto.'

'Sweet Pines? Musselia? The High Bank? You won all those battles?'

'That's right.'

'You ordered all those folk killed at Caprile?'

'What the fuck do you want?'

'Duke Salier says he's decided to do it your way.' Langrier dumped the sack on the floor and it sagged open. Metal gleamed inside. The Talinese armour Friendly had stolen out near the breach. 'Best put this on. Don't know how long we'll have before your friend Ganmark gets here.'

Alive, then. For now. Monza dragged a lieutenant's jacket from the sack and pulled it on over her shirt, started to button it up. Langrier watched her for a minute, then started talking.

'I just wanted to say . . . while there's a chance. Well. That I always admired you, I guess.'

Monza stared at her. 'What?'

'A woman. A soldier. Getting where you've been. Doing what you've done. You might've stood on the other side from us, but you always were something of a hero to-'

'You think I care a shit?' Monza didn't know which sickened her more being called a hero or who was saying it.

'Can't blame me for not believing you. Woman with your reputation, thought you'd be harder in a fix like that-'

'You ever watched someone have their eye burned out of their head and thought you'd be next?'

Langrier worked her mouth. 'Can't say I've sat on that side of the issue.'

'You should try it, see how fucking hard you end up.' Monza pulled some stolen boots on, not so bad a fit.

'Here.' Langrier was holding Benna's ring out to her, big stone gleaming the colour of blood. 'Doesn't suit me anyway.'

Monza snatched it from her hand, twisted it onto her finger. 'What? Give me back what you stole in the first place and think that makes us even?'

'Look, I'm sorry about your man's eye and the rest, but it isn't about you, understand? Someone's a threat to my city, I have to find out how. I don't like it, it's just what has to be done. Don't pretend you haven't done worse. I don't expect we'll ever share any jokes. But for now, while we've got this task to be about, we'll need to put it behind us.'

Monza kept her silence as she dressed. It was true enough. She'd done worse, alright. Watched it done, anyway. Let it be done, which was no better. She buckled on the breastplate, must've come from some lean young officer and fitted her well enough, pulled the last strap through. 'I need something to kill Ganmark with.'

'Once we get to the garden you can have a blade, not-'

Monza saw a hand close around the grip of Langrier's dagger. She started to turn, surprised. 'Wha-' The point slid out of the front of her neck. Shivers' face loomed up beside hers, white and wasted, bandages bound tight over one whole side of it, a pale stain through the cloth where his eye used to be. His left arm slid around Langrier's chest from behind and drew her tight against him. Tight as a lover.

'It ain't about you, understand?' He was almost kissing at her ear as blood began to run from the point of the knife and down her neck in a thick black line. 'You take my eye, I've got to take your life.' She opened her mouth, and her tongue flopped out, and blood started to trickle from the tip of it and down her chin. 'I don't like it.' Her face turned purple, eyes rolling up. 'Just what has to be done.' Her legs kicked, her boot heels clattering against the boards as he lifted her up in the air. 'Sorry about your neck.' The blade ripped sideways and opened her throat up wide, black blood showering out across the bedclothes, spraying up the wall in an arc of red spots.

Shivers let her drop and she crumpled, sprawling face down as if her bones had turned to mud, another gout of blood spurting sideways. Her boots moved, toes scraping. One set of nails scratched at the floor. Shivers took a long breath in through his nose, then he blew it out, and he looked up at Monza, and he smiled. A friendly little grin, as if they'd shared some private joke that Langrier just hadn't got.

'By the dead but I feel better for that. Ganmark's in the city, did she say?'

'Uh.' Monza couldn't speak. Her skin was flushed and burning.

'Then I reckon we got work ahead of us.' Shivers didn't seem to notice the rapidly spreading slick of blood creep between his toes, around the sides of his big bare feet. He dragged the sack up and peered inside. 'Armour in here, then? Guess I'd better get dressed, eh, Chief? Hate to arrive at a party in the wrong clothes.'

The garden at the centre of Salier's gallery showed no signs of imminent doom. Water trickled, leaves rustled, a bee or two floated lazily from one flower to another. White blossom occasionally filtered down from the cherry trees and dusted the well-shaved lawns.

Cosca sat cross-legged and worked the edge of his sword with a whetstone, metal softly ringing. Morveer's flask pressed into his thigh, but he felt no need for it. Death was at the doorstep, and so he was at peace. His blissful moment before the storm. He tipped his head back, eyes closed, sun warm on his face, and wondered why he could never feel this way unless the world was burning down around him.

Calming breezes washed through the shadowy colonnades, through doorways into hallways lined with paintings. Through one open window Friendly could be seen, in the armour of a Talinese guardsman, counting every soldier in Nasurin's colossal painting of the Second Battle of Oprile. Cosca grinned. He tried always to be forgiving of other men's foibles. He had enough of his own, after all.

Perhaps a half-dozen of Salier's guards had remained, disguised as soldiers from Duke Orso's army. Men loyal enough to die beside their master at the last. He snorted as he ran the whetstone once more down the edge of his sword. Loyalty had always sat with honour, discipline and self-restraint on his list of incomprehensible virtues.

'Why so happy?' Day sat beside him on the grass, a flatbow across her knees, chewing at her lip. The uniform she wore must have come from some dead drummer-boy, it fit her well. Very well. Cosca wondered if it was wrong of him to find something peculiarly alluring about a pretty girl in a man's clothes. He wondered furthermore if she might be persuaded to give a comrade-in-arms . . . a little help sharpening his weapon before the fighting started? He cleared his throat. Of course not. But a man could dream.

'Perhaps something is wrong in my head.' He rubbed a blemish from the steel with his thumb. 'Getting out of bed.' Metal rang. 'A day of honest work.' Whetstone scraped. 'Peace. Normality. Sobriety.' He held the sword up to the light and watched the metal gleam. 'These are the things that terrify me. Danger, by contrast, has long been my only relief. Eat something. You'll need your strength.'

'I've no appetite,' she said glumly. 'I've never faced certain death before.'

'Oh, come, come, don't say such a thing.' He stood, brushed the blossom from the captain's insignia on the sleeves of his stolen uniform. 'If there is one thing I have learned in all my many last stands, it is that death is never certain, only . . . extremely likely.'

'Truly inspirational words.'

'I try. Indeed I do.' Cosca slapped his sword into its sheath, picked up Monza's Calvez and ambled away towards the statue of The Warrior. His Excellency Duke Salier stood in its muscular shadow, arrayed for a noble death in a spotless white uniform festooned with gold braid.

'How did it end like this?' he was musing. The very same question Cosca had so often asked himself, while sucking the last drop from one cheap bottle or another. Waking baffled in one unfamiliar doorway, or another. Carrying out one hateful, poorly paid act of violence. Or another. 'How did it end . . . like this?'

'You underestimated Orso's venomous ambition and Murcatto's ruthless competence. Don't feel too badly, though, we've all done it.'

Salier's eyes rolled sideways. 'The question was intended to be rhetorical. But you are right, of course. It seems I have been guilty of arrogance, and the penalty will be harsh. No less than everything. But who could have expected a young woman would win one unlikely victory over us after another? How I laughed when you made her your second, Cosca. How we all laughed when Orso gave her command. We were already planning our triumphs, dividing his lands between us. Our chuckles are become sobs now, eh?'

'I find chuckles have a habit of doing so.'

'I suppose that makes her a very great soldier and me a very poor one. But then I never aspired to be a soldier, and would have been perfectly happy as merely a grand duke.'

'Now you are nothing, instead, and so am I. Such is life.'

'Time for one last performance, though.'

'For both of us.'

The duke grinned back. 'A pair of dying swans, eh, Cosca?'

'A brace of old turkeys, maybe. Why aren't you running, your Excellency?'

'I must confess I am wondering myself. Pride, I think. I have spent my life as the Grand Duke of Visserine, and insist on dying the same way. I refuse to be simply fat Master Salier, once of importance.'

'Pride, eh? Can't say I ever had much of the stuff.'

'Then why aren't you running, Cosca?'

'I suppose . . .' Why was he not running? Old Master Cosca, once of importance, who always kept his last thought for his own skin? Foolish love? Mad bravery? Old debts to pay? Or simply so that merciful death could spare him from further shame? 'But look!' He pointed to the gate. 'Only think of her and she appears.'

She wore a Talinese uniform, hair gathered up under a helmet, jaw set hard. Just like a serious young officer, clean-shaven this morning and keen to get stuck into the manly business of war. If Cosca had not known, he swore he would never have guessed. A tiny something in the way she walked, perhaps? In the set of her hips, the length of her neck? Again, the women in men's clothes. Did they have to torture him so?