I have seen hell, Stolicus wrote, and it is a great city under siege.
Up ahead the road passed under a marble arch, a long rivulet of water spattering from its high keystone. A mural was painted on the wall above. Grand Duke Salier sat enthroned at the top, optimistically depicted as pleasantly plump rather than massively obese. He held one hand up in blessing, a heavenly light radiating from his fatherly smile. Beneath him an assortment of Visserine's citizens, from the lowest to the highest, humbly enjoyed the benefits of his good governance. Bread, wine, wealth. Under them, around the top of the archway, the words charity, justice, courage were printed in gold letters high as a man. Someone with an appetite for truth had managed to climb up there and daub over them in streaky red, greed, torture, cowardice.
"The arrogance of that fat fucker Salier." Vitari grinned sideways at her, orange hair black-brown with rain. "Still, I reckon he's made his last boast, don't you?"
Monza only grunted. All she could think about as she looked into Vitari's sharp-boned face was how far she could trust her. They might be in the middle of a war, but the greatest threats were still more than likely from within her own little company of outcasts. Vitari? Here for the money—ever a risky motivation since there's always some bastard with deeper pockets. Cosca? How can you trust a notoriously treacherous drunk you once betrayed yourself? Friendly? Who knew how the hell that man's mind worked?
But they were all tight as family beside Morveer. She stole a glance over her shoulder, caught him frowning at her from the seat of his cart. The man was poison, and the moment he could profit by it he'd murder her easily as crushing a tick. He was already suspicious of the choice to come into Visserine, but the last thing she wanted was to share her reasoning. That Orso would have Eider's letter by now. Would have offered a king's ransom of Valint and Balk's money for her death and got half the killers in the Circle of the World scouring Styria hoping to put her head in a bag. Along with the heads of anyone who'd helped her, of course.
The chances were high they'd be safer in the middle of a battle than outside it.
Shivers was the only one she could even halfway trust. He rode hunched over, big and silent beside her. His babble had been quite the irritation in Westport, but now it had dried up, strange to say, it had left a gap. He'd saved her life, in foggy Sipani. Monza's life wasn't all it had been, but a man saving it still raised him a damn sight higher in her estimation.
"You're quiet, all of a sudden."
She could hardly see his face in the darkness, just the hard set of it, shadows in his eye sockets, in the hollows under his cheeks. "Don't reckon I've much to say."
"Never stopped you before."
"Well. I'm starting to see all kinds o' things different."
"That so?"
"You might think it comes easy to me, but it's an effort, trying to stay hopeful. An effort that don't ever seem to pay off."
"I thought being a better man was its own reward."
"I guess it ain't reward enough for all the work. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of a war."
"Believe me, I know what a war looks like. I've been living in one most of my life."
"Well, what are the odds o' that? Me too. From what I've seen, and I've seen plenty, a war ain't really the place for bettering yourself. I'm thinking I might try it your way, from now on."
"Pick out a god and praise him! Welcome to the real world!" She wasn't sure she didn't feel a twinge of disappointment though, for all her grinning. Monza might have given up on being a decent person long ago, but somehow she liked the idea that she could have pointed one out. She pulled on her reins and eased her horse up, the cart clattering to a halt behind her. "We're here."
The place she and Benna had bought in Visserine was an old one, built before the city had good walls, and rich men each took their own care to guard what was theirs. A stone tower-house on five storeys, hall and stables to one side, with slit windows on the ground floor and battlements on the high roof. It stood big and black against the dark sky, a very different beast from the low brick-and-timber houses that crowded in close around it. She lifted the key to the studded door, then frowned. It was open a crack, light gathering on the rough stone down its edge. She put her finger to her lips and pointed towards it.
Shivers raised one big boot and kicked it shuddering open, wood clattering on the other side as something was barged out of the way. Monza darted in, left hand on the hilt of her sword. The kitchen was empty of furniture and full of people. Grubby and tired-looking, every one of them staring at her, shocked and fearful, in the light of one flickering candle. The nearest, a stocky man with one arm in a sling, stumbled up from an empty barrel and caught hold of a length of wood.
"Get back!" he screamed at her. A man in a dirty farmer's smock took a stride towards her, waving a hatchet.
Shivers stepped around Monza's shoulder, ducking under the lintel and straightening up, big shadow shifting across the wall behind him, his heavy sword drawn and gleaming down by his leg. "You get back."
The farmer did as he was told, scared eyes fixed on that length of bright metal. "Who the hell are you?"
"Me?" snapped Monza. "This is my house, bastard."
"Eleven of them," said Friendly, slipping through the doorway on the other side.
As well as the two men there were two old women and a man even older, bent right over, gnarled hands dangling. There was a woman about Monza's age, a baby in her arms and two little girls sat near her, staring with big eyes, like enough to be twins. A girl of maybe sixteen stood by the empty fireplace. She had a rough-forged knife out that she'd been gutting a fish with, her other arm across a boy, might've been ten or so, pushing him behind her shoulder.
Just a girl, looking out for her little brother.
"Put your sword away," Monza said.
"Eh?"
"No one's getting killed tonight."
Shivers raised one heavy brow at her. "Now who's the optimist?"
"Lucky for you I bought a big house." The one with his arm in a sling looked like the head of the family, so she fixed her eye on him. "There's room for all of us."
He let his club drop. "We're farmers from up the valley, just looking for somewhere safe. Place was like this when we found it, we didn't steal nothing. We'll be no trouble—"
"You'd better not be. This all of you?"
"My name's Furli. That's my wife—"
"I don't need your names. You'll stay down here, and you'll stay out of our way. We'll be upstairs, in the tower. You don't come up there, you understand? That way no one gets hurt."
He nodded, fear starting to mix with relief. "I understand."
"Friendly, get the horses stabled, and that cart off the street." Those farmers' hungry faces—helpless, weak, needy—made Monza feel sick. She kicked a broken chair out of the way then started up the stairs, winding into the darkness, her legs stiff from a day in the saddle. Morveer caught up with her on the fourth landing, Cosca and Vitari just behind him, Day at the back, a trunk in her arms. Morveer had brought a lamp with him, light pooling on the underside of his unhappy face.
"Those peasants are a decided threat to us," he murmured. "A problem easily solved, however. It will hardly be necessary to utilise the King of Poisons. A charitable contribution of a loaf of bread, dusted with Leopard Flower of course, and they would cease to—"
"No."
He blinked. "If your intention is to leave them at liberty down there, I must most strongly protest at—"
"Protest away. Let's see if I care a shit. You and Day can take that room." As he turned to peer into the darkness, Monza snatched the lamp out of his hand. "Cosca, you're on the second floor with Friendly. Vitari, seems like you get to sleep alone next door."