"Five all told, and four of 'em women?" Swolle grinned. "A dozen should do it."
Faithful kept his eyes on Shivers. "Still. Make it three score, like I said, just in case there's more at the party than we're expecting. I'd be all embarrassed to arrive at a job short-handed."
"Sir." And Swolle shouldered his way out through the tent flap.
Shivers shrugged. "Have it your way."
"Why, that I will. You can depend on it." Faithful turned to his frowning captains. "Any of you old bastards want to come out on the hunt?"
Sesaria shook his big head, long hair swaying. "This is your mess, Faithful. You can swing the broom."
"I've foraged enough for one night." Andiche was already pushing out through the flap, a few others following in a muttering crowd, some looking suspicious, some looking careless, some looking drunk.
"I too must take my leave, General Carpi." The speaker stood out among all these rough, scarred, dirty men, if only 'cause nothing much about him stood out. He had a curly head of hair, no weapon Shivers could see, no scar, no sneer, no fighter's air of menace in the least. But Faithful still chuckled up to him like he was a man needed respect.
"Master Sulfur!" Folding his hand in both of his big paws and giving it a squeeze. "My thanks for stopping by. You're always welcome here."
"Oh, I am loved wherever I go. Easy to remain on good terms with the man who brings the money."
"Tell Duke Orso, and your people at the bank, they've nothing to worry on here. It'll all be taken care of, like we discussed. Just as soon as I've dealt with this little problem."
"Life does love to throw up problems, doesn't it?" Sulfur gave Shivers a splinter of a smile. He had odd-coloured eyes, one blue, one green. "Happy hunting, then." And he ambled out into the dawn.
Faithful was back in Shivers' face right away. "An hour's ride, you said?"
"If you move quick for your age."
"Huh. How do you know she won't have missed you by then, slipped away?"
"She's asleep. Husk sleep. She smokes more o' that shit every day. Half her time drooling with it, the rest drooling for it. She won't be waking any time soon."
"Best to waste no time, though. That woman can cause unpleasant surprises."
"That's a fact. And she's expecting help. Two-score men from Rogont, coming by tomorrow afternoon. They're planning to shadow you, lay an ambush as you turn south."
"No better feeling than flipping a surprise around, eh?" Faithful grinned. "And you'll be riding at the front."
"For a tenth part o' the take I'll ride at the front side-saddle."
"Just in front will do. Right next to me and you can point out the ground. We honest men need to stick together."
"That we do," said Shivers. "No doubt."
"Alright." Faithful clapped his big hands and rubbed them together. "A piss, then I'm getting my armour on."
King of Poisons
Boss?" came Day's high voice. "You awake?"
Morveer exhaled a racking sigh. "Merciful slumber has indeed released me from her soft bosom… and back into the frigid embrace of an uncaring world."
"What?"
He waved it bitterly away. "Never mind. My words fall like seeds… on stony ground."
"You said to wake you at dawn."
"Dawn? Oh, harsh mistress!" He threw back his one thin blanket and struggled up from the prickling straw, truly a humble repose for a man of his matchless talents, stretched his aching back and clambered stiffly down the ladder to the floor of the barn. He was forced to concede that he had long been too advanced in years, not to mention too refined in tastes, for haylofts.
Day had assembled the apparatus during the hours of darkness and now, as the first anaemic flicker of dawn niggled at the narrow windows, the burners were alight. Reagents happily simmered, steam carelessly condensed, distillations merrily dripped into the collecting flasks. Morveer processed around the makeshift table, rapping his knuckles against the wood as he passed, making the glassware clink and tinkle. Everything appeared to be entirely in order. Day had learned her business from a master, after all, perhaps the greatest poisoner in all the wide Circle of the World, who would say nay? But even the sight of the good work well done could not coax Morveer from his maudlin mood.
He puffed out his cheeks and gave vent to a weary sigh. "No one understands me. I am doomed to be misunderstood."
"You're a complex person," said Day.
"Exactly! Exactly so! You see it!" Perhaps she alone appreciated that beneath his stern and masterful exterior there were reservoirs of feeling deep as mountain lakes.
"I've made tea." She held a battered metal mug out to him, steam curling from within. His stomach grumbled unpleasantly.
"No. I am grateful for your kind attentions, of course, but no. My digestion is unsettled this morning, terribly unsettled."
"Our Gurkish visitor making you nervous?"
"Absolutely and entirely not," he lied, suppressing a shiver at the very remembrance of those midnight eyes. "My dyspepsia is the result of my ongoing difference of opinion with our employer, the notorious Butcher of Caprile, the ever-contrary Murcatto! I simply cannot seem to find the correct approach with that woman! However cordially I behave, however spotless my intentions, she bears it ill!"
"She's somewhat prickly, true."
"In my opinion she passes beyond prickly and enters the arena of… sharp," he finished, lamely.
"Well, the betrayal, the being thrown down the mountain, the dead brother and all—"
"Explanations, not excuses! We all have suffered painful reverses! I declare, I am half-tempted to abandon her to her inevitable fate and seek out fresh employment." He snorted with laughter at a sudden thought. "With Duke Orso, perhaps!"
Day looked up sharply. "You're joking."
It had, in fact, been intended as a witticism, for Castor Morveer was not the man to abandon an employer once he had accepted a contract. Certain standards of behaviour had to be observed, in his business more than any other. But it amused him to explore the notion further, counting off the points one by one upon his outstretched digits. "A man who can undoubtedly afford my services. A man who undoubtedly requires my services. A man who has proved himself unencumbered by the slightest troublesome moral qualm."
"A man with a record of pushing his employees down mountains."
Morveer dismissed it. "One should never be foolish enough to trust the sort of person who would hire a poisoner. In that he is no worse an employer than any other. Why, it is a profound wonder the thought did not occur sooner!"
"But… we killed his son."
"Bah! Such difficulties are easily explained away when two men find they need each other." He airily waved one hand. "Some invention will suffice. Some wretched scapegoat can always be found to shoulder the blame."
She nodded slowly, mouth set hard. "A scapegoat. Of course."
"A wretched one." One less mutilated Northman in the world would be no loss to posterity. Nor one less insane convict or abrasive torturer, for that matter. He was almost warming to the notion. "But I daresay for the time being we are stuck with Murcatto and her futile quest for revenge. Revenge. I swear, is there a more pointless, destructive, unsatisfying motive in all the world?"