Best Served Cold

… Grand Duke Orso.” He swilled around a mouthful of wine, watched a little bird flit between the branches. Murcatto said nothing, but it hardly mattered. Morveer was happy to speak for them both.

“You have been done a terrible wrong, I see that. Betrayed by a man who owed you so much. Your beloved brother killed and you rendered

… less than you were. My own life has been littered with painful reverses, believe me, so I entirely empathise. But the world is brimming with the awful and we humble individuals can only alter it by

… small degrees.” He frowned over at Day, munching noisily.

“What?” she grunted, mouth full.

“Quietly if you must, I am trying to expound.” She shrugged, licking her fingers with entirely unnecessary sucking sounds. Morveer gave a disapproving sigh. “The carelessness of youth. She will learn. Time marches in only one direction for us all, eh, Murcatto?”

“Spare me the fucking philosophy,” she forced through tight lips.

“Let us confine ourselves to the practical, then. With your notable assistance, Orso has made himself the most powerful man in Styria. I would never pretend to have your grasp of all things military, but it scarcely takes Stolicus himself to perceive that, following your glorious victory at the High Bank last year, the League of Eight are on the verge of collapse. Only a miracle will save Visserine when summer comes. The Osprians will treat for peace or be crushed, depending on Orso’s mood, which, as you know far better than most, tends towards crushings. By the close of the year, barring accidents, Styria will have a king at last. An end to the Years of Blood.” He drained his glass and waved it expansively. “Peace and prosperity for all and sundry! A better world, surely? Unless one is a mercenary, I suppose.”

“Or a poisoner.”

“On the contrary, we find more than ample employment in peacetime too. In any case, my point is that killing Grand Duke Orso-quite apart from the apparent impossibility of the task-seems to serve nobody’s interests. Not even yours. It will not bring your brother back, or your hand, or your legs.” Her face did not flicker, but that might merely have been due to paralysis. “The attempt will more than likely end in your death, and possibly even in mine. My point is that you have to stop this madness, my dear Monzcarro. You have to stop it at once, and give it no further thought.”

Her eyes were pitiless as two pots of poison. “Only death will stop me. Mine, or Orso’s.”

“No matter the cost? No matter the pain? No matter who’s killed along the path?”

“No matter,” she growled.

“I find myself entirely convinced as to your level of commitment.”

“Everything.” The word was a snarl.

Morveer positively beamed. “Then we can do business. On that basis, and no other. What do I never deal in, Day?”

“Half-measures,” his assistant murmured, eyeing the one cake left on the plate.

“Correct. How many do we kill?”

“Six,” said Murcatto, “including Orso.”

“Then my rate shall be ten thousand scales per secondary, payable upon proof of their demise, and fifty thousand for the Duke of Talins himself.”

Her face twitched slightly. “Poor manners, to negotiate while your client is helpless.”

“Manners would be ludicrous in a conversation about murder. In any case, I never haggle.”

“Then we have a deal.”

“I am so glad. Antidote, please.”

Day pulled the cork from a glass jar, dipped the very point of a thin knife into the syrupy reduction in its bottom and handed it to him, polished handle first. He paused, looking into Murcatto’s cold blue eyes.

Caution first, always. This woman they called the Serpent of Talins was dangerous in the extreme. If Morveer had not known it from her reputation, from their conversation, from the employment she had come to engage him for, he could have seen it at a single glance. He most seriously considered the possibility of giving her a fatal jab instead, throwing her Northern friend in the river and forgetting the whole business.

But to kill Grand Duke Orso, the most powerful man in Styria? To shape the course of history with one deft twist of his craft? For his deed, if not his name, to echo through the ages? What finer way to crown a career of achieving the impossible? The very thought made him smile the wider.

He gave a long sigh. “I hope I will not come to regret this.” And he jabbed the back of Murcatto’s hand with the point of the knife, a single bead of dark blood slowly forming on her skin.

Within a few moments the antidote was already beginning to take effect. She winced as she turned her head slowly one way, then the other, worked the muscles in her face. “I’m surprised,” she said.

“Truly? How so?”

“I was expecting a Master Poisoner.” She rubbed at the mark on the back of her hand. “Who’d have thought I’d get such a little prick?”