Best Served Cold

She stood, lifting the lamp, holding his eye, and set the flame to the bowl. His first breath in he coughed out straight away. The second not much later. The third he managed to hold, then blow out in a plume of white smoke.

“Your turn,” he croaked, pressing the pipe back into her hand as he sank down on the bed, smoke still curling up from the bowl and tickling her nose.

“I…” Oh, how she wanted it. She was trembling with her need for it. “I…” Right there, right in her hand. But this was no time to indulge herself. She needed to stay in control.

His mouth curled up in a gormless grin. “Whose blessing do you need?” he croaked. “I promise I won’t tell a… oh.”

She was already setting the flame to the grey-brown flakes, sucking the smoke in deep, feeling it burn at her lungs.

“Damn boots,” the king was saying as he tried to drag his highly polished footwear off. “Don’t bloody fit me. You pay… a hundred marks

… for some boots… you expect them to-” One flew off and clattered into the wall, leaving a bright trace behind it. Monza was finding it hard to stand up.

“Again.” She held the pipe out.

“Well… where’s the harm?” Monza stared at the lamp flame as it flared up. Shimmering, shining, all the colours of a hoard of priceless jewels, the crumbs of husk glowing orange, turning from sweet brown to blazing red to used-up grey ash. The king breathed a long plume of sweet-smelling smoke in her face and she closed her eyes and sucked it in. Her head was full of it, swelling with it, ready to burst open.

“Oh.”

“Eh?”

He stared around. “That is… rather…”

“Yes. Yes it is.” The room was glowing. The pains in her legs had become pleasurable tickles. Her bare skin fizzed and tingled. She sank down, mattress creaking under her rump. Just her and the King of the Union, perched on an ugly bed in a whorehouse. What could’ve been more comfortable?

The king licked lazily at his lips. “My wife. The queen. You know. Did I mention that? Queen. She does not always-”

“Your wife likes women,” Monza found she’d said. Then she snorted with laughter, and had to wipe some snot off her lip. “She likes them a lot.”

The king’s eyes were pink inside the eyeholes of his mask. They crawled lazily over her face. “Women? What were we talking of?” He leaned forwards. “I don’t feel… nervous… anymore.” He slid one clumsy hand up the side of her leg. “I think…” he muttered, working his tongue around his mouth. “I… think…” His eyes rolled up and he flopped back on the bed, arms outspread. His head tipped slowly sideways, mask skewing across his face, and he was still, faint snoring echoing in Monza’s ears.

He looked so peaceful there. She wanted to lie down. She was always thinking, thinking, worrying, thinking. She needed to rest. She deserved to. But there was something nagging at her-something she needed to do first. What was it? She drifted to her feet, swaying uncertainly.

Ario.

“Uh. That’s it.” She left his Majesty sprawled across the bed and made for the door, the room tipping one way and then the other, trying to catch her out. Tricky bastard. She bent down and tore one of the high shoes off, tottered sideways and nearly fell. She flung the other away and it floated gently through the air, like an anchor sinking through water. She had to force her eyes open wide as she looked at the door, because there was a mosaic of blue glass between her and the world, candle flames beyond it leaving long, blinding smears across her sight.

– 

M orveer nodded to Day, and she nodded back, a deeper black shape crouched in the fizzing darkness of the attic, the slightest strip of blue light across her grin. Behind her, the joists, the laths, the rafters were all black outlines touched down the edges with the faintest glow. “I will deal with the pair beside the Royal Suite,” he whispered. “You… take the others.”

“Done, but when?”

When was the question of paramount importance. He put his eye to the hole, blowpipe in one hand, fingertips of the other rubbing nervously against his thumb. The door to the Royal Suite opened and Vitari emerged from between the guards. She frowned up, then walked away down the corridor. There was no sign of Murcatto, no sign of Foscar, no further sign of anything. This was not part of the plan, of that Morveer was sure. He had still to kill the guards, of course, he had been paid to do so and always followed through on a contracted task. That was one thing among many that separated him from the obscene likes of Nicomo Cosca. But when, when, when…

Morveer frowned. He was sure he could hear the vague sound of someone chewing. “Are you eating?”

“Just a bun.”

“Well stop it! We are at work, for pity’s sake, and I am trying to think! Is an iota of professionalism too much to ask?”