“You never know, I may see you in Adua. I’ve a feeling it might be wise to clear out of Westport for the time being. There will no doubt be recriminations following the recent shift in power. Debts to be paid and scores to settle.” Murdine glanced nervously about the tavern and twitched his hood further down. “I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for Shenkt a second time.” He gave a little shiver. “Or, for that matter, to run into the real one.”
“Very wise.”
“They say Styria’s the home of culture, but when it comes to theatre, all they want is flash and sparkle.” Murdine waved it away with flamboyant disgust. “I want to get at the truth.”
“The truth is overrated.” Vick let the purse drop into his hand. “An actor should know that.”
It was early, the sun an angry clipping over the hills in the east, the rigging of the ships casting a cobweb of long shadows on the quay. It was early, but the sooner they were at sea and she was out of this endlessly crowded, superstitious, suffocating city, the happier she’d be.
Or the less unhappy, at least.
Two Practicals followed Vick and Tallow along the seafront, lugging her trunk between them. They were big men, but they were sweating. There was almost as great a weight of clothes, powders and props inside as Savine dan Glokta might have taken on a trip abroad. The many different Victarine dan Teufels she might need to slip into. Made her wonder who the real one was. If there was such a thing any more.
“He was an actor?” muttered Tallow, for about the fifth time, his one little bag slung over his shoulder.
“An actor and acrobat. He’s very particular on that point.”
“You didn’t think to tell me?”
“You can’t let slip what you don’t know.”
“What if, well…” He mimed a stabbing motion. “I’d killed him. Or something?”
“Then there are always more actors.” She gave a sigh that tasted of salt and sea rot and the acrid smoke from the tanneries down the coast, just starting up for the day. “Every idiot wants to be one.”
“Was the real Shenkt even in the city?”
“Who says there even is a real Shenkt? People like things that are simple. Black and white. Good and evil. They want to make a choice and tell themselves they were right. But as His Eminence is fond of saying, the real world is painted in greys. The truth is complicated, full of mixed emotions and blurred outcomes and each-way bets. The truth… is a hard sell.”
They’d reached the ship, now. An unappealing tub in need of a good careening, but it was sailing the right way. The two Practicals set down Vick’s trunk with a clatter. One unceremoniously planted his arse on it while he stretched out his back, the other pulled his mask aside to wipe his sweaty face.
“It helps to give people a straightforward story, with villains to boo and heroes to root for.” Vick narrowed her eyes as she looked out to sea. “In my experience, that means making them up.”
“But who’s—”
Doesn’t matter how sharp you are. No one can be ready all the time.
Something flashed past. One of the two Practicals. He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t have time. Just flew a dozen strides and crashed into the side of a boat, staving in the planking in a cloud of splinters.
Tallow shrank back, hands over his head. Vick whipped around to see the other Practical tumbling across the quay, limbs bonelessly flopping. She caught a glimpse of a black figure against the rising sun, coming impossibly fast. She was just raising her arm, she hardly even knew what to do, when it was caught with irresistible strength. She was jerked off her feet, the world reeled, and the quayside smashed her in the chest and drove her breath out in a choking wheeze.
She saw boots through the blur. Well-worn old work boots. Then something was over her face. Darkness and her own booming breath. Hands tied behind her. Scrape of her toes as she was dragged along under the armpits. Hiss over the cobbles. Clack, clack, clack over the boards of a wharf.
She gathered herself, trying to think through the throbbing in her head, the burning ache in her shoulder. She might only get one chance. She might not even get one chance. She shoved a boot down, tried to twist free, but she was gripped tight as barrel bands. Pain stabbed up her arm, made her gasp through gritted teeth.
“Better not,” said a man’s voice in her ear. A soft, bland, bored-sounding voice.
A door clattered open, then shut. Boots clonked and rattled on a loose floor. She felt herself dumped into a chair. A creak of wood and a hiss of rope as her hands were tied fast to the back, her ankles to the legs.
“All right, take it off.”
The bag was pulled from her head.
Some gloomy shed with a tar-and-fish stink. Shafts of light shone through the cracks between the timbers of its walls. Slimy lobster cages were stacked to one side. Vick wondered if this was the place she’d die. She guessed she’d seen worse.
A tall woman perched on a table with arms folded, looking down at Vick through narrowed eyes. Her grey hair was short and spiky, her sharp face deeply lined. Late fifties, maybe. Calm and professional. Not trying to be menacing. There was no need.
“Know who I am?” she asked. A Styrian accent, but she spoke common well. Like someone who’d spent a lot of time in the Union.
Vick’s head was thumping where it had hit the quay. Blood tickling her scalp. Her shoulder was throbbing worse and worse. But she made sure to show as little pain as possible. Show hurt, you’re asking to be hurt. “I’ve a guess,” she said.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense.”
“You’re Shylo Vitari, Minister of Whispers for the Serpent of Talins.” If Old Sticks had an opposite number on this side of the Circle Sea, here she sat.
“Very good.” Hard wrinkles showed around Vitari’s eyes as she smiled. “I like her already. You like her?”
The bored man gave a non-committal grunt. As if liking or disliking things wasn’t really his business. He finished tying Tallow to his chair the way he’d tied Vick to hers. Quick and practised, like he’d done it many times before.
“Know who this is?” Vitari nodded towards him as he tested the knots on Tallow’s bonds.
Vick hardly wanted to answer. “I’ve a guess.”
“Let’s see if you can make it two of two.”
“He’s Casamir dan Shenkt.”
“The real one,” said Vitari. “Imagine that.”
Styria’s most infamous killer, if it really was him, gave Vick a watery, slightly apologetic smile. Few men had ever looked so ordinary. Gaunt and colourless, with dark rings around his eyes. But then awesome looks put people on their guard, and that’s the last thing a killer wants. He leaned back against the wall and pulled something from a pocket. A piece of wood, roughly carved. He began to whittle it with a little curved knife, blade flashing, white shavings scattering about his worn boots.
“Do you go by Victarine?” asked Vitari. “It’s quite the mouthful. Maybe your friends call you Vick?”
“Maybe they would. If I had any.”
“You’ve got at least one.” She grinned down at Tallow and he stared back at her with those big, sad eyes, and grunted something into his gag no one could understand.