The place looked like bribery, smelled like lust and sounded like blackmail.
The greeter spirited a box of chips into Leo’s hand. “Enjoy yourselves, my lords.”
“This place is vile,” he muttered as she glided off. He reached up to wipe his sweaty forehead, realised he couldn’t because of the mask.
“You need to live a little!” Glaward swept two drinks from the tray of a waitress with a mask like a golden octopus and started to swill one back while holding out the other.
“I’d best stay sober. I’ve a deal to strike with one of the most powerful men in the world.”
“I haven’t.” Antaup plucked the drink from Glaward’s hand, took a mouthful, then bared his teeth. “Bit sweet.”
“Like everything here—” Leo gasped at a touch on his shoulder and spun about. No assassin at his back, but a willowy blonde in a mask like a butterfly.
“No need to startle, my lord,” she pouted at him.
“I’m not startled!” Though he obviously had been.
She giggled as if anxious bad temper was her favourite quality in a man. “I just wondered if I could be of any—”
“No,” he snapped, turning away.
“Yes,” said Jin, nipping in front of Antaup with surprising agility and slipping his arm through hers.
“Aren’t you a strong one,” Leo heard her cooing as they headed for the door.
“Glad someone’s enjoying themselves,” he grumbled, under his breath.
It was absurd for a red-blooded young hero to wish his wife was with him in a place like this, but he wished Savine was there. He was coming to rely on her more and more. To admire her taste, and her judgement, and… well, everything really. But she trusted him to do this. He couldn’t let her down.
“Don’t worry.” Jurand, slipping up close to speak softly. Knowing Leo’s feelings without a word said, like always. He guided Leo over to the dice table. It was the right height to lean on, at least, and take the weight off his throbbing leg without showing any weakness. “You’re the Young Lion! You convinced Rikke and Stour to join you. United two bitter enemies under your banner! Just be honest, and strong, and generous. Just be you.” Jurand leaned closer, grinning. “Only a bit more ruthless. This is Styria, after all.”
“You’re right.” Leo took a hard breath. Good old Jurand. Always knew what to say. He had united Rikke and Stour. He was the great persuader, and if he could add Jappo to his alliance, the game would be won before it began.
A solid, silent, grey-haired man with a mask like a pair of dice was running the table. His eyes flicked to Leo, as blank as double ones. “Care to throw?”
“Why not?” Leo tossed a few chips onto the baize and flung the dice.
“Two fives,” droned the dealer. “Player wins.”
And he shuffled some chips towards Leo. As easily as that, he was the winner. Leo wanted to grab Jurand and kiss him on the forehead but, given that odd moment earlier, he threw a rough arm around him instead and put him in a manly headlock. “What the hell would I do without you?”
He shoved a larger stack of chips out onto the table and snapped his fingers at Antaup. “Pass me those dice!”
The greeter at Cardotti’s House of Leisure was a work of art in herself, a moving sculpture of black silk, paint and feathers, the very personification of Sipani’s succulent corruption. Or corrupt succulence. Whichever, really.
“Your Majesty,” she said, dropping into a deep and graceful curtsy. Almost as deep and graceful as the ones Savine used to perform, though her skirts had never split all the way to her hips in quite so mesmerising a way.
“Probably best you don’t call me that,” murmured Orso, tapping the side of his nose. “Incognito, you know.”
“Everyone is incognito here.” Her accent reminded him rather of his mother’s, which most certainly shouldn’t have been an arousing thought, but somehow rather was. “At Cardotti’s, we are notorious for our discretion.” She leaned close. Even masked she managed to look magnificently sly. “Among many other things.”
“Indeed, I believe you once hosted my father?”
The greeter looked somewhat pained. “The night of the great fire. A sad moment in a proud history.” Gorst, for some reason, gave a kind of strangled cough. The greeter took Orso by the elbow, resting against him as lightly as a fur sits on a lady’s shoulder, purring in his ear. “But the building has been completely rebuilt since and our security is second to none.” She gestured to six armed guards, standing still as suits of armour against the walls. “You could not be safer locked in a vault, I assure you.”
“And we’d have a lot less fun there, eh, Gorst?”
Gorst followed in brooding silence, glaring about with fists clenched.
“King Jappo is most keen to speak with you but… otherwise engaged just at the moment. The entertainments of Cardotti’s stand entirely at your disposal in the meantime.”
“What entertainments have you got, exactly?” asked Tunny, adjusting the fit of a mask shaped like a silver star.
“All of them.” The greeter led them into a dark-panelled hall where games of skill, chance and ruination were being played. Groups of men sat talking, laughing, smoking, drinking. Girls cooed and crooned and fluttered fans between them. Coloured light gleamed on fine glassware and soft skin, filtered through amber drinks and curling smoke. Rarely if ever had such a tableau of high-class debauchery been assembled in one place, and Orso had arranged quite a few himself, in his misspent youth. And his misspent adulthood, for that matter.
“Despite all my protestations to the contrary,” he said, sucking in a breath heavy with husk, musk and perfume, “I think at least half my heart belongs to Styria.”
“Reckon I’ve died and gone to heaven,” said Tunny, grinning hugely, “as the Gurkish might say.”
“To hell,” squeaked Gorst, heavy jaw firmly clenched beneath his mask of a crescent moon.
Orso had attended quite a few masked balls and learned how to handle them through pleasurable trial and error. The main rule was not to get carried away and make an utter arse of yourself. A good rule under all circumstances, in truth, but one that not everyone followed.
Four men were gathered at the dice table. One in a unicorn mask slouched against it, shirt open to show a patch of sweaty chest, waving one floppy hand in time to the band. Or, in fact, entirely out of time. “Lovely music,” he droned, “wonderful music.”
“I told you not to smoke that pipe,” snapped a broad-shouldered one in a lion mask as he flung the dice down the table. They were from the Union, clearly. Angland accents, maybe? Four friends, but the lion appeared to be the leader. Not unlike Orso’s own party, except that Gorst never drank, while Tunny always drank but never seemed to get drunk.
The whale-masked one, who was indeed whale-sized, laughed uproariously at something the bird-masked one said, then lifted his glass but managed to spill most of its contents before he got it to his mouth.
“You’re drunk,” growled the lion.
“It’s a House of Leisure,” said the whale, spreading his hands in good-natured apology. “Shouldn’t we all be drunk?”