Shadow and Betrayal

his head, and his thin arms were bound behind him. Torish Wite took him by the shoulder, lifted roughly, and nodded to one of his men. When the cloth was flipped away, Amat swallowed a knot of fear.
    ‘This him?’ Torish Wite asked.
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    Ovi Niit’s gaze swam. He had a glazed look that spoke of wine with strange spices as much as fear or anger. It took the space of three long breaths for his eyes to rest on her, for recognition to bloom there. Slowly, he struggled to his feet.
    ‘Niit-cha,’ Amat said, taking a pose that opened a negotiation. ‘It has been some time.’
    The whoremaster answered with a string of obscenities that only stopped with Torish Wite’s man stepping forward and striking him across the face. Amat folded her hands in her lap. A drop of blood appeared at the corner of Ovi Niit’s mouth, bright as a jewel and distracting to her.
    ‘If you do as I say, Niit-cha,’ she began again, ‘this needn’t be an unpleasant affair.’
    He grinned, the blood smearing his crooked teeth. There was no fear in him. He laughed, and the sound itself seemed reckless. Amat wished that they’d found him when he was sober.
    ‘I was never paid, Ovi-cha, for my time with you. I have chosen to take the price in a share of the house. In fact, I’ve chosen to buy you out.’ She took a sheaf of papers from her sleeve and placed them on the table. ‘I’m offering a fair price.’
    ‘There isn’t enough money in the world,’ he spat. ‘I built that house up from three girls in an alley.’
    The firekeeper shifted in his seat. The distant smile on his lips didn’t shift, but his eyes held a curiosity. Amat felt oddly out of her depth. This was a negotiation, after all, and to say she had the upper hand would be gross understatement, and yet she was at sea.
    ‘You’re going to kill me, you dust-cunt bitch. Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.’
    ‘There’s no need . . .’ she began, then stopped and took a pose of acceptance. Ovi Niit was right. It was only dressed as a negotiation. It was, in point of fact, a murder. For the first time, something like apprehension showed in his expression. His eyes shifted to the side, to Torish Wite.
    ‘Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll triple it,’ Ovi Niit said.
    ‘Amat-cha,’ the firekeeper said. ‘I appreciate the attempt, but it seems to me unlikely that this gentleman will sign the documents.’
    Amat sighed and took a pose of concurrence. In the common room someone shrieked with laughter. The sound was made faint by the thick stone walls. Like the call of a ghost.
    ‘You can kill me, but you’ll never break me,’ Ovi Niit said, pulling himself up proud as a pit-cock.
    ‘I’ll live with that,’ Amat said, and nodded. Torish Wite neatly kicked Ovi Niit’s knees out, and the two other men stepped forward to hold him while their captain leaned over and looped a knotted cord over his head. An efficient flick of the wrist, and the cord was tight enough to dig into the flesh, buried. The whoremaster’s face went deep red and darkening. Amat watched with a sick fascination. It took longer than she’d expected. When the men released it, the body fell like a sack of grain.
    The firekeeper reached across the table, picked up the sheaf between his first finger and his thumb, and pulled them before him. As if there wasn’t a fresh corpse on the floor, Amat turned to him.
    ‘I suppose you know someone who can do a decent imitation of his chop?’ the firekeeper said.
    ‘I’ll see it arranged,’ Amat said.
    ‘Very well. If the watch asks, I’ll swear to it that I stood witness at the transaction,’ the firekeeper said, taking a pen and a small silver inkbox from his sleeve. ‘You paid Niit-cha his asking price, he accepted, and in fact seemed quite pleased.’
    ‘Do you think the watch will ask?’
    The inkbox clicked open, the firekeeper’s pen touched the inkblock and then the page, scratching with a sound like bird’s feet.
    ‘Of course they will,’ he said, sliding the papers back toward her. ‘They’re the watch. They’re paid to. But so long as you pay your share to them, let them sample your wares on occasion, and don’t cause them trouble, I doubt they’ll ask many. He didn’t die in the soft quarter. Their honor isn’t at stake.’
    Amat considered the firekeeper’s signature for a moment, then took a small leather sack from her belt and handed it to him. He had the good taste not to count it there at the