HAUTE CUISINE

Robert Earl

DURING THE SUMMER when the ship Destrier limped back into Bordeleaux, the heat was everywhere and always. In the daytime it throbbed down from the blinding sun, grilling the skin of those forced to toil beneath it. At night it lay heavy in the air, radiating from bricks and cobbles so that the city felt like a giant kiln.

Even in the docks, where Manann’s breath blew chill from the ocean beyond, the heat greased the air. The open sewers that fed into the harbour oozed beneath it, and the waste that finally dripped into the thick waters was as warm as blood. Methane fires occasionally flared above the stew of filth and brine, although they did nothing to dispel the stink.

But to Florin d’Artaud the foetid air of the harbour was sweeter than any rose. After all, it was the smell of home, and after thousands of miles of ocean and jungle and danger and pain, what could smell sweeter?

He lent over the railings of the Destrier and gazed longingly at the sweltering city that rose up around them. Lorenzo, who stood behind him, was not to be distracted by such sentiments. The older man stared at the deck instead, his eyes glittering in the oil lamps that had been set around the gunwales of their ship.

The treasure glittered, too. It had been spread out on the battered timber of the deck, and now, as the survivors of the expedition watched like hawks, it was being divided.

‘Gold,’ said the captain, weighing a misshapen yellow statue that looked a little like a frog. ‘Sixteen pounds and nine ounces.’

The assembled men, gaunt and ragged and fabulously wealthy, nodded approvingly. They watched the quarter master scratch the weight into the lump of metal, then turned back as the captain lifted the next piece. It was a medallion as big as a breastplate, the perfect oval spoiled only by a bullet hole right in the centre.

‘Gold,’ the captain said. ‘Twelve pounds and six ounces.’

The men shifted appreciatively. Only Florin looked impatient. He paced around behind them, gazing hungrily at his city. Even at this late hour it would be teeming with life, he knew. There would be fresh women and fresh food, tailors and bathhouses and wine merchants.

Behind him the captain paused over the next part of the inventory. A murmur of disquiet passed through the men as they watched him turn the bauble this way and that. Then he shrugged and put the thing into the scales.

‘Egg,’ the captain said as he weighed it. ‘Twenty-four pounds.’

Florin’s brow creased and he turned around.

‘What did he just say?’ he asked Lorenzo, who was frowning. It made him look even more like a monkey.

‘Egg,’ he said, and there was no mistaking the disgust in his voice. ‘More gold than we could carry, and what does some idiot decide to save?’

There was a murmur of angry agreement, and the captain held the egg up. It took two hands to lift it, and although it was obviously worthless it was pretty. Intricate shapes patterned the glazed surface, and he could see why, in all the panic, somebody might have snatched the bauble up.

The men, however, seemed less understanding.

‘Well, whoever brought this should take it as their share,’ the captain announced. ‘Who was it?’

The men fell silent. The Bretonnians glared suspiciously at the Kislevites, and the Kislevites sneered at the Tileans. The captain, realising that the fuse of racial tension had been relit, decided to douse it.

‘Nobody? Right then, as nobody wants it we’ll throw it away.’

Before anybody could reply he lifted the egg high over his head and hurled it over the side of the ship. It plopped into the sewage-choked water, bobbed once, then disappeared from view.

‘Gold,’ the captain said, moving hurriedly on to the next piece. ‘Nine pounds and four ounces.’

It was almost dawn by the time the spoils had been divided, and as the shipful of rich vagabonds hove into Bordeleaux, not a single one of them gave another thought to the egg that had been added to the rich stew of the city’s harbour.

One Year Later

THE MEN WHO worked in these depths toiled as hard as any miners. They strained and swore and struggled, their brows oiled with sweat as they practised their craft beneath the hiss of brass lanterns.

The patissier, his skin grey after a lifetime spent in clouds of flour, battered his pastry with a blacksmith’s strength. The saucier wielded a long-handled tasting spoon amongst his apprentices, driving them on like so many galley slaves. Meanwhile the rotissier, his arms scarred by fire and boiling grease, sliced apart a roast piglet with a swordsman’s skill.

And through this inferno, his face red and his eyes savage, strode the chef. In one hand he held the rolling pin that served as his marshal’s baton. The other was empty, although it flexed nervously. After all, although every dinner party involved the sort of perfect timing that would make a juggler dizzy, tonight was even worse. Tonight his master, Monsieur Lafayette, was entertaining his arch rival, Monsieur Griston.

Which was to say that perfection was no longer enough.

The chef idly whacked his rolling pin down on a porter who had been foolish enough to cross his path. The impact of wood onto flesh soothed him. So did the thought that tonight he would indeed give his master more than perfection.

‘How’s the pore au miele provencal?’ he asked the rotissier. The man, who was using two knives simultaneously, answered without looking up.

‘Needs to rest for twenty minutes,’ he said.

The chef looked at his timepiece, a burnished brass lump that was as big as his palm. ‘Twenty minutes,’ he repeated. ‘Good, saucier?’ The saucier swivelled at the sound of his master’s voice. ‘Chef?’ Twenty minutes for the sauce florette de pore’

‘But it’s ready in five.’

‘Twenty minutes!’ the chef screamed, and all around him quailed.

‘Twenty minutes it is,’ the saucier said, already shoving his apprentice out of the way to take personal charge of that particular cauldron.

The chef forgot him as he hurried towards his own bench. It was a marble slab, as big as a coffin, and a porter stood beside it in constant attendance. With a feeling of pride the chef put his rolling pin to one side and opened the box of eggs that waited for him on the slab. He hoisted one out, turning it to admire it in the lamplight.

He still wasn’t sure what the thing was. The size put him in mind of the giant chickens that were said to live in the Southlands. On the other hand, the colours that striped it were like nothing he’d seen on any mere bird’s egg before. They looked almost ceramic.

It didn’t really matter. All that mattered was what lay inside the strange shell. The one that he had sampled before purchasing the box had been as smooth as the richest mousse. And the taste… For the first time in his life, the chef believed that he had found something that couldn’t be improved upon by any artifice of his.

He smiled happily, secure in the knowledge that he would get the credit anyway. And all he had to do was to poach the eggs, slice them, and then cover them with clear sauce translucid for appearance’s sake.

‘Garcon,’ he bellowed, despite the fact that the porter was standing right behind him.

‘Yes, chef?’

‘Bring me the poaching kettle and the entree silverware.’ The porter didn’t reply. Instead, he choked. ‘The entree silverware?’ he finally managed to repeat. The chef turned to glare at him, fury in his eyes. ‘It’s just that we don’t have it. Entreeier Reinald has already sent the entrees up.’ The chef’s look became murderous.

‘He gave them oysters in sauce escargot,’ the porter stuttered, and started to edge away.

For a moment it seemed that he might have to run, but the chef’s fury found its lightning rod in the person of the entreeier himself. He had just returned from supervising the waiters’ handling of his creations, and had the relieved look of a man who had done a difficult job well.

The expression vanished beneath the chef’s animal howl of outrage. Assuming that his master had been driven to madness by the pressures of his office, Reinald attempted to defend himself from the assault.

Unfortunately, such defiance did little to improve his superior’s mood. As the two men fought their way through the shadows, fists blurring and teeth flashing, the rest of the kitchen worked on. Most remained oblivious to the violence going on around them as, sweating and swearing and struggling, they created perfection.

But on that night, as their chef had known all along, perfection wasn’t enough.

‘THESE OYSTERS ARE very good, Lafayette,’ Count Griston nodded across the dining table towards his host. ‘And the sauce is just right. It just goes to show that you can prepare quite a decent dish without worrying about any creativity whatsoever.’

Baron Lafayette smiled grimly at the insult. The worse thing about it was that it was true. The oysters escargot were faultless, but apart from that they were the same as oysters escargot anywhere.

‘I’m glad you are enjoying them,’ he told Griston. ‘I knew that you would. Many people say that the true gastronomer is a man of simple tastes.’

‘I quite agree,’ Griston’s wife said. ‘When we last ate at the castle we had oysters for an entree there, too.’

‘Oh, how is the duke?’ Lafayette’s wife enquired sweetly. ‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘Two years ago, wasn’t it Griston?’ her husband added.

‘Yes,’ Griston admitted. ‘I really should take more time for these social engagements. But you know how it is when things are going so well, eh Lafayette?’

Lafayette, who had lost an entire cargo of dates just the month before, nodded. To change the subject he turned to the fifth man at the table. The Harbour Master was working his way through his plate of oysters with the same silent diligence which had taken him to his present rank.

He was hardly the most sparkling of guests, Lafayette thought. But then, he didn’t have to be. Only a merchant who was a fool would risk offending the Harbour Master with a missed invitation, and whatever else they were, the merchants of Bordeleaux were no fools.

‘How are you finding the oysters, Harbour Master?’ he asked. The man grunted, and nodded. Then he swallowed. ‘Passable,’ he allowed. ‘Very passable indeed.’ Griston tried not to grin too widely.

‘A toast,’ he called, raising his glass. ‘To our host, and his passable food.’

‘Very passable,’ the Harbour Master corrected, but it was too late. Lafayette downed his wine in a single gulp, and scowled as he waited for the waiter to refill his glass.

‘What’s for the meat course, my dear?’ his wife asked, hoping to lighten his mood.

‘Oh. I think that it’s pore au miele provencal.’

‘Lovely,’ Griston said. ‘Meat and potatoes. Haven’t had that since I was an esquire.’

‘Really? Then I can see that you’re well dressed for it.’

Griston flushed. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked.

‘What do you think I mean?’

‘Gentlemen,’ the Harbour Master sighed. ‘I wonder if we might talk about something else instead of fashion? I am a simple man, and it makes my head spin.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Lafayette said. There was a moment of thoughtful silence, which Griston’s wife broke.

‘Has anybody seen the latest play about Florin d’Artaud?’

‘Oh yes,’ Lafayette’s wife replied. ‘Wasn’t it good? Somebody said that he even went to the opening night. My friend Myrtle actually saw him. She said that he was wearing those new skin-tight Tilean hose.’

The two women sighed in unison. Their husbands frowned.

‘D’Artaud.’ Lafayette waved his fish knife dismissively. ‘The man’s a complete fraud.’

‘Damn right,’ Griston said. ‘I knew his father once. A decent enough fellow for a commoner. Hard working. Always paid the agreed price. Manann alone knows what he’d think of his son’s gallivanting.’

‘Gallivanting indeed,’ Griston’s wife scolded him. ‘You’re just jealous. Monsieur d’Artaud is the hero of Lustria. Everybody knows that.’

‘Sounds more like a pirate than a hero to me,’ Griston said, and Lafayette nodded his agreement.

‘Got it in one, Griston,’ he said. ‘Turns up in a ship full of Tileans and gold and tells everybody some story about cities in the jungle. Man’s a rogue, simple as that.’

‘I heard that he challenged somebody to a duel for insulting him last week,’ Lafayette’s wife said.

As Lafayette coughed on a slip of oyster, Griston came to his aid.

‘What we mean, mademoiselle, is that nobody can be sure of the exact provenance of d’Artaud’s wealth.’

Lafayette looked at him gratefully.

The Harbour Master relaxed. Now that he had navigated the conversation back to safer waters he could turn his attention back to the food. And just in time, too. As the merchants argued with their wives about Florin d’Artaud, the smell of honeyed pork filled the dining chamber. This perfume was closely followed by a huge silver platter of the fragrant meat itself.

These dinners were hard work, the Harbour Master thought as he tucked in, but well worth it.

LATER THAT NIGHT, Lafayette’s chef sat alone in his kitchen. Although the stoves had burned low the furnace heat of these depths remained constant, the masonry ever warm with the memory of fire. The chef remained oblivious to the temperature as he poked about in the embers of the roasting pit. He had spent his whole life in such infernos, and anyway he had other things on his mind.

Although he had left the entreeier battered and bruised, it had been no victory. Not really. Tonight he had had the chance to prove his superiority over every other chef in Bordeleaux. Yet all it had taken had been the stupidity of one man and the chance to present the perfect entree had been lost. Despite his promise to bring another batch the strigany who had sold them to him had disappeared. As far as the chef knew that meant that the eggs were unique, irreplaceable. Now he would have to pickle them. What a waste.

A fat tear rolled down the chef’s florid face and he poured himself another goblet of wine. For a while he toyed with the idea of having the entreeier murdered, but eventually he decided against the plan. He was too depressed.

He sighed miserably, drained his cup, and staggered off to the wine cellar to fetch another bottle. When he returned he opened it, enjoying the greasy squeak of the reluctant cork, and was about to pour himself another goblet when a sudden, sharp report echoed around the deserted kitchen.

He stood still for a moment, his eyes glittering in the darkness as he listened. He was rewarded with more noise, a series of sudden cracks that sounded like breaking twigs.

The chef put down the bottle and picked up his rolling pin. This wouldn’t be the first time that urchins or thieves had slipped in to steal a meal from this dark labyrinth.

The chef squared his jaw as another volley of impacts rang out, and he realised that they were actually coming from his own workbench. This time they sounded more like breaking porcelain, and he was seized with a horrible suspicion.

It was the eggs. Somebody was breaking those cursed eggs. And who could be responsible for such vandalism but the entreeier, bent on revenge?

Pale with outrage the chef put down his rolling pin and picked up a cleaver instead. The razored rectangle of steel had been sharpened that very evening and shone with a murderous intent. He examined the edge approvingly then moved stealthily forward towards his workbench.

In the gloom he couldn’t see the perpetrator, but he could already see the crime. The wooden crate that the eggs had been in had been smashed open and fragments of precious cargo lay all about, lustrous with colour even in the gloom.

The chef hissed, eyes flitting around as he stepped forward. He peered into the remains of the box and saw that every single egg had been broken. Every single one.

His self-control snapped.

‘Entreeier!’ he roared, waving the cleaver in challenge. ‘Where are you, you scoundrel? Where are you?’

But there was no reply. The chef, his breath ragged with the passion of his wine-fuelled rage, peered into the darkness. For a moment he was afraid that the entreeier had escaped, somehow slipping past him in the darkness. Then he saw a flicker of movement in the cold store that lay ahead, and a predatory grin split his face.

‘Come here, Jacques,’ he said, trying to keep the hatred out of his voice. ‘Let’s have some wine and talk about this.’

There was a rustle of further movement, and the shatter of a pot knocked off a shelf.

‘Come out into the light,’ the chef said. ‘I know that you’re in there. Let’s be mature about this.’

He edged further forward, cleaver raised. There was a moment of silence, and then the patter of approaching footsteps, rapidly approaching footsteps.

‘Got you, you… oh.’

The chef’s mouth fell open in a perfect circle of surprise at the things which had emerged from amongst the butter vats and cured hams.

For a split second he took them for cats. They were about the right size, and they moved with the same sinuous grace. But even through the fog of wine and rage, the chef could see that there was nothing feline about these things. They were more like the house lizards that hunted through the kitchen in the summer. Or maybe, he thought vaguely, the swamp frogs that graced so many of his dishes.

At the thought of such delicacies he hefted the cleaver. It was a mistake. Moving with a blur of speed the strange intruders flitted about him, leaping onto shelves or scuttling under tables to encircle his lumbering form.

‘Get out of my kitchen!’ the chef shouted at them, and waved his cleaver menacingly. The creatures watched the makeshift weapon, heads cocked and eyes aglitter. Gradually, with the slow assurance of a crossbowman winching back his string, the crests on their heads rose and their tails twitched excitedly.

But it wasn’t until the chef tried to strike one of them that they attacked.

Although they were still sticky with the yolk of their birth, the creatures moved with an instinctive viciousness. The chef screamed as he felt his tendons torn out from the back of his legs, and even as he collapsed needle teeth were ripping open the arteries in his arms. Blood spurted as he dropped his weapon, and he raised his hands to defend himself.

It was already too late. The things were already sinking their teeth into his throat, puncturing through the flab to bite into the arteries beneath. Blood sprayed as the dying man thrashed around, too shocked to realise that he had become offal in his own kitchen.

With his throat torn open it didn’t take the chef long to die. Seconds, perhaps. But his assailants lacked even that amount of patience, and even as the chef’s heart pattered its last they were feasting upon his still living flesh, relishing the taste of their very first meal.

It was to be the first of many that night.

Three Months Later

‘BY MANANN’S CODPIECE, I’m bored.’

Florin d’Artaud, hero of Lustria and proprietor of the Lizard’s Head, gazed miserably around his domain. It was mid afternoon and the tavern was almost deserted. There were a handful of drovers nursing their beers, a group of hooded men talking intensely but softly in a corner, and a pair of silently drinking longshoremen.

There were also two serving girls who were passing the time by braiding each other’s hair. Florin watched them for a while. Then he sighed.

Lorenzo, who was busily gutting mackerel into a wooden bucket, looked up at him.

‘If you’re bored, then you can give me a hand.’

Florin glanced over to see his friend slice open a fish’s belly and hook the innards out with a practiced thumb.

‘Why don’t you let the girls do that?’ he asked.

Lorenzo shrugged.

‘I like to keep in practice. Anyway, it’s quite relaxing.’

Florin frowned and looked back towards the barmaids. Now they had changed places, and the brunette had started working on the blonde’s hair. It looked as smooth as mead in the dusty light of the tavern, and as he watched the locks being teased out she looked up and caught his eye. He smiled at her and she flushed and looked away.

Florin’s smile grew wider.

‘Think I’ll just go and see how the staff are getting on,’ he told Lorenzo as he got to his feet.

But before Lorenzo could reply, the doors of the tavern banged open and a squad of men marched into the room. Their boot steps echoed off the wooden walls with a flawless rhythm, and their steel harnesses gleamed with the polish of professional soldiers. Florin looked from the blank slates of their faces to the weapons that were scabbarded at their belts, then looked back to their faces.

Whatever these men wanted, he decided, it wasn’t wine.

The room fell silent as the rest of the clientele came to the same conclusion. Several of the customers were already scurrying out of the back entrance. The squad of mercenaries watched them go and turned their attention to Florin.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ Florin said, nodding to them. They said nothing. Instead they fanned out to form a crescent around him.

Florin balanced on the balls of his feet, let his hand brush against the hilt of his dagger and glanced back towards Lorenzo. The older man had already risen to his feet, his fish-slimed gutting knife now held underhanded.

‘I said,’ Florin said, his fingers itching to draw his weapon. ‘Good afternoon.’

This time there was a reply. It came from behind the broad shoulders of the mercenaries, and the man stepped forward as he spoke.

‘Good afternoon, Monsieur d’Artaud,’ the figure said. To the uninitiated he would have appeared to be no more than a prosperous craftsman. A minor merchant, at most. There was no adornment on his simple leather tunic, or on the canvas clothes he wore beneath it. He wore a cutlass on one side of his belt, wooden handled like most others, and his head was shaved, as was the fashion in the messier professions.

Inconspicuous as he was, Florin recognised him immediately.

‘Harbour Master,’ he said, trying not to sound too surprised. It wasn’t every day that the Harbour Master visited a tavern such as the Lizard’s Head. In fact, it wasn’t ever. ‘How can we be of service?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ the Harbour Master replied. He took a seat and pulled it up to the table. ‘That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. You don’t mind clearing your establishment for a few moments do you? Just while we talk?’

Florin looked at Lorenzo, who waved a hand towards the room. Somehow, beneath the shadow of the Harbour Master’s enforcers, it had already cleared itself. Even the serving girls were gone.

‘I’ll lock the door,’ Lorenzo said. The Harbour Master waited until Lorenzo had bolted both front and back doors. Then, with a curt call, he ordered one of his men forward. The man carried a stained hessian sack over one shoulder, and Florin wondered what was in it.

He didn’t have to wonder long. At another command from his master the man hoisted the sack off his shoulder and upended it over the table. There was a soggy thump as a severed head fell out and bounced on the woodwork.

‘So tell me, monsieurs,’ the Harbour Master asked, watching their expressions with a hungry intensity. ‘What do you make of that?’

The two men leant forward to examine the grisly trophy. When Florin realised what it was a jolt of adrenaline shot through him. The last time he had seen one of these cursed things it had almost been the death of him. Of all of them.

Feeling the Harbour Master’s eyes on him he bit down on his excitement and arranged his features into a careful nonchalance. Then he made a show of examining the head.

Although it was almost the same size as a human’s, there could be no doubt that it was from a much more exotic victim. Even in the dim light of the tavern the scales that covered it gleamed, and the flat iron shape of the skull beneath suggested something serpentine or aquatic.

‘I never thought I’d see one of these bastards again,’ Lorenzo swore suddenly.

Florin nudged him, but it was too late. The Harbour Master was looking at them with the expression of a weasel who has found a pair of snared rabbits.

He licked his lips. ‘So you do know what this thing is.’

It was more statement than question, and Florin had no choice but to nod.

‘Yes,’ he said and, ignoring the queasiness in his stomach, he peeled one of the scaly eyelids open. The orb within stared back at him. The deep yellow of the alien eye was already starting to cloud, which was some relief. Florin squared his jaw and prised open the thing’s mouth. Its needle teeth were just as sharp as he remembered.

‘Well?’ demanded the Harbour Master, who was not used to being kept waiting. ‘What is it?’

Florin dragged the back of his hand across his brow and shrugged.

‘I don’t know if they have a name. But we did come across something like them in Lustria. Vicious things they were. Vicious and damned near invisible.’

‘So the stories about you are true,’ the Harbour Master said.

‘Not all of them,’ Florin and Lorenzo said in perfect, paranoid harmony.

The Harbour Master smiled.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said with a conspiratorial wink. ‘I’m not an outraged father. I’m here purely in my official capacity. The thing is, these things have infested the area around the warehouses by the main harbour. We first started noticing them a couple of months ago, and since then they’ve been nothing but trouble. They’ve been destroying stock, ruining thatch, killing porters. I lost two myself, which wouldn’t be so bad if the rest hadn’t used it as an excuse to demand more wages.’

The Harbour Master frowned at the injustice of it all, then continued.

‘And then yesterday, things got even worse. The things have actually dared to kill one of the merchants. You know the candle importer, old ”Nine Bellies” Flangei? He was taken whilst he was inspecting his stock. Now all of his fellows are complaining. I hear some of them are even thinking about withholding their anchorage contributions. It would never happen, of course, but all the same they need reassurance. And as you can guess, Monsieur d’Artaud there aren’t many people who can reassure men who’ve seen what these things can do.’

Florin nodded with false sympathy.

‘I don’t see how they could have reached Bretonnia from Lustria, though.’ He frowned. ‘I mean, I can assure you that we didn’t bring any back. Did we, Lorenzo?’

‘Course not,’ Lorenzo replied. ‘They’re bad enough a thousand leagues distant let alone on our own doorstep.’

‘Yes, I know none were on your ship’s manifest.’ The Harbour Master waved a soothing hand. ‘I’ve already checked. But however these things got here, get here they did. So now we need somebody qualified to hunt them down and eradicate them. My men are excellent soldiers, but they lack expertise.’

‘You want us to do it?’ Florin cast a doubtful eye towards the monster’s severed head. It glared up at him, a challenge still gleaming in its dead eye.

‘That’s right,’ the Harbour Master said. ‘Who better to reassure the merchants and deal with these vermin than the man who knows them best, Captain Florin d’Artaud, hero of Lustria?’

He beamed with the happy enthusiasm of a man who has found the perfect solution.

Florin fidgeted, torn between pride and sincerity. For once, sincerity won out. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I really don’t know anything about these creatures. In fact, the man who killed this one probably knows more than me.’

‘Not anymore. He’s dead. But anyway, you’re too modest, Monsieur d’Artaud. Your tavern is called the Lizard’s Head.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘And you admit to knowing what these things are?’

‘I wouldn’t say admit…’

‘And to knowing their provenance.’

‘What does provenance…?’

‘Good. So all you have to do is to decide how best the worried merchants of Bordeleaux should view your relationship with these vermin. As the man who will earn a fine bounty for their extermination. Or as the man who has some other connection with them.’

The three men sat in contemplative silence. The Harbour Master didn’t bother to enunciate the threat any further. He didn’t need to.

‘Well, it would be quite an interesting hunt,’ Florin suggested, a smile starting to play across his face.

‘Interesting.’ Lorenzo’s voice was full of disgust. ‘Lethal more like.’

‘That’s all settled, then,’ the Harbour Master said, getting to his feet. ‘We can stop wondering about how these things followed you back from Lustria, and start paying you a crown a head. Now, if you will excuse me, I have other business to be about. If you would like to go to the customs house at dawn, I’ll get my clerk to show you what happened to poor old Nine Bellies.’

‘You mean that you aren’t going to give me your men?’ Florin asked, casting an eye over the polished warriors of the Harbour Master’s entourage. They stood as still as stone, each man a part of a perfect formation.

‘Gods no,’ the Harbour Master chuckled. ‘These are the finest warriors in Bordeleaux. Apart from our knightly masters, of course.’ He paused to glance over his shoulder before continuing. ‘In any case, they have other fish to fry. Well, good day to you.’

A moment later Florin and Lorenzo were alone in their tavern. They glared at the lizardine head with the concentration of fortunetellers forced to share a single crystal ball.

‘At least we won’t be bored,’ said Florin.

Lorenzo just spat.

THE NEXT MORNING was grey and damp. Sunrise had been lost beneath a warm fog that was as wet as rain, and beneath his mail Lorenzo’s tunic was soon as damp as his spirits. He grumbled and cursed as he trudged along behind Florin, his head bowed and his shoulders up around his ears.

Florin, on the other hand, looked like a man on his way to a day at the races. Despite the sodden humidity of the streets the last hours had seen his spirits rising like mercury in a broken thermometer.

It was the promise of action that did it. That and the possibility of bloodshed. It was always the way, he thought. Life was never better than when lived in the glorious terror of mortal risk, never sweeter than when Morr himself followed in your shadow.

Florin grinned and looked back towards Lorenzo. ‘Lizards, hey? Should be just like the good old days.’

Lorenzo shot him a sour look. ‘Not unless you want to starve yourself and then shove some leeches down your breeches.’

Florin laughed uproariously and slapped Lorenzo on the back.

‘I hate it when you’re in a good mood,’ the older man grumbled.

‘Why?’

‘Because somebody always ends up getting hurt.’

‘Well then.’ The humour bled from Florin’s face to leave a wolfs grin of anticipation. ‘Let’s make sure it isn’t us. You remember what those things did in Lustria. Imagine if they start taking over the city. Our city.’

‘I’m sure your civic conscience does you credit,’ Lorenzo snorted. ‘But why couldn’t we have bought a window for a chapel instead? Or had a sewer dug? Or made a donation to the priestesses of Shallya? Or…’

‘Look, there’s the customs house,’ Florin interrupted. Lorenzo looked up to see the great granite blockhouse looming out of the mist ahead. Officially, being no more than a commoner’s building, it wasn’t a fortress. It had no battlements, no drawbridge, no turrets or murder holes or crenellations.

What it did have were massively thick walls and a battery of cannons on the reinforced roof.

‘Ever seen the gunners practise a volley from there?’ Florin asked. Lorenzo shook his head.

‘No. Can’t see the Harbour Master wasting any black powder either. Anyway, I don’t think that the cannons are supposed to exist. Our noble masters might not like it.’

Florin grunted with shared contempt, and looked around. The streets were becoming busier the closer to the docks they came, although nobody seemed to be paying them much attention.

‘I hear that in l’Anguille some of the merchants are talking about changing all that. You know that in Marienburg they’re ruled by the most able men in the city, not by aristocrats? Well, in l’Anguille… never mind.’ He broke off as a man hailed them through the crowd that had gathered around the customs house.

‘Monsieur d’Artaud?’

‘And who might be asking?’

‘I’m Couraine,’ the man said as he hurried forward. ‘Apprentice to the undersecretary of the Harbour Master’s office.’

‘You’re a clerk?’

‘Yes,’ Couraine said as he gawped at Florin. ‘At least, almost. I still haven’t finished my apprenticeship.’

Florin could well believe it. Couraine was barely old enough to grow a beard, and he was as pale and skinny as a shaved rat. He had the face of one too, pinched and bucktoothed. But what really made him stand out amongst the leather-skinned bruisers who crowded around the customs house was that he was unarmed. Whereas other men bristled with cutlasses and boathooks and daggers, the only thing the apprentice carried was a massive leather-bound ledger.

‘So,’ Florin said, slapping him on a bony shoulder. ‘You’re to be our guide.’

Couraine swallowed nervously.

‘Oh no,’ he stuttered. ‘I’m just going to show you where the attacks have taken place.’

Florin looked at Lorenzo, who rolled his eyes.

‘Oh, and the body of Monsieur Flangei. My master said you might want to take a look. Do you?’

‘Yes. Where is it?’

‘If you’d just follow me, monsieur,’ Couraine said, and scuttled back towards the customs house. Florin and Lorenzo followed him through the waiting merchants and captains, past the guards at the entrance, and into the echoing hall beyond. Even now, in the height of summer, it was cool inside the granite-built fortress.

‘Down here,’ Couraine called back over his shoulder, and disappeared down a flight of stairs. They followed him past the last slitted window and into the darkness of the cellars. Couraine paused to take an oil lamp from a cubby hole. He lit it, and looked back at his two charges, the three men’s faces now bathed in a warm, butter yellow glow.

‘We’re only allowed to use one lamp per party,’ Couraine apologised in the gloom. ‘My master says that it is all we need. Also,’ he took a deep breath, and narrowed his eyes in concentration, ‘any extra expenditure can only lead to an increase in harbour duties, which would damage the great trading tradition of our city.’

Lorenzo snorted, and Couraine looked at him nervously.

‘You said that very well, Monsieur Couraine,’ Florin soothed him. ‘Now, let’s take a look at this body, shall we?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ The apprentice looked at him gratefully, and led the way into the darkness. ‘We’ve kept it in this room here.’

As soon as Couraine opened the door the smell hit them. Even to men used to living amongst the constant stink of Bordeleaux the odour of the rotting corpse was eye-watering. The horrible sweetness of it clung to the back of their palates and turned their stomachs.

‘We brought him in here two days ago,’ Couraine explained, his features wrinkling with disgust. Reluctantly he led the way through a long, empty room towards the covered remains. The flies that buzzed above the blanket looked horribly plump.

They were half way down the room when the clerk staggered to a halt. He swallowed twice, pressed one hand to his stomach, and wretched. Florin looked at him. Even in the yellow lamplight he looked as white as wax.

‘Let me take the lamp,’ he said, taking it from the cold sweat of Couraine’s trembling fingers. ‘And perhaps you could do me a favour and wait outside the door? Make sure we aren’t disturbed.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course, monsieur,’ Couraine said gratefully, and fled back out of the room.

Florin took the lamp from him and marched forward to the stinking bundle. The flame flickered into new colours beneath the corpse gas. Without giving himself time to think, Florin knelt down beside the body and pulled the blanket off it.

‘Oh, sweet Manann,’ Lorenzo whispered, his eyes as wide as copper coins in the lamplight.

Florin said nothing. He just gagged as he stumbled back from the thing. When he was back on his feet he pulled the hem of his tunic up over his mouth and exchanged a horrified glance with Lorenzo.

Then he swallowed, fixed his features into a look of bravado, and forced himself to kneel down again to examine the corpse.

‘I see why Couraine was so jumpy,’ he said, drawing a dagger from his boot and prodding the putrefying mass before him. Maggots writhed enthusiastically around the point of the blade, and Florin’s stomach rolled.

‘Do you think that happened after he was dead?’ Lorenzo asked, peering over Florin’s shoulder.

‘What?’ Florin asked, his voice a squeak.

‘The way that the body… the way he was flayed.’

‘Before and after,’ Florin decided. ‘Look at the way some of the teeth marks jump. Looks like he was moving while they were tearing slivers off.’

Lorenzo looked and wished he hadn’t. Beneath the melting flesh there were flashes of bone, the cuts on it still fresh and yellow.

‘Look at the way they stripped him of his fat,’ Florin said, using his dagger to brush a cluster of squirming maggots from the corpse. ‘See the way they’ve eaten between his sinews? And look, they’ve eaten his lights but left his heart intact.’

He prodded the horribly swollen organ that remained within the pink bars of the ribcage. It was as grey and bloated as some poisonous fungus, and the surface glistened with slime. Florin’s brow furrowed as he examined it. It burst suddenly, and Florin and Lorenzo jumped back from the spray of black liquid.

‘I think we’ve seen enough,’ Florin said, his voice level. Lorenzo was already half way to the door, so Florin picked up the lantern and followed him. Something popped as he did so, and there was a squelch as the rotting remains settled further.

Couraine was waiting for them in the corridor outside. He was holding his ledger in front of him, twisting at the corners nervously.

‘The summer’s no time to be killed. It’s only been two days and your friend in there looks like spare ribs in jelly.’ Florin winked.

‘Oh, he wasn’t my friend.’ Couraine shook his head. ‘I didn’t know him at all, in fact.’

‘I know. I was just… never mind. Just tell me, do you know why was he called Nine Bellies?’

Couraine’s mouth fell open.

‘I didn’t know. He was fat, but I didn’t think that he really had nine bellies.’ The clerk lowered his voice and looked suspiciously around. ‘Does that make him a mutant?’

‘No,’ Lorenzo cut in. ‘It makes you an idiot.’

‘Don’t worry about him,’ Florin said, clapping Couraine’s bony shoulder. ‘He’s just being friendly. Now, where exactly was it that Monsieur Flangei was slaughtered?’

The clerk opened his book and, with a nervous look at Lorenzo, he started shuffling through the pages.

‘Here it is,’ he muttered, and began to read: ‘Monsieur Flangei, a commoner of some substance, was devoured by diverse monstrosities on the day of the seventh quarter moon. The place of his misfortune was the pier which extends from his warehouse, commonly called the Dragon Wharf. Several commoners witnessed his misfortune, none of whom are worthy of note. Reward posted - none as yet.’

Florin frowned.

‘I know where the Dragon Wharf is. But what about the people who saw the attack. Who were they?’

‘Peasants,’ Couraine said. ‘Not worthy of note.’

Lorenzo opened his mouth to say something, but Florin gestured him to silence. ‘Why were they unworthy of note?’

Couraine shrugged helplessly.

‘It is the way the page has to be filled in. Only knights are worthy of note.’

‘But Flangei wasn’t a knight, and you have his name down there.’ Florin pointed to the spidery scrawl of the unfortunate merchant’s epitaph.

‘Yes, but that’s different. We have to know who his family are.’

‘So they can give him a burial,’ Florin nodded.

‘So they can pay for expenses incurred. In fact, his wife is due to collect him later. Somebody said she was quite upset. She saw the whole thing, apparently.’

Lorenzo opened his mouth to say something else, Florin nudged him into silence.

‘And where does the poor woman live?’ Florin asked.

‘Oh no.’ Couraine’s narrow features twisted into a look of fresh anxiety. ‘She’s not too poor, is she? Only if she can’t pay, she can’t have the body, and when that happens my master always makes me deal with them. It’s terrible. People don’t seem to understand that good accountancy practices are vital to the lifeblood of the city’s trade. In fact, the last widow even tried to hit me when I was trying to explain that to her.’

This time Lorenzo didn’t say anything. Instead he just rolled his eyes. Florin tried not to smile.

‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. In fact, if you remind me where Madame Flangei lives, I’ll explain it to her for you.’

Couraine’s face lit up.

‘I think she lives over her husband’s warehouse. Although I suppose it’s her warehouse now. You will explain to her, won’t you? I mean, it’s the same for everybody.’

‘Relax,’ Florin told him with an easy grin. ‘We’ll do just that.’

And with a bow that was barely sarcastic, he left Couraine to his relief, and led off into the thickening crowds.

BY THE TIME Florin and Lorenzo had reached the district which ended at the Dragon Wharf the morning mist was long gone. It had been burned away by the blinding sun, and already Bordeleaux was roasting.

In the alleyways that the two lizard hunters pushed through the air was thick with the perfume of stale sweat and raw sewage. Fortunately the merchants and tradesmen that lined every street in this quarter seemed immune to the heat-greased stench. They shouted and cajoled and lied as eagerly as ever, seemingly oblivious to the sweat which dripped from them.

Even the courtesans who idled on the balconies above were sodden with perspiration. Runnels of sweat cut through their powder and paint, leaving them as striped as barracuda as they eyed the throng below.

Hardly any surprise then, Florin thought as he elbowed his way past a cluster of longshoremen, that tempers were already starting to fray. Screams and curses floated through the usual hubbub, and he’d stepped over two bleeding bodies in as many minutes.

Another fight was just breaking out ahead. Resisting the urge to watch he skirted the knot of spectators and emerged onto the Dragon Wharf. The wet slap of sea air was like a cool hand on a fevered brow, and even the smell of stagnant brine was a relief after the vaporous interior of the city. Florin wiped his brow with relief and marched forward.

‘Which one is Flangei’s warehouse?’ Lorenzo asked as the two men walked along the wharf. Cobbles and earth had given way to the wooden platform of its construction, and their boot heels joined in with a hundred others to beat a constant tattoo on the stained timber. To one side the waters of Bordeleaux’s harbour oozed, the turgid waters forested by the masts of countless ships. On the other side the warehouses squatted. Their brick walls were blind of any windows and their wide doors were guarded by listless groups of watchmen.

‘I can’t remember which one was his,’ Florin answered, his eyes sliding over the shingles that hung outside most of the warehouses, ‘but I’m sure these gentlemen can help us. Good morning, monsieurs.’

The two men he had addressed were dressed in the same sea boots and tabards as most of the men here. Cudgels hung at their belts, and they were leaning on the iron-banded door of their master’s warehouse.

‘Monsieurs, is it?’ one of them asked with a sneer.

‘Yes,’ Florin replied. ‘It is.’

He stepped closer to the guard and smiled with the warm good humour of a lion who has cornered a wolf. For a moment the guard held his gaze. Then he looked away and shuffled his feet. Florin, telling himself that he wasn’t disappointed by the lack of challenge, produced a coin.

‘We’re looking for the warehouse of Nine Bellies Flangei,’ he said, turning his smile onto the second guard. ‘Do you know where it is?’

‘Just down there,’ the man said cautiously, and pointed down the wharf. ‘It’s got a shingle with some candles on it.’

‘Thank you,’ Florin said and handed him the coin. ‘Monsieurs.’

The guards nodded and watched as Florin and Lorenzo prowled down the wharf. When they were out of earshot the first guard regained his voice.

‘He’s lucky,’ he told his mate, gesturing towards the lizard hunters. ‘If it wasn’t so damned hot I’d have given him a bloody nose. Cheeky sod.’

The other man grunted noncommittally and pocketed the coin. It was, after all, too hot to argue.

THEY FOUND THE widow Flangei busy with a delivery. A barque had tied up outside her late husband’s warehouse, and a stream of porters were carrying barrels from the vessel’s hold to the store. Despite the sweat that plastered their rags to their gaunt frames the men moved with the eagerness of worker ants, their bony bodies bent double beneath their loads.

Lorenzo didn’t blame them. Under the stern gaze of their mistress, he would have worked with the same diligence.

Madame Flangei stood on a handcart, watching her little empire with sharp blue eyes. The fact that her face looked like a well-used hatchet did nothing to compliment her figure. She was a robust woman, and whatever charms she might have had were concealed beneath a functional canvas shift. The cleaver that she wore on her belt didn’t add much to her feminine appeal either. The weapon was, after all, hardly the latest in Bordeleauxan fashion.

Only her hair showed any trace of vanity. It was as red as copper, and she had bound it into a coiffure that looked tight enough to serve as a helmet.

In fact, Lorenzo decided, she looked so formidable that the quartet of guards who stood behind her seemed almost superfluous. Their hands rested easily on their cudgels, but their eyes were everywhere. They had noticed Florin and Lorenzo as soon as the pair had paused to watch their mistress’s goods being unloaded, and now one of them pointed the two men out to her.

‘Something you boys want?’ Madame Flangei asked with a voice like a bullwhip. She stared down at them with eyes that Lorenzo thought must be the coldest things in a thousand miles.

But if Florin shared his friend’s uncharitable opinion he gave no sign of it. Instead he swept off his hat and bowed.

‘Yes, thank you, Mademoiselle. We’re looking for the widow Flangei.’ He held his pose as he spoke, although the dark brown intensity of his eyes never left the blue ice of hers.

And even as she answered Lorenzo was amazed to see that that ice had already started to melt.

‘Why are you looking for her?’ the widow asked. Her voice remained a blunt instrument, but now the fist which had been resting on one hip fluttered up towards her tightly bound hair to pat at an imaginary stray lock.

‘We are looking for Madame Flangei to discuss a matter relating to her late husband’s death,’ Florin told her, his own voice as smooth as honey.

The widow frowned, and her jaw jutted out like the ram of a galley. ‘I’ll collect that old fool’s bones tomorrow. As you can see, I’m busy at the moment.’

Florin shook his head and smiled ruefully. ‘Please, mademoiselle. On another day I would happily spend all afternoon being mocked by you. It would be a small price to pay for your presence. But today our business is too important. And unfortunately it revolves around the widow of an aged merchant, not a lady as young as yourself. Would that it did!’

Lorenzo watched in amazement as the widow’s mouth fell open, then shut with a snap. At the same time, a red flush crept up from beneath her collar and she scowled furiously.

Lorenzo could never understand why Florin had this effect on women. It couldn’t be what he said, the older man decided, because what he said was usually complete nonsense. So if it was nothing he said, it must just be the way he said it.

‘Well, I am the Widow Flangei.’ The widow finally recovered her voice. By now the blush had reached her hairline, and without any warning her scowl suddenly collapsed into a delighted smile.

Florin feigned embarrassment.

‘Madame Flangei, I am so sorry. I hope you didn’t take any offence. I certainly meant no disrespect. Can you forgive me?’

The widow silenced his apologies with a giggle that had her men looking at her in frank astonishment. She remained oblivious to them, though. She was too busy wishing that she’d worn something a little more flattering than her canvas shift. She fidgeted with her belt so that it tightened around her waist, but then Florin approached and she forgot all about even that.

‘You are most gracious,’ he purred, ‘although now that I have acted like a perfect fool, I am almost too embarrassed to introduce myself.

‘I am Florin d’Artaud, Hero of Lus… I mean, agent of the Harbour Master. This is my comrade, Lorenzo.’

So saying he took her hand, which was as calloused as a sailor’s, and caressed it as he pressed it politely to his lips. He gazed up at her as he did so, and she sighed.

‘Is there somewhere a little more private we can go?’ he asked, forgetting to release her hand. Madame Flangei, forgetting to take her hand back, licked her lips and nodded.

‘Henri,’ she said, turning to her nearest henchman. ‘See that all hundred and twelve barrels are weighed and tested. All of them, understand? Then you can send the skipper up for payment. Me and Monsieur d’Artaud are going up to the backroom to discuss business.’

The henchman, trying not to look too amazed at this transformation of his mistress, snapped a salute as the widow, leading Florin by the hand, retreated to the cooler confines of her inherited building.

Lorenzo watched them go, exchanged a bemused look with the guard, then found a patch of shade and tried to make himself comfortable. He knew Florin well enough to know that he would be gone for a fair while.

IT WAS AFTERNOON by the time Florin emerged from the warehouse. He nodded happily to the guards who waited at the gates, then strolled over to Lorenzo with a friendly smile. But Lorenzo, who had spent the afternoon watching the heat haze flicker over the rotting stew of the harbour, was in no mood to smile back.

‘What took you so long?’ he snapped as Florin gave him a hand up from where he had been squatting against a wall.

‘What?’ Florin asked, the smile never leaving his face as he gazed across the harbour to the sea gates.

‘I said, what took you so long?’ Lorenzo repeated, and violently dusted himself down.

‘Oh that,’ said Florin, and made some vague gesture. ‘Well, you know how it is. And the widow Flangei is certainly an incredible woman.’

Lorenzo looked at him sourly. ‘Incredible is one word for it. She looked like she’d eat a man alive.’

Florin turned to look at the older man, a strange expression on his face. Then, for no reason at all, he burst into a fit of wild laughter.

‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ Lorenzo muttered. ‘I’ve been out here baking in the midday heat while you’ve been in there faffing around for hours on end. I mean, I suppose at some point you did ask her about what happened to old Nine Bellies.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Florin said, wiping his eyes. ‘Of course I did. He was eaten by the lizards alright. They took him right off the wharf. Just by where you’re standing now.’

Lorenzo turned to look suspiciously at the water that slopped against the scaffolding that supported the wharf.

‘She said they climbed up from below here and started eating him while he was still struggling. She and the guards went to save him, but it was too late. They stripped him to the bone in seconds. Nine bellies and all.’

Lorenzo spat into the harbour. ‘She didn’t seem overly concerned by her loss.’

‘Let’s just say that Monsieur Flangei didn’t have enough of an appetite for his good lady wife.’

‘He didn’t have the appetite? But I thought the man ate like a pig. Oh. I see what you mean.’

Florin winked at Lorenzo, who shook his head.

‘I’ll never understand women,’ he said.

Florin clapped him on one bony shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘As long as you understand boats.’

Lorenzo’s look of confusion gave way to one of suspicion. ‘You’re not thinking of paddling about beneath the wharf, are you?’

‘It’s the only way,’ Florin said. ‘Remember how it was in the jungle? Those things love water. It’s nice and shady for them down there, too. No wonder they do all their hunting around the docks. Bet you anything you like we find them down there.’

‘More likely they’ll find us. And I do remember exactly what it was like in the jungle. We might as well swim out to the manacles to hunt sharks. Look, I’ve been thinking. Tilea is supposed to be nice, and if we didn’t mind taking a low price for the tavern we could…’

‘No.’ Florin shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t be right. After all, I am Florin d’Artaud, Hero of Lustria. I can’t turn and run when these things are threatening my own city.’

Lorenzo looked at him, appalled. ‘Please tell me you aren’t serious,’ he said.

Florin just shrugged.

‘Of course I’m serious. What Bordeleauxan man would leave the fair damsels of this great city to the mercy of monsters?’

‘Manann’s scrotum!’ Lorenzo swore. ‘You’ve finally cracked up. Was it the heat?’

‘Something like that.’ Florin, refusing to take offence, just grinned. ‘Anyway, we’ll get hold of a boat from Couraine tomorrow morning. Now we should eat. I’ve got an ogre of an appetite, and I think I saw a fish stew shop just back there.’

‘The condemned men ate a hearty meal,’ Lorenzo muttered, but Florin was already heading hungrily back into the swarming alleyways that led off from the wharf.

THE GUARDS STUDIED the vessel that had emerged from the steaming morning mist. It had seen better days. Even in the grey light they could see that the hull was a mildewed patchwork of ancient planking and new timber.

The mast had been lost, too, so the boat wallowed inelegantly forward under the power of the oarsman. He was grunting with exertion and the smell of his sweat was fresh amongst the miasma of rot that hung about the wharf.

The second occupant of the boat was more relaxed. He was not rowing. Instead he was watching. He leant forward over his crossbow, eagerly peering through the mist towards the pilings that supported the Dragon Wharf.

The guards watched him watch. Their heads floated amongst a confusion of bobbing detritus, and their eyes remained as still and unblinking as pebbles. They examined the boat as it splashed ever nearer with a cold-blooded patience, moving only to keep their bodies steady in the lazy current.

When the intruders had almost reached the dark waters beneath the wharf, their boat stopped. The two men barked at each other for a while, then set about lighting a pair of lanterns. Only then did the oarsman continue, slowly edging the boat between the forest of slimed timber that supported the wharf above.

The lamplight was sharp in the guards’ eyes, although they ignored the temptation to blink. With an instinctive wisdom they realised that even that tiny movement might be too much. Instead they suffered, and watched the strange patterns that the reflected lamplight sent dancing around the roof of this drowned underworld.

The boat splashed and echoed its way between the pillars, the oarsman cursing as he rowed. His companion remained silent, his senses as taut as the arms of his crossbow. Occasionally he would hold one of the lanterns up to study the mildewed underside of the wharf above. Mostly he just squinted into the surrounding darkness.

Silently, and with barely a ripple, the guards followed in the intruders’ wake.

Hunters and hunted progressed, and the waters grew more treacherous. Beneath the carpentry of the wharf, the city had spilled into the sea. Collapsed masonry and islands of refuse formed reefs in the stagnant water between the pilings. Strange fungi glistened in the lamplight, and every dip of the oar brought a fresh waft of rotting brine.

It wasn’t until the intruders had reached the crumbling foundations of the warehouses that they stopped. The rotting masonry seemed to send them into some confusion, and they started barking at each other again.

The guards’ eyes glistened in the lamplight as they drifted to a halt around the vessel. Two of them, moving with the silent grace of poured treacle, slipped from the water and slithered into the timber-work above the boat. Those that remained submerged themselves so that only their eyes remained above water. It had been a day since they’d eaten, and that had only been a skinny dockhand. Now their tails twitched with excitement at the thought of the feast to come.

Their prey continued to bark meaninglessly as the guards closed in on them from all sides. Within seconds they were in position as, completely oblivious to their peril, the humans continued to bicker.

‘NOW THAT WE’VE come to the end of this lunacy,’ Lorenzo said, gesturing towards the solid masonry before them, ‘can we go and start putting our affairs in order? Belmeier is coming to value the tavern at noon, and I want to make sure we have everything done by high tide tonight. If we don’t find a ship leaving for Tilea we could end up anywhere.’

Florin didn’t bother to reply. Instead he carried on squinting through the lamp-lit darkness, fidgeting with his crossbow all the while.

‘They’re definitely down here,’ he said, and bit the inside of his lip. ‘I can almost smell them. They’ll love all this. The heat. The dankness. Just like the jungle.’

Lorenzo looked at his partner. In the reflected lamplight his expression could have almost been joyful.

‘Whether they love it or not,’ Lorenzo said, ‘we have to go. Today. We don’t have any more time. If we don’t sell up and go now, we might not have another chance. Are you listening to me?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Florin lied, and turned to where he thought he had heard a splash.

‘If we don’t go, the Harbour Master will use us as a scapegoat to fob off the merchants. He told us as much himself.’

‘No point in that.’ Florin’s ears twitched at the sound of something slithering through the darkness. ‘Hanging us won’t solve anything.’

‘Of course there’s a point. It will provide the merchants with a… Oh, by Ranald’s dice bag, I’m sick of this,’ Lorenzo yelled, his patience snapping and his anger sudden and ferocious. ‘Why do you always have to be such a damned fool? It was bad enough with the cards. Then the madness with those mercenaries, and that stinking jungle. Now this. Why is it that every day with you is like with Morrslieb rising?’

Florin looked at his companion. For the first time he could see the genuine anger in the older man’s battered features. The anger and the fear.

‘Lorenzo,’ Florin said, his features icy with a terrible patience. ‘I am not a fool.’

And with that he lifted his crossbow, pointed the steel barbed bolt towards Lorenzo, and pulled the trigger.

There was a hum and a blur, and Lorenzo’s mouth fell open as he felt the flash of the bolt whisper past his cheek. But he didn’t have time to be surprised. Before he could even gasp the bolt had bit home with a dull thud and the water behind him erupted into a desperate thrashing.

‘Told you they were here!’ Florin exulted, his voice echoing around the drowned depths. He swapped one crossbow for another and looked around for a fresh target.

‘Look up,’ Lorenzo yelled, seizing the boat hook that lay between his feet. Florin threw back his head in time to see a confusion of scales and talons shining in the lamplight. He aimed and fired the crossbow in a single sweep, and the bolt pinned the lizard to the woodwork beyond it as neatly as a butterfly on a pin.

Before he had time to admire his handiwork another scaled body was falling from above. This time it was Lorenzo who took it. Thrusting up with the boat hook he pierced its stomach then flipped it into the turgid water beyond, a manoeuvre which tipped the boat terrifyingly close to capsizing.

Even as they tried to balance their weight in the yawing vessel, the two men realised that the water around them was alive. As soon as the sharp tang of fresh blood had seasoned the water, the lizards had thrown off all caution. They were hungry, and driven on by their appetites they arrowed towards the boat, the water churning up behind them.

‘Damn,’ said Lorenzo as he tried to count them. Florin just grinned, a lethal crescent in the darkness. The twin cutlasses he unsheathed shone their own eager welcome as the first scaly body vaulted over the oarlocks, teeth bared.

Florin bellowed as he scissored the heavy blades towards the creature. Steel met scale a whisper before fangs met skin, and the serpentine head went flying back into the water.

‘Be careful not to capsize us,’ Lorenzo cried, and grabbed a hold of the oars to steady the rocking vessel. He kicked the decapitated body back over the side, and ducked as an arc of bloodied steel flickered overhead. By now the swarm was upon them, and Florin was fighting with an abandon that had the boat rolling like a barrel. Lorenzo could only dodge the blades and pray as, throwing his weight this way and that, he tried to keep them from capsizing.

‘There’s loads of them,’ Florin cried as, with a pirouette worthy of an acrobat, he twisted to simultaneously lop the arm off one opponent and the head from another. ‘Try to see where the heads are going.’

He turned and stabbed at something behind Lorenzo’s bowed back. The boat reared alarmingly, then splashed back down. A spray of cold brine dashed across the back of Lorenzo’s neck, followed by a spray of hot blood. He tried to ignore both as the boat bucked beneath him.

‘We’ll need the heads,’ Florin grunted as he punched the steel guard of one cutlass into a serpentine snout and hacked down on another. ‘To collect the full bounty.’

Lorenzo cursed this fresh insanity, and tried not to think about what would happen if the boat was flipped and the lanterns extinguished.

But already the ambushers seemed to be retreating. Florin prised his cutlass from the skull of his last victim and looked around him, confusion furrowing his blood-spattered brow.

‘They’re going,’ he decided as Lorenzo kicked another body into the water.

‘Yes. Let’s join them.’

‘Good idea. We’ll have to be quick though. Come on, start rowing. That one’s wounded, so we should be able to follow it.’

Florin dropped a cutlass into the bloodied bilge that slopped around his boots, leant over the prow, and lifted a lantern overhead.

‘Come on, they’re getting away,’ he complained.

Lorenzo didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead he threw his meagre weight behind the oars and, praying that Manann would continue to offer his traditional protection to lunatics, he rowed.

HAD THE SURVIVOR not been so badly wounded, Florin and Lorenzo would never have kept up with it. Every part of the creature, from the smoothly scaled arrow of its head to the powerful rudder of its tail, was built for speed in the water.

What hampered it were its injuries, and they were horrific. A cutlass stroke had sliced open its back, so that as it moved the severed muscles slipped and tore over the chipped ribcage beneath. Its left arm was also gone, lopped off at the shoulder by a butcher’s blow that had been aimed at its head.

A warm-blooded creature would surely have succumbed to the shock and pain of these twin mutilations, but not this one. As its pursuers closed in it struggled on, ignoring the agony that sang through its nerves as easily as it ignored the pieces of flotsam that churned beneath its remaining limbs.

‘Slow down a bit,’ Florin hissed, waving his hand at Lorenzo.

‘Slow down?’ the older man repeated, surprised.

‘We’re getting too close,’ Florin whispered, as if afraid that their quarry could understand. If it did it gave no sign. The serpentine shape of its bleeding body writhed through the black water ahead, its head tilted to one side as it crawled lopsidedly through the rotting brine. As Florin watched a flash of reflected lamp light glittered in one of its eyes. It reminded him of the gold at the bottom of a prospector’s pan.

‘It’s turning right,’ Florin hissed as the thing rolled to one side and made its way through a row of pilings. Lorenzo heaved on the oars and followed it. Florin helped him, pushing the boat away from one of the timber columns before looking back to the rippled water of their quarry’s track.

For one heart-stopping moment he thought that he’d lost it. Then he saw that the only thing he’d lost was the churn of water. The lizard itself had crawled out onto a tumble of silt-choked debris. The spit of rubble sloped gradually up from the water and at the top of it, fanged with broken masonry, the mouth of a tunnel yawned hungrily open.

Florin grinned as he watched the wounded lizard crawl into the entrance. He was still grinning as he turned back to Lorenzo, who was concentrating on shepherding the boat between a fallen piling and a floating island of refuse.

‘What did I tell you?’ Florin exulted. ‘We’ve got them. See over there!’ He lifted the lantern up so that the flickering yellow light leapt after the retreating lizard. ‘See all those claw marks on the silt outside the hole? This is where they live, alright. Here, pass me the boathook and row us up to it. I’ll find a place to land.’

Lorenzo muttered as he pulled on the oars, and the battered boat nosed its way to the mess that served the lizards as a pier. Florin squinted at the spill of detritus. He tried a couple of places before finally chopping the boathook down into a fallen pile and fastening the boat to it.

‘Right then,’ he said, turning to Lorenzo and lifting a lantern to light his face. ‘Let’s reload the crossbows, get in there.’

‘Alright.’ Lorenzo shrugged, and warily eyed the dark maw of the tunnel as he winched back one of the crossbows. ‘Alright, let’s finish them. We don’t have time to sell the tavern now anyway.’

Florin nodded distractedly. He had already armed his bow, checked his cutlasses were loose in their sheaths, and turned up the wick on his lantern. He waited for Lorenzo to do the same then bounded out of the boat and scrabbled up the crumbling slope towards the cave.

He paused at the edge of it, lantern held in one hand and crossbow in the other. When he heard Lorenzo at his back he passed the bow back and drew his cutlass instead. Lorenzo reluctantly extinguished his own lantern and, as the darkness drew tighter about them, he slung one crossbow over his shoulder and held the other at the ready.

Thus armed the two men stepped into the tunnel.

After the stink of the rotting world beneath the wharf, the still air within these burrowed walls was almost refreshing. So was the silence. There was no drip of water or scrape of driftwood or rumble of wagons passing overhead. Apart from the smear of blood along the floor it might have been as empty as a tomb.

They had gone perhaps thirty paces when Lorenzo started to wonder why the tunnel was so big. The lizards themselves had been no bigger than a man, and from what he had seen of them he guessed that they walked on all fours, or perhaps stooped over in orcish fashion.

So why, he wondered, was the ceiling so high? It was maybe ten feet in all, and the light of the lantern barely touched it. All that Lorenzo could see was that it was covered with the regular claw marks of its excavation.

Suddenly Lorenzo was seized with a terrible suspicion. He swallowed nervously, tapped Florin on the shoulder and leant forward to whisper into his ear.

‘Why is this place so big?’ he asked, eyes rolling up towards the ceiling.

Florin shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe they like the ventilation.’

‘I thought you said they liked humidity.’

‘Maybe they like both.’

‘How,’ Lorenzo said, forgetting to whisper, ‘can they like both?’

‘Look,’ said Florin, ‘what’s that up ahead?’

He lifted his lantern and, with his cutlass held as still as a viper about to strike, he edged forward. Lorenzo was about to continue the discussion when he realised that there was something up ahead after all. It sparkled on the floor of the tunnel, flecks of lantern light catching metallic edges.

‘Treasure,’ the two men told each other in perfect harmony. Then they were hurrying forward, the oddities of lizardine architecture forgotten in the face of the creatures’ fabled wealth.

But when they reached the treasure it was not the sort they had hoped for. Florin knelt down to examine their find.

‘Eggs.’ He spat the word and rolled one of the things out of the muddy hollow that served as its nest. It was heavy, although not heavy enough to be gold, and the pattern that sparkled so seductively was no more precious than a dragonfly’s scales.

‘Are you sure they aren’t something else?’ Lorenzo asked with an air of unaccustomed optimism.

‘I’m sure. Remember that idiot who brought an egg back on the Destrier? That was the same as these.’

Lorenzo looked down at the nest, disappointment creasing the satchel of his face.

‘I remember. I remember the captain throwing it overboard too. But I don’t remember there being more than one.’

Florin sighed, his hopes of riches dashed. ‘Maybe the first one hatched and laid the rest. Look at the size of them. Bet it made their eyes water, hey?’

Lorenzo just shook his head.

‘At least we should get a bounty for them,’ Florin consoled him. ‘Let’s finish off the escapee first, though. I wouldn’t mind keeping his head as a trophy.’

He got back to his feet, lifted the lantern, and continued along the bloody trail of his quarry. Lorenzo followed him, pausing only to stamp down on one of the eggs.

The crunch was surprisingly loud in the confined space.

But what was even louder was the answering howl of agony that reverberated out of the darkness ahead.

‘Damn,’ said Florin, and for once Lorenzo was in total agreement. The roar that even now echoed around them bore little relation to the wounded thing they had chased into this pit. It didn’t sound hurt so much as enraged. It also sounded big.

‘Let’s go back,’ said Lorenzo, edging nervously back between the eggs. This time he was careful not to stand on any of them.

‘Listen,’ Florin said. ‘Footsteps.’

Lorenzo listened. He felt rather than heard the beat of footsteps that were drumming through the hard-packed earth. As they drew nearer he licked his lips and tried to swallow.

‘Here it comes,’ Florin said. He put his lantern down and reached for the bow Lorenzo passed him. The two men aimed at the unknown, the hairs on the back of their necks rising as another roar split the air and the thing emerged from the darkness.

At first it was no more than a darker patch in the darkness beyond. Then it was a field of glittering stars as lamplight caught the edges of its scales. And then it was upon them.

Neither man had seen its like before. Even in their memories the saurian warriors of Lustria had never grown so big. The thing that thundered towards them was actually stooped beneath the high ceiling, the boulder-sized muscles of its forearms rippling as it reached out towards them. But if the talons were terrifying, the crocodilian slab of its head was worse. It leered down at them, a serpentine mask of glistening fangs and murderous rage.

For a split second the two men stared at the horror, mesmerised by the ferocity of its charge. Then, a second before the daggers of its talons reached them, they fired.

The bowstrings hummed as the two bolts blurred towards their target. The first struck the scales that rippled down its belly and bounced off as harmlessly as hail. But the second, which both men later swore they had fired, found a softer target in the vicious slit of the monster’s eye.

It screamed as it lunged to one side, and both men smelt the rotten meat stink of its breath. Florin snatched up the lantern as they leapt away from the thrashing claws and scurried back up the tunnel.

‘Reload,’ he told Lorenzo as a fist the size of a small pig closed around the arrow that was imbedded in the lizard’s eye. It plucked it out with a horrible pop that was lost beneath a fresh scream of agony. Then it turned its remaining eye on the two intruders.

‘Duck,’ Lorenzo said and, as the beast lowered its head for a fresh charge, he fired again.

He almost hit his target. Almost. But this time the beast whipped its head aside at the last moment, and the steel-tipped bolt bounced harmlessly off the top of its head.

Lorenzo tried to reload, but Florin knew it was too late. As his comrade fumbled with the bow the beast vaulted over the nest of eggs and hurled itself towards them.

Florin stopped thinking. Instead he let instincts take over. Even as the great lizard fell upon him he dropped his cutlass, slipped a thin stiletto from his boot, and leapt forward to meet it.

He ignored the pain of the talons that cut through his flesh to slide across the ribs beneath. He ignored the hot stink of its breath as its jaws snapped shut an inch beside his head. He even ignored the terror of its bulk, and the roll of the impossibly strong muscles beneath the impossibly thick hide.

He ignored everything apart from the slit of the beast’s remaining eye.

As the lizard wrapped its forearms around him for a final embrace, Florin used its knee as a toe-hold and sprang upwards, twisting his body as taut as a bow before its release. There was only one chance, he knew. Only one roll of the dice.

But as soon as he struck, he knew that it would be enough.

The stiletto hit the serpentine eye dead centre, severing the black pupil and punching through the jelly beneath. A cutlass blow would have ended there, bouncing off the skull. But the stiletto was thin enough to follow the optical nerve through the tunnel of bone and into the brain.

The lizard didn’t even have time to scream as the splinter of steel ended its life. It just swayed for a last, dying heartbeat, then collapsed forward as dead as a falling tree.

There was a boom as the massive carcass hit the tunnel floor, and a sprinkle of falling earth from the ceiling above.

Lorenzo, who couldn’t quite believe he was still alive, rushed forward to wrestle Florin’s body out from beneath the carcass.

‘Are you alright?’ he asked, dragging him clear.

Florin coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. ‘Apart from all the broken bones, you mean?’

‘Don’t worry about them,’ Lorenzo reassured him. ‘They’re a small price to pay for getting the job done. See, I told you it was a good idea to track them down here.’

Florin opened his mouth to argue. But before he could, the pain, the blood loss, and the knowledge that he was safe conspired to send him into grateful oblivion.

‘WELL I’LL SAY this for young d’Artaud,’ said Baron Lafayette as he examined the colour of his claret. ‘He’s certainly resourceful.’

Count Griston, who sat across the dining table from his host, shrugged his half-hearted agreement. It was another one of their dinner parties, and he was wondering if Lafayette would be able to top the vin et bile d’aigle and os de poisson gelles he had served last month.

‘Ah yes, d’Artaud. I forgot about him. Didn’t he help you out with some business in the docks, Harbour Master?’

The Harbour Master, who had been enjoying the way that the claret complemented the mixed gastropods of the entree, nodded.

‘Yes, there was something he helped me with. We had some problems with a particularly vicious gang on the Dragon Wharf. D’Artaud did a bit of scouting and discovered their lair.’

Lafayette’s mouth dropped in surprise, and he exchanged a glance with his wife. But before he could say anything she kicked him neatly on the shin.

‘Yes, crime around the docks is expensive.’ Griston seized upon the subject with a real enthusiasm. ‘In fact, Harbour Master, only last week I lost a substantial amount of stock. Very substantial. Perhaps when you come to calculating next month’s docking fees.’

‘Please, count.’ The Harbour Master held up his hands. ‘Let us not ruin this fine meal with talk of business. And anyway, docking fees aren’t related to any lapses in warehouse security.’

‘As you say,’ Griston nodded. ‘Now is not the place to talk about how lapses in warehouse security weren’t to blame for my loss.’

Lafayette saw the Harbour Master’s displeasure, and on another occasion he would have happily left Griston to make it worse. Tonight, though, he didn’t have the patience.

‘Well, if we have all finished,’ he said, looking around the table and then snapping his fingers for the servants. They cleared the table with a quiet efficiency that wouldn’t have shamed a gun crew, then scurried away to fetch the main course.

Griston, his wrangle with the Harbour Master temporarily forgotten, watched them go.

‘What is the main course this evening, Lafayette?’ he asked. ‘Pork again?’

Lafayette smiled at the insult, rocked back on his chair, and cracked his knuckles.

‘To be honest, Griston,’ he lied, ‘I can’t remember. I left it to chef to decide on the menu. But look, here it comes now.’

The aroma that preceded the silver platter was mouth watering. It was spicy enough to conjure up thoughts of Araby, although not too spicy to mask the scent of roast meat and a hint of something citric.

The servants set the platter down on the table, so that the assembled diners could see their anticipation reflected back from the silver dome of the lid. The butler placed a silk-gloved hand on the handle on top of it, and looked at his master.

Lafayette waited, drawing out the moment for another delicious second, then gave the nod.

With a practiced flourish the flunky lifted the silver dome off the platter beneath, then stepped back so that the diners could savour the sight of the dish. When the sweet-smelling steam had cleared the guests did just that, staring at the creation before them with three identical expressions of shock.

Lafayette and his wife exchanged a glance of absolute triumph.

‘Ah,’ said Lafayette with a carefully affected nonchalance. ‘One of chef’s foreign dishes.’

Griston looked at his host then back to the platter before him. The carved meat oozed succulence, and it was so white as to be almost translucent. But it was the appearance of the dish that really drew the eye.

‘That head,’ he couldn’t help asking. ‘Is it real?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Lafayette as the servants began to serve his guests. ‘I always insist on having the head sent up with the meat. You can always tell the freshness of the animal by the gold of its eyeballs. See how they shine even after having been roasted?’

‘Yes,’ said Griston miserably. He tasted a forkful of the meat, and his misery deepened. It was superb. Unique.

But the Harbour Master had other concerns.

‘Where did you get that thing?’ he asked, staring at the scaled head with something approaching panic.

Lafayette shifted uncomfortably until his wife saved him.

‘I couldn’t possibly reveal my sources,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I’m just glad that Monsieur d’Artaud got rid of all those thieves at the dock, aren’t you? They might have stolen it from our importer.’

The Harbour Master met her gaze, understanding. Then he shrugged, and tasted a sliver of the white flesh. It melted on his tongue.

‘I propose a toast,’ he said. ‘To our host, Count Lafayette, and to the excellence of his table. This delicacy is certainly a rare treat. Shallya willing.’

The diners clinked their glasses, and returned to the succulence of Lafayette’s triumph.