of it. Or it should be. We are here to make sure.’
They clattered up a stair and between two long rows of clerks. A narrow office at the end was crowded by a big, pudgy man with grey hair scraped over his bald pate and an oversized desk covered in green leather. He had to lean dangerously far across it to shake Savine’s hand, giving the buttons on his waistcoat quite the test.
‘Master Kort,’ she said as Broad shut the door.
‘Lady Savine, I am delighted to see you well.’ Kort gave Broad a slightly troubled smile. Broad didn’t return it. He was getting the sense he hadn’t been brought there to smile. ‘Everyone has been … extremely worried.’
‘So moving,’ said Savine, pulling off her gloves one finger at a time while Zuri whipped free a dagger of a hatpin. ‘But in business, we must set sentiment aside.’ With the slightest twist, Zuri lifted Savine’s hat away from a wig that must’ve cost more than Broad used to earn in a year. ‘I am delighted to see work on our canal progressing so well.’
Kort winced, hesitated, winced again and finally leaned forward, clasping his hands. ‘There is no easy way to say this—’
‘Take the hard way, then, I am not made of glass.’
‘Regrettably, Lady Savine, I was obliged … to come to a new accommodation.’
‘And who has been so accommodating?’
‘Lady Selest dan Heugen.’ Savine’s expression didn’t seem to change, but Broad had the feeling it took a struggle. ‘Her cousin was kind enough to arrange for some permits—’
‘We had an agreement, Master Kort.’
‘We did, but … you were not here to fulfil it. Thankfully, Lady Selest was able to step into the breach.’
Savine smiled. ‘And you think you can just slip her into my breach without so much as a by-your-leave?’
Kort shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘The banking house of Valint and Balk was kind enough to act as her backer, and she was kind enough to act as mine. Lady Savine, I was really given no choice—’
‘I recently spent several weeks living like a dog.’ Savine still smiled, but there was something brittle in it now. Something jagged. ‘And I do not mean that figuratively. Starving. Filthy. Hiding in a corner, constantly afraid for my life. It has changed my perspective. It has made me see how very fragile we all are. Then I have been involved in a … let us call it an affair of the heart, which did not end to my satisfaction. It did not end to my satisfaction at all.’
‘I have nothing but sympathy, Lady Savine—’
‘Your sympathy is not worth a speck of shit.’ Savine fished an infinitesimal mote of dust from her sleeve and rubbed it away between finger and thumb. ‘It’s your canal I want. Just what was agreed. No more and no less.’
‘What can I say?’ Kort spread his big hands. ‘My canal is no longer available.’
Savine’s smile had hardened to a skull’s grin. The fibres in her neck stood out as she bit off the words. ‘The thing is, so much of business is a show. It is about the confidence people have in you. And confidence is so fragile. I am sure we have both seen it a hundred times. Cast from iron one moment, crumbling like sand the next. Following my misadventures in Valbeck, confidence in me has been profoundly shaken. People are watching me. Judging me.’
‘Lady Savine, I assure you—’
‘Don’t bother. I am merely trying to make you understand that, whoever your backers might be, I cannot afford the luxury of letting you and Selest dan Heugen fuck me on this occasion.’ And she glanced over at Broad, and caught his eye.
At least there’ll be no trouble, serving a fine lady, eh? Liddy had said. Broad had smiled. Aye. No trouble. He didn’t smile now.
He knew exactly what Savine wanted. He’d seen that look in her eye before, on some of the men he’d fought with. The ones you had to watch. The ones you had to worry about. He knew he’d had the same look. A kind of mad delight that it had come to this.
He didn’t understand business, or deals, or canals. But he understood that look. All too well.
So Broad took hold of the edge of Kort’s great desk and moved it out of his way. There was no room to push it into, so he just lifted one end. Papers, ornaments, a nice letter opener, all slid down the green leather as it tilted