Vicar's Court tried to be as aristocratic as it sounded, but it failed as spectacularly as one might expect. Vicar tried having his guards and closest attendants wear what approximated to livery, but the fabric was cheap, poorly tailored, and inconsistently colored from man to man. His family colors seemed to span everything from the color of dark wine to a dusty pink. The crest was the only part of the charade that seemed to be well designed, a grinning skeleton in knightly armor grasping a crooked dagger and a hooded lantern. Balletaria knew for a fact it had been ripped off a much older, much nobler crime family that had been wiped out when a duke last attempted wresting control of the city from its many gang lords.

It had happened nearly seventy-five years ago. The duke, tired of only being a figurehead and jealous of the enormous wealth of the gang lords he could never tax, decided Hubris had been a city of thieves long enough. He'd managed to bring down three families in a coordinated raid. The resulting retaliation of arson, riots, and daring murders by the other families only stopped when the duke was found murdered in his own bed, the deed apparently done by a fearless brothel worker who'd disguised herself as his wife in the dark and laid with him until she accomplished the grisly task. The conflict ended, a new duke was anointed, and the assassin was given command of her own gang and a pleasure house as reward. If the new duke of Hubris took offense at that woman being elevated to such heights of power and wealth for the murder of his predecessor, he kept it to himself and let the gang lords retain their hold on the city.

Vicar clearly enjoyed pretending he commanded the same lordly obedience as the big bosses from the greater cities, an act that was easy enough to play at in a place as small as Ditch. He might have even received permission from the gang lords of Hubris to use the crest openly, if only because it pleased them to see the banner of a former rival brought so low in Vicar's poor domain. But now, a real boss was in Ditch, for what reason Balletaria couldn't imagine, and the Court was the heart of unusual activity and crawling with unusual characters.

Security was the first thing she noticed. Vicar's usual guards were about, though in numbers she'd never seen them. They usually slumped in doorways and diced in corners in shifts, their weapons barely remembered resting against their shoulders or weighing down their sagging belts. Today, they all seemed present, and each one at a level of alertness and nervous stress she'd scarcely knew they were capable of. But others were about, skulking in shadows and near beer carts, far more subtle and with weapons neatly stowed out of sight but ready to draw. These were elite muscle, stone cold killers and bruisers of the highest order.

As she approached the doors to the Court, one of Vicar's lads challenged her with a hand sign, even though he well knew exactly who she was. She could see the more subtle boys starting to edge closer, ready if she showed the slightest signs of trouble.

"Are you hear to pedal your wares? I'm afraid we only have an interest in a well aged casque," he recited, giving her the coded challenge phrase.

She'd been expecting this. The challenge phrase was changed just that morning, before she'd even known Chapriotti was there. She'd figured Verdun, now twitching and moaning in the alley where she'd left him, carefully hidden beneath a bundle of rotting burlap and spare rope, had been given the correct response. It meant Balletaria shouldn't be able to walk in without him to escort her. But she knew the gaping holes in Vicar's security, and so she was able to bribe it out of Vicar's favorite pleasure girl only a few moments ago.

She gave the correct hand sign response and said, "Don't turn away what you haven't yet tasted. The first swallow is free."

If the guard was surprised to see her unescorted and with the correct pass-phrase, he didn't say so. She could see the tougher ones relax and return to their own posts as well.

The inside of the Court was little different from what it had been before it was Vicar's, a dirty inn with creaking boards. Now tattered and stained banners bearing Vicar's stolen crest hung from the walls and banisters, mostly showing the stains of having been used by his men to wipe their filthy hands. A tall-backed chair behind a long banquet table laden with food and the day's accumulated take was the usual place to find Ditch's only boss, but today he sat beside it in a much more plain dining chair, displaced from his normal place of honor by Chapriotti.

If Vicar was defined by his pretending at nobility and prestige, Chapriotti stood out for being his complete opposite. Dressed not in livery or robes, nor even any jewelry save a single signet ring, Chapriotti wore a clean, simple business man's suit with vest. It was cut fine from dark fabric. The simplicity and respectability of it seemed to only enhance his apparent brutality instead of hiding it, much like a sheep's skin might if draped over a ravenous bear. Chapriotti was a bullish man with a street fighter's scars and crooked nose and a scalp of peppered stubble. Beside him stood a tall woman in curious robes. He watched her frowning while she seemed to be licking her thumb and attempting to scrub away some yellow stain on a tall, pointed hat in her hands.

I saw you this morning, in Gilbert's, she realized. You're still trying to clean the eggs of your hat.

"I just got this outfit," she complained, apparently unsatisfied with her efforts. "I mean, I know I'll probably loot something a little better soon enough, but I wanted this character to start out looking really good!"

Balletaria had no idea what this girl was on about, and neither, it seemed, did Chapriotti. When he noticed her walking in, he seemed glad to have someone else to demand his attention.

"Ah, you must be Vicar's new girl. Come in and have a word." He beckoned her with a thick, iron-hard finger.

As she approached the table, her head bowed demurely, Vicar looked around the room, looking for someone he expected but apparently didn't see.

"Ay, Balli, where's Verdun? He was supposed to bring you here himself!"

There was no sense in lying. A good liar always tells as much truth as possible.

Balletaria shrugged. "I would guess he's still at The Lady Garden, Your Grace, where I left him."

Vicar shook his jowled face in frustration and nodded to one of his guards. "I told him not to dawdle. Go and fetch him then. I wanted him to bring her here personally."

So he'll know soon enough, she realized. Best be gone before that guard finds Verdun in an alley instead of in a pleasure girl's bed.

"Oh, we don't need your idiot son in here for this, Verdun. In fact, I'd prefer to do this without me having to look at that little pricker. First, I want to thank you for coming in to see me so quickly, girl. This is a matter that requires timely action," he said in a voice that was full of a sort of rough, brutal courtesy. Chapriotti was dangerous enough he didn't have to spare words on social niceties. The fact he did anyway meant he was secure in his power, unworried with appearing to be hard because everyone present already knew he was.

He reached to the table and grabbed a bundle of folded fabric. From where she stood, Balletaria could see it was a blanket, faded and travel-worn, but finely stitched from expensive, exotic textile. It was the sort of thing no local would ever own, because they could never afford it. Chapriotti tossed it to her, and she caught it in her open arms. Even in need of a washing, it still might have been the finest fabric she'd ever held.

"One of your pawn brokers picked this off a vagrant this morning," he said pointing to the blanket. "I think it might belong to someone I'm looking for."

Balletaria blinked.

"You got word of a lead on a missing person and you came down here from Hubris this morning?" It was more than incredible. It was impossible to make that journey in less than a few days.

"Hmm," he grunted, nodding his bullish head. "You've got an eye for detail, girl. A sharp wit. That's good. No, I didn't come down this morning. I've been in the area looking for this mark for two weeks now. It's a job important enough that I've been seeing to it personally, slogging all this way over friggin' hills and staying in crap-stained places like this."

Vicar shot Chapriotti a look of incredulous dismay at that, but if the big boss noticed, he didn't care. Vicar's ego, it seemed, was too far beneath him to mince words.

"So when Vicar gets word of a strange woman pawning off strange blankets, he comes and tells me 'cause I ain't far away, and he knows I want to know right away. So I get here as quick as my fat rump can carry me, and I tell Vicar to bring me the sharpest, most discrete, most professional man he's got, and that's you."

There was a croaking, choking laugh that made them all turn their heads. It was the tall woman, swinging her pointed hat by her knees and chuckling like a fool.

"It's funny cuz you're not a man!" she choked out.

Chapriotti might have had her beaten for speaking out of turn. She'd seen the big bosses and even Vicar do as much to drunks and dust addicts enough times. But Chapriotti just nodded his head and smiled awkwardly before returning his gaze to Balletaria.

"I called you here 'cause I need you to kill someone. I need it done quickly, quietly, professionally. Vicar tells me you're the person for the job, that you're Gentry through and through. He says you're smart, you know the Cant better than most bosses. He says you came here not long ago and knew to pay your obeisance and to mind your manners. He says you make an easy living without upsetting things, and that you can handle yourself."

Balletaria opened her mouth, but struggled to actually fill it with words.

"Your too kind, your grace—,"

"No, I'm not. Not even remotely. And don't call me, 'Your Grace', I hate that. You call me 'Sir' or nothing at all. I don't care which."

It was then Vicar's guard returned. He ran straight to his boss, only pausing to spare Balletaria the most curious look. She thought she knew what it meant. You fool, that look meant to say, you had it good here, and you had to ruin everything.

After the guard whispered a few moment's in Vicar's ear, his look turned from consternation to shock, and then again to rage that shook his jowls. He stood from his meager chair, nearly head-butting his man on his way up.

"You dared to lay hands on my son!" he shrieked. "You beat him, and...and..."

"Yes, I did!" Balletaria shouted back, suddenly glad that he knew. "And he deserved it! That pricker put a knife to me and told me..."

"Deserved it? Who the frig cares whether he deserved it?"

"Shut up, the both of you!" bellowed Chapriotti. "Vicar, your son's a right pricker, and everyone knows it. Whatever she's done to him, he deserved it and then some. Shut your hole and put this aside until my business with the girl is done. After, and I mean only after I've concluded my business in this cesspit you're running, do you have my permission to lay a finger on her for what she did to that prick-brained mistake you call your son! Am I clear?"

The girl in with the pointed hat chortled again, but this time everyone politely ignored her. Vicar simply took his seat again, saying nothing.

Chapriotti returned his gaze to Balletaria. "You were saying?"

She nodded her head obediently and tried again.

"Sir, thank you for your appreciation of my skills, but I'm not a throat slasher."

"I'm not appreciating your skills, girl. I'm demanding them. I know you're not a throat slasher, but I know you're not a pickpocket either. No one with your talents lives in a place like Ditch," he said, stretching out the last word with a country drawl. "You're someone respectable. You did serious work for serious people somewhere big. Maybe in Faegate or Deadwell. Prick, maybe in Hubris, though I'm curious why I've never heard of ya.

"I've got important people looking to me to see this done. A lot of respect riding on this, and a lot of metal. Do this for me, and there's thirty silver captains in it for ya."

Every ear in the room turned to listen. That was a lot of money. For thirty silvers, a boss could order more than one serious job done. It was what a highly skilled assassin might make in half a year.

"More importantly, do this for me, and I won't bother looking into your personal history. I'll leave you be, forget I ever saw you. No one like you comes to a place like Ditch, not unless you're hiding. I don't know who you offended, who you stole from, who's wife you laid with, or who you killed. If they find you, it won't be because I told them. Just do this for me, and I'll pay you and forget you exist."

Balletaria stared at the blanket still draped over her arms. She looked at Vicar, who stared daggers at her. If she refused, she probably wouldn't leave the room alive. If she accepted, she bought herself time to run. But if she didn't do the job, she'd be running not from Vicar, whose little kingdom couldn't spare the men to hunt her to every corner of the Confederacy, but from Chapriotti, who could.

Sometimes there just weren't any choices, not if you wanted to survive.

She nodded.

"Good!" Chapriotti cheered as he clapped his hands with a sharp crack! "And you'll be taking this one with you." He gestured with a wave to the woman in the pointed hat. "This is Flora, a magus for hire. Your target is very dangerous, and you'll need every advantage you can get. I hired this one out of Faegate. She'll see the job done and report back to me regularly."

Balletaria looked at the magus and cocked her head to the side.

"Pidgeons?" she guessed, wondering how this one might send her messages.

The woman was polishing something on her robes, a pair of curious spectacles, the lenses of which seemed to shimmer with the colors of fire, even in the gloom of the Court. She perched them on her nose and grinned.

"No, something much, much cooler. A girl has her ways!"

"Oh," added Chapriotti holding up a finger, "your mark has a habit of moving on fast. She's also dangerous, and that's me talking. Approach her carefully, or Vicar might not have to avenge his son. Now get a move on."

The woman named Flora stepped around the table and stood close enough for Balletaria to see her own burning reflection in those strange spectacles.

"It's Balli, isn't it? Let's get going. I mean, we've got the adventure hook already, so there's no point in hanging around here!"

Balletaria sighed. She sometimes wished life would give her choices, if only a few.