Best Served Cold

“Men love to talk about fighting.” Monza let her eyes wander over the sullen faces of Rogont’s advisors. “Some like to dress for it, too. Getting blood on the uniforms is a different matter.”

A couple of angry head-tosses from the peacocks, but Rogont only smiled. “My own sad realisation. Now Musselia’s great walls are breached, thanks to you, Borletta fallen, thanks to you, and Visserine burned too. The army of Talins, ably assisted by your erstwhile comrades, the Thousand Swords, are picking the country clean on Lirozio’s very doorstep. The brave duke finds his enthusiasm for drum and bugle much curtailed. Powerful men are as inconstant as the shifting water. I should have picked weaker allies.”

“Bit late for that.”

The duke puffed out his cheeks. “Too late, too late, shall be my epitaph. At Sweet Pines I arrived but two days tardy, and rash Salier had fought and lost without me. So Caprile was left helpless before your well-documented wrath.” That was a fool’s version of the story, but Monza kept it to herself, for now. “At Musselia I arrived with all my power, prepared to hold the great walls and block the Gap of Etris against you, and found you had stolen the city the day before, picked it clean already and now held the walls against me.” More injury to the truth, but Monza kept her peace. “Then at the High Bank I found myself unavoidably detained by the late General Ganmark, while the also late Duke Salier, quite determined not to be fooled by you a second time, was fooled by you a second time and his army scattered like chaff on a stiff wind. So Borletta…” He stuck his tongue between his lips, jerked his thumb towards the floor and blew a loud farting sound. “So brave Duke Cantain…” He drew one finger across his throat and blew another. “Too late, too late. Tell me, General Murcatto, how come you are always first to the field?”

“I rise early, shit before daybreak, check I’m pointed in the right direction and let nothing stop me. That and I actually try to get there.”

“Your meaning?” demanded a young man at Rogont’s elbow, his face even sourer than the rest.

“My meaning?” she parroted, goggling like an idiot, and then to the duke himself, “Is that you could have reached Sweet Pines on time but chose to dither, knowing proud, fat Salier would piss before his trousers were down and more than likely waste all his strength whether he won or not. He lost, and looked the fool, and you the wiser partner, just as you hoped.” It was Rogont’s turn to stay carefully silent. “Two seasons later you could have reached the Gap in time and held it against the world, but it suited you to delay, and let me teach the proud Musselians the lesson you wanted them to learn. Namely to be humble before your prudent Excellency.”

The whole chamber was very still as her voice grated on. “When did you realise time was running out? That you’d delayed so much you’d let your allies wane too weak, let Orso wax too strong? No doubt you would have liked to make it to the High Bank for once on time, but Ganmark got in your way. As far as playing the good ally, by that time it was

…” She leaned forwards and whispered it. “ Too late. All your policy was making sure you were the strongest partner when the League of Eight won, so you could be the first among them. A grand notion, and carefully managed. Except, of course, Orso has won, and the League of Eight…” She stuck her tongue between her lips and blew a long fart at the assembled flower of manhood. “So much for too late, fuckers.”

The shrillest of the brood stepped towards her, fists clenched. “I will not listen to one word more of this, you… you devil! My father died at Sweet Pines!”

It seemed everyone had their own wrongs to avenge, but Monza had too many wounds of her own to be much stung by other people’s. “Thank you,” she said.

“What?”

“Since your father was presumably among my enemies, and the aim of a battle is to kill them, I take his death as a compliment. I shouldn’t have to explain that to a soldier.”

His face had turned a blotchy mixture of pink and white. “If you were a man I’d kill you where you stand.”

“If you were a man, you mean. Still, since I took your father, it’s only fair I give you something in trade.” She curled her tongue and blew spit in his face.

He came at her clumsily, and with his hands, just as she’d guessed he would. Any man who needs to be worked up to it that hard isn’t likely to be too fearful when he finally gets there. She was ready, dodged around him, grabbed the top and bottom rims of his gilded breastplate, used his own weight to swing him, caught his toe with one well-placed boot. She grabbed the hilt of his sword as he stumbled helplessly past, bent almost double, part running and part falling, and whipped it from his belt. He squawked as he splashed into the pool, sending up a fountain of shining spray, and she spun round, blade at the ready.