Best Served Cold

He peered down at his wet cock, nudged it to one side, then the other. “Well, some things it’s best to take your time with…”

– 

S hivers prised his fingers open, scuffed, scabbed, scratched and clicking from gripping his axe all the long day. They left white marks across her wrist, turning slowly pink. He rocked back on his haunches, body sagging, aching muscles loose, heaving in air. His lust all spent and his rage spent with it. For now.

Her necklace of red stones rattled as she rolled over towards him. Onto her back, tits flattened against her ribs, the knobbles of her hip bones sticking sharp from her stomach, of her collarbones sticking sharp from her shoulders. She winced, working her hand around, rubbing at her wrist.

“Didn’t mean to hurt you,” he grunted, lying badly, and not much caring either.

“Oh, I’m nothing like that delicate. And you can call me Carlot.” She reached up and brushed his lips gently with a fingertip. “I think we know each other well enough for that…”

– 

M onza clambered off the bed and walked to the desk, legs weak and aching, feet flapping against the cool marble. The husk lay on it, beside the lamp. The knife blade gleamed, the polished stem of the pipe shone. She sat down in front of it. Yesterday she wouldn’t have been able to keep her trembling hands away from it. Today, even with a legion of fresh aches, cuts, grazes from the battle, it didn’t call to her half so loud. She held her left hand up, knuckles starting to scab over, and frowned at it. It was firm.

“I never really thought I could do it,” she muttered.

“Eh?”

“Beat Orso. I thought I might get three of them. Four, maybe, before they killed me. Never thought I’d live this long. Never thought I could actually do it.”

“And now one would say the odds favour you. How quickly hope can flicker into life once more.” Rogont drew himself up before the mirror. A tall one, crusted with coloured flowers of Visserine glass. She could hardly believe, watching him pose, that she’d once been every bit as vain. The hours she’d wasted preening before the mirror. The fortunes she and Benna had spent on clothes. A fall down a mountain, a body scarred, a hand ruined and six months living like a hunted dog seemed to have cured her of that, at least. Perhaps she should’ve suggested the same remedy to Rogont.

The duke lifted his chin in a regal gesture, chest inflated. He frowned, sagged, pressed at a long scratch just below his collarbone. “Damn it.”

“Nick yourself on your nail-file, did you?”

“A savage sword-cut like this could easily have been the death of a lesser man, I’ll have you know! But I braved it, without complaint, and fought on like a tiger, blood streaming, streaming I say, down my armour! I am beginning to suspect it could even leave a mark.”

“No doubt you’ll wear it with massive pride. You could have a hole cut in all your shirts to display it to the public.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d suspect I was being mocked. You do realise, if things unfold according to my plans-and they have so far, I might observe-you will soon be directing your sarcasm at the King of Styria. I have already, in fact, commissioned my crown, from Zoben Casoum, the world-famous master jeweller of Corontiz-”

“Cast from Gurkish gold, no doubt.”

Rogont paused for a moment, frowning. “The world is not as simple as you think, General Murcatto. A great war rages.”

She snorted. “You think I missed that? These are the Years of Blood.”

He snorted back. “The Years of Blood are only the latest skirmish. This war began long before you or I were born. A struggle between the Gurkish and the Union. Or between the forces that control them, at least, the church of Gurkhul and the banks of the Union. Their battlefields are everywhere, and every man must pick his side. The middle ground contains only corpses. Orso stands with the Union. Orso has the backing of the banks. And so I have my… backers. Every man must kneel to someone.”

“Perhaps you didn’t notice. I’m not a man.”

Rogont’s smile broke out again. “Oh, I noticed. It was the second thing that attracted me to you.”

“The first?”

“You can help me unite Styria.”

“And why should I?”

“A united Styria… she could be as great as the Union, as great as the Empire of Gurkhul. Greater, even! She could free herself from their struggle, and stand alone. Free. We have never been closer! Nicante and Puranti fall over themselves to re-enter my good graces. Affoia never left them. Sotorius is my man, with certain trifling concessions to Sipani, no more than a few islands and the city of Borletta-”

“And what do the citizens of Borletta have to say to it?”

“Whatever I tell them to say. They are a changeable crowd, as you discovered when they scrambled to offer you their beloved Duke Cantain’s head. Muris bowed to Sipani long ago, and Sipani now bows to me, in name at least. The power of Visserine is broken. As for Musselia, Etrea and Caprile, well. You and Orso between you, I suspect, have quite crushed their independent temper out of them.”

“Westport?”