Best Served Cold

“All turning out just like you hoped.”

She stared down at Foscar, flattened head twisted sideways, crossed eyes goggling up at the wall, blood spreading out across the stone floor in a black puddle from his broken skull. Her voice seemed to come from a long way off, reedy thin. “Why did you-”

“Why not?” whispered Shivers, coming close. She saw her own pale, scabbed, pinched-in face reflected, bent and twisted in that dead metal ball of an eye. “What we came here for, ain’t it? What we fought for all the day, down in the mud? I thought you was all for never turning back? Mercy and cowardice the same and all that hard talk you gave me. By the dead, Chief.” He grinned, the mass of scar across his face squirming and puckering, his good cheek all dotted with red. “I could almost swear you ain’t half the evil bitch you pretend to be.”

Shifting Sands

W ith the greatest of care not to attract undue attention, Morveer insinuated himself into the back of Duke Orso’s great audience chamber. For such a vast and impressive room, it numbered but a few occupants. Perhaps a function of the difficult circumstances in which the great man found himself. Having catastrophically lost the most important battle in the history of Styria was bound to discourage visitors. Still, Morveer had always been drawn to employers in difficult circumstances. They tended to pay handsomely.

The Grand Duke of Talins was without doubt still a majestic presence. He sat upon a gilded chair, on a high dais, all in sable velvet trimmed with gold, and frowned down with regal fury over the shining helmets of half a dozen no less furious guardsmen. He was flanked by two men who could not have been more polar opposites. On the left a plump, ruddy-faced old fellow stood with a respectful but painful-looking bend to his hips, gold buttons about his chubby throat fastened to the point of uncomfortable tightness and, indeed, considerably beyond. He had ill-advisedly attempted to conceal his utter and obvious baldness by combing back and forth a few sad strands of wiry grey hair, cultivated to enormous length for this precise purpose. Orso’s chamberlain. On the right, a curly-haired young man slouched with unexpected ease in travel-stained clothes, resting upon what appeared to be a long stick. Morveer had the frustrating sensation of having seen him somewhere before, but could not place him, and his relationship to the duke was, for now, a slightly worrying mystery.

The only other occupant of the chamber had his well-dressed back to Morveer, prostrate upon one knee on the strip of crimson carpet, clutching his hat in one hand. Even from the very back of the hall the gleaming sheen of sweat across his bald patch was most evident.

“What help from my son-in-law,” Orso was demanding in stentorian tones, “the High King of the Union?”

The voice of the ambassador, for it appeared to be none other, had the whine of a well-whipped dog expecting further punishment. “Your son-in-law sends his earnest regrets-”

“Indeed? But no soldiers! What would he have me do? Shoot his regrets at my enemies?”

“His armies are all committed in our unfortunate Northern wars, and a revolt in the city of Rostod causes further difficulties. The nobles, meanwhile, are reluctant. The peasantry are again restless. The merchants-”

“The merchants are behind on their payments. I see. If excuses were soldiers he would have sent a mighty throng indeed.”

“He is beset by troubles-”

“ He is beset? He is? Are his sons murdered? Are his soldiers butchered? Are his hopes all in ruins?”

The ambassador wrung his hands. “Your Excellency, he is spread thin! His regrets have no end, but-”

“But his help has no beginning! High King of the Union! A fine talker, and a goodly smile when the sun is up, but when the clouds come in, look not for shelter in Adua, eh? My intervention on his behalf was timely, was it not? When the Gurkish horde clamoured at his gates! But now I need his help… forgive me, Father, I am spread thin . Out of my sight, bastard, before your master’s regrets cost you your tongue! Out of my sight, and tell the Cripple that I see his hand in this! Tell him I will whip the price from his twisted hide!” The grand duke’s furious screams echoed out over the hurried footsteps of the ambassador, edging backwards as quickly as he dared, bowing profusely and sweating even more. “Tell him I will be revenged!”

The ambassador genuflected his way past Morveer, and the double doors were heaved booming shut upon him.

“Who is that skulking at the back of the chamber?” Orso’s voice was no more reassuring for its sudden calmness. Quite the reverse.