Best Served Cold

Soon afterwards the rumours spread. The Serpent of Talins had ordered the massacre that day. Had urged the Baolish on and screamed for more. The Butcher of Caprile, they called her, and she did not deny it. People would far rather believe a lurid lie than a sorry string of accidents. Would far rather believe the world is full of evil than full of bad luck, selfishness and stupidity. Besides, the rumours served a purpose. She was more feared than ever, and fear was useful.

In Ospria they denounced her. In Visserine they burned her image. In Affoia and Nicante they offered a fortune to any man who could kill her. All around the Azure Sea they rang out the bells to her shame. But in Etrisani they celebrated. In Talins they lined the streets to chant her name, to shower her with flower petals. In Cesale they raised a statue in her honour. A gaudy thing, smothered with gold leaf that soon peeled. She and Benna, as they never looked, seated on great horses, frowning boldly towards a noble future.

That was the difference between a hero and a villain, a soldier and a murderer, a victory and a crime. Which side of a river you called home.

Return of the Native

M onza was far from comfortable.

Her legs ached, her arse was chafed raw from riding, her shoulder had stiffened up again so she was constantly twisting her head to one side like a demented owl in a futile attempt to loosen it. Whenever one source of sweaty agony would ease for a moment, another would flare up to plug the gap. Her prodding joke of a little finger seemed attached to a cord of cold pain, tightening relentlessly right to her elbow if she tried to use the hand. The sun was merciless in the clear blue sky, making her squint, niggling at the headache leaking from the coins that held her skull together. Sweat tickled her scalp, ran down her neck, gathered in the scars Gobba’s wire had left and made them itch like fury. Her crawling skin was prickly, clammy, sticky. She cooked in her armour like offal in a can.

Rogont had her dressed up like some simpleton’s notion of the Goddess of War, an unhappy collision of shining steel and embroidered silk that offered the comfort of full plate and the protection of a nightgown. It might all have been made to measure by Rogont’s own armourer, but there was a lot more room for chest in her gold-chased breastplate than there was a need for. This, according to the Duke of Delay, was what people wanted to see.

And enough of them had turned out for the purpose.

Crowds lined the narrow streets of Talins. They squashed into windows and onto roofs to catch a glimpse of her. They packed into the squares and gardens in dizzying throngs, throwing flowers, waving banners, boiling over with hope. They shouted, bellowed, roared, squealed, clapped, stamped, hooted, competing with each other to be the first to burst her skull with their clamour. Sets of musicians had formed at street corners, would strike up martial tunes as she came close, brassy and blaring, clanging away behind her, merging with the off-key offering of the next impromptu band to form a mindless, murderous, patriotic din.

It was like the triumph after her victory at Sweet Pines, only she was older and even more reluctant, her brother was rotting in the mud instead of basking in the glory and her old enemy Rogont was at her back rather than her old friend Orso. Perhaps that was what history came down to, in the end. Swapping one sharp bastard for another was the best you could hope for.

They crossed the Bridge of Tears, the Bridge of Coins, the Bridge of Gulls, looming carvings of seabirds glaring angrily down at the procession as it crawled past, brown waters of the Etris sluggishly churning beneath them. Each time she rounded a corner another wave of applause would break upon her. Another wave of nausea. Her heart was pounding. Every moment, she expected to be killed. Blades and arrows seemed more likely than flowers and kind words, and far more deserved. Agents of Duke Orso, or his Union allies, or a hundred others with a private grudge against her. Hell, if she’d been in the crowd and seen some woman ride past dressed like this, she’d have killed her on general principle. But Rogont must have spread his rumours well. The people of Talins loved her. Or loved the idea of her. Or had to look like they did.