Best Served Cold

A second cloud of dust had plunged the trench into choking gloom, but as it gradually faded Cosca could see the vast breach left in the outer wall of Fontezarmo, no fewer than two hundred strides across, the crater beneath it now choked with settling rubble. A second tower at its edge leaned at an alarming angle, like a drunken man peering over a cliff, ready at any moment to topple into emptiness.

He saw Victus stand beside him, raise his sword and scream. The word didn’t sound much louder than if he had spoken it.

“Charge.”

Men clambered, somewhat dazed, from the trenches. One took a couple of wobbling steps and fell on his face. Others stood there, blinking. Still others began to head uncertainly uphill. More followed, and soon there were a few hundred men scrambling through the rubble towards the breach, weapons and armour shining dully in the watery sun.

Cosca was left alone in the trench with Victus, both of them coated with grey dust.

“Where’s Sesaria?” The words thudding dully through the whine in Cosca’s ears.

His own voice was a weird burble. “He wasn’t behind me?”

“No. What happened?”

“An accident. An accident… as we came out.” It wasn’t difficult to force out a tear, Cosca was covered head to toe in knocks and bruises. “I dropped my lamp! Dropped it! Set off the trail of powder halfway down!” He seized Victus by his fluted breastplate. “I told him to run with me, but he stayed! Stayed… to put it out.”

“He stayed?”

“He thought he could save us both!” Cosca put one hand over his face, voice choked with emotion. “My fault! All my fault. He truly was the best of us.” He wailed it at the sky. “Why? Why? Why do the Fates always take the best?”

Victus’ eyes flickered down to Cosca’s empty scabbard, then back up to the great crater in the hillside, the yawning breach above it. “Dead, eh?”

“Blown to hell,” whispered Cosca. “Baking with Gurkish sugar can be a dangerous business.” The sun had come out. Above them, Victus’ men were clambering up the sides of the crater and into the breach in a twinkling tide, apparently entirely unopposed. If any defenders had survived the blast, they were in no mood to fight. It seemed the outer ward of Fontezarmo was theirs. “Victory. At least Sesaria’s sacrifice was not in vain.”

“Oh, no.” Victus looked sideways at him through narrowed eyes. “He’d have been proud.”

One Nation

T he echoing grumble of the crowd on the other side of the doors grew steadily louder, and the churning in Monza’s guts grew with it. She tried to rub away the niggling tension under her jaw. It did no good.

But there was nothing to do except wait. Her entire role in tonight’s grand performance was to stand there with a straight face and look like the highest of nobility, and Talins’ best dressmakers had done all the hard work in making that ludicrous lie seem convincing. They’d given her long sleeves to cover the scars on her arms, a high collar to cover the scars on her neck, gloves to render her ruined hand presentable. They’d been greatly relieved they could keep her neckline low without horrifying Rogont’s delicate guests. It was a wonder they hadn’t cut a great hole out of the back to show her arse-it was about the only other patch of her skin without a mark across it.

Nothing could be seen that might spoil the perfection of Duke Rogont’s moment of history. No sword, certainly, and she missed the weight of it like a missing limb. She wondered when was the last time she’d stepped out without a blade in easy reach. Not in the meeting of the Council of Talins she’d attended the day after being lifted to her new station.

Old Rubine had suggested she had no need to wear a sword in the chamber. She replied she’d worn one every day for twenty years. He’d politely pointed out that neither he nor his colleagues carried arms, though they were all men and hence better suited. She asked him what she’d use to stab him with if she left her sword behind. No one was sure whether she was joking or not. But they didn’t ask again.

“Your Excellency.” One of the attendants had oozed over and now offered her a silky bow. “Your Grace,” and another to Countess Cotarda. “We are about to begin.”

“Good,” snapped Monza. She faced the double doors, shifted her shoulders back and her chin up. “Let’s get this fucking pantomime over with.”

She had no time to spare. Every waking moment of the last three weeks-and she’d scarcely slept since Rogont jammed the circlet on her head-she’d spent struggling to drag the state of Talins out of the cesspit she’d fought so hard to shove it into.