Best Served Cold

“Shall I tell him, Monza, or-”

“Borletta’s fallen. Cantain’s dead.”

Foscar didn’t celebrate. He hadn’t his father’s appetite for corpses. “Cantain was a good man.”

That was a long way from the point, as far as Monza could see. “He was your father’s enemy.”

“A man you could respect, though. There are precious few of them left in Styria. He’s really dead?”

Benna blew out his cheeks. “Well, his head’s off, and spiked above the gates, so unless you know one hell of a physician…”

They passed through a high archway, the hall beyond dim and echoing as an emperor’s tomb, light filtering down in dusty columns and pooling on the marble floor. Suits of old armour stood gleaming to silent attention, antique weapons clutched in steel fists. The sharp clicking of boot heels snapped from the walls as a man in a dark uniform paced towards them.

“Shit,” Benna hissed in her ear. “That reptile Ganmark’s here.”

“Leave it be.”

“There’s no way that cold-blooded bastard’s as good with a sword as they say-”

“He is.”

“If I was half a man, I’d-”

“You’re not. So leave it be.”

General Ganmark’s face was strangely soft, his moustaches limp, his pale grey eyes always watery, lending him a look of perpetual sadness. The rumour was he’d been thrown out of the Union army for a sexual indiscretion involving another officer, and crossed the sea to find a more broad-minded master. The breadth of Duke Orso’s mind was infinite where his servants were concerned, provided they were effective. She and Benna were proof enough of that.

Ganmark nodded stiffly to Monza. “General Murcatto.” He nodded stiffly to Benna. “General Murcatto. Count Foscar, you are keeping to your exercises, I hope?”

“Sparring every day.”

“Then we will make a swordsman of you yet.”

Benna snorted. “That, or a bore.”

“Either one would be something,” droned Ganmark in his clipped Union accent. “A man without discipline is no better than a dog. A soldier without discipline is no better than a corpse. Worse, in fact. A corpse is no threat to his comrades.”

Benna opened his mouth but Monza talked over him. He could make an arse of himself later, if he pleased. “How was your season?”

“I played my part, keeping your flanks free of Rogont and his Osprians.”

“Stalling the Duke of Delay?” Benna smirked. “Quite the challenge.”

“No more than a supporting role. A comic turn in a great tragedy, but one appreciated by the audience, I hope.”

The echoes of their footsteps swelled as they passed through another archway and into the towering rotunda at the heart of the palace. The curving walls were vast panels of sculpture showing scenes from antiquity. Wars between demons and magi, and other such rubbish. High above, the great dome was frescoed with seven winged women against a stormy sky-armed, armoured and angry-looking. The Fates, bringing destinies to earth. Aropella’s greatest work. She’d heard it had taken him eight years to finish. Monza never got over how tiny, weak, utterly insignificant this space made her feel. That was the point of it.

The four of them climbed a sweeping staircase, wide enough for twice as many to walk abreast. “And where have your comic talents taken you?” she asked Ganmark.

“Fire and murder, to the gates of Puranti and back.”

Benna curled his lip. “Any actual fighting?”

“Why ever would I do that? Have you not read your Stolicus? ‘An animal fights his way to victory-’ ”

“ ‘A general marches there,’ ” Monza finished for him. “Did you raise many laughs?”

“Not for the enemy, I suppose. Precious few for anyone, but that is war.”

“I find time to chuckle,” threw in Benna.

“Some men laugh easily. It makes them winning dinner companions.” Ganmark’s soft eyes moved across to Monza’s. “I note you are not smiling.”

“I will. Once the League of Eight are finished and Orso is King of Styria. Then we can all hang up our swords.”

“In my experience swords do not hang comfortably from hooks. They have a habit of finding their way back into one’s hands.”

“I daresay Orso will keep you on,” said Benna. “Even if it’s only to polish the tiles.”

Ganmark did not give so much as a sharp breath. “Then his Excellency will have the cleanest floors in all of Styria.”

A pair of high doors faced the top of the stairs, gleaming with inlaid wood, carved with lions’ faces. A thick-set man paced up and down before them like a loyal old hound before his master’s bedchamber. Faithful Carpi, the longest-serving captain in the Thousand Swords, the scars of a hundred engagements marked out on his broad, weathered, honest face.

“Faithful!” Benna seized the old mercenary’s big slab of a hand. “Climbing a mountain, at your age? Shouldn’t you be in a brothel somewhere?”

“If only.” Carpi shrugged. “But his Excellency sent for me.”

“And you, being an obedient sort… obeyed.”

“That’s why they call me Faithful.”

“How did you leave things in Borletta?” asked Monza.