could not quite fit the Arch Lector any more, ‘offered to marry me.’ And she guiltily bit her lip. Like a little girl caught stealing biscuits.
‘I’m the king’s bastard?’ Savine jerked her hands from her mother’s grip.
‘Savine—’
‘I’m the king’s fucking bastard, and my father’s not my father?’ She wobbled to her feet, stumbling back as though she’d been slapped.
‘Please, listen to me—’
Savine pressed her fingers to her temples. Her head was throbbing. She ripped her wig off and flung it into the corner. ‘I’m the king’s bastard, my father’s not my father, and I’ve been sucking my brother’s cock?’ she screamed.
‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed her mother, starting up from the settle.
‘My fucking voice?’ Savine clutched at her neck. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
She was sick, just a little. An acrid, wine-tasting tickle that she managed to choke back down, hunched over.
‘I’m so sorry,’ murmured her mother, patting her back as though that might do the slightest good. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She took Savine’s face in her hands and twisted it towards her. Twisted it with surprising firmness. ‘But you cannot tell anyone. Not anyone. Especially not Orso.’
‘I have to tell him something,’ whispered Savine.
‘Then tell him no,’ said her mother. ‘Tell him no and leave it at that.’
Drinks with Mother
‘When we heading North, then?’ asked Yolk.
Tunny looked down his nose at him as if at a woodlouse turned over and unable to right itself. ‘You didn’t hear?’
Yolk looked blank. His favourite expression. ‘Didn’t hear what?’
Forest let vent two perfect streams of curling smoke from his nostrils. He was as accomplished a smoker as he was a hat-wearer and military organiser. ‘Our new Lord Governor of Angland, Leo dan Brock, won a duel against Stour Nightfall, son of Black Calder and heir to the throne of the North and by all accounts a most fearsome opponent.’
‘A manly duel, Northern style!’ Orso thumped the table. ‘Man against man, in a Circle of men’s men! Blood on the snow and all that. Men’s blood, one presumes.’
‘Probably a bit far south for snow this time of year,’ observed Tunny. ‘Though not for blood.’
‘Tell me he got his damn fool head split doing it,’ said Yolk.
‘He was by all accounts picturesquely wounded,’ grunted Orso, ‘but his skull remains intact.’
‘Truly, there’s no justice,’ added Tunny.
‘This comes as a surprise?’
‘For some reason, I never stop hoping.’
‘War in the North is over,’ said Forest. ‘Uffrith is back in the Dogman’s hands and the Protectorate just as it was before.’
‘Little singed, maybe.’
‘So the Young Lion stole all the glory?’ moaned Yolk.
‘Glory just sticks to some men.’ Orso glanced down at his hands and turned them thoughtfully over. ‘Others it slides right off.’
‘Like water off a duck,’ threw in Hildi, from her place on the settle.
‘I’ve always been repellent to glory,’ observed Tunny, ‘and have no regrets.’
‘No regrets?’ said Orso. ‘What about the two hundred people we left gibbetted on the road to Valbeck?’
‘Not my fault.’
‘Not yours, either, Your Highness,’ added Forest.
‘I suspect I will take much of the blame in some quarters.’
Tunny shrugged. ‘The rich folk seem to like you more than ever.’ It was true that a polite crowd of well-dressed well-wishers had been gathered at the gates of Adua to welcome him. ‘And they can express their love financially.’
‘True,’ said Yolk, ‘I mean, what’s the love of the poor actually worth?’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Orso. ‘All the best kings had utter contempt for the majority of their subjects.’
He had intended his sarcasm to be withering but Yolk managed to miss it even so. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’
The queen waited, perched with rigid discipline on one of her uncomfortable gilded chairs in the centre of her vast salon. Four musicians smiled radiantly as they sawed out soothing music in a distant corner.
‘Orso! The conquering hero!’ She rose to greet him, which was an almost unprecedented honour, gave him a chilly kiss on the cheek, then a chilly pat on the same spot for good measure. ‘I have never been prouder of you.’
‘I fear I have not set a high standard in that regard.’
‘Even so.’
Orso went straight to the decanter and pulled out the stopper. It was hard to think of a good reason for the stopper ever to be in, really. ‘I find I can hardly compete with the victories of the Young Lion, however.’
Queen Terez flared her nostrils magnificently. ‘You won without drawing your sword. Your grandfather always said that was the best kind of victory. He would have been proud of you,