'In the right thigh,' Brennus said, his voice wavering. 'The shaft was already snapped off when the surgeons treated you; they had to cut it out, but they don't think there'll be any lasting effect.'
Valens smiled. 'Is that it?'
'Concussion,' Brennus said, 'from the fall. They were quite worried, because you were unconscious for so long.'
'Was I?' Valens pulled a face. 'Well, I wouldn't know about that, I've been asleep.' That seemed to bother Brennus a lot; was he supposed to laugh at the Duke's feeble, scrambled-brain jokes, or should he ignore them? Best, Valens decided, if I don't make any more. 'So apart from that I'm all right?' he said.
'The doctors said you shouldn't even think about getting up for at least two days,' Brennus said apprehensively, obviously anticipating a storm of angry refusal. Valens nodded.
'Suits me,' he said. 'For one thing, it feels like I've pulled every muscle in my body.' He winced, remembering some of the things he'd done. His own worst enemy and all that. 'All right, then,' he said briskly, 'who's in charge? It doesn't sound like there's many of us left.'
He didn't like the pause that followed; not one little bit. 'It's you, isn't it?' Valens said.
Brennus swallowed something. 'I was the duty officer,' he said, as though admitting that he'd planned the whole thing, suborned by Mezentine gold. 'I've sent messages to the divisional commanders, someone ought to be here before sunset, but until then I suppose, theoretically…'
Valens smiled. 'You carry on,' he said. 'You appear to be doing a fine job.' He paused, then added, 'Is anybody at all left out of the civil administration? Anybody higher up than, say, a permanent secretary?'
It was meant as one of those jokes he'd resolved he wouldn't make, but then there was another pause. Valens frowned. That wasn't good.
'I see,' he said. 'In that case, I'm putting the military in charge until we can get everything sorted out. You're it, in other words.'
Brennus looked as though he'd just been sentenced to death by bastinado. 'Like I said, sir, I've notified the divisional commanders, I'm sure one of them'll be here very soon, and then…' Pause, while he pulled himself together again. 'I've given orders to close the gates, and I've sent out patrols; there's no sign of the enemy in a ten-mile radius of the city. What else should I be…?'
Valens closed his eyes. 'If I were you,' he said, 'I'd leave it at that. Just concentrate on keeping everybody calm and quiet until the army gets here. I'm sure you can manage-every confidence.'
He could feel himself sliding away into sleep; no reason why he shouldn't. 'The Duchess, sir,' Brennus was saying. 'Should I–I mean, would you like to see her now?'
Valens opened his eyes and smiled. 'No,' he said, and went back to sleep.
The next time he opened his eyes, it wasn't thin, pale Captain Brennus.
'Mezentius? Is that you?'
The familiar face of his chief of staff grinned down at him: the point of a hose and two small, pale eyes in a shrubbery of beard. 'This is a right mess,' he said.
Valens tried to raise himself on one elbow. Not his brightest idea ever. 'When did you get here? What time is it?'
'About ten o'clock in the morning, and around midnight,' Mezentius replied. 'Since when I've been chasing round looking for something to do, apart from inspecting dead bodies. That young Guards captain's done a good job, by the way. I'll have him for the Seventh when you've finished with him.'
Valens nodded. 'Everything's under control, then.'
'In the circumstances.' Mezentius was frowning. 'I told the Seventh and the Fifth to get here as soon as possible, but we've had patrols out, no sign of any more of them. It's looking like a single raiding party who knew exactly who they were after and where to find them. Which,' he added quietly, 'is rather more disturbing than a full-scale assault, if you care to look at it that way. You've heard the casualty list?'
Valens nodded. 'It hasn't really sunk in,' he said. 'But the impression I got was, nobody's left except me.'
'More or less,' Mezentius replied, and the way he said it made Valens wince. 'I've talked to all the survivors who're up to answering questions; basically, nobody on our side made a fight of it except you and that weird engineer, the one who looks like some kind of insect.'
Valens had forgotten about him. 'That's right,' he said. 'Did he make it?'
'A few cuts and bruises,' Mezentius replied. 'Twisted ankle. Fought like a maniac, so I gather. Amazing, really. He didn't strike me as the type, the one time I met him.'
'Go on,' Valens said.
'Well,' Mezentius continued, 'apparently he came charging up just as one of the bad guys was about to take out Duke Orsea; he jumped up, dragged Orsea off his horse at the last moment, grabbed the lance out of the bad guy's hands and stuck him with it; then Orsea's wife came rushing over, apparently she'd seen Orsea go down; four of them close in on her, but this Daurenja holds them off single-handed, does for two of them-did one of them with his teeth, apparently, bit his throat out like a dog. Then more of them join in, and then you showed up, and you know the rest. No, it sounds like the engineering department pretty well saved the day, one way and another. Oh, and the uncles as well, I expect you've heard about that. The rest of the embassy's kicking up one hell of a fuss, as you'd expect.'
Valens kept his sigh to himself. 'What are they saying?'
'Well, they're still on our side,' Mezentius said, with a crooked grin. 'The old chap was the one I spoke to. Basically, he wants to wipe the Mezentines off the face of the earth. Man after my own heart, really.'
'That's good,' Valens said. 'It's always good to have something in common with your in-laws. I suppose I'd better see him.'
Mezentius shook his head. 'I've told him you're fragile as an egg and not to be disturbed for at least a week,' he said. 'Only way I could keep him from bursting in here and waking you up.'
Valens nodded. 'Who is he, by the way? I've been talking to him all this time, but nobody's actually told me where he fits in.'
'Oh.' Mezentius frowned. 'He's sort of the grand vizier, prime minister, the head man's chief adviser. He reckons he pretty much runs the show, though I don't know whether the rest of them would agree. Anyway, he's pretty high-powered; and he's really pissed off about the uncles getting killed. Probably some background there I wasn't briefed on.'
'It'll keep, I expect,' Valens said with a yawn.
They discussed other things-a new civil authority, which posts could be filled by co-option and which would have to wait for formal elections; suitable candidates for offices, the balance of power between the old families and the mining companies; the effect recent events (Valens smiled to himself; call them recent events and you cauterize the wound?) would have on the marriage alliance, plans for the evacuation, the war. Exhaustion came up on him suddenly, like an ambush. He stopped Mezentius in the middle of a sentence and said, 'You'd better go now, I'm tired.' Mezentius nodded.
'I'll send the doctor in,' he said.
'No, I just want to get some sleep,' Valens mumbled. His eyes were already closing. He heard the sounds of movement, someone standing up, the legs of a chair grating on a stone floor. He felt cold, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. He listened to his own breathing for a moment or so, and realized that he was back on the edge of the marsh, watching the ducks flying in. It had been a disaster, a wretched mess, all because of that fool Orsea. Standing next to him, King Fashion and Queen Reason were talking about the day's hawking. He was surprised to hear the King say that it hadn't been too bad after all: three dozen mallard, a few teal, three brace of moorhens, but it was a shame they hadn't managed to pull down the heron. Perhaps they should have flown lanners instead of sakers. As they talked, they were watching the sky, waiting for the hawks to come back. They didn't seem worried, but Valens knew that the hawks were gone for good; dead or scattered, not that it mattered a great deal. After a long silence, the King shrugged, and called to his master falconer to make up the bag. They were laying them out on the ground, in pairs, a male and a female; Sillius Vacuo and his wife, Lollius Pertinax and Syra Terentia, Carausius and the eldest Fabella girl, a hen to every cock-bird. He counted them: eighteen brace, just as the King had said. He almost expected to see himself among them as the falconers passed loops round their necks and hung them in their pairings from the top rail of the fence; but of course, he wasn't there, the heron had got
