the rising sun, brilliant in the bright blue sky. “As we will no doubt witness, in the coming hours…”
Rogont drew his sword with a faint ring of steel.
“Free men of Ospria! Free men of the League of Eight! Great hearts!”
Monza turned her head and spat. Speeches. Better to move fast and hit hard than waste time talking about it. If she’d found herself with time for a speech before a battle she would have reckoned she’d missed her moment, pulled back and looked for another. It took a man with a bloated sense of himself to think his words might make all the difference.
So it was no surprise that Rogont had his all well worked out.
“Long have you followed me! Long have you waited for the day you would prove your mettle! My thanks for your patience! My thanks for your courage! My thanks for your faith!” He stood in his stirrups and raised his sword high above his head. “Today we fight!”
He cut a pretty picture, there was no denying that. Tall, strong and handsome, dark curls stirred by the breeze. His armour was studded with glittering gems, steel polished so bright it was almost painful to look at. But his men had made an effort too. Heavy infantry in the centre, well armoured under a forest of polearms or clutching broadswords in their gauntleted fists, shields and blue surcoats all stitched with the white tower of Ospria. Light infantry on the wings, all standing to stiff attention in studded leather, pikes kept carefully vertical. Archers too, steel-capped flatbowmen, hooded longbowmen. A detachment of Affoians on the far right slightly spoiled the pristine organisation, weapons mismatched and their ranks a little skewed, but still a good stretch neater than any men Monza had ever led.
And that was before she turned to the cavalry lined up behind her, a gleaming row in the shadow of the outermost wall of Ospria. Every man noble of birth and spirit, horses in burnished bardings, helmets with sculpted crests, lances striped, polished and ready to be steeped in glory. Like something out of a badly written storybook.
She snorted some snot from the back of her nose, and spat again. In her experience, and she had plenty, clean men were the keenest to get into battle and the keenest to get clear of it.
Rogont was busy cranking up his rhetoric to new heights. “We stand now upon a battlefield! Here, in after years, men will say heroes fought! Here, men will say the fate of Styria was decided! Here, my friends, here, on our own soil! In sight of our own homes! Before the ancient walls of proud Ospria!” Enthusiastic cheering from the companies drawn up closest to him. She doubted the rest could hear a word of it. She doubted most could even see him. For those that could, she doubted the sight of a shiny speck in the distance would do much for their morale.
“Your fate is in your own hands!” Their fate had been in Rogont’s hands, and he’d frittered it away. Now it was in Cosca’s and Foscar’s, and it was likely to be a bloody one.
“Now for freedom!” Or at best a better-looking brand of tyranny.
“Now for glory!” A glorious place in the mud at the bottom of the river.
Rogont jerked on the reins with his free hand and made his chestnut charger rear, lashing at the air with its front hooves. The effect was only slightly spoiled by a few heavy clods of shit that happened to fall from its rear end at the same moment. It sped off past the massed ranks of infantry, each company cheering Rogont as he passed, lifting their spears in unison and giving a roar. It might have been an impressive sight. But Monza had seen it all before, with grim results. A good speech wasn’t much compensation for being outnumbered three to one.
The Duke of Delay trotted up towards her and the rest of his staff, the same gathering of heavily decorated and lightly experienced men she’d made fools of in the baths at Puranti, arrayed for battle now rather than the parade ground. Safe to say they hadn’t warmed to her. Safe to say she didn’t care.
“Nice speech,” she said. “If your taste runs to speeches.”
“Most kind.” Rogont turned his horse and drew it up beside her. “Mine does.”
“I’d never have guessed. Nice armour too.”
“A gift from the young Countess Cotarda.” A knot of ladies had gathered to observe at the top of the slope in the shade of the city walls. They sat side-saddle in bright dresses and twinkling jewels, as if they were expecting to attend a wedding rather than a slaughter. Cotarda herself, milk-pale in flowing yellow silks, gave a shy wave and Rogont returned it without much vigour. “I think her uncle has it in mind that we might marry. If I live out the day, of course.”
“Young love. My heart is all aglow.”
“Damp down your sentimental soul, she’s not at all my type. I like a woman with a little… bite. Still, it is a fine armour. An impartial observer might mistake me for some kind of hero.”
“Huh. ‘Desperation bakes heroes from the most rotten flour,’ Farans wrote.”
Rogont blew out a heavy sigh. “We are running short of time for this particular loaf to rise.”
“I thought that talk about you having trouble rising was all scurrilous rumours…” There was something familiar about one of the ladies in Countess Cotarda’s party, more simply dressed than the others, long-necked and elegant. She turned her head and then her horse, began to ride down the grassy slope towards them. Monza felt a cold twinge of recognition. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“Carlot dan Eider? You know her?”
“I know her.” If punching someone in the face in Sipani counted.
“An old… friend.” He said the word in a way that implied more than that. “She came to me in peril of her life, begging for protection. Under what circumstances could I possibly refuse?”
“If she’d been ugly?”
Rogont shrugged with a faint rattling of steel. “I freely admit it, I’m every bit as shallow as the next man.”
“Far shallower, your Excellency.” Eider nudged her horse up close to them, and gracefully inclined her head. “And who is this? The Butcher of Caprile! I thought you were but a thief, blackmailer, murderer of innocents and keen practiser of incest! Now it seems you are a soldier too.”
“Carlot dan Eider, such a surprise! I thought this was a battle but now it smells more like a brothel. Which is it?”
Eider raised one eyebrow at the massed regiments. “Judging by all the swords I’d guess… the former? But I suppose you’d be the expert. I saw you at Cardotti’s and I see you here, equally comfortable dressed as warrior or whore.”
“Strange how it goes, eh? I wear the whore’s clothes and you do the whore’s business.”
“Perhaps I should turn my hand to murdering children instead?”
“For pity’s sake, enough!” snapped Rogont. “Am I doomed to be always surrounded by women, showing off? Have the two of you not noticed I have a battle to lose? All I need now is for that vanishing devil Ishri to spring out of my horse’s arse and give me my death of shock to complete the trio! My Aunt Sefeline was the same, always trying to prove she had the biggest cock in the chamber! If all your purpose is to posture, the two of you can get that done behind the city walls and leave me out here to ponder my downfall alone.”
Eider bowed her head. “Your Excellency, I would hate to intrude. I am here merely to wish you the best of fortune.”
“Sure you wouldn’t care to fight?” snapped Monza at her.
“Oh, there are other ways of fighting than bloody in the mud, Murcatto.” She leaned from her saddle and hissed it. “You’ll see!”
“Your Excellency!” A shrill call, soon joined by others, a ripple of excitement spreading through the horsemen. One of Rogont’s officers was pointing over the river, towards the ridge on the far side of the valley. There was movement there against the pale sky. Monza nudged her horse towards it, sliding out a borrowed eyeglass and scanning across the ridge.
A scattering of horsemen came first. Outriders, officers and standard-bearers, banners held high, white flags carrying the black cross of Talins, the names of battles stitched along their edges in red and silver thread. It hardly helped that a good number of the victories she’d had a hand in herself. A wide column of men tramped into view behind them, marching steadily down the brown stripe of the Imperial road towards the lower ford, spears shouldered.
