done well is ever… rushed.
“Keep closer to her.”
“Eh?” None other than the great Duke Rogont, ridden up on his blind side. It took an effort for Shivers not to smash his fist right into the man’s sneering, handsome face.
“Orso still has friends out there.” Rogont’s eyes jumped nervously over the crowds. “Agents. Assassins. There are dangers everywhere.”
“Dangers? Everyone seems so happy, though.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Wouldn’t know how to begin.” Shivers kept his face so slack Rogont couldn’t tell whether he was being mocked or not.
“Keep closer to her! You are supposed to be her bodyguard!”
“I know what I am.” And Shivers gave Rogont his widest grin. “Don’t worry yourself on that score.” He dug his horse’s flanks and urged on ahead. Closer to Monza, just like he’d been told. Close enough that he could see her jaw muscles clenched tight on the side of her face. Close enough, almost, that he could have pulled out his axe and split her skull.
“I know what I am,” he whispered. He was no monster. He’d just had enough.
The procession finally came to an end in the heart of the city, the square before the ancient Senate House. The mighty building’s roof had collapsed centuries ago, its marble steps cracked and rooted with weeds. The carvings of forgotten gods on the colossal pediment had faded to a tangle of blobs, perches for a legion of chattering gulls. The ten vast pillars that supported it looked alarmingly out of true, streaked with droppings, stuck with flapping fragments of old bills. But the mighty relic still dwarfed the meaner buildings that had flourished around it, proclaiming the lost majesty of the New Empire.
A platform of pitted blocks thrust out from the steps and into the sea of people crowding the square. At one corner stood the weathered statue of Scarpius, four times the height of a man, holding out hope to the world. His outstretched hand had broken off at the wrist several hundred years ago and, in what must have been the most blatant piece of imagery in Styria, no one had yet bothered to replace it. Guardsmen stood grimly before the statue, on the steps, at the pillars. They wore the cross of Talins on their coats but Monza knew well enough they were Rogont’s men. Perhaps Styria was meant to be one family now, but soldiers in Osprian blue might not have been well received here.
She slid from her saddle, strode down the narrow valley through the crowds. People strained against the guardsmen, calling to her, begging for blessings. As though touching her might do them any good. It hadn’t done much to anyone else. She kept her eyes ahead, always ahead, jaw aching from being clenched tight, waiting for the blade, the arrow, the dart that would be the end of her. She’d happily have killed for the sweet oblivion of a smoke, but she was trying to cut back, on the killing and the smoking both.
Scarpius towered over her as she started up the steps, peering down out of the corners of his lichen-crusted eyes as if to say, Is this bitch the best they could do? The monstrous pediment loomed behind him, and she wondered if the hundred tons of rock balanced on those pillars might finally choose that moment to crash down and obliterate the entire leadership of Styria, herself along with them. No small part of her hoped that it would, and bring this sticky ordeal to a swift end.
A gaggle of leading citizens-meaning the sharpest and the greediest-had clustered nervously in the centre of the platform, sweating in their most expensive clothes, looking hungrily towards her like geese at a bowl of crumbs. They bowed as she and Rogont came closer, heads bobbing together in a way that suggested they’d been rehearsing. That somehow made her more irritated than ever.
“Get up,” she growled.
Rogont held his hand out. “Where is the circlet?” He snapped his fingers. “The circlet, the circlet!”
The foremost of the citizens looked like a bad caricature of wisdom-all hooked nose, snowy beard and creaky deep voice under a green felt hat like an upended chamber pot. “Madam, my name is Rubine, nominated to speak for the citizens.”
“I am Scavier.” A plump woman whose azure bodice exposed a terrifying immensity of cleavage.
“And I am Grulo.” A tall, lean man, bald as an arse, not quite shouldering in front of Scavier but very nearly.
“Our two most senior merchants,” explained Rubine.
It carried little weight with Rogont. “And?”
“And, with your permission, your Excellency, we were hoping to discuss some details of the arrangements-”
“Yes? Out with it!”
“As regards the title, we had hoped perhaps to steer away from nobility. Grand duchess smacks rather of Orso’s tyranny.”
“We hoped…” ventured Grulo, waving a vulgar finger-ring, “something to reflect the mandate of the common people.”
Rogont winced at Monza, as though the phrase “common people” tasted of piss. “Mandate?”
“President elect, perhaps?” offered Scavier. “First citizen?”
“After all,” added Rubine, “the previous grand duke is still, technically… alive.”
Rogont ground his teeth. “He is besieged two dozen miles away in Fontezarmo like a rat in his hole! Only a matter of time before he is brought to justice.”
“But you understand the legalities may prove troublesome-”
“Legalities?” Rogont spoke in a furious whisper. “I will soon be King of Styria, and I mean to have the Grand Duchess of Talins among those who crown me! I will be king, do you understand? Legalities are for other men to worry on!”
“But, your Excellency, it might not be seen as appropriate-”
For a man with a reputation for too much patience, Rogont’s had grown very short over the last few weeks. “How appropriate would it be if I was to, say, have you hanged? Here. Now. Along with every other reluctant bastard in the city. You could argue the legalities to each other while you dangle.”
The threat floated between them for a long, uncomfortable moment. Monza leaned towards Rogont, acutely aware of the vast numbers of eyes fixed upon them. “What we need here is a little unity, no? I’ve a feeling hangings might send the wrong message. Let’s just get this done, shall we? Then we can all lie down in a dark room.”
Grulo carefully cleared his throat. “Of course.”
“A long conversation to end where we began!” snapped Rogont. “Give me the damn circlet!”
Scavier produced a thin golden band. Monza turned slowly to face the crowd.
“People of Styria!” Rogont roared behind her. “I give you the Grand Duchess Monzcarro of Talins!” There was a slight pressure as he lowered the circlet onto her head.
And that simply she was raised to the giddy heights of power.
With a faint rustling, everyone knelt. The square was left silent, enough that she could hear the birds flapping and squawking on the pediment above. Enough that she could hear the spatters as some droppings fell not far to her right, daubing the ancient stones with spots of white, black and grey.
“What are they waiting for?” she muttered to Rogont, doing her best not to move her lips.
“Words.”
“Me?”
“Who else?”
A wave of dizzy horror broke over her. By the look of the crowd, she might easily have been outnumbered five thousand to one. But she had the feeling that, for her first action as head of state, fleeing the platform in terror might send the wrong message. So she stepped slowly forwards, as hard a step as she’d ever taken, struggling to get her tumbling thoughts in order, dig up words she didn’t have in the splinter of time she did. She passed through Scarpius’ great shadow and out into the daylight, and a sea of faces opened up before her, tilted up towards her, wide-eyed with hope. Their scattered muttering dropped to nervous whispering, then to eerie silence. She opened her mouth, still hardly knowing what might come out of it.
