Sulfur’s grin twitched even wider. “Talins owes great debts to my employers.”
“Orso owes great debts to them, you can ask him for your money back. I believe he was thrown out with the kitchen waste, but you should find him if you dig, down there at the bottom of the cliff. I’ll happily lend you a trowel for the purpose.”
Still he smiled, but there was no missing his threat. “It would be a shame if you left us no choice but to yield to the rage of Queen Terez, and let her seek vengeance for her father’s death.”
“Ah, vengeance, vengeance.” Monza gave him a smile of her own. “I don’t startle at shadows, Master Sulfur. I’m sure Terez talks a grand war, but the Union is spread thin. They have enemies both North and South and inside their borders too. If your High King’s wife wants my little chair, well, she can come and fight me for it. But I rather suspect his August Majesty has other worries.”
“I do not think you realise the dangers that fill the dark corners of the world.” There was no good humour in Sulfur’s huge grin now. “Why, even as we speak you sit here… alone.” It had become a hungry leer, filled with sharp, white teeth. “So very, very fragile.”
She blinked, as if baffled. “Alone?”
“You are mistaken.” Shenkt had walked up in utter silence until he stood, unobserved, right at Sulfur’s shoulder, close as his shadow. Valint and Balk’s representative spun about, took a shocked step back and stood frozen, as though he’d turned to see the dead breathing in his ear.
“You,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“I thought-”
“No.”
“Then… this is your doing?”
“I have had my hand in it.” Shenkt shrugged. “But chaos is the natural state of things, for men pull always in their own directions. It is those who want the world to march all the same way that give themselves the challenge.”
The different-coloured eyes swivelled to Monza, and back. “Our master will not-”
“ Your master,” said Shenkt. “I have none, anymore, remember? I told him I was done. I always give a warning when I can, and here is yours. Get you gone. Return, you will not find me in a warning mood. Go back, and tell him you serve. Tell him I used to serve. We do not kneel.”
Sulfur slowly nodded, then his mouth slipped back into the smirk he wore when he came in. “Die standing, then.” He turned to Monza, gave his graceful bow once more. “You will hear from us.” And he strutted easily from the room.
Shenkt raised his brows as Sulfur disappeared from sight. “He took it well.”
She didn’t feel like laughing. “There’s a lot you’re not telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Who are you, really?”
“I have been many things. An apprentice. An ambassador. A solver of stubborn problems, and a maker of them. Today, it seems, I am a man who settles other people’s scores.”
“Cryptic shit. If I want riddles I can visit a fortune-teller.”
“You’re a grand duchess. You could probably get one to come to you.”
She nodded towards the doors. “You knew him.”
“I did.”
“You had the same master?”
“Once. Long ago.”
“You worked for a bank?”
He gave his empty smile. “In a manner of speaking. They do far more than count coins.”
“So I’m beginning to see. And now?”
“Now, I do not kneel.”
“Why have you helped me?”
“Because they made Orso, and I break whatever they have made.”
“Revenge,” she murmured.
“Not the best of motives, but good outcomes can flow from evil motives, still.”
“And the other way about.”
“Of course. You brought the Duke of Talins all his victories, and so I had been watching you, thinking to weaken him by killing you. As it happened, Orso tried to do it himself. So I mended you instead, thinking to persuade you to kill Orso and take his place. But I underestimated your determination, and you slipped away. As it happened, you set about trying to kill Orso…”
She shifted, somewhat uncomfortably, in her ex-employer’s chair. “And took his place.”
“Why dam a river that already flows your way? Let us say we have helped each other.” And he gave his skull’s grin one more time. “We all of us have our scores to settle.”
“In settling yours, it seems you have made me some powerful enemies.”
“In settling yours, it seems you have plunged Styria into chaos.”
That was true enough. “Not quite my intention.”
“Once you choose to open the box, your intentions mean nothing. And the box is yawning wide as a grave now. I wonder what will spill from it? Will righteous leaders rise from the madness to light the way to a brighter, fairer Styria, a beacon for all the world? Or will we get ruthless shadows of old tyrants, treading circles in the bloody footsteps of the past?” Shenkt’s bright eyes did not leave hers. “Which will you be?”
“I suppose we’ll see.”
“I suppose we will.” He turned, his footfalls making not the slightest sound, and pulled the doors silently shut behind him, leaving her alone.
All Change
“You need not do this, you know.”
“I know.” But Friendly wanted to do it.
Cosca squirmed in his saddle with frustration. “If only I could make you see how the world out here… swarms with infinite possibilities!” He had been trying to make Friendly see it the entire way from the unfortunate village where the Thousand Swords were camped. He had failed to realise that Friendly saw it with perfect, painful clarity already. And he hated it. As far as he was concerned, fewer possibilities was better. And that meant infinite was far, far too many for comfort.
“The world changes, alters, is born anew and presents a different face each day! A man never knows what each moment will bring!”
Friendly hated change. The only thing he hated more was not knowing what each moment might bring.
“There are all manner of pleasures to sample out here.”
Different men take pleasure in different things.
“To lock yourself away from life is… to admit defeat!”
Friendly shrugged. Defeat had never scared him. He had no pride.
“I need you. Desperately. A good sergeant is worth three generals.”
There was a long moment of silence while their horses’ hooves crunched on the dry track.
“Well, damn it!” Cosca took a swig from his flask. “I have made every effort.”
“I appreciate it.”
“But you are resolved?”
“I am.”
Friendly’s worst fear had been that they might not let him back in. Until Murcatto had given him a document with a great seal for the authorities of the city of Musselia. It detailed his convictions as an accomplice in the murders of Gobba, Mauthis, Prince Ario, General Ganmark, Faithful Carpi, Prince Foscar and Grand Duke Orso of Talins, and sentenced him to imprisonment for life. Or until such time as he desired to be released. Friendly was
