First Citizen of Nicante-his hair left wild, dressed in sackcloth with a knotted rope for a belt, to show he was no better than the lowest peasant in his care. The rumour was he wore silken undergarments and slept on a golden bed, and with no shortage of company. So much for the humility of the powerful.
Cosca was already looking to the next chapter in the procession of greatness. “By the Fates. Who are these young gods?”
They were a magnificent pair, there was no denying that. They rode identical greys with effortless confidence, arrayed in matching white and gold. Her snowy gown clung to her impossibly tall and slender form and spread out behind her, fretted with glittering thread. His gilded breastplate was polished to a mirror-glare, simple crown set with a single stone so big Monza could almost see its facets glittering a hundred strides distant.
“How incredibly fucking regal,” she sneered.
“One can almost smell the majesty,” threw in Cosca. “I would kneel if I thought my knees could bear it.”
“His August Majesty, the High King of the Union.” Vitari’s voice was greasy with irony. “And his queen, of course.”
“Terez, the Jewel of Talins. She sparkles brightly, no?”
“Orso’s daughter,” Monza forced out through clenched teeth. “Ario and Foscar’s sister. Queen of the Union, and a royal cunt into the bargain.”
Even though he was a foreigner on Styrian soil, even though Union ambitions were treated with the greatest suspicion here, even though his wife was Orso’s daughter, the crowd found themselves cheering louder for a foreign king than they had for their own geriatric chancellor.
The people far prefer a leader who appears great, Bialoveld wrote, to one who is.
“Hardly the most neutral of mediators, you’d think.” Cosca puffed his cheeks out thoughtfully. “Bound so tight to Orso and his brood you can hardly see the light between them. Husband, and brother, and son-in-law to Talins?”
“No doubt he considers himself above such earthly considerations.” Monza’s lip curled as she watched the royal pair approach. It looked as if they’d ridden from the pages of a lurid storybook and out into the drab and slimy city by accident. Wings on their horses were all they needed to complete the fantasy. It was a wonder someone hadn’t glued some on. Terez wore a great necklace of huge stones, flashing so brilliantly in the sun they were painful to look at.
Vitari was shaking her head. “How many jewels can you pile on one woman?”
“Not many more without burying the bitch,” growled Monza. The ruby that Benna had given her seemed a child’s trinket by comparison.
“Jealousy is a terrible thing, ladies.” Cosca nudged Friendly in the ribs. “She seems well enough in my eyes, eh, my friend?” The convict said nothing. Cosca tried Shivers instead. “Eh?”
The Northman glanced sideways at Monza, then away. “Don’t get the fuss, myself.”
“Well, a pretty pair, the two of you! I never met such cold-blooded fighting men. I may be past my prime but I’m nothing like so withered inside as you set of long faces. My heart can still be moved by a young couple in love.”
Monza doubted there could be that much fire between them, however they might grin at one another. “Few years ago now, well before she was a queen in anything but her own mind, Benna had a bet with me that he could bed her.”
Cosca raised one brow. “Your brother always liked to sow his seed widely, as I recall. The results?”
“Turned out he wasn’t her type.” It had turned out Monza interested her a great deal more than Benna ever could.
A household even grander than the whole League of Eight had fielded followed respectfully behind the royal couple. A score at least of ladies-in-waiting, each one dripping jewels of her own. A smattering of Lords of Midderland, Angland and Starikland, weighty furs and golden chains about their shoulders. Men-at-arms plodded behind, armour stained with dust from the hooves in front. Each man choking on the dirt of his betters. The ugly truth of power.
“King of the Union, eh?” mused Shivers, watching the royal couple move off. “That there is the most powerful man in the whole Circle of the World?”
Vitari snorted. “That there is the man he stands behind. Everyone kneels to someone. You don’t know too much about politics, do you?”
“About what?”
“Lies. The Cripple rules the Union. That boy with all the gold is the mask he wears.”
Cosca sighed. “If you looked like the Cripple, I daresay you’d get a mask too…”
Such cheering as there was moved off slowly after the king and queen, and left a sullen silence behind it. Quiet enough that Monza could hear the clattering of the wheels as a gilded carriage rattled down the avenue. Several score of grim guardsmen tramped in practised columns to either side, weapons less well polished than the Union’s had been, but better used. A crowd of well-dressed and entirely useless gentlemen followed.
Monza closed her right fist tight, crooked bones shifting. The pain crept across her knuckles, through her hand, up her arm, and she felt her mouth twist into a grim smile.
“There they are,” said Cosca.
Ario sat on the right, draped over his cushions, swaying gently with the movement of the carriage, his customary look of lazy contempt smeared across his face. Foscar sat pale and upright beside him, head starting this way and that at every smallest sound. Preening tomcat and eager puppy dog, placed neatly together.
Gobba had been nothing. Mauthis had been just a banker. Orso would scarcely have remarked on the new faces around him when they were replaced. But Ario and Foscar were his sons. His precious flesh. His future. If she could kill them, it would be the next best thing to sticking the blade in Orso’s own belly. Her smile grew, imagining his face as they brought him the news.
Your Excellency! Your sons… are dead…
A sudden shriek split the silence. “Murderers! Scum! Orso’s bastards!” Some limbs flailed down in the crowd below, someone trying to break through the cordon of soldiers. “You’re a curse on Styria!” There was a swell of angry mutterings, a nervous ripple spread out through the onlookers. Sotorius might have called himself neutral, but the people of Sipani had no love for Orso or his brood. They knew when he broke the League of Eight, they’d be next. Some men always want more.
A couple of the mounted gentlemen drew steel. Metal gleamed at the edge of the crowd, there was a thin scream. Foscar was almost standing in the carriage, staring off into the heaving mass of people. Ario pulled him down and slouched back in his seat, careless eyes fixed on his fingernails.
The disturbance was finished. The carriage rattled off, gentlemen finding their formation again, soldiers in the livery of Talins tramping behind. The last of them passed under the roof of the warehouse, and off down the avenue.
“And the show is over,” sighed Cosca, pushing himself from the railing and making for the door that led to the stairs.
“I wish it could’ve gone on forever,” sneered Vitari as she turned away.
“One thousand eight hundred and twelve,” said Friendly.
Monza stared at him. “What?”
“People. In the parade.”
“And?”
“One hundred and five stones in the queen’s necklace.”
“Did I fucking ask?”
“No.” Friendly followed the others back to the stairs.
She stood there alone, frowning into the stiffening wind for a moment longer, glaring off up the avenue as the crowd began to disperse, her fist and her jaw still clenched aching tight.
“Monza.” Not alone. When she turned her head, Shivers was looking her in the eye, and from closer than she’d have liked. He spoke as if finding the words was hard work. “Seems like we haven’t… I don’t know. Since Westport… I just wanted to ask-”
“Best if you don’t.” She brushed past him and away.
