“Something on your mind?” asked her father. Though he wasn’t really her father, of course.
“Nothing much,” she lied. Just a string of failing investments, a network of souring acquaintances, a calamitous love affair with her own brother, the ruin of all her dearest ambitions, a constant feeling of nagging horror, an aching chest, occasional waves of weariness, a near-constant need to spew, and the minor detail that she was a bastard carrying a bastard who had become a terrified impostor in her own life. Other than that, all good.
Squeak, squeak, fucking squeak. Why the hell had she ever asked Curnsbick to build this shrieking contraption?
“How’s business?”
Ever more disastrous. “Good,” she lied as she pushed the chair through the giant shadow of Arnault the Just. “If they keep digging at this rate, the canal will be completed within the month.”
“You let Kort off with a warning? I thought you might have had him skinned as an example to your other partners.”
“Skinned men generate no revenue. And Zuri says forgiveness is neighbour to the divine.”
“She has you quoting scripture now? Is she your companion, or are you hers?”
“She’s my friend,” said Savine. The only one she trusted. “Introducing us may be the best thing you have ever done for me.”
“We all need someone we can rely on.”
“Even you?”
“Please. I can’t get out of bed without your mother’s help.”
Savine ground her teeth. What she really wanted was to wheel her father off a bridge and stop somewhere for another sniff of pearl dust, even though her face was still numb from the last one. But the parapets on the bridges were too high, and there was nowhere private to snort on the Kingsway, so for the time being the torture would have to continue. It was what her father was known for, after all. Truly, as he loved to say, life is the misery we endure between disappointments. She wheeled him on, between the magnificent sculptures of Casamir the Steadfast and his Arch Lector, Zoller.
“You should try not to blame her.” Her father paused a moment, and Savine watched the breeze stir the white hairs on his liver-spotted pate. “Or at any rate, you should blame me just as much.”
“I have more than enough blame to go around, believe me.”
“I thought forgiveness was neighbour to the divine?”
“Zuri thinks so but I couldn’t say. Neither of them lives anywhere near me.”
The scaffolding was coming down from the final statue before the shimmering greenery of the park. The king most recently deceased. Jezal the First, that personification of vaguely well-meaning indecision, rendered grimly commanding by the royal sculptors. The sight of his face made Savine more nauseous than ever. Her uncle, Lord Marshal West, stood opposite, with a hint of her mother in a mood about his frown as he glared off towards the sea, as though he saw the Gurkish fleet there and would sink them with pure force of dislike. Beside him Bayaz towered again, a statue very much like the one at the other end of the Kingsway. Seven hundred years of Union history, topped and tailed by the same bald bastard.
“A charming picture!” A sturdy man in a superbly tailored coat was blocking their path. Bayaz himself, Savine realised, sun gleaming from his hairless pate, looking less like a legendary wizard than a highly prosperous merchant. “My own brothers and sisters are forever feuding. It warms my heart to see a father and daughter enjoying each other’s company.”
Or, indeed, a torturer and an unrelated woman barely speaking to one another.
“Lord Bayaz.” Savine’s father sounded distinctly uncomfortable. “I thought you were returning to the North.”
“Interrupted on my way to the docks by these new statues.” And he waved up towards King Jezal. “I knew all the men in question and wished to make sure their likenesses were faithful to the facts. I am supposed to be retired, but as an owner of businesses, I am sure you know, Lady Savine, it is nigh impossible to find people who can manage things properly in one’s absence.”
“Good budgeting is key,” said Savine, stiffly. “When Angland needed help the treasury was empty. Yet we can afford statues.”
“I need not lecture you on the importance of investing wisely. A bright future rests on a proper respect for the past. The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present, eh, Your Eminence?”
“In my experience, they never stop blooming.” Her father reached around to put his hand on Savine’s. “We should not take up too much of your time—”
“I always have time to meet the leading lights of the new generation. The future belongs to them, after all.”
“Even if we must tear it from the grip of the old,” said Savine, twisting her wrist free of her father’s hand.
“Very little worth anything is ever given away. I am sure you know that, too.” Bayaz smiled at Savine’s father. The one in the chair, not the one immortalised in stone. “I have no doubt your father will stand here one day. Who has sacrificed more for the Union, after all? Except perhaps your uncle.” Bayaz turned to look up at the statue of Lord Marshal West. “Who gave his life defending it.”
“I thought we were being faithful to the facts?” Savine was in no mood to flatter this old fool. “I understand he survived the Gurkish attack but died of the sickness you released when you destroyed half the Agriont.”
“Well.” Bayaz’s good humour did not so much as flicker. “If this row of statues tells us anything, it is that there are many ways to tell the same story.”
“Clearly,” said Savine, glancing from the real First of the Magi, shorter than she was with her boots on, to his colossal statue.
“Savine,” murmured her father, a warning note in his voice.
“Such a spirited young woman.” Bayaz gave her the kind of look she might have given the men of the Solar Society, wondering which was worthy of investment. “The Union will need someone with good sense and a strong stomach to take charge one day. One day soon, perhaps. Someone who does not flinch from what must be said. What must be done. The Breakers and Burners must be dealt with.” The first hint of real anger in his voice, and for some reason it made Savine flinch. “You were in Valbeck. Do you know the first thing they broke and burned there?”
She swallowed a wave of sickness. Calm, calm, calm. “I—”
“The Banking House of Valint and Balk! An attack on enterprise. On progress. On the very future! If the current administration cannot get a grip on the situation… we must find someone who can.”
“I hope to serve the Crown for many years to come,” grated her father. “King Orso will need just as much guidance as his father did.”
“Guidance does not have to be given in the White Chamber. It can come in theatre foyers, or comfortable living rooms, or even, who knows, in writers’ offices.” That choice of words could hardly be an accident. Savine felt the heat spreading up her collar. Bayaz smiled at her, but it did not get as far as his eyes. “We should have a talk some day, you and I. About what I want. And about what you want. Who knows? You might be the first woman to be immortalised on the Kingsway! As the only person with two statues here, you can take my word for it—when it’s you they’re sculpting, it all starts to seem like an excellent use of funds.”