“Then let us speak plainly,” said Lady Finree. “It will not be long before your condition becomes difficult to hide.” Savine angrily set her jaw, but she could hardly dispute the facts. The laces of her corsets already needed even more brutal handling than usual. “It could be a disaster for you. Or it could be an opportunity. Turning disasters into opportunities is what an investor does, isn’t it?”
“Wherever possible,” muttered Savine.
“My son has title, fame, courage and loyalty.”
“And is a damnably handsome fellow,” observed Savine’s mother.
“You have wealth, connections, cunning and ruthlessness.”
“And in the right light can look rather well yourself.”
“I doubt there is a more eligible young man in the Union,” said Lady Finree. “Unless you were to marry the king, I suppose.”
Savine’s mother coughed wine down her dress. “Damn it. Silly me.”
“Your pride is well earned,” said Finree, “but the time has come to put it aside.”
Her mother was dabbing at herself with a handkerchief. “Really. You could be the most envied couple in the Union! You’re far too clever not to see the sense of this.”
“And certainly far too clever to raise a bastard alone when you have such an advantageous alternative. By all means lead my son a little dance if you please, no man values what he gets too easily. But there really is no need to drag this charade out any further between the three of us.”
Savine slowly sat back. There had been a golden moment when her fingertips had brushed the crown. Her wildest ambitions, so nearly in her grasp. Her August Majesty the High Queen of the Union, before whom all must kneel or suffer! But, she had to admit, Her Grace the Lady Governor of Angland was not a bad second best. She had tried following her heart, and it had led her straight to shit. She and Leo dan Brock were an excellent match in every way that counted. He would need some moulding, some steering, some discipline. But who could argue with the quality of the raw materials? A wedding to a famous hero might be the very thing to turn her fortunes around.
Savine had spent her whole life scheming, plotting, striving to control events. There was a certain relief in yielding to the inevitable. “No,” she said, almost a sigh. “I don’t suppose there is.”
She had been made many proposals of marriage, but this was the first she had actually accepted. And the only one made not by the prospective husband, but by his mother.
“I think I’ll take that drink now,” she said.
“I, too.” Lady Finree issued a neat little smile. “Since we’ve something to celebrate.”
Savine’s mother grinned as she trotted to the cabinet.
Gentle Temperaments
The Lords’ Round was an awe-inspiring space, all marble and gilding and friezes of noble forebears. Heart of the Union and all that, light streaming from the stained-glass windows, through the echoing vastness, to splash the tiled floor where the great noblemen of the past once set the course of the future.
But all Leo saw were the steps down through the empty banks of seating.
Before his duel and the damn leg wound, he’d never noticed how many steps there were in the world. He’d sprung up them three at a time and gone blithely on his way. No more. They were everywhere. And down was worse than up, that was the thing people never realised. Going up, you couldn’t fall that far. He took the usual moment to curse the Circle, swords and Stour Nightfall, then set off slightly sideways, grumbling with each lurching stride.
“Leo!” Isher ignored the offered hand at the bottom of the steps and instead folded him in a hug. “Wonderful to see you again!” A bit overfamiliar given they’d spoken no more than three times, but better too friendly than the opposite.
“Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage.” Leo winced at a twinge in his leg as he broke free. “Haven’t seen my mother this excited in years.” He turned slowly around, looking up towards the gilded dome high, high above. “Doubt you could find a grander venue.”
“Nor a bride with better pedigree.” Isher stroked at the air as though they were discussing a racehorse. “Isold dan Kaspa, do you know her?”
“Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Excellent blood. Good old Midderland stock. Wonderfully gentle temperament.”
“Wonderful,” said Leo, without much joy. To him, a woman with a gentle temperament was like a sword without an edge.
Isher frowned down at Leo’s cane. “How’s your leg?”
“Fine.” Along with the constant pain was the constant need to pretend you weren’t in pain at all, as though the worst thing about your agony was that it might put other people out. “Sword wounds can take some time to heal.”
“Ah, yes. Sword wounds.” As though Isher knew a damn thing about swords or wounds. He leaned close. “Things have not been going well since your last visit.”
“No?”
“I hate to be unpatriotic,” he murmured, as if he could hardly wait, “but King Orso proves to be every bit the empty vessel we were expecting.”
“There’s nothing unpatriotic about the truth,” muttered Leo, wondering whether there might be.
“He offers not the slightest check to Old Sticks and the rest of those withered bastards on the Closed Council. It’s all liars and swindlers in the White Chamber.”
“Always has been,” muttered Leo, wondering if it had been.
“They’re set on limiting the powers of the Open Council. Stripping us of ancient rights. Clawing land back to the Crown. Taxing us to the bloody balls.”
“Huh,” grunted Leo. “I feel your pain there. Angland’s being squeezed hardest of all.”
“And if anyone’s earned some clemency, it’s you, who held back the savages alone, with no help from the Crown!”
“We fought the king’s war. We won the king’s war! We paid for the fucking…” Leo brought his voice back down, with some difficulty, “… king’s war. And what did we get back?” He slapped angrily at the lion-head pommel of the commemorative sword he’d so proudly accepted from King Jezal last year. “One sword. And it’s not even properly bloody balanced!”
“It’s a scandal.”
“It is a scandal.” Leo wondered whether he was saying too much but couldn’t help himself. “A breach of the contract between the Crown and the provinces. There are folk back home asking if we’re subjects or livestock.” Jurand had told him to be careful what he said in Adua, but Jurand was a long way away, sadly, and the truth was the truth. “There are folk on the verge of bloody rebellion,” he hissed, grinding the end of his cane into the tiles.
“A bloody scandal,” lamented Isher. “Still. Nothing compared to what they’re doing to poor Fedor dan Wetterlant.”
“Who?”
“You never met?”
“Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…”
“One of us, Wetterlant. Seat on the Open Council, estates down near Keln. Good old Midderland stock, you know.”
“Gentle temperament?”