“Little wild, truth be told, but we’ve known each other for years. I believe he’s a fourth cousin of mine or some such. Once removed, maybe?”
“Never really understood how all that once removed stuff works…”
“Who does? The charges are trumped up, without a doubt. Some ruse of Old Sticks’. I hear he’s confessed but no doubt it’s under torture.”
“They tortured a member of the Open Council?” Leo could scarcely believe it. “I didn’t think Orso was the type.”
“I’m telling you, the man’s a cipher! He has no idea what’s done in his name and wouldn’t do a thing about it if he did. They’ve got Wetterlant locked up in the bowels of the House of Questions, away from friends, away from family. Not even a window! His poor mother is beside herself. Cousin of a cousin as well, it’s taken quite the toll.”
“By the dead,” murmured Leo, then realised it was a Northern saying and meant nothing here.
“He’s appealed for the king’s justice. Anyone with a seat on the Open Council has the right to a trial here with His Majesty as the judge but, well… I doubt there’s any justice to be had in the Union these days.”
“By the dead! I mean, bloody hell.”
“Even members of the old families, even members of the Open Council, even patriots like you or I aren’t safe. It hardly feels like our country any more.”
Leo rubbed at his thigh, the simmering pain a spur to his simmering anger. “Someone should do something,” he growled.
“Someone should.” Isher nodded sadly. “But… who has the courage?”
Leo tried not to limp as he walked back down the Kingsway, past the statues of the great men of history. Kings loomed on one side. Real kings. Harod the Great. Arnault the Just. Casamir the Steadfast. Great figures from their reigns loomed a little lower on the other.
Leo wondered if a statue of him would stand here one day. Holding sword and shield in recognition of great victories, gazing sternly across the roadway to a taller and more impressive statue of King Orso. That thought hardly filled him with joy. He was paying for his glories with every step and didn’t fancy sharing with a man he was losing all respect for.
Crown Prince Orso had struck him as a good enough sort, but the throne only amplifies a man’s bad qualities, and his Closed Council were the same corrupt old worms who’d driven King Jezal’s reign into the ditch. What the Union needed was men of courage, men of passion, men of action.
Men like him.
The quarters he and his mother had been given were high up, blessed with views but cursed with steps. When he finally got to the top, his leg was on fire. He had to pause to settle his breath, mop away sweat and force his grimace into a carefree smile. He told himself he didn’t want his mother to worry. In truth, he didn’t want to prove her right.
“How was your meeting with Lord Isher?” she asked as he strode in.
“Well enough. He’d a bastard of a story about this poor fellow Wetterlant. There’s a rot in the Agriont, but no one’s got the courage to…” There was someone behind him. A woman perhaps a few years older than his mother but still rather handsome, a lopsided smile on her lips as if she knew secrets he didn’t.
“This is Lady Ardee dan Glokta.”
“Oh…” By the dead, he saw the resemblance to her daughter now. That direct, searching, slightly mocking look was just the same. He was blushing to the roots of his hair. “Wonderful to meet you, of course—”
“The wonder is all mine, Your Grace. A genuine hero, adorned with the scars of great deeds. Will you catch me if I faint?”
“Well… I’d do my best—”
“I understand you know my daughter, Savine.”
At that moment, it seemed more likely he’d faint than she would. “We’ve… met. Just the once.” The same number of times they’d fucked. Might’ve been better not to think of that, but now he couldn’t stop. “When I was last in Adua. Four months ago, was it? She struck me as a very attractive…” Terrible choice of word! “I mean… formidable woman.”
“Please, you’re embarrassing me. And certainly yourself.” Lady Ardee laid a familiar hand on his arm. Everyone in Adua was too familiar. “I’m sorry to put you in a corner but I know the two of you were intimate.” She nodded towards Leo’s mother. “We both do.”
“You… do? Oh. Oh.” Damn, he sounded lame. He was a Lord Governor, wasn’t he? Not some stuttering schoolboy. “I assure you I didn’t… take advantage of her… in any sense—”
Lady Ardee laughed. “The man isn’t made who could take advantage of my daughter. I’ve no doubt it was quite the other way around.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse, only that he wanted this conversation to end, but his mother had blocked the doorway. There was no escape.
“You know how much I love you, Leo,” she said. “You’re a wonderful leader. Brave, honest, loyal to a fault. I could not be more proud. I have the Young Lion for a son!”
“Rawrrrr,” said Lady Ardee, grinning at him sidelong.
“But lions are not suited to administration. I know you want to do it all, but the last few months have proved to us both that you cannot govern Angland on your own.”
“You are the head of a great family,” said Lady Ardee, “and great families must be sustained. You may want to do it all, but I very much doubt you’ll be bearing any heirs yourself. You need a wife.”
He struggled to put the parts of this conversation together but could only see one way to do it. “You want me… to marry… your daughter?” The whole thing had an air of unreality.
“Whyever not? She’s a beautiful, wealthy, refined, intelligent, impeccably connected and widely admired lady of taste.”
Leo’s mother nodded along. “I was most impressed with her.”
“You’ve met her?” asked Leo. “I feel a bit… ambushed.”
“A famous warrior? Ambushed by two mothers?”
“Two grandmothers,” muttered Lady Ardee, for some reason. “Can you honestly deny anything we’ve said?”
Leo swallowed. “Well, I won’t deny I’m not suited to administration. I don’t deny I need help. I can’t deny Savine’s beautiful, tasteful, refined and all the rest of it, I mean, she’s…” He thought back to that night, and not for the first time. “A hell of a woman.”
“It would be folly to deny that,” said Lady Ardee, tossing her head.
“And no one can deny a man needs a wife, especially a Lord Governor, it’s just…” Both of them were giving him a slightly pitying smile, as though waiting for a moron to comprehend the obvious. “Anyone’d think you’ve booked the date and invited the bloody guests!” Lady Ardee and Lady Finree exchanged a loaded glance. Leo felt the cold shock creeping further up his throat. “You’ve booked the date and invited the guests?”
“Lord Isher has kindly agreed to make his grand event a double wedding,” said Lady Ardee.