“All worth it, eh?” said Liddy. She was talking about the nights she’d spent stitching by candlelight, he reckoned, not the nights he’d spent beating men by lamplight.
Had that been worth it?
“Aye,” he croaked out.
He forced the smile onto his face. He was doing that a lot lately.
Leo sat, watching his wife dance, whirl, twist, smile, flitting effortlessly from one partner to another. His wife. Just thinking the words gave him a guilty thrill. She was an enchanting dancer, it hardly needed to be said.
Leo would’ve liked to join her and soak up his share of the admiration. But he’d never been much of a dancer, even without the leg wound. Few soldiers are. Antaup, maybe. He wondered what his friends would say when he presented his bride. Speechless, most likely. How could they be anything but impressed? How could anyone?
“Not dancing, Your Grace?” It was that woman with the red hair and all the bosom he’d met last time he was in Adua.
“The leg, you know. Still a bit sore.”
“A shame. I can’t remember such a spectacular wedding.”
“Thank you…” A moment of horror at not knowing her name, then a wash of relief as it came to him. “Selest! So glad you could come.”
“Oh, Bayaz could have locked me in the House of the Maker and I’d still have found a way to attend!” She tapped him on the chest with her fan. “That’s two wonderful shows you’ve put on in the Lords’ Round.”
Leo winced. “You know about the other one?”
“My dear, everyone knows about the other one.”
“Well, I’m meeting the king later this evening. I’ll say sorry, and that’ll be that.”
“Of course. I suppose there was always going to be some… friction between you and His Majesty, given his history with your wife.”
Leo felt a coldness creeping up his spine. “What?”
“Rumour has it they were lovers,” she purred. “But I’m sure Savine told you. It’s hardly the kind of secret one would want hanging over a marriage, after all.”
The music struck a false note, suddenly. Was that why Savine had been so worried about the king’s feelings? So keen for Leo to apologise? He felt a surge of fury, and the pain in his leg as he leaned towards Selest dan Heugen only made it worse. He forced the words hissing through his fixed smile. “If I hear you’ve spread that rumour, I’ll break your fucking nose.”
She looked rather pleased with that. One of those people who count anything but being ignored as a victory. “There’s really no point getting angry with me, Your Grace. I didn’t fuck the king.”
She left him sitting, watching his wife dance, whirl, twist, smile, flitting effortlessly from one partner to another. The sight no longer filled him with quite the same delight.
It was done. It was done, and could not be undone.
Orso drained yet another glass, wondering if there was some kind of drinking record he could aim for. Something to give his life purpose. Something more than staring at Savine and thinking about all he’d lost.
He glanced over to Brock, who for some reason appeared to be frowning angrily back, and raised his empty glass in a pointless toast. That bastard was everything Orso wasn’t. Honest, decisive, likeable. Crushingly popular with both nobles and commoners. A storybook hero with no crowd of mistakes at his back. Unless you counted the one he’d made in the Lords’ Round, the one he was apparently so very keen to apologise for, and that only appeared to have gilded his reputation. Hot-blooded and passionate, don’t you know! Anyone would have thought the most admirable thing a man could do in Open Council these days was berate the monarch.
“Blame sticks to some men,” he murmured, under his breath. “Others it slides right off.”
“Dinner will be served shortly, Your Majesty.” A powdered footman gestured towards his chair—the largest chair, of course—in the very centre of the great polished horseshoe of table. He wondered how many trees had died to make it possible. “If it please Your Majesty, you are to be seated between the two brides, the grooms just without, to either side.” And he managed to back away and bow simultaneously.
Between the two brides. As though to emphasise how alone he was. He would rather have been seated between the Great Wolf and the Snake of Talins. Far rather. He did not have nearly so ugly a history with them as he had with Savine dan Glokta.
He realised he had to correct himself.
Savine dan Brock.
“Fuck,” he snarled. He could stand it no longer. He could stand himself no longer. “Gorst?”
“Your Majesty?”
“Where might we find Corporal Tunny these days?” The Lord Governor of bloody Angland could apologise later, if he cared to. “I think I’ve had quite enough of other people’s happiness.”
Savine shut the doors and leaned back against them, taking a moment to breathe. Her cheeks burned from the dancing, and the compliments, and the endless smiling, and the ever-greater quantities of pearl dust. She could hardly feel her face any more. She simply had to get some air.
“So. A married woman.” The sight of her father soon cleared her spinning head. He sat in his wheeled chair on the terrace, deep-lined face tipped back, gazing at the stars. “They say it’s the proudest day of a father’s life.”
“They say all sorts of nonsense.” His opinion had meant everything to her once, but she found right now she hardly cared. She was eager to shrug off the wreckage of her past life like a snake sheds its skin and sweep away smiling towards her bright new future.
“There is no guide to being a parent, Savine.” He turned his head slowly to look at her, eyes bright in the darkness. “Especially if your parents did as poor a job as mine and your mother’s did. You reel from one mess to another and chart the only course you can see at the time. We meant to tell you the truth, but… when is the right moment to share a thing like that? We preferred the pretence. We did not… want to hurt you.”
She gave a bitter snort. “Then congratulations on your spectacular failure.”
“Hardly my first. One day, I hope you will see that we always tried to act in your best interests.”
“You could have warned me.”
“Not to bed the crown prince? Hardly advice someone of your talents should need.” Perhaps he had a point there. “Besides, we agreed long ago that I would give you some privacy. How was I to know you would become involved with the one man who was off limits?”
“From what my mother tells me, it does rather run in the family.”
A silence, and she saw the side of his face twitch in the warm light from the party, and he reached up and wiped a streak of wet from his leaking left eye. “Well. A life without regrets is not a life at all. It is in the past now. I know I cast a long shadow, Savine. I am glad you are ready to step out from under it. Just… be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“You will move in different circles now. As the Lady Governor of Angland, no less.”
“I’m used to hard decisions.” It felt as if her life had been one after another.
“You are used to business. This is politics. The way things are going… well, take care. And promise me one thing.” He beckoned her close to whisper. “Have nothing to do with Bayaz. Not with him, not with any magus. Take no favours from him, owe no debts to him, make no deals with him. Do not please him. Do not displease him. Do everything possible to escape his notice altogether. Promise me.”