“We do?”
“I’ll talk to the lord chancellor and have you written into the budget, how’s that?” As the knights tramped down the stairs to leave, Orso leaned close to Tunny. “Thank you for that, Corporal.”
Without looking up from his cards, Tunny gave a grudging nod. “Any time, Your Majesty.”
The Darling of the Slums
“Morning, Your Grace,” said Leo, stepping out onto the balcony.
“Morning, Your Grace,” said Savine as he sat opposite her at the breakfast table and gingerly stretched out his leg.
She shifted subtly, trying not to let her own discomfort show. A comfortable corset really isn’t doing its job, but her belly was most definitely starting to swell. Savine had been softening all over since she gave up fencing. Gripping a sword made her think too much of Valbeck. Scrabbling with the hilt in a sweaty panic as she tried to pull up that loose board, men screaming for her blood outside the door—
“So…” Leo frowned out towards the Middleway, where the morning’s traffic was already busy, then gave a helpless little laugh. “We’re married, then.”
Savine banished the ugly memories and held up the new ring she had commissioned, its satisfyingly colossal stone flashing in the morning sun. “So it would appear.”
“What happens now?”
“I recommend the trout.”
“And then?”
“Give me and Zuri a week here to put my affairs in order, and then to Angland—”
“Where you can put my affairs in order?”
“Where I can help you put them in order.” And people might care less about appearances and Zuri would not have to haul quite so savagely on the laces. “Probably best that we leave before Wetterlant’s hanging.”
“I might hold off on saying sorry to His Majesty as well.”
Savine winced. “I hope my… history with the king will not—”
“If he’s fool enough to let the most beautiful woman in the Union slip through his fingers, then I pity him.” And Leo gave her that big, boyish smile, the one that made a faint groove from the scar on his cheek.
She found she was smiling back, and not even having to pretend. “That’s… a rather lovely thing to say.”
“Don’t get used to it.” He scooped a piece of trout onto his plate then sucked the fork. “I’m not much of a flatterer.”
“Oh, I think you could prosper at anything you put your mind to.”
He smiled even wider. “That’s a rather lovely thing to say.”
“I’m one of the best flatterers in the Union, ask anyone.”
He laughed, and started eating, and she rather enjoyed watching him. So strong and healthy and handsome. No sign of last night’s anger now. Except perhaps a faint pink graze her open hand had left on his cheek. The Young Lion had his moods but it seemed they passed quickly, like stormclouds sweeping over the rugged Northern valleys and just as quickly letting the sun shine again. She could work with that. Who doesn’t have moods, after all? Savine had been in one ever since she got back from Valbeck.
Haroon had to squeeze his great shoulders together to fit through the door onto the balcony. “Spillion Sworbreck is here, Lady Savine.” A few months in Adua and he had barely any accent at all.
“Thank you, Haroon, you’re a treasure. Send him out.”
Leo frowned after him. “Not sure how your servants will go down in Angland.”
“Angland will just have to get used to them. Haroon and Rabik are Zuri’s brothers, and they’re some of the most diligent, conscientious, trustworthy people I know. Haroon used to be an officer in the emperor’s army, I believe, and Rabik’s an absolute magus with horses. As for Zuri…” She was Savine’s closest friend, and the very thought of her being unwelcome somewhere made her want to grind that place under her heel. “She is indispensable. My business interests would suffer more without her than without me. I would trust her with our lives.”
Leo prodded at his fish. “Just feels like there are too many brown faces around in Adua these days.”
“Too many for what? The people who come here are hard workers. They bring wealth and energy and new ideas. There are great thinkers among them. Great engineers. And how would you stop them, anyway? Make us less prosperous?”
Leo did not look convinced. He was not a man much moved by reason. “We fought a war against the Gurkish,” he grumbled.
“You fought a war against the Northmen. Some of your best friends are still Northmen.”
He actually looked slightly offended. “Not all Northmen are the same, you know.”
There was a snapping of cloth and Sworbreck swept onto the balcony, became briefly entangled in the drapes but manfully fought his way free. He was fresh from another trip to the Far Country and was affecting the facial hair of a fearless adventurer.
“Your Grace,” he intoned, giving Savine a flourishing bow. “You look a veritable goddess, as always.”
“Master Sworbreck, how was your latest escapade in the unsettled West?”
“Wild and packed with danger. I have tales to tell which the pampered citizens of Adua will scarcely credit!” Savine certainly would not credit them, for she had it on good authority that he rarely strayed far from the harbour at Rostod and paid a scout to wear his clothes while riding across the plains so they would have an authentically adventured-in appearance on his return.
“And may I introduce my husband, Leo dan Brock?”
“Your Grace.” Sworbreck gave an even more flourishing bow. “An absolute honour to make the acquaintance of the hero of Red Hill and conqueror of the Great Wolf!”
“I don’t like to talk about that,” said Leo sternly. Sworbreck blinked, mouth slightly open. Leo burst out laughing. “It’s all I’d bloody talk about if I had my way!” And he seized Sworbreck’s hand and nearly dragged the hapless writer off the balcony with the vigour of his shaking. “I think I visited your office once.”
Sworbreck must have guessed what they had used his office for, but to his credit he gave no sign of it. “My humble premises are forever at your disposal, as is my humble pen.”
“I have a use in mind for the latter.” And Savine nudged a chair out with one shoe so Sworbreck could sit. “The name Glokta carries… something of a stigma.”
“A proud name, but I see Your Grace’s point. There is a flavour of…”
“Torture?”
Sworbreck gave an apologetic smile. “The name Brock has entirely different connotations. Heroism, patriotism, derring-do! Have you considered a biography, by the way, Your Grace?”
Leo paused with fork halfway to his mouth. “I’m twenty-two years old. I hope I’ve a few achievements still to come.”
“Your famous victories thus far are, one cannot doubt, but a prelude, but there would be great public interest even in a first volume or two—”
“My name,” Savine reminded him.
“Of course, my apologies, new ideas erupt and must be thrust aside! A curse of the artistic temperament.”
Far from the only one, in her opinion. “Savine dan Glokta was a woman of business,” she explained. “She needed a reputation for cunning, ruthlessness and flinty resolve.”