“A little olive oil can help.”
“What?”
“With chafing.”
Leo soldiered on. “Then we have friends among the commoners, and the sworn oath of the King of the Northmen himself, Stour Nightfall.”
“A far-reaching brotherhood! Can King Orso really know nothing about it?”
There was no point holding back now. It was all or nothing. And boldness had always been Leo’s way.
“He doesn’t suspect a thing.” Leo was trying so hard not to look at Jappo’s bare stomach, he ended up constantly glancing at it. “A member of his Closed Council is in our pocket, warning us of every move he makes.”
“And expecting a reward, I’m sure. No doubt every one of your allies has something to gain?” If he could’ve seen Jappo’s eyebrows, Leo expected they would’ve been raised expectantly.
“I can offer you Sipani.” Dismal negotiating. He was tossing away cities without even a hint of barter. Savine would’ve been disgusted.
“That’s generous.”
“I’m a soldier, not a salesman.”
“I meant I was unaware it was yours to give. Here I am, after all, in Sipani, enjoying the best the city has to offer without your permission. Doing what I want. Smoking what I want. Fucking who I want.”
“Your bed, your business,” snapped Leo, but the Styrian proverb came out strangled.
“If it helps, I don’t only fuck men.” As far as could be told through his mask, King Jappo looked faintly amused. “Sometimes I’m fucked by them. Look at it this way—if you needed advice on horses, you wouldn’t go to someone who never rode a horse.”
“What?”
“How could someone who never had a cock really know what’s best to do with a cock? I’ve debated scholars the world over and no one’s been able to give me a satisfactory answer on that point.”
“Some might say there’s a natural order to things,” Leo forced through gritted teeth.
“If we were constrained by the natural order we would still be wriggling naked in the filth.”
“Some of us still are,” said Leo, before he could stop himself.
Jappo only gave a little snort of laughter. “So Sipani is your final offer?”
Leo paused. They’d all agreed to offer Westport, if they had to. A superstitious slum, Savine had said. A paltry price to pay for Angland, Starikland and Midderland. He’d reluctantly agreed at the time, but now his leg was aching, and perhaps it was the chagga smoke, but he was feeling out of sorts, hot in the face and slightly dizzy. He hated Styria, hated Sipani, hated Cardotti’s, hated this degenerate excuse for a king most of all. He raised his chin, trying to look haughtily down his nose, but his eyes kept being drawn to that trail of dark hair from Jappo’s navel into the not entirely concealing shadows of his gown…
“My last offer!” he snapped, angrily.
Jappo gave a wounded pout. “Your shrewd, tough, beautiful wife gave you nothing else to bargain with?”
“You’re dealing with me!” growled Leo, further nettled. He wasn’t giving up Union territory to one of the Union’s enemies, especially not this one. Savine might be upset but he was the husband, the leader, the lord and master. He was the Young Lion. He’d beaten Stour Nightfall. He’d beaten Black Calder. He could beat the likes of bloody Orso without the help of some grinning Styrian pervert.
“Shame,” murmured Jappo, though whether he was talking about the offer, or who was making it, was hard to tell. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” He lay back, one arm behind his head, forcing Leo to scrupulously keep his eyes away as that bloody gown fell even further open. “Less than I was hoping, but even so. I’ll let you know my answer in due course.”
“Sooner rather than later,” said Leo stiffly. “We move on the last day of summer.”
“Stay a while, Young Lion. Enjoy the hospitality. You seem tense. And do pass my regards to your wife!”
Leo ground his teeth as he pulled the door shut. He would’ve liked to fling the bastard thing closed and snarl some ugly curses after it, but the greeter was in the hallway, guiding someone else towards Jappo’s door. It was that smug idiot from downstairs with a gilded sun for a mask.
“Mind out,” he snarled, barging past.
“By all means,” said Orso as the man in the lion mask shoved between him and the greeter and stomped away. “Rather rude.”
“It was,” said the greeter.
“But being an arsehole is crime and punishment both.”
“It is.” And she eased the door open and offered him the way.
“King Orso!” Jappo Murcatto reclined on a velvet daybed in a mask sculpted like spread eagle’s wings and a Gurkish robe that left nothing to the imagination. “It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance!”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Orso, in Styrian, giving the kind of sweeping bow his mother had always told him was popular in Talins. “How often, after all, do two kings get to chat? It’s rather refreshing, being able to speak to someone on an equal footing.” And he took his mask off and tossed it on a side table, then dropped down in a chair and poured himself a glass of wine.
Jappo frowned at the mask. “That’s really not the done thing in Cardotti’s.”
“We’re kings. The done thing is whatever we do. I came here for a frank discussion. By all means leave yours on, if you prefer.”
“You speak excellent Styrian.”
“I have my mother to thank. She won’t bully me in any other tongue.”
“We both owe our mothers a debt, then. Mine gave me a whole kingdom.” And Jappo plucked his mask off and dropped it beside Orso’s. His face was not at all what Orso had imagined. Handsome, but in a strong-boned, broad-jawed sort of way. Surprisingly pale, too, in spite of his dark curls. He looked more like a Northman than a Styrian.
“Chagga?” he asked, holding up a pipe.
“Whyever not?”
While the King of Styria charged the pipe, the King of the Union frowned up at the towering mural behind him. “A copy of Aropella’s Fates?”
“Well recognised!” Jappo turned to look it over. “Worse brushwork than the great man’s version but far more bare flesh, so I consider it a draw. The original’s in my mother’s palace at Fontezarmo.”
“I am aware. My mother would say it’s her palace, though.”
“Really?”
“And that Aropella’s Fates is one of the few treasures your mother didn’t destroy when she stole the place. Mostly because, as it’s on the ceiling, it was out of easy reach of the criminal scum she’d employed to help her.”
“And do you share your mother’s opinion?”
“Very rarely,” said Orso. “She tends towards the vengeful. I sometimes think she named me purely with the intention of annoying your mother. My namesake Grand Duke Orso did kill your uncle, after all, and very nearly killed your mother. Before your mother killed him. And my uncles. And half the nobility of Styria. Is that how it went?”
“Roughly.”
“So many familial murders I trip up on the details. We do have a rather… complicated family situation.”