‘Cheer for Leo dan Brock, then,’ muttered Liddy, ‘and leave His Highness out of it. You’ve no idea who’s listening. Inquisition are everywhere.’
That bearded bastard didn’t seem to care. ‘Shit on the Young Lamb!’ he bellowed through cupped hands, and Orso looked over with that faint, bored smile, and gave a little bow, and there was some scattered laughter which Broad had to admit took a little venom out of the gathering.
Moments later, someone barged his shoulder and three black-clothed men shoved through the crowd. The bearded heckler saw them, spun about, but another two were coming the other way. The crowd surged back as if from a plague victim as the Practicals caught him, shoved him down, started forcing a stained bag over his head.
‘No!’ hissed Liddy. Was only then Broad noticed her hand on his arm. Both hands, dragging him back as hard as she could. ‘No more trouble!’ Was only then he noticed his every muscle was stiff and his fists clenched trembling tight and his lips curled back in a snarl.
‘Don’t you dare fuck this up for us!’ May had slipped in front of him, was stabbing her pointed finger in his face. ‘Not when we just got right!’ There were tears glimmering in her eyes. ‘Don’t you dare!’
Broad took a deep breath and let it shudder away. Watched as three Practicals manhandled that poor fool through the crowd. Could’ve been him, dragged off to the House of Questions. Would’ve been him, gibbetted beside the road to Valbeck, if it hadn’t been for May and the biggest slice of luck an undeserving man ever got.
‘I won’t, May.’ He felt tears in his own eyes then, eased his lenses down his nose to rub them dry. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You promised us,’ hissed Liddy, dragging him back towards the tramping men, and the high-stepping horses, and the flags and shiny metal. ‘No more trouble.’
‘No more trouble.’ Broad put his arms around his wife and his daughter, and held them both close. ‘I promise.’
But his fists were still so tightly clenched, they ached.
Savine had always loved grand events. The bigger the crowd, the more opportunities to turn strangers into acquaintances, acquaintances into friends, and friends into money. They were a chance to be seen, and therefore admired, and therefore kept powerful. Because power is a mountain one is always sliding down. A mountain one must claw and strive and scramble always to keep one’s place upon, let alone to climb higher. A mountain made not of rock, but of everyone else’s writhing, struggling, grasping bodies.
Events came no grander than this one. A holiday had been declared for the working folk of Adua and the furnaces had been doused and the vapours cleared. It was warm for the start of winter, the sun shining crisp upon the revelling crowds. Those of the great and good who had not joined the famous victors on their parade were gathered here at the end of the route, along with a multitude of the small and bad, in the Square of Marshals.
Savine was at the heart of it, at one end of the purple-swagged royal box, along with most of the Closed Council, a legion of toadying footmen and stern Knights of the Body, not to mention Their August Majesties the High King and Queen of the Union. Terez stood painfully erect at the very pinnacle of power, honouring the crowd with the occasional scornful wave, unquestioned mistress of all she saw. For once, Savine did not need to make an effort to be jealous. That could have been her place. Should have been. Almost had been.
The king glanced sideways and, just for an instant, caught Savine’s eye. That same sad, needy look, and she stared down at her very fine shoes. She had no idea why she should be embarrassed. She was not the one who had fucked her mother and abandoned the results. But still her face burned.
She had always loved grand events, but she hated everything and everyone today, and herself most of all. She missed Orso like an arm cut off. She would think of some observation only he would understand, and smile, and turn to Zuri to arrange a meeting … and then that sappy pang of loss all over again.
Leo dan Brock had been a pleasing diversion. From the neck down, he was astonishing. When she opened his shirt, she had spent a moment just staring. It was as if he was carved from flesh-coloured marble by a sculptor intent on exaggeration. There had been a moment when he lifted her clean off her feet so effortlessly, it felt as if she might never come down …
But in the end, what truly makes a man is above the neck. The instant she made a joke, Orso would have pounced upon it, unfolded and developed it, tossed it back delightfully changed. Leo scarcely realised a joke had been made. Like that new invention Curnsbick was always prattling about, he was a wagon on rails. Conversationally he went only one way, and that at no great speed.
She needed a little something. She bent as if to adjust her shoe and slipped the silver box from her sleeve. Just a pinch to settle the nerves. That first pinch, which was actually about the fifth that morning, did not quite do the trick, so she took a bigger one. A lady of taste never leaves a job half-done, after all.
She straightened up sharply and nearly toppled right over, the rush of blood to her head so savage she thought her eyes might pop from her skull. When things came back into focus, she realised Zuri was holding her firmly by the elbow.
‘What?’ snarled Savine, ripping her arm free. She felt guilty right away. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I’d be lost without you.’
‘Lady Savine …’ Zuri glanced carefully about the royal box. Her stumble had evidently been noticed. They were always watching, the fucking vultures, hoping for fresh meat to rip at. ‘You do not seem yourself.’
‘Who am I now, exactly? Answer me that.’ She was close to shrieking all of a sudden, the pulse throbbing behind her temples, and she wiped her sore nose, and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Zuri. No one deserves being shouted at less than you.’
‘Do you need to leave?’
‘And miss all this shit?’ As she waved towards the thronging square, Savine noticed the finger and thumbtip of her glove were stained white with pearl dust and tried unsuccessfully to slap it off against her other hand.
‘Sticky fingers?’ murmured her father from the side of his mouth. Although, of course, he was not her father. Arch Lector Glokta, entirely unrelated by blood.
‘Nothing you need to concern yourself with,’ she snapped.
‘But I am concerned.’ He continued to gaze out at the crowd as the distant cheering grew louder, the happy parade approaching through the streets of the Agriont, but he crooked one finger to beckon her down beside his chair. ‘Might I ask what you are doing with Brock?’
‘You know about that?’
‘I imagine half of Adua knows about it.’
‘The last thing I need is a fucking lecture,’ she snarled, and suddenly, entirely unbidden, entirely inappropriate, a memory welled up. That dark-skinned little girl, wet eyes lit by flames, pleading with her in a filthy alley in Valbeck. Please, please, please, over and over, the crushing terror and the stink of burning.
Her clothes were too tight, far too tight, she could hardly breathe. She twisted and wriggled in a sweaty panic, fumbled pointlessly behind her waist at laces she knew she could not loosen. No more than a prisoner could pick their shackles off with their fingernails.
Her father frowned up at her. ‘Whatever has got into you, Savine?’
‘Into me?’ Fury bubbling up again as she caught the arm of his chair and bent to hiss in his ear. ‘Do you know what your wife told me?’
‘Of course I know. What kind of a fool do you take me for?’
She gave a snort of bitter, snotty laughter. ‘Not half as big a one as you and my mother took me for.’
A flurry of twitches ran up the left side of his face and set his eyelid flickering. ‘Your mother was young, and alone, and she made a mistake. Since then, all she has thought of is what was best for you.’