Rogont's face twisted. He took one step, his ankle buckled and he pitched onto his face, bulging eyes staring sightlessly off to the side. The crown popped from his skull, bounced once, rolled across the inlaid platform to its edge and clattered to the floor below. Someone in the audience gave a single, ear-splitting scream.
There was the whoosh of a counterweight falling, a rattle of wood, and a thousand white songbirds were released from cages concealed around the edge of the chamber, rising up into the clear night air in a beautiful, twittering storm.
It was just as Rogont had planned.
Except that of the six men and women destined to unite Styria and bring an end to the Years of Blood, only Monza was still alive.
All Dust
Shivers took more'n a little satisfaction in the fact Grand Duke Rogont was dead. Maybe it should've been King Rogont, but it didn't matter much which you called him now, and that thought tickled Shivers' grin just a bit wider.
You can be as great a man as you please while you're alive. Makes not a straw of difference once you go back to the mud. And it only takes a little thing. Might happen in a silly moment. An old friend of Shivers' fought all seven days at the battle in the High Places and didn't get a nick. Scratched himself on a thorn leaving the valley next morning, got the rot in his hand, died babbling a few nights after. No point to it. No lesson. Except watch out for thorns, maybe.
But then a noble death like Rudd Threetrees won for himself, leading the charge, sword in his fist as the life left him—that was no better. Maybe men would sing a song about it, badly, when they were drunk, but for him who died, death was death, same for everyone. The Great Leveller, the hillmen called it. Lords and beggars made equal.
All of Rogont's grand ambitions were dirt. His power was mist, blown away on the dawn breeze. Shivers, no more'n a one-eyed killer, not fit to lick the king-in-waiting's boots clean yesterday, this morning was the better man by far. He was still casting a shadow. If there was a lesson, it was this—you have to take what you can while you still have breath. The earth holds no rewards but darkness.
They rode from the tunnel and into the outer ward of Fontezarmo, and Shivers gave a long, soft whistle.
"They done some building work."
Monza nodded. "Some knocking down, at least. Seems the Prophet's gift did the trick."
It was a fearsome weapon, this Gurkish sugar. A great stretch of the walls on their left had vanished, a tower tilted madly at the far end, cracks up its side, looking sure to follow the rest down the mountain any moment. A few leafless shrubs clung to the ragged cliff-edge where the walls had been, clawing at empty air. Shivers reckoned there'd been gardens, but the flaming shot the catapults had been lobbing in the last few weeks had turned 'em mostly to burned-up bramble, split tree-stump and scorched-out mud, all smeared down and puddle-pocked by last night's rain.
A cobbled way led through the midst of this mess, between a half-dozen stagnant fountains and up to a black gate, still sealed tight. A few twisted shapes lay round some wreckage, bristling with arrows. Dead men round a torched ram. Scanning along the battlements above, Shivers' practised eye picked out spears, bows, armour twinkling. Seemed the inner wall was still firm held, Duke Orso no doubt tucked in tight behind it.
They rode around a big heap of damp canvas weighted down with stones, patches of rainwater in the folds. As Shivers passed he saw there were boots sticking out of one end, a few pairs of dirty bare feet, all beaded up with wet.
Seemed one of Volfier's lads was a fresh recruit, went pale when he saw them dead men. Strange, but seeing him all broken up just made Shivers wonder when he got so comfortable around a corpse or two. To him they were just bits of the scenery now, no more meaning than the broken tree-stumps. It was going to take more'n a corpse or two to spoil his good mood that morning.
Monza reined her horse in and slid from the saddle. "Dismount," grunted Volfier, and the rest followed her.
"Why do some of 'em have bare feet?" The boy was still staring at the dead.
"Because they had good boots," said Shivers. The lad looked down at his own foot-leather, then back to those wet bare feet, then put one hand over his mouth.
Volfier clapped the boy on the back and made him start, gave Shivers a wink while he did it. Seemed baiting the new blood was the same the world over. "Boots or no boots, don't make no difference once they've killed you. Don't worry, boy, you get used to it."
"You do?"
"If you're lucky," said Shivers, "you'll live long enough."
"If you're lucky," said Monza, "you'll find another trade first. Wait here."
Volfier gave her a nod. "Your Excellency." And Shivers watched her pick her way around the wreckage and off.
"Get on top of things in Talins?" he muttered.
"Hope so," grunted the scarred sergeant. "Got the fires put out, in the end. Made us a deal with the criminals in the Old Quarter they'd keep an eye on things there for a week, and we wouldn't keep an eye for a month after."
"Coming to something when you're looking to thieves to keep order."
"It's a topsy-turvy world alright." Volfier narrowed his eyes at the inner wall. "My old master's on the other side o' that. A man I fought my whole life for. Never had any riots when he was in charge."
"Wish you were with him?"
Volfier frowned sideways. "I wish we'd won at Ospria, then the choice wouldn't have come up. But then I wish my wife hadn't fucked the baker while I was away in the Union on campaign three years ago. Wishing don't change nothing."
Shivers grinned, and tapped at his metal eye with a fingernail. "That there is a fact."
Cosca sat on his field chair, in the only part of the gardens that was still anything like intact, and watched his goat grazing on the wet grass. There was something oddly calming about her gradual, steady progress across the last remaining bit of lawn. The wriggling of her lips, the delicate nibbling of her teeth, the tiny movements that by patient repetition would soon shave that lawn down to stubble. He stuck a fingertip in his ear and waggled it around, trying to clear the faint ringing that still lurked at the edge of his hearing. It persisted. He sighed, raised his flask, heard footsteps crunching on gravel and stopped. Monza was walking towards him. She looked beyond tired, shoulders hunched, mouth twisted, eyes buried in dark pits.
"Why the hell do you have a goat?"
Cosca took a slow swig from his flask, grimaced and took another. "Noble beast, the goat. She reminds me, in your absence, to be tenacious, single-minded and hard-working. You have to stick at something in your life, Monzcarro." The goat looked up, and bleated in apparent agreement. "I hope you won't take offence if I say you look tired."
"Long night," she muttered, and Cosca judged it to be a tremendous understatement.
"I'm sure."
"The Osprians pulled out of Talins. There was a riot. Panic."
"Inevitable."
"Someone spread a rumour that the Union fleet was on its way."
"Rumours can do more damage than the ships themselves."
"The crown was poisoned," she muttered.
"The leaders of Styria, consumed by their own lust for power. There's a message in there, wouldn't you say? Murder and metaphor combined. The poisoner-poet responsible has managed to kill a chancellor, a duke, a countess, a first citizen and a king, and teach the world an invaluable lesson about life all in one evening. Your friend and mine, Morveer?"
She spat. "Maybe."
"I never thought that pedantic bastard had such a sense of humour."
"Forgive me if I don't laugh."