“Well… I’d do my best—”
“I understand you know my daughter, Savine.”
At that moment, it seemed more likely he’d faint than she would. “We’ve… met. Just the once.” The same number of times they’d fucked. Might’ve been better not to think of that, but now he couldn’t stop. “When I was last in Adua. Four months ago, was it? She struck me as a very attractive…” Terrible choice of word! “I mean… formidable woman.”
“Please, you’re embarrassing me. And certainly yourself.” Lady Ardee laid a familiar hand on his arm. Everyone in Adua was too familiar. “I’m sorry to put you in a corner but I know the two of you were intimate.” She nodded towards Leo’s mother. “We both do.”
“You… do? Oh. Oh.” Damn, he sounded lame. He was a Lord Governor, wasn’t he? Not some stuttering schoolboy. “I assure you I didn’t… take advantage of her… in any sense—”
Lady Ardee laughed. “The man isn’t made who could take advantage of my daughter. I’ve no doubt it was quite the other way around.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse, only that he wanted this conversation to end, but his mother had blocked the doorway. There was no escape.
“You know how much I love you, Leo,” she said. “You’re a wonderful leader. Brave, honest, loyal to a fault. I could not be more proud. I have the Young Lion for a son!”
“Rawrrrr,” said Lady Ardee, grinning at him sidelong.
“But lions are not suited to administration. I know you want to do it all, but the last few months have proved to us both that you cannot govern Angland on your own.”
“You are the head of a great family,” said Lady Ardee, “and great families must be sustained. You may want to do it all, but I very much doubt you’ll be bearing any heirs yourself. You need a wife.”
He struggled to put the parts of this conversation together but could only see one way to do it. “You want me… to marry… your daughter?” The whole thing had an air of unreality.
“Whyever not? She’s a beautiful, wealthy, refined, intelligent, impeccably connected and widely admired lady of taste.”
Leo’s mother nodded along. “I was most impressed with her.”
“You’ve met her?” asked Leo. “I feel a bit… ambushed.”
“A famous warrior? Ambushed by two mothers?”
“Two grandmothers,” muttered Lady Ardee, for some reason. “Can you honestly deny anything we’ve said?”
Leo swallowed. “Well, I won’t deny I’m not suited to administration. I don’t deny I need help. I can’t deny Savine’s beautiful, tasteful, refined and all the rest of it, I mean, she’s…” He thought back to that night, and not for the first time. “A hell of a woman.”
“It would be folly to deny that,” said Lady Ardee, tossing her head.
“And no one can deny a man needs a wife, especially a Lord Governor, it’s just…” Both of them were giving him a slightly pitying smile, as though waiting for a moron to comprehend the obvious. “Anyone’d think you’ve booked the date and invited the bloody guests!” Lady Ardee and Lady Finree exchanged a loaded glance. Leo felt the cold shock creeping further up his throat. “You’ve booked the date and invited the guests?”
“Lord Isher has kindly agreed to make his grand event a double wedding,” said Lady Ardee.
“Kindly agreed to bask in your reflected glory,” murmured Leo’s mother.
“But…” squeaked Leo, “that’s next week!”
“You are no longer a carefree young man. You are a great lord of the realm. When did you expect to marry?”
“Not next bloody week!”
“We realise it’s a lot to take in,” said Lady Ardee, “but delay serves nobody’s interests. Regardless of who took advantage of whom, you have placed my daughter in a difficult position.”
“She is pregnant,” chimed in his mother, “with your bastard.”
Leo opened his mouth but only a choked-off gurgle came out. “But… how…”
Lady Ardee rolled her eyes. “I’d hoped you’d be versed in the basics but, if we must. Have you ever noticed that girls and boys have different things between their legs?”
“I know where babies come from!”
“Then you appreciate the responsibilities that emerge with them.” Lady Ardee took a nip from a flask she’d produced as if by magic, then offered it around. “Drink?”
“Reckon I’d better,” he said numbly, taking a little swig. It proved to be a very good brandy. He stared off hopelessly into the corner as its warmth spread down his throat. He’d known real adulthood was advancing on him, but he’d assumed it was still some way off. Now it had fallen from a great height and squashed him flat. “Can I at least ask her myself?”
“Of course.” His mother stepped aside and gestured towards the tall windows.
“Wait…” Leo felt a new stab of nerves. “She’s here?”
“On the terrace,” said Lady Ardee. “Waiting for your proposal.”
“I don’t even have a—”
His mother was holding a ring out, blue stone glinting in the sunlight. “The one your father gave me.” She took his wrist, turned his hand over and dropped it into his palm while Lady Ardee nudged the window open with her boot-heel, a cool breeze washing in from the terrace and stirring the curtains.
Leo’s only options were a courageous advance or to run screaming from the room, and with the state of his leg he doubted he could outrun his mother. He closed his fist tight around the ring, drained the flask and handed it to Lady Ardee. “My thanks.”
“My honour.” She plucked a speck of dust from his jacket and gave his chest an approving pat. “We’ll be here if you get into trouble.”
“What a comfort,” he murmured as he stepped out into the sunlight.
Savine stood at the parapet, the Agriont spread out below her as if she owned it. Somehow, he’d expected her to have turned matronly, rosy-cheeked, bloated out with child. But she was every bit as sleek and dignified as the day they met. Not rattled by the long drop beyond the short parapet at her back, or their whirlwind courtship, or her delicate condition. Apparently impossible to rattle at all. His first thought was what a portrait they’d make together.
She sank into a curtsy with a rustling of skirts. Very formal. Very clean. Except, perhaps, for the slightest playful smirk at the corner of her mouth. “Your Grace.”
He’d thought about her often since that night in the writer’s office, but somehow it didn’t prepare him for seeing her again in the flesh. “Call me Leo,” he said in the end. “I think we’re past titles.”
She put a hand on her stomach. “Well, Leo, we have made a child together.”
It wasn’t funny, on the face of it, but he had to smile. The polish of an empress with the candour of a sergeant-at-arms.
“So our mothers tell me.”
“They make quite the pair, don’t they? As complementary as a long and a short steel.”
“And just as deadly.” He put his fists on the lichen-spotted stonework beside her, the ring digging at his palm. Was he really going to do this? Could he possibly do this? The whole thing felt like a dream. But far from a nightmare.
“I can only apologise for the ambush,” she said, turning to look at the view. The statues standing proud on either side of the Kingsway, the wide expanse of the Square of Marshals, the glinting dome of the Lords’ Round. “If it’s any consolation, they did the same to me. I was somewhat… surprised at first.”
“So was I, I’ll admit.”
Her eyes came to rest on his, her chin raised in a challenge which he found, for some reason, deeply attractive. He thought of what his friends would say, when he presented a famous beauty as his wife. That’d wipe the smile from Antaup’s face. “I enjoyed our moment together a great deal.”
“So did I.” He had to clear his throat at the roughness in his voice. “I’ll admit.”
“But I had thought that would be all it was. A moment.”
/>
“So had I.” Leo found himself smiling. “I’ll admit.” He’d expected this to be a painful duty, but he was starting to enjoy it. It had the feel of a dance. A ritual. A duel.
“Does my father worry you?”
His eyes widened. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he was getting Old Sticks for a father-in-law. It occurred to him now, the way the slaughterman occurs to the pig. The most feared man in the Union, a master torturer with an army of Practicals, an enemy of all Leo stood for. “I get the sense he… doesn’t like me very much.”
“He doesn’t like anyone.”
“But I get the sense I don’t like him very much—”
“That would be terrible. If you were planning to marry him.” She raised one brow. “Are you planning to marry him?”
“I don’t think your mother would like it.”
“My father doesn’t own me. Not even a percentage. If we marry, my loyalty will be to you. But you should know I am my own woman and do things my own way. I do not plan for that to change.”
“Wouldn’t want it to.” He admired her spirit. So independent. So determined. So fierce, even. Isher might like a gentle temperament but Leo couldn’t think of anything worse.
“It might help if you look at it as a business arrangement.”
“Is that how you’re looking at it?”
“Force of habit. And it does make excellent sense. A partnership, between your title and my wealth. Between your fame and my connections. Between your leadership and my management.”
Put that way, it did make excellent sense. He enjoyed listening to her talk. So sharp. So confident. So commanding, even. He liked a woman who could take charge. He imagined the admiration when she spoke on his behalf.
“I can share the burden,” she said. “Take the politics and the paperwork off your hands. You can focus on the military aspects. The things you enjoy. No more dusty meetings.”
He thought of that stuffy room, those tottering heaps of papers, those endless grumbles with Mustred and Clensher and the rest. “Doubt I’ll miss them.”
She didn’t seem to take anything so tasteless as steps, but still she drifted closer. He enjoyed watching her move. So graceful. So precise. So regal, even. He liked a woman with pride, and Savine dripped with it. With her on his arm, he’d be the envy of the world.
“Look at it as… a political alliance,” she said. “You are popular. You are celebrated. You are loved. In Midderland, in Angland, in the North, even. But you do not know Adua.” She was looking at his mouth as she came closer. Looking at it in a way he very much enjoyed.
“It’s true,” he murmured. “I’m a lost little lamb here.”
“Let me be your shepherdess. I can help you get your way.” By the dead, she was close now. “With the Closed Council. With my father. With the great men of the realm.” He could smell her. That sweetness, that heady sharpness. “I know everyone worth knowing. And how to use them.” Her scent brought all the excitement of that night rushing back.
He found he had held up his open palm, blue stone on the ring twinkling in the sun. “My mother gave me this.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Savine softly.
“Best I could do on the way from the room to the terrace, anyway— ah.”
To his surprise, but by no means disappointment, her hand was between his legs. Already halfway hard, and it took no time for her to get him the rest of the way. It only made it more exciting that they were in full view of half the Agriont with their mothers not ten paces distant.
“Look at it…” she whispered urgently in his ear, her breath tickling his cheek, “as a business arrangement… and a political alliance… that makes superb sense.” She kissed him, ever so gently, while her hand worked less than gently down below. “Then anything… we can get from it… on a personal level…” She bit his lip, pulled it and let it flap back. “Let’s call it a bonus.”
“Let’s.” He caught Savine’s free hand and slid his mother’s ring onto her finger. It proved too tight to go over the knuckle, but he didn’t care a shit.
He caught her in his arms and kissed her, the Agriont spread out below them.
To anyone watching, they must have looked truly spectacular.
Minister of Whispers
“How was the vote?” asked Vick as Lorsen stepped into his office and shut the door to the gallery.
Apparently, the Superior had remembered how to smile. His thin lips had a noticeable bend. “The vote was the most fun I have had in some time. They’re already arguing over points of procedure down there, but that’s what they do when they know they’ve lost. One hundred and fifty-nine votes to stay in the Union. Fifty-four to leave.”
Vick couldn’t keep the slightest curl of satisfaction from her own mouth. “Not even close.”
“Never mind Shenkt, you must have some unnatural powers.” Lorsen pulled a cork and poured an ungenerous measure of wine into two glasses. “Shutting that bastard Shudra up was more than I hoped for, but to bring him over to our side? It could only be sorcery!”
Vick shrugged. “There’s no magic for changing your mind like a glimpse of the knife meant to kill you. The Styrians hoped to make him a martyr for their cause. Vitari knew she could win far more votes by killing him and blaming us than by killing any number of our Aldermen. I pointed out that Murcatto did much the same thing in Musselia. I mentioned the purges that came after, with some help from a couple of eyewitnesses. All I did was show him what ruthless bastards the Styrians really are. Shudra was happy to change his vote.”
“And that was the start of a landslide! Credit where it’s due!” And Lorsen wagged a finger at her. “It was clever thinking, to be watching over him.”
Vick shrugged again. “I asked myself what I’d have tried, if I’d been in Vitari’s place. Anyone could’ve done it.”
“Not just anyone could have caught the famous Casamir dan Shenkt.”
Vick shrugged one more time. Shrugs cost nothing, after all. “Infamous killers and nobodies, they all go down much the same when you punch them in the knee.”
“It seems the more far-fetched rumours about him were just that. Rumours.”
“Perhaps. The Arch Lector wants him taken back to Adua. His Eminence has some questions.”
“If we’d lost the vote, it might have been me going back to answer the Arch Lector’s questions. I freely confess I much prefer it this way.” Superior Lorsen raised his glass. “You have my thanks, Inquisitor, for what they’re worth.”
Vick drank. Lorsen’s wine was as thin and sour as he was. But it was wine. She’d counted clean water an impossible luxury once. She never let herself forget it.
Solumeo Shudra was waiting on the gallery, his thick fists propped on the railing as he watched the Assembly at work below.
“Sounds like they’re arguing as fiercely as ever,” said Vick, stepping up beside him.
“The swamps will run out of flies,” said Shudra, “before politicians run out of arguments. They are already splitting into new factions over the latest issue.”
“Which is?”
“Spending on sewers. I wanted to thank you once more, before you left. I have… never owed anyone my life before.”
“You get used to it.” Shudra glanced at her, brows raised. More than she should have said already, perhaps. But she felt as if she owed him some honesty. “His Eminence the Arch Lector once gave me a chance.”
“Not a man known for giving chances.”
“No. But without that…” She remembered the sound of rushing water, in the darkness, the day the mine flooded. She thought of her brother’s face as they dragged him away, heels leaving two crooked trails through the dirty snow. “I hear the Aldermen voted to remain in the Union?”
“They did. I never thought I would be happy to say so.” Shudra took a long breath through his nose. “It is easy, perhaps, in the earnest desire to look for something better, to dismiss the virtues of the allies one has and overlook the faults of the
alternatives.”
“The Union is far from perfect. We have our rivalries, our greed and our ambition. That is why we need honest, upright, passionate people. People like you.”
Shudra snorted. “I could almost believe you, Inquisitor. But I am not too proud to admit that I misjudged the situation. I misjudged the Union. I misjudged you.”
Vick smiled. She couldn’t help a small one. The satisfaction of a loyal servant at a job well done. “It takes a strong man to admit his weakness, Master Shudra.”
“Did you have to hit me so bloody hard?” asked Murdine, rubbing at the great bruise on the side of his neck.
“I told you to pad your knee.”
“Three layers of saddle leather! I can still hardly walk!”
“It had to look good. You can’t expect the infamous Casamir dan Shenkt to go down easily.”
“I am the world’s most fearsome assassin.” Murdine twisted his mouth in a pouting sneer, narrowed his eyes and snarled the words. “Cower in fear, Aldermen of Westport, for none are safe from my deadly blade! A shame I will never be able to take credit for one of my finest performances.”
“A little overacted, if you’re asking me.”
“Pfffft. Everyone’s a bloody critic.”
“Well, you convinced Shudra.” Vick slipped the purse from her pocket, weighed it in her hand, silver clinking. “He was the only audience that counted.”
Murdine grinned at her. “If you ever need someone to take a punch again, you know my rates.”
“Doubt I’ll be through here any time soon,” said Vick. “The climate doesn’t suit me.”
“You never know, I may see you in Adua. I’ve a feeling it might be wise to clear out of Westport for the time being. There will no doubt be recriminations following the recent shift in power. Debts to be paid and scores to settle.” Murdine glanced nervously about the tavern and twitched his hood further down. “I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for Shenkt a second time.” He gave a little shiver. “Or, for that matter, to run into the real one.”
“Very wise.”
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