‘I’ve always been repellent to glory,’ observed Tunny, ‘and have no regrets.’
‘No regrets?’ said Orso. ‘What about the two hundred people we left gibbetted on the road to Valbeck?’
‘Not my fault.’
‘Not yours, either, Your Highness,’ added Forest.
‘I suspect I will take much of the blame in some quarters.’
Tunny shrugged. ‘The rich folk seem to like you more than ever.’ It was true that a polite crowd of well-dressed well-wishers had been gathered at the gates of Adua to welcome him. ‘And they can express their love financially.’
‘True,’ said Yolk, ‘I mean, what’s the love of the poor actually worth?’
‘Oh, indeed,’ said Orso. ‘All the best kings had utter contempt for the majority of their subjects.’
He had intended his sarcasm to be withering but Yolk managed to miss it even so. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’
The queen waited, perched with rigid discipline on one of her uncomfortable gilded chairs in the centre of her vast salon. Four musicians smiled radiantly as they sawed out soothing music in a distant corner.
‘Orso! The conquering hero!’ She rose to greet him, which was an almost unprecedented honour, gave him a chilly kiss on the cheek, then a chilly pat on the same spot for good measure. ‘I have never been prouder of you.’
‘I fear I have not set a high standard in that regard.’
‘Even so.’
Orso went straight to the decanter and pulled out the stopper. It was hard to think of a good reason for the stopper ever to be in, really. ‘I find I can hardly compete with the victories of the Young Lion, however.’
Queen Terez flared her nostrils magnificently. ‘You won without drawing your sword. Your grandfather always said that was the best kind of victory. He would have been proud of you, too.’
Orso’s grandfather and namesake, Grand Duke Orso of Talins, had by most accounts been a tyrant despised the length of Styria. But then he had been defeated, deposed and assassinated, and such men generally receive poor reports from posterity. ‘I tricked some peasants into surrendering then hanged them,’ he said as he poured. ‘That’s what the history books will say.’
‘The history books will say whatever you order the historians to write. You will be a king, Orso. You cannot think of the few, but must consider the welfare of the many. I trust this little episode has quenched your thirst for glory for the time being, at least.’
‘I suspect it has quenched it for all time. In fact … I’ve been thinking about my dynastic responsibilities. Marriage, you know.’
The queen’s head snapped towards him like that of a hawk that has spotted a vole in the bracken. ‘You mean it?’
‘I do.’
She snapped her fingers. ‘The eldest daughter of the Duke of Nicante is coming of age and that family is almost indecently fertile. She is rumoured to have a wonderfully gentle temperament—’
Orso chuckled. ‘I’m not sure gentle temperaments are my type.’
‘You have a type, now?’
‘Actually, I do.’
Actually, there was one woman for him and the rest were all dross. The instant he had seen her in his tent, he had known he was hopelessly in love. The dignity. The resilience. The sheer guts of the woman, unbowed by all hardship. She needed no jewels, no powder, no wigs. She was more beautiful without them. He knew he didn’t deserve her, but he wanted to deserve her, and in working to deserve her, he might come actually to deserve her. Or something. The weather was dreary outside, rain pattering on the great windows, gusts scattering brown leaves across the palace gardens, but as Orso thought about Savine, it was as if the sun came out and poured its warmth upon him.
His mother caught his blissful grin forming and narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do I feel you already have a lady in mind?’
‘Because I have nothing on my mind but one particular lady.’ The queen would not be happy. But the time comes in every man’s life when he must set his mother’s opinions to one side. He took a deep breath and sat forward. ‘Mother—’
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. It creaked open a crack and Hildi’s head slid through. She fumbled off her cap to reveal blonde curls for some reason cropped short. ‘I’ve got that message you’ve been waiting for, Your Highness.’ And she showed the letter. Just a square of white paper with a white seal. Such a small package to hold all his dreams.
‘Yes, yes!’ snapped Orso, nearly jumping out of his seat with excitement. ‘Come, come!’
It seemed to take her an age to shuffle nervously across the great expanse of gleaming tiles, then to stop and give the queen a wobbling curtsy. ‘Your Majesty—’
‘Never mind that!’ snapped Orso, snatching the letter from her hand. He could not remember ever being so eager for anything in his life. He fumbled with the seal but his hands were clumsy as mittens and he ended up ripping it wide in his haste. His heart was pounding. His sight was swimming with nerves. But it was brief, so it could only be a yes. Surely a yes. What else could it be?
He closed his eyes, letting the music soothe him, took a long breath, composed himself, and read.
My answer must be no. I would ask you not to contact me again. Ever.
Savine.
That was all.
His first feeling was stunned disbelief. Could she have turned him down? How could she have turned him down? He had been so sure this was what they both wanted.
He read it again. And then a third time. My answer must be no.
And now came a stab of hot fury. Did she have to do it so fucking rudely? So savagely? With a note? With a line? He had offered her everything he had, everything he was, and she had trodden on his cock while she kicked his guts out. He crushed the note up in his trembling fist.
‘Bad news?’ asked his mother.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he somehow heard himself saying in the usual bored drawl.
And now came a flood of cold loss. Like that, all his dreams were ruined. It was a note that left no room for hope. No room for wheedling, even by a veteran wheedler like him. I would ask you not to contact me again. Ever. There would never be another woman who understood him the way she did. There would never be another woman like her at all. She had never felt so dazzlingly desirable as she did now he could never have her.
‘Is there a reply?’ asked Hildi, frowning.
‘No,’ he managed to say, ‘no reply.’ What reply could there be to that?
And now came the slow welling up of self-hatred, steadily becoming a flood of utter disgust. Familiar, at least. As the foul waters closed over his head, he did not even struggle. What was the point? He had been so sure this was what he wanted, he had hardly stopped to consider her desires. Everyone said he was epically self-centred, after all. It was no great surprise that everyone turned out to be right. Why would a woman like her want a man like him? Why would any woman? Aside from a crown, some bad jokes and a shitty reputation, what did he really have to offer?
‘We must plan a grand triumph for you!’ His mother’s eyes sparkled at the thought of how right she would finally be proved in the eyes of the world. ‘The nation shall bear witness to the vindication of our family. I shall make sure of it.’
And now he slid into a bog of depression. Savine had been the approaching dawn, and now the sun was snuffed out and he was plunged into eternal gloom. He watched the rain thicken outside. It wasn’t only her that he had lost, but the better man he could have been with her beside him, the better Union they might have forged together. He felt himself wilting, melting down his chair into a sagging slump. He scarcely had the energy to lift his head. Scarcely had the energy to breathe.