‘Surround the city,’ he said, tapping the eyeglass thoughtfully into his palm and letting his eyes wander across the fields around Valbeck. ‘Deploy our cannons where they can be clearly seen but not used. Block every route in or out, cut off their supply, make it abundantly clear that we are in charge.’
‘Then?’ asked Forest.
‘Then find out who’s leading the rebels and …’ He shrugged. ‘Invite them to parley.’
‘War is only ever a prelude to talk,’ came a voice. A man stood nearby, in neat civilian clothes. A man who Orso had, as far as he was aware, never laid eyes upon before. A nondescript man with curly hair and a length of wood in one hand. He smiled at Orso. ‘My master would thoroughly approve, Your Highness.’
As a crown prince, Orso was used to forgetting nine-tenths of the people he was introduced to, as well as to total strangers sticking their noses into his business, and so he remained scrupulously polite. ‘Pardon me, but I am not sure we have met …?’
‘This is Yoru Sulfur,’ offered Superior Pike. ‘A member of the Order of Magi.’
‘I was just now struggling to put out a fire in the North when the unmistakable tang of the Union in flames reached my nose.’ Sulfur smiled wider. ‘Never any peace, eh? Never the slightest peace.’
‘His Eminence the Arch Lector,’ said Pike, ‘as well as His Majesty your father, were very keen that Master Sulfur should join us.’
‘Merely to observe.’ Sulfur waved it away as if the favour of the Union’s two most powerful men was nothing to comment on. ‘And perhaps offer some trifling advice, if I can. As a representative of my master, Bayaz, First of the Magi. Pressing business detains him in the West, but the stability of the Union has ever been a prime concern of his, even so. Stability, stability, he’s always saying. A stable Union means a stable world. This business …’ And he shook his head sadly as he looked towards the smoke over Valbeck. ‘Is quite the opposite. Why, the very first thing they did was burn the bank.’
‘I … see,’ said Orso. Meaning that he did not see at all. He turned back to Forest, where things made at least a little more sense. ‘What was I saying?’
‘Surround the city, Your Highness.’
‘Ah, yes. Proceed!’
Forest gave a stiff salute and the orders rang out, followed by the tramp and jingle as the latest column of the Crown Prince’s Division left the road and fanned out into the fields to begin the encirclement.
‘Master Tallow?’ said Orso.
The boy crept forward. ‘Yes, sir, I mean, Your … er …’
‘Highness,’ threw in Tunny, grinning ever so slightly.
‘You’ve been in the city?’
He nodded, those great luminous eyes fixed on Orso.
‘And you observed a meeting of these Breakers?’
He nodded again.
‘Any notion who’s in charge in there?’
‘Risinau, the Superior of the Inquisition. Called himself the Weaver. Seemed like he was leading them, but he talked like a madman. Then there was a woman called Judge.’ He gave a little shiver. ‘But she seemed even madder’n Risinau. Then there was an old fellow. Mulmer. Molmer. Something like that. He seemed … decent, I reckon.’
‘Mulmer it is, then, I suppose.’ Orso frowned at Tallow. ‘Have you eaten today? You look bloody famished.’
Tallow blinked.
‘You like chicken?’
He slowly nodded.
‘Yolk?’
‘Your Highness?’
‘Go to my cook and get the boy a chicken with … well, with whatever he wants.’
Yolk looked a little sour.
‘Sour about that, Yolk? Think the task’s beneath you?’
‘Well—’
‘Any task I could give is far above you. Get the boy a damn chicken, then I want you and him to go out towards Valbeck under a white flag – have we got a white flag, Tunny?’
Tunny shrugged. ‘Stick a shirt on a stick, job done.’
‘Chicken first, then shirt on a stick, then head up to the nearest barricade and tell them Crown Prince Orso would very much like to speak to Mulmer of the Breakers. Tell them I am ready to negotiate. Tell them I am keen to negotiate. Tell them I feel about negotiation the way a stallion feels about a mare.’
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ said Yolk, still looking somewhat sour.
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ said Tallow, his eyes still wide. Narrowing them simply did not appear to be an option for the boy.
Orso stood frowning towards the city as they walked away, one hand on his stomach. ‘Hildi?’ he called.
The girl was sitting cross-legged in her drummer-boy’s uniform, making a chain of daisies. ‘Little busy here.’
‘Get me a chicken, would you?’
‘I could eat.’
‘Get everyone a chicken, then. Chicken, Master Sulfur?’
‘Very kind, Your Highness, but I must keep to a very specific diet.’
‘The discipline of the magical arts, eh?’
Sulfur grinned wide, showing two rows of shiny white teeth. ‘We all must make sacrifices.’
‘I suppose so. Never been much good at it, though.’
‘Lack of practice, probably,’ said Hildi.
Orso snorted up a laugh. ‘I can hardly deny it. I fear I want everyone to like me, Master Sulfur.’
‘We all do, Your Highness, but he who tries to please everyone pleases no one at all.’
‘I wish I could deny that, too, but I’ve certainly pleased no one so far.’ He looked over at the magus who, aside from the staff, was about the least magical-looking man one could have asked for. ‘Don’t suppose you could solve all this with … I don’t know … a spell?’
‘Magic can level mountains. I have seen it. But there is always a cost, and it rises with each passing year. In my experience, swords offer considerably better value.’
‘You speak more like an accountant than a wizard.’
‘A sign of the times, Your Highness.’
‘Superior Pike? Can I tempt you to chicken?’
The superior did not look pleased by the thought of chicken. Indeed, it was the most Orso could do to stand his ground as the man’s hideously burned face advanced on him. ‘You mean to treat with the rebels?’
‘I do, Superior.’ Orso gave a false chuckle. ‘After all, what harm can talk do?’
‘A very great deal. I am not sure His Eminence will approve.’
‘Is there anything His Eminence does approve of?’ Orso grinned, but Pike’s face remained impassive. Perhaps it was the burns. Perhaps he was thoroughly tickled but physically unable to smile. Perhaps he was chortling away on the inside the whole time. It did not seem likely. ‘Look, Superior, the wonderful thing about being crown prince is you can talk and wheedle and promise and bluster and everyone has to listen.’ He leaned close to murmur in the melted remnants of Pike’s ear. ‘But you never have the power to actually do anything.’
Pike raised one brow. Or looked as if he would have, had he any to raise. Then he gave the faintest nod, perhaps even a nod of approval, and faded back to confer with Sulfur.
Orso was left alone in the wheatfield with Tunny, the Steadfast Standard resting covered in the crook of one arm.
‘What is it, Corporal?’
‘I never saw more harm done than by the heroes who couldn’t wait to get started.’
Orso popped open his top button. Uniforms were a great help around the belly but they could get awfully tight at the throat. ‘Well, if I excel at anything, it’s doing nothing.’
‘You know what, Your Highness? I’m starting to think you might make a better-than-average king.’
‘So you’re always telling me.’
‘Yes.’ Tunny had a knowing smirk as he watched the men of the Crown Prince’s Division steadily spread out around the city. ‘But I never actually meant it before.’