It turned, and the door shuddered open as if from a kick.
Someone came in with a silver tray teetering on one hand, things sliding dangerously about on top. His crimson jacket, heavy with gold stitching, hung open to show a strip of pale and slightly hairy chest and belly. He turned slowly towards the bed, concentrating furiously on keeping his tray balanced.
It was Crown Prince Orso.
“Oh.” Rikke felt her eyebrows go very high then, as that last part of last night suddenly came rushing back. “Oh…” She’d been about to cover up, but now there didn’t seem much point, so she just flopped back, arms outstretched.
“You’re awake,” he said, grinning.
“So you say,” she croaked out. “How much did I drink?”
“All of it, I think.” He put the tray down proudly on the bed beside her. “I brought you an egg.”
She lifted her chin a little to give it the eye. Her guts had felt far from settled ever since Leo’s duel. They felt less settled than ever now. “Well done. Lay it yourself, did you?”
“There’s no point being a crown prince if you mean to do all the hard work. But look, I carried it from the door to the bed.” And he gestured at the path he’d taken. “As you observed last night, fucking a crown prince is no great distinction, even if you did it rather bloody well—”
She gave a humble shrug. “I’ve a gift, what can I say?”
“—but being brought breakfast by one, that is a rare honour.”
She had to admit to feeling a little bit honoured. She wasn’t sure anyone had brought her breakfast before. Leo certainly never bothered. The thought would never penetrate his thick skull that there were needs in the world other than his. She wondered where he was, now. With that hideously beautiful woman, more than likely, who she couldn’t even hate on account of the absurdly generous gift of green jewels that were right now gleaming on her chest.
“What’s this?” she asked, fishing a crumpled sheaf of papers from the tray. She was no expert on printing but she reckoned this a poor example.
“It’s a newsbill. They tell you what’s happening.” Orso thought about that. “Or they tell you what to think about what’s happening.” He thought more. “Or the really successful ones just confirm what you already think about what’s happening.”
“Huh.” There was a smudged etching on the front of Leo on horseback looking even more pompous than usual. There must’ve been half a page about exactly how he trimmed his beard. Then there was something about Breakers rampaging, trouble in the South, rivalries with Styria, how immigrants had ruined the tone of a neighbourhood, how everything was better during the reign of King Casamir…
She gave a disbelieving snort. “Hear this shit. ‘His Highness was observed leaving the function in the company of the beautiful and mysterious Witch of the North…’”
“Now, that is poor writing.” Orso ever so gradually leaned towards her as he spoke, eyes fixed earnestly on her face. “It should say beautiful, mysterious, shapely, cunning, talented, highly entertaining—”
She flung the newsbill fluttering across the room, grinned as she caught Orso by the ear, pulled him close and kissed him full on the mouth. A scuzzy and sour-tasting kiss, but if you hold off till everything’s perfect, think of all the great kisses you’ll miss.
“You’re not quite what I was expecting,” she said as they broke apart.
“Even more handsome in the flesh, eh?”
“Handsome, I expected. Kind, I didn’t.”
“Kind?” He gave a her a strange look. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.” He peered up at the ceiling. “Now I’m wondering if it’s the only nice thing anyone’s ever said about me. I could show you the city!” He jumped up from the bed with an enthusiasm that made her head hurt. “Adua! City of White Towers! It’s the centre of the world, you know.”
“So I hear.”
“The theatre! I can get the place cleared. Arrange a private showing, just for the two of us.”
“Folk acting out silly stories? All magic and wars and romance? Don’t reckon that’s for me.”
“Cards, then. Do you play cards?”
“Not sure it’d be fair. I’ve got the Long Eye, remember?”
His eyes went wide, like a boy who’s found a fine new game. “Even better! I can finally wipe the smirk off that bastard Tunny’s face at the gaming table!”
“Thought you had a parade to lead?”
Orso’s mouth twisted. “I don’t deserve a parade. Unless it happened to be stomping over me, I suppose.” And he flopped down on his back, staring up at the gilded leaves on the ceiling.
“Thought you crushed some rebellion?”
“Oh, yes, the heroic crown prince. I talked some labourers into surrendering.”
“Well, that’s something to celebrate. Saved some lives, didn’t you?”
“I did.” He turned to look at her. “Then they all got hanged.”
Rikke stared up at the ceiling herself. “Ah.”
“I didn’t make it happen. But I didn’t stop it, either. Some hero, eh?”
“I’m told a leader has to make o’ their heart a stone.” Rikke sat up and plucked the egg out of its cup. “At least you know what y’are.” And she bit the top off it.
“I’m no Young Lion. I think we can agree on that.”
“Thank the dead.” And she grinned, showing him a mouthful of egg mush. “Man’s a fucking arsehole.”
He grinned back. “Do you know, I don’t think I ever met a woman like you before.”
“And you’ve met so many.”
“Honestly, my reputation in that regard is hugely inflated.”
“Hugely inflated, eh? Perhaps you’re more like Leo dan Brock than you think.” She leaned over to grab a slice of bread off the tray, and there was a rattle as the door was flung carelessly open.
“For pity’s sake, Orso.” A strange, sharp accent. “Tell me you’re not still—”
A superbly dressed woman glided into the room with all the majesty of a great ship under full sail and stopped, staring down her nose towards the bed. Didn’t take long for Rikke to realise it was Orso’s mother. Her August Majesty the High Queen of the Union. She gave a kind of helpless squeak. Might’ve done better if she hadn’t just wedged a piece of bread in her wide-open mouth, but she doubted it.
“Who is this… person?” asked the queen.
“Er… this is Rikke. The beautiful and mysterious Witch of the North!” Orso attempted an ornamental flourish, as though she was being presented to the throne rather than caught in his bed, and Rikke coughed and almost blew bread out of her nose. “She is an emissary from the Protectorate.”
Rikke wasn’t sure whether he’d made her look better or the Protectorate worse. She took the bread out of her mouth, shut it, then pinched the sheet between finger and thumb and ever so gradually pulled it up over her tits.
The queen made an arch of one perfect brow. “When it comes to building close diplomatic ties with the future King of the Union, one cannot fault her commitment.”
Rikke cleared her throat. “Well, it’s a key alliance for us.” Orso smothered a laugh. His mother didn’t. Rikke thought about just keeping on pulling the sheet until it was all the way over her head.
“Tell me this isn’t the girl you’re thinking of marrying, Orso?”
Rikke stared at him. “You’re getting—”
“No!” Orso gave a pained wince. “That was… all a misunderstanding.”
The queen sighed heavily. “It says something for the scale of my desperation that I was entirely prepared to welcome her into the family.” And she swept out, shutting the door behind her with a precise click.
Rikke puffed out her cheeks. “By the dead. Your mother’s got a stare could curdle milk.”
“I think she rather took to you,” said Orso. “And it’s a hell of a compliment. When it comes to naked women, she’s quite the connoisseur.”
“I’d best g
et dressed.” Rikke sat up, peering about for her trousers. “In case your father comes wandering in next.”
“I’m guessing it doesn’t take you too long?”
Rikke glanced down at herself. “Get my boots on and I’m pretty much there.”
“Wonderful.” Orso was looking down at her, too, the ghost of a smile about his lips. He brushed her neck with a fingertip, then slid it down until it caught the hem of the sheet, and started to drag that down, too. “We may be able to fit in a brief round of diplomacy before the parade.”
“Well… I was sent to improve relations with the Union.” And she kicked the tray clattering off onto the floor, spat a bit of egg after it, grabbed a fistful of Orso’s jacket and dragged him down on top of her.
No Expense Spared
“The bloody people,” bellowed Leo over the cheering.
“There are a lot of them,” Orso shouted back.
They crowded to the edges of every roadway, crammed every roof and window. The streets were canyons of humanity, the squares were seas of faces. Just when Leo thought there couldn’t be any more in the world, they’d turn a corner and another avenue would open up, smiles stretching into the distance. His wounded side was sore from all the riding, his wounded arm from all the waving, his wounded face from all the grinning.
“Are they taking them from the back and rushing them to the front down side streets, or something?”
“Bearing in mind my mother organised this,” said Orso, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
The parade itself must’ve been several thousand strong. At the front rode magnates of the Open Council, garlanded with braid and medals. Leo got an approving nod from Lord Isher as he glanced over his shoulder. An energetically shaken fist from Barezin. A self-satisfied salute from Heugen.
Further back were lesser aristocracy, officers of the army and fur-trimmed bureaucrats. Wedged between them and the glittering ranks of tramping soldiers were a group of ambassadors, emissaries and foreign worthies with a daunting array of skin tones and national costumes.
Leo realised with a twinge of guilt that Rikke was probably among them. He wondered what she’d done after the ball last night. Probably sat on her own in the darkness, plotting his doom. He turned his eyes hastily forward, towards the magnificent standard flying at the very head of the column, its white horse rearing against a golden sun. Just the sight of it made the embers of Leo’s patriotic fervour flare back into life. A relic of a better time, when the Union was ruled by righteous warriors, not copper-counting cripples.
“The Steadfast Standard,” he murmured, in a voice hushed with awe.
Orso nodded. “The very piece of cloth that fluttered at the head of Casamir’s conquering armies.”
“Without him there’d be no Angland at all. Now there was a great king.”
“Indeed.” The crown prince sighed. “Makes one realise how terribly far the monarchy has fallen.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t worry,” said Orso, with a sad little smile. He looked sad in general, considering this was all partly in his honour. “No one has a lower opinion of the royal family than me, and that is with some savage competition. Makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? Whether Casamir and Harod and the rest were really the great men history paints them as. Or were they just yesterday’s mediocrities, bloated up with centuries of stolen credit into today’s towering heroes?” He gestured to the crowds. “I mean, it’s you they’re here for. You’re the one defeated Stour Nightfall. Men are wearing their beards like you. Wearing their swords like you. There’s a play about your duel, I believe.”
“Any good?”
“I’m sure it’s less exhilarating than the original.”
Leo had to admit he quite liked the crown prince. He’d expected him to be a real wilting dandy and, yes, you wouldn’t have called him a man’s man, but there was no doubt he was a damn good-looking fellow, and he turned out to be really quite thoughtful and generous. A hard man to hate. Leo was learning that people and their reputations rarely had much in common. He found himself, ironically, joining the Arch Lector in trying to inflate Orso’s achievements.
“You liberated Valbeck, Your Highness. Put down a bloody rebellion.”
“I surrounded a city and had a very good breakfast, discussed terms and had a very good lunch, accepted a surrender and had a very good dinner, then found the majority of my prisoners already hanged when I got up the next morning. My own fault for being a late riser, I suppose.”
“But you’re the heir to the throne—”
“My parents might agree on nothing else, but they do agree on that. Being heir to the throne takes no effort, however. Believe me, I know. You, on the other hand, have risked your life.” He waved a hand towards the scar on Leo’s face. “Covered with the red marks of bravery! My most serious wound was sustained when I struck my head getting out of bed dead drunk. The bleeding was quite spectacular, to be fair, but the glory was minimal.”
Leo’s eye was caught by a knot of dark-skinned beggars in the crowd. “Lot of brown faces around,” he said, frowning.
“Troubles in the South. Refugees are pouring across the Circle Sea, seeking new lives.”
“Fought a war against the Gurkish thirty years ago, didn’t we? You sure they can be trusted?”
“Some can and some can’t, I would’ve thought. Just like Northmen. Just like anyone. And they’re not all from Gurkhul.”
“Where, then?”
“All across the South,” said Orso. “Kadir, Taurish, Yashtavit, Dagoska. Dozens of languages. Dozens of cultures. And they’ve chosen to come here. Makes you proud, doesn’t it?”
“If you say so.” Leo knew nothing about those places except that he didn’t want the Union to become one of them. He took no pride in the watering down of his homeland’s character. “Don’t you worry there might be…” Leo felt a need to lower his voice. “Eaters among them?”
“I’m not sure cannibal sorcerers are one of our most pressing problems.”
“Some of them can steal people’s faces. That’s what I heard.” Leo craned around to frown at those Southerners again. “They can disguise themselves as anyone.”
“Then wouldn’t a pale face make a better disguise than a dark?”
Leo frowned. He hadn’t actually thought of that. “Just… hardly feels like the Union’s the Union any more.”
“Surely the great strength of the Union has always been its variety. That’s why they call it a Union.”
“Huh,” grunted Leo. Orso would think that. He was a half-Styrian mongrel himself. Something landed in his lap. A flower. Looking towards an upstairs window, he saw a group of smiling girls, tossing down more. He grinned and blew them a kiss. Seemed the only decent thing to do.
“Adua appears to be enjoying you,” said Orso. “How have you been enjoying it?”
“Can’t say I take to the vapours. And the politics is pretty murky, too. Since the Closed Council didn’t help fight the war, I’d hoped they’d at least help pay for it.”
“Easier to open a gate to hell, in my experience, than the king’s purse.”
“A royal waste of my time. But, on the other hand… I met a woman. Never met one quite like her before.”
Orso gave a sharp little laugh. “Fancy that. So did I.”
“Beautiful. Clever. Sharp as a dagger and fierce as a tiger.”
Another laugh. “Fancy that. So did I.”
“But so poised, so elegant… every inch the lady.”
Orso laughed louder than ever. “Well, there we differ. Does your paragon of womanhood have a name?”
Leo cleared his throat. “Reckon I’d better not say.”
“Went further than just a meeting, then?”
“She took me to…” No, no, that sounded too weak. “I met her, I should say, at the office of some writer.” The prince’s face gave an ugly twitch. Even less keen on books than Leo was, maybe. “But… she didn’t invite me to read, if you take
my meaning.”
“I think I can deduce it.” Orso’s voice sounded strangled, but Leo had never been much good at finding the hidden meaning in things. He was a straightforward fellow. So he carried on. Straightforwardly. Was that a word?
“A night of passion… with a beautiful and mysterious older woman.”
“Surely every young man’s dream,” grated Orso.
“Yes, except…” Leo wasn’t sure if he should say more. But Orso was a man of the world. Infamously so. Maybe he could help make sense of it? “If the story got out, people might think I made use of her, but… I’ve a feeling she made use of me.”
“We all want to be wanted,” growled Orso, eyes fixed ahead.
“The way she looked at me.” As if he was her next meal. “The way she touched me.” With no gentleness and no doubts. “The way she spoke to me.” Knowing just what she wanted and not caring a damn for what he might. The thought was making him stiff in his dress trousers. “It was just like…”
His eyes went wide. Bloody hell, it was just the way his mother talked to him! That thought made his trousers droop even more quickly than they’d risen. Could it be… deep down… he liked being spoken to that way?
“You know,” said Orso, checking his mount, “I really shouldn’t be here.”
“What?”
“You deserve it. I don’t.” Orso clapped him on the arm and, without waiting for a reply, pulled his horse to the side and began to drop back.
Till then there’d been the odd false note in the applause. Boos, mocking calls of, “Young lamb,” even outright screeches of, “Murderer!” But when Orso left, he took all criticism with him, and with Leo leading the parade alone, riding beneath the Steadfast Standard just as Casamir himself might’ve, the cheering was twice as loud. The flower petals fell in fountains. Urchins pointed fingers, eyes wide in dirt-smudged faces. There goes the Young Lion, saviour of the Union!
A Little Hatred Page 53