“Perhaps something is wrong in my head.” He rubbed a blemish from the steel with his thumb. “Getting out of bed.” Metal rang. “A day of honest work.” Whetstone scraped. “Peace. Normality. Sobriety.” He held the sword up to the light and watched the metal gleam. “These are the things that terrify me. Danger, by contrast, has long been my only relief. Eat something. You’ll need your strength.”
“I’ve no appetite,” she said glumly. “I’ve never faced certain death before.”
“Oh, come, come, don’t say such a thing.” He stood, brushed the blossom from the captain’s insignia on the sleeves of his stolen uniform. “If there is one thing I have learned in all my many last stands, it is that death is never certain, only… extremely likely.”
“Truly inspirational words.”
“I try. Indeed I do.” Cosca slapped his sword into its sheath, picked up Monza’s Calvez and ambled away towards the statue of The Warrior. His Excellency Duke Salier stood in its muscular shadow, arrayed for a noble death in a spotless white uniform festooned with gold braid.
“How did it end like this?” he was musing. The very same question Cosca had so often asked himself, while sucking the last drop from one cheap bottle or another. Waking baffled in one unfamiliar doorway, or another. Carrying out one hateful, poorly paid act of violence. Or another. “How did it end… like this?”
“You underestimated Orso’s venomous ambition and Murcatto’s ruthless competence. Don’t feel too badly, though, we’ve all done it.”
Salier’s eyes rolled sideways. “The question was intended to be rhetorical. But you are right, of course. It seems I have been guilty of arrogance, and the penalty will be harsh. No less than everything. But who could have expected a young woman would win one unlikely victory over us after another? How I laughed when you made her your second, Cosca. How we all laughed when Orso gave her command. We were already planning our triumphs, dividing his lands between us. Our chuckles are become sobs now, eh?”
“I find chuckles have a habit of doing so.”
“I suppose that makes her a very great soldier and me a very poor one. But then I never aspired to be a soldier, and would have been perfectly happy as merely a grand duke.”
“Now you are nothing, instead, and so am I. Such is life.”
“Time for one last performance, though.”
“For both of us.”
The duke grinned back. “A pair of dying swans, eh, Cosca?”
“A brace of old turkeys, maybe. Why aren’t you running, your Excellency?”
“I must confess I am wondering myself. Pride, I think. I have spent my life as the Grand Duke of Visserine, and insist on dying the same way. I refuse to be simply fat Master Salier, once of importance.”
“Pride, eh? Can’t say I ever had much of the stuff.”
“Then why aren’t you running, Cosca?”
“I suppose…” Why was he not running? Old Master Cosca, once of importance, who always kept his last thought for his own skin? Foolish love? Mad bravery? Old debts to pay? Or simply so that merciful death could spare him from further shame? “But look!” He pointed to the gate. “Only think of her and she appears.”
She wore a Talinese uniform, hair gathered up under a helmet, jaw set hard. Just like a serious young officer, clean-shaven this morning and keen to get stuck into the manly business of war. If Cosca had not known, he swore he would never have guessed. A tiny something in the way she walked, perhaps? In the set of her hips, the length of her neck? Again, the women in men’s clothes. Did they have to torture him so?
“Monza!” he called. “I was worried you might not make it!”
“And leave you to die gloriously alone?” Shivers came behind her wearing breastplate, greaves and helmet stolen from a big corpse out near the breach. Bandages stared accusingly from one blind eyehole. “From what I can hear, they’re at the palace gate already.”
“So soon?” Salier’s tongue darted over his plump lips. “Where is Captain Langrier?”
“She ran. Seems glory didn’t appeal.”
“Is there no loyalty left in Styria?”
“I never noticed any before.” Cosca tossed the Calvez over in its scabbard and Monza snatched it smartly from the air. “Unless you count each man for himself. Is there any plan, besides wait for Ganmark to come calling?”
“Day!” She pointed up to the narrower windows on the floor above. “I want you up there. Drop the portcullis once we’ve had a try at Ganmark. Or once he’s had a try at us.”
The girl looked greatly relieved to be put at least temporarily out of harm’s way, though Cosca feared it would be no more than temporary. “Once the trap’s sprung. Alright.” She hurried off towards one of the doorways.
“We wait here. When Ganmark arrives we tell him we’ve captured Grand Duke Salier. We bring your Excellency close, and then… you realise we may well all die today?”
The duke smiled weakly, jowls trembling. “I am not a fighter, General Murcatto, but nor am I a coward. If I am to die, I might as well spit from my grave.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Monza.
