“Do you need one?”

“No.”

“No, of course, why would you?” Wine gurgled from the bottle. “I suppose this is nothing new for you.”

“No.” Though in fact it was hard to remember the last time she’d been disguised as a whore in a room with a king. She had two choices. Bed him, or murder him. Neither one held much appeal. Killing Ario would make trouble enough. To kill a king—even Orso’s son-in-law—would be asking for a great deal more.

When faced with two dark paths, Stolicus wrote, a general should always choose the lighter. She doubted these were quite the circumstances he’d had in mind, but that changed nothing. She slid one hand around the nearest bedpost, lowered herself until she was sitting awkwardly on the garish covers. Then her eye fell on the husk pipe.

When faced with two dark paths, Farans wrote, a general should always find a third.

“You seem nervous,” she murmured.

The king had made it as far as the foot of the bed. “I must confess it’s been a long time since I visited… a place like this one.”

“Something to calm you, then.” She turned her back on him before he had the chance to say no, and began to fill the pipe. It didn’t take her long to make it ready. She did it every night, after all.

“Husk? I’m not sure that I—”

“You need your wife’s blessing for this too?” She held it out to him.

“Of course not.”

She stood, lifting the lamp, holding his eye, and set the flame to the bowl. His first breath in he coughed out straight away. The second not much later. The third he managed to hold, then blow out in a plume of white smoke.

“Your turn,” he croaked, pressing the pipe back into her hand as he sank down on the bed, smoke still curling up from the bowl and tickling her nose.

“I…” Oh, how she wanted it. She was trembling with her need for it. “I…” Right there, right in her hand. But this was no time to indulge herself. She needed to stay in control.

His mouth curled up in a gormless grin. “Whose blessing do you need?” he croaked. “I promise I won’t tell a… oh.”

She was already setting the flame to the grey-brown flakes, sucking the smoke in deep, feeling it burn at her lungs.

“Damn boots,” the king was saying as he tried to drag his highly polished footwear off. “Don’t bloody fit me. You pay… a hundred marks… for some boots… you expect them to—” One flew off and clattered into the wall, leaving a bright trace behind it. Monza was finding it hard to stand up.

“Again.” She held the pipe out.

“Well… where’s the harm?” Monza stared at the lamp flame as it flared up. Shimmering, shining, all the colours of a hoard of priceless jewels, the crumbs of husk glowing orange, turning from sweet brown to blazing red to used-up grey ash. The king breathed a long plume of sweet-smelling smoke in her face and she closed her eyes and sucked it in. Her head was full of it, swelling with it, ready to burst open.