The garden at the centre of Salier’s gallery showed no signs of imminent doom. Water trickled, leaves rustled, a bee or two floated lazily from one flower to another. White blossom occasionally filtered down from the cherry trees and dusted the well-shaved lawns.

Cosca sat cross-legged and worked the edge of his sword with a whetstone, metal softly ringing. Morveer’s flask pressed into his thigh, but he felt no need for it. Death was at the doorstep, and so he was at peace. His blissful moment before the storm. He tipped his head back, eyes closed, sun warm on his face, and wondered why he could never feel this way unless the world was burning down around him.

Calming breezes washed through the shadowy colonnades, through doorways into hallways lined with paintings. Through one open window Friendly could be seen, in the armour of a Talinese guardsman, counting every soldier in Nasurin’s colossal painting of the Second Battle of Oprile. Cosca grinned. He tried always to be forgiving of other men’s foibles. He had enough of his own, after all.

Perhaps a half-dozen of Salier’s guards had remained, disguised as soldiers from Duke Orso’s army. Men loyal enough to die beside their master at the last. He snorted as he ran the whetstone once more down the edge of his sword. Loyalty had always sat with honour, discipline and self-restraint on his list of incomprehensible virtues.

“Why so happy?” Day sat beside him on the grass, a flatbow across her knees, chewing at her lip. The uniform she wore must have come from some dead drummer-boy, it fit her well. Very well. Cosca wondered if it was wrong of him to find something peculiarly alluring about a pretty girl in a man’s clothes. He wondered furthermore if she might be persuaded to give a comrade-in-arms… a little help sharpening his weapon before the fighting started? He cleared his throat. Of course not. But a man could dream.

“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.