“I hope this is not an example of your notorious reluctance to fight,” sneered Rigrat.

“Reluctance… to fight? Ask anyone, I am a tiger!” Victus snorted snot down his chin but Cosca ignored him. “This is a question of picking the right tool for the task. One does not employ a rapier to cut down a stubborn tree. One employs an axe. Unless one is a complete arse.” The young colonel opened his mouth to retort but Cosca spoke smoothly over him. “The plan is sound, in outline. As one military man to another I congratulate you upon it unreservedly.” Rigrat paused, unbalanced, not sure if he was being taken for a fool or not, though he most obviously was.

“But it would be wiser counsel for your regular Talinese troops—tried and tested recently in Visserine, then Puranti, committed to their cause, used to victory and with the very firmest of morale—to cross the lower ford and engage the Osprians, supported by your allies of Etrisani and Cesale, and so forth.” He waved his flask towards the river, a far more useful implement to his mind than a baton, since a baton makes no man drunk. “The Thousand Swords would be far better deployed concealed upon the high ground. Waiting to seize the moment! To drive across the upper ford, with dash and vigour, and take the enemy in the rear!”

“Best place to take an enemy,” muttered Andiche. Victus sniggered.

Cosca finished with a flourish of his flask. “Thus, your earthy courage and our fiery passion are used where they are best suited. Songs will be sung, glory will be seized, history will be made, Orso will be king…” He gave Foscar a gentle bow. “And yourself, your Highness, in due course.”

Foscar frowned towards the fords. “Yes. Yes, I see. The thing is, though—”

“Then we are agreed!” Cosca flung an arm around his shoulders and guided him back towards the tent. “Was it Stolicus who said great men march often in the same direction? I believe it was! Let us march now towards dinner, my friends!” He pointed one finger back towards the darkening mountains, where Ospria glimmered in the sunset. “I swear, I am so hungry I could eat a city!” Warm laughter accompanied him back into the tent.

Politics

Shivers sat there frowning, and drank.

Duke Rogont’s great dining hall was the grandest room he’d ever got drunk in by quite a stretch. When Vossula told him Styria was packed with wonders it was this type of thing, rather than the rotting docks of Talins, that Shivers had in mind. It must’ve had four times the floor of Bethod’s great hall in Carleon and a ceiling three times as high or more. The walls were pale marble with stripes of blue-black stone through it, all fretted with veins of glitter, all carved with leaves and vines, all grown up and crept over with ivy so the real plants and the sculpted tangled together in the dancing shadows. Warm evening breezes washed in through open windows wide as castle gates, made the orange flames of a thousand hanging lamps flicker and sway, striking a precious gleam from everything.