Cosca gave a long sigh. “You Gurkish think there’s a point to it all, don’t you? That God has a plan, and so forth?”

“I’ve heard it said.” Ishri’s black eyes flicked from the valley to him. “And what do you think God’s plan is, General Cosca?”

“I have long suspected that it might be to annoy me.”

She smiled. Or at least her mouth curled up to show sharp white teeth. “Fury, paranoia and epic self-centredness in the space of a single sentence.”

“All the fine qualities a great military leader requires…” He shaded his eyes, squinting off to the west, towards the ridge behind the Talinese lines. “And here they are. Perfectly on schedule.” The first flags were showing there. The first glittering spears. The first of what appeared to be a considerable body of men.

The Fate of Styria

Up there.” Monza’s gloved forefinger, and her little finger too, of course, pointed towards the ridge.

More soldiers were coming over the crest, a mile or two to the south of where the Talinese had first appeared. A lot more. It seemed Orso had kept a few surprises back. Reinforcements from his Union allies, maybe. Monza worked her sore tongue around her sour mouth and spat. From faint hopes to no hopes. A small step, but one nobody ever enjoys taking. The leading flags caught a gust of wind and unfurled for a moment. She peered at them through her eyeglass, frowned, rubbed her eye and peered again. There was no mistaking the cockleshell of Sipani.

“Sipanese,” she muttered. Until a few moments ago, the world’s most neutral men. “Why the hell are they fighting for Orso?”

“Who says they are?” When she turned to Rogont, he was smiling like a thief who’d whipped the fattest purse of his career. He spread his arms out wide. “Rejoice, Murcatto! The miracle you asked for!”

She blinked. “They’re on our side?”

“Most certainly, and right in Foscar’s rear! And the irony is that it’s all your doing.”

“Mine?”

“Entirely yours! You remember the conference in Sipani, arranged by that preening mope the King of the Union?”

The great procession through the crowded streets, the cheering as Rogont and Salier led the way, the jeering as Ario and Foscar followed. “What of it?”

“I had no more intention of making peace with Ario and Foscar than they had with me. My only care was to talk old Chancellor Sotorius over to my side. I tried to convince him that if the League of Eight lost then Duke Orso’s greed would not end at Sipani’s borders, however neutral they might be. That once my young head was off, his ancient one would be next on the block.”

More than likely true. Neutrality was no better defence against Orso than it was against the pox. His ambitions had never stopped at one river or the next. One reason why, until the moment he’d tried to kill her, he’d made Monza such a fine employer.