“Indeed,” croaked Morveer.

Orso glanced sideways at the man with the curly hair. “I congratulate you on the achievement. Though it has been the cause of some considerable discomfort to me and my associates. Pray explain why I should not have you killed for it.”

Morveer attempted to pass it off with a vivacious chuckle, but it died a slow death in the chilly vastness of the hall. “I… er… had no notion, of course, that you were in any way to be discomfited. None. Really, it was all due to a regrettable failing, or indeed a wilful oversight, deliberate dishonesty, a lie, even, on the part of my cursed assistant that I took the job in the first place. I should never have trusted that greedy bitch…” He realised he was doing himself no good by blaming the dead. Great men want living people to hold responsible, that they might have them tortured, hanged, beheaded and so forth. Corpses offer no recompense. He swiftly changed tack. “I was but the tool, your Excellency. Merely the weapon. A weapon I now offer for your own hand to wield, as you see fit.” He bowed again, even lower this time, muscles in his rump, already sore from climbing the cursed mountainside to Fontezarmo, trembling in their efforts to prevent him from pitching on his face.

“You seek a new employer?”

“Murcatto proved as treacherous towards me as she did towards your illustrious Lordship. The woman is a snake indeed. Twisting, poisonous and… scaly,” he finished lamely. “I was lucky to escape her toxic clutches with my life, and now seek redress. I am prepared to seek it most earnestly, and will not be denied!”

“Redress would be a fine thing for us all,” murmured the man with the curly hair. “News of Murcatto’s survival spreads through Talins like wildfire. Papers bearing her face on every wall.” A fact, Morveer had seen them as he passed through the city. “They say you stabbed her through the heart but she lived, your Excellency.”

The duke snorted. “Had I stabbed her, I would never have aimed for her heart. Without doubt her least vulnerable organ.”

“They say you burned her, drowned her, cut her into quarters and tossed them from your balcony, but she was stitched back together and lived again. They say she killed two hundred men at the fords of the Sulva. That she charged alone into your ranks and scattered them like chaff on the wind.”

“The stamp of Rogont’s theatrics,” hissed the duke through gritted teeth. “That bastard was born to be an author of cheap fantasies rather than a ruler of men. We will hear next that Murcatto has sprouted wings and given birth to the second coming of Euz!”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Bills are posted on every street corner proclaiming her an instrument of the Fates, sent to deliver Styria from your tyranny.”

“Tyrant, now?” The duke barked a grim chuckle. “How quickly the wind shifts in the modern age!”