‘I was fairly beaten.’

Bayaz leaned close. ‘You were beaten, anyway, which is all that really counts, eh?’ And he slapped Gorst on the arm as if they had shared a private joke, though if they had it was private to Bayaz alone. ‘I thought you were with the Knights of the Body? Were you not guarding the king at the Battle of Adua?’

Gorst felt himself colouring. I was, as everyone here well knows, but now I am nothing but a wretched scapegoat, used and discarded like some stuttering serving girl by his lordship’s caddish youngest son. Now I am—

‘Colonel Gorst is here as the king’s observer,’ ventured Kroy, seeing his discomfort.

‘Of course!’ Bayaz snapped his fingers. ‘After that business in Sipani.’

Gorst’s face burned as though the city’s very name was a slap. Sipani. And as simply as that the best part of him was where he spent so much of his time: four years ago, back in the madness of Cardotti’s House of Leisure. Stumbling through the smoke, searching desperately for the king, reaching the staircase, seeing that masked face – and then the long, bouncing trip down the stairs, into unjust disgrace. He saw smirks among the over-bright smear of faces the room had suddenly become. He opened his dry mouth but, as usual, nothing of any use emerged.

‘Ah, well.’ The Magus gave Gorst’s shoulder the kind of consoling pat one might give to a guard dog long ago gone blind, and occasionally tossed a bone for sentimental reasons. ‘Perhaps you can work your way back into the king’s good graces.’

Depend upon it, you arcane fuck-hole, if I must spill every drop of blood in the North. ‘Perhaps,’ Gorst managed to whisper.

But Bayaz had already drawn out a chair and was steepling his fingers before him. ‘So! The situation, Lord Marshal?’

Kroy jerked the front of his jacket smooth as he advanced on the great map, so large it had been folded at the edges to fit on the biggest wall of the mean little building. ‘General Jalenhorm’s division is here, to our west.’ Paper crackled as Kroy’s stick hissed over it. ‘He is pushing northwards, firing crops and villages in the hope of drawing the Northmen into battle.’

Bayaz looked bored. ‘Mmmm.’

‘Meanwhile Lord Governor Meed’s division, accompanied by the majority of the Dogman’s loyalists, have marched southeast to take Ollensand under siege. General Mitterick’s division remains between the two.’ Tap, tap, stick on paper, ruthlessly precise. ‘Ready to lend support to either one. The route of supply runs south towards Uffrith over poor roads, no more than tracks, really, but we are—’

‘Of course.’ Bayaz rendered it all irrelevant with a wave of one meaty hand. ‘I have not come to interfere in the details.’

Kroy’s stick hovered uselessly. ‘Then—’

‘Imagine yourself a master mason, Lord Marshal, working upon one turret of a grand palace. A craftsman whose dedication, skill and attention to detail are disputed by no one.’