Last of all, Orden inspected the treasury. The Duke had stocked it with a surprising amount of gold blanks, used for striking coin. King Orden studied the stamps—which bore Sylvarresta’s image on the front and the Seven Stones on the back.

It seemed odd that the Duke should be striking coins. A balancing scale sat on the floor, and Orden took a golden coin from his own pocket, placed it on one pan of the scale, then placed the Duke’s blank on the other pan of the scale.

The blank was light. Whether it had been shaved too small, or whether it was light because the gold had been mixed with zinc or tin, King Orden could not tell.

But it was clear that the Duke of Longmot had been a counterfeiter before he’d turned traitor. “Scurvy-infested dog!” Orden muttered.

“Milord?” one of his captains asked.

“Go cut down the carcass of the Duke of Longmot. Cut through the intestines that keep him hanging from the keep, then fling the corpse into the moat.”

“Milord?” the captain asked. It seemed a singularly disrespectful way to treat the dead.

“Do it!” Orden said. “The man doesn’t deserve another night of royal hospitality.”

“Yes, milord,” the captain answered, rushing off.

After touring the Dedicates’ Keep, Orden decided not to tour the others in the castle. The manors for the Duke and his lords seemed paltry. Orden saw no sense in guarding them.

Besides, it would be better to concentrate his men on the outer walls. Longmot was so narrow that an archer on the east wall could shoot the hundred yards to the west wall, which meant that if enemy soldiers managed to breach one wall, numerous defenders could still fire on them.

Fifteen hundred men, maybe sixteen hundred. That was all King Orden had at the moment. He’d sent messengers to Groverman and Dreis, hoped for reinforcements. Perhaps Borenson would return with most of his army intact.

But they would have to get here soon. Reinforcements that did not arrive before dawn would not get in.

King Orden had finished inspecting the Dedicates’ Keep when Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess’s aide-de-camp, came to meet him, followed by a Days, a plump woman of middle age. Captain Tempest was a stout man, with thick curly brown hair cropped close. He carried his helm in hand, a sign of respect, but did not bow on meeting King Orden. For a flicker of a second, Orden felt slighted, then realized this man was acting lord of the castle. As such, by right, he did not need to bow.

Instead, Tempest reached out to shake hands at the wrist, as an equal. “Your Highness, we are happy to receive you, and offer you and your men such comforts as we can. But I fear there may be a battle soon. Raj Ahten has an army advancing from the south.”