Does know, she reminds herself, when her confidence falters under the weight of eyes on her, eyes that see her fine armor and her seat at the king’s right hand. They’re listening to her, but perhaps they shouldn’t. Perhaps she’s lost the taste; she hasn’t seen any terrors lately.

The king doesn’t let her get close.

She feels his eyes on her most of all, and so Voyne doesn’t add the more damning rebuttal to the loyalists’ argument that is burning a hole in her breast: that there has been no sign of a relief force, and the chance of them ever leaving these stone walls is so small she can no longer see it.

There will be no taking back the fields, with treasonous hands or not.

Today’s riot is just the beginning.

They were not meant to be pinned down in Aymar, though of course it was constructed for just such a possibility, a strong spur castle on a ridge manned by Ser Leodegardis, his brothers, his household. A garrison of not inconsiderable strength, managed and provisioned well. But even Aymar has its limitations, and feeding so many refugees and knights and servants for six months was never going to be possible, and that is before they consider that the king is here in residence with them with his own sizable retinue. The farms beyond the walls have all been torched and squatted on and turned to shit, and the kitchen gardens, while extensive, have now been picked bare of even the autumn-bearing crops, far too soon. The stores have sustained them this far, but only due to a miscalculation, because they’d all hoped they would be gone long before now.

Relief was supposed to arrive a month ago.

Instead, they are stalemated. They have fended off rounds of attacks from Etrebia, but they have destroyed few of their rams and towers, only fought back hard enough to make them bide their time out of range. Etrebia’s men are entrenched and willing to wait for resupply. Aymar’s inhabitants are prepared only to starve.

Voyne sees all of this, and is furious, and wants nothing more than to ride out herself and force her way through to victory. Instead, she puts down riots and sits at her liege’s side, spoiling for a fight she must not start.

“We need to send another messenger,” Ser Leodegardis says from the king’s other side, fists clenching on the table as he resists the urge to bury his head in his hands. He, too, feels the weight, but he bears it better. “Before our strength begins to fail. The descent—”

“Is too treacherous,” his cousin, Ser Galleren, snaps. “Why do you think the relief has not come? Every single person we have sent down the cliffside has either died or been captured.”