The family quarters of the Counts were splendid but not ostentatious by the upper nobility’s standards. Subtle signs showed recent modifications, including more locally made post-Change work, including several small elegant bronzes of wildlife, probably to mark the switch from the first count to his son—or to his son’s wife, which was often the case. A library-study full of wood paneling and leather furniture and glass-fronted bookcases showed the first signs of the attack; bodies being carried away, blood, furniture overturned and scorch marks where fires started by overset lanterns had been hastily stamped out. The broad windows needed for light were probably why the enemy had picked this room for entry.

Tiphaine pursed her lips. “I’m glad I advised him to go overboard on numbers,” she said, absently rubbing the back of her right hand.

Rigobert jerked his blond head in agreement. “I can think of a lot of operations which failed because not enough force was used,” he said. “But other things being equal—timing mainly, and concealment—I can’t think of a single damned one that failed because too much force was used. Subtle buys no bread.”

Tiphaine nodded. A pair of crossbowmen were being given emergency care near the big doors from the library into the rest of the suite, and another lying on his back looked as if someone had grabbed his helmeted head and twisted until he was looking out over his shoulder blades. She bared her teeth.

Heard about that before, she thought.

Through a corridor, with two dead Cutters in it; these ones had shetes, the broad-tipped slashing swords favored in the far interior, and they were wearing cloth masks that covered everything but the eyes. Next was a door with firing loopholes that had been hit so hard that it sagged on one hinge; she bent slightly to check as she went by. The pattern of splintering around the lock confirmed what she’d thought; someone had slammed their hand into it.

“They thought they could pin them in this corridor and shoot them down,” Rigobert said thoughtfully. “Didn’t work, for some reason.”

“Their point man broke the trap open from the inside,” Tiphaine said.

Rigobert’s fair brows went up. The chamber beyond was some sort of social space. Probably mainly a ballroom, judging from the superb parquet floor and the mirrors and spindly tables around the edge and the brilliantly lit crystal gas-chandeliers above. This was where the killing had mainly been, pitilessly illuminated by the lights designed to bring out jewels and bright cloth; her nostrils flared at the familiar scents, and the floors were never going to be the same. The local dead had been dragged out and laid in a row with their arms folded, and she saw stretchers disappearing out the other side of the big chamber as she entered.