“You all right?” muttered Hildi, looking worried.

Orso was shuddering with mirth now, laughter echoing about the chamber. No one else looked amused. The Chairman especially.

“Perhaps His Majesty might explain what he finds so amusing?”

“What don’t I?” Orso’s eyes swam with tears. “Your grand experiment? Your wondrous new system? Believe me, no one liked the old way of doing things less than I, but my forebears ran the Union for six centuries. You’ll be lucky if you make it six months.”

“Captain Broad! We cannot have this cavalier disrespect for our Assembly!”

Broad wearily nudged his lenses up his nose and began to trudge towards the royal enclosure.

Orso jumped up. “Are we not all equal here?” He addressed the public gallery in a wailing mockery of Sworbreck’s overwrought delivery. “Does not every Citizen deserve an equal chance to speak? Even so base a creature as a king?”

“Let him talk!” someone shouted.

“Let him talk himself into a noose!”

“I begin to wish you’d follow through on your threats!” called Orso. Bravery had descended inexplicably upon him, as it had at Stoffenbeck. Bravery born of fear, boredom, frustration and at least a little drunkenness. Far from heroic ingredients, to be sure, but no one asks what went into the pie so long as the results taste well. “You’ve hanged a good many decent people already! I’d rather join them than suffer this chorus of flatterers, thugs and hypocrites.”

“How dare you?” But Risinau’s voice was more plaintive whine than outraged roar. “We are shaping the future!”

Orso almost sympathised. “Take it from a man who’s been there, you’re the figurehead on a ship of fools. I daresay there are good people here, and good intentions. You had a chance to make things better and, believe it or not, no one looked forward to seeing it more than I did. But you haven’t achieved a damn thing. I know this is rich coming from me, but… you’re simply poor quality. You’re a worthless bag of bluster. A spent match.”

“Never thought I’d agree with His fucking Majesty.”

There was a rustling as the Representatives turned to stare towards the top of the aisle. One could make many criticisms of Judge, but never that she didn’t make an entrance. She came stalking down the steps between the benches with all the swagger of a champion to the fencing circle, her stolen chains scraping her breastplate, her red hair greased into a flaming crest, the flinty point to a spearhead of grim-faced, hard-handed, red-clothed men. Her black eyes swept the benches with the kind of burning purpose the Assembly had been sorely lacking, but Orso felt far from relieved as her gaze fell upon him.

“Sit down, Citizen Orso,” she said.

Orso sat.

Judge stopped before the High Table, hands on hips and her bare feet planted wide. “I have watched the fucking pantomime in this ill-behaved nursery with growing disgust,” she said.

“Aye!” growled the Burners, in echoing unison.