Sparks plucked helplessly at Broad’s wrists, clawed at his red-smeared breastplate with his fingernails, made this hissing, squealing groan, eyes bulging as his skull was twisted further and further around.

“I should pop your fucking head off,” said Broad. Not some wild, hissing threat. Just a dull observation. Bored, almost.

“Come on, Bull,” said Sarlby. “He’s a fucking idiot, aye, but if that’s a crime we’ll all be for the drop, eh?”

Broad let go, and Sparks tumbled off the plinth and knelt, blowing bloody bubbles from his nose, clutching at his neck.

“We are all for the drop,” said Broad, and he stomped up the steps of the court. Told himself he’d lost control a moment. Stopped himself before he did something he’d regret. That was better’n the alternative. That he’d loved every moment of it and would’ve regretted nothing if he’d snapped Sparks’s neck apart.

Court was over, the galleries emptied, the last few Representatives making their way through the foyer, where the marble walls were smeared with streaked slogans, red paint turned black by candlelight. Broad shouldered through ’em, glaring. He was in a fighting mood. He always was.

Bannerman was standing guard in the anteroom, sneer on his face and red paint all up his sleeves. Wasn’t long ago he’d been beating labourers for Savine dan Brock. Now he’d joined the Burners and was beating aristocrats for Judge and taking equal pleasure in his work. Chances are that men who’ll hurt folk for one master won’t flinch at hurting folk for another. It’s a job. A potter doesn’t need a grand cause to shape his clay for, does he? Why hold a thug to a higher standard?

Broad thought about punching him in the face. But then he thought about that with everyone now, more or less. They didn’t speak to each other. Didn’t acknowledge each other. What was there to say?

“Bastard,” Broad muttered to himself, then nearly tripped over his own feet. Damn, he was drunk, but damn, he wasn’t drunk enough. It was sixty-five since dawn. In case anyone was asking. They’d done twenty just after sunup who’d been convicted last night, in the dark. He pulled his lenses off, squeezed at the bridge of his nose. Squeezed it so hard it hurt. At least in Styria there’d been an enemy. Now the enemy was all around. The enemy was everyone. The enemy was yourself.

“Hard day.” Judge sat in her chair, the chair Risinau once sat in, the chair the king once sat in, the chair she gave the judgements from, passed the sentences from, one bare foot up on the hammer-battered table. She’d a husk-pipe in her hand, and she took a long pull from it and blew out a great plume of sweet-smelling smoke that tickled at the back of Broad’s throat, made him want to cough, made him want to puke, made him want to rip at his face with his nails. She let her head drop back, long, thin throat stretched out, and he could swear he saw the thick veins pulsing.