“You all reckon I’m mad, don’t you?” she said, letting smoke spill from her nose in brown plumes like a dragon.

There was a nervous silence. Jurand cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t say—”

“Being mad has its uses. Or having people think you’re mad does. They don’t see you coming. King Orso saw you coming at Stoffenbeck, didn’t he, Young Lion?”

“He did,” said Leo. “From a thousand miles away. A painful lesson. One I’ll never need to learn again.”

“They’re the best kind. Risinau thought I was mad. Still a few bits of him spattered about the moat, I expect. So much for madness. So much for sanity.” She offered out the pipe. “Smoke?”

“I should keep a clear head.”

“Good idea.” She spun the pipe across the floor, leaving a trail of smoking ash. “Very… sane.”

The dead help him, Leo thought he could still hear those people fucking. Or killing each other. Maybe it was a different set.

Jurand cleared his throat again. “I understand… there has been another defeat. In the east.”

“Mmm,” grunted Judge. “Forest got the better of the People’s Army yet again. General Cutler and a few of his losing officers are being dragged back to Adua to be tried for treason. Seems giving little men big men’s shoes doesn’t make ’em big. Just makes ’em trip over.” She let her head drop to one side. “Now Forest and his traitors are marching for Adua to put our dunce of a king back on the throne, would you believe. Quite the military muddle. Seems the Great Change is in need of a hero to save it.” Her brows went up as though the idea had only now occurred. “How’re you fixed, Young Lion? Keen to get back in the saddle?”

For some months now, in fact, and especially since Vick dan Teufel’s recent visit, but Leo tried not to let his desires lead him about by the nose any more. “If I’m called on to defend the Great Change,” he said calmly, “I’ll do my duty.”

“Huh.” The corner of Judge’s mouth curled up. “D’you know why they call me Judge? It’s quite the story. Have some fucking tea, really.” And she settled back into her cushions and propped one bare foot up onto the table, staring thoughtfully up at the Master Maker.

And Leo realised with a cold start that her gown had fallen open and given half the room a full view of her ginger quim. He couldn’t tell if she’d done it on purpose, but something about the way she stuck it so carelessly in his face faintly terrified him. There was nothing he wanted to see less, but somehow he had to keep steering his eyes away.

“I don’t know who my parents were,” she mused, wriggling her toes. “Settlers in the Far Country, maybe. But they were killed when I was a child, and I was stolen by the Ghosts. Raised by the Ghosts. In the clan of Great Sangeed, the Emperor of the Plains.”