We have to get a grip.”

It seemed obvious good sense to him, but his mother looked more dismayed than ever. “We have to show strength, but… surely we need friends before we look for more enemies—”

“You know I never looked for enemies!” He turned sourly back to the window. “I just beat the ones who looked for me.”

He did some watery smiling, some half-hearted waving, but there weren’t many people on the Middleway. If the Lady Regent had been in the carriage no doubt they’d have packed in a dozen deep. They pissed themselves for the so-called Mother of the Nation and barely spared a thought for the man who’d actually got the job done. But there it was. Being a hero had always been a thankless task. You did it because it was right, not for the prizes.

“How is Savine?” asked his mother.

“Very popular,” he said, grudgingly. “Have you had the bloody pamphlets up in Angland? Savine, bare-breasted in the Court of the People, shielding her babies from the spears of the Burners. Savine, duelling with Judge on the roof of the Tower of Chains and throwing her down like your bloody friend Bayaz threw down the Master Maker. Savine, bringing shelter to the orphans, bread to the starving, hope to the hopeless. The Darling of the Slums! The Mother of the Nation!” He gave a snort. “Anyone would think she ended the Great Change single-handed.”

His mother raised one brow. “I seem to remember a few mildly exaggerated songs sung of your victories, up in the North. She has been through a lot.”

If that was meant to make him less annoyed, it failed. “We both have,” he grunted.

“It can be difficult, when children appear. Your father and I didn’t couple for months after you were born.”

“Must you?”

“Well, it’s true. You cried all the time. You’d only sleep in bed with me. It can change things, in a marriage, that’s all I’m saying.”

“She blames me,” he said, slumping in his seat. He’d never been able to hide anything from his mother for long. “She blames me for everything. For making our son a king. For making her wildest ambitions come true. For bringing order back to the Union. For everything.”

His mother raised the other brow. “And is it your fault?”

“Ten breaths off the boat and you’re taking her side?”

“It’s a marriage, Leo. There shouldn’t be sides.”

“Feels like there are, though.” He frowned out of the window at the lonely well-wishers. “And everyone’s on hers.”

Savine had wasted no time making herself at home in the palace she so resented Leo for providing. She’d worked her usual magic on a set of rooms even more cavernous than the ones they’d lived in before the Great Change. Rooms on the ground floor, since Leo was scarcely friendlier with stairs these days than Arch Lector Glokta used to be.

“Your grandfather!” said Leo’s mother, one hand to her chest as she gazed up at the huge canvas of Lord Marshal Kroy glaring towards victory.