Leo’s mother put her wrinkled nose close to Harod’s blankets. “His August Majesty has soiled himself.”

“I understand his great-grandfather King Guslav was prone to do the same,” said Savine, and she scooped him into her arms and swept from the room.

“I wish your father had lived to see them.” Leo’s mother dabbed at teary eyes. “He doted on you. Always saying how proud he was of his son.”

That was the story they always told, but Leo remembered it differently. His father had never been there, and when he had been he was stiff and distant, and when Leo needed love he’d got empty sayings about being a man, and dry rot about the principles of the Union.

He remembered waking scared in the night, and he couldn’t find the pot, so he’d pissed in the cupboard. When his father found out he had refused to speak to him for a week. As soon as he could he’d sent Leo off to Adua, then to Uffrith, where the Dogman had been more of a father to him than his own ever was.

He wanted to say it all. To puke up his resentments. He had his mouth open to do it. But why bother? The past isn’t made of facts, not really, just stories people tell to make themselves feel better. To make themselves look better. Everyone was at it. Savine was the bloody queen of it, the Darling of the Slums herself. He wondered what myths that worm Sworbreck was already spinning about the past vile and bloody year. He took another heavy swig from his glass.

“What is it, Leo? You seem… sulky.”

It was only then he realised how much he’d wanted her approval. A man who’d made himself one of the most powerful in the Circle of the World, still endlessly trying and failing to impress his mother. The Lord Regent of the Union, jealous of his own babies.

“Isn’t this what you were always telling me to do?” he demanded. “To be shrewd? To be prudent? Isn’t this what Savine was always telling me to do? To be ruthless? To be ambitious? Then I do it and somehow I’ve let you all down!”

“Leo, don’t be ridiculous—”

“I saved the fucking Union!” he snarled, lifting his glass to fling it against the wall, stopping himself at the last moment so all he managed was to pour wine down his sleeve. “Isn’t this what you wanted for me? To be a hero?” He took a step towards her, twisted his iron leg and tottered sideways, gasping with pain.

“Leo, please.” She caught him. Held him. Laid her firm hand on his face. “I know I pushed you. I know I lectured you. I know I was too hard. I’m sorry for all of that. Perhaps you’ll see now you have children of your own… being a parent… there is no plan. It’s just a set of mistakes you hardly notice making. Please believe me…” She winced at his iron leg, as if she felt the pain of it. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”