Brock had the men and the weapons. He had anyone loyal to Orso locked up along with him. He had the lords firmly on his side, and had no doubt gathered a pliant rump of Representatives around them. Anyone likely to oppose him was weeded out as a traitor, the rest falling over themselves to disinherit Orso and bow down before their new infant king, son of a bastard or no.

Orso served up another sigh. In truth, he could hardly blame them. He was the son of a bastard himself, after all. And people were desperate, exhausted, sick of chaos, sick of fear. He would have happily voted for anything that brought the Great Change to an end himself. It was just a shame for him that this ending almost certainly meant his death.

Leo dan Brock had stuck his son on the throne and that, quite obviously, left nowhere for Orso to sit. The Breakers and Burners had reckoned one king too many, but even he had to admit that two was. As long as he was alive he would be a guilty secret. Not to mention an open enticement to rebellion. He came weighed down with compromises, enmities, disappointments. Baby Harod carried no baggage. He was all rosy cheeks, fresh starts and limitless potential.

Orso shuffled a couple of dead flies across his windowsill with the side of his hand. It would be done discreetly, he imagined. A midnight garotte? A quiet three-man knifing? Poison, perhaps, in his water? When Brock had tightened his grip sufficiently. When he had done the deals, arranged the bribes, won over everyone he could and silenced the rest, and brought some semblance of longed-for peace back to Adua. With Savine to help him it would not take long. No one drove a harder bargain than she, after all.

He heard bolts rattle and turned to face the opening door with as much dignity as he could muster.

And there she was, in the doorway.

She had given up on wigs. Her dark hair was clipped short, the way it had been at the trial, showing the scar on her forehead, the fading marks of her fight with Judge. It made her look both oddly vulnerable and oddly powerful at once. White was her colour now, but today’s dress was a very different affair from the one she had worn at her trial, pearls and silver thread glittering as she moved with even more than her usual poise.

She looked like a queen. As much as Orso’s mother ever had.

It took him a moment to find his voice. “I am… almost as honoured as I am surprised.” He brushed those dead flies onto the floor. “If I had known the Lady Regent was visiting I would have dusted. I fumble for the proper term of address…”

“Your Highness,” she said, simply.

“Most becoming. I’m not sure how one refers to a deposed king. Am I deposed? Or retired? Or simply… unmentionable?”