“Please.” And Rikke nudged Savine with a sharp elbow. “When you came to visit me in Uffrith you had him saddled like a pony.” She beamed around at the gathering, showing every one of those fine teeth again. “Now everyone admires you. Envies you. Loves you. The Darling of the Slums! When they talk o’ you, your girls May and Liddy can’t find praise high enough.”

“You are all far too kind,” said Savine.

“But it’s not your soldiers on every street corner, is it?”

And Rikke snapped her fan out between them and glided away, taking the last word with her.

For now, at least.

Leo felt a bit of an outsider at his own party.

It should have been a palace function where he finally felt at home. It was his home now, after all. He’d earned it. He’d won it. And it was full of Northmen. The feel of the gardens was closer to the Dogman’s old hall in Uffrith than the stuffy receptions of King Jezal’s reign.

But the blunt Northern accents and the bluff Northern laughter only made him think of how he used to be. That fearless, generous, reckless young fool who could run all day and never tire, who could beat all his friends with their choice of weapons, who stood not far from this spot after he won a duel against Stour Nightfall, loved and admired by all. The Young Lion! A hero with the world at his two good feet! By the dead, he missed that man. He made the one hand that worked into a fist so tight the knuckles clicked. Felt the unpleasant tingling in the other as the fingers twitched in sympathy inside his jacket.

He watched Rikke strut away from Savine, both of them smiling like warmer words were never said. His old lover and his new. Or two old lovers, maybe. Wasn’t much affection between him and the Lady Regent these days. Since she helped Orso escape, any warm feelings were strictly for the benefit of observers.

It reminded him of his parents’ marriage, towards the end. A lie it suited everyone to pretend was true, even years later. Maybe everyone follows in their parents’ footsteps, doomed to blunder into the same mistakes like a blind man into furniture. All our paths set before birth, inevitable, like Curnsbick’s useless fucking cart, only running on the rails it’s given. The only choice you have is how fast you’ll roll to the end of the line. A depressing thought. Leo was having a lot of those, lately.

It wasn’t as if he was left alone. The maggots kept coming, to smile, bow, flatter, always with that needy nervousness in their eyes, that oily fear in their voices, always trying to winkle something from him. It made him sick, their petty selfishness, their blinkered greed. He was covered from morning till night in a grease of lies there was no scrubbing off. But that’s what you’re left with once you’ve led your real friends to their deaths.