Lord Chancellor Gorodets drew himself up to his full height. Not a very impressive height, but Orso appreciated the effort. “Every man here would die for you, Your Majesty.”

Certainly there were plenty of square jaws firmly set on the palace battlements. Knights of the Body and Knights Herald, the elite of the elite. But one could discern a stiffening undercurrent of doubt behind the heroic façade. Laying down one’s life for one’s king sounds very fine in principle, but when it comes to actually doing it, and one realises one has just the single life to give, enthusiasm understandably wanes.

“I’d rather they didn’t have to,” said Orso. “Besides, there are plenty of ladies about the palace, too.” He glanced at Hildi, doing her very best to look fearless, and forced out a grin. “It would be most ungallant to ask them to sacrifice themselves. Further violence will achieve nothing anyway.” He thought again of the charming stretch of countryside he had transformed into a mass grave and shook himself. “I’m not sure it ever does.”

“You must not despair, Your Majesty!” Lord Hoff wrung his hands. “Thirty years ago, when your father was newly crowned, the city fell to the Gurkish.”

“A far more fearsome enemy than this rabble!” croaked Lord Marshal Rucksted, whose appearance had degraded far past artfully rugged and into the realm of total disarray.

“Eaters, Your Majesty! Inside the Agriont. Inside the very palace.”

“I remember my father telling me the story,” said Orso. He remembered his mother looking enormously bored during it, too.

“He never gave up!” Rucksted slapped fist into palm. “The Gurkish were driven out! The Eaters vanquished! We can still—”

“The Gurkish were driven out by my grandfather, Grand Duke Orso, and by Lord Marshal West and his loyal troops, freshly embarked from Angland.” Orso raised one brow. “My grandfather was killed long ago by the Serpent of Talins, the Anglanders have rebelled against us already, and Lord Marshal Forest is retreating eastwards, hard-pressed, with the few loyal troops that remain. We beat the Gurkish, but…” Orso waved a helpless hand towards the crowds beyond the wall. “How can the Union beat itself?”

Hoff stared about, mouth open, as if searching for a counterargument. Orso patted his fur-trimmed arm. He had never really liked the man, but he felt sorry for him now. He, after all, loved the monarchy more than anything. Orso had never much cared for it.

“As for the Eaters,” he went on, “it was the First of the Magi who dealt with them, and he destroyed half the Agriont doing it. Bayaz is noticeable by his absence today. Even Master Sulfur appears to have pressing business elsewhere.” Orso looked towards the House of the Maker, rising stark and black and decidedly unhelpful beyond the Agriont’s walls. “I fear the age of wizards is truly over. And one does wonder, after all, whether their price was ever really worth paying.”

“Then…” Lord Chancellor Gorodets hesitantly licked his lips. “What?”