“I’m not much of a baker.”

“But I bet you know how to find one.”

“I guess.” And she wiped her cheek on the back of her hand. He wondered whether she knew he was lying. Probably. Only the most committed optimist could imagine he would live out the hour, and neither of them qualified. “You still owe me money,” she grunted.

“I’ll have to pay you back later,” said Orso, giving her shoulder a parting pat. “Left my purse inside.”

If he lingered any longer he might think better of the whole thing, and right now they all needed to see some kingly composure. This would likely be his last chance to show any, after all. It would be a shame to waste it. So he straightened his jacket and crunched on across the gravel paths, so perfectly raked you would think no one had ever stepped on them before. Nice to see that standards were still being maintained. He felt strangely calm, now. As he had in Stoffenbeck, when the cannon-stones were raining down around him.

The shouts outside the gate had resolved into a kind of chant. “Bring…

out… the king! Bring… out… the king!” The rhythm was marked with crashes of metal, with screams and laughter, with a stomping of boots, so many and so hard they seemed to make the ground shake. “Bring… out… the king!”

He wondered if there had been some choice he made, or didn’t. Some way to avoid this. If there had, it had passed without his even noticing. Probably he had been worrying about his mother, or the hook at his collar, or what people thought of him. He wished he had been a touch more purposeful. But people are what they are.

He puffed out his cheeks. “Open the gates, please, Colonel Gorst.”

Gorst only stared.

“I understand,” said Orso gently. “And I release you from any and all oaths. You are no longer my First Guard.”

Gorst’s eyes had a strangely lost expression. “What am I, then?”

“I suppose… that’s up to you.” In the last few moments before they were torn to pieces by the mob, anyway. “It’s time.”

Gorst swallowed, then turned and screeched, “Open the gates!” However often you heard that voice, you never quite got used to it.

The bars were lifted, the bolts were pulled and a slit of light showed between the great doors. The chanting fell silent as they swung open to reveal a row of staring faces. People stumbled, off balance, at the pressure from those behind. Orso faced them alone, head held high. King’s circlet on his brow. Jewelled sword at his side. Cloak stitched with the golden sun of the Union about his shoulders. A vision of majesty.

The rioters’ weapons drooped as he strode towards them. A couple went so far as to slip them behind their backs, as though vaguely embarrassed by their presence. In eerie silence Orso walked forward, his heart thudding but his face kept carefully nonchalant, until he stood in the very archway. Close enough that if he, and they, had reached out, their fingers might have touched.