The Great Leveller Read online

  Benna puckered his lips at her. ‘I love nothing more of a morning than a faceful of his Excellency’s rich, round buttocks. They taste like . . . power.’

  Hooves crunched on the dusty track, saddles creaked and harness rattled. The road turned back on itself, and again. The rest of the world dropped away below them. The eastern sky bled out from red to butchered pink. The river crept slowly into view, winding through the autumn woods in the base of the steep valley. Glittering like an army on the march, flowing swift and merciless towards the sea. Towards Talins.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘My share of the compliments, of course.’

  ‘If your head swells any further it’ll fucking burst.’ She twitched her silken cuffs up. ‘And I don’t want your brains on my new shirt.’

  ‘Stabbed!’ Benna clutched one hand to his chest. ‘Right here! Is this how you repay my years of devotion, you heartless bitch?’

  ‘How dare you presume to be devoted to me, peasant? You’re like a tick devoted to a tiger!’

  ‘Tiger? Hah! When they compare you to an animal they usually pick a snake.’

  ‘Better than a maggot.’

  ‘Whore.’

  ‘Coward.’

  ‘Murderer.’

  She could hardly deny that one. Silence settled on them again. A bird trilled from a thirsty tree beside the road.

  Benna’s horse drew gradually up beside hers, and ever so gently he murmured, ‘You look especially beautiful this morning, Monza.’

  That brought a smile to the corner of her mouth. The corner he couldn’t see. ‘Well. Facts are facts.’

  She spurred round one more steep bend, and the outermost wall of the citadel thrust up ahead of them. A narrow bridge crossed a dizzy ravine to the gatehouse, water sparkling as it fell away beneath. At the far end an archway yawned, welcoming as a grave.

  ‘They’ve strengthened the walls since last year,’ muttered Benna. ‘I wouldn’t fancy trying to storm the place.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you’d have the guts to climb the ladder.’

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy telling someone else to storm the place.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you’d have the guts to give the orders.’

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy watching you tell someone else to storm the place.’

  ‘No.’ She leaned gingerly from her saddle and frowned down at the plummeting drop on her left. Then she peered up at the sheer wall on her right, battlements a jagged black edge against the brightening sky. ‘It’s almost as if Orso’s worried someone might try to kill him.’

  ‘He’s got enemies?’ breathed Benna, eyes round as saucers with mock amazement.

  ‘Only half of Styria.’

  ‘Then . . . we’ve got enemies?’

  ‘More than half of Styria.’

  ‘But I’ve tried so hard to be popular . . .’ They trotted between two dour-faced soldiers, spears and steel caps polished to a murderous glint. Hoofbeats echoed in the darkness of the long tunnel, sloping gradually upwards. ‘You have that look, now.’

  ‘What look?’

  ‘No more fun today.’

  ‘Huh.’ She felt the familiar frown gripping her face. ‘You can afford to smile. You’re the good one.’

  It was a different world beyond the gates, air heavy with lavender, shining green after the grey mountainside. A world of close-clipped lawns, of hedges tortured into wondrous shapes, of fountains throwing up glittering spray. Grim guardsmen, the black cross of Talins stitched into their white surcoats, spoiled the mood at every doorway.

  ‘Monza . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s make this the last season on campaign,’ Benna wheedled. ‘The last summer in the dust. Let’s find something more comfortable to do. Now, while we’re young.’

  ‘What about the Thousand Swords? Closer to ten thousand now, all looking to us for orders.’

  ‘They can look elsewhere. They joined us for plunder and we’ve given them plenty. They’ve no loyalty beyond their own profit.’

  She had to admit the Thousand Swords had never represented the best of mankind, or even the best of mercenaries. Most of them were a step above the criminal. Most of the rest were a step below. But that wasn’t the point. ‘You have to stick at something in your life,’ she grunted.

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘That’s you all over. One more season and Visserine will fall, and Rogont will surrender, and the League of Eight will be just a bad memory. Orso can crown himself King of Styria, and we can melt away and be forgotten.’

  ‘We deserve to be remembered. We could have our own city. You could be the noble Duchess Monzcarro of . . . wherever—’

  ‘And you the fearless Duke Benna?’ She laughed at that. ‘You stupid arse. You can scarcely govern your own bowels without my help. War’s a dark enough trade, I draw the line at politics. Orso crowned, then we retire.’

  Benna sighed. ‘I thought we were mercenaries. Cosca never stuck to an employer like this.’

  ‘I’m not Cosca. And anyway, it’s not wise to say no to the Lord of Talins.’

  ‘You just love to fight.’

  ‘No. I love to win. Just one more season, then we can see the world. Visit the Old Empire. Tour the Thousand Isles. Sail to Adua and stand in the shadow of the House of the Maker. Everything we talked about.’ Benna pouted, just as he always did when he didn’t get his way. He pouted, but he never said no. It scratched at her, sometimes, that she always had to make the choices. ‘Since we’ve clearly only got one pair of balls between us, don’t you ever feel the need to borrow them yourself?’

  ‘They look better on you. Besides, you’ve got all the brains. It’s best they stay together.’

  ‘What do you get from the deal?’

  Benna grinned at her. ‘The winning smile.’

  ‘Smile, then. For one more season.’ She swung down from her saddle, jerked her sword belt straight, tossed the reins at the groom and strode for the inner gatehouse. Benna had to hurry to catch up, getting tangled with his own sword on the way. For a man who earned his living from war, he’d always been an embarrassment where weapons were concerned.

  The inner courtyard was split into wide terraces at the summit of the mountain, planted with exotic palms and even more heavily guarded than the outer. An ancient column said to come from the palace of Scarpius stood tall in the centre, casting a shimmering reflection in a round pool teeming with silvery fish. The immensity of glass, bronze and marble that was Duke Orso’s palace towered around it on three sides like a monstrous cat with a mouse between its paws. Since the spring they’d built a vast new wing along the northern wall, its festoons of decorative stonework still half-shrouded in scaffolding.

  ‘They’ve been building,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. How could Prince Ario manage with only ten halls for his shoes?’

  ‘A man can’t be fashionable these days without at least twenty rooms of footwear.’

  Benna frowned down at his own gold-buckled boots. ‘I’ve no more than thirty pairs all told. I feel my shortcomings most keenly.’

  ‘As do we all,’ she muttered. A half-finished set of statues stood along the roofline. Duke Orso giving alms to the poor. Duke Orso gifting knowledge to the ignorant. Duke Orso shielding the weak from harm.

  ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t got one of the whole of Styria tonguing his arse,’ whispered Benna in her ear.

  She pointed to a partly chiselled block of marble. ‘That’s next.’

  ‘Benna!’

  Count Foscar, Orso’s younger son, rushed around the pool like an eager puppy, shoes crunching on fresh-raked gravel, freckled face all lit up. He’d made an ill-advised attempt at a beard since Monza had last seen him but the sprinkling of sandy hairs only made him look more boyish. He might have inherited all the honesty in his family, but the looks had gone elsewhere. Benna grinned, threw one arm around Foscar’s shoulders and ruffled his hair. An insult from a
nyone else, from Benna it was effortlessly charming. He had a knack of making people happy that always seemed like magic to Monza. Her talents lay in the opposite direction.

  ‘Your father here yet?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, and my brother too. They’re with their banker.’

  ‘How’s his mood?’

  ‘Good, so far as I can tell, but you know my father. Still, he’s never angry with you two, is he? You always bring good news. You bring good news today, yes?’

  ‘Shall I tell him, Monza, or—’

  ‘Borletta’s fallen. Cantain’s dead.’

  Foscar didn’t celebrate. He hadn’t his father’s appetite for corpses. ‘Cantain was a good man.’

  That was a long way from the point, as far as Monza could see. ‘He was your father’s enemy.’

  ‘A man you could respect, though. There are precious few of them left in Styria. He’s really dead?’

  Benna blew out his cheeks. ‘Well, his head’s off, and spiked above the gates, so unless you know one hell of a physician . . .’

  They passed through a high archway, the hall beyond dim and echoing as an emperor’s tomb, light filtering down in dusty columns and pooling on the marble floor. Suits of old armour stood gleaming to silent attention, antique weapons clutched in steel fists. The sharp clicking of boot heels snapped from the walls as a man in a dark uniform paced towards them.

  ‘Shit,’ Benna hissed in her ear. ‘That reptile Ganmark’s here.’

  ‘Leave it be.’

  ‘There’s no way that cold-blooded bastard’s as good with a sword as they say—’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘If I was half a man, I’d—’

  ‘You’re not. So leave it be.’

  General Ganmark’s face was strangely soft, his moustaches limp, his pale grey eyes always watery, lending him a look of perpetual sadness. The rumour was he’d been thrown out of the Union army for a sexual indiscretion involving another officer, and crossed the sea to find a more broad-minded master. The breadth of Duke Orso’s mind was infinite where his servants were concerned, provided they were effective. She and Benna were proof enough of that.

  Ganmark nodded stiffly to Monza. ‘General Murcatto.’ He nodded stiffly to Benna. ‘General Murcatto. Count Foscar, you are keeping to your exercises, I hope?’

  ‘Sparring every day.’

  ‘Then we will make a swordsman of you yet.’

  Benna snorted. ‘That, or a bore.’

  ‘Either one would be something,’ droned Ganmark in his clipped Union accent. ‘A man without discipline is no better than a dog. A soldier without discipline is no better than a corpse. Worse, in fact. A corpse is no threat to his comrades.’

  Benna opened his mouth but Monza talked over him. He could make an arse of himself later, if he pleased. ‘How was your season?’

  ‘I played my part, keeping your flanks free of Rogont and his Osprians.’

  ‘Stalling the Duke of Delay?’ Benna smirked. ‘Quite the challenge.’

  ‘No more than a supporting role. A comic turn in a great tragedy, but one appreciated by the audience, I hope.’

  The echoes of their footsteps swelled as they passed through another archway and into the towering rotunda at the heart of the palace. The curving walls were vast panels of sculpture showing scenes from antiquity. Wars between demons and magi, and other such rubbish. High above, the great dome was frescoed with seven winged women against a stormy sky – armed, armoured and angry-looking. The Fates, bringing destinies to earth. Aropella’s greatest work. She’d heard it had taken him eight years to finish. Monza never got over how tiny, weak, utterly insignificant this space made her feel. That was the point of it.

  The four of them climbed a sweeping staircase, wide enough for twice as many to walk abreast. ‘And where have your comic talents taken you?’ she asked Ganmark.

  ‘Fire and murder, to the gates of Puranti and back.’

  Benna curled his lip. ‘Any actual fighting?’

  ‘Why ever would I do that? Have you not read your Stolicus? “An animal fights his way to victory—”’

  ‘“A general marches there,”’ Monza finished for him. ‘Did you raise many laughs?’

  ‘Not for the enemy, I suppose. Precious few for anyone, but that is war.’

  ‘I find time to chuckle,’ threw in Benna.

  ‘Some men laugh easily. It makes them winning dinner companions.’ Ganmark’s soft eyes moved across to Monza’s. ‘I note you are not smiling.’

  ‘I will. Once the League of Eight are finished and Orso is King of Styria. Then we can all hang up our swords.’

  ‘In my experience swords do not hang comfortably from hooks. They have a habit of finding their way back into one’s hands.’

  ‘I daresay Orso will keep you on,’ said Benna. ‘Even if it’s only to polish the tiles.’

  Ganmark did not give so much as a sharp breath. ‘Then his Excellency will have the cleanest floors in all of Styria.’

  A pair of high doors faced the top of the stairs, gleaming with inlaid wood, carved with lions’ faces. A thick-set man paced up and down before them like a loyal old hound before his master’s bedchamber. Faithful Carpi, the longest-serving captain in the Thousand Swords, the scars of a hundred engagements marked out on his broad, weathered, honest face.

  ‘Faithful!’ Benna seized the old mercenary’s big slab of a hand. ‘Climbing a mountain, at your age? Shouldn’t you be in a brothel somewhere?’

  ‘If only.’ Carpi shrugged. ‘But his Excellency sent for me.’

  ‘And you, being an obedient sort . . . obeyed.’

  ‘That’s why they call me Faithful.’

  ‘How did you leave things in Borletta?’ asked Monza.

  ‘Quiet. Most of the men are quartered outside the walls with Andiche and Victus. Best if they don’t set fire to the place, I thought. I left some of the more reliable ones in Cantain’s palace with Sesaria watching over them. Old-timers, like me, from back in Cosca’s day. Seasoned men, not prone to impulsiveness.’

  Benna chuckled. ‘Slow thinkers, you mean?’

  ‘Slow but steady. We get there in the end.’

  ‘Going in, then?’ Foscar set his shoulder to one of the doors and heaved it open. Ganmark and Faithful followed. Monza paused a moment on the threshold, trying to find her hardest face. She looked up and saw Benna smiling at her. Without thinking, she found herself smiling back. She leaned and whispered in his ear.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He stepped through the doorway, and she followed.

  Duke Orso’s private study was a marble hall the size of a market square. Lofty windows marched in bold procession along one side, standing open, a keen breeze washing through and making the vivid hangings twitch and rustle. Beyond them a long terrace seemed to hang in empty air, overlooking the steepest drop from the mountain’s summit.

  The opposite wall was covered with towering panels, painted by the foremost artists of Styria, displaying the great battles of history. The victories of Stolicus, of Harod the Great, of Farans and Verturio, all preserved in sweeping oils. The message that Orso was the latest in a line of royal winners was hard to miss, even though his great-grandfather had been a usurper, and a common criminal besides.

  The largest painting of them all faced the door, ten strides high at the least. Who else but Grand Duke Orso? He was seated upon a rearing charger, his shining sword raised high, his piercing eye fixed on the far horizon, urging his men to victory at the Battle of Etrea. The painter seemed to have been unaware that Orso hadn’t come within fifty miles of the fighting.

  But then fine lies beat tedious truths every time, as he had often told her. The Duke of Talins himself sat crabbed over a desk, wielding a pen rather than a sword. A tall, gaunt, hook-nosed man stood at his elbow, staring down as keenly as a vulture waiting for thirsty travellers to die. A great shape lurked near them, in the shadows against the wall. Gobba, Orso’s bodyguard, fat-necked as a gre
at hog. Prince Ario, the duke’s eldest son and heir, lounged in a gilded chair nearer at hand. He had one leg crossed over the other, a wine glass dangling carelessly, a bland smile balanced on his blandly handsome face.

  ‘I found these beggars wandering the grounds,’ called Foscar, ‘and thought I’d commend them to your charity, Father!’

  ‘Charity?’ Orso’s sharp voice echoed around the cavernous room. ‘I am not a great admirer of the stuff. Make yourselves comfortable, my friends, I will be with you shortly.’

  ‘If it isn’t the Butcher of Caprile,’ murmured Ario, ‘and her little Benna too.’

  ‘Your Highness. You look well.’ Monza thought he looked an indolent cock, but kept it to herself.

  ‘You too, as ever. If all soldiers looked as you did, I might even be tempted to go on campaign myself. A new bauble?’ Ario waved his own jewel-encrusted hand limply towards the ruby on Monza’s finger.

  ‘Just what was to hand when I was dressing.’

  ‘I wish I’d been there. Wine?’

  ‘Just after dawn?’

  He glanced heavy-lidded towards the windows. ‘Still last night as far as I’m concerned.’ As if staying up late was a heroic achievement.

  ‘I will.’ Benna was already pouring himself a glass, never to be outdone as far as showing off went. Most likely he’d be drunk within the hour and embarrass himself, but Monza was tired of playing his mother. She strolled past the monumental fireplace held up by carven figures of Juvens and Kanedias, and towards Orso’s desk.

  ‘Sign here, and here, and here,’ the gaunt man was saying, one bony finger hovering over the documents.

  ‘You know Mauthis, do you?’ Orso gave a sour glance in his direction. ‘My leash-holder.’

  ‘Always your humble servant, your Excellency. The Banking House of Valint and Balk agrees to this further loan for the period of one year, after which they regret they must charge interest.’

  Orso snorted. ‘As the plague regrets the dead, I’ll be bound.’ He scratched out a parting swirl on the last signature and tossed down his pen. ‘Everyone must kneel to someone, eh? Make sure you extend to your superiors my infinite gratitude for their indulgence.’