West was disappointingly unimpressed. He got up, frowning, and made to follow Marshal Varuz.

“Where are you off to?” asked Jezal.

“Away,” said West, over his shoulder, “I’ve seen enough.”

“What does that mean?”

West stopped and turned to face him. “Amazing though it may seem, there are bigger problems in the world than this.”

Jezal stood there open mouthed as West stalked from the courtyard. “Just who do you think you are?” he shouted after him, once he was sure he was gone. “Shit, shit!” He considered giving the beam another kick, but thought better of it.

Jezal was in a foul mood on his way back to his quarters, so he stayed away from the busier parts of the Agriont, sticking to the quieter lanes and gardens to the side of the Kingsway. He glowered down at his feet as he walked, to further discourage any social encounter. But luck was not on his side.

“Jezal!” It was Kaspa, out for a stroll with a yellow-haired girl in expensive clothes. They had a severe-looking middle-aged woman with them, no doubt the girl’s governess or some such. They had stopped to admire some piece of minor sculpture in a little-visited yard.

“Jezal!” Kaspa shouted again, waving his hat above his head. There was no avoiding them. He plastered an unconvincing smile onto his face and stalked over. The pale girl smiled at him as he approached, but if he was meant to be charmed he didn’t feel it.

“Been fencing again, Luthar?” asked Kaspa pointlessly. Jezal was sweating and holding a pair of fencing steels. It was well known that he fenced every morning. You didn’t need a fine mind to make the connection, which was fortunate, because Kaspa certainly didn’t have one.

“Yes. How did you guess?” Jezal hadn’t meant to kill the conversation quite so dead, but he passed it off with a false chuckle, and the smiles of the ladies soon returned.

“Hah, hah,” laughed Kaspa, ever willing to be the butt of a joke.

“Jezal, may I introduce my cousin, the Lady Ariss dan Kaspa? This is my superior officer, Captain Luthar.” So this was the famous cousin. One of the Unions richest heiresses and from an excellent family. Kaspa was always babbling about what a beauty she was, but to Jezal she seemed a pale, skinny, sickly-looking thing. She smiled weakly and offered out her limp, white hand.

He brushed it with the most perfunctory of kisses. “Charmed,” he muttered, without relish. “I must apologise for my appearance, I’ve just been fencing.”

“Yes,” she squeaked, in a high, piping voice, once she was sure he had finished speaking. “I have heard you are a great fencer.” There was a pause while she groped for something to say, then her eyes lit up. “Tell me Captain, is fencing really very dangerous?”

What insipid drivel. “Oh no, my lady, we only use blunted steels in the circle.” He could have said more, but he was damned if he was going to make all the effort. He gave a thin smile. So did she. The conversation hovered over the abyss.

Jezal was about to make his excuses, the subject of fencing evidently exhausted, but Ariss cut him off by blundering on to another topic. “And tell me, Captain, is there really likely to be a war in the North?” Her voice had almost entirely faded away by the end of the sentence, but the chaperone stared on approvingly, no doubt delighted by the conversational skills of her charge.

Spare us. “Well it seems to me…” Jezal began. The pale, blue eyes of Lady Ariss stared back at him expectantly. Blue eyes are absolute crap, he reflected. He wondered which subject she was more ignorant of: fencing or politics? “What do you think?”

The chaperone’s brow furrowed slightly. Lady Ariss looked somewhat taken aback, blushing slightly as she groped for words. “Well, er… that is to say… I’m sure that everything will… turn out well?”

Thank the fates! thought Jezal, we are saved! He had to get out of here. “Of course, everything will turn out well.” He forced out one more smile. “It has been a real pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I’m afraid I’m on duty shortly, so I must leave you.” He bowed with frosty formality. “Lieutenant Kaspa, Lady Ariss.”

Kaspa clapped him on the arm, as friendly as ever. His ignorant waif of a cousin smiled uncertainly. The governess frowned at him as he passed, but Jezal took no notice.

He arrived at the Lords’ Round just as the council members were returning from their lunchtime recess. He acknowledged the guards in the vestibule with a terse nod, then strode through the enormous doorway and down the central isle. A straggling column of the greatest peers of the realm were hard on his heels, and the echoing space was full of shuffling footsteps, grumblings and whisperings, as Jezal made his way around the curved wall to his place behind the high table.

“Jezal, how was fencing?” It was Jalenhorm, here early for once, and seizing on the opportunity to talk before the Lord Chamberlain arrived.

“I’ve had better mornings. Yourself?”

“Oh, I’ve been having a fine time. I met that cousin of Kaspa’s, you know,” he searched for the name.

Jezal sighed. “Lady Ariss.”

“Yes, that’s it! Have you seen her?”

“I was lucky enough to run into them just now.”

“Phew!” exclaimed Jalenhorm, pursing his lips. “Isn’t she stunning?”

“Hmm.” Jezal looked away, bored, and watched the robed and fur-trimmed worthies file slowly to their places. At least he watched a sample of their least favourite sons and paid representatives. Very few of the magnates turned up in person for Open Council these days, not unless they had something significant to complain about. A lot of them didn’t even bother to send someone in their place.

“I swear, one of the finest-looking girls I ever saw. I know Kaspa’s always raving about her, but he didn’t do her justice.”

“Hmm.” The councillors began to spread out, each man towards his own seat. The Lords’ Round was designed like a theatre, the Union’s leading noblemen sitting where the audience would be, on a great half-circle of banked benches with an aisle down the centre.

As in the theatre, some seats were better than others. The least important sat high up at the back, and the occupants’ significance increased as you came forward. The front row was reserved for the heads of the very greatest families, or whoever they sent in their stead. Representatives from the south, from Dagoska and Westport, were on the left, nearest to Jezal. On the far right were those from the north and west, from Angland and Starikland. The bulk of the seating, in between, was for the old nobility of Midderland, the heart of the Union. The Union proper, as they would have seen it. As Jezal saw it too, for that matter.

“What poise, what grace,” Jalenhorm was rhapsodising, “that wonderful fair hair, that milky-white skin, those fantastic blue eyes.”

“And all of that money.”

“Well yes, that too,” smiled the big man. “Kaspa says his uncle is even richer than his father. Imagine that! And he has just the one child. She will inherit every mark of it. Every mark!” Jalenhorm could scarcely contain his excitement. “It’s a lucky man that can bag her! What was her name again?”

“Ariss,” said Jezal sourly. The Lords, or their proxies, had all shuffled and grumbled their way to their seats. It was a poor attendance: the benches were less than half full. That was about as full as it ever got. If the Lords’ Round really had been a theatre, its owners would have been desperately in search of a new play.

“Ariss. Ariss.” Jalenhorm smacked his lips as though the name left a sweet taste. “It’s a lucky man that gets her.”

“Yes indeed. A lucky man.” Providing he prefers cash to conversation, that is. Jezal thought he might have preferred to marry the governess. At least she had seemed to have a bit of backbone.