‘Frankly, your father could use your support. He is a weak man, Orso.’
‘So you never tire of telling him.’
‘And these are difficult times. The last war did … not end well.’
‘It ended pretty well if you’re King Jappo of Styria.’
His mother pronounced each word with icy precision. ‘Which you … are … not.’
‘Sadly, for all concerned.’
‘You are King Jappo’s mortal enemy and the rightful heir to all he and the thrice-damned Snake of Talins have stolen, and it is high time you took your position seriously! We have enemies everywhere. Inside our borders, too.’
‘I am aware. I just attended the hanging of three of them. Two peasants and a girl of fifteen. She pissed herself. I’ve never felt prouder.’
‘Then I trust you come to me in a receptive mood.’ Orso’s mother gave two sharp claps and Lord Chamberlain Hoff strutted in. With waistcoat bulging around his belly and legs stick-like in tight breeches, he looked like nothing so much as a prize rooster jealously patrolling the farmyard.
‘Your Majesty.’ He bowed so low to the queen, he virtually buffed the tiles with his nose. ‘Your Highness.’ He bowed just as low to Orso but in a manner that somehow expressed boundless contempt. Or perhaps Orso only saw his own contempt for himself reflected in that obsequious smile. ‘I have positively scoured the entire Circle of the World for the most eligible candidates. Dare one suggest that the future High Queen of the Union waits among them?’
‘Oh, good grief.’ Orso let his head drop back, staring up towards the beautifully painted ceiling of the peoples of the world kneeling before a golden sun. ‘The parade again?’
‘Ensuring the succession is not a joke,’ pronounced his mother.
‘Not a funny one, anyway.’
‘Don’t be facetious, Orso. Your sisters both did their dynastic duty. Do you suppose Cathil wanted to move to Starikland?’
‘She’s an inspiration.’
‘Do you think Carlot wanted to marry the Chancellor of Sipani?’
Actually, she had been delighted by the idea, but Orso’s mother loved to imagine everyone sacrificing all on the altar of duty, the way she was always telling them she had. ‘Of course not, Mother.’
By then, two footmen were easing an enormous painting into the room, straining not to catch the frame in the doorway. A pale girl with an absurdly long neck smiled winsomely from the canvas.
‘Lady Sithrin dan Harnveld,’ announced the lord chamberlain.
Orso sank lower into his chair. ‘Do I really want a wife who measures the distance from her chin to her tits in miles?’
‘Artistic licence, Your Highness,’ explained Hoff.
‘Call it art, you can get away with anything.’
‘She is quite presentable in the flesh,’ said the queen. ‘And her family can be traced back to the time of Harod the Great.’
‘A true thoroughbred,’ interjected the lord chamberlain.
‘She’s stupid as a horse, all right,’ said Orso. ‘And you can’t have an idiot for both king and queen.’
‘Next,’ grated out Orso’s mother, a second pair of footmen nearly colliding with the first as they carted in a painting of a slyly smirking Styrian.
‘The Countess Istarine of Affoia is a proven politician, and would bring us valuable allies in Styria.’
‘From the looks of her, she’s more likely to bring me a dose of the cock-rot.’
‘I had imagined you would be immune from constant exposure,’ observed the queen, waving the portrait away with an exquisite flourish of her fingers.
‘Such a shame I never see you dance any more, Mother.’ She danced superbly. Sometimes she even seemed to enjoy it.
‘Your father is an absolute oaf of a partner.’
Orso gave a sad smile. ‘He does his best.’
‘This is Messela Sivirine Sistus,’ proclaimed the lord chamberlain, ‘younger daughter of the Emperor Dantus Goltus—’
‘He doesn’t even merit the older daughter?’ demanded the queen, before Orso had the chance to raise his own objections. ‘I think not.’
And so it went, as Orso marked the turning of morning into afternoon by the steadily decreasing level of wine in the decanter, and dismissed the flower of womanhood, one by one.
‘How could I abide a wife taller than me?’
‘She’s a worse drunk than I am.’
‘At least we know she’s fertile, she’s borne two bastards that I know about.’
‘Is that a nose on her face or a prick?’
He almost wished he was back at the hanging. That, he could theoretically have stopped. Over his mother, he was utterly powerless. His only chance was to wait her out. There were a finite number of women in the Circle of the World, after all.
Eventually, the last portrait was manhandled from the room and the lord chamberlain was left wringing his hands. ‘Your Majesty, Your Highness, I regret—’
‘Finished?’ asked Orso. ‘No portrait of Savine dan Glokta lurking in the hallway?’
Even at this distance, he felt the chill of the queen’s displeasure. ‘For pity’s sake, her mother is a low-born boor, and a drunk to boot.’
‘But an absolute scream at parties, and whatever you say for Lady Ardee, Arch Lector Glokta has the people’s respect. Or at any rate their abject terror.’
‘A crippled worm,’ spat the queen. ‘A torturer!’
‘But our torturer, eh, Mother? Our torturer. And I understand his daughter has made herself quite spectacularly rich.’
‘Money made through trade, and dealings, and investments.’ The queen spat the words as though they were criminal enterprises. For all Orso knew, Savine’s dealings were criminal enterprises. He wouldn’t at all have put it past her.
‘Oh, come now, money shamefully made from trade fills the same holes in the treasury as the kind nobly wrung from the misery of the peasantry.’
‘She is too old! You are too old, and she is even older than you are.’
‘But she has impeccable manners and is still quite the celebrated beauty.’ He waved a loose hand towards the doorway. ‘She’d make a prettier portrait than any of those piglets, and the painter wouldn’t even have to lie. Queen Savine sounds rather well.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘It even rhymes.’
His mother was an icicle of fury. ‘Do you do this just to annoy me?’