Orhan heard the noise from the entrance hall.

Screaming.

Bil, screaming.

The baby, screaming.

He began to run through the house, shouting to the guardsmen. People were running everywhere. Shouting everywhere. Up the stairs, almost falling. His hand went to the knife he wore. In the upper hall the screaming was louder. A smell of smoke. He stopped, shaking. Flesh burning. Bodies burning. The clash of swords. The Emperor’s face white with terror, the walls burning and the boy raising his eyes to look at him, “I’ll kill you, then,” men falling dying, Darath falling, blood and smoke and blood. All this. All this I wrought. The guards formed up around him, a defensive circle with swords out. Through them and over them he saw fire, bleeding, Bil dead, the baby dead, its grub’s mouth screaming reproach.

“Get him away! Get him out of here!”

“My Lord—” A hand pulled on his shoulder. “My Lord, this way, away from the danger.”

“No! No, this is my house!”

Bil, screaming.

The baby, screaming.

What have you done, Orhan?

Orhan pushed his way forward. The guards couldn’t stop him, had to follow him. He ran down the corridor towards Bil’s bedroom, where the screams were coming from, the burning smell, the crash of sword blades, the blood. The door to Bil’s bedroom was open. A girl’s body lay crumpled in the doorway. Cut up. Dead. He staggered over it.

The room was stinking chaos, a knot of bodies writhing together, crash and crash of metal, a woman’s scream on and on on one note. Men fighting. Bil’s guards, fighting each other. Why were they fighting each other? Bil on the floor, crawling. Blood all over her. A girl dead. The baby’s nurse dead. The silver drapery on the walls on fire.

Murder, Orhan thought dimly. He stopped at the door. Impossible to go on, believe this, it’s some kind of game, he thought, it must be, it will all stop in a moment and it won’t be happening. A dream. He stepped forward into the room. Dizzy: the room seemed to lurch and move. Men fighting. Swords. His guards threw him aside, rushed past him, ten men with swords, trained to defend. Orhan held out his knife. His hand was shaking. Bil was trying to crawl towards him. Her hands were bleeding. She, too, was holding a knife. The baby, he thought hopelessly. The baby, the baby. My son.

Two of the guards were surrounded. The murderers. Helpless, against so many. “Take them alive,” Orhan wanted to shout, “question them,” but he couldn’t bring himself to speak, he watched Bil crawling and the two men cut down. Then the guards were all around him, the murderers were dead, a man was lifting Bil and carrying her to her bed, a man was clutching the tiny lump of the baby that screamed with a contorted scarlet unhatched raw face, he sank down onto the bed next to Bil, watched a guardsman tear the silk hangings from the wall bare-handed and hurl them from the window, watched guardsmen fan out around the room, pull closed the shutters, kick the girl’s body out of the way, slam the door.

It was dark for a moment, before a lamp flared. Its light threw the room into soft shadows.

One of Orhan’s guards knelt before him. “Are you hurt at all, My Lord?”

“No. No, I’m not hurt.” His mind wasn’t working. Of course I’m not hurt. But Bil. Bil’s hurt. The baby’s hurt. He shouted out, “Lady Emmereth—fetch Janush immediately. Why hasn’t someone already gone for him?”

“We need to be sure there’s no one else in the house, My Lord. It’s best if you and she stay here, guarded.”

“But she’ll die. The child will die.” Bilale was crumpled on the bed, her face and hands and arms a mass of blood. Her body looked so fragile, weak as eggshells. The baby screamed and screamed and screamed. Bil’s bloody hands were cupped over her belly, trying to protect the baby that was no longer inside. “Fetch Janush now. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

The guard stared at him. Shocked. So Lord Emmereth the coward and the traitor does have some strength in him. Oh, I’m good at killing people I’m paying, Orhan thought bitterly. Hired men and servants and women, the old and the desperate and the very young. I only go to pieces when there’s any danger to myself.

“Go! Now!”

He turned to Bil, placed his hands carefully on her forehead. She was very cold. Her scars were rough, standing out like faults in rock. This was, he realized then, the first time he had ever touched her.

“Bilale. Bilale. It’s all right, Bilale. You’re alive. You’re safe. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

No response. Orhan wrapped the bed cover over her, tried to ease a pillow under her head. Her beautiful hair was full of blood. There was a savage cut on her face, snaking down her left cheek, it tore open her scars. Bruising around her nose and eyes. Her hands were cut down to the bones, her fingers shattered, more cuts to her arms, also very deep. Her eyes were open all the time, looking beyond Orhan into the gold of the lamplight.

She held the sword blade in her hands, Orhan thought. She warded the swords off with her hands.

The baby screamed and screamed and screamed.

There were other bodies in the room, slumped about, one at least was moving, making weak horrible noises in its throat. He should see to them, see if there was anything he could do to help them. But he couldn’t leave Bil. Where was Janush? If he had gone out, gone down to the bathing rooms, if he was somewhere enjoying himself and Bil died …

Finally there was a bustling at the door, a knock and an exchange with the guards inside, Janush came in flanked by two guardsmen, his face rigid with shock. He stopped, stared dumbly at the bodies. A doctor, and he was terrified at the sight of so much blood.

“My Lord … Are you hurt?” His voice was shaking. He had crumbs of food around his mouth. “Lady Emmereth. Oh Great Tanis.”

“Help her.”

Janush knelt beside Bil, inspecting her face and hands.

“Open the shutters. It’s too dark to see anything. And bring another lamp close.”

One of the guardsmen said, “It’s not safe. There could be more of them, outside.”

“Open the shutters,” Orhan shouted at him.

“My Lord—” The man went and threw them open. Orhan blinked at the light. Bil’s face was white and clammy, it looked like Tam’s face had looked when he was dying. Maggot-white with pain. Blood soaked into the white bedsheets. Her eyes flickered slightly. The baby screamed and screamed and screamed. Her eyes blinked at Orhan.

“Wait. The baby first,” said Orhan. Bil’s eyes blinked. Thank you. Thank you. Janush took it from the man holding it, bronze and red, rolling and thrashing in his arms. Put it down on the bed where it flailed madly like a fish out of water or a beetle on its back. Screamed and screamed and screamed. Blood on its tiny face, matting down its funny fluffy hair.

“He seems unharmed,” said Janush at last. “From what I can see. But who can tell, the damage it may have suffered? In its mind and its heart.”

Bil’s eyes flickered. The bloody stumps of her hands clawed at her belly. Orhan placed his hands on her hair. “It’s all right, Bil. It’s all right. Be calm. Your son is safe.” He took the child in his own arms. Kissed its screaming face. Beneath the blood stink it smelled so sweet. My son, he thought again. This child is my son. It quieted a little, as he held it. Snuffled at him. Flexed its hands, screwed its face up, coughed, renewed its screams. Orhan handed it to a guardsman. “Take the baby out. Find one of Lady Emmereth’s women. Whatever she says the baby needs. Now. Go.”

The guardsman took the baby. The screaming trailed away through the house. God’s knives. So tiny. What damage it may have suffered. So tiny, barely yet alive.

Orhan turned back to Bil. Janush was kneeling inspecting her. She flinched at his touch. But her eyes were fixed on the door where the baby had gone. Her lips moved. Praying. Great Tanis, be merciful. Be merciful. Please.

“Tear up the sheets, My Lord,” Janush said to Orhan. “She needs bandaging. A dose of hatha, to make her sleep. Then I will have to try to stitch her wounds.” He looked down at Bil’s body. “But I do not hold out much hope for her hands.”

They started there. On the wreck of her hands. Orhan held a sheet to the wound on her head while Janush cleaned her hands with spirit alcohol, began carefully to sew. Two of the guards held Bil down. Orhan closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. My fault my fault my fault my fault. Even through the hatha her screams were like mage fire. He saw them through his closed eyes. Her hands. Her arms. It went on and on.

“I will not sew her face, or the lesser wounds to her arms,” said Janush at last. He sat back on his heels, sweat and blood dripping down him. “They must be bandaged, bathed with herbs. I have charms I can place on her, spices to burn to help her heal. For the baby, also. But … Pray to Great Lord Tanis, My Lord, and beg His kindness.” He pulled himself heavily to his feet. “Pray to Great Lord Tanis, My Lord. I will go and fetch the charms and the herbs.”

Other people were wounded, Orhan remembered slowly. Servants. Guards. Or perhaps they had died while Janush was treating Bil. He ordered two guards to carry her into his own bedroom, had her placed in his own bed. Janush came back with a bone amulet to hang around her neck, a clay figurine in the shape of a bird to bind to her left hand. A brazier was lit and piled with cinnamon bark. The wide blind eyes finally slid closed.

“She will live,” said Janush. “Great Tanis be kind. I have done the best I can, My Lord. But her hands … She was lucky, I suppose, in a way. The blackscab scars protected her, made her skin harder so the blades did not cut so deep. You or I might have lost a hand entirely. Made it more difficult to sew up, though. And may make it more difficult to heal. But I did what I could.” Bandaged thickly in white silk, perfect smooth white as the skin on them must have been before the disease took her. What was beneath looked like shredded leather. Like gristle that a man had chewed and spat out.

“You should see to the servants,” said Orhan. “Send me word, how they are. If any of them are alive. Examine the child again, ensure it has whatever it needs. I will be here.”

His guards came to report the house clear of any further danger. Two of the new guardsmen, they said, had turned on Bil. “Traitor!” they had shouted, when they started killing. Madmen, believing the lies. A disgrace to the household and their status as guardsmen, who must be loyal only and forever to their master and his kin. But they were newly hired, Lord Emmereth would need to make enquiries, where they had come from, why the man he had engaged to find them had chosen as he had. Orhan had thought the man he had engaged to find them trustworthy. In that too he had apparently been entirely wrong.

“Find him,” he ordered the guards. “Punish him.”

“By why not just kill her when she was sleeping?” Darath asked Orhan. “Or you, in fact?” He had come, of course, as soon as he had heard. So, a while later, had Celyse. Orhan almost ordered the servants not to admit them. He sat by Bil’s sleeping body and did not want to be disturbed. The baby cried and gurgled by turns, seemed calmer, he held it for a while, breathed in the smell of its scalp and thanked the God over and over that it had survived. But … He clung to Darath, the warmth of his body, the grief in his eyes. And Celyse, also, capable and cold and broken-hearted, talking it through with him and helping him understand it was real.

“I was out of the house with most of the guards”—in your bed, Darath, joy of my heart, arguing with you then making it up to you, your cock in my mouth; let us not forget that, oh my beloved, another taint like ashes to the honeyed bliss of our love—“I was out of the house, no one was around, they were stationed outside her very door. So easy. Such a show of power, in broad daylight, in my own home.”

“Power?”

“Oh come on, Darath,” said Celyse harshly. “Think! They weren’t deranged madmen. They were paid by Eloise Verneth.”

“My son,” said Orhan, “for hers. In broad daylight, in my own house.” Darath’s face darkened, still, even now, at the words “my son.” “It’s clear it was planned. Another guard had overheard something, was watching them. That was what saved her, in fact. He rushed in, shouted, raised the alarm. Took a wound himself defending her. And Bil fought like a dragon. Shielded the baby with her body. Fought off the sword blade with her hands.”

The storm came exactly as he had known it would. “Was watching them?” Celyse shouted. “Was watching them and had suspicions, and said nothing to you? God’s knives, Orhan!” Darath’s eyes went to the man on guard in the doorway, searching him or maybe just willing him dead.

“He said he wasn’t sure, didn’t want to cause an uproar, thought they just wanted to steal some of Bil’s jewels to sell. He was frightened, of them, and of me. Who would dare try to do such a thing, in the Lord of the Rising Sun’s very house?” He looked at Darath. “He never changed his story, even at the end. So it may have been the truth.”

Silence. From the next room a woman’s voice spoke to the guardsman at the door, asking permission to enter to tend to Bil. The sound of the baby fretting. The cooing voice of a woman in response. How many people have I killed now, Orhan thought? Can I even count any more?

“So I suppose we have to kill Eloise now,” said Orhan wearily. Death breeds death breeds death.

“No,” said Celyse.

Silence.

“No?”

“Bil did give away one of my bride gifts to her as an offering at the Temple this morning,” Celyse said dryly. “And her baby has just disinherited my son. But no, God’s knives, brother! I’d rip Eloise apart with my bare hands if I could! But think. The city’s in a state of turmoil. The Emperor’s rather lost his burning adoration for you. It’s pathetically obvious you poisoned poor March. You may still have some shred of lustre in a few eyes now it turns out you saved the Emperor from an Altrersyr demon, but to half the city you seem to be the man who sold the High Priestess’s maidenhead to King Death. Your name stinks like carrion, Orhan. Don’t make it any worse killing a grieving old woman. Sit back and be the victim who’s above all this, and pray to the God things die down a bit now.”

“No—” Darath began.

Celyse cut him off. “If you can prove it was Eloise, in fact … there may be some good in it all,” Celyse said.

Silence. Darath and Orhan stared at her. I think I will be sick, Orhan thought. Celyse said slowly, “The Emperor wanted calm, given everything. Certainly no credence given to these absurd blasphemous lies. He’ll be furious with Eloise. It swings the popular sympathy back rather towards you, Orhan, having assassins creeping around your house targeting your tragically disfigured wife and your baby son. The Verneths have tried to kill you twice now, with a big nasty terrifying mess left behind each time. You only did it to March once, and then very neatly so as it might not even be murder at all. Everyone knows March died of heat flux.”

“That’s vile,” Orhan said. True, though. He found himself laughing. His mouth tasted of bile.

“Are you sure you didn’t arrange it yourself, for the sympathy?” Celyse flushed. “I’m sorry. That was horrible. Tasteless.”

But someone else will think it, Orhan thought.

“No,” said Darath. “No! God’s knives! March and Eloise both tried to kill him. March is dead. Eloise dies. Slowly. Worse than March.”

Celyse only rolled her eyes at Darath. A little, angry, blustering boy. The words made Orhan shiver: his lover, who used to think himself notorious because he occasionally chewed keleth seed and had once struck a hired boy in the face.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” said Celyse.

So crude.

“You’re still alive,” said Celyse. “Both of you. So quit. Now. Before you’re not.”

Darath almost bared his teeth at her. “Eloise dies. I won’t sleep until she does.”

“Then you’re a fool,” said Celyse.

Orhan took Darath’s hand. If Bil lives, Orhan thought. I owe her that. If she lives, Eloise lives and we go on and hope things can rebuild themselves and it was all worth the cost. Magnanimous in victory. A better and brighter world for my son.

If Bil dies, I deserve whatever will come for me. So Eloise dies. And never mind the consequences.

He looked at Darath. Squeezed Darath’s hand.

And I’ll do it myself, this time.