Last Argument of Kings

spread
out in file down that goat track. It suited Logen well enough. Kept
him on the edge, where none of his own side might get tempted to try
and kill him.
    Watching men
moving quiet through the trees, voices kept down low, weapons at the
ready, brought back a rush of memories. Some good, some bad. Mostly
bad, it had to be said. One man came away from the others as Logen
watched, started walking towards him through the trees. He had a big
grin on his face, just as friendly as you like, but that meant
nothing, Logen had known plenty of men who could grin while they
planned to kill you. He’d done it himself, and more than once.
    He turned his
body sideways a touch, sliding his hand down out of sight and curling
it tight round the grip of a knife. You can never have too many
knives, his father had told him, and that was strong advice. He
looked around, slow and easy, just to make sure there was no one at
his back, but there were only empty trees. So he shifted his feet for
a better balance and stayed sitting, trying to look as if nothing
worried him, but with every muscle tensed and ready to spring.
    â€œMy name’s
Red Hat.â€

Best of Enemies
    Tap, tap.
    â€œNot now!â€

Fortunes of War
    Lord Marshal
Burr was in the midst of writing a letter, but he smiled up as West
let the tent flap drop.
    â€œHow are
you, Colonel?â€

The Kingmaker
    It was a hot day
outside, and sunlight poured in through the great stained-glass
windows, throwing coloured patterns across the tiled floor of the
Lords’ Round. The great space usually felt airy and cool, even
in the summer. Today it felt stuffy, suffocating, uncomfortably hot.
Jezal tugged his sweaty collar back and forth, trying to let some
breath of air into his uniform without moving from his attitude of
stiff attention.
    The last time he
had stood in this spot, back to the curved wall, had been the day the
Guild of Mercers was dissolved. It was hard to imagine that it was
little more than a year ago, so much seemed to have happened since.
He had thought then that the Lords’ Round could not possibly
have been more crowded, more tense, more excited. How wrong he had
been.
    The curved banks
of benches that took up the majority of the chamber were crammed to
bursting with the Union’s most powerful noblemen, and the air
was thick with their expectant, anxious, fearful whispering. The
entire Open Council was in breathless attendance, wedged shoulder to
fur-trimmed shoulder, each man with the glittering chain about his
shoulders that marked him out in gold or silver as the head of his
family. Jezal might have had little more understanding of politics
than a mushroom, but even he had to be excited by the importance of
the occasion. The selection of a new High King of the Union by open
vote. He felt a flutter of nerves in his throat at the thought. As
occasions went, it was difficult to imagine one bigger.
    The people of
Adua certainly knew it. Beyond the walls, in the streets and squares
of the city, they were waiting eagerly for news of the Open Council’s
decision. Waiting to cheer their new monarch, or perhaps to jeer him,
depending on the choice. Beyond the high doors of the Lords’
Round, the Square of Marshals was a single swarming crowd, each man
and woman in the Agriont desperate to be the first to hear word from
inside. Futures would be decided, great debts would be settled,
fortunes won and lost on the result. Only a lucky fraction had been
permitted into the public gallery, but still enough that the
spectators were crushed together around the balcony, in imminent
danger of being shoved over and plunging to the tiled floor below.
    The inlaid doors
at the far end of the hall opened with a ringing crash, the echoes
rebounding from the distant ceiling and booming around the great
space. There was a rustling as every one of the councillors swivelled
in his seat to look towards the entrance, and then a clatter of feet
as the Closed Council approached steadily down the aisle between the
benches. A gaggle of secretaries, and clerks, and hangers-on hurried
after, papers and ledgers clutched in their eager hands. Lord
Chamberlain Hoff strode at their head, frowning grimly. Behind him
walked Sult, all in white, and Marovia, all in black, their faces
equally solemn. Next came Varuz, and Halleck, and… Jezal’s
face fell. Who else but the First of the Magi, attired once again in
his outrageous wizard’s mantle,