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he did not entirely blame them for
not listening to him. He supposed he did have the satisfaction of knowing that
he had warned the fools, but that was little enough to warm yourself with, on a
cold and closing night like this.
    He'd
fought; put his life at risk for them, won a few desperate rear-guard actions,
and he had tried to tell them what they ought to do; but they'd listened too
late, and given him some limited power only after the war was already more or
less lost. But that was just the way they were; they were the bosses, and if
their whole way of life vanished because it was a tenet of that way that people
like them automatically knew how to make war better than even the most
experienced commoners or outsiders, then that was not unjust; everything came
level in the end. And if it meant their deaths, let them all die.
    In
the meantime, while supplies held out, what could be more pleasant? No more
long cold marches, no boggy excuses for camps, no outside latrines, no scorched
earth to try and scrape a meal from. Not much action, and maybe he would get
itchy feet eventually, but that was more than compensated for by being able to
satisfy the more highly-placed itches of some of the noble ladies also trapped
in the castle.
    Anyway,
he knew in his heart that there was a relief in not being listened to,
sometimes. Power meant responsibility. Advice unacted upon almost always might have been right, and in the
working out of whatever plan was followed, there was anyway always blood;
better it was on their hands. The good soldier did as he was told, and if he
had any sense at all volunteered for nothing, especially promotion.
    'Ha,'
Keiver said, rocking in the china chair. 'We found more grass seed today.'
    'Oh,
good.'
    'Indeed.'
    Most
of the courtyards, gardens and patios were already given over to pasture;
they'd torn the roofs off some of the less architecturally important halls and
planted there as well. If they weren't blown to bits in the meantime, they
might - in theory - feed a quarter of the castle's garrison indefinitely.
    Keiver
shivered, and wrapped the cloak more tightly about his legs. 'But this is a
cold old place, Zakalwe, isn't it?'
    He
was about to say something in reply when the door at the far end of the room
opened a crack.
    He
grabbed the plasma cannon.
    'Is...
is everything all right?' said a quiet, female voice.
    He
put the gun down, smiling at the small pale face peering from the doorway, long
black hair following the line of the door's studded wood.
    'Ah,
Neinte!' Keiver exclaimed, rising only to bow deeply to the young girl
(princess, indeed!) who was - technically, at least, not that that precluded
other, more productive, even lucrative, relationships in the future - his ward.
    'Come
on in,' he heard the mercenary tell the girl.
    (Damn
him, always taking the initiative like that; who did he think he was?)
    The
girl crept into the room, gathering her skirts in front of her. 'I thought I
heard a shot...'
    The
mercenary laughed. 'That was a little time ago,' he said, rising to show the
girl to a seat near the fire.
    'Well,'
she said, 'I had to dress...'
    The
man laughed louder.
    'My
lady,' Keiver said, rising slightly late, and flourishing what would now -
thanks to Zakalwe - look like a rather awkward bow. 'Forfend we should have
disturbed your maidenly slumber...'
    Keiver
heard the other man stifle a guffaw as he kicked a log further into the fire.
The princess Neinte giggled. Keiver felt his face heat up, and decided to
laugh.
    Neinte
- still very young, but already beautiful in a delicate, fragile way - wrapped
her arms round her drawn-up legs, and stared into the fire.
    He
looked from her to Keiver, in the silence that followed (except that the deputy
vice-regent-in-waiting said, 'Yes, well.'), and thought - as the logs crackled
and the scarlet flames danced - how like statues the two young people suddenly
looked.
    Just
once, he thought, I'd like to know whose side I'm really on in something