“What do you get from the deal?”

Benna grinned at her. “The winning smile.”

“Smile, then. For one more season.” She swung down from her saddle, jerked her sword belt straight, tossed the reins at the groom and strode for the inner gatehouse. Benna had to hurry to catch up, getting tangled with his own sword on the way. For a man who earned his living from war, he’d always been an embarrassment where weapons were concerned.

The inner courtyard was split into wide terraces at the summit of the mountain, planted with exotic palms and even more heavily guarded than the outer. An ancient column said to come from the palace of Scarpius stood tall in the centre, casting a shimmering reflection in a round pool teeming with silvery fish. The immensity of glass, bronze and marble that was Duke Orso’s palace towered around it on three sides like a monstrous cat with a mouse between its paws. Since the spring they’d built a vast new wing along the northern wall, its festoons of decorative stonework still half-shrouded in scaffolding.

“They’ve been building,” she said.

“Of course. How could Prince Ario manage with only ten halls for his shoes?”

“A man can’t be fashionable these days without at least twenty rooms of footwear.”

Benna frowned down at his own gold-buckled boots. “I’ve no more than thirty pairs all told. I feel my shortcomings most keenly.”

“As do we all,” she muttered. A half-finished set of statues stood along the roofline. Duke Orso giving alms to the poor. Duke Orso gifting knowledge to the ignorant. Duke Orso shielding the weak from harm.

“I’m surprised he hasn’t got one of the whole of Styria tonguing his arse,” whispered Benna in her ear.

She pointed to a partly chiselled block of marble. “That’s next.”

“Benna!”

Count Foscar, Orso’s younger son, rushed around the pool like an eager puppy, shoes crunching on fresh-raked gravel, freckled face all lit up.