The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east and stained the dark sky red, marked the scraps of cloud with stolen gold. Underneath it the road twisted up the mountainside towards the fortress of Fontezarmo – a cluster of sharp towers, ash-black against the wounded heavens. The sunrise was red, black and gold.
The colours of their profession.
‘You look especially beautiful this morning, Monza.’
She sighed, as if that was an accident. As if she hadn’t spent an hour preening herself before the mirror. ‘Facts are facts. Stating them isn’t a gift. You only prove you’re not blind.’ She yawned, stretched in her saddle, made him wait a moment longer. ‘But I’ll hear more.’
He noisily cleared his throat and held up one hand, a bad actor preparing for his grand speech. ‘Your hair is like to . . . a veil of shimmering sable!’
‘You pompous cock. What was it yesterday? A curtain of midnight. I liked that better, it had some poetry to it. Bad poetry, but still.’
‘Shit.’ He squinted up at the clouds. ‘Your eyes, then, gleam like piercing sapphires, beyond price!’
‘I’ve got stones in my face, now?’
‘Lips like rose petals?’
She spat at him, but he was ready and dodged it, the phlegm clearing his horse and falling on the dry stones beside the track. ‘That’s to make your roses grow, arsehole. You can do better.’
‘Harder every day,’ he muttered. ‘That jewel I bought looks wonderful well on you.’
She held up her right hand to admire it, a ruby the size of an almond, catching the first glimmers of sunlight and glistening like an open wound. ‘I’ve had worse gifts.’
‘It matches your fiery temper.’
She snorted. ‘And my bloody reputation.’
‘Piss on your reputation! Nothing but idiots’ chatter! You’re a dream. A vision. You look like . . .’ He snapped his fingers. ‘The very Goddess of War!’
‘Goddess, eh?’
‘Of War. You like it?’
‘It’ll do. If you can kiss Duke Orso’s arse half so well, we might even get a bonus.’ Benna puckered his lips at her. ‘I love nothing more of a morning than a faceful of his Excellency’s rich, round buttocks. They taste like . . . power.’
Hooves crunched on the dusty track, saddles creaked and harness rattled. The road turned back on itself, and again. The rest of the world dropped away below them. The eastern sky bled out from red to butchered pink. The river crept slowly into view, winding through the autumn woods in the base of the steep valley. Glittering like an army on the march, flowing swift and merciless towards the sea. Towards Talins.
‘I’m waiting,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘My share of the compliments, of course.’
‘If your head swells any further it’ll fucking burst.’ She twitched her silken cuffs up. ‘And I don’t want your brains on my new shirt.’
‘Stabbed!’ Benna clutched one hand to his chest. ‘Right here! Is this how you repay my years of devotion, you heartless bitch?’
‘How dare you presume to be devoted to me, peasant? You’re like a tick devoted to a tiger!’
‘Tiger? Hah! When they compare you to an animal they usually pick a snake.’
‘Better than a maggot.’
‘Whore.’
‘Coward.’
‘Murderer.’
She could hardly deny that one. Silence settled on them again. A bird trilled from a thirsty tree beside the road.
Benna’s horse drew gradually up beside hers, and ever so gently he murmured, ‘You look especially beautiful this morning, Monza.’
That brought a smile to the corner of her mouth. The corner he couldn’t see.
‘Well. Facts are facts.’