"I hardly think you count as a Regent, my lord Marquess." Riveper Friez could barely suppress his amusement. "We've turned the palace inside out and still haven't found the queen's heir—the Princess of Cynthia. Oh, of course, we left the kitchens untouched." He sneered. "My men wouldn't dare disturb that domain; should your appetite suffer, the blame would fall squarely on House Friez."

  "Nevertheless, I am Cynthia's highest authority," Gozi said coldly. "Besides, such things can always be procured. Babies? You can find as many as you want."

  "Perhaps." Friez shrugged. "But that is no concern of mine."

  "Of course not. That's not your worry. Your concern should be removing that woman from my throne, sir. The rest is beyond your purview. Quite beyond it."

  "Don't fret, my lord marquess." He descended the steps, advancing toward the gaudy palanquin. "My brother, 'Madman Margo,' is already studying how to handle this matter swiftly and efficiently."

  The marquess's slaves retreated gradually; Gozi had only his layers of fat to bolster his courage. "Studying?" he snorted, fighting to keep his fleshy face from betraying fear. "So House Friez is full of scholars now? It takes a learned man half a day to pry a corpse from a chair?"

  "He has his reasons, my lord," Riveper said, stopping before Gozi. "He must determine how to withdraw the sword without further damaging the remains. She is a queen. The slightest misstep invites vengeance—or divine retribution."

  Gozi thrust his face near Friez's. "You simply believe that corpse will serve your purposes." Sir Lunedale Gil Assimo watched the two men square off and felt a chill crawl up his spine. "Everyone knows Margo Friez's predilection for the dead—and the more unsavory proclivities that accompany it. Which hole of the queen has he set his sights on?"

  Riveper Friez leaned to the marquess's right ear and whispered, "This time is... unique. What he desires is... this spot." He tapped the marquess's left breast. The lavender brocade rippled like a pond struck by a stone. Gozi's smile—and his arrogance—instantly vanished. "Madman," he spat.

  "That is his reputation."

  "If," Gozi said, seething, "you allow the Cynthian rabble to discover your depravities, my rule will never be secure. And you, demons, will not escape unscathed."

  "Is that so?" Friez feigned shock, then dropped the pretense. "Tell me, are you aware of what I did in Pale City?" The marquess remained silent.

  "The citizens of Pale City certainly know what I did. So, my lord marquess, answer me—did it undermine our governance?"

  "...My governance."

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  "Your governance." He laughed. "Your governance! Let me be perfectly clear, dear marquess. Without House Friez to charge into battle for you, to slaughter for you, to eliminate your troubles, your rule would be nothing but putrid carrion rotting in a ditch—a stench not even a stray dog would deign to sniff. Do you comprehend?"

  "Fuck you!" Gozi bellowed. Sir Lunedale hesitated, uncertain whether to intervene; Riveper Friez had already immobilized him with a glance. "Easy, sir," Friez said, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "We're merely conversing. Steady, young man." Sir Lunedale felt himself turn to stone.

  "Listen, listen." Friez's other hand slid across Gozi's cheek; sweat beaded on his fingertips. "My dear Marquess, don't let rage deplete your energy—the fat you take such pride in. Calm yourself and hear me." He wiped the sweat onto the marquess's trousers; the fleshy folds of Gozi's face quivered like jelly. "This campaign has cost me two brothers—my own blood. Now Margo is all I have left, my only remaining kin. If he desires a woman, I will bring her bound before him. If he wants an infant, I will, without hesitation, reach into a womb and tear the cursed fetus free. That is the way of House Friez. That is brotherhood. Today he asks merely for a corpse. He has earned it, and no living soul is endangered." His palm traversed Gozi's face, collecting sweat, then smeared it back onto the marquess. "So you should have no desire to object—or to cast the slightest aspersion upon him."

  "I..."

  "I've prepared a place for you in the Hall of Glory—cushioned luxuriously, comfortable, secure. All you need do is sit, occasionally wiggle those fat fingers of yours, and direct your slaves. Everything else? Not your concern. Understood?"

  "Your father," the marquess said, glaring, "would not have approved of your conduct here today."

  "My father," he replied with a pleasant smile, "didn't approve of aging, decay, or death either. Yet all are inevitable."

  "I'm not going to the Hall of Glory." After Riveper Friez had departed, he barked at his slaves, "I refuse to sit in any chair that bastard selected for me, and I won't look upon that whore occupying my throne. I'm going to tour the entire palace. Is that clear?"

  The slaves acknowledged his command; Sir Lunedale Gil Assimo merely shrugged. Never before had he witnessed the marquess so powerless against another's threats. "You won't accompany me, Gil?"

  "I must attend to... the citizenry."

  "Ah, yes. Bring those monkeys to heel." As he waddled away, he called back, "And don't bring me any Ghouls." Sir Lunedale bowed in response.

  Gil Assimo sat on the stone steps, gazing blankly at the infantry being arranged and rearranged across the square. He had no conception of how to eliminate nearly fifty thousand souls in Phyal. He had accepted this responsibility for one reason alone: to prevent the Marquess of Brennoria and House Friez from unleashing wholesale slaughter in the streets. He had witnessed the Friez methodology firsthand. The mere task of mounting all the severed heads on spears required considerable manpower. In Pale City, Margo Friez had corralled townsfolk in sheep pens; whenever he sought entertainment, he drove them into bramble-filled woods and hunted them with his crossbred hounds. The naked young women had scarcely an inch of intact skin left before the hounds even picked up their trail. To Sir Lunedale, it was carnage—needless and abhorrent.

  Before him, troops rotated in and out in fresh formations. Finally, he reached his decision: he would have gallows constructed and pyres assembled. "The classic way," he told himself.

  According to later Cynthian historians' calculations, of the six hundred and fifty thousand souls within the Kingdom of Cynthia at the time of the siege, fewer than half survived. The Godma Empire's own records were far more "conservative," reporting a much higher survival rate.