Reeve Scarel had always been quick enough to challenge others to fights when he knew he could win.
“Not enough to hold this castle,” Stephania said. “Not now. Every rebel who can be spared is out on the walls, trying to hold back the invasion.”
“And what about the invasion?” a noblewoman demanded. She was little better than the man who had spoken. Stephania knew secrets about what she’d done before she married into wealth that would make most of the others there blush.
“Oh, I see,” Stephania said. “You’d rather wait in a nice, safe dungeon for it all to be over. Well, what then? At best, you spend the rest of your lives in this stinking hole, if the rebels don’t decide to kill you quietly once they realize how inconvenient prisoners are. If the others win… do you think being in a cell will protect you? You won’t be nobles to them in here, just amusements. Brief amusements.”
She paused to let that sink in. She needed them to feel like cowards for even considering it.
“Or we could go out there,” Stephania said. “We take the castle and we close it against our enemies. We kill those who oppose us. I’ve already dealt with Ceres, so she won’t be able to stop us. We hold this castle until the rebellion and the invaders kill one another, then we take Delos back.”
“There are still guards,” one said. “There are still combatlords here. We can’t fight the combatlords and win.”
Stephania gestured to Elethe, who started to open the locks on the cells. “There are ways. We’ll gain more weapons with each guard we kill, and we all know where the armory is. Or you can stay here and rot. I’ll close the doors and send a few torturers later. I don’t care which.”
They followed, as Stephania knew they would. It didn’t matter whether they did it from fear, or pride, or even loyalty. What mattered was that they did it. They followed her up through the castle, and Stephania started to give orders, although she was careful to make it sound better than that, at least for now.
“Lord Hwel, would you mind taking some of the more able men and sealing the guard barracks?” Stephania said. “We don’t want rebels getting out.”
“And men loyal to the Empire?” the noble said.
“Can prove it by killing those other traitors,” Stephania replied.
The noble hurried to meet her command. She sent one of her handmaidens to gather more, and asked a noblewoman to instruct those servants who would be obedient to Stephania’s bidding.
Stephania looked around the group with her, judging who would be useful, who had secrets she could employ, whose weaknesses made them easy to control and whose made them dangerous. She sent the noble who had been so keen to avoid a fight to control the gates, and a cantankerous dowager to the kitchens where she could do no harm.
They gathered people as they went. Guards and servants came to them as they heard, their loyalties changing with the wind. Stephania’s handmaidens knelt before her, then rose at a touch to be sent about their next tasks.
Occasionally, they found rebels who wouldn’t submit, and those died. Some died in a quick rush of nobles, their weapons seized, their bodies broken as they were beaten to death. Others died with a knife taking them from behind, or a poisoned dart sliding into their flesh. Stephania’s handmaidens had learned to be good at their tasks.
When she saw Queen Athena, Stephania found herself wondering which it should be.
“What is this?” the queen demanded. “What’s going on here?”
Stephania ignored her bleating.
“Tia, I need you to find out how things are going at the armories. We need those weapons. I imagine High Reeve Scarel will have found a fight by now.”
She kept walking in the direction of the great hall.
“Stephania,” Queen Athena said. “I demand to know what’s happening.”
Stephania shrugged. “I have done what you should have. I freed these loyal people.”
It was such a simple argument, and such a neat one, that it needed no more. Stephania had been the one to do the work of saving the nobles. She was the one they owed their freedom to, and perhaps their lives.
“I was locked up too,” the queen shot back.
“Ah, of course. Had I known, I would have rescued you along with the other nobles. Now, excuse me. I have a castle to take.”
Stephania strode off briskly, because the best way to win an argument was not to give one’s opponent a chance to speak. She wasn’t surprised when the others there continued to follow her.
Nearby, Stephania heard the sounds of a fight. Gesturing to those with her, she headed up a flight of stairs, searching for a balcony. She quickly found what she was looking for. Stephania knew the layout of the castle as well as anyone.
Below, she saw a fight that would probably have impressed most people. A dozen muscled men, no two of whose weapons or armor matched, were fighting in the courtyard before the main gate. They did so against at least twice as many guards, maybe three times as many before the battle started, all led by High Reeve Scarel. More than that, it seemed that they were winning. Stephania could see the bodies scattered across the cobbles in their imperial armor. The noble who loved to pick fights had picked one for the ages, it seemed.
“Foolish man,” Stephania said.
Stephania watched for a moment, and if she had seen more of a point in the Stade, she would probably have found some kind of savage beauty in it all. As she watched, a man with a great axe slammed the haft into two men, then spun, catching one of them with the blade hard enough to nearly split him in two. A combatlord who fought with a chain leapt over a soldier, wrapping it around his neck.
It was a brave performance, and an impressive one. Perhaps if she’d thought, she could have bought a dozen combatlords sometime earlier and turned them into a suitably loyal bodyguard. The only difficulty would have been the lack of subtlety. Stephania winced as a spatter of blood managed to rise almost to the lip of the balcony.
“Aren’t they magnificent?” one of the noblewomen said.
Stephania looked over at her with as much scorn as she could muster. “I think they’re fools.” She snapped her fingers in Elethe’s direction. “Elethe, knives and bows. Now.”
Her handmaiden nodded, and Stephania watched while she and some of the others there drew throwing weapons and darts. A few of the guards with them had short bows taken from the armory. One had a ship’s crossbow, better fired braced on a deck than a balcony. They hesitated.
“Our people are down there,” one of the noblemen said.
Stephania snatched a light bow from his hands. “And they were going to die anyway, fighting combatlords so poorly. At least this way, they give us a chance to win.”
Winning was everything. Maybe one day, these others would understand that. Perhaps it was better if they didn’t. Stephania didn’t want to have to kill them.
For now, she drew the bow as best she could with her swollen belly. Firing down like this, it almost didn’t matter that she could barely pull it back halfway. It certainly didn’t matter that she took no time to aim. With the mass of those struggling there below, it
