First Councillor Triggs, leader of the Privy Council and the richest person in Neuhalt, was not a happy man.

For a start, he had eaten his breakfast too quickly and had had indigestion all morning. But that was a minor problem compared with the message that had just arrived from Captain Rabid.

‘They lost Arms-mistress Krieg?’ he snarled. ‘They let her and her companions enter the Strong-hold?’

The messenger nodded, her eyes still wide with the awfulness of it. ‘Along with a Saffy spy. Or maybe she was an assassin!’

Councillor Triggs did not care about spies and assassins. If the Saffies wanted to waste their time killing the new Margrave, it was no business of his. Another margrave or margravine would pop up in the previous one’s place, and the whole dreary business would continue.

But of course, he must pretend.

He made his eyes as wide as the messenger’s. ‘An assassin? Oh no!’

‘Oh no!’ chorused the other three councillors.

Triggs would have left it at that, but the fool messenger clapped her hand over her heart and gabbled, ‘Gods save the Faithful Throne.’

So then they all had to do the same hand-over-heart nonsense, which hurt the arthritis in Triggs’ fingers.

‘Gods save the Faithful Throne,’ he intoned, wishing all the while that he had a chopping block and could simply cut Captain Rabid’s head off for failing to follow instructions. And the messenger’s too, for bringing such bad news.

He should be able to do it; after all, he was the real ruler of Neuhalt, no matter what the populace thought. The Margrave was merely a figurehead, useful for giving the little people someone to look up to, but utterly powerless outside the castle.

He glanced at his fellow councillors, wondering what they would say if he ordered the messenger’s beheading. Would they support him?

Probably not. They all wanted to be First Councillor in his place. If he made a single false move they would be on him like wild dogs.

He forced a worried smile and dismissed the messenger.

As soon the girl was out of the room, Third Councillor Bagon thumped the table with his fist. ‘This is intolerable, Triggs. I told you that we should have sent Home Defence to support the Snuffigators and the guards. I warned you—’

‘You did no such thing,’ hissed Second Councillor Whet. ‘You insisted that we would not need Home Defence.’

‘You did, Bagon,’ said Fourth Councillor Dred, nodding her head vigorously. ‘And in the end we agreed.’

‘But we were wrong,’ snapped Triggs. ‘And now Arms-mistress Krieg is probably telling the new Margrave all about the salt mines and the slaves. How will he react, hm? Will he demand that we close the mines down? That we stop our dealings with the slavers? Or will he just want to share the profits?’

Bagon and Dred looked horrified. But Whet, who was almost as clever as Triggs, studied her emerald rings and said, ‘He cannot make us close the mines. He cannot make us do anything. If he insists that we stop using slaves, we will simply tell him that we have done his bidding, and he will have no choice but to believe us.’

‘Possibly,’ said Triggs. ‘But we cannot control all the information that goes in and out of the Strong-hold. There is always a leak somewhere. The Margrave can make serious trouble for us, if he wishes to do so.’

‘I wish the Margrave was in his grave,’ muttered Bagon. ‘And all the rest of the nobles too. We don’t need them; why can’t they catch purple fever or something? Why can’t they all die and leave us alone?’

It was not often that the Third Councillor said anything useful. But now Triggs felt as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.

He leaped to his feet, strode to the other end of the table, grabbed Bagon’s meaty hand and shook it over and over again. ‘An excellent idea, Third Councillor. Give yourself a pay rise. Another fifty silver gloats a day, I think. You deserve it!’

As Bagon stared in open-mouthed astonishment, a watery beam of sunshine crept in through the high meeting room window and illuminated the end of his nose.

A sign, thought Triggs. A sign that I am on the right track.

He cleared his throat. ‘The Strong-hold,’ he said, ‘has leeched off this city for five hundred years, and I for one am sick of it. I am sick of paying homage to the Faithful Throne once a week. I am sick of bowing and scraping and pretending to be poor; pretending to listen to the instructions of people who know nothing about the workings of the real world. I am sick of having to think about them when we have so many more important things to think about.’

He leaned towards his fellow councillors and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘But what if we could be rid of them, hm? What if we could be rid of them forever, along with Arms-mistress Krieg, Lord Rump and the children? That would solve our little problem, would it not?’