“The rest?” That was the Prince Imperial asking what Lady Clare couldn’t bring herself to ask.

“Unarmed,” said Lazlo. “Our tanks and APVs are so much scrap. There isn’t a functioning battle hover in the entire city. The figures are all there.” Lazlo didn’t bother to add Your Highness or sir. In fact, Clare realized, he hadn’t used the conventional honorific once since the meeting began. Which told her what she wanted to know, but not yet as much as she needed.

“Totally unarmed...?”

Lazlo just looked at her.

“Totally?” Lady Clare kept her voice calm. Repeating her question into the silence, as the others around them stopped talking and began watching instead.

“Glass knives, zytel blades, sharpened sticks...” Count Lazlo’s voice was contemptuous, making it obvious he answered her only out of politeness.

Thin and bird-like, Lady Clare leant forward and Lazlo flinched as she prodded him once over his breastbone. “Even a sharpened stick kills if it’s stuck in the right place.” Lady Clare smiled grimly. “Ask Vlad Tepes... Besides, there must be glass bottles, reserves of petrol, rags...” Lady Clare raised her chin slightly and pushed back her shoulders. So, this wasn’t how she’d intended the confrontation to go. But she wasn’t going to let Lazlo... Lady Clare stopped and caught her thoughts before they span out of control. Just what was she trying to save? That old man sitting smiling at her, the Third Empire itself, or the girl she’d given birth to? No one could protect all three, not even her.

So had she the guts to betray her country or the brains not to have to, Lady Clare asked herself. Maybe she’d have found it easier if LizAlec really had been her daughter — or maybe she wouldn’t. Lady Clare knew exactly why she should save LizAlec, basic responsibility, but she had less than no idea why she should attempt to save a corrupt, rotting empire. Even assuming the Empire could be saved or she could do it.

“How noble that sounds,” Lazlo said lightly. “Fighting the Reich with pointed sticks. But let’s be less emotional about this, shall we?” He stopped, looked around the small study. “I take it everyone agrees our first priority is to protect the Prince Imperial...”

His gaze halted when he reached Lady Clare.

What did he want from her?

Agreement?

“No,” said Lady Clare. “I don’t believe our first duty is to save His Highness.” Even the Prince looked surprised at that: but he kept silent, his pale grey eyes never once leaving her face as she stalked across to a side table, leaving them waiting. Keeping them waiting while she slowly poured herself coffee and then poured another cup, carrying it back to the Prince Imperial, meeting his quizzical smile.

After a life of indulgence, the Prince had been forbidden coffee, cigars and cocaine by his doctors, not to mention sexual activity and stress. But Lady Clare figured caffeine was the least of his vices and, besides, he was about to need all the comfort he could get.

“Our job isn’t to save His Highness,” said Lady Clare. “It’s to save the Empire. And even if we were successful, to save the Empire means condemning Paris.” They all knew she told the truth. Every one of them had seen Gdansk: not a building left standing, not an oak or plane tree that wasn’t uprooted.

Any army could wreak that kind of damage with a small fission device, just as a neutron burst could clear a city but leave its historic buildings untouched. But to destroy Gdansk with gunpowder, crowbars and ropes because the semiAI howitzers were virus-struck and there were no drones to deliver bombs, that took will. The blood-and-iron kind that drunken Cossacks always sang about.

Lady Clare glanced apologetically at the Prince Imperial, but he just stared back, almost as if knew what she was about to ask. “The question,” said Lady Clare, “isn’t can we save the empire, hut should we... Is our Byzantium worth saving?”

Wind rattled the wooden shutters and flames spat in the grate but that was all the noise there was. “We have a choice,” Lady Clare announced into the silence. “A simple, very basic choice. To have any chance of keeping the Empire together we have to fight, with sharpened sticks if that’s what it takes. Alternatively, we surrender now, which saves Paris. But then the Empire falls...” Lady Clare looked at the others, watching their faces. That she didn’t recognize two of them told her all she needed to know about how well the government was holding together. Chief ministers had been fleeing like proverbial rats, their places taken by underlings.

In a way that was good, Lady Clare decided, because it meant the only people who really counted in that room were her and Lazlo. Plus the Prince Imperial, obviously...

“There’s a third alternative,” Lazlo said loudly, much too loudly. Which was interesting in itself. Either the man could feel control slipping away or he was having trouble keeping his temper. Lady Clare couldn’t decide which she considered most unlikely.

“Is there?” asked Lady Clare, interrupting just as Lazlo opened his mouth to speak again.

The tall man flushed. He was leaning forward on the balls of his feet, like an athlete on the starting block, as impatient as any runner. Too fast, Lady Clare thought disapprovingly. You’re going at it too fast. A vein throbbed in his temple and a tic pulled at the corner of one eye. He was under much more pressure than she’d realized. Lady Clare just wondered why she was so certain it wasn’t the same pressure as the rest of them were suffering.

“What’s the third option?” she asked, cutting in again as Count Lazlo opened his mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, Lady Clare could see the Prince Imperial smother a grin.

“The Prince Imperial could rule under the protection of the Fourth Reich...” Lazlo said furiously.

“And for how long?” Lady Clare asked softly. “Until the last of the Ishies ups camp and leaves? Until CySat C3N pull out their final vidman?”

“No,” Lazlo shook his head. “Forever, until...” He fumbled with the words. “For as long as the Prince Imperial wants,” Lazlo finished lamely. He couldn’t very well say until the prince died, because everyone knew the old man didn’t intend to.

“Rule under the Reich? No.” The old man leant forward in his chair so suddenly he slopped coffee into his Sevres saucer, rutting the cup and saucer down carefully, he absent-mindedly dried his hand on the hem of his smoking jacket. “No,” he said more firmly. “I hope everyone agrees that is not an option...” Grey eyes swept the room like intelligent fire and Lady Clare found herself nodding along with everyone except Lazlo.

“Paris fights to the end and maybe, just maybe, the Empire decides to fight back, inspired by our example.” The old man smiled sardonically, as if he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Or we save the city and...” The prince spread his hands theatrically. He was smiling.

He was fucking good at it, thought Lady Clare, surprised by her own crudity. The old man could have been standing in a ballroom addressing 500 of the Empire’s richest movers and shakers, or talking over a newsfeed to 500,000,000 of his erstwhile subjects. No one listening blind would have known he was talking to five scared councillors.

The Prince Imperial looked at Lazlo and then nodded — but it was to himself. Whatever his decision was, there would be no point trying to argue him out of it. The Bonaparte stubbornness was legendary. He would surrender Paris rather than see it destroyed, decided Lady Clare. The man always had been an old-fashioned liberal at heart: it was one of his worst failings.

“I intend to retire to my study,” said the Prince Imperial, looking straight at Lady Clare. He could have been speaking to her alone and it seemed to Lady Clare that he was. Standing unsteadily, the old man walked shakily across the damp carpet, turning back to the entrance.