Pulling his ruined clothing into some semblance of shape, Lorenzo the artist, scion of the noble house of Utrelli, moved up to the thick wooden bars across the gatehouse door. An old man bearing a spiked wooden club scrabbled up from his comfortable chair behind the portal and waved the weapon back and forth above his head.

"Be off with you, ragamuffin! You'll get no charity here!"

"Oh, hush!" Miliana regarded the old man with a foul-tempered scowl. "Can't you see he's Lorenzo Utrelli?"

"He knows…" Lorenzo kicked at the gate in spite. "Open the gate, Alonzo, or I'll burn the damned thing down."

The old gatekeeper muttered; seething with dislike, he ripped open the locks and swung the heavy doors aside. Lorenzo led Miliana and Luccio in through the gatehouse, biting his thumb at the gatekeeper as he passed.

Just to prove superiority, Tekoriikii strutted back and forth past the old man three times, clucking to himself as he shook out his fabulous tail.

In a courtyard formed by a hollow square of half-timbered walls, Lorenzo handed Miliana down from her horse. The girl shot an ill-tempered glance back to the gate.

"Is he always like that?"

"Nasty old…" Lorenzo tried to help Miliana bash her hat back into a presentable cone. "I tried to replace him with an automatic door-opening machine."

"What-because it was less expensive?"

"No, because it would have offered better conversation." The young artist adjusted his rapier belt and headed for the stairs. "Come on up. Tekoriikii, leave him alone, you don't know where he's been!"

The group entered a darkly panelled, badly lit great hall that smelled of wood polish and fried onions. A pair of overfed maids took one look at Lorenzo, gave spiteful scowls, and stalked off without a word. Lorenzo ignored the scene and busied himself opening up the curtains, trying to bring some illumination to the room as he spoke for the benefit of his friends.

"Welcome to House Utrelli. Contents: One father-heavy cavalryman, retired. One brainless dolt of a younger brother-light cavalryman, not retired. The barracks house three hundred Lanze Spezzate, four noblemen, five squires, and a gatekeeper with a club. An environment tailor-made to foster hostility and hate." He turned as the sound of silks whispered down a connecting hall. "The house also contains one sister: Name-unimportant. Profession-gold digger."

The door opened, revealing the sister in question-tall, haughty, and wearing a well-stuffed court gown. She faced Lorenzo with a sweet, false smile and dropped herself into a little bow.

"Brother scribbler."

"Sister bloodsucker." Lorenzo looked at the girl with absolute, unfeigned dislike. "These are my friends. This is Princess Miliana. We've all just escaped the fall of Sumbria."

"Why, how very nice for them!" Lorenzo's sister simpered, keeping her malicious face locked into its perfect smile. "And so why have you brought them here?"

"Why do you think?" Lorenzo ignored the girl and began wrenching open doors. "Where's father?"

"Father has left word that he is not at home."

"Meaning that he is home and just doesn't want to see me." Lorenzo pulled open a broom cupboard and stuck his head inside. "Father?"

A muffled reply drifted through the wall; thrusting into the room came a massive, powerful old man. Although fully seven decades old, he towered over his own son by some six inches in height and fifty pounds of muscle mass.

Franco Utrelli, once a cavalier of the realm and now father to a nitwit inventor of a son, took one look at Lorenzo and let his nose wrinkle to a hidden smell.

"Oh, it's you." Lorenzo's father looked as though he had just trodden in something nasty. "Unless you've got a princess-get out."

"Father, it's an emergency! And anyway-I have a princess." Lorenzo flicked a glance at a man behind his father who could have been his father's younger clone. "Hello, Alberto. Father, Sumbria has fallen to Colletro. The whole city just passed into Svarezi's hands."

"Good riddance to 'em, too!" The senior Utrelli tried to wave Lorenzo from the room. "Always cluttering things up with do-good intentions and too-clever-by-half plans…"

"Father-we've been allies for a hundred years!"

"And look where it's gotten us! It's turned our young fighting men into a race of worthless nancies." Old Utrelli senior prodded a finger at the dandified Luccio. "In my day, men were men. Soldiers and commanders… like your brother here. Now there's a fine figure of a man. Not some damned paintbrush-swizzling, tinker-brained, gnome-headed, leveling little freak!"

Lorenzo's younger brother puffed out his muscular chest in pride. Lorenzo sneered and jabbed at the creature in unremitting spite.

"He's exactly what's wrong with the entire system of social class! He has the brains of a golem and the education of a goblin; yet we're told that the lower orders have to listen to every word the damned fool says! If we're ever going to have true justice, we need to run governments through meritocracy. Set up a way to have the ruling done by those most fit to-"

"The nobility are most fit to rule!"

"No one has given the common folk a chance to try, so how can we possibly…"

Lorenzo's father stuck his fingers in his ears.

"I'm not listening!" He began to sing loudly and tonelessly, instantly attracting Tekoriikii's attention. "Not listening! Not listening!"

Lorenzo's sister tried to intrude with her sweet, genteel smile.

"Now, Lorenzo, you know how father feels about your proposition to overthrow the ruling classes."

"What would you know about it? The only thing you ever overthrew was your own virtue."

Lorenzo's brother stirred into action with an "I say, steady on…" The family argument settled into full swing. Watched by an innocent and confused Tekoriikii, who flicked his head from side to side and up and down like a frog at a gnat convention, all four members of the Utrelli family, their two maids, and their gatekeeper all crowded into a circle and began a wild melee of words. Invective flew like an arrow storm, accompanied by hand gestures, stamping feet, and wild bellows of rage. Miliana watched in growing fury, slowly cramming her ruined hat deeper down over her brows.

"Shut up!"

Miliana's voice snapped like a lightning bolt, bringing an amazed halt to the family wars.

"Shut up! I order you to shut up!"

Lorenzo's sister blinked at her in shock, then opened her mouth to speak. She took one look at Miliana and blanched as the princess bunched a fist.

Short, begrimed and bespectacled, Miliana kept the Utrelli family rooted to the spot as she snapped out orders like a leader born.

Her first command sent Lorenzo's brother scuttling away.

"You! Go return my horse to the city gate. You maids-go get a room for me and then pile some straw in a corner as a nest for the bird. He wants a box of salt biscuits, a bucket of nuts-and get me a bottle of new white wine." Filthy, tired, and angry, the princess kicked Lorenzo's brother on his way. "Move it! The rest of you-I want baths for me, for Luccio, and for Lorenzo, a change of clothes and a meal-and someone get me a map of the Blade Kingdoms, now!"

Trying to preserve her air of cynical gentility, Lorenzo's sister faced Miliana with lowered lashes.

"And is there nothing else?"

"I'll work on it." Miliana marked the door to the bathhouse and hitched up her filthy skirts. "I get the bath first. Just find me a decent dress and some towels."

The sister gazed down her nose at Miliana with a sneer.

"And what, my dear, should you be called?"

"I should be called when I've finished my bath." Miliana ruthlessly pushed the larger girl aside. "After that, you can call a meeting of your Blade Council, and call your troops to arms."

Miliana departed in a slap of bare, muddy feet. Lorenzo's sister kept a smile frozen on her face as she swiveled furious eyes upon Lorenzo.