Polly felt hundreds of eyes on her as the squad was let into the Inner Keep. There were one or two wolf whistles, because there were more soldiers in there, including quite a few trolls. Jade bent down, snatched up a rock, and hurled it at one of them, hitting him between the eyes.
"No one move!" shouted Maladict, waving his hands urgently as a hundred men raised their weapons. "That was the troll version of blowing a kiss!"
And, indeed, the troll who had been hit was waving at Jade, a little unsteadily.
"Can we knock it off with the lovey-dovey, please?" said Polly to Jade. "The soft people are likely to get the wrong idea."
"It's stopped the whistling, though," Maladict observed.
More people watched them as they climbed flight after flight of stone steps. No one could take this place, Polly could see that. Every flight was seen by another one higher up, every visitor would be sighted on before she'd even glimpsed a face.
A figure stepped out of the shadows as they reached the next floor. It was a young woman, in old-fashioned leather and mail armour, with a breastplate. She had long, very fair hair; for the first time in weeks, Polly felt a twinge of envy.
"Thank you, captain, I'll take over from here," she said, and nodded to Polly. "Good evening, Corporal Perks... if you would follow me, please?"
"She's a woman! And a sergeant!" Maladict whispered.
"Yes, I know," said Polly.
"But she gave an order to that captain!"
"Maybe she's a political..."
"And she's obviously female!"
"I'm not blind, Mal," said Polly.
"I'm not deaf, either," said the woman, turning and smiling. "My name is Angua. If you will wait here, I'll have some coffee sent in. There's a bit of an argument going on in there at the moment."
They were in a sort of anteroom, not much more than a widened area of corridor with a few benches. There were big double doors at the far end, behind which voices were being raised. Angua left.
"Just like that?" said Maladict. "What's to stop us taking over the place?"
"All those men with crossbows we passed on the way up?" said Polly. Why us? she thought, looking blankly at the wall.
"Oh, yes. Those. Yes," said Maladict. "Er... Poll?"
"Yes?"
"I'm actually Maladicta." She sat back. "There! I've told someone!"
"Dat's nice," said Jade.
"Oh, good," said Polly. I'd be going out to give the latrines their afternoon swill about now, she thought. This has got to be better than that, right?
"I thought I did pretty well," Maladicta went on. "Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: vampires have a pretty good time of it whatever sex they are, right? But it's the same everywhere. Velvet dresses, underwired nightgowns, acting crazy all the time, and don't let's even go near the whole 'bathing in virgin's blood' thing. You get taken a lot more seriously if they think you're male."
"Right," said Polly. All in all, it's been a long day. A bath would be nice.
"I thought I did pretty well right up until the whole coffee thing. A necklace of the roast beans, that'd be the thing. I'll be better prepared another time."
"Yeah," said Polly. "Good idea. With real soap."
"Soap? How would soap work?"
"What? Oh... sorry," said Polly.
"Did you hear anything I said?"