Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself

“Captain Luthar! What an almost unbearable honour!”

“Ardee,” muttered Jezal, somewhat surprised to find her here, “it’s good to see you again.” For once he actually meant it. She was interesting, is what she was. It was a new and refreshing thing for him to actually be interested in what a woman had to say. And she was damn good-looking too, there was no denying it, and seemed prettier every time he saw her. Nothing could ever happen between them, of course, what with West being his friend and all, but there was no harm in looking, was there? “Er… is your brother around?”

She threw herself carelessly down onto the settle against the wall, one leg stretched out, looking very sour. “He’s out. Gone out. Always busy. Much too busy for me.” There was a definite flush to her cheek. Jezal’s eye lighted on the decanter. The stopper was out and the wine was halfway down.

“Are you drunk?”

“Somewhat,” she squinted at a half-full wine glass at her elbow, “but mostly I’m just bored.”

“It’s not even ten.”

“Can’t I be bored before ten?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Leave the moralising to my brother. It suits him better. And have a drink.” She waved her hand at the bottle. “You look like you need one.”

Well, that was true enough. He poured himself a glass and sat down in a chair facing Ardee, while she regarded him with heavy-lidded eyes. She took her own glass from the table. There was a thick book lying next to it, face down.

“How’s the book?” asked Jezal.

“ The Fall of the Master Maker , in three volumes. They say it’s one of the great classics of history. Lot of boring rubbish,” she snorted derisively. “Full of wise Magi, stern knights with mighty swords and ladies with mightier bosoms. Magic, violence and romance, in equal measure. Utter shit.” She slapped the book off the table and it tumbled onto the carpet, pages flapping.

“There must be something you can find to keep busy?”

“Really? What would you suggest?”

“My cousins do a lot of embroidery.”

“Fuck yourself.”

“Hmm,” said Jezal, smiling. The swearing no longer seemed half so offensive as it had done when they first met. “What did you do at home, in Angland?”

“Oh, home,” her head dropped against the back of the settle. “I thought I was bored there. I could hardly wait to come here to the bright centre of things. Now I can hardly wait to go back. Marry some farmer. Have a dozen brats. At least I’d get some conversation that way.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “But Collem won’t let me. He feels responsible, now that our father’s dead. Thinks it’s too dangerous. He’d rather I didn’t get slaughtered by the Northmen, but that’s about where his sense of responsibility ends. It certainly doesn’t extend to spending ten minutes together with me. So it looks like I’m stuck here, with all you arrogant snobs.”

Jezal shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “He seems to manage.”

“Oh yes,” snorted Ardee, “Collem West, he’s a damn fine fellow! Won a Contest don’t you know? First through the breach at Ulrioch, wasn’t he? No breeding at all, never be one of us, but a damn fine fellow, for a commoner! Shame about that upstart sister of his though, too clever by half. And they say she drinks,” she whispered. “Doesn’t know her place. Total disgrace. Best just to ignore her.” She sighed again. “Yes, the sooner I go home, the happier everyone will be.”

“I won’t be happier.” Damn, did he say that out loud?

Ardee laughed, none too pleasantly. “Well, it’s enormously noble of you to say so. Why aren’t you fencing anyway?”

“Marshal Varuz was busy today.” He paused for a moment. “In fact, I had your friend Sand dan Glokta as fencing master this morning.”

“Really? What did he have to say for himself?”

“Various things. He called me a fool.”

“Imagine that.”

Jezal frowned. “Yes, well. I’m as bored with fencing as you are with that book. That was what I wanted to talk to your brother about. I’m thinking of giving it up.”

She burst out laughing. Snorting, gurgling peals of it. Her whole body was shaking. Wine sloshed out of her glass and splattered across the floor. “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

“It’s just,” she wiped a tear from her eye, “I had a bet with Collem. He was sure you’d stick at it. And now I’m ten marks richer.”

“I’m not sure that I like being the subject of your bet,” said Jezal sharply.

“I’m not sure I give a damn.”

“This is serious.”

“No it isn’t!” she snapped. “For my brother it was serious, he had to do it! No one even notices you if you don’t have a ‘dan’ in your name, and who’d know better than me? You’re the only person who’s given me the time of day since I got here, and then only because Collem made you. I’ve precious little money and no blood at all, and that makes me less than nothing to the likes of you. The men ignore me and the women cut me dead. I’ve got nothing here, nothing and no one, and you think you’ve got the hard life? Please! I might take up fencing,” she said bitterly. “Ask the Lord Marshal if he has space for a pupil, would you? At least then I’d have someone to talk to!”

Jezal blinked. That wasn’t interesting. That was rude. “Hold on, you’ve no idea what it’s like to—”

“Oh stop whinging! How old are you? Five? Why don’t you go back to sucking on your mother’s tit, infant?”

He could hardly believe what he was hearing. How dare she? “My mother’s dead,” he said. Hah. That should make her feel guilty, squeeze an apology out of her. It didn’t.

“Dead? Lucky her, at least she doesn’t have to listen to your damn whining! You spoiled little rich boys are all the same. You get everything you could possibly want, then throw a tantrum because you have to pick it up yourself! You’re pathetic! You make me fucking sick!”

Jezal goggled. His face was burning, stinging, as if he’d been slapped. He’d rather have been slapped. He had never been spoken to like that in his life. Never! It was worse than Glokta. Much worse, and far more unexpected. He realised his mouth was hanging half open. He snapped it shut, grinding his teeth together, slapped his glass down on the table, and got up to leave. He was turning to the door when it suddenly opened, leaving him and Major West staring at each other.

“Jezal,” said West, looking at first simply surprised and then, as he glanced over at his sister, sprawling on the settle, slightly suspicious. “What are you doing here?”

“Er… I came to see you actually.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. But it can wait. I’ve things to do.” And Jezal pushed past his friend and out into the corridor.

“What was all that about?” He heard West saying as he strode away from the room. “Are you drunk?”

With every step Jezal’s fury mounted until he was halfway to being strangled by it. He had been the victim of an assault! A savage and undeserved attack! He stopped in the corridor, trembling with rage, his breath snorting in his nose like he’d run ten miles, his fists clenched painfully tight. And from a woman too! A woman! And a bloody commoner! How dare she? He had wasted time on her, and laughed at her jokes, and found her attractive! She should have been honoured to be noticed!

“That fucking bitch!” he snarled to himself. He had half a mind to go back and say it to her face, but it was too late. He stared around for something to hit. How to pay her back? How? Then it came to him.

Prove her wrong.

That would do it. Prove her wrong, and that crippled bastard Glokta too. He’d show them how hard he could work. He’d show them he was no fool, no liar, no spoiled child. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He’d win this damn Contest, is what he’d do! That’d wipe the smiles off their faces! He set off briskly down the corridor, with a strange new feeling building in his chest.