Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

There was the sneering cripple who’d asked all the questions that day in the tower, dressed now all in white. There was a fat man with a face full of broken veins, looked as if he started each day with a bottle. There was a tall, lean bastard in a black breastplate covered in fancy gold, with a soft smile and hard little eyes. As shifty a pack of liars as Logen had ever laid eyes on, but there was one worse than all the rest together.

Bayaz sat with an easy grin on his face, as if everything had turned out just the way he’d planned. Maybe it had. Damn wizard. Logen should have known better than to trust a man with no hair. The spirits had warned him that Magi have their own purposes, but he’d taken no notice, plunged on blindly, hoping for the best, just like always. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he never listens. One fault among many.

His eyes swivelled the other way, towards Jezal. He looked comfortable enough in his kingly robes, golden crown gleaming on his head, golden chair even bigger than the one that Logen was sitting in. His wife sat beside him. She had a frosty pride about her, maybe, but no worse for that. Beautiful as a winter morning. And she had this look on her face, when she looked at Jezal. A fierce kind of look, as if she could hardly stop herself tearing into him with her teeth. That lucky bastard always seemed to come out alright. She could’ve had a little bite out of Logen if she’d wanted, but what woman in her right mind did?

He frowned most of all at himself in the mirrors opposite, raised up on the high platform beside Jezal and his queen. He looked a sullen and brooding, scarred and fearsome monster beside that beautiful pair. A man made of murder, then swaddled in rich coloured cloth and rare white furs, set with polished rivets and bright buckles, all topped off with a great golden chain around his shoulders. That same chain that Bethod had worn. His hands stuck from the ends of his fur-trimmed sleeves, marked and brutal, one finger missing, grasping at the arms of his gilded chair. King’s clothes, maybe, but killer’s hands. He looked like the villain in some old children’s story. The ruthless warrior, clawed his way to power with fire and steel. Climbed to a throne up a mountain of corpses. Maybe he was that man.

He squirmed around, new cloth scratching at his clammy skin. He’d come a long way, since he dragged himself out of a river without even a pair of boots to his name. Dragged himself across the High Places with nothing but a pot for company. He’d come a long way, but he wasn’t sure he hadn’t liked himself better before. He’d laughed when he’d heard that Bethod was calling himself a king. Now here he was, doing the same, and even worse suited to the job. Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a cunt. Simple as that. And that’s not something any man likes to admit about himself.

The drunkard, Hoff, was doing most of the talking. “The Lords’ Round lies in ruins, alas. For the time being, therefore, until a venue of grandeur suitable for this noble institution has been built—a new Lords’ Round, richer and greater than the last—it has been decided that the Open Council will stand in recess.”

There was a pause. “In recess?” someone muttered.

“How will we be heard?”

“Where will the nobles have their voice?”

“The nobles will speak through the Closed Council.” Hoff had that tone a man uses talking down to a child. “Or may apply to the Undersecretary for Audiences to obtain a hearing with the king.”

“But any peasant may do so!”

Hoff raised his eyebrows. “True.”

A ripple of anger spread out through the Lords in front of them. Logen might not have understood too much about politics, but he could recognise one set of men getting stood on by another. Never a nice thing to be part of, but at least he was on the side doing the standing, for once.

“The king and the nation are one and the same!” Bayaz’ harsh voice cut over the chatter. “You only borrow your lands from him. He regrets that he requires some portion of them back, but such is the spur of necessity.”

“A quarter.” The cripple licked at his empty gums with a faint sucking sound. “From each one of you.”

“This will not stand!” shouted an angry old man in the front row.

“You think not, Lord Isher?” Bayaz only smiled at him. “Those who do not think so may join Lord Brock in dusty exile, and surrender all their lands to the crown instead of just a portion.”

“This is an outrage!” shouted another man. “Always, the king has been first among equals, the greatest of nobles, not above them. Our votes brought him to the throne, and we refuse—”

“You dance close to a line, Lord Heugen.” The cripple’s face twitched with ugly spasms as he frowned across the room. “You might wish to remain on that side of it, where it is safe, and warm, and loyal. The other side will not suit you so well, I think.” A long tear ran from his flickering left eye and down his hollow cheek. “The Surveyor General will be assessing your estates over the coming months. It would be wise for you all to lend him your fullest assistance.”

A lot of men were on their feet now, scowling, shaking fists. “This is outrageous!”

“Unprecedented!”

“Unacceptable!”

“We refuse to be intimidated!”

Jezal sprang from his throne, raising his jewelled sword high, and struck at the platform again and again with the end of the scabbard, filling the room with booming echoes. “I am the king!” he bellowed at the suddenly silent chamber. “I am not offering a choice, I am issuing a royal decree! Adua will be rebuilt, and more glorious than ever! This is the price! You have grown too used to a weak crown, my Lords! Believe me when I say that those days are now behind us!”

Bayaz leaned sideways to mutter in Logen’s ear. “Surprisingly good at this, isn’t he?”

The Lords grumbled, but they sat back down as Jezal spoke on, voice washing around the room with easy confidence, sheathed sword still held firmly in one fist. “Those who lent me their wholehearted support in the recent crisis will be exempt. But that list, to your shame, is all too brief. Why, it was friends from outside the borders of the Union who sustained us in our time of need!”

The man in black swept from his chair. “I, Orso of Talins, stand always at the side of my royal son and daughter!” He seized Jezal’s face and kissed both his cheeks. Then he did the same with the queen. “Their friends are my friends.” He said it with a smile, but the meaning was hard to miss. “Their enemies? Ah! You all are clever men. You can guess the rest.”

“I thank you for your part in our deliverance,” said Jezal. “You have our gratitude. The war between the Union and the North is at an end. The tyrant Bethod is dead, and there is a new order. I am proud to call the man who threw him down my friend. Logen Ninefingers! King of the Northmen!” He beamed, holding out his hand. “It is fitting that we should stride into this bold new future as brothers.”

“Aye,” said Logen, pushing himself painfully up from his chair. “Right.” He folded Jezal in a hug, slapped him on the back with a thump that echoed round the great chamber. “Reckon we’ll be staying our side of the Whiteflow from now on. Unless my brother has trouble down here, of course.” He swept the sullen old men in the front row with a graveyard scowl. “Don’t make me fucking come back here.” He sat down in the big chair and frowned out. The Bloody-Nine might not have known too much about politics, but he knew how to make a threat alright.

“We won the war!” Jezal rattled the golden hilt of his sword, then slid it smoothly back through the clasp on his belt. “Now we must win the peace!”