Джо Аберкромби - A Little Hatred - Book One (The Age of Madness)

Selest saw her coming, carried across the hall on a wave of poisonous fury, and darted to head her off. ‘Lady Savine! We are all so very glad you have returned to us unhurt.’

‘Lady Selest, you’re such a treasure.’

‘It must have been a terrible ordeal, what you went through.’

The temptation to bite her was almost overwhelming. But Savine only shrugged. ‘I was far from the only one who suffered.’

Selest was pretty, clever and rich, but she led with her chest and smiled far too much. Smile all the time and you’ll make them sick, like a cook serving nothing but meringue. Make your smile a rare treat, you’ll leave them desperate to taste another. Savine let Brock see the corner of hers, just for a moment, almost hidden behind her fan.

‘I’m Leo,’ he said, with that bluff, blunt Angland accent.

‘Of course you are,’ said Savine.

Selest’s voice dripped with tattletale venom. ‘Lady Savine was in Valbeck .’

As if Valbeck was some awful secret. She thought to make Savine seem ruined. But all she would do was make her seem fascinating. Savine would see to it.

‘It’s true,’ she said, turning away, biting her lip as though at horrible memories.

Brock blinked. ‘During the uprising?’

‘I was visiting a manufactory in which I am … in which I was a part owner … when it happened.’ She let it hang there for a long time, finally meeting Leo’s eye. As if she would not tell just anyone, but could not hide the truth from him. ‘The workers turned on us. Several hundred of them. I am ashamed to say I locked myself in an office. I heard them overpower the guards, heard them set upon my business partner.’

Brock stared, mouth slightly open. ‘By the dead …’

Savine caught a delicious glimpse of doubt on Selest’s face. As she realised that her banal drivel could not possibly compete with this. ‘I found a loose board, broke my nails pulling it up. I had to crawl through the machinery to get away, while they smashed down the door above.’

Brock was spellbound. ‘That must’ve taken some courage.’

‘Or lucky cowardice, in my case. I saw one of the guards dragged into the machinery. His arm was ripped off in the gears.’

Selest preened and fluttered in an effort to recapture Brock’s attention, but it was futile. Sometimes pretty lies win the day. But sometimes ugly truths cut deeper. She spoke on, relentless, imagining each word was a slap in Selest’s face.

‘I crawled through the guts of the building to the river and squeezed between a wall and a waterwheel. I found a filthy old coat washed up on the riverbank, disguised myself as a beggar and ran. The city was … going mad. Gangs on the rampage. Prisoners marched in columns. Owners hanged from jibs. I wish I could say I helped but I was thinking only of myself. Honestly, I was hardly thinking at all.’

‘No one could blame you,’ said Brock.

‘I was chased through the slums. Through tenements where the husk-smokers lay twelve to a room. Through the filth of the pig pens. Two men cornered me in a blind alley …’ She remembered that moment. Remembered their faces. Now she would turn her terror to her advantage. Even Selest looked gripped now, her fan hanging limp.

‘What … happened?’ muttered Brock, as if fearing the answer.

‘I had a sword with me. A decorative thing but … sharp.’ Savine let the silence stretch an almost uncomfortably long time. A blabbermouth like Selest would never understand that drama is not so much a question of words, but of the silences between. ‘I killed them. Both of them, I think. I hardly even chose to do it, but suddenly … it was done.’ She took a breath, and it caught in her throat, and she let it go, jagged. ‘They gave me no choice, but … I still think about it. I think about it over and over.’

‘You did what you had to,’ whispered Brock.

‘That makes it no easier to live with.’

Selest’s voice sounded slightly cracked. ‘Well, you’re back with us now, and I for one—’

Brock spoke over her as if she wasn’t there. ‘How did you get away?’

‘I stumbled upon some decent people and … they took me in. They kept me alive, until Prince Orso delivered the city.’ Selest dan Heugen knew when she was beaten. She snapped her fan open and drifted off. The chill satisfaction of victory was the closest Savine had come to pleasure in some time. She might never be Queen of the Union, but she still reigned supreme over the ballroom. ‘And here I am.’

‘That’s … quite a story,’ said Brock.

‘Not compared to facing fearsome warriors in a Circle of shields, I daresay.’

‘Your ordeal went on for weeks. Mine was done in moments.’ He leaned close, as if sharing his own secret. ‘Between the two of us, Stour Nightfall’s the better swordsman.’ He brushed the long scab under his eye with a fingertip and Savine realised, with a guilty thrill, that it must be a sword-cut. ‘He could’ve killed me a dozen times. All I did was survive long enough for his own arrogance to beat him.’

She held up her glass. ‘To the survivors, then.’

‘I can drink to that.’ He had a fine smile. Open, honest, full of excellent teeth. Even though the fight was won, Savine found she was still talking to him. More surprising still, she found she was enjoying it. ‘Your name is Savine?’

‘Yes … Savine dan Glokta.’ Say what you would for the name, you could always be sure of a reaction. Brock gave an ungainly cough. He really had no disguise at all. ‘You met my father, then?’

‘All I can say is you got your mother’s looks, and she must be quite the beauty.’

She gave him a discerning nod. ‘Not a bad effort, under the circumstances.’

All she had wanted was to crush Selest dan Heugen, now fanning herself wildly beside an oblivious Lord Isher. But with the fight won, the pearl dust and the drink closed back in on Savine and she found the prize was an extremely handsome man. There truly was something of the lion in his sandy hair worn long, his sandy beard cropped short, his confident, comfortable, obvious strength. With that healing cut across his face, he looked like the hero from an overblown storybook. So manly, and so popular, and so powerful. Indeed, the young Lord Governor of Angland was surely the most eligible bachelor in the Union at that moment. If you discounted Crown Prince Orso. Which Savine feared she had to.

‘It must be difficult to be a celebrated hero,’ she said. Everyone wants to be sympathised with, after all, however little they deserve it.

‘I’ll admit it takes some getting used to.’

‘It must be hard to tell the genuine admiration from the empty breath. Surrounded by people, but all alone.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Everyone trying to make use of you.’

‘Whereas you’ve got my best interests at heart?’

‘I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by pretending anything of the kind. But we might be able to make use of each other.’ And she gave Leo another smile. Why not? His blunt, easy manners were the opposite of Orso’s. He brought her no puzzles to solve. His words barely had single meanings, let alone double ones. And sometimes a beautiful fool is the very thing one needs.

Savine was tired of being clever. She wanted to be rash. She wanted to hurt someone. Hurt herself. ‘There is one place in the city you really ought to visit while you’re here.’

‘Really?’

‘The office of a friend of mine. A writer. Spillion Sworbreck.’

Brock looked crestfallen. ‘I’m … not really much of a reader—’

‘Nor am I, honestly. Sworbreck’s away on a research trip in the Near Country.’ She touched Leo on the chest ever so gently with her fan, looking up at him from under her lashes. She needed … a little something. ‘I’ll be there, though.’