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

‘We did all right against Stour Nightfall’s men last week,’ grumbled Leo.

‘Nightfall is over on our right just now.’ She swished her baton towards the South, making him wince again. There was just something off about a woman waving a baton around, even if she was in command for now. ‘Those are Black Calder’s men. And Calder is not a warrior, like his son.’ She raised one brow at Leo. ‘Or mine. Calder is a thinker, like me. You see those woods, over to the right? He has horsemen there, waiting for us to make a fool’s mistake.’

Jurand whisked his eyeglass out of Glaward’s fist. ‘Metal,’ he murmured. ‘In the trees.’

Leo should’ve been pleased at his own good judgement. Instead he felt angry at missing the obvious. ‘So we just sit here and let them laugh at us?’

‘I wouldn’t want them to miss the show.’ His mother nodded towards the straggling column, thrown into even more disarray by a puddle in the track. ‘I put our shabbiest men in this valley with orders to march as badly as they could.’

‘You did what?’

‘Let them laugh, Leo. Their laughter will leave no widows weeping. We have our best companies out of sight in the valley behind. If they come, we’ll be ready.’ She leaned from her saddle to push back his hair. ‘What’s this?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, brushing her hands away from the scab. ‘I was training. With Antaup and Barniva.’

‘Finally managed to land one on him,’ said Antaup, grinning.

Jurand cleared his throat and Leo’s mother frowned. ‘Tell me he didn’t fight you both at once.’

Antaup’s famous way with the ladies clearly didn’t include lady governors. ‘Well … not as such—’

‘When will you learn you’ll never beat two strong men together?’

‘I saw Bremer dan Gorst do it,’ said Leo.

‘That man’s no model for anything,’ she snapped. ‘Think of your father. He was brave, none braver, but between your grandfather’s treason and the weakness of Angland when he took charge, he learned to be patient . He knew what he was good at. He never had too high an opinion of himself.’

‘You’re saying I do?’

Jurand cleared his throat again and Leo’s mother laughed. ‘You know I love you, Leo, but yes, painfully so. Still, it’s hardly a surprise you turned out hotheaded. You were conceived on a battlefield.’

Leo caught Glaward and Barniva grinning at each other and felt himself blushing. ‘Do you have to, Mother?’

‘I don’t have to. Honestly, every generation seems to think coupling is some grand new invention never thought of before. How they believe they came into being in the first place is entirely beyond me. High time you found a wife of your own. Someone to keep you out of trouble.’

‘I thought that was your job,’ he grumbled.

‘I have a war to fight.’

‘That’s the problem. You’re not bloody fighting.’

‘Did you never read that Verturio I gave you? Not fighting is what war’s all about.’ And taking the last word, as ever, she trotted off westwards with her retinue following.

Jurand cleared his throat yet again and Leo rounded on him. ‘Could you just bloody cough and get it over with?’

‘Well, the lady governor always makes some very good points. And you really should read Verturio—’

‘She’s only governor until the king confirms me in my father’s place.’ Three years since the funeral, and Leo was still bloody waiting. He glared across the valley at those bastard Northmen, watching from their ridge. ‘Then I can do things my way.’

‘Mmm.’ Jurand had that worried crease between his brows again.

‘Whose side are you on?’

‘The Union side, along with you and your mother.’

Leo couldn’t help grinning. ‘Very reasonable, as always.’

Jurand grinned back. ‘Someone needs to be.’

‘Reasonable men might live longer.’ Leo pulled his gloves off and tossed them over, left Jurand juggling them as he swung down from his saddle. ‘But does anyone remember the bastards afterwards?’

The drummer boy at the head of the next company had given up playing altogether, shambling along with knees knocking against his drum, teeth chattering from the cold. He looked up as Leo came close and snatched his white hands from his armpits, but fumbled his sticks and sent them tumbling to the dirt.

Leo stooped and plucked them up before the boy could bend, gripped them in his teeth while he shrugged off his cloak and offered it out. ‘I’ll swap you.’

‘My lord?’ The boy could hardly believe his luck as he wriggled from the strap of his drum and swaddled himself in several dozen marks’ worth of best Midderland wool.

Barniva had hopped down from his horse, smiling for once as he fell into step with the soldiers. Now Glaward and Jurand joined him, too, Whitewater Jin shaking his shaggy head but showing that grin as he muscled into the column.

‘I’ll just take the bloody horses back, then, shall I?’ called Antaup, struggling to gather the reins.

‘Mine’s a mare!’ shouted Glaward. ‘You’re always saying how much the ladies love you!’

Some laughter through the column at that. The first in some time, by the look of things. Leo settled the drumsticks in his fingers, just like he used to when he marched the servants around the lord governor’s residence as a boy.

A leader should share the hardships of his men , his father used to tell him. He’d have a dry tent, a warm fire and a good dinner this evening, while they’d be lucky to get a blanket and a bowl of soup. But if he could put a little spring in their step on the way, it would be something. Something for them, and something for him. Something to show those bastards on the hill.

That, and Leo had always been the worst man in the world when it came to doing nothing.

‘I’ll try to remember how to play,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘if you lot can remember how to march!’

‘I’m no genius like Jurand,’ called Glaward, turning so he was trotting backwards, ‘but as I recall, it’s one foot after the other!’

‘We’ll give it a try, my lord!’ called a thickset sergeant, the men already moving faster.

Leo smiled as he started to tap out the rhythm. ‘That’s all I ask.’

The Moment

‘You asleep?’

‘No,’ grunted Clover. Only sort of a lie, since he had in fact just woken up. ‘Shut my eyes, is all.’

‘Why?’

He opened one and peered up at the boy. Hard to say which he was, with the sun flickering through the branches. Specially since Clover had forgotten their names again. ‘So I don’t have to see the injury you two are doing to the noble art of swordsmanship.’

‘Doing the best we can,’ grumbled the other boy, whichever one he was.

‘That’ll be a comfort to your mothers when you’re killed for not attending to my wisdom.’ Clover let his hand hover over the basket of apples, then plucked out one he liked the look of. Nice blush to it. He took a bite and sucked out the juice.

‘Tart,’ he said, baring his teeth, ‘but tolerable. Like life, eh, lads? Like life.’ They stared at him blankly. He heaved a weary sigh. ‘Back to it, then.’

They shambled unhappily out into the sun and turned to face each other.

‘Yah!’ The dark one dashed in, swinging his stick.

‘Urgh!’ The blond one parried, stumbling back.

Clack, clack, as the sticks knocked together. Coo, coo, went a cuckoo in the trees behind. Somewhere men were arguing over something, but so far off their voices were no more than a comforting burble. Clover wedged one hand behind his neck and wriggled back against the tree.

Sometimes, it could feel like life wasn’t so bad.