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

‘You’ll know when I’m joking because Your Highness will be laughing.’

‘What the—’ Orso felt a sudden stab of … something . Worry? Excitement? Anger? Jealousy? Some feeling , anyway. It was so long since he really had one it was like a spur in his backside. He scrambled out of bed, got one foot tangled in the sheet, kicked it free and accidently kicked what’s-her-name in the back.

‘The hell?’ she mumbled as she sat up, trying to claw hair tangled with wine out of her face.

‘Sorry!’ said Orso. ‘Terribly sorry, but … Northmen! Invaded! Lions and wolves and whatever!’ He grabbed his little box and took a pinch of pearl dust up each nostril. Just to blow away the cobwebs. ‘Someone should bloody do something.’ As the burning at the back of his nose faded, that feeling became sharper. So sharp it made him shiver, the hairs on the backs of his arms standing up. You could try doing something to be proud of , his mother had said. Might this be his chance? He had scarcely even realised how much he wanted one.

He looked from the empty bottles about the bed to Tunny, standing against the wall with his arms folded. ‘ I should do something! Draw me a bath!’

‘Hildi’s already doing it.’

‘Where are my trousers?’ Tunny tossed them over and Orso snatched them from the air. ‘I have to see my father right away! Is it Monday?’

‘Tuesday,’ said Tunny as he swaggered from the room. ‘He’ll be fencing.’

‘Then see if you can find my steels as well!’ bellowed Orso as the door swung shut.

‘For pity’s sake, shut up,’ moaned what’s-her-face, pulling the covers over her head.

‘One touch a piece!’ The king grinned hugely as he offered his hand.

‘Well fought, Your Majesty.’ Orso let his father pull him to his feet, rubbing at his bruised ribs as he stooped to retrieve his fallen steel. He had to admit he was feeling the pace. His padded jacket seemed rather more padded than the last time he wore it. Perhaps his mother was right and he had passed the age where he could get away with anything. One sober day a week might be a good idea, from now on. A morning a week, at any rate.

But circumstances always conspired to stop him doing the right thing. By then, one of the servants was floating across the perfectly manicured lawn with two glasses on his polished tray.

The king wedged his long steel under his arm to sweep one up. ‘A little refreshment?’

‘You know I never drink before lunch,’ said Orso.

They looked at each other for a moment, then both burst out laughing. ‘You’ve a hell of a sense of humour,’ said Orso’s father, raising his glass in a little toast. ‘No one could ever deny that.’

‘To the best of my knowledge, they never have. It’s every other good quality they accuse me of lacking.’ He took a swig, swilled it about his mouth and swallowed. ‘Ah, rich and red and full of sunshine.’ Osprian, no doubt, which made him wish, if only briefly, that they’d conquered Styria after all. ‘I’d forgotten what excellent wine you have.’

‘I’m the king, aren’t I? If my wine’s poor, there’s something seriously wrong with the world.’

‘There are several things seriously wrong with the world, Father.’

‘Doubtless! I was visited by a delegation of working men from Keln, you know, just yesterday, with a set of grievances about conditions in the manufacturing districts there.’ He frowned across the beautiful palace gardens and shook his head in dismay. ‘Choking vapours on the air, adulterated food, putrid water, an outbreak of the shudders, awful injuries from the machinery, babies born deformed. Terrible stories—’

‘And Scale Ironhand has invaded the Dogman’s Protectorate.’

The king paused, glass halfway to his mouth. ‘You heard about that?’

‘I’ve been in a whorehouse, not down a well. Adua’s buzzing with the news.’

‘Since when did you care about politics?’

‘I care about a crowd of barbarians burning the cities of our allies, spreading blood and murder and threatening to invade the sovereign territory of the Union. I’m the heir to the bloody throne, aren’t I?’

The king wiped his lustrous moustaches – grey shot with gold these days, rather than gold shot with grey – and wriggled his fingers back into his glove. ‘Since when did you care about being heir to the throne?’

‘I’ve always cared,’ he lied, tossing the glass rattling back onto the tray and making the servant gasp as he weaved about trying to stop it falling. ‘I’ve just … had some trouble expressing it. Ready, old man?’

‘Always, young pup!’ The king sprang forward, jabbing. Their long steels feathered together, pinged and scraped. The king stabbed with his short steel but Orso caught it on his own, held it, turned. They broke apart, circling one another, Orso’s eyes on the point of his father’s long steel, but flicking occasionally to his leading foot. His Majesty had a habit of twisting it before he struck.

‘You’re a fine swordsman, you know,’ said the king. ‘I swear you’ve the talent to win a Contest.’

‘Talent? Possibly. Dedication, stamina, commitment? Never.’

‘You could be a true master if you practised more than once a month.’

‘If I practise once a year, it’s a busy one.’ In fact, Orso practised at least once a week, but had his father known, he might have suspected that Orso was letting him win. You wouldn’t have thought the monarch of the most powerful nation in the Circle of the World would care about beating his own son in the fencing circle, but throwing a touch or two was always the surest way for Orso to get what he wanted.

‘So … what are we planning to do about the Northmen?’ he asked.

‘We?’ The point of his father’s long steel flicked against Orso’s.

‘All right, you.’

‘Me?’ And flicked the other way.

‘Your Closed Council, then.’

‘They plan to do precisely nothing.’

‘What?’ Orso’s steel drooped. ‘But Scale Ironhand has invaded our Protectorate!’

‘That’s in no doubt.’

‘We’re supposed to be protecting it. Practically by definition!’

‘I understand the principle, boy.’ The king lunged and Orso dodged aside, hacked with his short steel, the clang of their blades making the great pink wading birds in a nearby fountain look scornfully over. ‘But principles and reality are occasional bedfellows at best.’

Like you and mother? Orso almost said, but thought that might be a little too much spice for the king’s rather bland tastes in humour. Instead, he dodged another lunge and switched to the attack, catching his father’s long steel on his, blade flickering around it and whipping it from his hand.

He caught a despairing thrust of the short steel, guards scraping, then the blade of his long flexed lightly as he jabbed the king in the shoulder.

‘Two to one,’ said Orso, slashing at the air. Wouldn’t do to let the old man win too easily. No one ever values what they get without trying, after all.

He beckoned one of the servants over with a towel while his father snapped his fingers impatiently at another to fetch his fallen sword.

‘There will always be some crisis, Orso, and it will always be the worst ever. Not long ago, we were terrified of the Gurkish, and with good reason. Half of Adua was destroyed driving them out. Now their great Prophet Khalul has vanished, their all-powerful Emperor Uthman is deposed, and their power has drifted apart like smoke on the breeze. Instead of conquering armies, it is desperate refugees who spill from the South.’

‘Can’t we take a moment to enjoy the fall of an enemy?’

‘Some of us find little to celebrate in the violent overthrow of a monarch.’