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

Orso winced. ‘I suppose it does strike a little close to home.’

‘All it shows is that great powers can fall as well as rise. Murcatto has almost all of Styria under her heel and the Old Empire grows in strength, challenging our hold on the Far Country and inciting yet more rebellion in Starikland. Now the bloody Northmen break our hard-won treaties and come to war again. There’s no end to their appetite for blood up there.’

‘For other people’s blood, maybe.’ Orso tossed the towel over the servant’s head and found his mark again. ‘It’s surprising how quickly the toughest men tire of the sight of their own.’

‘True enough. But it’s the enemies inside our borders that cost me sleep. The wars in Styria have left everyone out of pocket and out of patience. The Open Council never stops complaining. If the nobles didn’t hate each other even more than me, I swear they’d already be in open rebellion. The peasants may have quieter voices but they’re every bit as dissatisfied. I face disloyalty everywhere.’

‘Then we must teach a sharp lesson, Your Majesty.’ Orso cut, cut, thrust and the king turned the cuts aside, sidestepped the thrust, blundered into a bush clipped to look like a storybook magus’s tower and danced back into space. ‘A lesson delivered to the Northmen, but witnessed by your faithless subjects, too. Show our allies we can be relied upon, and our enemies that we won’t be trifled with. A clutch of victories, a couple of parades and a dash of patriotic fervour! The very thing to bring the nation together.’

‘You’re giving me the same arguments I gave to my own Closed Council, but the coffers are quite simply empty. They’re beyond empty, in fact. You could fill the moat of the Agriont with the money I owe and still have debts left over. There’s nothing I can do.’

‘But you’re the High King of the Union!’

Orso’s father gave a sad smile. ‘One day, my son, you’ll understand. The more powerful you are, the less you can really do about anything.’

The points of his steels appeared to wilt as he spoke, but it was quite clearly a ruse, Orso could tell he was ready by the way he held his back leg. Still, the king was so pleased with his trap it would have been rude not to blunder into it. Orso dived forward with a bark of triumph, then a highly convincing gurgle of shock at the parry he had known was coming. He suppressed his instinct to block the king’s short steel, let it slip past his guard and groaned as it thudded into his training jacket.

‘Two each!’ cackled Orso’s father. ‘Nothing like a bit of self-pity to bring the hothead rushing in!’

‘Richly done, Father.’

‘Life in the old dog yet, eh?’

‘Fortunately. I think we can both agree I’m not quite ready to take the throne.’

‘No one ever is, my boy. Why are you so interested in a Northern expedition, anyway?’

Orso took a deep breath and held his father’s eye. ‘I want to lead it.’

‘You want to what ?’

‘I want to … you know … contribute . To something other than whores’ purses.’

His father gave a snort of laughter. ‘The last body of soldiers you led was that toy regiment the Governor of Starikland sent you when you were five years old.’

‘Then it’s high time I gained some experience. I’m the heir to the throne, aren’t I?’

‘So your mother tells me, and I try never to disagree with her.’

‘I have to mend my reputation at some point.’ Orso stepped to his mark for their deciding touch, hacking a muddy divot out of the perfect lawn with his heel. ‘Poor thing’s in a wretched state.’

‘Worried this Young Lion will steal all the glory, eh?’

Orso had heard that name too often for comfort lately. ‘I daresay he could spare a few shreds for his king-to-be.’

‘But … fighting?’ Orso’s father worked his mouth unhappily and the old scar through his beard twisted. ‘The Northmen don’t fool about when it comes to bloodshed. I could tell you some stories about my old friend Logen Ninefingers—’

‘You have, Father, a hundred times.’

‘Well, they’re bloody good stories!’ The king straightened a moment, lowering his steels and giving Orso a quizzical little frown. ‘You really want this, don’t you?’

‘We have to do something .’

‘I suppose we do, at that.’ The king sprang forward but Orso was ready, parried, twisted away, parried again. ‘All right. How about this?’ Cut, cut, jab, and Orso retreated, watching. ‘I’ll give you Gorst, twenty Knights of the Body and a battalion of the King’s Own.’

‘That’s nowhere near enough!’ Orso switched to the offensive, almost caught his father with a jab and made him hop back.

‘I agree.’ The king paced sideways, point of his long steel describing glittering little circles in the air. ‘The rest you’ll have to find yourself. Show me you can raise five thousand more. Then you can rush to the rescue.’

Orso blinked. Raising five thousand troops sounded worryingly like work. But there was an unfamiliar energy spreading through him at the thought of having something meaningful to do .

‘Then I bloody well will!’ He’d got all he’d get by losing. He felt like winning for once. ‘Defend yourself, Your Majesty!’

And steel scraped on steel as he sprang forward.

Fencing with Father

‘Jab, jab, Savine,’ said her father, craning forward from his chair to follow her movements. ‘Jab, jab.’

Her shoulder was on fire, the pain spreading down her arm to her fingertips, but she forced herself on, struggling to make every jab sharp, tight, perfect.

‘Good,’ piped Gorst as he turned her efforts away, always balanced, always calm, the sounds of scraping steel echoing about the bare room.

Nothing was ever good enough for her father, though. ‘Watch your front foot,’ he snapped. ‘Keep your weight spread.’

‘My weight is spread.’ And she pumped out three more jabs, lightning-quick.

‘Spread it more. I know how much you hate to do anything badly.’

‘Almost as much as you hate to see me do anything badly.’

‘Spread your weight, then. We’ll both be happier.’

She widened her stance and let go some more jabs, her steel scraping against Gorst’s.

‘Better?’ asked her father.

It clearly was, but they both knew she would never concede defeat by admitting it. ‘We’ll see. How are things in the North?’

‘A procession of disappointments, like most of life. The Northmen advance, the Anglanders fall back.’

‘People say we can expect no better with a woman leading our troops.’ Savine lunged, steel clashing as Gorst caught her sword on his own and steered it wide.

‘We both know what utter fools people are.’ Her father sneered the word as though the very thought of humans disgusted him. ‘Since the death of her father, I daresay Finree dan Brock is the Union’s most competent general. You know her, don’t you, Gorst?’

The king’s hulking bodyguard, normally beyond expressionless, winced. ‘A little, Your Eminence.’

‘I wish I could have given her the command in Styria,’ said Savine’s father. ‘We might have been counting our victories now, rather than our dead. Jab, then!’

‘Brock against Murcatto, that would have been something .’ Savine hissed as she snapped out another flurry. ‘The two greatest armies in the Circle of the World, both commanded by women.’

‘They’d probably have decided there were better things to spend the money on and talked the whole thing out. Then where would we be? Enough with the point, let’s see what you can do with the edge. And cut like you mean it, Savine, he’s not made of glass.’