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

‘You always were a moaner.’ Shivers shook his head. ‘Come on. Your father’s waiting.’

Biding Time, Wasting Time

‘Ever think maybe you drink too much?’ asked Wonderful.

Clover smacked his lips. ‘Too much would, by definition, be too much. I find however much I drink is just the right amount.’ And he offered her the bottle.

She shook her head. ‘Drunks tend to say that.’

Clover treated her to his aggrieved look. ‘As do the broadly sober.’ He’d a wonderful aggrieved look. Lots of practice. ‘I find myself aggrieved. Have you ever seen me lose a fight on account of drunkenness?’

‘I’ve never seen you fight.’

Clover slapped the cork back into the bottle. ‘A clear indication of reasonable drinking if ever there was one.’

‘Well, if I was you, I’d at least look sober.’ Wonderful pointed one of her brows off down the track. ‘The Great Wolf approaches.’

And approach he did, with high drama. Storming and swaggering at once with his brow well creased and his brooding young stags at his back, making Thralls scatter from their path like chickens in a farmyard. Given all the damp still in the air, it was a wonder they weren’t steaming.

‘Here come the gods of war,’ mouthed Clover, and then out loud, as the Great Wolf stalked closer, ‘Drink, Chief?’

Stour slapped the bottle from his hand and it bounced away into the bushes.

Clover looked sadly after it. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

‘She got away!’ snarled the king-in-waiting, in quite the fury even for him. ‘Fucking little bitch got away!’

‘We’re all distraught.’

‘She came through right where you were supposed to be!’ snapped a bastard of Stour’s called Greenway. If legends were built on sneering, he’d have had quite a place in the songs. ‘Did you see her?’

‘Saw her shirt,’ said Clover, tossing the torn thing over. ‘At least, I’m guessing it was hers. Doubt it’ll fit you, though. Bit tight under the arms, I expect—’

Greenway flung it angrily on the ground. ‘Did you see her ?’

‘If I had, I’d have caught her.’

‘You’d have had to fucking get up to do that,’ snarled Magweer, aiming for the same caged-wolf act as Stour but only managing a fraction of the menace.

‘I’d have sung out, anyway,’ said Clover. ‘That I can do sitting down.’

He wondered why he hadn’t sung out. She’d just looked like such a desperate, ragged little scrap to have all these bastards chasing her, and when the hunt was on, he’d always secretly rooted for the fox. If you can’t find a way to win that doesn’t involve torturing some half-mad girl, then maybe you don’t deserve to win at all. Or maybe that was all shit, and it was just ’cause she was pretty. The sad truth is that pretty people can slide through all kinds of scrapes that’d end very badly for the ugly.

Clover looked from Greenway to Magweer and shrugged. ‘Seems hunting girls just ain’t my sport.’

Stour stepped closer, staring at Clover with those ever-wet eyes of his. ‘Your sport is whatever I say it is.’

Clover shrugged it off. ‘I’m eager to serve, great prince, but I can’t just turn into a butterfly. Your father sent me for my cunning, not my running. Why, you might as well order the river to blow and the wind to flow.’

‘You’re loyal, ain’t you, Clover?’ Magweer said it softly, like it was some brilliant trap of words.

‘Reasonably so, I like to think. A man has to bend with the breeze.’

‘You turned on Glama Golden, I heard,’ said Greenway, climbing to new heights of sneer. ‘Cairm Ironhead, too.’

‘I was loyal to both,’ said Clover. ‘I was just more loyal to me. Truth is, men love to blab about loyalty till it might trap ’em on the losing side. Then there’s a chorus o’ silence on the issue. So I consider reasonably loyal to be a bit more loyal than most, and a lot more honest than most. It’s a fool who makes folk choose too often between loyalty and good sense. How’d she get loose, anyway?’

‘Caul Shivers was waiting on the other side of the river,’ hissed Stour, clenching his fists. ‘Killed four of my men.’

‘Shivers.’ Magweer was clenching his fists just the same way. ‘Wish I’d run into that old fucker.’

Wonderful and Clover burst out laughing at the exact same time. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, and she leaned back, fist on his shoulder, and no doubt they made quite a picture chortling away but they really couldn’t help ’emsleves.

‘Good one,’ said Clover, with a sigh. ‘Good one.’

‘What’s so fucking funny?’

Wonderful waved a finger at Magweer’s collection of weapons. ‘My friend, if you’d run into Caul Shivers, you’d be wearing all those axes up your arse. You should take care charging at fights. Sooner or later, you’ll trip over a bigger one than you wanted.’

‘There’s no fight too big for me,’ he growled back.

‘Really?’ asked Wonderful. ‘What if it’s just you and nineteen o’ them?’

Magweer opened his mouth, strained, but couldn’t find a reply. He was a child’s notion of what a warrior should be, all scowl and muscle and carrying half a blacksmith’s shop around. Clover gave a sigh. ‘You need to calm down, my friend.’

‘Or else what, old man?’

‘Or else you’ll make yourself sad, and ain’t the world a grim enough place without another frown? Everyone stomping around like the Bloody-Nine, like they’d murder the whole world if they got the chance.’

Stour narrowed his eyes. ‘The Bloody-Nine was the greatest warrior the North ever saw.’

‘I know,’ said Clover. ‘I watched him beat Fenris the Feared in the Circle.’

Silence. ‘You saw that?’ A hint of respect suddenly crept into Stour’s whining voice.

Wonderful laughed again and thumped that fist down on Clover’s shoulder. ‘He held a shield.’

‘You held a shield? When the Bloody-Nine fought the Feared?’

‘On behalf of your grandfather, Bethod,’ said Clover. ‘Eighteen years old and knowing half o’ nothing and thinking myself quite the hard bastard.’

‘Everyone says that was a great duel,’ breathed Stour, a faraway look in his wet eyes.

‘It was a bloody one. Sadly, I walked away with the wrong lessons. Enough that I ended up taking a challenge or two myself …’ Clover found he was scratching at his scar, and made himself leave it alone. ‘If you want my advice, stay out of the Circle.’

‘The Circle is where names are made!’ barked Stour, thumping his chest with a fist. ‘I beat Stranger-Come-Knocking there! Carved him all to hell.’

‘And from what I heard, it was a fight for the songs.’ Though what Clover actually heard was that Stranger-Come-Knocking got old and slow and lived past his reputation, a tragedy that befalls every great fighter not killed in his prime. ‘But each time you step into the Circle, you balance your life on a sword’s edge. Sooner or later, it won’t fall your way.’

Stour’s young warriors scoffed like they never heard aught so contemptible as this eminent good sense. ‘Did Black Dow fear the Circle?’ sneered Greenway.

‘Or Whirrun of Bligh, or Shama Heartless, or Rudd Threetrees?’ asked Magweer.

Wonderful rolled her eyes. No doubt she was about to point out that all four of those heroes died bloody deaths, and half of them in the Circle, too. Stour got in first, though. ‘The Bloody-Nine fought eleven duels and won ’em all.’

‘He beat the odds, that’s true,’ said Clover. ‘For a time. He beat the Feared and he stole your grandfather’s chain. But what did it get him? He lost everything, made nothing, and time’ll just hand that chain to you. Who’d want to be like that bastard?’