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

‘That is why you employ officers, Your Highness.’ Brint was lost in contemplation of his charts, judging distances with spread thumb and forefinger. ‘I would suggest Colonel Forest as a second in command. He entered the army as an enlisted man long before me and has fought in every major war since. I cannot think of anyone with hotter experience or a cooler head.’

Orso smiled. ‘I would be most grateful for his advice, and yours.’

‘Lady Governor Finree is holding the enemy most courageously. Hell of a woman. Old friend of mine, you know. If she can continue to do so, we could land here!’ And he slapped the map so hard, Orso was concerned he might do injury to the one hand he still had. ‘Just near Uffrith, outflank the bastards!’

‘Excellent! Outflank. Bastards. Wonderful.’ He really needed to find out what outflanking was, but other than that it was all coming together! The stern calls of a drill sergeant floated through the window from the yard outside, lending the interview an appropriately military flavour. Orso almost wished he’d worn his uniform for the occasion, though it was probably a little tight around the belly these days. He’d have to see about getting a new one for the campaign. ‘All I need now is the men.’

Brint looked around. ‘Pardon me?’

‘My father has promised me a battalion of the King’s Own, as well as his First Guard, Bremer dan Gorst, who I understand is worth a company himself,’ and he gave a laugh which Brint by no means returned, ‘but I do require … somewhere in the region of, well, five thousand more?’

Silence stretched out.

‘You don’t have the men?’ hissed Brint, spit flecking from his lips.

‘Well … that’s why I’ve come to you, Lord Marshal. I mean to say … you’re a lord marshal.’ Orso winced. ‘Aren’t you?’

Brint took a deep breath and regained command of himself. ‘I am, Your Highness, and I apologise. I find it difficult to keep my perspective where these Northmen are concerned.’ He frowned down at a ring on his little finger, pushed at it with his thumb-tip. A lady’s ring, by the look of it, with a yellow stone. ‘Lost a wife to the savages, as well as two close friends. Not to mention a bloody arm.’

‘No need for apologies, Lord Marshal, I entirely understand.’

‘I hope you don’t think that I resent your entirely reasonable request. I applaud it.’ Brint snorted, glancing towards his empty sleeve. ‘Or would, had I the equipment. I’m just embarrassed that I cannot give you the men, and ashamed not to have sent help to the lady governor already. Several regiments were disbanded following the war in Styria and what remains is spread thin. The rebellion in Starikland never ends.’ He waved the arm he had towards another map. ‘And now there’s widespread unrest among the peasantry in Midderland. These bloody Breakers, curse them, making humble folk dissatisfied with their place in the world. Honestly, I’m concerned about the battalion your father has already promised you. There’s not the slightest possibility of my recruiting more without additional funds from the lord chancellor.’

‘Hmmm.’ Orso sat back, arms folded. It seemed, like most things in life, this was going to be a great deal more difficult than he had hoped. ‘It’s a question of money, then?’

‘Your Highness,’ and Lord Marshal Brint gave a sigh that bespoke an infinite weariness, ‘it is always a question of money.’

‘Lord Chancellor Gorodets, thank you for seeing me at such short notice. I know you must be a very busy man.’

‘I am, Your Highness.’

There was a pregnant pause, during which the lord chancellor gazed levelly at Orso over the top of his gold-rimmed eye-lenses. He was a toad of a man with a taste for rich sauces, his many chins swelling expansively over his fur collar. Orso wished, not for the first time that day, that he was a great deal more drunk. But if he was to prevail against the impenetrable machinery of state, he would need every faculty.

‘Let me get straight to the point, then,’ he said. ‘I am eager – as I am sure every right-thinking man in the Union must be – to rush to the aid of our hard-pressed brothers and sisters in Angland.’

Gorodets gave a grimace of almost physical pain. ‘A war.’

‘Well, yes, but one forced upon us—’

‘Those are no cheaper, Your Highness.’

‘No cheaper?’ muttered Orso.

‘Over the past twenty years, your father – encouraged by Her Majesty Queen Terez – has fought three wars in Styria for the sake of your birthright, the Grand Duchy of Talins.’

‘I wish he’d asked my opinion.’ Orso gave what he hoped was a disarming chuckle. ‘I scarcely want one nation, let alone two.’

‘That is just as well, Your Highness, since the Union lost all three wars.’

‘Come now, couldn’t we call that middle one a draw?’

‘We could, but I doubt anyone who fought in it would agree, and from a financial standpoint, victories are hardly to be preferred. To pay for those wars, I have been obliged to impose stringent taxes on the peasantry, on the merchants, on the provinces and, finally, with great reluctance, on the nobles. The nobles, in response, have consolidated their holdings, turned tenants off their estates and passed laws in the Open Council seizing and enclosing common land. People have flooded from the country into the cities and upset the whole system of taxation entirely. The Crown has been obliged to borrow heavily. More heavily, I should say. The debts owed to the banking house of Valint and Balk alone are …’ Gorodets spent a moment scouring his vocabulary for a word of sufficient scale, and finally gave up. ‘Difficult to describe. Between the two of us, just the interest represents a significant proportion of the nation’s expenditure.’

‘That much?’

‘ More. It is a thoroughly parlous situation, with acrimony boiling in every quarter. To find additional funds now is … unthinkable.’

Orso listened with mounting horror. ‘Lord Chancellor, all I am asking for is the money for five thousand soldiers—’

‘ All , Your Highness?’ Gorodets looked over his lenses like a tutor at a disappointing pupil, a look unpleasantly familiar to Orso from his actual tutors. Anyone in a position of authority, come to think of it. ‘Are you aware of how great a sum that is?’

Orso restrained his mounting frustration. ‘But you must see we have to do something about these Northmen!’

‘I am afraid what I see is beside the point, Your Highness. I am a glorified accountant, and not even that glorified.’ He waved a hand at his cavernous office, every surface panelled with marble or encrusted with gold leaf, the plaster-cast faces of his predecessors gazing down smugly from up near the ceiling. ‘I manage the books. I try to make sure that what goes out in expenditure is equalled by what comes in through taxation. In this, like every lord chancellor before me, I habitually fail. It may be given to me to hold the purse strings but … I do not set policy alone.’

‘Alone?’

The lord chancellor gave a mirthless little chuckle as he wiped his lenses with a corner of his fur robe and held them up to the light. ‘I barely set policy at all.’

‘Who does?’

‘It is His Eminence Arch Lector Glokta who takes the lead in setting the priorities of the Closed Council.’

Orso sagged unhappily back into his chair. He remembered now why he had abandoned government and channelled his energies into women and wine. ‘It’s a question of priorities, then?’

‘Your Highness,’ and the lord chancellor perched his lenses back on his nose, ‘it is always a question of priorities.’

‘Your Eminence,’ said Orso. ‘Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice. I know you must be a very busy man.’