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

‘Of course.’ She smoothed her dress, fiddled with her necklace, adjusted her wig. ‘I’ve a dinner to attend myself. With Marshal Rucksted and his wife—’

‘Sounds an absolute riot. Now, you’re sure about this?’ He slipped an arm around her waist from behind, held her tight against him. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

‘I always say what I mean.’ And she did. Except now, for some reason.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he whispered in her ear, making her neck tingle. ‘Or Sworbreck will, at least.’ And the door clattered shut behind him.

Savine stood there, in silence, in Sworbreck’s cramped office, trying to understand what she had done. She loved to gamble, but she always knew the game. This was reckless. This broke all her rules.

All those awfully intimate friends who she knew really envied and hated her would have a ready answer, of course. There is no more ambitious snake in Adua than Savine dan Glokta. That bitch hopes to ride the worthless crown prince’s cock all the way into the palace. She wants to steal the throne. Then she really can be above us all instead of merely acting like it.

Perhaps they would have been right. Perhaps she was harbouring some childish dream of becoming High Queen of the Union. Zuri had a point, after all: everyone looks better on their knees. Had Orso not been crown prince, she would have had no interest in him. What was there to be interested in?

Apart from his looks, of course. And his easy confidence. And the way he made her laugh. Really laugh, without a shred of pretence. That little twitch at the corner of his mouth as he thought of a joke that set hers twitching in sympathy as she wondered what it would be, never quite able to guess. No one could surprise her like he could. No one understood what she needed like he did. She thought of how dull everything was while she waited for the message from Sworbreck. The dressing, the dinners, the teas, the profits, the dressing, the gossip, the strategising, the marks in the book. Then how everything exploded with colour when the message arrived. As if she was in prison when she was not with him. As if she was buried and only came to life when—

‘Shit,’ she breathed.

She felt suddenly as weak at the knees as she had when Bremer dan Gorst rammed her into the wall. She had to slump back on Sworbreck’s desk, staring down at her discarded drawers, rumpled on the floor.

Everyone knew he was a vain, lazy, useless waste of flesh. A man she should not want. A man she could never have.

And she was totally in love with him.

PART II

‘Progress just means

bad things happen faster.’

Terry Pratchett

Full of Sad Stories

‘Be sure to sweep the chimneys on the east side first,’ said Sarlby, leaning on his broom. ‘These ones only just got doused. Still hot as the Maker’s forge.’

The sweep was a quivery old drunk with a squinty eye and a stink halfway between a tap-house and a mass grave. Two smells Broad knew better than he’d like. ‘I know my business,’ he grunted, not even looking up as he led his boys past. Four of them, soot-smudged and hungry-looking, loaded with brushes and rods. The littlest whistled as he went, gave Broad a grin with a couple of teeth missing. Broad tried to grin back, but he didn’t have much of a grin in him.

‘I swear that fucker’s more drunk every time I see him,’ muttered Sarlby, frowning after the sorry little procession.

‘If I hadn’t sworn off drink already, the sight of him’d be a winning argument for temperance,’ said Broad.

‘It’s a damn shame, lads that age sent down chimneys. How old was that youngest one, you reckon?’

Broad kept sweeping. He’d learned in Styria there’s a lot of things that are better just not thought about. Couldn’t be a coincidence that the happiest men Broad ever knew were generally the stupidest.

‘They buy ’em, you know, from the pauper houses. Lads with no kin and no hopes. They’re hardly better’n slaves.’ Sarlby wiped his forehead and leaned down close. ‘They scrub their knees with brine. Elbows, too. Scrub ’em raw, morning and night, toughen ’em up like boot leather so they can stand those hot chimneys.’

‘It’s a damn shame.’ Broad lifted his lenses to rub at the sweaty bridge of his nose, then settled them back. Summer outside and the kettles cooking all day inside and the brewhouse was hot as an oven. ‘But the world’s full o’ sad stories.’

‘No doubt.’ Sarlby gave a joyless little chuckle. ‘I know one poor arsehole lives in a cellar by the river over on Meadow Street, leaks so bad he has to bail it out every morning like his home was a sinking skiff. Where’s your family now?’

‘Malmer found us a set of rooms halfway up the hill.’

‘Oh, my lord .’ Sarlby stuck his nose in the air and put on his idea of a nobleman’s voice. ‘A whole set ?’

‘If you can call two a set. They cost, but my daughter’s got work as a maid and my wife’s bringing some money in stitching. Funeral clothes, mostly.’

‘All the best clothes around here are funeral clothes.’

‘Aye.’ Broad gave a sigh. ‘Always been good with a needle, Liddy. Good at whatever she turns her hand to. She’s the one with the talent.’

Sarlby grinned. ‘Not to mention the looks, the brains, the sense o’ humour … What is it you bring to the marriage, again?’

‘Honestly, I’ve no bloody idea.’

‘Well, good for you, and good for your family. Things aren’t so bad halfway up the hill, where the vapours are a little thinner. Someone’s got to come out on top, I guess. Someone’s got to do well while others suffer.’

Broad gave Sarlby a look over his lenses. ‘Will you ever stop pricking at me?’

‘It’s your conscience doing that.’

‘Oh, aye, you just hand it the ammunition.’

‘You get tired of the stabbing feeling, you know what you can do.’ Sarlby put a hand on Broad’s shoulder, murmured in his ear. ‘The Breakers are gathering, brother. More of us every day. There’s going to be a Great Change. Just a matter o’ when.’

Maybe it was the breath on his neck, or the sense of a secret shared, or the risk of what they were discussing, or just the sticky heat, but something gave Broad a shiver. He’d wanted to change things once. Before he went to Styria and learned things don’t change easy. ‘’Course,’ he grunted. ‘And they’ll give every man his own dragon to ride and a candy castle to live in. Then when we get hungry, we can just eat the walls.’

‘I’m no fool, Bull. I know what the world is. But maybe we can spread the wealth about a little. Maybe we can take some rich bastards out of those palaces on the hill and some poor families out of those cellars on Meadow Street. Maybe we can give each man an honest wage for an honest day’s work. Stop the false clocks and the fines and the girls pressed into night work. Put an end to the butchers selling tainted meat, and the flour bulked out with chalk, and the ale watered down with rotten water. Maybe we can make sure there’s no little boys being scrubbed with brine any more, at least. That’d be worth something, wouldn’t it?’

‘Aye. That’d be worth something.’ Broad had to admit there wasn’t much in Sarlby’s little speech he could argue with. ‘Never had you marked down for an orator.’

There was a clatter somewhere, further down the brewhouse floor. ‘I stole the words from better men,’ said Sarlby. ‘You like that, you should come to a meeting, listen to the Weaver. He’d soon have you thinking our way.’

Broad could hear someone shouting, muffled. ‘Can’t afford to think your way,’ he said, with some regret. ‘I gave up putting the world right a while back. First time we climbed those ladders, maybe. Second time, for sure. I’ve enough trouble at my back. Got to keep my head down. Look after my family.’