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

‘I’d like to raise a cup myself!’ Rikke clambered onto the table with a hand on her father’s shoulder and held her cup over her head. Ale slopped out and spattered on the wood, though it was already so ale-spattered no one could’ve noticed the difference. ‘To all o’ you sorry bastards who were so hopelessly lost, but thanks to the tender guidance of Isern-i-Phail, were able to find your way back to me!’

‘To lost bastards!’ someone roared, and everyone drank, and there was laughter, and a fragment of song, and a fight broke out in a corner and someone got punched and lost a bit of a tooth, but all in good humour.

‘By the dead, I’m glad you’re back safe, Rikke.’ Her father cupped her face in his gnarled old hands. ‘Anything happened to you …’ Seemed like he had tears glimmering at the corners of his eyes, and he smiled, and sniffed. ‘You’re all the good I’ve done.’

The way he looked worried her – washed-out and grey, years older than when she’d last seen him just a few weeks ago. The way he talked worried her – sappy and sentimental, always looking back like he’d nothing ahead to look to. But the last thing she wanted was to let him see she was worried, so she clowned more than ever.

‘What’re you talking about, you silly old bastard? You’ve done piles of good. Mountains. Who’s done more good for the North than you? Not a one o’ these fools wouldn’t die for you.’

‘Maybe. But they shouldn’t have to. I’m just not sure …’ He frowned out at the barnful of drunk warriors like he hardly saw them. Like he was staring through them with the Long Eye and saw something horrible beyond. ‘Not sure I got the bones for the fight any more.’

‘Now listen.’ She caught his deep-lined face and dragged it back towards her, growling the words at him, fierce. ‘You’re the Dogman! There’s no man in the North got more bones than you. How many battles you fought in?’

He gave a faint smile at that. ‘Feels like pretty much all of ’em.’

‘It is pretty much all of ’em! You fought beside the Bloody-Nine! You fought beside Rudd Threetrees! You beat Bethod in the High Places!’

He licked at one pointed tooth as he grinned. ‘I don’t like to boast, you know.’

‘Man with your name doesn’t need to.’ She raised her chin, puffed herself up, showed him how proud she was to be his kin. ‘You’ll beat Stour Nightfall and his arse-lickers, and we’ll see him hanged with brambles, and I’ll cut the bloody cross in him and send his fucking guts back to his daddy!’ She realised she was snarling the words, spraying spit, shaking her fist in his face, and she made the fingers uncurl and wiped her mouth with them instead. ‘Or something …’

Her father was somewhat taken aback at her bloodthirstiness. ‘You never talked like that before.’

‘Aye, well, I never had my home burned, either. Never understood why feuds were such a popular pastime in the North but I reckon I’m getting it now.’

Her father winced. ‘Hoped my scores would die with me and you could walk free of ’em.’

‘Weren’t your fault! Or mine. Scale Ironhand attacked us! Black Calder burned Uffrith! Stour fucking Nightfall chased me through the woods. They trampled your garden …’ she finished, lamely.

‘The beauty o’ gardens is that they grow back.’

‘Changes your feelings,’ she growled, the anger bubbling up again at the memory, ‘when you’re sunk to your neck in a freezing river, starving and shitting yourself and quite fucking chafed as well, actually, and hearing some bastard brag on the horrors he’ll inflict on you. Break what you love, he said, and they’ve fucking broken everything. Well, I’ll break what they love, then we’ll see. Swore to myself I’d see Stour killed, and I swear I will.’

Rikke’s father gave a sigh. ‘The beauty o’ making yourself a promise is that no one else complains if you break it.’

‘Huh.’ Rikke realised she had her fists clenched again, decided to keep ’em that way. ‘Isern says I’m soft. Says I’m coddled.’

‘There’s worse you could be.’

‘Isern says ruthlessness is a quality much loved o’ the moon.’

‘Might be you should be careful what lessons you learn from Isern-i-Phail.’

‘She wants what’s best for me. What’s best for the North.’

Her father gave a sad smile at that. ‘Believe it or not, we all want what’s best. The root o’ the world’s ills is that no one can agree on what it is.’

‘She says you have to make of your heart a stone.’

‘Rikke.’ And he laid his hands on her shoulders. ‘Listen to me, now. I’ve known a lot of men did that down the years. Men who had plenty in ’em to admire. Men who turned their hearts hard so they could lead, so they could win, so they could rule. Did ’em no good in the end, nor anyone around ’em.’ He gave her shoulders a squeeze. ‘I like your heart how it is. Might be if there were a few more like it, the North’d be a better place.’

‘You reckon?’ she muttered, far from convinced.

‘You’ve got bones, Rikke, and you’ve got brains. You like to hide it. Even from yourself, maybe.’ He looked out at the room, and the shouting men that filled it. ‘I reckon they’ll need your bones and your brains, when all this is over. But they’ll need your heart, too. When I’m gone.’

Rikke swallowed. Turned her fear into a joke, as usual. ‘Where you going, the shit-pit?’

‘Shit-pit first. Then my blanket. Don’t get too drunk, eh?’ He leaned close to murmur in her ear. ‘Be a shame to make o’ your heart a wineskin, either.’

She frowned as she watched him go. He’d always been thin, but wiry-strong like a bent bow. Now he looked crooked, brittle. She caught herself wondering how long he had left. Wondering what would become of her when he was gone. What would become of them all. If they were counting on her bones and her brains, they were in bigger trouble than she’d thought.

Shivers sat frowning into the room, bit of a space around him. He had a reputation made most folk keep their distance, even drunk. There were too many bad men in the North and Caul Shivers, by most accounts, was one of the very worst. Bad men are a terrible curse, no doubt, right up until you’re in bad trouble and there’s one on your side. Then they’re the best thing ever.

‘Hey, hey, Shivers!’ She slapped him on the shoulder and nearly missed. Lucky thing it was a big shoulder. ‘Not sure you’re really getting this whole feast thing. We are rejoicing in my heroic return. You’re meant to smile.’ She looked at his ruined face, the lid sagging around his metal eye and the great burn across his cheek. ‘You can smile, can’t you?’

He looked at her hand on his shoulder, then up at her, and didn’t smile at all. ‘Why were you never scared of me?’

‘You just never seemed all that scary. Always found your eye sort of pretty. Shiny.’ Rikke patted his scarred cheek. ‘You always just seemed … lost. Like you lost yourself and didn’t know where to look.’ She put her hand on his chest. ‘But you’re in there, still. You’re in there.’

He looked as shocked as if she’d slapped him, and there was a gleam of damp in his real eye, or maybe it was just her own sight that was smeary, as Caul Shivers wasn’t really known as a big weeper, except when his bad eye dribbled, which was a different thing.

‘Lot o’ teary old men about today,’ she muttered, pushing herself away from the table. ‘I need another drink.’ Probably another drink wasn’t a good idea, but for some reason she’d always found bad ideas the more appealling kind. She was sloshing ale into her cup, tongue pressed into the dent in her lip where the chagga usually sat with the effort of not spilling, when she caught sight of Leo dan Brock.