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

Scale clapped Stour on the shoulder so hard he nearly knocked him over the table. ‘You’re like a fighting dog, can’t wait to slip the leash! So was I, once. So was I.’ And the King of the Northmen stared off into the firepit, eyes shining with reflected fire, and drained his cup again, and held it out again, and made the girl shrug back her long braid and dart forward with the jug. Again.

Clover took a sip from his own cup. ‘Don’t ever let me drift along on past glories, Wonderful.’

She gave a grunt. ‘You’d have to have some glories to do that.’

‘Tell me how you beat Stranger-Come-Knocking one more time!’ roared Scale. He was one of those men couldn’t say anything quietly. ‘By the dead, I wish I could’ve been there!’ And he knocked his iron hand against the table with a clonk. ‘Where’s that girl? Fill a cup for my heir!’

Stour sat back and flung one boot up on the table. ‘Well, Uncle, when I crossed the Crinna with a thousand Carls, I knew we were far outnumbered …’

Wonderful rubbed at her temples. ‘Must’ve heard this story ten times the last ten weeks.’

‘Aye,’ said Clover, ‘and every telling makes Stour a bigger hero. Soon he’ll be beating a thousand barbarians with his hands behind his back and his sword tied to his cock.’

‘Warriors.’ Sulfur gave a heavy sigh, as if at a spell of bad weather. ‘It seems the Great Wolf is in no mood to discuss the future of the North tonight.’

‘No, Master Sulfur!’ If it had been any other man, Clover would’ve called the note in Black Calder’s voice a wheedle. ‘Like all storms, he’ll soon blow himself out.’

‘Alas, I have so much other business.’ Sulfur’s eyes shifted to Clover for a moment. Different-coloured eyes, he noticed, as they glittered in the torchlight. ‘Never the slightest peace, eh, Master Steepfield?’

‘I reckon not,’ muttered Clover, no idea who this bastard was or how he knew his old name, but judging it always wise to agree with a dangerous man. And any man Black Calder feared was a dangerous man, whether he wore a sword or not. ‘They call me Clover these days, though.’

‘Calling a wolf a cow will not make him give milk. The same could be said of calling chaos order.’ Sulfur put aside his cup and stood, looking down at Calder. ‘My master appreciates that we must sometimes have a little chaos if a better order is to emerge. There can be no progress without pain, no creation without destruction. That is why he has indulged this little war of yours.’ He looked up as Scale roared with laughter at some new flourish of Stour’s, and the warriors about them competed with each other to blast the spittiest peels of merriment. ‘My master loves to see the earth ploughed, from time to time.’

Calder nodded. ‘That’s all I’m trying to do.’

‘Provided the soil settles quickly and a new seed is sown. Otherwise how can he reap a harvest?’

‘Tell him this war will be done soon,’ said Calder, ‘and the harvest richer than ever. We’ll win. He’ll win.’

‘Whoever wins, he wins. You know that. But too much chaos is bad for everyone’s business.’ Sulfur plucked his staff from the wall. ‘It is often the doom of men blessed with greatness that they are cursed with short memories. Your father, for instance. I advise you to keep that pit always in your mind. The one outside Osrung.’ And Sulfur smiled as he turned away. A toothy little bright-eyed smile, but it seemed to Clover there was somehow a threat in it.

He leaned close to Wonderful. ‘Everyone serves someone, I reckon.’

‘Looks that way,’ she said as she watched Sulfur slip from the hall. ‘And they’re usually a prick.’

The moment he was gone, Calder thumped furiously at the table. ‘By the fucking dead !’ He glared over at his son, still boasting to his king’s great delight. ‘He’s worse than ever and my brother only encourages him! Didn’t I tell you to keep him on the right path?’

Clover helplessly spread his hands. ‘There’s only so much even the best shepherd can do with a wilful ram, Chief.’

‘At this rate, he’ll end up as mutton! What did Stolicus say? Never fear your enemy, but always respect him? This Brock woman’s for damn sure no fool and the Dogman’s for damn sure no coward.’

‘Reckon they’re just waiting for their moment.’ Clover sighed. ‘Sooner or later, they’ll be setting a trap for us.’

‘And at this rate, these two heroes will be blundering right into it.’ Calder frowned harder than ever at his son. ‘How did he end up with so little of me in him?’

‘Never had to face hard times,’ said Wonderful, softly.

Clover wagged a finger at her. ‘There speaks the stern voice of experience. Defeats do men far more good than victories.’ And he reached up and scratched gently at his scar. ‘Best gift I was ever given. Taught me humility.’

‘Humility,’ scoffed Calder. ‘Can’t think of a man with a higher opinion of himself than you.’

Clover raised his cup to Magweer, who’d picked him out for another dose of glaring as Stour’s manly legend reached its climax. ‘The world’s brimming with folk keen to break me down. Don’t see any reason to do their work for ’em.’

‘You don’t see any reason to do any work at all.’

There was no point denying it. Luckily for Clover, the King of the Northmen chose that moment to struggle up, raising his iron hand for silence.

‘Here comes the wisdom,’ murmured Black Calder, without much relish.

‘My father, Bethod!’ Scale roared at the gathering, swaying from good ale and bad knees. ‘Made himself King of the Northmen! He built cities, and bound them with roads. He forced the clans together, and carved out a nation where there was none before.’ No mention of the thirty years of bloodshed that had got it done. But that’s the nice thing about looking backwards. You can pick out the bits that suit your story and toss the unhappy truths to the wind.

Scale was frowning down into the firepit now. ‘My father was betrayed. My father was struck down! His kingdom torn up like meat between greedy dogs.’ His dewy eyes rolled up, and he pointed to Stour with his good hand. ‘But we’ll put right the wrongs of the past. We’ll finish the Dogman’s fucking Protectorate! We’ll drive the bloody Union out of the North! Stour Nightfall, my nephew and my heir, will rule supreme from the Whiteflow to the Crinna and beyond!’ And he held up his cup, ale slopping over the rim and spattering down his front. ‘Bethod’s dream lives on in his grandson! The Great Wolf!’

And all raised their drinks and competed with each other to roar out Stour’s name the loudest, and Clover and Wonderful raised theirs just as high as anyone else.

‘Still say he’s a prick,’ whispered Clover, smiling wide.

‘More so with each day,’ forced Wonderful through clenched teeth, and they tapped their cups together and took a swallow, because Clover had never worried much over what he drank to, as long as he drank.

Calder didn’t join the toast. Just frowned at his brother as he sagged back down on his bench and bellowed for more ale. ‘Some men never learn,’ he murmured.

‘We all learn.’ Clover watched those old warriors and those young, and ever so gently scratched at his scar. ‘Just some of us have to learn hard.’

A Deal

‘You promised me, Gunnar.’ Liddy’s voice came muffled through the flimsy wall, but easily understood. ‘You promised me you’d stay out of trouble.’

‘I’ve tried, Liddy. I haven’t looked for it, it’s just … it’s found us out.’

‘Trouble has a habit of finding you out.’

Savine looked across the little room at May, light from outside the ill-fitting window catching her clenched jaw, head turned away from her parents’ voices as if to pretend she could not hear them.