A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,101

made.

Her father had always been so impatient when she cried. ‘Toughen up, girl.’ Furious, as though her tears were an unfair attack on him. Sometimes he had cuffed her around the head, but the blows seemed to have made her less tough, not more. Her husband had opted for a kind of benign neglect instead. The idea of his being interested enough to hit her was absurd. Being shackled to a chain was the most attention anyone had paid her in years.

The line of prisoners shambled past a great manufactory on fire, smoke roiling up into the darkening murk, a popping crash as a window shattered, showering glass, gouting flame, smouldering rubbish and laths and bits of slate tumbling into the street, and Condine held up a hand against the heat of it, drying the tears on her face as fast as she could shed them.

A workers’ uprising had formed the backdrop to one of her favourite books, Lost Among the Labourers, in which a beautiful mill-owner’s daughter is saved from a fire by one of her father’s roughest hands. The edges of the pages in the passage where she finally yields to him among the machinery had become quite dishevelled. Condine had always particularly enjoyed the description of his arms, so strong, so gentle.

There were strong arms here. Gentle, no. She saw men kicking wildly at the door of a shop. Others were dragging a carpet from a house. Her smarting, weeping eyes darted to yells, squeals, mad sounds. Petty horrors everywhere. No trace of romance in it.

Some beggar in a filthy coat was skulking along after them. Why? They were going to hell. They had already arrived.

‘Bastards,’ sobbed the man behind her.

‘Shush!’ Condine snarled furiously at him.

The man in front frowned over his shoulder. ‘Both o’ you shush.’

Colton turned away from the blubbing, whining pair of ’em, shaking his head. There was the trouble with rich folk, they’d no idea how to cope with hardship. No practice. He scratched at the sore skin under the shackles. Home-made they were, with some rough edges, prone to chafe. But Colton was used to things chafing.

He hadn’t wanted to be a guard. But they’d been offering a coat. Plus meals, even if they were bad ones, and pay, even if it was shit. And by then, what choice did he have? He’d have been a fucking guard dog if they’d offered a kennel. Principles are fine, but only once you’ve got a roof.

They passed three hunched shapes on the ground. Red jackets ripped, stained dark. Soldiers. If the army couldn’t stop this madness, what hope for the rest of them?

Always thought he’d be a weaver, like his old man. There’d been these golden years, just after Curnsbick patented his spinning engine, when yarn came spooling out of the new manufactories so cheap they were giving it away, and weavers were suddenly in high demand. Dressed like lords, they’d been, and walking with a swagger. And, aye, the spinners had faced some lean times, poor bastards, but that was their problem.

Then, around the time Colton finished his apprenticeship, along came Masrud’s weaving engine, and in the length of three summers, the weavers got the way the spinners had before them, which was to say thin. Only made it worse that a lot o’ the spinners had turned their hands to weaving, since that was where the money was, and there was no money there no more.

So Colton was out o’ work. Came to Valbeck, where everyone said there was always work, but everyone had the same idea. So he’d become a guard. Folk looked at him like that was treachery. But he’d needed the coat. He’d needed the meals. And now he was shackled to a chain along with a load of rich bastards. In a cruel joke, they’d even stolen his coat. Hardly seemed fair. But then ask the spinners about fair.

A dog was barking as they shambled up onto the bridge. Frisking maddened around a ruined wagon a bunch of boys were stealing the crates from, barking at no one, barking at everyone. That woman was still sobbing just behind him. No idea how to cope with hardship, the rich. No practice. They’d get some practice now, he reckoned.

‘Wait,’ said the Breaker in charge o’ the chain, and the column staggered to a halt on the bridge. Strange thing was, Colton knew him. Lock was his name, he thought. He’d been a weaver, way back when. Remembered him and Colton’s