A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,19

hear the ill squelch as Tallow swallowed. ‘What are the camps like?’

‘You get by.’

Oh, the filth, pain, hunger, death, injustice and betrayal that she buried in that phrase. The black chill of the mines, the searing glow of the furnaces, the gnashing rage and sobbing desperation, the bodies in the snow. Vick forced her face to stay blank, pressed down the past like you might press down the lid on a box full of maggots.

‘You get by,’ she said, firmer. When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

Grise spun around as the door squealed open, but it was only Sibalt come at last, Moor big and dour at his shoulder. He planted his fists on the table and took a heavy breath, that noble face of his sadly sagging.

‘What is it?’ asked Tallow, in a tiny voice.

‘They hanged Reed,’ said Sibalt. ‘They hanged Cudber. They hanged his daughter.’

Grise stared at him. ‘She was fifteen.’

‘What for?’ asked Tallow.

‘Just for talking.’ Sibalt put his hand on the boy’s thin shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Just for organising. Just for trying to get workers to stand together and speak with one voice. That’s treason now.’

‘Then the time for talk’s fucking past!’ snarled Grise.

Vick was angry as anyone. But she’d learned in the camps that every feeling is a weakness. You have to lock your hurt away, and think about what comes next. ‘Who did they know about?’ she asked.

‘That all you can think of?’ Grise stuck her fat fist in Vick’s face and shook it. ‘Whether you’re fucking safe?’

Vick looked from her fist to her eye. ‘Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up.’

‘Not Cudber. He wouldn’t.’

‘Not even when they put the irons to his daughter?’ Grise had nothing to say to that, shock gradually wiping the anger off her face. ‘Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up. Lots of other names, too, ’cause once you run out of truth, you start spilling lies.’

Moor shook his big lump of a head. ‘Not Reed.’

‘Yes, Reed, Cudber, his daughter, yes, you or me or anyone. The Inquisition’ll come for whoever they knew about, and soon. So who did they know about?’

‘Just me.’ Sibalt looked at her calm and level. ‘I made sure of it.’

‘Then you have to get out of Adua. For your sake, for the sake of the cause.’

‘Who the fuck are you to give orders?’ Grise leaned down over her with a stabbing finger. ‘You’re newest here!’

‘So maybe I’m thinking most clearly.’ Vick let her hand lie on her belt buckle where her brass knuckles were hidden. She didn’t rate Grise much of a threat, for all her bulk. People who shout a lot tend to take a while working up to more. But Vick was ready to put her down if she had to. And when Vick put someone down, she made sure they went down hard.

Lucky for Grise, Sibalt laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and eased her back. ‘Vick’s right. I have to get out of Adua. Just as soon as we strike our blow.’ And Moor slid out a dirty paper and unrolled it across the table. A map of the city. Sibalt tapped a spot in the Three Farms. Not far from where they’d started building that new canal. ‘The Hill Street Foundry.’

‘Though Hill Street’s gone,’ said Moor, in that plodding way he had, ‘since they pulled it down to build the Foundry.’

‘They’re fitting new engines there,’ said Sibalt.

Tallow nodded. ‘I passed ’em on the way. Engines that’ll put two hundred men and women out of work, I hear.’

‘And what?’ muttered Vick, frowning. ‘We’re going to break ’em?

‘We’re going to blow the lot to hell,’ said Grise. ‘With Gurkish Fire.’

Vick blinked at her. ‘How much have you got?’

‘Three barrels,’ said Sibalt. ‘That be enough, you think?’

‘In the right places, maybe. You know how to use it?’

‘Not really.’ Sibalt grinned at her. ‘But you do. Used it in the mines, didn’t you? In Angland.’

‘I did.’ Vick narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘What do you care?’ snapped Grise.

‘I care that your source is reliable. I care that it’s going to work. I care that it’s not going to pop too early and shower bits of us all over the Three Farms.’

‘Well, you can stop worrying, ’cause it comes straight from Valbeck,’ said Grise, smug as a king’s tailor. ‘Straight from the Weaver himself—’

‘Shush,’ hissed Sibalt. ‘Best if no one knows