A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,194

of people, like ants in an anthill. A thousand anthills. The thought of it was making her head spin. Or spin more, maybe. She looked down at the deck, rubbing her temples. She’d been feeling insignificant enough already.

‘By the dead,’ she muttered again, puffing out her cheeks.

‘Adua,’ said the man standing next to her. ‘The centre of the world.’ He was a thickset old fellow with heavy brows, a short grey beard and a bald head looked like it had been beaten out of iron on an anvil, all planes and knobbles. ‘The poets call her the City of White Towers, though they tend towards the grey-brown these days. Beautiful, isn’t she, from a distance?’ He leaned nearer. ‘Believe me, though, she stinks when you get close.’

‘Most things do,’ muttered Rikke, frowning at Leo. The Young Lion, grinning into the wind with his carefree friends, the bloody young lads together, the bloody young heroes, the bloody young pricks. She sucked some chagga juice out of her gums and sent it spinning into the churned-up water.

She kept thinking of things she could’ve said to him. Pearls of wit and wisdom like he’d never get from those idiots. He’d have died in the Circle if it wasn’t for her Long Eye. And he treated her as if she was an embarrassment.

She was working up to being properly angry when he threw back his head and gave that big, open, honest laugh of his, and all she felt was sad they’d fallen out, and jealous he wasn’t laughing with her, and let down by him and by herself and by the world. The truth was, she bloody missed him. But she was damned if she was saying sorry. It should be him saying sorry to her, on bended knees. But how could you hate a man with an arse like—

He glanced towards her and she made sure she looked away. Him catching her looking would be like he’d scored a point somehow. But looking away from Leo meant looking back to this bald bastard, who was still considering her as if he found her of quite some interest.

‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ she asked. Somewhat rude, but her failed romance and her endlessly hot and smarting eye and a week or two of seasickness had worn down her patience.

His smile only grew wider. A hungry smile, like a fox at the henhouse. ‘My name is Bayaz.’

‘Like the First of the Magi?’

‘Exactly like. I am he.’

Rikke blinked. Perhaps she should’ve punched him for a liar. But there was something in his glittering green eyes that made her believe it. ‘Well, there’s a thing.’

‘And you are Rikke. The Dogman’s daughter.’ She stared at him, and he smiled back. ‘Knowledge is the root of power. In my business, you have to know who’s who.’

‘What is your business?’

He leaned close, almost hissing the word. ‘Everything.’

‘That’s quite some area of responsibility.’

‘Sometimes, I admit, I think I should have aimed lower.’

‘Shouldn’t you have a staff?’

‘I left it at home. However big a chest you bring, it never quite fits in. And magic, you know, it’s all rather …’ And he squinted thoughtfully towards the city. ‘Out of fashion, these days.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ she said, shifting her chagga pellet across her mouth and chomping it on the other side. ‘I’ve been blessed with the Long Eye.’ At that moment, she glimpsed the faintest phantom of a sinking ship, its mast tipping towards them as it foundered on a stormy sea. She cleared her throat, doing her best to ignore the ghostly sailors toppling into the brine. ‘Or possibly cursed with it.’

‘Fascinating. And what have you seen?’

‘Frustrating glimpses, in the main. Ghosts and shadows. An arrow and a sword. A black pit in the sky with the knowing of everything inside. I saw a wolf eat the sun and a lion eat the wolf then a lamb eat the lion then an owl eat the lamb.’

‘And what does that portend?’

‘I’m entirely fucked if I know.’

‘What do you see when you look at me?’

She frowned sideways. ‘A man who could tell more truth and eat fewer pies.’

‘Ah.’ And he rested one broad hand on his belly. ‘Profound revelations indeed.’

Rikke grinned. Had to admit she was starting to like him, even if she had no idea whether to believe a word he said. ‘What brings the First of the Magi to Adua?’

‘I have been detained far too long in the ruined West of the world by the demands of some most unreasonable