A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,76

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