The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,10

a decent man so I’m giving you every chance I can. But Lady Savine wants her canal finished. She’s paid for it. And I can tell you for a fact… it’s a bad idea to get between her and what she’s paid for. A bad idea.”

Gaunt leaned forward. Far as he could tied to the chair. “A lad died the other day. Crushed by a beam. Fourteen years old.” He strained around to glance up at Bannerman. “You know that?”

“I heard,” said Bannerman, and from the way he was looking at his nails, hadn’t cared a shit.

“It’s a damn shame.” Broad snapped his aching fingers to bring Gaunt’s eyes back to him. “The question is, how’s you getting crushed going to help him?”

Gaunt stuck his chin up, still defiant. Broad liked him. They could’ve been on the same side. He supposed they had been, not that long ago. “I can help the others. The likes of you wouldn’t understand.”

“I might surprise you. I was in Valbeck, brother, with the Breakers. Fought the good fight there. Thought I did, anyway. Before that, I was in Styria. Thought I fought the good fight there, too. Been fighting good fights all my life. You know what it’s got me?”

“Nothing?” said Bannerman.

Broad frowned up at him. “You love to spoil the punchline, don’t you?”

“You need some new material.”

“Daresay you’re right. Trouble with the good fight, I find… once the fight starts, the good stops.” Broad began rolling up his sleeves while he thought about what to say. Slowly. Carefully. Helped to have a routine. He told himself this was for May, and for Liddy. Wondered what they’d say if they knew about it and didn’t like the answer. That’s why they couldn’t know. Not ever.

“I’ve killed… I think… maybe fifty men. Maybe more. Prisoners, some of ’em. Just following orders, but… I did it, still. Kept a count at first, then I tried to lose count, but, well…” Broad looked down at the little patch of ground between Gaunt’s boots. “I’ll be honest, I was drunk for a lot of it. Drunk as I could get. Bit of a blur. I remember this one fellow, in the wars. Styrian, I guess, kept gabbling at me, and I hadn’t a clue what he was saying. I threw him off the wall. Wall of Musselia this was so, what, thirty strides high?” He glanced up at Halder. “You were at Musselia, weren’t you?”

Halder nodded. “Closer to twenty.”

“High enough, anyway. He hit this cart.” Broad stuck his hand into his ribs, trying to show where. “And it folded him right in half, sideways. Left him in a shape no living man should ever be. I mean, his feet were pointing backwards. He started making this noise.” Broad slowly shook his head. “I swear, it was the noise hell makes. And he wouldn’t stop. You see some shit out there. Changes the way you look at things.”

“It does,” said Halder.

Gaunt was staring at him. “You think that’s something to boast of?”

“Boast of?” Broad stared back, over the rims of his lenses, so Gaunt was just a sparkly blur in the lamplight. “Fuck, no. I wake up with the sweats. I cry, sometimes. In the quiet times. Don’t mind admitting it.”

“Me, too,” said Halder.

“I’m just… trying to get you to see.” And Broad nudged his lenses back up his nose, back into that little groove. “To see where this is going before we get there and find out… we really didn’t want to get there.” He winced. That’d come out all wrong. Wished he was better with words, but, being honest, words alone rarely got this kind of job done. Malmer had been a good talker. Look where he’d ended up. “What I’m trying to say—”

“Master Broad?”

He turned, surprised. There was a single light burning in the office, built up on columns at the back of the warehouse. A figure stood by the steps leading up to it. A woman’s figure, tall and slight and graceful.

Broad felt an ugly twist of fear in the pit of his stomach. Small women troubled him a lot more than big men these days.

“Just… hold on,” he said as he stood.

“He’s not going anywhere.” And Bannerman patted Gaunt on the side of his face and made him flinch.

“Respect.” Broad strode across the warehouse floor, footsteps echoing. “Not like it costs anything.”

It was Zuri. She looked worried, and that made him worried. She was about as hard to rattle as anyone Broad had ever