The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,143

I need is to know that you’re safe. And Carlot deserves some time with you.” Over his mother’s shoulder, Carlot theatrically rolled her eyes. Orso ignored her. “I’ve been monopolising your attention ever since I was born.”

He noticed there were grey streaks in her hair. Wrinkles around her eyes, at the corners of her mouth. When had she started to look old? It made him feel deeply uneasy. He had always supposed she was indestructible.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I have made my decision, Mother. I hope you will accept it.”

He had expected a ferocious dressing-down. A furious Styrian tirade. Or, worse yet, the deadly gliding off followed by days of icy silence. But all the Queen Dowager of the Union did was cock her head on one side and calmly consider him.

“You have grown up, Orso. A bittersweet moment for a mother.”

“One you were no doubt hoping would arrive a dozen years ago.”

“Better late than never. The time comes when you realise the world is not yours any more. The best you can do is pass it on to your children.” She touched him very gently on the cheek. “You understand why I was always so demanding, don’t you? Because I know you have it in you to make a great king.”

“Your approval means… everything to me. It always has. And there is one thing I need you to do while you are here. One thing with which I trust no one else. Certainly not myself.”

“Name it.”

“Find me a wife.” He counted the points off on his fingers. “I only ask that she be beautiful, tasteful, passionate, cunning and superbly bred. And Carlot, make sure she has a sense of humour.”

Carlot waved it away. “That would only be wasted on you.”

A flicker of interest had crossed his mother’s face. “A Styrian bride?”

“You know as well as I do that they make the best women in the world here. Speaking of which, has our guest arrived?”

“She has.” And Carlot gave a loud clap.

The door was swung open to reveal a tall woman in extremely impressive middle age. Orso had not seen her in ten years, but she looked every bit as elegant as the day she left Adua. If there was anyone in the world who rivalled his mother for deportment, after all, it was her oldest friend, and far more than a friend, Countess Shalere.

“Orso, you beautiful creature!” she said. “It has been far too long.”

“Countess.” Orso snapped his heels together and gave an extravagant bow. “Or should I say sorceress, since you have not aged a day.”

“And people say you have no talents!” She clasped his head and kissed him on both cheeks in a waft of perfume that took him straight back to being a boy. “I swear there are no better liars in the Circle of the World.”

Orso’s mother had not taken her eyes from Shalere since she came into the room. “This is… a surprise.”

“A pleasant one, I hope.” Shalere raised one brow. “I have been waiting for you for a long time.”

“I… told you not to do that.”

“Everyone must be disobeyed occasionally.”

A naïve observer might have thought it an insignificant meeting. But Orso knew his mother far better than that. He saw the slight parting of her lips, the slight glimmer at the corners of her eyes, the slight movement of her collarbones with her quick breath.

For her, that was a whirlwind of passion.

“Well,” said Carlot, making for the door and jerking her head significantly towards it. “I have some… things to do.”

“As do I.” Orso felt suddenly as if he was intruding on something painfully intimate. “Immensely important… things.”

No one acknowledged him. He glanced back as Carlot drew him through the door by his elbow. Long enough to see Shalere had taken both of his mother’s hands, their eyes fixed on each other, unwavering. His mother was smiling. Her face lit up with it. He wondered how long it had been since he saw her smile like that. Since he saw her smile at all.

He had been desperate to escape her smothering influence for years. Now that he had finally done it, he had to push the door shut before anyone noticed the melodramatic quivering of his lip.

All Tastes, No Judgements

If there was one thing Leo valued, it was honesty, and Cardotti’s House of Leisure might’ve been the most dishonest place in the world. A place where everything was pretending to be something else.

It was decorated like the palace of some dissolute emperor, all