The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,149

do two kings get to chat? It’s rather refreshing, being able to speak to someone on an equal footing.” And he took his mask off and tossed it on a side table, then dropped down in a chair and poured himself a glass of wine.

Jappo frowned at the mask. “That’s really not the done thing in Cardotti’s.”

“We’re kings. The done thing is whatever we do. I came here for a frank discussion. By all means leave yours on, if you prefer.”

“You speak excellent Styrian.”

“I have my mother to thank. She won’t bully me in any other tongue.”

“We both owe our mothers a debt, then. Mine gave me a whole kingdom.” And Jappo plucked his mask off and dropped it beside Orso’s. His face was not at all what Orso had imagined. Handsome, but in a strong-boned, broad-jawed sort of way. Surprisingly pale, too, in spite of his dark curls. He looked more like a Northman than a Styrian.

“Chagga?” he asked, holding up a pipe.

“Whyever not?”

While the King of Styria charged the pipe, the King of the Union frowned up at the towering mural behind him. “A copy of Aropella’s Fates?”

“Well recognised!” Jappo turned to look it over. “Worse brushwork than the great man’s version but far more bare flesh, so I consider it a draw. The original’s in my mother’s palace at Fontezarmo.”

“I am aware. My mother would say it’s her palace, though.”

“Really?”

“And that Aropella’s Fates is one of the few treasures your mother didn’t destroy when she stole the place. Mostly because, as it’s on the ceiling, it was out of easy reach of the criminal scum she’d employed to help her.”

“And do you share your mother’s opinion?”

“Very rarely,” said Orso. “She tends towards the vengeful. I sometimes think she named me purely with the intention of annoying your mother. My namesake Grand Duke Orso did kill your uncle, after all, and very nearly killed your mother. Before your mother killed him. And my uncles. And half the nobility of Styria. Is that how it went?”

“Roughly.”

“So many familial murders I trip up on the details. We do have a rather… complicated family situation.”

“Most kings do, I suppose.”

“Honestly, I’d rather put it all behind me. What’s the point in having new generations if all we do is pick up the feuds of the old one?”

“I’m very glad to hear you say that.” Jappo discerningly pursed his lips as he plucked the hood off a lamp and held it to his pipe, puffing up a smog of brown smoke. “Enemies are like furniture, aren’t they? Better chosen for oneself than inherited.”

“And made to be sat on.”

“My mother would agree with you there. She is a soldier.” Jappo tossed his head with a kind of fierce pride when he said it. Perhaps the first truly honest-seeming thing he’d done since Orso arrived. He handed the pipe over. “A most formidable one.”

“Perhaps the most formidable alive,” said Orso, puffing some smoke of his own. “Only an idiot would deny it.”

“But great soldiers become prisoners of their own success. All she thinks of is her next victory. Beating her enemies. Winning the war. She pays no mind to making friends. She has no time to win the peace.”

“And is that what you want? To win the peace?”

Jappo shrugged. “Here in Styria we had the Years of Blood, then the Years of Fire. There in the Union you had two wars with the Gurkish and two wars against the North. Then, to cap it off, we fought three wars against each other. Half a century of destruction. No one is asking me, but if they were, I would say that we could probably take a breath. Build something! Make the world better!” He seemed to remember himself and sat back. “And, you know, fuck. Make music.”

“Mmmm.” Orso blew a couple of ragged smoke rings. “This dissolute hedonist business suits you, but I’ve played the role myself.”

“Really?”

“My own preference tilts towards women—”

“As does your mother’s, I understand?”

“As does my mother’s—she has sublime taste in that as in so much else—but otherwise all this is rather like looking in the mirror. I think I even had that same gown.” He pointed at it with the stem of the pipe. “Though sadly not that stomach. So I am well aware—fun though it is—this performance is just another kind of mask.”

Jappo raised his brows. “You’d like me to take that one off, too, would you?”

“I wouldn’t ask you to strip too far for your comfort, but I think we