The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,198

hand on his belly and tried his best to suck it in. One cannot suck in one’s hips, though. It was reaching the point where he was considering some form of corset. Savine always looked spectacular in them, after all, and exercise was out of the bloody question. He let it all sag again with horrifying results.

“I daresay Leo dan Brock never has to hold in his belly,” he murmured.

“Wouldn’t have thought so. All hard and grooved like a cobbled street, I reckon.” Hildi was gazing into the corner of the room with a dreamy expression. “Combining the best of dancer and docker.”

“While I combine the worst of idler and innkeeper?” Orso pulled his shirt on with bad grace. “Maybe you can get a job oiling the Young Lion’s stomach once he’s replaced me.”

“A girl can dream.”

“There’s more to a man than his gut.”

“No doubt. You’ve put some weight on under the chin as well.”

Orso sighed. “Thank you very much for that, Hildi, I’m never at risk of getting too self-satisfied with you around.”

He twitched a curtain back to watch those men marching past. Probably he should have been moved by their loyalty. His father would have flapped a half-clenched fist around and trotted out some patriotic platitude. But Orso found himself wondering what strange combination of doubts and desires compelled each individual to subsume themselves into this metal mass, plodding towards their own destruction rather than making the eminently sensible choice to run like hell the other way.

Then he found himself wondering why he was still there, and slapped impatiently at the side of his head. “Damn it, Hildi, I think far too much to make a good general.”

“That and you’ve no military training, talent or experience.”

“Training, talent or experience would only be encumbrances to a monarch. Such petty concerns are for the little people, my dear.” From the window he could see the low ridge to the east of town, the spindly trees on top, a faint hint of dawn showing in the clouds behind. “I don’t think I can put it off any longer. When the sun comes up… I’m going to have to bloody fight.”

“Shall I get your armour?”

“I think you’d better. And tell Bernille I’m ready for breakfast.”

“Diet tomorrow, eh?”

Orso patted at his stomach. “If I’m still alive.”

Stour Nightfall was having quite the sulk.

Flick had built a good fire for breakfast, near to the treeline where they could get news if aught happened on the hills ahead. Flick wasn’t bad at building fires, and he’d built an especially pleasing one that morning.

But as Stour’s mood blackened, everyone had slowly shuffled back, sidling around the trees and skulking through the bushes to get out of his eyeline, loitering at the edge of the firelight and leaving a widening empty circle about the King of the Northmen.

It seemed the only man who dared stay close was Clover himself, and that was mostly ’cause he was enjoying having his feet near the warmth. The Union was meant to be so very bloody civilised, but so far, the place was a sea of mud. His boots had got soaked yesterday and the cold had worked right into his feet. Being on campaign was far from comfortable at the best of times. He was damned if he was going to let Stour’s sulking make him even less comfortable. And Clover reckoned you took more of a risk backing away from a slavering wolf than you did calmly standing your ground. So he sat there and slowly picked a leg of cold mutton down to the bone.

“We could’ve gone last night!” snarled Stour, and he kicked a smouldering branch from the fire and sent it spinning away, showering sparks. “Why didn’t we go last night?”

“Couldn’t say, my king,” said Clover. “Big army to manage, I reckon.”

“Big army to manage?” sneered the king, and he kicked out at a cookpot and sent it bouncing between the trees where it hit a Carl on the side of his knee and made him squeak with pain, though he kept smiling all the while, which was quite a feat.

If Stour had been an eight-year-old, he’d have got a slap from his mummy. Instead, he got every bastard bowing and grinning and pandering to him, even those he kicked cookpots at. That, of course, only made him rage the worse.

“We’ve joined up with a pack o’ fools!” Stour said. The rest of ’em had been given no choice but to follow. “You see that fat idiot