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

murmured Glokta.

“The young Lord Governor is popular,” agreed Gorodets.

“Damned,” pecked the high justice. “Popular.”

“Handsome lad,” said Brint. “And he’s earned a warrior’s reputation.”

“Angland behind him. Stour as an ally. Could be a threat.”

Rucksted raised his bushy brows very high. “His grandfather, lest we forget, was an infamous bloody traitor!”

“I will not see a man condemned for the actions of his grandfather!” snapped Orso, whose own grandfathers had enjoyed mixed reputations, to say the least. “Leo dan Brock risked his life fighting a duel on my behalf!”

“The job of your Closed Council,” said Glokta, “is to anticipate threats to Your Majesty before they become threats.”

“After may be too late,” threw in Bayaz.

“People are… discomfited by the death of your father,” said Gorodets. “So young. So unexpected.”

“Young. Unexpected.”

“And you, Your Majesty, are—”

“Despised?” offered Orso.

Gorodets gave an indulgent smile. “Untried. At times like this, people yearn for stability.”

“Indeed. It would without doubt be a very fine thing if Your Majesty were…” Lord Hoff cleared his throat. “To marry?”

Orso closed his eyes and pressed finger and thumb against them. “Must we?” Marriage was the last thing he wanted to discuss. He still had Savine’s note in a drawer beside his bed. Still looked at that brutal little line every evening, as one might pick at a scab. My answer must be no. I would ask you not to contact me again. Ever.

Hoff cleared his throat once more. “A new king always finds himself in an uncertain position.”

“A king with no heir, doubly so,” said Glokta.

“The absence of clear succession gives a troubling impression of impermanence,” observed Matstringer.

“Perhaps with the help of Her Majesty your mother, I might draw up a list of eligible ladies, both at home and abroad?” Hoff cleared his throat yet a third time. “A new list… that is.”

“By all means,” growled Orso, pronouncing each word with cutting precision.

“Then there is Fedor dan Wetterlant,” murmured the high justice.

Glokta’s permanent grimace became even further contorted. “I hoped we might settle that matter without bothering His Majesty.”

“I’m bothered now,” snapped Orso. “Fedor dan Wetterlant… didn’t I play cards with him once?”

“He lived in Adua before inheriting the family estate. His reputation here was…”

“Almost as bad as mine?” Orso remembered the man. Soft face but hard eyes. Smiled too much. Just like Lord Hoff, who was even now breaking out a particularly unctuous example.

“I was going to say abominable, Your Majesty. He stands accused of serious crimes.”

“He raped a laundry woman,” said Glokta, “with the assistance of his groundskeeper. When her husband demanded justice, Wetterlant murdered the man, again with the groundskeeper’s assistance. In a tavern. In full view of seventeen witnesses.” The emotionless quality of the Arch Lector’s grating voice only served to sicken Orso even more. “Then he had a drink. The groundskeeper poured, I believe.”

“Bloody hell,” whispered Orso.

“Those are the accusations,” said Matstringer.

“Even Wetterlant scarcely disputes them,” said Glokta.

“His mother does,” observed Gorodets.

There was a chorus of groans. “Lady Wetterlant, by the Fates, what a battleaxe.”

“Absolute. Harridan.”

“Well, I’m no admirer of hangings,” said Orso, “but I’ve seen men hanged for far less.”

“The groundskeeper already has been,” said Glokta.

“Shame,” grunted Brint with heavy irony, “he sounded like a real charmer.”

“But Wetterlant has asked for the king’s justice,” said Bruckel.

“His mother has demanded it!”

“And since he has a seat on the Open Council—”

“Not that his arse has ever touched it.”

“—he has the right to be tried before his peers. With Your Majesty as the judge. We cannot refuse.”

“But we can delay,” said Glokta. “The Open Council may not excel at much, but in delay it leads the world.”

“Postpone. Defer. Adjourn. I can wrap him up. In form and procedure. Until he dies in prison.” And the high justice smiled as though that was the ideal solution.

“We just deny him a hearing?” Orso was almost as disgusted by that option as by the crime itself.

“Of course not,” said Bruckel.

“No, no,” said Gorodets. “We would not deny him anything.”

“We’d simply never give him anything,” said Glokta.

Rucksted nodded. “I hardly think Fedor dan bloody Wetterlant or his bloody mother should be allowed to hold a dagger to the throat of the state simply because he can’t control himself.”

“He could at least lose control of himself in the absence of seventeen witnesses,” observed Gorodets, and there was some light laughter.

“So it’s not the rape or the murder we object to,” asked Orso, “but his being caught doing it?”

Hoff peered at the other councillors, as though wondering whether anyone might disagree. “Well…”

“Why should I not just hear the