The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,230

from the hill like the prongs of an iron crown. “The world’s changing, that’s for damn sure. Now a man can put a spark to some powder and a thousand strides away another man’s blown limb from limb. There was a time you had to look in his eyes, at least.”

“That was better?” asked Vick.

“Victories always come with a cost,” said Sulfur, calmly. “When my master returns from his business in the West, I do not doubt he will be satisfied with the outcome.”

“Marvellous,” murmured Orso. “I have engineered a quantity of death to satisfy even the First of the Magi.” His eyes could hardly comprehend the carnage. He kept looking to one side, then scanning across, in an effort to take it all in. “How many people do you think died here?”

“Hundreds,” murmured Hoff, eyes wide.

“Perhaps thousands,” said Pike, listlessly. “But mostly on the rebel side.”

Orso took scant comfort from that. Most on the rebel side had been citizens of the Union, too. His subjects. They had fought bravely, loyally, for good reasons. But being right is of little value in war. A great deal less than being lucky, certainly. If the cavalry had not arrived when they did, it might have been Leo dan Brock shaking his head over the carnage. Except Orso doubted the Young Lion had the imagination for it.

“Can it really have been worth it?” he found he had said.

“Can what, Your Majesty?” asked Pike.

“Anything.” Orso waved a limp hand at the spectacle. “Can anything be worth this?”

“They gave us no choice,” grumbled Rucksted. “You were hardly the aggressor, Your Majesty.”

“I played my part,” muttered Orso, gloomily. “If they wanted the crown so bloody badly, I could just have given it away. It’s not as if I enjoy wearing the damn thing…” He glanced across the unhappy faces of his retainers. Probably not the victory speech they had been hoping for. Sulfur, in particular, was frowning thoughtfully. “But I suppose your master takes a dim view of unauthorised abdications.”

The magus bowed his head. “Were he to lose Your Majesty, I can only imagine his regret.”

They would have to imagine it, since Orso rather doubted Bayaz was capable of displaying any.

“There are many practical considerations,” said Hoff, hurrying to change the subject. “Large numbers of prisoners to consider.”

“Many from the Open Council’s forces.” Rucksted gave a disdainful sniff. “I hesitate to call them soldiers. Anglanders, too.”

“When it comes to the rank and file, I tend towards mercy,” said Orso. “We have enough Union men to bury.”

Pike inclined his head. “Fines, parole and forced labour may be of more value than mass executions.”

“Provided mercy does not extend to the ringleaders,” said Sulfur. “Justice must fall on the guilty like lightning. As it did at Valbeck.”

Orso gave a grimace at that memory, but he did not disagree. “What about the Northmen?”

“Pulling back towards their ships in disarray,” said Rucksted. “Harried by our cavalry.”

“Let them go. I don’t want to waste one more Union life on the bastards.” In truth, Orso had no appetite for any further waste of life at all: Union, Northman, dog or flea.

“We’ll see every one of those swine herded from our land or buried in it.”

“Stour Nightfall himself is unaccounted for,” said Pike. “I fear we may not have heard his name for the last time.”

“We can put down the Great Wolf another day.” Orso paused a moment, frowning. “There was no trouble from the Breakers in Keln?”

Rucksted scratched at his beard. “Not a whisper. If there are Breakers down there, they were quiet as mice while my men were in the city.”

“We should take no chances,” said Pike. “Inquisitor Teufel and I will set out for Valbeck this afternoon. Ensure that the city is… pure.”

That word might have given Orso a cold shiver once, but perhaps the battle had washed away all his father’s good-natured indecision and exposed a flinty core of his mother’s cold-blooded scorn. The Union had to be brought together now. Whatever it took.

“Very good.” He drew his fur-trimmed cloak tight about his shoulders against the chilly autumn breeze and watched the corpse-gatherers at their work.

The door squealed open to reveal a dim chamber, walls glistening with damp, cut in half by rust-speckled gratings. Beyond, the wretched occupants of cells stuffed to bursting squinted into the light, shrank into the shadows, pressed themselves against the bars.

“Former members of the Open Council,” said the Arch Lector, with perhaps the slightest hint of satisfaction in his voice, if not his face. “Awaiting