The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,38

of the commemorative sword he’d so proudly accepted from King Jezal last year. “One sword. And it’s not even properly bloody balanced!”

“It’s a scandal.”

“It is a scandal.” Leo wondered whether he was saying too much but couldn’t help himself. “A breach of the contract between the Crown and the provinces. There are folk back home asking if we’re subjects or livestock.” Jurand had told him to be careful what he said in Adua, but Jurand was a long way away, sadly, and the truth was the truth. “There are folk on the verge of bloody rebellion,” he hissed, grinding the end of his cane into the tiles.

“A bloody scandal,” lamented Isher. “Still. Nothing compared to what they’re doing to poor Fedor dan Wetterlant.”

“Who?”

“You never met?”

“Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…”

“One of us, Wetterlant. Seat on the Open Council, estates down near Keln. Good old Midderland stock, you know.”

“Gentle temperament?”

“Little wild, truth be told, but we’ve known each other for years. I believe he’s a fourth cousin of mine or some such. Once removed, maybe?”

“Never really understood how all that once removed stuff works…”

“Who does? The charges are trumped up, without a doubt. Some ruse of Old Sticks’. I hear he’s confessed but no doubt it’s under torture.”

“They tortured a member of the Open Council?” Leo could scarcely believe it. “I didn’t think Orso was the type.”

“I’m telling you, the man’s a cipher! He has no idea what’s done in his name and wouldn’t do a thing about it if he did. They’ve got Wetterlant locked up in the bowels of the House of Questions, away from friends, away from family. Not even a window! His poor mother is beside herself. Cousin of a cousin as well, it’s taken quite the toll.”

“By the dead,” murmured Leo, then realised it was a Northern saying and meant nothing here.

“He’s appealed for the king’s justice. Anyone with a seat on the Open Council has the right to a trial here with His Majesty as the judge but, well… I doubt there’s any justice to be had in the Union these days.”

“By the dead! I mean, bloody hell.”

“Even members of the old families, even members of the Open Council, even patriots like you or I aren’t safe. It hardly feels like our country any more.”

Leo rubbed at his thigh, the simmering pain a spur to his simmering anger. “Someone should do something,” he growled.

“Someone should.” Isher nodded sadly. “But… who has the courage?”

Leo tried not to limp as he walked back down the Kingsway, past the statues of the great men of history. Kings loomed on one side. Real kings. Harod the Great. Arnault the Just. Casamir the Steadfast. Great figures from their reigns loomed a little lower on the other.

Leo wondered if a statue of him would stand here one day. Holding sword and shield in recognition of great victories, gazing sternly across the roadway to a taller and more impressive statue of King Orso. That thought hardly filled him with joy. He was paying for his glories with every step and didn’t fancy sharing with a man he was losing all respect for.

Crown Prince Orso had struck him as a good enough sort, but the throne only amplifies a man’s bad qualities, and his Closed Council were the same corrupt old worms who’d driven King Jezal’s reign into the ditch. What the Union needed was men of courage, men of passion, men of action.

Men like him.

The quarters he and his mother had been given were high up, blessed with views but cursed with steps. When he finally got to the top, his leg was on fire. He had to pause to settle his breath, mop away sweat and force his grimace into a carefree smile. He told himself he didn’t want his mother to worry. In truth, he didn’t want to prove her right.

“How was your meeting with Lord Isher?” she asked as he strode in.

“Well enough. He’d a bastard of a story about this poor fellow Wetterlant. There’s a rot in the Agriont, but no one’s got the courage to…” There was someone behind him. A woman perhaps a few years older than his mother but still rather handsome, a lopsided smile on her lips as if she knew secrets he didn’t.

“This is Lady Ardee dan Glokta.”

“Oh…” By the dead, he saw the resemblance to her daughter now. That direct, searching, slightly mocking look was just the same. He was blushing to the roots of his hair. “Wonderful to meet you, of