The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,62

upon him, and steer him away from the Square of Marshals towards the quieter ways while it looked as if he were steering her. “This is politics.” She smiled at passers-by as if this was the most wonderful afternoon of her life. “You have to be subtle. There is a way to do things.”

“So I should just sit there?”

“That’s why they have seats in the Open Council.”

“Watch a man convicted just because of who he is—”

“I have it on good authority he couldn’t be guiltier,” said Savine, but Leo was not listening.

“That high-handed bastard! To have the Lord Governor of Angland dragged out like a beggar—”

“What did you expect?” she snapped, digging her fingers into his arm. “You gave him no choice.”

“You’re taking his side? We’re supposed to be—”

“Leo!” She turned his face towards her so he had to look into her eyes. She spoke to him without fear or anger. With simple authority. The way one speaks to a dog that has soiled the carpet. “Sides? Think about what you are saying. He is the High King of the Union! His is the only side that counts! He cannot allow himself to be defied before the foremost noblemen of the land. Men have ended up in the House of Questions for less.”

He stared at her, breathing hard. Then suddenly all the defiance drained out of him. “Shit. You’re right.”

“Of course,” was what she wanted to say, but she kept her silence, and tidied a loose strand of hair behind his ear, and let him get there by himself.

“Shit.” He closed his eyes, utterly dismayed. “I’ve made myself look a fool.”

She turned his face back towards her again. “You have made yourself look passionate, and principled, and brave.” And an utter fool, it hardly needed saying. “All the qualities people admire in you. All the qualities I admire in you.”

“I’ve offended the king. What should I—”

“That is why you have me.” She led him on while appearing to follow, talking softly as though they were trading sweet nothings. “I will speak to my father and arrange for you to apologise to His Majesty. You will smile and be the charming but hotheaded young hero you are. You will show how difficult it is for you to swallow your pride, but you will swallow it, every last bitter drop. You will explain that you are a soldier not a courtier, and say your manly passions got the better of you, but that it will never happen again. And it will never happen again.”

She smiled as they walked. The Union’s most admired couple, so very well matched and so much in love. She had smiled through far worse, after all. She kept her eyes ahead, but she was conscious that he was looking at her all the way.

“I think…” he murmured, leaning towards her, “that I might be the luckiest man in the Union.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She patted his elbow. “You’re the luckiest man in the world.”

The Choice

Clip, clip. Copper-brown hair scattered about her bare feet, across her bare feet. Hard fingers on her scalp, tipping her head this way and that. Clip, clip.

“’Tis only hair, d’you see?” said Isern, pausing with the shears a moment. “Hair grows back.”

Rikke frowned up at her. “Hair does.”

Clip, clip, and more hair fell, like moments passed, moments lost.

Shivers set a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Better to do it than live with the fear of it.”

“That’s what my father says,” said Rikke.

“Your father’s a wise man.”

“Out of all the men you hate, he’s the one you hate least.”

Her father gave a sad nod. “They’ll need your bones and your brains, when I’m gone.” Old, he was, and crooked and grey. “And your heart.”

“And my heart.” Rikke wasn’t sure whether she’d meant to let go the string or not, but her arrow stuck into the lad’s back, just under his shoulder blade.

“Oh,” she said, shocked how easy killing someone turned out to be. He looked around, a bit offended, a bit scared, but not half as scared as she was now.

She squeezed her eyes shut. By the dead, her head was hurting, jabbing in her face, jab, jab, jab.

“Keep it, and I see for you a great destiny. A great destiny. Or give it away. And be Rikke. Have a life. Push out children and teach them songs.” Caurib shrugged as she sucked fish off the bones, and the wind blew up and made sparks shower from the fire, down the shingle and out over the