The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,7

moved…”

“… impossible to know which way the Closed Council is going to fall on tax. There’s a hell of a hole in the finances. The entire treasury’s a hole…”

“… told ’em if they wouldn’t do the work, I’d bring in a crowd of brown bastards who would, and they soon got back to their machines…”

“… nobles furious, commoners furious, merchants furious, my wife isn’t furious yet, but it never takes much…”

“And so you see, Lady Savine,” Sleisholt was working up to a grand finale, “the power of the Whiteflow is languishing unharnessed, like a stallion unbridled, and—”

“If I may!” Curnsbick caught Savine’s elbow and steered her nimbly away.

“Unbridled, Lady Savine!” Sleisholt called after her. “I am available to discuss it further at your convenience!” And he dissolved into a coughing fit which faded into the chatter.

“Thank the Fates for you,” murmured Savine. “I thought I’d never escape that old dunce.”

Curnsbick glanced away while rubbing significantly at his nose. “You have a little something just here.”

“Fuck.” She dipped behind her fan to wipe a trace of powder from the rim of her sore nostril.

When she came up, Curnsbick was looking worriedly at her from under his grey brows, still flecked with a few stubborn ginger hairs. “Savine, I count you as one of my closest friends.”

“How lovely of you.”

“I know you have a generous heart—”

“You know more than me, then.”

“—and I have the highest regard for your instincts, your tenacity, your wit—”

“It takes no great wit to sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“I’m worried for you.” He lowered his voice. “I hear rumours, Savine. I’m concerned about… well, about your judgement.”

Her skin was prickling unpleasantly under her dress. “My judgement?” she whispered, forcing her smile a tooth wider.

“This venture in Keln that just collapsed, I warned you it wasn’t viable. Vessels that size—”

“You must be delighted at how right you were.”

“What? No! I could scarcely be less so. You must have sunk thousands into financing the Crown Prince’s Division.” It had been closer to millions. “Then I hear Kort’s canal is hampered by labour problems.” Utterly mired in them was closer to it. “And it’s no secret you lost heavily in Valbeck—”

“You have no fucking idea what I lost in Valbeck!” He stepped back, startled, and she realised she had her fist clenched tight around her folded fan and was shaking it in his face. “You… have no idea.” She was shocked to find the pain of tears at the back of her nose, had to snap her fan open again so she could dab at her lids, struggling not to smudge her powder. Never mind her judgement, it was getting to the point where she could hardly trust her own eyes.

But when she glanced up, Curnsbick was not even looking at her. He was staring across the busy foyer towards the door.

The eager chatter fell silent, the crowd split and through the midst came a young man with a vast retinue of guards, officers, attendants and hangers-on, sandy hair carefully arranged to give the impression of not having been arranged at all, white uniform heavy with medals.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Curnsbick, gripping Savine’s elbow, “it’s the bloody king!”

Whatever the criticisms—and there were more than ever, regularly circulated in pamphlets revelling in the tawdry details—no one could deny that King Orso looked the part. He reminded Savine of his father. Of their father, she realised, with an ugly twisting of disgust. He chuckled, slapped arms, shook hands, traded jokes, the same beacon of slightly absent good humour King Jezal had once been.

“Your Majesty,” frothed Curnsbick, “the Solar Society is illuminated by your presence. I fear we had to begin the addresses without you.”

“Never fear, Master Curnsbick.” Orso clapped him on the shoulder like an old friend. “I can’t imagine I would have been much help with the technical details.”

The great machinist produced the most mechanical of laughs. “I am sure you know our sponsor, Lady Savine dan Glokta.”

Their eyes met only for an instant. But an instant was enough.

She remembered how Orso used to look at her. That mischievous glint in his eye, as if they were players in a delightful game no one else knew about. Before she learned they had a father in common, when he was still a crown prince and her judgement was considered unimpeachable. Now his stare was flat, and dead, and passionless. A mourner at the funeral of someone he had hardly known.

He had asked her to marry him. To be his queen. And all she had wanted