The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness #2) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,82

see all right?”

“Can’t see at all with this eye.” She winked at him with the right, and it made no difference. She took a hard breath as she stood, watched the grey sea shifting. “But the other sees better than ever.”

There were a lot of people gathered in front of her father’s hall. There were always folk wanting something from him. Always wanting more than he had to give, whether it was silver, or men, or reassurance, or favour. They’d drained him dry of all of them, down the years.

Hardbread hastened up the cobbled road, his white hair wild. When he got close enough for his weak old eyes to get her measure he froze.

“Hardbread,” she said, giving him a nod.

“Rikke…” He sounded more’n a little sick. “That you?”

“Aye. I cut my hair.”

He stared at her some more. “Rikke, I have to tell you something.”

“It’ll have to wait. Need to talk to my da.”

“That’s the thing.”

“What’s the thing?” she asked as she shoved the doors of the hall wide, and stopped, her weight all on one wobbling foot.

“Oh, no.” And she sagged like a scarecrow had its pole ripped out. Caurib had warned her the Long Eye wouldn’t keep her safe from all life’s axes. “Oh, no.”

Her father lay on the table, his old, notched sword on his chest. His hair and his beard were white. His face and his hands were white. His eyes were closed.

“Oh, no.” Everyone watching her, silent, slipping out of her way as she walked up, like you might from someone had the plague. She stopped by the table, looking down at her father. Seemed he had the ghost of a smile about his mouth.

“He never smiled enough,” she whispered.

“Aye,” said Shivers, soft and low. “Those were the times he lived through.”

“He done the best he could with ’em.”

“None better,” said Isern, and she took a long breath and puffed it out, ragged. “Back to the mud.”

Rikke put her fingertips on her father’s cheek. “Peace at last, eh, Da?” she whispered, and her right eye tickled and stung and leaked. Might not see any more, but it could cry, still.

Her left stayed dry, though.

Greenway reined in hard and slithered from his saddle, got his foot caught in one stirrup in his haste and nearly fell. “The Dogman’s dead!” he screeched.

Silence, while a breeze blew up and whisked some fallen blossom across the road. Silence, while everyone wondered how Stour would take the news so they could take it the same way.

Then the young king tipped back his head and roared with laughter, and as if that was permission given, they all set to chuckling, too. All of ’em except Clover. He weren’t really in the mood.

“What was it Shama Heartless said?” asked Stour, wiping his wet eyes. “There’s only one kind of good news, and that’s dead enemies. Reckon those sorry bastards’ll be joining the North sooner than we hoped, eh, Clover?”

“Prefer to eat the eggs I’ve got, my king, rather’n the ones still up in the tree.”

“Good point, Clover, good point.” Stour grinned his wolf grin and with a snapping of cloth pulled his wolf cloak around his shoulders. “Let’s take nothing for granted. We’ll head straight into Uffrith, pay our respects. Or the lack of ’em. Then we can talk to Oxel. See how things stand.”

“Oxel’s there,” said Greenway. “I seen him.”

“Lovely.” Stour rubbed his palms together with a faint hissing. “That’s happy timing. Auspicious timing. Auspicious is the word, eh, Clover?”

“It’s a word,” said Clover, under his breath.

“How about Red Hat and Hardbread?”

“Aye, they were there, with their long, grey faces, and I hear the Dogman’s daughter, too—”

“Ha! You hear that, Clover? We’ve caught up to that fucking little bitch at last. This’ll be fun. Ain’t nothing prettier than a pretty girl crying, eh?”

There really was nothing to be said to that.

The sun was shining in Uffrith, but the place had a sullen feel. The Dogman had been loved, few men more, and it looked like his daughter weren’t the only one felt they’d lost a father. Mourners gathered in a long queue, grave gifts in their hands, but Stour strode grinning past ’em, lapping up their scowls and their curses. He was one of those men loves to be despised. That treats loathing like gold, to be clawed for and hoarded up. He hadn’t learned yet that hate’s the one thing never runs out.

There was quite the gathering inside the hall. Named Men, fussed up in their best, gold and jewels