The Wisdom of Crowds

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Hildi,” he said, leaning towards her, “when the gates open, I need you to vanish.”

  That sharp look of hers was exactly the same as when he first met her, ten years old and tough as nails. “Thought you said the age of wizards was over?”

  He smiled. Good to see she still wasn’t letting him get away with a thing. “I mean smear some dirt on those freckles, pull that cap down to your eyes and melt into the crowd. You used to clean floors in a whorehouse, you can fit in with this lot.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “Of course not! You’re making a tactical withdrawal. If I come through this, I’ll be a prisoner. I’m going to need someone loyal to help me escape. Bake lockpicks into a cake or something.”

  “I’m not much of a baker.”

  “But I bet you know how to find one.”

  “I guess.” And she wiped her cheek on the back of her hand. He wondered whether she knew he was lying. Probably. Only the most committed optimist could imagine he would live out the hour, and neither of them qualified. “You still owe me money,” she grunted.

  “I’ll have to pay you back later,” said Orso, giving her shoulder a parting pat. “Left my purse inside.”

  If he lingered any longer he might think better of the whole thing, and right now they all needed to see some kingly composure. This would likely be his last chance to show any, after all. It would be a shame to waste it. So he straightened his jacket and crunched on across the gravel paths, so perfectly raked you would think no one had ever stepped on them before. Nice to see that standards were still being maintained. He felt strangely calm, now. As he had in Stoffenbeck, when the cannon-stones were raining down around him.

  The shouts outside the gate had resolved into a kind of chant. “Bring…

  out… the king! Bring… out… the king!” The rhythm was marked with crashes of metal, with screams and laughter, with a stomping of boots, so many and so hard they seemed to make the ground shake. “Bring… out… the king!”

  He wondered if there had been some choice he made, or didn’t. Some way to avoid this. If there had, it had passed without his even noticing. Probably he had been worrying about his mother, or the hook at his collar, or what people thought of him. He wished he had been a touch more purposeful. But people are what they are.

  He puffed out his cheeks. “Open the gates, please, Colonel Gorst.”

  Gorst only stared.

  “I understand,” said Orso gently. “And I release you from any and all oaths. You are no longer my First Guard.”

  Gorst’s eyes had a strangely lost expression. “What am I, then?”

  “I suppose… that’s up to you.” In the last few moments before they were torn to pieces by the mob, anyway. “It’s time.”

  Gorst swallowed, then turned and screeched, “Open the gates!” However often you heard that voice, you never quite got used to it.

  The bars were lifted, the bolts were pulled and a slit of light showed between the great doors. The chanting fell silent as they swung open to reveal a row of staring faces. People stumbled, off balance, at the pressure from those behind. Orso faced them alone, head held high. King’s circlet on his brow. Jewelled sword at his side. Cloak stitched with the golden sun of the Union about his shoulders. A vision of majesty.

  The rioters’ weapons drooped as he strode towards them. A couple went so far as to slip them behind their backs, as though vaguely embarrassed by their presence. In eerie silence Orso walked forward, his heart thudding but his face kept carefully nonchalant, until he stood in the very archway. Close enough that if he, and they, had reached out, their fingers might have touched.

  “Well?” he said, firmly and plainly. A little sternly, even. The voice of a disappointed father. A tone his own father had often been called on to use. “Here I am.” His eyes came to rest on an elderly woman in a patched dress and stained apron, sleeves rolled up even in the cold to show heavy pink forearms. “Might I ask your business, madam?”

  She snapped her open mouth shut and eased back, saying nothing.

  Orso raised one brow at a balding man with a faceful of broken veins and an old hatchet. “Might I enquire as to your purpose, sir?”

  He glanced left and right, and his lower lip wobbled, and perhaps the faintest croak emerged from his grizzled throat, but no more.

  Orso took a step forwards and the crowd shuffled away. Once, at a meeting of the Solar Society Savine had persuaded him to attend, he had seen iron filings moved by magnetic repulsion. The effect was similar.

  That tension in his throat was only getting worse. He worked his shoulders, suddenly annoyed at, of all things, the delay. “Come, come, let’s get to it!”

  But rather than falling on him like hungry wolves, the silent mob parted, revealing a man in a simple, dark suit of clothes. A hairless man, his face hideously burned, and at his side a hard-looking woman with a hard-looking frown.

  Orso could only stare in amazement. “Arch Lector Pike?” he whispered.

  “I think we should consider this my formal resignation, Your Majesty. Though you see that, in truth, I have never been your servant.”

  Pike was no captive of the crowd. By the way they treated him, he had their respect. Their obedience, even. By the Fates, he was their leader. The realisation was almost a comfort. It seemed plain now that there was nothing he could have done. There had been a traitor beside him all along.

  “You’re the Weaver?” whispered Orso.

  “I have used the name at times.”

  “I never had an inkling.” Orso raised a brow at Teufel. “Did you have an inkling? You always struck me as the woman with all the inklings, if there’s ever been one.”

  Teufel’s eyes slid to Pike. “No,” she said, simply. Her feelings on the whole business were, as ever, impossible to judge.

  “Well. I surrender the palace, I suppose. I ask that you show mercy to my guards and retainers. They have only tried to serve me.”

  “There has been enough bloodshed,” said Pike, but added rather ominously, “for today.”

  There was a pause. Faint cheering was still coming from the direction of the Square of Marshals. Angrier noises from the direction of the House of Questions. But no one appeared to be hacking him to pieces on the spot.

  “So…” Orso rather awkwardly cleared his throat. “What happens now?”

  “The people will decide,” said Pike.

  Orso glanced about him. At the people. “Really?” He gave a puzzled smile. “Are they equipped for that?”

  All the Cards

  A wind blew through the tall windows of Skarling’s Hall, chilly with mist from the river. It shook the trees across the valley, made the hanging over the great fireplace, stitched with the design of the Long Eye, flap and rustle. Rikke drew her cloak tight around her, and huddled into her hood, and watched the grey water churning, far below, and thought about what had to be done.

  You have to be hard to sit in Skarling’s Chair. Have to be. Whether you want to be or not.

  “Thinking o’ jumping?” asked Isern.

  “It’s where the Bloody-Nine fell. Or so I hear.”

  “So what’s the lesson? Folk who scramble to power up a hill of corpses will always take the long drop down?”

  Rikke peered down that long drop, then took a cautious step away from the window. “Not sure I like that lesson.”

  Isern grinned, tongue wedged into the hole in her teeth. “If you only listen to lessons you like you’ll learn nothing. Nice fur you got there.”

  “Ain’t it?” And Rikke rubbed her hand against it, fine and white and so very soft, stitched onto that red cloth Savine dan Brock gave her, to make a cloak fit for a queen of legend. “A gift from the people of Carleon.”

  “Warming to you, are they?”

  “I’ve always been very lovable.”

  “Specially with a few hundred armed men at your command.”

  “I find the better armed they are the more lovable I get. Reckon th
e townsfolk are grateful I haven’t burned the city yet. Seems mercy can work after all.”

  “No doubt it has its season,” said Isern. “And no doubt folk have a yen for it, after Stour’s dark moods and mean spirit. But don’t get cocky, girl. Gratitude is like spring blooms, fine-smelling but short-lived. I’d keep a torch burning, d’you see, somewhere it brings to mind cities aflame. Make sure they stay grateful.”

  “Maybe they’ll get you a fur, too.”

  “I’ve no use for one.” Isern gave a haughty sniff and whipped a shred of her ragged shawl over one shoulder. “Perfection cannot be improved upon.”

  One of the great doors clattered open and Corleth burst in, got the haft of the axe at her belt tangled with her knees and near fell over, took a couple more slapping steps then stood, hands on her thighs, panting for breath.

  “Interesting.” Isern pointed a tattooed finger at her. “This woman is usually quite calm in her manner.”

  Corleth waved towards the door. “They’re coming!”

  “Who’s coming?” asked Isern.

  “All of ’em.”

  Rikke could hear the commotion now. A crowd of gabbling voices, happy and angry at once. The warrior’s favourite mood. She shoved her hood back and scrubbed some life into her flattened hair with her fingernails, heart suddenly pounding. “They’ve got him?”

  Corleth nodded. “They’ve got him.”

  Someone sent the other door shuddering open with a kick and a pack of warriors tramped into Skarling’s Hall, laughing and jostling and glowing with triumph. Shivers led the way, with a bottle of spirits that’d seen some action, and Jonas Clover, with a shifty lad and a blank-faced woman at his back. The Nail and some big bearded bastard were dragging a filthy, half-naked prisoner by his arms, head hanging and legs trailing limp behind him.

  “By the dead,” muttered Rikke. The last time she’d seen the King of the Northmen outside of her dreams of vengeance had been at her father’s funeral, sleek as a snake and every bit as vicious. “Time has not been kind to him.”

  “Time’s kind to no one,” said Shivers, pressing the bottle into her limp hand.

  They flung him down in front of the dais Skarling’s Chair was set on. So Rikke stood over him. Stood in judgement, where he’d stood over so many others, the stones he lay on stained with the blood he’d ordered spilled.

  “Welcome back to your throne room, Great Wolf,” she said, and took a long pull at the bottle, and winced as it burned right down her gullet, while her warriors strove manfully to out-gloat each other.

  Stour tried to push himself up, arms trembling, making a blubbing whimper all the way. Then Hardbread stepped up and kicked him in the guts, and knocked him flat again.

  “Grovel, you fucker!” he spat. Harsher than Rikke was used to from her father’s old white-haired War Chief, but men’s mercy often runs out the very moment they’re called upon to use it.

  “What’s wrong with his legs?” she asked.

  “Didn’t want him running off.” Shivers shrugged. “Slit the tendons behind his knees.”

  Isern stuck her bottom lip out approvingly. “That’ll do it. Here’s where cocky gets you.” And she gave Rikke a meaningful glance from under her brows.

  Stour managed to get as far as his knees this time but looking like he might fall any moment. Rikke hardly knew him, his nose was so broke and his mouth so bloated and his cheeks so scabbed and swollen. Kept licking at his bloody top lip with this little slurp. He stared about like he didn’t recognise the place, one of his eyes near swollen shut and the other with a great red stain on the white. Rikke found she was rubbing gently at her own blind eye and had to force her hand away from it.

  “You took Carleon,” croaked Stour. Even his voice sounded broken.

  Gloating felt like something of an effort, but folk were expecting it. “Aye, well,” said Rikke, “Leo’s little jaunt to the Union seemed like more of a boy’s trip. Thought I’d invite King Orso to join you while I stayed here. Make better use o’ my time. Got me a new chair out of it.” Her warriors laughed, but Stour was in no state to appreciate a joke.

  “My father alive?” he whispered.

  “For now,” said Isern. “Hiding away in the High Valleys.”

  Stour hung his head. “He’d give anything… to get me back.” Something dripped on the floor. Bastard was crying. To suffer bravely takes practice, and he’d never had any. “I’m the future o’ the North,” he mumbled, like even he could hardly believe it might ever have been true. No matter how much pride a man has, it don’t take much, in the end, to beat it all out of him. To make him want nothing but for the beating to stop. “Please.”

  Rikke had a real bruiser of a speech all worked out, about the wrongs he’d done the North and the price he’d have to pay and how we all build our own gallows and he was about to hang from his and blah, blah, fucking blah. She’d been polishing it up for days like a champion might his feast-day helmet. But she felt no joy in crowing over such a broken thing as this. She took another pull on the bottle and nearly gagged on it.

  “Please.” Stour’s scabbed fingers crept across the floor and plucked at the gold-embroidered hem of her new cloak. “Please.”

  By the dead, he stank. When he fought Leo in the Circle she’d felt her hatred for him had no bottom. Now the well ran suddenly dry and all she had left was disgust for the whole business. But she knew what the lads wanted to see. You have to make of your heart a stone, if you want to sit in Skarling’s Chair.

  “You dare touch me?” she barked and kicked him in the face. Since he was on his knees she caught him right under the jaw, snapped his head up and sent him sprawling over backwards.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, curling up on his side, broken hand trembling over his bloody face. “Don’t hurt me.”

  This hadn’t been the plan. In the plan he’d stood up, for one thing, and sneered and spat insults, and she’d burned bright with righteous fury and cut him down with the cleverest stuff you ever heard. But how can you cut down what already can’t stand?

  She curled her lip and looked over at the Nail. “You want to put him in the cage?”

  “The one he put my father in?”

  “Have I got another?”

  He grinned, and a fine grin he had. She was quite pleased to have it aimed at her. Then he caught Stour by the hair and dragged him whimpering over towards the cage, his ruined legs flopping after.

  “Not killing him?” asked Clover, the slightest frown about his grey-flecked brows. “He comes through this alive, I doubt he’ll forgive.”

  “Not really the forgiving sort,” said Isern, pulling out a lump of chagga and starting to cut a little piece off.

  “Black Calder even less so.” Clover watched the Nail manhandling Stour across the floor. “Just can’t see any future where this bastard breathing is a good thing for us.”

  “Don’t worry about seeing the future.” Rikke nodded towards the sign of the Long Eye and tapped at the runes that matched it on her own face. “That’s my business.” And she plucked the chagga out of Isern’s fingers ’fore it got to her mouth and stuck it behind her own lip. “I can trust you, can’t I, Clover? My father once said that if he ever needed a dependable man… it wouldn’t be you.”

  “Your father was a straight edge and a fine judge of character.” Clover gave a little shrug. “In my humble opinion, it’d be a mistake to trust anyone too much.”

  “Specially someone already betrayed one master,” said Isern, cutting another little piece of chagga from the lump and rolling it into a pellet.

  “Don’t be too generous to me, Isern-i-Phail, I’ve betrayed about five o’ the bastards.” And Clover nabbed the pellet from Isern’s fingers with surprising dexterity and squinted to the rafters as he stuck it behind his lip, as though bringing to mind the full catalogue of his faithlessness was quite the challenge. “There was Bethod, and Glama Golden, and Cairm Ironhead, and I reckon I betrayed Black Calder at the same time as I betra
yed his son. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s one or two I’ve forgotten about besides.” And he patted thoughtfully at his belly. “I don’t think I flatter myself to say I’ve betrayed some o’ the greatest names in the North. But the thing they had in common?”

  “Do tell,” said Rikke, offering him the bottle.

  “They made it stupid for me not to betray ’em. I’m hoping you’ll be craftier.” And he slid something from an inside pocket. A golden chain of weighty links, its dangling diamond sparkling in the light from the tall windows. The one she’d seen Scale Ironhand wear at the duel. The one she’d seen Stour Nightfall wear at her father’s funeral. The chain Bethod had forged, before she was born, when he forced the North together with fire and sword. “Guess this should come to you now.”

  “You keep it,” said Rikke.

  Clover’s brows shot up. “Me?”

  Isern’s shot up, too. “Him?”

  “Bethod wore it, and Scale, and Stour. Look how things turned out for them. Look how they turned out for the North. Don’t think it’ll suit me.” Rikke hooked a thumb into her necklace of green stones and dragged them gently around her neck. “Reckon we’ve had enough kings for now.”

  Clover held up the chain, frowning at the dangling diamond. “It’ll suit me even worse.”

  “Melt it down for coins, then. Set the stone in your eating knife. Consider it a fair price for bringing me its owner.”

  “Then I will.” Clover tucked the chain back into his pocket. “You are as wise as you are generous, Chief.”

  “I wouldn’t count too much on either one,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “What happened over in the Union?”

  “I didn’t hang around for the outcome.” Clover took a swig from the bottle, daintily wiped the neck, then handed it to Isern. “There was quite the battle going on and I do my best to avoid ’em. From what I could tell, Orso won.”

  Rikke found she was rather pleased about that. And not only ’cause she’d betrayed the other side and victory for the Young Lion could’ve put her in quite the awkward spot. Never took much to make her thoughts wander back to the palace in Adua, morning sun streaming through the windows. Time had softened the smashing headache she’d been nursing. She remembered Orso coming through the door, grin on his face, tray in his hand. I brought you an egg. He hadn’t struck her as a winner of battles, it had to be said. But then neither had she, and here she was with Skarling’s Hall for her living room.