The Wisdom of Crowds

by Joe Abercrombie

  “This what you call reasonable?” squealed the one with the arrow in his shoulder.

  “Reasonably reasonable, anyway. Tell him I’d like a word, in due course, explain how things stand. Information to our mutual advantage and so on.”

  Trapper slowly nodded. Didn’t say what he thought of the idea. He knew better’n that. “Reckon we’ll head off, then. Can we take our weapons?”

  Clover cocked an eyebrow at that heap of ironware. “Can’t say the notion delights me.”

  “Come on, Clover. Don’t make me head back disarmed. It’s fucking embarrassing.”

  “Aye, but if you’re anything like me, you’d rather be embarrassed than dead. I really don’t want you chasing after us.”

  The one with the leather hood looked quite put out. “I need my sword, though. Let me get my sword.”

  “I’m saying no,” said Clover, firmly as he could without raising his voice. “It’s not a negotiation. No exceptions. It’s a no.”

  The one in the hood looked to be getting a bit upset about it.

  “That was my father’s sword, you—”

  There was a crack and Clover blinked as blood spattered in his face again. Downside had split this bastard’s head, too.

  “What the—”

  “Sounding a bit feudy to me, Chief,” said Downside, wiping his axe.

  “Me and you need to have a talk,” growled Clover at him. “The rest o’ you, get moving.” And he waved Trapper and the others off into the night. The one with the lambskin cloak groaned as his friends helped him up, and they hurried off towards the darkening trees, leaving their three dead behind, the one with the arrow-stuck shoulder still whining that he was shot.

  Clover prodded at the meat. “Well, this is no bloody good now.” Spat on by that dead old-timer, bled on by a couple of others and not cooked anyway. “Feels like all I’m ever doing is trying to convince new masters I can be trusted.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t betray the old ones…” muttered Sholla, poking through the weapons.

  “You think we should’ve stuck to Stour?”

  “I do not.” She took a knife she liked from the pile and pushed it through her belt. “Just saying there are consequences.”

  “Don’t much care for that word.”

  “Which one?” asked Flick.

  “Consequences. Which one do you think? There?” Clover shook his head. “By the dead, boy, you are dense as a stump.”

  “If they’ve crossed the river…” Flick was still catching up with where they’d been when Trapper and the rest arrived. “Weren’t we supposed to kill ’em?”

  “You may not yet have realised this, but I prefer, in general, to kill as few people as possible.” And Clover gave Downside a significant glance, which had all the impact of an arrow on a rockface. “If we kill ’em all, they can’t take a message back to Calder, and it seems wise to keep the lines o’ communication open.”

  “Lines o’ what now?”

  Clover sighed. “To keep talking. Downside, since you made the corpses, reckon it’s only fair you bury ’em, too.”

  “Fuck,” he grunted, sliding his axe away. “Tell you what, it’s thankless work, killing folk.”

  “In a way you’d hope so, wouldn’t you?” said Sholla.

  Clover jerked his head at Flick. “You can help him.”

  “What did I do?” squeaked the lad.

  “Naught but be young and clueless and the easiest to order around, now get to it.”

  He nodded sadly, seeing the evident justice. “Which side are we on, then?”

  Clover scratched gently at his scar again. “That’s one o’ those questions you try not to answer till you have to.”

  The Politician

  “How does it feel?”

  “Sore,” growled Leo, through clenched teeth. “Sore as hell. But if I can stand on my own two feet in the Assembly, it’ll be worth it.” He frowned in the mirror at the steel rod sticking from his rolled-up trouser leg, the springs around the socket that served as an ankle, the curving metal plate that passed for a foot. “Stand on my own one foot, anyway.”

  “So… you mean to keep going there?”

  “I won’t just sit crying over lost glories. The future of the Union will be decided in the Assembly.” He looked at Savine in the mirror, propped up on the chaise in a mass of pale skirts with one of the babies to her breast and the other asleep beside her. He still couldn’t tell which of them was which.

  “Are you sure it’s wise…” She had a nervous tone he wasn’t used to hearing. “To make an exhibition of yourself?”

  “I never thought I’d live to hear you arguing against making an exhibition.”

  “You almost didn’t live to hear it,” she said, softly.

  He frowned at that. “I don’t need reminding. It was my neck in the noose. But I’ve been given a say, and I mean to use it.” It’d be a different kind of fight than he was used to. Words instead of swords, ideas instead of armour, speeches instead of charges. He’d be standing alone, with no faithful brothers-in-arms to watch his back. But he was as hungry for victory as ever. More, maybe. Every twinge in his leg, every throb in his arm, every shocked glance at his stump or his scars was a spur in him.

  Pain is the price of doing the right thing, Leo’s father used to say. Strange. He felt he hadn’t really understood that till now. Maybe he hadn’t really understood anything till now. He grimaced as he tried out a step and his weight went through his aching stump.

  “Curnsbick said he could make you one that looks more…”

  “Like a leg?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “This is better. I want them to see what I’ve sacrificed. I want to shove it in their faces. I suppose I could get a prettier one to wear around the house—”

  “Not on my account. I married you, not your leg.”

  “Regretting it?”

  “We made mistakes.” He saw her swallow, and frown down at the floor. “We made terrible mistakes. But our marriage makes more sense than ever.”

  She didn’t mention love. Leo wasn’t sure when they’d last used the word. Before Stoffenbeck, certainly. He remembered what she told him, the day he proposed. Or the day their mothers did. Their marriage was a business arrangement. A political alliance. And that was what he needed now—partners and allies. Love was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

  Savine was gazing down at her sleeping baby. Their baby. There was love in her eyes then, he noticed. “Given all that’s happened,” she murmured, “we are lucky to be where we are.”

  Crossing a room was an ordeal, pissing hard labour and dressing himself near impossible, but it was true things could’ve been worse. They’d been confessed traitors, after all, rotting in the cells at King Orso’s pleasure. Now Orso was a prisoner in his own palace and they were back in Savine’s cavernous house just off the Middleway. Most of it was shut up for lack of servants, but even so.

  “We know people living far worse,” he said.

  “We know people not living at all. We have to protect ourselves.” She gently stroked the dark fuzz on her baby’s head. Their baby’s head. “Protect our family.”

  “The people still admire me. We can use that.” Being bounced on the shoulders of that mob outside the House of Questions hadn’t been pleasant. But a lot better than being torn to pieces by them. “That and my place on the Assembly.” Leo tried to force his scarred mouth into the easy-going smile he used to have, the one he’d worn when King Jezal handed him that badly balanced commemorative sword, but that felt like a thousand years ago. There was still a trace of the Young Lion there, if he tried. “No recklessness this time. No vanity. No sentiment.”

  “No overambition,” said Savine. “No gambles. We have to stay safe. Take care who we trust.”

  Leo snorted. “We could hardly have picked worse friends.”

  “Isher, Heugen and Barezin.”

  “Cowards and fools,” grunted Leo. “Though they might still have their use
s.”

  “That savage Stour Nightfall.”

  “I should’ve kept him on a tighter leash.”

  “That weasel Vick dan Teufel.”

  “Quite the liar.” He’d have been outraged by that once. Now he almost admired it. Things he’d taken for failings looked like strengths these days, crowning virtues like fatal flaws.

  “Your old friend Rikke.”

  Leo frowned. “She was held up by bad weather.”

  “Please.” Savine curled her lip. “She sent a letter to King Orso, months in advance, warning him about the whole plan. He knew we were coming.”

  Leo’s nails bit at his palm as he clenched his fist. “That fucking treacherous bitch,” he snarled, dotting the mirror with spit. “I risked my life for her! Why the hell would she—”

  “We cannot waste time on what is done,” said Savine. “We have to learn the lessons and find better friends for the future.”

  “You’re right.” Leo took a long breath and pressed the anger down. He couldn’t let himself be swept off by whatever emotion blew his way. “What about your man Broad? He’s close with the Breakers. A captain in the People’s Army.”

  Savine thoughtfully pursed her lips. “Too close with the Breakers, perhaps.”

  “Aren’t his family still in Angland?”

  “You’re suggesting we squeeze them?” She looked surprised. Shocked, even. “You’ve changed.”

  “To regret the methods, you have to win.” He couldn’t stay on his feet any longer, and he grunted as he took one lurching step and the padded socket squeezed at his stump. “Once you’ve won… who cares about the methods?”

  “Have you been taking lessons from my father?”

  Not long ago he would’ve thought of Sand dan Glokta as his utter opposite. Now he hissed with pain as he dropped down on a chair facing her. “The man ruled the Union for thirty years. He’s the aspiring cripple’s hero. He must still know useful people. Useful things. Where is he?”

  “Out of sight and staying there, would be my guess. As for Master Broad, I owe him and his family. They saved my life in Valbeck.”

  “Now who’s changed?” He worked himself forwards to fumble with the buckles that held the iron leg on. “I thought you had no use for sentiment.”

  “I’ve always paid my debts. That’s just good business.” She frowned at him, the scar on her forehead puckering, and held her baby tight. Their baby. Whichever one it was. “Since we are being unsentimental, the Broads are not the only useful people left in Angland. What about your old friends Glaward and Jurand?”

  Leo froze. That image of the two of them kneeling on a Sipanese carpet thrust itself into his mind, and not for the first time. Glaward gripping two fistfuls of the covers, eyes squeezed shut. Jurand pressed against his back, fingers tangled in his hair, biting at his ear. The blissful look on their faces—

  “Think I need a nursemaid?” he snapped, forcing the thought away. “Someone to keep me out of trouble?”

  “I think we need people around us we can trust,” said Savine. “You never told me what happened between the three of you.”

  Leo curled his lip and carried on undoing the buckles. He pretended to be disgusted. He was disgusted. Of course he was.

  “I caught them fucking,” he said, trying to sound like he hardly cared, even if his heart was pounding. “In Sipani.”

  “Isn’t that what one does in Sipani? Fucking who?”

  He cleared his throat. “Each other.”

  “Ahhh.” She closed her eyes for a moment then gave the slightest nod, as if at a puzzle she had just realised the obvious solution to. “That explains a great deal.”

  He frowned. Explained their falling out, or explained something…

  more? “You’re not surprised?”

  “In business one encounters every kind of person.” She was busy trying to work her nipple back into the baby’s mouth. “You have to separate their preferences from their value. Imagine how much poorer I’d be had I never gone into partnership with Curnsbick.”

  Leo looked up from the buckles. “The Great Machinist? The father of the new age? He…” Fucks men? The words lurked in Leo’s dry mouth, but he couldn’t quite seem to force them out.

  Savine raised her brows. “Have you not seen those waistcoats of his?”

  “I thought he was married.”

  “So was Queen Terez, and by all accounts she’s been through more quims than her son. Jurand is clever. A great organiser. And Glaward is faithful and diligent. If they had been with us at Stoffenbeck—”

  “We might have won?” snapped Leo.

  She shrugged it off. “They have the kind of loyalty one cannot buy.”

  “I thought you could buy anything.”

  “I thought so, too, once.” She frowned towards the floor again. “It turns out I was wrong.”

  “I never thought I’d live to hear you admit that. You have changed.”

  “I’ve had to.” He caught a glimpse of the old iron as her eyes flicked up to his in the mirror. “Can you get past it?”

  That memory bubbled to the surface again, but it was Leo’s hair Jurand’s long fingers were tangled in, and Leo’s ear he was biting at, whispering at, and Leo’s legs he was reaching down between…

  “Leo?”

  He turned his shoulder towards his wife, so she wouldn’t see the blood had rushed to his face. And not only his face.

  “I suppose… I’ll just have to separate… their preferences from their value.” Certainly it would feel good to have someone beside him he could rely on. Someone who could make him smile again, even. With a grunt of relief, he finally pulled open the last buckle and the iron leg clattered to the floor. “I’ll write to Jurand.”

  “Good. You’ve changed, too.” Savine lifted the baby from her breast, its tiny eyes flickering with ecstasy, and plumped it down next to the other. She was doing her dress back up when that one stirred, began to squeak. She gritted her teeth and started to unbutton again.

  Leo winced, and looked away, and was able to sit up without embarrassing himself. Luckily, perhaps, there was nothing he found less arousing than his wife’s swollen, veiny, leaking tits. “You should get a nurse,” he said. Or at least she should do that somewhere he didn’t have to see it.

  “I want to do it myself.”

  “Well, you’re in tune with the times.” Leo rubbed ever so gently at his aching stump. “The Assembly never stops blathering about the proper responsibilities of a Citizeness. The sublime duty of motherhood, Risinau calls it.”

  Savine snorted. “Fuck that fool.”

  There was a green space outside the Agriont where they’d taken to dumping the old statues. Noseless, handless, legless lords and ladies who’d once presided over palaces now ruled over a stretch of patchy grass that smelled of the rotting water-weed in the bottom of the drained moat. Here or there some monstrous remnant from the famous statues on the Kingsway loomed over the rest. A towering hand. A mighty boot. Half a majestic sneer.

  Leo had pushed himself too hard, as usual. He sat on the fist of Harod the Great, his iron leg stretched out in front of him. He was desperate to unbuckle the bloody instrument of torture but doubted he’d get it back on without help. He watched the workmen on their teetering scaffold chiselling away at the battlements of the Agriont—an endless, pointless, impossible task of demolition. The mornings were turning chilly and he huddled into his coat, blew smoke into his good hand. Even up in the North, he never used to feel the cold. Now it was in his bones all the time.

  He heard footsteps crunching in the frost-stiff grass and caught hold of his cane to rise. “Chairman Risinau—”

  “Don’t get up, Citizen, don’t get up!”

  Leo sagged back with some relief. Getting up was no simple matter these days. He watched the Chairman’s frowning guards take up their positions, still as the broken statues. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “We are honoured to have a hero of your calibre among us!” Did a
true word ever leave this bastard’s fat mouth? He’d no respect for Leo at all, and their causes had never been a bit alike, but there were still people who’d cheer for the Young Lion, and Risinau wanted their support. His own was starting to crumble.

  “I’m the one who’s honoured,” said Leo, matching lie for lie. “To be given a seat on the Assembly. A place in your great endeavour.”

  “I did not bring all this about simply to see oppressors and oppressed trade places. It is equality I want! True equality.” And Risinau happily fingered the rich fur he wore. “All must be represented in the Assembly. Even those we might once have considered rivals. Even those we might once have considered enemies. Look around us, after all.” And he pointed out the great bald head of Bayaz, on its side in the grass, an optimistic little growth of ivy already making its way up his stony top lip. “A graveyard of ideas. The lies of the past swept away, to make way for all our futures!”

  “You have the nation’s gratitude for that,” said Leo. “I’m not what you’d call eloquent—”

  “You do yourself a disservice!” Risinau wagged a fat finger at him. “I have been most impressed with your contributions in the Assembly thus far.”

  “I’m just a blunt soldier. Or… I was.”

  “And now?”

  “And now…” Leo paused. Plainly he was no soldier. And bluntness, like love, was a luxury he couldn’t afford. “I suppose… I’m a politician.” Wasn’t long ago he’d have taken that as an insult, but constant pain was quite a thing for changing your perspective. “And a father.”

  “Twins, I understand. A double blessing! You must congratulate your wife for me. There is no higher contribution a woman can make to the nation than the fruit of her womb, would you not agree?”

  “She certainly would.” Leo smiled as he imagined her kicking him in the face for his fucking cheek. “Fatherhood has made me think about the world I’ll leave to my children. The truth is… I’m worried about Angland.”

  “I, too,” said Risinau. “I, too.”