The Wisdom of Crowds

by Joe Abercrombie

  “You stand accused of epic profiteering, grand usury, consorting with enemies of the Union and conspiracy against the Great Change!” He delivered the charges like the famous final lines of a much-loved play, and with the same expectation of applause. But Savine’s old partner Citizen Vallimir must have carried out her instructions to the letter: stuffing the galleries with people who had benefitted from her charity and paying everyone else to act as if they had. Now, as the echoes of Sworbreck’s accusations faded into sullen silence, her final investment paid dividends and the faces of the public squashed in at the balconies glared down on the prosecutor with chilly hostility.

  She had practised her pose in the mirror. Calibrated it with minute care. Defiant, but not arrogant. Dignified, but not proud. Now that the waiting was over and the battle was joined her fear had vanished. In spite of the feverish heat she felt icy calm. She did not respond to the charges. She implied the charges were beneath a response.

  Sworbreck cleared his throat, worked his mouth, then gathered himself for another sally, jabbing at her with an accusing finger. “You look a picture of modesty today, I note! Those of us familiar with your public displays are used to seeing you swathed in silks and dripping diamonds. Your name is synonymous with exhibitions of ostentation! It seems you are a mistress of disguise. A veritable chameleon.”

  “I assure you I am as human as anyone.” Her voice echoed from the dome with pleasing confidence. “And with my full share of human failings.”

  “More than your share, some would say! You pretend to be a humble Citizeness of the Union like any other. You hide your infamous history behind your husband’s celebrated name.” He appealed again to the galleries. “But we know who you are! You are none other than Savine dan Glokta, the notorious… the notorious… whatever are you doing?”

  She was, in fact, unbuttoning the front of her dress. “Quite obviously, Citizen Sworbreck, I am tending to the needs of my children.”

  A murmur spread around the court as she undid her nursing corset and worked one breast out. Sworbreck glanced quickly away, colour spreading across his cheeks. Knowing him for a fool and coward, it was no surprise to discover he was also a prude. “I hardly think… this is the place—”

  “What better place?” She snapped her fingers for Freid to pass Ardee up to her. “The Great Change freed us all!” She settled her daughter on her breast and, heroic little thing, she set to feeding right away. “And yet ever since, I have received many lectures on the proper responsibilities of a Citizeness. Motherhood is always chief among them. Outside these very windows there is a statue several storeys high of Nature nourishing the young of the world. Should I reject her lesson? Should I abandon my responsibilities to my children simply because my life hangs in the balance? Should I reject the tenets of the Great Change, here at its very heart, in the Court of the People? No, Citizen Sworbreck, I refuse! I will nurture them until my dying breath.”

  There was actual applause. Scattered, but applause. Perhaps she had struck a nerve with some of the mothers in attendance. Judge brought it to a halt with a few blows of her hammer, though, glowering towards the galleries. “Nurture away,” she growled. “It’s your own guilt that concerns us here today. Fucking proceed!”

  “Of course, Citizeness Judge, of course.” Sworbreck rifled through his papers, which Savine would not have been surprised to find were blank, trying to recover his lost rhythm. “To the, er… to the specific charges, then! You were a leading light and founding member of that coven of profiteers, the Solar Society!”

  “I am proud to say so,” said Savine. “A beacon of progress intended to bring prosperity to all.”

  “Hear, hear,” she heard Curnsbick grunt from the benches behind her. Not loud, but loud enough.

  “You have conspired with others to claw profits from the common man!” shrieked Sworbreck.

  “I have partnered with others to build things where there was nothing before.”

  “Indeed,” she heard Kort say from among the Representatives.

  “You have long plotted against the Union with foreign agents!”

  Sworbreck’s voice cracked, went suddenly shrill, and he had to clear his throat. “With savage Northmen and degenerate Styrians! You have harboured Gurkish spies in your own house!”

  “I have done business across the Circle of the World and cultivated friendships wherever I could find them. My only plots were alongside men of good conscience, to bring down the Union’s callous government.”

  “True, true,” called Isher, always reliable in his own defence.

  There was a steady grumble from the galleries now. Sworbreck dabbed a greasy sheen from his forehead. “Workers were exploited in your mills, mutilated in your manufactories, all but enslaved in service of your insatiable greed!”

  “Workers were given jobs, fair wages and a chance to better themselves. No one was forced into anything.” She eased her breast back into her corset and scooped out the other.

  Sworbreck gave an ungainly cough, staring down at his notes as she settled Ardee again. The girl could have fed through an earthquake. “You have participated in usury on a grand scale! Squeezed outrageous rents from the desperate! Lived like an empress while your tenants squatted in filth! You have conspired with the Banking House of Valint and Balk—”

  “No!” she barked. “I have never taken money from Valint and Balk. Not one mark. Not one bit. Accuracy is important in a court of law, don’t you think?”

  Sworbreck was wrongfooted. He had clearly never had to deal with a defendant who was actually given the chance to defend themselves. He squinted into the sunlight, was obliged to shade his eyes awkwardly with his papers. “Then… well… how would you prove it?”

  “I have not your legal expertise, Citizen Sworbreck, but I believe the burden of proof lies with the prosecution.” Some light laughter from the public gallery. She shifted Ardee against her breast. “I could easily furnish evidence, however…” She knew she had to stay calm but could not quite keep the edge of contempt off her voice. “Had you not locked up my bookkeeper on charges of being a sorceress.”

  The laughter was louder this time.

  “Bitch is making fucking fools of us,” snarled Sarlby. “And with her tits. She pay these bastards off or something?”

  Broad would’ve been shocked if she hadn’t. He’d warned Judge it was a mistake to give Savine a chance to speak. But she’d been fixed on a big display. On humbling her as well as punishing her. Wasn’t quite turning out that way. But all he cared about was the letter. It felt heavy in his sweaty hand. Like a square of hot iron.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Liddy and May. All the things he’d done since he last saw them. How they might look at him now. Their disappointment. Their downright horror. He wasn’t even drunk. His flask sat untouched in his pocket but his head was still spinning.

  Sworbreck was getting booed. Properly booed, like an old show that had started boring its audience. The Burners were looking uneasy. Bannerman stood near the dock, arms folded, frowning worried towards the galleries.

  Broad ripped the letter open. He could hardly remember what May’s writing looked like. Wasn’t as if he was the best reader, even with his lenses. His eyes were swimming. The Court of the People faded. The nervy burble of Sworbreck’s questions, the cool snap of Savine’s answers, Sarlby’s grumbling and the swelling gabble of the public galleries, it all faded.

  He heard Liddy’s voice when he read it. He heard May’s.

  Gunnar. Father.

  We hear you are in trouble. We hear you have lost yourself. We miss you. Every day we miss you.

  We know who you are. Our husband. Our father. A good man. You just have to remember.

  We hope every day that we see you again soon.

  Your family,

  Liddy and May.

  A good man. Something pattered on the paper and made the ink run. A drop of sweat off his forehead, surely. He crumpled the letter in his fist, pulled off his lenses
and wiped his face on the tattooed back of his hand. It was trembling.

  “And now,” Sworbreck was screeching, “you would have us believe that you have turned all your undoubted cunning towards charitable projects? That the great exploiter has become a great philanthropist!”

  “I opened my house to orphans,” answered Savine, her voice turning sharper, “and in the slums I try to give bread and coal to the needy. The Fates know there are enough of them.”

  “Are there indeed?” Sworbreck had a sly smile. He thought he’d hooked her, like an angler with a record-breaking fish, and was pulling her in.

  “There are many for whom the Great Change has changed little,” said Savine. “People without work, without food, without fuel. The chasm between rich and poor yawns as wide as ever. I simply try my best to bridge the divide.”

  Sworbreck was triumphant. “Do you presume to say so?”

  “No,” said Savine. “You do.”

  “What?”

  She reached under her nursing baby to slip something out. Stained, worn, cheap paper tattered at the edges. But the name of its author had been printed in very large type. Large enough for all the court to see.

  “The Darling of the Slums,” said Savine, “by Spillion Sworbreck.”

  Broad remembered the day that pamphlet was written, out in the Three Farms, and he gave a disbelieving snort. You had to admire the gall of it.

  “I… well…” Sworbreck had turned almost as red as his suit. “I’m not… sure I recall—”

  “Let me refresh your memory by reading a typical passage.” Savine flipped the pamphlet open, and while rocking her baby began to read. “‘As Lady Brock moves through those darkened streets, it is as if a beacon shines. Lighting the way to a better life for these neglected unfortunates. As if the sun breaks through the smoke of the manufactories. She gives out bread, yes, she gives out wisdom, surely, she gives out silver with an open hand, but more valuable than all, she gives out hope.’ You praised my charity and selflessness.” She glanced back at the pamphlet. “My apologies. My remarkable charity and selflessness.” She lifted her brows. “Are you calling yourself a liar?”

  There was a cheer from the public gallery. Folk were on their feet up there. Even some of the Representatives clapped. King Orso thumped the bars of his cage in glee and made the door rattle.

  “Long live the Darling o’ the Slums!” someone roared from the highest balcony.

  Broad had never seen Judge look more furious, and fury was what she was all about. Seeing her prosecutor hated was one thing. Seeing him mocked was something else.

  “Bitch is making fucking fools of us!” snarled Sarlby.

  The letter was half-crushed in Broad’s fist, a few words of May’s writing showing.

  We know who you are.

  Leo couldn’t swing a sword like he used to, but a trained warhorse is a hell of a weapon. He spurred through the open gate, face fixed in that mad mixture of smile and snarl he used to wear charging into battle. He caught a glimpse of wide eyes, gripped saddle and reins as a man was trampled under his horse’s hooves, another flung against the wall leaving a dash of red on the stones.

  Leo wasn’t sure whether they’d been armed or not. Only that they’d be wielding the most terrifying weapons you ever saw in the painting he’d have made of this moment.

  Other riders were bursting through the archway, surging around him and into the city. Teufel’s gold had done most of the job, but there was still work to do with steel. Still some Breakers and Burners fixed on fighting.

  “Shoot those bastards!” he roared, pointing up the street towards two running figures. Jurand took aim from the saddle, brought one down at a range of twenty paces.

  “Shot!” snapped Leo, wishing he had a hand free so he could clap him on the shoulder. More flatbows rattled. The other man staggered on a few steps then sank moaning to his knees in the street.

  “Move!” Forest was bellowing, hooves clattering on cobbles as he waved mounted men through the gate. “Move!” Leo wondered whether there’d be room for him in the painting. A strong leader and an honourable man. Somewhere in the back, maybe. “On to the Agriont!”

  Leo leaned from his saddle to shout at Glaward. “Move south towards the docks. Spread out, take charge of the city. Anyone who resists, arrest them.”

  “If they won’t be arrested?”

  “We can’t afford to let anyone get in the way. Do you understand?”

  Glaward swallowed. “I understand.” He was a good man, too, in his way, but too soft-hearted to ever really be in the foreground.

  A threadbare battle flag was already being hoisted over the gatehouse, the golden sun catching the breeze and flying boldly for the first time since the Great Change. Leo grinned up at it. Certainly there’d be room for that on the canvas.

  “What shall we do with these?” Jurand nodded towards a row of men being dragged from the gatehouse and shoved sullen onto their knees.

  “Keep them prisoner,” said Leo. “We’ll deal with them when this is settled.”

  “Might be safer to hang them now.” Jurand had become less sentimental than ever, recently. As though Leo’s new ruthlessness had given him permission. “We don’t want to send the wrong message.”

  “Exactly.” Leo nodded towards scared faces at the windows. “Folk have seen enough executions. We have to show them we’ve come to stop all that.” He smiled up at a little girl. A glimpse of that Young Lion charm. “We can hang the bastards later. In private.”

  “Think we’ll have trouble at the Agriont?” Forest frowned towards the far

  end of the square, where the outline of the House of the Maker showed above the rooftops. “If they don’t know we’re coming already, they soon will.”

  “We’ll have to trust Inspector Teufel to open the gates.”

  “We bet everything on a woman who lies for a living?”

  “It’s an upside-down world, all right.” And Leo bared his teeth as he spurred across the square. His stump was on fire from the hard riding, but he couldn’t stop, not now. The future of the Union would be settled in the next few hours. He’d made himself a promise that he’d never again be on a losing side.

  “Ready?” asked Vick.

  Gorst’s eyes gleamed in the shadows. “Ready.”

  She fixed her face in the frown of a People’s Chief Inspector in a hell of a mood and shoved open the door of the chain room.

  It was a cluttered, confusing place. Light shone inwards from slit windows at either end but upwards, too, from slots in the floor that looked onto the entrance passage below. The hanging chains, gears and mechanisms, racks of spears and armour, the wrist-thick gratings of the three raised portcullises, all cast tricking shadows. But it soon became clear there weren’t the eight men in there Vick had expected. There were only four.

  It seemed there might be such a thing as good luck after all.

  “You!” snapped Vick at the most dangerous-looking of them—a big, crop-haired bastard with cauliflower ears and a red smear across his jerkin. “What’s your name?”

  He glanced at the others, nervously licking his lips, but found no way out. “Corporal Smiler?” he muttered, as if he wasn’t completely sure.

  “Smiler?” she growled. “Is that a joke?”

  “No! They started calling me that in Styria, ’cause I never smiled, and I guess it stuck, and…” He tried a weak smile on her and, indeed, was very bad at it. He cleared his throat and stood to attention. “I’m eager to help, Inspector!”

  “Someone had better. Commissioner Pike has concerns about the loyalty of the men stationed here.”

  “You’ll find no one more dedicated!” spluttered one with an oddly lopsided face.

  “The Great Change!” shouted another, holding up his fist. As Vick turned to glare at him, he cleared his throat and hid it behind his back.

  “Aren’t there meant to be eight of you?” she asked, frowning around as if she was looking for weaknesses to put right, rat
her than ones she could exploit.

  Corporal Smiler cleared his throat again, his thick neck shifting. “Well, normally—”

  “So where are the rest?”

  “I guess… watching the trial…”

  Vick gave him a few breaths to stew in his worry. His fellows were easing away from him, like you might from a man infected. One was trying to hide behind a portcullis, failing to realise the essence of a portcullis is that you can see right through it. “Who’s in charge here?” Vick snapped at him.

  “Sergeant Hambeck!” No doubts now he was naming someone else. If there was one thing everybody knew how to do these days, it was denounce.

  “Don’t tell me. He’s watching the trial.”

  “They say this one’ll likely be a real zinger, so we drew lots and—”

  “You two, go and fetch him. Now.”

  “Right away!” squeaked Smiler, grabbing his friend from behind the portcullis and hurrying for the door, Gorst pressing himself against the wall to let them past.

  And as easily as that, the odds were even. Only two guards: the lopsided one and an older one with a beard, frowning at Gorst as if he couldn’t quite place him.

  “You!” she snapped, bringing his head snapping towards her. “Show me the windlasses.”

  “The windlasses, Inspector?”

  “I need to check they haven’t been sabotaged,” she said, while wondering what the best way to sabotage them would be.

  “Sabotaged, Inspector?”

  She took a step towards him. “Is there an echo in here?”

  “It’s just… that’s silly.”

  “Really? Maybe you want to stand in the dock and tell Judge how silly it is?”

  It was plain from his face that he didn’t. “The first one’s here,” he croaked, ducking under a couple of low-hanging chains to lead her over. “Ain’t that complicated. This thing with the handles like a ship’s wheel, you turn that to raise it, those are gears for the weight, but it still takes three strong men to lift one o’ these bastards, believe me…” Vick could hardly hear him over the thudding of her own heart as she slid the mace from her belt. She tried not to look at the scarf he was wearing. A nice patterned one, the kind a wife knits for a husband or a daughter for a father. She focused on his bald spot instead. Few grey hairs there. Didn’t want to kill him, but in her experience it was far better to hit a man too hard than not hard enough. “Push this here lever to drop it in an attack—”