Last Argument of Kings tfl-3

by Joe Abercrombie

  It was ridiculous. His knees were weak, his mouth was dry, his head was spinning, and with every moment that passed it got worse. He had not felt this scared in Aulcus, with a crowd of screaming Shanka bearing down on him. He took a nervous circuit of the room, fists clenching and unclenching. He peered out into the quiet street. He leaned over a chair to examine the massive painting. A muscular-seeming king lounged in an outsize crown while fur-trimmed lords bowed and scraped around his feet. Harod the Great, Jezal guessed, but the recognition brought him little joy. Bayaz’ favourite and most tiresome topic of conversation had been the achievements of that man. Harod the Great could be pickled in vinegar for all Jezal cared. Harod the Great could go—

  “Well, well, well…”

  She stood in the doorway, bright light from the hall beyond glowing in her dark hair and down the edges of her white dress, her head on one side and the faintest ghost of a smile on her shadowy face. She seemed hardly to have changed. So often in life, moments that are long anticipated turn out to be profound disappointments. Seeing Ardee again, after all that time apart, was undoubtedly an exception. All his carefully prepared conversation evaporated in that one instant, leaving him as empty-headed as he had been when he first laid eyes on her.

  “You’re alive, then,” she murmured.

  “Yes… er… just about.” He managed half an awkward smile. “Did you think I was dead?”

  “I hoped you were.” That wiped the grin off his face with sharp effect. “When I didn’t get so much as a letter. But really I thought you’d just forgotten about me.”

  Jezal winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t write. Very sorry. I wanted to…” She swung the door shut and leaned against it with her hands behind her, frowning at him all the while. “There wasn’t a day I didn’t want to. But I was called for, and never had the chance to tell anyone, not even my family. I was… I was far away, in the west.”

  “I know you were. The whole city is buzzing with it, and if I’ve heard, it must be common knowledge indeed.”

  “You’ve heard?”

  Ardee jerked her head towards the hall. “I had it from the maid.”

  “From the maid?” How the hell could anyone in Adua have heard anything about his misadventures, let alone Ardee West’s maid? He was assailed with sudden unpleasing images. Crowds of servants giggling at the thought of him lying around crying over his broken face. Everyone who was anyone gossiping about what a fool he must have looked being fed with a spoon by a scarred brute of a Northman. He felt himself blushing to the tips of his ears. “What did she say?”

  “Oh, you know.” She wandered absently into the room. “That you scaled the walls at the siege of Darmium, was it? Opened the gates to the Emperor’s men and so on.”

  “What?” He was even more baffled than before. “Darmium? I mean to say… who told her…”

  She came closer, and closer, and he grew more and more flustered until he stammered to a stop. Closer yet, and she was looking slightly upwards into his face with her lips parted. So close that he was sure she was going to take him in her arms and kiss him. So close that he leaned forward slightly in anticipation, half-closing his eyes, his lips tingling… Then she passed him, her hair nearly flicking in his face, and went on to the cabinet, opening it and taking out a decanter, leaving him behind, marooned on the carpet.

  In gormless silence he watched her fill two glasses and offer one out, wine slopping and trickling stickily down the side. “You’ve changed.” Jezal felt a sudden surge of shame and his hand jerked up to cover his scarred jaw on an instinct. “I don’t mean that. Not just that, anyway. Everything. You’re different, somehow.”

  “I…” The effect she had on him was, if anything, stronger now than it used to be. Then there had not been all the weight of expectation, all the long day-dreaming and anticipation out in the wilderness. “I’ve missed you.” He said it without thinking, then found himself flushing and had to try and change the subject. “Have you heard from your brother?”

  “He’s been writing every week.” She threw her head back and drained her glass, started to fill it again. “Ever since I found out he was still alive, anyway.”

  “What?”

  “I thought he was dead, for a month or more. He only just escaped from the battle.”

  “There was a battle?” squeaked Jezal, just before remembering there was a war on. Of course there had been battles. He brought his voice back under control. “What battle?”

  “The one where Prince Ladisla was killed.”

  “Ladisla’s dead?” he squealed, voice shooting up into a girlish register again. The few times he had seen the Crown Prince the man had seemed so self-absorbed as to be indestructible. It was hard to believe he could simply be stabbed with a sword, or shot with an arrow, and die, like anyone else, but there it was.

  “And then his brother was murdered—”

  “Raynault? Murdered?”

  “In his bed in the palace. When the king dies, they’ll choose a new one by a vote in Open Council.”

  “A vote?” His voice rose so high at that he almost felt some sick at the back of his throat.

  She was already filling her glass again. “Uthman’s emissary was hanged for the murder, despite most likely being innocent, and so the war with the Gurkish is dragging on—”

  “We’re at war with the Gurkish as well?”

  “Dagoska fell at the start of the year.”

  “Dagoska… fell?” Jezal emptied his glass in one long swallow and stared at the carpet, trying to fit it all into his head. He should not have been surprised, of course, that things had moved on while he was away, but he had hardly expected the world to turn upside down. War with the Gurkish, battles in the North, votes to choose a new king?

  “You need another?” asked Ardee, tilting the decanter in her hand.

  “I think I’d better.” Great events, of course, just as Bayaz had said. He watched her pour, frowning down intently, almost angrily, as the wine gurgled out. He saw a little scar on her top lip that he had never noticed before, and he felt a sudden compulsion to touch it, and push his fingers in her hair, and hold her against him. Great events, but it all seemed of small importance compared to what happened now, in this room. Who knew? The course of his life might turn on the next few moments, if he could find the right words, and make himself say them.

  “I really did miss you,” he managed. A miserable effort which she dismissed with a bitter snort.

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  He caught her hand, making her look him in the eye. “I’ve been a fool all my life. Not now. There were times, out there on the plain, the only thing that kept me alive was the thought that… that I might be with you again. Every day I wanted to see you…” She did nothing but frown back at him, entirely unmoved. Her failure to melt into his arms was highly frustrating, after all he had been through. “Ardee, please, I didn’t come here to argue.”

  She scowled at the floor as she threw down another glass. “I don’t know why you did come here.”

  “Because I love you, and I want never to be separated from you again! Please, tell me that you will be my wife!” He almost said it, but at the last moment he saw her scornful sneer, and he stopped himself. He had entirely forgotten how difficult she could be. “I came here to say that I’m sorry. I let you down, I know. I came as soon as I could, but I see that you’re not in the mood. I’ll come back later.”

  He brushed past her and made for the door but Ardee got there first, twisted the key in the lock and snatched it out. “You leave me all alone here, without so much as a letter, then when you come back you want to leave without even a kiss?” She took a lurching step at him and Jezal found himself backing off.

  “Ardee, you’re drunk.”

  She flicked her head with annoyance. “I’m always drunk. Didn’t you say you missed me?”

  “But,” he muttered, starting for some reason to feel slightly scared, “I thought—”

  “There’s yo
ur problem, you see? Thinking. You’re no good at it.” She herded him back against the edge of the table, and he got his sword so badly tangled up with his legs he had to put a hand down to stop himself falling.

  “Haven’t I been waiting?” she whispered, and her breath on his face was hot and sour-sweet with wine. “Just like you asked me?” Her mouth brushed gently against his, and the tip of her tongue slipped out and lapped against his lips, and she made soft gurgling sounds in her throat and pressed herself up against him. He felt her hand slide down onto his groin, rubbing at him gently through his trousers.

  The feeling was pleasant, of course, and caused an instant stiffening. Pleasant in the extreme, but more than slightly worrying. He looked nervously towards the door. “What about the servants?” he croaked.

  “If they don’t like it they can find another fucking job, can’t they? They weren’t my idea.”

  “Then whose—ah!”

  She twisted her fingers in his hair and dragged his head painfully round so she was speaking right into his face. “Forget about them! You came here for me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes… yes, of course!”

  “Say it, then!” Her hand pressed up hard against his trousers, almost painful, but not quite.

  “Ah… I came for you.”

  “Well? Here I am.” And her fingers fumbled with his belt and dragged it open. “No need to be shy now.”

  He tried to catch her wrist. “Ardee, wait—” Her other hand caught him a stinging slap right across the face and knocked his head sideways, hard enough to make his ears ring.

  “I’ve been sitting here for six months doing nothing,” she hissed in his face, words slightly slurred. “Do you know how bored I’ve been? And now you’re telling me to wait? Fuck yourself!” She dug roughly into his trousers and dragged his prick out, rubbing at him with one hand, squeezing at his face with the other while he closed his eyes and gasped shallow breaths into her mouth, nothing in his mind but her fingers.

  Her teeth nipped at his lip, almost painful, and then harder. “Ah,” he grunted. “Ah!” She was decidedly biting him. Biting with a will, as though his lip were a piece of gristle to be chewed through. He tried to pull away but the table was at his back and she had him fast. The pain was almost as great as the shock, and then, as the biting went on, considerably greater.

  “Aargh!” He grabbed hold of her wrist with one hand and twisted it behind her back, yanked her arm and shoved her down onto the table. He heard her gasp as her face cracked hard against the polished wood.

  He stood over her, frozen with dismay, his mouth salty with blood. He could see one dark eye through Ardee’s tangled hair, expressionless, watching him over her twisted shoulder. The hair moved round her mouth as she breathed, fast. He let go of her wrist, suddenly, saw her arm move, the marks left by his fingers angry pink on her skin. Her hand slid down and took hold of a fistful of her dress and pulled it up, took another fistful and pulled it up, until her skirts were all tangled around her waist and her bare, pale arse was slicking up at him.

  Well. He might have been a new man, but he was still a man.

  With each thrust her head tapped against the plaster, and his skin slapped against the backs of her thighs, and his trousers sagged further and further down his legs until his sword-hilt was scraping against the carpet. With each thrust the table made an outraged creaking, louder and louder every time, as though they were fucking over the back of some disapproving old man. With each thrust she made a grunt, and he made a gasp, not of pleasure or pain in particular, but a necessary moving of air in response to vigorous exercise. It was all over with merciful swiftness.

  So often in life, moments that are long anticipated prove to be a profound disappointment. This was undoubtedly one of those occasions. When he had spent all those interminable hours out on the plain, saddle-sore and in fear of his life, dreaming of seeing Ardee again, a quick and violent coupling on the table in her tasteless living-room had not been quite what he’d had in mind. When they were done he pushed his wilting prick back inside his trousers, guilty, and ashamed, and miserable in the extreme. The sound of his belt-buckle clinking made him want to smash his face against the wall.

  She got up, and let her skirts drop, and smoothed them down, her face to the floor. He reached for her shoulder. “Ardee—” She shook him angrily off, and walked away. She tossed something on the floor behind her and it rattled on the carpet. The key to the door.

  “You can go.”

  “I can what?”

  “Go! You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

  He licked disbelieving at his bloody lip. “You think this is what I wanted?” Nothing but silence. “I love you.”

  She gave a kind of cough, as if she was about to be sick, and she slowly shook her head. “Why?”

  He wasn’t sure he knew. He wasn’t sure what he meant, or how he felt any more. He wanted to start again, but he didn’t know how. The whole thing was an inexplicable nightmare from which he hoped soon to wake. “What do you mean, why?”

  She bent over, fists clenched, and screamed at him. “I’m fucking nothing! Everyone who knows me hates me! My own father hated me! My own brother!” Her voice cracked, and her face screwed up, and her mouth spat with anger and misery. “Everything I touch I ruin! I’m nothing but shit! Why can’t you see it?” And she put her hands over her face, and turned her back on him, and her shoulders shook.

  He blinked at her, his own lip trembling. The old Jezal dan Luthar would most likely have made a quick grab for that key, sprinted from the room and off down the street, never to come back, and counted himself lucky to have got away so easily. The new one thought about it.

  He thought about it hard. But he had more character than that. Or so he told himself.

  “I love you.” The words tasted like lies in his bloody mouth, but he had gone far too far now to turn back. “I still love you.” He crossed the room, and though she tried to push him off he put his arms around her. “Nothing’s changed.” He pushed his fingers into her hair, and held her head against his chest while she cried softly, sobbing snot down the front of his garish uniform.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he whispered. But of course it had.

  Feeding Time

  They did not sit so close that it was obvious they were together. Two men who, in the course of their daily business, happen to have placed their arses on the same piece of wood. It was early morning, and although the sun cast a stinging glare in Glokta’s eyes and lent the dewy grass, the rustling trees, the shifting water in the park a golden glow, there was still a treacherous nip to the air. Lord Wetterlant was evidently an early riser. But then so am I. Nothing encourages a man to leave his bed like being kept awake all night by searing cramps.

  His Lordship reached into a paper bag, drew out a pinch of bread dust between thumb and forefinger, and tossed it at his feet. A mob of self-important ducks had already gathered, and now they fussed at each other furiously in their efforts to get at the crumbs while the old nobleman watched them, his lined face a slack and emotionless mask.

  “I am under no illusions, Superior,” he droned, almost without moving his lips and without looking up at all. “I am not a big enough man to compete in this contest, even should I wish to. But I am big enough to get something from it. I intend to get what I can.” Straight to business, then, for once. No need to talk about the weather, or how the children are, or the relative merits of different-coloured ducks.

  “There is no shame in that.”

  “I do not think so. I have a family to feed, and it grows by the year. I strongly advise against too many children.” Hah, That shouldn’t be a problem. “And then I keep dogs, and they must be fed also, and have great appetites.” Wetterlant gave a long, wheezing sigh, and tossed the birds another pinch of bread. “The higher you rise, Superior, the more dependents cry at you for scraps; that is a sad fact.”

  “You carry a large responsibility, my Lord.” Glokta grimaced at a spasm in h
is leg, and cautiously stretched it out until he felt his knee click. “How large, might I ask?”

  “I have my own vote, of course, and control the votes of three other chairs on the Open Council. Families tied to my own by bonds of land, of friendship, of marriage, and of long tradition.” Such bonds may prove insubstantial in times such as these.

  “You are certain of those three?”

  Wetterlant turned his cold eyes on Glokta. “I am no fool, Superior. I keep my dogs well chained. I am certain of them. As certain as we can be of anything, in these uncertain times.” He tossed more crumbs into the grass and the ducks quacked, and pecked, and beat at each other with their wings.

  “Four votes in total, then.” No mean share of the great pie.

  “Four votes in total.”

  Glokta cleared his throat, checked quickly that there was no one within earshot. A girl with a tragic face stared listlessly into the water just down the path. Two dishevelled officers of the King’s Own sat on a bench as far away on the other side, holding forth to each other loudly about who had been drunker the night before. Might the tragic girl be listening for Lord Brock? Might the two officers report to High Justice Marovia? I see agents everywhere, and it is just as well. There are agents everywhere. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “His Eminence would be willing to offer fifteen thousand marks for each vote.”

  “I see.” Wetterlant’s hooded eyes did not so much as twitch. “So little meat would scarcely satisfy my dogs. It would leave nothing for my own table. I should tell you that Lord Barezin, in a highly roundabout manner, already offered me eighteen thousand a vote, as well as an excellent stretch of land that borders my own estates. Deer hunting woods. Are you a hunting man, Superior?”