The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  There was a long, expectant silence. The hairs on Leo’s neck prickled. A clock on the marble mantel tick, tock, ticked. He looked the three lords in the eye, one after another. Isher spoke far from plainly but, at the same time, left no doubt what they were discussing.

  “Mightn’t some men call that…” Leo licked his lips and shuffled forward on his chair, hesitating to say the word in full view of all those painted monarchs, and finally forcing it out in a breathy murmur. “Treason?”

  Heugen gave a huff of upset. Barezin’s jowls wobbled in denial. Isher firmly shook his white head. “We would be acting in the king’s best interest. In the country’s best interest.”

  “We would be freeing His Majesty from the chains of his Closed Council,” said Heugen, his airy gestures making Leo think of liberty and honesty, and most certainly not treason.

  “We need to replace those corrupt old bastards with patriots,” boomed Barezin, filling Leo’s glass again.

  “Men who can give the king the right advice.” Isher waved towards a painting of Harod the Great, who’d first forced the splintered kingdoms of Midderland together into a Union and looked exceedingly pleased about it, too. “Guide the Union back to its founding principles.”

  “Back to glory!” Barezin punched his palm as if it was nowhere near glorious enough. “Men of action! Men who can make the Union great again!”

  “Men like us,” said Heugen, eyebrows raised as though the idea had only just occurred.

  “The Closed Council are the same self-serving liars who lost us three wars against the Styrians!” hissed Isher, and Leo could hardly deny it. “Who nearly drove Westport out of the Union! Who turned the commoners against us to the point they burned one of our greatest cities! They’re the enemies of the state. Ousting them is the act of loyalists.”

  “Loyalists,” mused Leo, taking another drink and feeling its heat spreading. He’d always been fiercely loyal. No man more of a patriot. But what was he loyal to? A coven of greedy bureaucrats who’d sent him no help in war and only outrageous demands for tax in peace? A libertine king who’d had him thrown from the Lords’ Round and, it seemed, fucked his wife?

  Leo frowned up at the painting of Casamir the Steadfast, who’d ripped Angland from the clutching hands of the Northmen—strong-jawed, fully armoured and pointing out something on a map. There was a king. There was a man. He seemed to be challenging Leo with his piercing stare, as if to ask him, What the hell are you going to do about all this?

  What would Casamir have done? What would any good man have done? Leo looked the three lords in the eye again, one after another, and drained his glass. “Well,” he said, “you all know I’ve never backed down from a fight.”

  Now they huddled in close. United by a common enemy, and a shared purpose, and a righteous cause. Just talk, of course, fuelled by Leo’s frustration, and jealousy, and the pain in his leg. Just talk, perhaps, but dangerous, still. Exciting, still. Just talk, wasn’t it? But with each word said it became more thrillingly real.

  “It might be a fight against friends,” murmured Barezin, glancing towards the window. “Against neighbours. Against colleagues.”

  “Certainly against your father-in-law,” said Isher. “The king dances to his tune. If we on the Open Council have one enemy, it’s the Arch Lector.”

  “He may be my father-in-law,” said Leo, “but I’m no friendlier with Old Sticks than you are. Less, if anything.”

  “We would need a leader,” said Isher. “A military man.”

  “A latterday Stolicus!” frothed Barezin, filling Leo’s glass again.

  “A man whose name inspires respect on the battlefield.”

  Leo’s heart beat faster at the thought of strapping on his armour. He belonged at the head of ranks of cheering soldiers, not harassed and henpecked behind some dusty old desk. He smiled as he thought of the marching boots, the wind taking the flags, the ring of drawn steel, the drumming hooves of the charge…

  “How many men could we count on?” he asked, sipping steadily. It really was a hell of a brandy.

  “We three are committed,” said Isher, “and many other members of the Open Council are with us.”

  “Most,” said Heugen. “Almost all!”

  “You’re sure?” Leo got the vague sense they had been thinking about this for a while.

  “They have been frustrated for years,” said Isher. “Chafing at the taxes, the infringements, the insults. Wetterlant’s treatment, and yours—a genuine hero of the Union, mark you, in our own Lords’ Round—was the final straw.”

  “You’re damn right there,” grunted Leo, clenching his fists. He couldn’t tell if all this was just talk or not, but he was starting to hope it wasn’t.

  “Could you count on the forces of Angland?” asked Barezin eagerly.

  Leo thought of Jurand and his friends’ loyalty. Mustred and Clensher’s fury. The soldiers cheering for the Young Lion. He drew himself up. “They’d follow me into hell.”

  “Good to hear.” Isher tapped at his glass with one well-shaped fingernail. “But we do not want it to come to that. Even with the Open Council and the army of Angland united, we could not be sure of victory.”

  “We must take them by surprise,” said Heugen. “Field a force no one would dare to resist!”

  “We need outside help,” said Barezin.

  Leo frowned into his half-empty glass. “The Dogman has hundreds of hardened warriors.”

  “And he owes you,” said Heugen. “For your help against Ironhand.”

  “He’s an honourable man. A true straight edge. He might join us… if it was put to him the right way.”

  “Who understands the Northmen better than you?” asked Isher. “Who has been their neighbour, fought beside them, lived among them?”

  Leo gave an artless shrug. “I’ve got some friends in the North.”

  “Without doubt…” Isher glanced at Heugen, then at Barezin, and then back to Leo, “not least the King of the Northmen himself, Stour Nightfall.”

  Leo froze, glass halfway to his mouth. “Not sure I’d call him a friend.”

  “He owes you his life.”

  “But there’s a reason they call him the Great Wolf.” He thought of Stour’s hungry smile. His wild, wet eyes. The legions of merciless Northmen they’d faced at Red Hill. “He’s savage. Bloodthirsty. Treacherous.”

  “But you could keep him on the leash!” Barezin clapped Leo on the shoulder. “And how many warriors could he call upon?”

  “Thousands.” Leo tossed down the rest of his drink and pushed the glass back for a refill. “Many thousands.”

  She was there in a vast living room when he opened the door, arranged on a chaise in a great flood of cream skirts with the usual care, as if a sculptor had positioned her just so as his model.

  “Your Grace,” she said.

  “Your Grace,” returned Leo, sounding grumpy and drunk. “You’ve been waiting.”

  “Traditionally, brides do wait for their husbands on a wedding night.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I was held up.” He glanced towards a chandelier of Visserine crystal which must have carried a hundred candles. “These are… our rooms?”

  “You have a dressing room through there, and a bedroom beyond.” She pointed out a distant doorway through which he caught a glimpse of manly panelling. “My rooms are that way.” Pale paint and tapestry in the other direction, a dressing room big enough for ten, but then it probably took ten to dress her.

  “We’re not sharing a bed?” he grumbled.

  She spread her arms across the back of the chaise. “I suppose that depends on your mood.”

  He frowned up at a vast canvas. A masterful-looking military man in a neat black uniform frowned back. “Who’s this?”

  “Your grandfather.”

  “Lord Marshal Kroy?” He’d commanded the Union army at the Battle of Osrung, and died when Leo was small. He only remembered the man from stories, really.
But there was undoubtedly a hint of Leo’s mother about his withering frown. “Couldn’t find one of my other grandfather?”

  “They’re in short supply. He was a famous traitor.”

  Leo flinched at that. Maybe treason ran in the family. He wandered across what felt like an acre of Gurkish carpet, between carefully arranged groups of furniture, past a stuffed songbird in a glass case. This one room was the size of the Dogman’s hall in Uffrith. He wondered if it had been built from scratch in the week since he proposed. Or she proposed. Or their mothers proposed. It wouldn’t have surprised him. There didn’t seem to be anything Savine couldn’t organise. Or wouldn’t organise, given the chance.

  “I thought decorating might bore you,” she said. “If there’s something you’d prefer, I can change it.”

  “It’s fine,” he grunted, frowning at two antique swords crossed over the mighty fireplace. It was about the finest room Leo ever saw, in fact, a perfect balance of money and taste, clearly done with his feelings in mind. He should’ve thanked her. But he was drunk, and his leg was sore, and he was in no mood to thank anyone. Particularly not her.

  “Did you speak to the king?”

  Leo ground his teeth. “He didn’t bother to turn up. Had to get to the whorehouse, I hear.”

  “There’s kings for you. Another day.”

  “Fuck him,” snapped Leo, more harshly than he’d meant to. “I’ve been with Isher. And Heugen and Barezin.”

  “Ah, the great minds of the Open Council.” Her total calmness was only making him angrier. It was how his mother would’ve behaved, but with more of an edge. “What did they have to discuss?”

  “Nothing much.” Only civil war. “State of the government.” And its violent overthrow. “Banter, you know.” It had been banter, hadn’t it? Or had they been deadly serious? Had he been deadly serious? He turned away to frown out of the window, through the darkened trees towards the lights on the Middleway.

  He heard the rustle as she stood. “Is something bothering you?”

  “No.” Only future treason. And past affairs.

  “Come now.” She came to stand beside him. “There should be no secrets between husband and wife. Not on the first day, anyway.”

  “You’re right.” He turned to look at her. “But we hardly know each other, do we? We spent one night together.”

  “Part of one night.”

  “Part of one night. I know you… own things. Manufactories, and mills, and mines.”

  “I recently acquired a large stake in the Lord Governor of Angland, in fact.”

  “Huh. And he got one in you.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Worried over your investment?”

  “Not till I spoke to Selest dan Heugen.”

  “I wouldn’t take anything she told you too seriously. The woman hates me almost as much as I hate her.”

  “She told me…” Leo had a feeling if he said it, there’d be no going back. But he had to know the truth. That and his leg was burning and the day and the week and the month had been full of frustrations and he felt like a fight. “She told me you and the king were lovers.”

  There was a long pause. Savine didn’t so much as twitch. A woman made from porcelain could have given more away. “And what did you say?”

  “I told her if she repeated it, I’d break her fucking nose.”

  “That I’d rather like to see.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Had you imagined I was a virgin?”

  “Any doubts on that score were put to rest in Sworbreck’s office.”

  Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “As I recall, you were far from a reluctant visitor.”

  “Not the only one, by all accounts. Is it true?”

  A muscle worked in her jaw. She hid it well, but he could feel the anger coming off her. He rather liked it. “The king and I have… some history.” She was breathing hard, through her nose, chest rising and falling. “But that is what it is. History. It’s nothing for you to—”

  “Is the child mine?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed further, hard creases spreading around the bridge of her nose, chin angrily pointed up at him. “How can you ask me that?”

  “Is there even a child?”

  She hit him.

  Not some theatrical little tickle. She hit him as hard as she could with an open hand, and for someone of her size she hit shockingly hard.

  It made a sharp smack, knocked his breath out in a sharp gasp, snapped his face sharply sideways and made him stagger against the window frame.

  There was a pause which felt very long, then he turned slowly back towards her, and he stared at her, and she at him.

  “Leo,” she whispered, lifting a trembling hand. “I—”

  Leo caught it by the wrist. “Shush.” Shock had turned to excitement, and excitement to a thrill that reached every part of him. Very slowly, very deliberately, he lifted her hand up, and let go of it.

  His breath came fast, almost painful in his throat. The blood had flooded to his face, making it burn and tingle, but you could’ve said just the same for his cock.

  Very slowly, very deliberately, without taking his eyes from hers, he turned his unslapped cheek towards her. He thought he saw the slightest smile at the corner of her mouth as he said the word.

  “Again.”

  The next slap was no softer than the first. He would’ve been disappointed if it had been.

  “How fucking dare you?” she hissed, stepping close, breath hot on his stinging face.

  He gave a kind of whimper as she caught him around the throat, kissing him, biting him. Her other hand was already busy with his belt. He kissed her back, clumsily, angrily, tangled his fingers in her hair and it shifted in his hands. A wig. It came loose, skewed, she twisted it off and flung it away. She looked shockingly different without the softness of it, hair clipped to dark stubble, lips curled back in a snarl, paint smeared from one eye down her cheek in a black streak.

  She shoved him. He didn’t even try to stay standing. Caught his head on an occasional table as he fell, bit his tongue and sprawled on his back, surrounded by scattered ornaments. Marshal Kroy stared down at him from the heavy frame. His feelings on the business were hard to judge.

  “You fucking worthless shit,” she hissed, ripping Leo’s trousers down around his ankles. He gave a dumb moan of excitement with every breath, shivering, trembling, wriggling up onto his elbows. He could see the whorl in her hair at the crown of her shaved head as it bobbed up and down, lapping, slurping.

  “Fuck…” he whimpered, dropping back. Almost painful, almost painful, then definitely painful. By the dead, his leg was on fire, trapped under her at the wrong angle. “Fuck…” His mouth tasted of blood. He reached out desperately, caught the claw-carved leg of an armchair and gripped it like a man hanging from a cliff by a tree-root, carpet rucking up around his shoulders as he wriggled helplessly. “Fuck… ah… ah—”

  She clambered over him, dragging her skirts up around her chest with a ripping of gauzy fabric and a couple of pearls popped free and rolled twinkling away. He reached for her, wanting to drag her down, wanting to kiss her, but she caught his wrist.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” She forced his arm down above his head, pinned it against the floor. She was strong, but not that strong. He could’ve flung her across the room if he’d wanted to.

  He wanted nothing less.

  Skirts tickled him under the chin as she straddled him, muscles twitching around her sharp collarbones as she reached down, and somewhere in that mass of rustling fabric gripped hold of his cock.

  “Stay…” she breathed, lips twisted around gritted teeth, “there.” She worked her hips in circles, she giving a little growl and he a little sob each time she pushed lower. Her face inched closer until her open mouth pressed against his open mouth.

  And they bit and snapped and grunted at each other, squirming on the carpet of their meticulously decorated living room.

  The
King’s Pimp

  Orso puffed out his cheeks as he rearranged his hand. Awful hand. Utter crap. “I suppose it’s comforting, in a way,” he murmured, “that some things don’t change.”

  The same table in the same little place they’d always favoured. The same overwrought furniture and the same threadbare drapery. The girls were different, and looked even more nervous than they used to, but then the girls were always different and always looked nervous. It all seemed a little sadder than he remembered. But maybe he was the sad one.

  Oh, and six Knights of the Body stood about the walls, bristling with weaponry, trying to look as inconspicuous as half a dozen fully armoured men can in a brothel, which proved to be not very. Corporal Tunny didn’t appear to notice. He was a man who could play cards through battle, flood or riot and, indeed, claimed to have done so on more than one occasion.

  “Oh, we’re still here.” And he carelessly nudged a few more coins into the pot.

  “Can’t see that changing,” said Yolk, filling up everyone’s glasses again. Orso really should’ve told him not to, but he was too drunk to bother.

  “Unless the king were to go to war again, of course.” Tunny raised his grey brows significantly at Orso. “In which case, my standard-bearing services are always at Your Majesty’s disposal.”

  “Glad to know that my standard, if nothing else, would be competently handled.” Orso tossed his awful hand away with a flourish. “But I think I’ve had quite enough of war.”

  “You show more wisdom than your father, in that case.” Tunny started to rake in the pot. “I’ll have to stick to procuring whores for Your Majesty.”

  “How do you feel about being the king’s pimp?” Orso let go a burp. A royal burp, he supposed. He’d been drinking all day. Hadn’t helped. Never did.

  “Daresay there are worse jobs.” Tunny gripped his pipe between his yellowed teeth as he shuffled. “Less marching than in the standard-bearing game, at least. More fighting, mind you, but at least there’s the chance of making people happy. Sure you won’t join us, Colonel Gorst?”