The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Someone had to. The old men were making quite the fuck-up.”

  “Honestly, it is much the same in Angland.”

  “You should get a couple of the most troublesome ones to kill each other,” said Rikke. “You wouldn’t believe how thinning the pack brings the other old dogs into line.”

  “You haven’t killed each other, then?” Leo had stepped out into the sun, a worried look on his face. There was no disguise in him at all. He couldn’t have hidden a tree in a forest.

  His wife was craftier. Far, far craftier. “We’re better friends than ever,” she said, with a smile could’ve sweetened seawater.

  Rikke did her best to match it, wondering whether Savine had friends, or just people that were useful to her. Then she wondered if she was any better herself. Then she wondered whether it even mattered. Long as everyone made sure they stayed useful, of course.

  “I had a vision in the night!” she said, throwing up her hands then slapping them down on her thighs. “I asked for a vision and I got one. Have to tell you that’s not usually how it works. It started off with me climbing a hill of bones.”

  “That… doesn’t sound great,” said Leo.

  “That was my thought! Dusty under the fingernails. But when I got to the top, the sun rose over green uplands, and there was a lion, and it wore a crown.”

  Leo frowned at Savine. “I don’t want the crown. A new Closed Council and an honest government and I’ll be satisfied.”

  “’Course,” said Rikke. “But it’s a promising sign. And when signs are sent, you’ve got to attend. What’s the point of the Long Eye if you’re not going to listen?” She thought about that. “Or look? Anyway, my point is… I’m with you. The men of Uffrith will be with you. Just make sure you put us on the other wing from the Great Wolf, eh? Wouldn’t want to kill that fucker at a bad time.”

  Savine’s smile held just a trace of suspicion. “You don’t… want anything?”

  “Just a share in your bright future.” Rikke watched a pair of little white butterflies chase each other upwards in a spiral. “You two are going somewhere. Not sure where, but I’m keen to find out. You helped us.” Rikke pulled Leo down onto the bench beside her, one arm about his shoulders and one about Savine’s. “You risked your life for us. You saved us, Leo, and my father always paid his debts. I mean to pay mine.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” Leo looked her right in the eye. The one that couldn’t see, but still. “I can’t tell you what it means… to know I’ve still got your friendship.”

  There was the Leo she knew. Part winning honesty, part naïve recklessness. “Well, you know me.” She had to swallow the slightest lump in her throat. “I’m all about the friendship.”

  They packed to leave soon after, which was quite the operation as Savine needed six big boxes with brass corners just to get out the door. The dead knew what she had in ’em. Secrets and lies, maybe.

  Rikke gave her a hug, which was like hugging cut glass, then she gave Leo a hug, which felt very strange. She held him tight, and smelled that smell he still had, and remembered how she used to feel, snuggling into the warmth of blankets with his arms around her. Safe. She never felt safe any more, and it came to her that if things had been a bit different, maybe she’d be the one carrying his child.

  Most of her knew they’d never been well matched. But there was a piece of her that’d loved him once. And that piece ached at the loss of him, and the woman she’d been with him, and the life she might’ve had with him, so much that tears welled up unexpected in her blind eye and she had to make out something had blown into it.

  “Watch yourself,” she whispered in his ear, then slapped his arse as he was mounting up, and was pleased to see he still blushed easily.

  Isern had come back that morning and stood slowly chewing, frowning after Leo and Savine and their men and their wagons as they clattered out of town. “Doesn’t bother you she stole your man, eh?”

  “Stole him?” Rikke scornfully tossed her head. “I flung him aside and she stooped to catch him.”

  “’Course…” hummed Isern, dragging that one word out into a whole story, then folding her arms tight. “I trust that woman less than the weather. She is the fanciest thing I ever saw.”

  “You just wish you were that fancy.”

  Isern spat through the hole in her teeth and pushed her chin in the air. “I’ll confess that hat of hers would look most fine upon me. But she smells too good, d’you see? Not like a person. Like a cake. Like the best cake you ever tasted.”

  “We’re siding with her, not eating her. Unless you got some plans I don’t know about.”

  “We’re siding with her husband. And if he is a lion, she is a golden serpent twisted all about him. If she told him down was up, he’d laugh at his mistake and stand on his head.”

  “Probably. He’s never been the sharpest. And she’s cunning, and ruthless, and ambitious as the plague.” Rikke shrugged and gave that sigh that made her lips flap. “But stupid friends won’t take you far, will they?” Isern thought about that and opened her mouth. “Don’t say it!” snapped Rikke, and she slowly closed it again. “Bring Hardbread on up here, tell him we’ve got to gather the warriors. Every Named Man or Carl. Every Thrall can hold a spear. And spears for ’em to hold, too.”

  “And shields?”

  “Aye, be nice if some of ’em came back.” Leo turned in his saddle to smile and wave, and Rikke went up on tiptoe to smile and wave back. Looked like there were some men coming the other way. At least a dozen, sun glinting on their gear, and on the metal eye of the one in the lead. “Here’s Shivers.”

  “That or it’s some other metal-eyed bastard. Who’s that with him?”

  Rikke shaded her good eye with her hand. He was very tall. Taller than Shivers, even, but with a stoop, elbows stuck out and chin stuck forward, white-blond hair sprouting in tufts. “Unless I’m much mistook, I believe that’s the Nail.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  “One eye, maybe.” Rikke tapped her face and gave a wink. “But it’s a sharp one. He looks angry as ever.”

  “Well, his da’s still killed,” said Isern, “so I’m guessing he will be.”

  “Good.” Rikke gave that fine red cloth a tweak about her shoulders and set off up the road to greet him. “An angry man is a useful man.”

  He was taller than ever when you got close, not just his beard and his brows pale but even his eyelashes. He’d a thoughtful look, but there was something in that easy slouch made Rikke think he might explode in violence any moment. She’d seen it before, after all, when he was fighting with the other side at the Battle of Red Hill. He’d seemed a terror then, blood-dotted face twisted with fury and laughter at once. But Rikke didn’t scare so easily these days.

  Shivers jerked a thumb sideways. “This is—”

  “I know who this is.” Rikke took the Nail’s calloused hand. By the dead, it was a size, hers weren’t small but they looked like a child’s hands holding it. “No less a man than the Nail, famed champion of the West Valleys and son of the great Gregun Hollowhead.”

  “A sweeter introduction than I’d have dared give myself,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t be coy.” Rikke patted his scarred knuckles and let his hand drop. “I saw you in the battle at Red Hill. You’re a bad enemy to have.”

  “Can’t think o’ higher praise. Saw you in the battle, too, and at the duel after. Before all this, though.” And he waved towards the left side of his face, his pale eyes still on her, taking it all in.

  “Better to get looks for the wrong reason than draw no looks at all.” She turned the tattoos towards him. A little challenge. A habit she was getting, when folk stared. “And I haven’t shit myself once since it was done, which is a bonus.”

  “Saves on the laundry, I expect.”

  “I thought to myself, if you’re going to be hideous, why stop halfway?”

  “Why did you think that?” His pale brows drew in a litt
le. “All I see are power and wisdom. Ask me, there’s naught more beautiful.”

  Rikke blinked. She liked to think she was canny enough these days that flattery didn’t shift her far, but she had to admit that one found the mark.

  Isern leaned towards her, one hand shielding her mouth. “I’m thinking he might be quite the find.”

  “I’m thinking the same,” muttered Rikke, tidying a bit of hair behind her ear that the salt breeze had whipped free. “What brings you down here, Nail?”

  “Vengeance.”

  Rikke held her hands up. “What have I done now?”

  “Ain’t you a jester?” said the Nail, giving a little snort. “Stour Nightfall killed my father. Hung him in a cage.” She heard his knuckles click as he clenched those outsize fists. “Put his head above his gates.” The fury coming off him made her dizzy. Like a spark might jump between them and send her up in flames.

  “I heard tell you’d let it go,” she murmured.

  “That’s what I told Black Calder. I love to fight, but I hate to lose, and the odds are long against me.”

  “So you haven’t let it go?”

  “I have not.”

  “And you’ve come to Uffrith looking for my help.”

  “I heard you’re a bad enemy to have. I know Stour fears you. Thought maybe, with my sword and your eye, the odds would be shorter. Uffrith and the West Valleys together. That’d be a thing no one could dismiss.”

  She looked thoughtfully up at him. Quite a long way up, since she was standing downhill. “My da told me vengeance was an empty chest you have to go bent under the weight of. He told me to let it go.”

  “Your da was a tough man and a crafty man and a man to be admired.”

  “No doubt,” said Shivers, quietly.

  “But you don’t agree?”

  “I do not,” said the Nail. “I’ll have Stour’s head or die trying. I saw you and him swap barbs before the duel. Thought you might feel the same.”

  “Oh, I feel just the same!” she snarled, showing him a glimpse of the fury she kept burning. “My father swore to see Black Calder dead, and I swore to see Stour Nightfall dead, and I mean to keep both of our words, how’s that?” It brought a little smile from him. A little brightening of his eye. “But I’ve folk to look after now.” She softened up, holding her hand out to Uffrith, looking quite pretty in the sunlight as it sloped down to the sea. “Can’t be sprinkling vengeance about willy-nilly. You see those Union guests of mine just leaving?”

  “The woman wrapped up like a feast-day gift? Aye, there was no missing her.”

  “Well, that was the Lady Governor of Angland. I made a deal with her and her husband.” Rikke worked her mouth like there was a bad taste in it. “And it puts me on the same side as the King of the Northmen.”

  The Nail shook his head. “Ah, that’s a shame.”

  “I tend somewhat to agree. No reason you and I can’t be good neighbours, though. Why don’t you come inside? I’ll toss a fresh log on the firepit and crack a keg of my father’s ale.”

  “I’d sooner have vengeance.”

  “Were you going to run off to Carleon and grab it ’fore sundown?” asked Shivers.

  “My da used to say only the dead can’t spare time for a cup,” said Rikke. “Let’s drink and talk about the future. What might happen. What I’ve seen will happen. Uffrith and the West Valleys together, after all. That’d be a thing no one could dismiss.”

  Ever so slowly, the Nail thoughtfully raised his pale brows. “It won’t last for ever, then, your deal wi’ Nightfall?”

  Rikke set a gentle hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the door of her father’s hall. “Nothing lasts for ever.”

  The Little People

  Orso took a breath of the crisp morning air and let it sigh away. It felt good to be out of the city. The vapours seemed to get worse and the demands of kingship more suffocating every day. Lord Hoff and his wearisome timetable, the pointless functions, the tedious rituals, every moment scrupulously wasted far in advance with never an opportunity to actually do anything. Even Orso’s toilet habits were precisely circumscribed, catalogued, overseen. He would not have been surprised to find there were a bevy of highly lucrative offices for the purpose. Lord High Warden of the Royal Stool. Chief Custodian of His Majesty’s Passage. Piss-Smeller General.

  He twisted the circlet gently from his head and held it up, looking through it towards the gleaming track. Towards the expectant crowd. He gave a little giggle.

  “Something amusing?” asked his mother, for whom nothing was ever amusing.

  “I never realised before. The thing about crowns… there’s nothing in them, is there?”

  Orso flinched at a sudden blast of steam from the machinery, a ripple of “oohs” and “aahs,” followed by polite applause. A band played something brassy and optimistic. Smiling children waved little Union flags. The famous device itself was a madman’s nightmare of cogs, rods and rivets, a beast of brass and iron gleaming with grease, vapour puffing from its valves like smoke from a dragon’s nostrils. It was mounted on a pair of polished rails that stretched across two fields to a bridge fluttering with coloured bunting. On top of it, a noted actress wore a headdress and flimsy robe that presumably marked her out as inspiration or some such abstract virtue. The sun kept going in, though, and despite her beaming smile she looked mostly rather cold.

  “However does it work?” mused Orso, jamming his circlet back on. The engine might as well have been a sorcerer’s wand for all he understood its workings.

  “I believe a coal-fired furnace heats water in the vessel to boiling,” said Dietam dan Kort, his waistcoat straining dangerously about the buttons as he leaned across Curnsbick’s empty chair. “The formation of steam within creates pressure which drives a reciprocating piston converting expansive to rotational force, then transmitting it through a sequence of gears to the wheels. Would Your Majesty like more detail?”

  Orso raised his brows. “If anything… less.”

  “The fire makes steam,” pronounced Queen Terez, deigning to speak a few words in the common tongue but insisting on doing so with an overpowering Styrian accent. “The steam makes it go.”

  “That,” admitted Kort, “is the essence.”

  Honrig Curnsbick, the great machinist himself, stood near his creation with tall hat and riotous side whiskers, surrounded by cheering well-wishers, shaking a fistful of drawings at his oil-blackened engineers. One of them shovelled coal furiously into the glowing maw of the machine. Another weighed a giant wrench while frowning towards the royal box with an intensity bordering on hatred. Sadly, there was nothing remarkable in that. Orso regarded anything warmer than strong dislike from one of his subjects as a delightful surprise.

  “You really should have a queen beside you,” observed his mother.

  He grinned sideways at her. “I do.”

  “I mean a wife, as you well know. Help me, High Justice.”

  “Her Majesty. As always. Makes a fine point.” Bruckel leaned past Orso’s mother to jab out a few phrases. “See what marriage has done. For the Lord Governor of Angland.” Orso winced. He would rather have been squirted with poison than with more news of Leo dan Brock’s happy union. “The government there was paralysed. Antiquated. Incompetent. Since his wedding? Turned. Around.”

  “Lady Savine is an immensely talented woman, though!” Kort leaned in from the other side to unwittingly make matters even worse. “I must confess, I was reluctant to embrace her as a partner but, well, I couldn’t have completed my canal without her. Stupendously talented.” Kort shook his head, chin vanishing into the roll of fat beneath. “Not many like her around, Your Majesty.”

  “That settles it, then,” said Orso. “Lady Savine will simply have to marry me and her husband.” The real tragedy was that he would likely have clutched at that arrangement with both hands.

  His mother was less taken with it. “Don’t be facetious, Orso, it’s beneath your majesty.”

&nb
sp; “I’m starting to think there’s nothing beneath my majesty.”

  “Your sisters both did their dynastic duty. Do you suppose Cathil wanted to move to Starikland?”

  How often had they gone over this same conversation? “She’s an inspiration.”

  “Do you think Carlot wanted to marry the Chancellor of Sipani?”

  “She always seems rather pleased about it—”

  “You cannot delay any longer. You are not only damaging yourself, but the whole Union.”

  She detested the Union but believed hypocrisy was a thing that only happened to other people. Orso gritted his teeth. “I’ll look at the latest list again. But I want to organise this grand tour first. Get out into the country and introduce myself to the people!”

  “Far better to tour with a wife, then you could introduce her to the people and get started on producing an heir at the same time.”

  “What? Actually simultaneously?”

  She glanced at him down her nose. “At least they would see you were finally taking your responsibilities seriously.”

  “Now who’s being facetious?”

  “My master would be delighted if you were to wed.”

  Orso recoiled at the voice in his ear. Bayaz’s stooge, Yoru Sulfur, had leaned grinning forward from the chairs behind. He was one of those people with an ugly habit of popping up at the worst moments.

  “Oh really?” snapped Orso. “Keen to buy a new dress, is he?”

  Sulfur’s sharp smile showed no sign of slipping. “Anything that bears on the stability of the realm is of interest to Lord Bayaz.”

  “How fortunate we are to have such a guardian. But what brings a magus to a scientific demonstration? Haven’t you got…” Orso waved a hand. “Something magical to be about?”

  “There is not so wide a gulf between science and magic as some suppose.” Sulfur nodded towards the city, where the House of the Maker was still the tallest spike on the horizon. “Was not Kanedias himself the first and greatest of engineers? And did not Juvens say that knowledge is the root of power? Lord Bayaz delights in nothing more than ideas, innovations, new ways of thinking.” He turned his bright eyes towards Curnsbick’s steam-wreathed engine. “Imagine a network of these track-roads. Iron bands binding the Union ever more tightly together, carrying a never-ceasing flood of goods and people. A wonder to rank alongside the great achievements of the Old Time!”