The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  Orso was not sure what word he wanted to make, but what came from his mouth was a breathy, “Uh?”

  “Regarding the funding for new track-roads, Your Majesty. Under the auspices of the Banking House of Valint and Balk.”

  Orso stood staring for what felt like a very long time, one hand weakly holding his mother’s limp arm, his sword dangling uselessly from the other. He would have dropped it had his fingers not been stuck in the elaborate basketwork. The first of the attackers lay on his side at their feet, the cloth twisted from his stubbly face, a steadily widening pool of blood bubbling from his nose and mouth.

  “Yes,” muttered Orso. “Yes… of course.”

  Sulfur looked down at himself and frowned, as if he had only just now realised he was spattered red from head to toe. He dragged a hank of bloody hair from between his fingers and flicked it away.

  “I should probably change first.”

  Through the steady hiss in his ears, Orso could hear shouting. Sobbing of wounded. Cries for help. A breeze came up and kissed his sweaty face. Perhaps the future they were heading for was not quite the one that Curnsbick was selling. His knees felt very weak.

  “Sorry, Mother,” he muttered, flopping back into his chair. “Need to sit down.”

  A Fitting Welcome

  “What the hell are we all here for anyway?” grumbled Downside, uncomfortable in his finery, though his finery came down to a new cloak over his scarred mail and having cleaned his boots for the first time in six months. He hadn’t even done a good job of that.

  “To give the Young Lion a fitting welcome,” said Clover.

  “Weren’t we fighting that Union bastard a few months back? Fitting welcome for him would be an axe in the head.”

  “Axe in the head is your answer to everything,” muttered Sholla, who’d borrowed some mail for the occasion she could only make fit by tightening five belts about her scrawny person.

  “All too true.” Clover nodded sadly. “And an inadequate response in affairs of state, I think it’s fair to say.”

  “In whats o’ what?” mumbled Downside, baffled.

  “This is all about presentation.” Clover nodded towards Stour’s War Chiefs and Named Men, lining both sides of Skarling’s Hall. The best of the best, and in their best gear, so many jewels and gildings being flaunted, Clover was half-blinded by all the glitter whenever the sun came out. “Show o’ strength. Display o’ power. We don’t need a fire, ’cause the day is warm, but they’ve banked the fire high just to show they can.” And indeed, those unlucky enough to be standing close to the blaze were sweating through their mail from it. “It’s not so much what the welcome says about the guest as what it tells the guest about the host.”

  Downside looked more baffled than ever. “What?”

  “Stour wants all these bastards here because it makes him look big,” said Sholla.

  “Ah. Why didn’t you just say that?”

  Clover sighed. “Because I have this girl to translate into halfhead for me.”

  “What the hell is this?” Greenway was pacing the room, making sure everything met his standards, as if he had any. Now he’d come up to Sholla, sneering so hard it was a wonder his skull wasn’t showing. “Why the shit did you bring her?”

  Clover heard Downside give a disgusted grunt and shot an arm out in front of him ’fore he exposed Greenway’s skull for real.

  “You told me bring two o’ my best,” said Clover, with his usual calming grin. Felt like a keeper in a menagerie, sometimes, always struggling to stop the animals killing each other. “You didn’t want her here, you should’ve given more thought to what best meant.”

  Greenway made great spectacle of sucking his teeth as he turned away. If tooth-sucking had been the measure of a man, he’d have had a place in the songs, all right. Sholla took it well. If you could say a rock takes a rain shower well. Downside, on the other hand, was a man who made a point of taking everything badly.

  “Going to let that fucking arsehole sneer at one of our own?” he growled in Clover’s ear.

  “You sneer at her often enough.”

  “She knows it’s in fun.”

  Sholla raised her brows. “How would I know that?”

  Downside ignored her. He ignored anything that might stop a fight from happening. “She’s three times the man that fool is. He looks over here again, I’ll break his fucking head open, Skarling’s Hall or no.”

  “By the dead.” Clover rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Great in a fight if you kept him pointed the right way, but here was why they called him Downside. “What do you think you’ll find in his head worth having? Boy’s an idiot. He’ll trip over his own cock soon enough, then you can laugh at the outcome without getting your hands dirty. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s rarely any need to wade into the bitter ocean for your vengeance. It’ll wash up on the shore soon enough.”

  “I never been much for waiting,” grunted Downside, glaring daggers across at Greenway, who was complaining at some Named Man whose cloak-buckle wasn’t to his liking. “Time comes you have to stand up, Chief.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure, the time’s not now.” And Clover grinned about the crowded hall like they weren’t dancing on the edge o’ murder. “Got to pick your moment, Downside. Can’t solve every problem with your fist. Sometimes brain and mouth are better weapons.”

  “Those the weapons you been using, the last few days?” asked Sholla.

  “As a matter of fact. Went to meet old friends and neighbours, talk things through.”

  “What friends and neighbours you got that aren’t here?”

  “Believe it or not, there was a time before I was nursemaid to you squabbling geese. I’ve had a long and varied career. Many famous chiefs down the years—”

  “Didn’t you kill most of ’em?” asked Sholla.

  Clover’s smile slipped a little. “A few.”

  Downside was busy glowering. He was every bit as deadly with a glower as Greenway was with a sneer, a great fold jutting between his brows and his little lips pressed tight together in his bush of beard. “Say what you like. I never had a problem I couldn’t solve with a big enough blade.”

  “Then thank the dead you’ve had simple problems. You get those on the battlefield, but there’s none in Skarling’s Hall.”

  The doors were swung open, and there was a rustle and a jingle as men shifted to see the Young Lion make his entrance. He looked quite the hero—breastplate, boots and teeth all buffed to a pretty sheen—but it was the woman beside him that really drew the eyes. She seemed to Clover to be an exception to the rule that men get more excited about a woman the less clothes she’s got on. Her dress might’ve been spun from sunlight, glittering as she moved. Jewels on her long fingers, and jewels at her long neck, and a little jewelled sword at her hip, too. You could hardly tell what she really looked like under all that flash and flutter and dancing, prancing strut, but no one seemed to care. There was a jealous stirring among the warriors, an awestruck murmur as if some priceless gemstone had been lifted from its case rather than a woman walked in through the door.

  The soldiers and servants in her wake looked somewhat concerned by Stour’s fighters bearing in on every side, festooned with steel. Even the Young Lion himself, walking with a trace of a limp, for all he tried to hide it. But his wife glided down the middle like a swan down a river with roses on both banks. She’d smile at one man or another as if at a particularly handsome bloom, and he’d blink, or blush, or look down at his boots, hoary old warriors who’d laughed at red wounds humbled with a red smile.

  She stopped beside Clover, and murmured something to her husband, and Clover wondered how her lips could be so pink and her eyes so dark and her skin so pale and perfect. Had to be painted on, like a face onto a Carl’s shield, but done with so much craft you could hardly tell. It was the closest thing to magic he’d seen in Skarling’s Hall, for all Stour’s magi and seers and wise women.

&
nbsp; Brock took a step towards them, glanced at Sholla and said in very good Northern, “My wife is asking whether women fight here.”

  Clover shook himself like he was waking from a dream. “Well, now and again in the North we run out o’ men. But we never run out o’ fights.” He glanced sideways at Sholla and leaned forward to murmur under his breath, “Then, between you and me, there are times you tell ’em not to fight and they bloody do it anyway.”

  Brock rendered it into the Union tongue for his wife, and she gave a laugh as glittering as her dress. Clover wondered how long she’d practised to get it just right but still felt greatly pleased with himself that he’d been the cause of it, then greatly disappointed when she walked on. Downside stared after her like a fox at an open chicken coop.

  “Watch out,” muttered Sholla. “You might both die o’ thirst from all that drooling.”

  “The Great Wolf!” called Leo dan Brock, spreading his arms as he came towards the dais. “Greater than ever! King of the Northmen, no less!” And he offered Stour his hand.

  “The Young Lion!” Stour rose from Skarling’s Chair. “Not as young as you were, but no worse for that.” He caught Brock’s hand, and pulled him up onto the dais, and flung his other arm around his shoulders, and slapped him on the back with an echoing clap. Then the two of ’em had one of those hugs which is halfway to a wrestling match, making out they were best of friends while each tried to drag the other off his feet.

  “This is my wife, Lady Savine,” said Brock, once they’d finally fought the hugging to an ungainly draw.

  And she sank down, rustling skirts spreading across the flags like a pool of gold, so smoothly it seemed she couldn’t have any legs at all under there but was mounted on a well-oiled platform. “My king. It is my honour to meet so great a warrior.”

  “Oh, I know a bit about honour.” Stour grinned down at her from the dais. “And it’s all mine.” Her Northern might be poor, and have a heavy accent, but she’d already worked out where to tickle the Great Wolf. Not that he was too tight a riddle to untangle.

  Downside leaned towards Clover, still staring at Brock’s wife. “I have got to get me one o’ those…”

  Sholla rolled her eyes. “Like you could afford it.”

  Diplomacy

  By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.

  “So, you see…” Leo stumbled on, “the Closed Council have to be stopped. Before they do more damage. We need good men in charge. Honest men. Patriots.”

  “Oh, aye?” grunted Stour, tossing a bone onto the floor.

  The Great Wolf made no effort to hide his boredom at all this talk of tax and injustice and patriotism, and Leo hardly blamed him. When Isher spoke about this stuff it made sense right off, but Leo was always tripping on the details. And here, at a feast in Skarling’s Hall, surrounded by red-handed warriors, the arguments all sounded so flimsy and ridiculous. By the dead, he was boring himself. There’d been enough bloody talk. What he needed to do was do. But one thing he’d learned over the last year—before you draw your sword, you need to know how you’ll win.

  To win, he needed the King of the Northmen.

  Flattery always did the trick for Savine. Leo puffed out his cheeks, looking at the crowd of Named Men down the great horseshoe of tables. “You’ve summoned quite the host,” he said. “The North seems stronger than ever. More united than ever.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Black Calder leaned past his son to point a frown at Leo as hostile as a drawn dagger.

  “Now, now, Father.” Stour wagged a greasy finger. “I said be polite.”

  When it came to flattery, Leo was more used to taking than giving. He wished he was down there with the warriors, drinking and singing and slapping backs, with no worries but a sore head in the morning. By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.

  He felt Savine’s gentle touch on his arm. “You fought the man and won,” she murmured in his ear. “Surely you can talk to him?”

  The thing about killing a man—you could do it in a moment. Bringing him around to your way of thinking took so much patience. And how could you even tell when it was done? Kill a man, he stayed dead. Change his mind, he always had the bloody chance to change it back.

  “Reckon I’d rather fight him again.” He glanced over, and caught Black Calder glaring back. “Specially with his father judging every word.”

  “If I had known we were bringing overbearing parents, we could have packed some of our own.” Savine sat forward. “I must say that you speak the common tongue wonderfully well, Lord Calder!”

  She could usually slit a man right open with one compliment, but Black Calder was better armoured than most. “My own father always said it serves a man well to learn the ways of his enemies,” he grunted.

  “And even better to learn the ways of his friends. I have been trying to garner some words of Northern, but I fear I am a poor study.”

  “Oh, no doubt.” Calder snorted. “The first thing I think when I look at you is—there’s a woman who’s not crafty enough.”

  Leo clenched his fist around his eating knife. He was damned if he’d let this old prick insult his wife, but before he could speak, Savine’s hand clamped tight on his sore thigh and cut him off in a pained squeak. “You, I think, are a man with craft to spare.” The ruder Calder got, the wider she smiled. “Perhaps you might tell me something of the history of Skarling’s Hall.”

  “What am I, some bloody storyteller—”

  “Father!” growled Stour. “There isn’t a man in this hall wouldn’t kill for the chance to teach the Lady Governor a few words of Northern. Stop insulting my guests and make yourself useful.”

  With bad grace, which seemed the only grace he had, Black Calder stood, leaned close to his son’s ear and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “They want something. Don’t say yes because you feel you should, or because you feel you’re bored, or because of anything you feel, you understand? Make sure they pay.”

  “I know what to do,” snapped Stour.

  Savine gave Leo a wink as she took Black Calder’s bony hand and let the old man lead her from the dais. “Black Dow fought the Bloody-Nine right there,” he was saying.

  “You saw it yourself?” breathed Savine, as if she’d never been so thrilled.

  Stour worked his tongue around his sharp teeth as he watched them go. “Whatever my father says, it’s quite the honour to host you, Young Lion. And your wife, who’s clearly as clever as she is beautiful and I daresay knows a lot more Northern than she’s letting on. But I don’t reckon you suffered our roads all the way up to Carleon for my ale and my father’s stories.” He licked his fingers while he looked sidelong at Leo. “What are you after?”

  Now was the moment, then. Courage, courage. He was the Young Lion, wasn’t he? He leaned in, speaking in an urgent whisper. “The Closed Council have to be stopped.”

  “And you’re the man who’ll do it?”

  “We’re the men who’ll do it.”

  Stour raised one brow, as if he had his doubts.

  “I want you with me on a grand adventure!” Leo tried to elbow through the detail and summon up some passion. “To win glory, and set the world right, and make friends of every decent man in the Union!”

  Sad to say, Stour didn’t slit his hand and swear a blood oath to their alliance on the spot. Instead, he sat back, toying with his ale cup.

  “So… you’re asking for warriors of the North… to sail to Midderland in their thousands… and fight against the big king in Adua?”

  “Yes!” Leo thumped his knife point-down into the table and left it wobbling there. “You see it!”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “The great lords of the Open Council. Isher, Heugen, Barezin and more. Famous names.” Leo paused. But he’d been honest with Rikke. Honesty would serve him best with Stour. “And Uffrith.”

  Nightfall showed his teeth. You couldn’t deny he was a handsome bastard, especially when he was angry. “Paid that Long-Eyed little
witch a visit, did you? The two o’ you used to be proper close, if I remember.” Stour stuck his greasy thumb in his mouth and made a little popping sound. “You got a way with the women, Young Lion, that I can’t deny.”

  Leo glanced towards Savine, who was draining an ale horn while a group of warriors watched in rapt admiration. Even Black Calder had a look of some respect as she wiped her mouth and held it out for more. “Please,” she said, “my mother drinks more on a workday morning.”

  Those men who could speak common laughed, and the ones who couldn’t pretended they could and laughed even louder.

  “But I’m not a woman,” said Stour, “and my father might be quite the carper, but he knows a thing or two. So the question keeps drifting past—what’s in it for me? You offering a piece of Midderland?”

  Leo laughed. “No one in the Union would ever stand for that.”

  “A slice of Angland?”

  Leo frowned. “I’d never stand for that.”

  “Uffrith, then?”

  “I think we settled that question in the Circle,” said Leo stiffly.

  “Daresay you want me on my best behaviour, too.” Stour stuck out his bottom lip. “Not even a little pillage on the way to battle.”

  “We have to get the people of Midderland on our side,” said Leo. “We’re coming to free them, not rob them.”

  “So, the way you’re telling it, your grand adventure’s going to cost me money. You’re saying you’ll be my friend, and your Open Council will thank me, and the people of Midderland will love me, but look around you.” And he gestured towards the hall full of warriors. “I’m shitting friends and pissing thanks. I’m a real loveable bastard.”

  “Think of it, though! The Young Lion and the Great Wolf, side by side! Our banners flying together!” Leo shook his fist between them, trying to light the fire in Stour he always felt at the thought of armoured men tramping, horses prancing, cheers of triumph. “Think of the songs sung of our victory!”

  But all Stour gave Leo was another dose of the side-eye. “Once you’ve heard one song of victory you’ve heard ’em all. Swap the names out and it’s the same spears shaken and horns blown and bodies carpeting the glen and all that shit. You see my friend Clover down there?” And he pointed out that balding bastard, the one who’d had the girl beside him with all the belts. “That fat fool used to be Jonas Steepfield.”