The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Steepfield?” Leo frowned. “The one who held the pass at Grey Breaks? The one who killed Cairm Ironhead?”

  “Aye. That one. He had all the glory a man could ask for. Now look at the fucker.”

  “I thought you and I were the same! Men who care for nothing but victory.”

  Stour hooked his chain with a thumb and held it up. “I’m a king now, Young Lion. Ain’t just a question of winning, it’s what you win.”

  “I’d rather not bring up your debt—”

  “Don’t, then.”

  Leo carried on through gritted teeth. “But there is one.”

  “My life, you mean?” Stour grinned. “The men the Bloody-Nine beat in the Circle were bound to serve him all their days, but we live in different times. And even if I was willing to clean your boots, no one else here owes you a fucking thing. You’ll find no one better with a sword than me, Young Lion. You know that. But I doubt I’ll beat the whole Union on my own.”

  Leo took a disappointed swig of ale. “I never expected the Great Wolf to turn coward.”

  The sharpest barb he could find, and it bounced off Stour’s grin. “Coward I may be, Young Lion. But I’m a coward you need.”

  Leo couldn’t deny it. He slumped back and watched the warriors roar in delight as Savine called them cunts in Northern and pretended not to understand.

  By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.

  The Wolf’s Jaws

  Savine rather enjoyed watching Leo sleep.

  When she agreed to marry him, she had expected to quickly become bored. To spend time on long trips. Maybe take a lover, in due course. But there was a lot to like about the Young Lion. Honesty, loyalty, courage, passion. Old-fashioned virtues, perhaps. The virtues of a really excellent dog. But virtues she was starting to appreciate. Even to admire. He was a decent man, in several ways that actually counted. Enough to make her feel almost decent when she was beside him. And that was a pleasant feeling. Certainly a refreshing one.

  He shifted in his sleep, drawing the furs up around his chin. For such a strong man, such a bold fighter, he could be strangely childlike. So trusting, so optimistic, so vain. He treated the world like an implausible storybook and, though it had thus far played along, she doubted it would do so for ever. Their mothers had been right, they were well matched. The impetuous optimist and the calculating cynic. He was not weighed down with excessive cleverness, but a clever husband would only have got in her way. She was glad she had married him. The world needs heroes.

  But it also needs people who will actually get things done.

  She stood, and smoothed her skirts, and checked her face one more time in the distorting square of old mirror. Then she slipped out of the door and, so as not to wake her husband, ever so gently pulled it shut.

  The one called Greenway was skulking in the corridor outside. It seemed when it came to Northmen, the more picturesque the name, the more of a self-regarding thug it belonged to.

  He gave her a leering look up and down. “Can’t give you long.”

  Gold flashed in the shaft of light from the narrow window and she pressed the coin into his palm. “Best not waste our time, then.”

  She heard the blades before she saw them. That familiar scrape of steel, shuffle of feet, grunting of snatched breath.

  She stepped out into a narrow yard beside Skarling’s Hall, a circle of patchy lawn hemmed in by grey stone walls, a training dummy in old mail and battered helm leaning against a rack of swords and spears.

  Two men prowled the edge of the grass with shields and long sticks, bulky with straw matting. Stour stood between them, sword in hand, stripped to the waist, lean and muscular and shining with sweat, steaming faintly in the dawn chill. Savine wondered if this display of raw manliness was for her benefit. More than likely. Who understood the importance of appearances better than she did, after all?

  The so-called Great Wolf sprang hissing at one of his training partners, so suddenly and so savagely Savine put a protective hand over her belly on an instinct. She had to force herself not to jerk back as Stour chopped at the shield and sent splinters flying, ducked the stick and darted under it, shoving the man against the wall with his shoulder and making him grunt. Stour caught the rim of the shield, kneed the man in the gut, then dealt his leg a vicious blow with the flat of his sword and dropped him mewling on the ground.

  All done in a couple of breaths’ worth of focused violence, so that as his other training partner lumbered up, the King of the Northmen was already prancing away on the balls of his feet. Through sweat-dark hair, his eyes slid over to Savine.

  “Like what you see?” He spoke the common tongue after all. But she had guessed that at the feast, from the way he had listened to her and Leo talking.

  “Who wouldn’t?” She made herself step forward, around the fallen man, groaning as he clutched at his straw-padded leg. “The Great Wolf! Grandson of Bethod and rightful King of the Northmen! The greatest warrior in the Circle of the World, they say, and I can well believe it.”

  “You’re almost as quick with a compliment as I am with a sword.” Stour loosed a flurry of lightning jabs at the man still standing, point gouging at his shield fast as a woodpecker and making him shuffle nervously back.

  “No more than the truth.” It was a while since she’d stepped into a fencing circle herself, but she knew enough about swordsmanship to see his skill. He was even better than Leo. But even more vain, too. She wondered whether that preening arrogance would make an effective shield if Bremer dan Gorst came for him meaning business. It was something she would rather like to see.

  “Can’t say I don’t enjoy your flattery,” he said, grinning, “but if you want my warriors, you’ll need to offer me more.”

  “Of course. I will need a gift fit for a king. I was thinking, maybe… Uffrith?”

  Stour froze, sword back for another jab. “Eh?”

  “A city by the sea. One of the North’s greatest, I am told, though in truth it seemed a little… primitive to me.”

  “Well,” he whispered, narrowing those horrible wet eyes at her. “We’re known more for our swords than our cities up here.” He dodged a swing of the stick without even looking, caught it with his free hand, slipped around the shield and clubbed the straw-strapped warrior in the face with the pommel of his sword.

  The man gave a sharp cry as he fell to his knees with his hands to his bloody mouth. Stour gave a sneer of disgust as he planted his boot on the man’s chest and shoved him onto his back. “Didn’t realise Uffrith was yours to give.”

  “It is mine to let you take.” Savine walked closer, shrugging as if they talked of the weather. “What’s a Protectorate without anyone protecting it, after all?”

  “Available.” And Stour nudged his fallen sparring partner towards the archway with a lazy kick. “You got some bones, woman, stepping into the wolf’s jaws this way. Got to admire that. But I do worry.” He rolled the man over with another kick and made him squeal. “I worry you might be one o’ those folk likes to promise everything to everyone and somehow thinks she’ll never be called on to pay.”

  He stepped closer, raising his sword, point towards her, and it took all her courage to stand her ground. She could tell from the murderous glint on its edge that this was no practice blade. “I worry you can’t be trusted.” And he brushed her neck gently with the point.

  They called him the Great Wolf and Savine did not doubt he was well named. She could hear his growling breath. Smell his sour sweat. A wild dog indeed. And you cannot show a dog your fear. Her skin crawled, her heart thudded, but she forced herself to stand still, forced herself to meet his eye as the cold point tickled at her throat, then along her shoulder, caught something just inside her collar and eased it out.

  “After all…” Dangling from the end of his sword was the necklace of runes Rikke had given her. “Aren’t you and your husband best of friends with that fucking witch?”

  It was an apt word for Rikke these days. Savine had almo
st flinched at the sight of the tattoos inked into her bony face, one of the pale eyes she had once so admired seeing nothing, the other far too much. She thought of Rikke’s hand resting on her stomach. Her delighted laugh as the baby shifted. The truest person he knew, Leo had said, and Savine felt a pang of guilt. A rare thing for her. Rarer than ever, since Valbeck. But she had chosen her path, and it led to the throne, whoever she had to step over on the way. Conscience would have been even worse to show than fear.

  “Trust is a poor foundation for an alliance. Almost as poor as friendship.” Savine stared at Stour down the blade of his sword. “Both can shake loose in a storm, and there is a storm coming. Self-interest, on the other hand, has deeper roots. We need you. And you need us. Today, and tomorrow. Rikke is useful to us today. But afterwards…?”

  She stepped forwards. Stepped forward so suddenly she gave Stour no choice but to stab her through the throat or pull his sword away. Close as they were he had no room, caught his arm against his body, twisted his wrist clumsily and had to let his sword drop, clattering down between the two of them.

  “Afterwards, you will be lord from the Whiteflow to the Crinna and beyond. A true King of the Northmen.” She sank down, and took his sword gently by the blade, and offered the hilt to him as she stood. “All of them. Something I understand your father could never quite manage.”

  “Well, in that case…” He wrapped his fingers around the grip, his eyes flicking about all over her face and his teeth bared in a hungry grin. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “Of course.” She smiled as she stepped away. As if she never had any fear, or any conscience, or any doubts at all. If you think it often enough, perhaps it makes it so. “I never offer deals until I know they will be taken.”

  “Reckon I’d better gather my warriors.”

  “The best you have, and plenty of them. If we lose, you get nothing.”

  “I’ll empty the North o’ men!” growled Stour. “A host that hasn’t been seen since the days of Skarling Hoodless, how’s that?”

  “And, while on Union soil, their best behaviour?”

  “The good folk of Midderland will hardly guess the wolves are among ’em.”

  “All I could ask and more.” She turned towards the staircase. Towards her husband. Towards safety.

  “I’m guessing the Young Lion doesn’t know about this?” called Stour.

  “There are things decent men will not do, but some of them must be done. That’s why he has me.”

  “And when he finds out?”

  “I daresay he will be upset, but… by then the North will be yours.”

  “And the Union yours.”

  And its new king and queen would have bigger concerns.

  Stour grinned. “I like your husband. He’s got a lot of heart. But do you know the thing I’m getting to admire most about him?” He turned and swung in one slick motion, sword flashing in the sunlight, and struck the dummy’s head from its straw-stuffed shoulders, battered helmet clattering away into a corner. “His taste in women.”

  Questions

  They’d worked on his hand.

  The bruises on his face and the cut above his eye were faded. Probably happened when they blew up Curnsbick’s engine. But the hand was more recent.

  There was nothing artful about it. Smashed with a hammer, maybe. One of those hammers with teeth that butchers use to make meat tender. It looked like he was wearing a big, red, floppy glove. It looked like mincemeat moulded into the shape of a hand by a bored butcher. It certainly didn’t look like a hand that would be attempting to kill any kings again soon. Or doing anything much ever.

  “You know they’ve barely started,” said Vick.

  His red-stained eyes crept across to her.

  “What they’ve done there…” She glanced down at that mess on the end of his arm. “Is just to show you they mean business. That’s a handshake. If I’m not happy with your answers, well…” She leaned forward to whisper, “I hear Old Sticks has taken a personal interest in your interrogation.”

  He swallowed, the lump on his throat shifting.

  “And once Old Sticks gets out the instruments…” She gave a long, soft whistle. “You’ll be begging for them to shake the other hand.”

  “I told ’em everything I know,” he croaked out.

  “Everyone does. But they might’ve missed something. You might’ve missed something. Something you didn’t even realise mattered.”

  “Will it make any difference?”

  “It might.” To her, at least. For him, there was no help. His Majesty’s Inquisition tended away from leniency when it came to attempted regicide. “Who planned it?”

  “The Weaver…” he croaked.

  Vick narrowed her eyes. “Risinau?”

  “Never met him.” He shrugged as if lifting his shoulders took all the strength he had. “That’s what they told me.”

  “Who told you?” His head was slipping sideways, eyelids fluttering. Vick snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Who told you?”

  “The Burners. Judge.”

  Just the sort of bloody theatrics the woman was infamous for. “Judge put you up to this?”

  “Judge gave me the chance. I didn’t need no putting up.” He worked himself taller. A touch of pride to his backbone. A spark of fire in his eye. “My wife worked in a mill in the Three Farms. Always worried about the machinery. I told her not to, but she always worried. Foreman would make her work late some days. Asleep on her feet, but we needed that job. One day she stumbled, and the buckle on the drive belt caught her. They said it snatched her off her feet like the hand of Euz. Flung her twenty strides into the ceiling so hard she broke one of the beams. Hardly had a bone in her body wasn’t shattered. Her head then looked worse’n my hand now.” He spat the words, tears starting to gather in his eyes. “So I got no regrets! The Weaver gave me the chance. Strike a blow for the common man! Our blow might’ve missed the mark, but it won’t be the last.”

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on yourself,” said Vick. “Your blow didn’t miss everyone. It killed dozens of honest folk who’d come to watch an engine toddle across some fields on a summer morning! What about those poor bastards, eh? What about their wives and husbands and fathers and children? We’ve all got sad stories, arsehole!”

  “Sacrifices have to be made! Would’ve been worth it, if His fucking Majesty didn’t have that Eater watching him.”

  Vick frowned. She’d had a sense something had been cut from the reports. “Eater?”

  “We had the knights beaten! Then that little nothing-looking bastard… he killed Turmer. Killed ’em all. Flung ’em about like they were straw.”

  She remembered what Shenkt had done to those two Practicals, on the quay in Westport. Big men, tossed like dolls.

  “But it don’t matter what devil deals you strike.” The prisoner nodded to himself, a strange little smile quivering on his lips. “Don’t matter how many Eaters you bring, or how many soldiers you hire, or how many folk have to die. There’s a Great Change coming.”

  Vick gave a weary sigh. “Where’s Judge?”

  “A Great Change.” His bloodshot eyes had drifted beyond her, gazing into the bright future, maybe. “And all the owners, and the bankers, and the kings, and the magi shall be swep” away!

  She remembered what Vitari had told her, in that shack on the Westport waterfront. That the Union was Bayaz’s tool, the banks and the Inquisition his puppets, that she was already dancing to his tune. She didn’t like the thought that there might be some hidden world beneath this one. A world of Eaters, and magi, and secret powers. As if she swam out on a lake, seeing the ripples on the surface, never guessing there were hidden deeps below, ruled over by who knew what unknowable monsters. She shook the worry off. She had to stick to what could be touched, explained, offered up in evidence. “Where’s Risinau?” she growled.

  “The House of the Maker will open!” he barked in a broken voice. “And those that were first will be
last, and the last first!”

  She thought about smashing her fist down on that mess of a hand while she screamed the questions in his face. But he had no answers. None that helped her, anyway. She got up and left him ranting, as mad as any of the cut-price prophets in Westport’s Temple Square.

  “The gates shall be laid wide and Euz shall come again! And all shall be set right! You hear? A Great Change is—”

  She pulled the door shut and clipped his voice back to a muffled burble. A Practical stood outside, arms folded.

  “His Eminence wants you,” came hissing from his mask. “Right now.”

  Vick strode past the eternally disapproving secretary, between the two towering Practicals and into the Arch Lector’s office, the door shutting behind her with a final-sounding click. Time for some answers, maybe. Or at least for some questions.

  “Your Eminence, I have some questions about—” She stopped with Bayaz’s name on the tip of her tongue as Glokta’s guest turned in his chair, raising an urbane eyebrow.

  “Inquisitor Teufel!” It was only the bloody king. “I never got the chance to thank you for your help in Valbeck. You made me look good, and that takes some damn doing. That note of yours saved my arse, not to mention several thousand others.” His smile faded somewhat. “Shame it couldn’t save everyone’s, really. And now I hear you pulled our feet out of the fire in Westport, too!”

  Vick cleared her throat. “I am… delighted I could assist… Your Majesty.” She had slipped into the smooth, aristocratic, slightly constipated tone her mother might have used to greet the king. The full Victarine dan Teufel. Pathetic, really. The king’s so-called justice had sent her family to their deaths and her to rot in Angland, and here she was grovelling before the latest occupant of the throne. That was the Union for you: nobleman, peasant or convict, deference was baked in.