08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

She’d never been in a council of war before but, like fucks and funerals, her first time was something of a let-down.

The forge was stuffed with people, warm and damp from their nervous breath. Leo’s mother had her gloved fists planted on a table spread with maps, a litter of anxious officers clustered about her. Lords Mustred and Clensher were among ’em, two dour old noblemen of Angland who’d brought some reinforcements in the day before. Rikke wasn’t sure which was which, but one had a thick grey moustache, the other whiskers all around his jaw but his top lip shaved. Like they only had one whole beard between ’em.

Rikke’s father was scratching uneasily at his own silvery stubble, his War Chiefs around him. Hardbread looked concerned, as usual. Red Hat looked grim, as usual. Oxel had his usual shifty sideways squint like the knight herald was another man’s sheep he was thinking of making off with. And Shivers just looked like Shivers, which was probably the most troubling of the lot.

In fact, the least worried man in the forge was the smith who owned it, who simply looked angry to have been stopped working so a bunch of fools could argue under his steadily leaking roof. But that’s war for you. An ugly business that only leaves bad men better off. Why folk insisted on singing about great warriors all the time, Rikke couldn’t have said. Why not sing about really good fishermen, or bakers, or roofers, or some other folk who actually left the world a better place, rather than heaping up corpses and setting fire to things? Was that behaviour to encourage?

‘World’s full o’ mysteries, all right,’ she muttered to herself, and shifted her chagga pellet from one side of her mouth to the other.

‘My Lady Governor!’ boomed out the knight herald, painfully loud in that little space, bowing low and nearly poking Shivers’ good eye out with one of the wings on his helmet. ‘A communication from His August Majesty!’ And he whipped that satchel open, produced a scroll and shouldered through the damp press to hand it over with a showman’s flourish.

Silence, then, as Finree dan Brock broke the great red seal and began to read, stony face giving nothing away. Rikke knew her letters. Had learned the bastards at great personal pain during her horrible year in Ostenhorm. But she couldn’t make a thing out of these ones, the writing was so flourished and flounced.

‘Well?’ snapped Leo, eager voice harsh in the breathless silence.

‘Has Prince Orso arrived?’ growled Mustred. Or Clensher.

‘He has not,’ she said, still reading.

‘Tell me he’s embarked, at least!’ growled Clensher. Or maybe Mustred.

‘He has not.’ The lady governor’s jaw worked as she looked up. ‘Nor will he.’ She passed the letter to Leo, noticed for the first time that his shirt was hanging out, undone, then frowned over at Rikke, whose shirt was hanging out, too, all the buttons in the wrong holes.

Rikke looked down at the ground, chewing hard at her chagga and her face on fire. Lady Finree often spoke about forging stronger connections between the Union and the North but she doubted Rikke fucking her son was quite what she’d had in mind.

‘There has been a serious uprising in Valbeck,’ grated out Leo’s mother. ‘The Breakers have seized the city. There are fears it could turn into a general revolt.’

Leo’s eyes flickered across the paper. ‘The crown prince has been sent to recapture the city. Even if he succeeds … he won’t be here for weeks!’

There was silence in the little forge then, but for the patter of a new shower on the roof, the plop and trickle of a leak into a bucket. Silence, while each man or woman chewed over the implications. Then everyone started shouting at once.

‘By the dead,’ whispered Hardbread, pulling at his sparse grey hair.

‘Fucking Union!’ sneered Oxel. ‘I told you we’re fools to trust ’em.’

‘So what?’ sneered Red Hat back. ‘You’ll kneel to Black Calder?’

Shivers just stood and looked like Shivers, which was worrying enough, and Rikke’s father rubbed at the bridge of his nose and gave a weary groan.

‘Is it for this that Angland’s been near bankrupted by taxes?’ fumed Mustred, or maybe Clensher.

‘What’s the damn point of a king who won’t defend his kingdom?’ bellowed Clensher. Or Mustred.

‘This is disgusting! Outrageous! Unprecedented—’

‘My lords, please!’ Lady Finree held up her palms, trying to calm the uncalmable. ‘This does not help us!’

The only person who looked happy was the Young Lion, his smile growing wider and wider as it dawned on him what this meant.

Rikke puffed out her cheeks. ‘Reckon we’ll have to save ourselves.’

In the Mirror

Scale Ironhand, King of the Northmen, was at least twenty years past his best.