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

He’d been a great warrior, but then he’d lost his hand and had an iron one wedged onto the stump. He’d been a great War Chief, but now he was happy to follow along in the rear and eat all the spoils. Eat ’em messily, since he was missing his two front teeth as well as his hand. Clover remembered him when he’d still been a tower of brawn. Now he was a mountain of blubber, pale jowls spread over his fur collar, a tuft of grey hair sprouting from his sweat-beaded pate, his beard full of grease and his swollen cheeks full of broken veins. Two painfully skinny girls haunted his elbows with a platter and a jug and the hardest jobs in the North – making sure their king never ran out of ale.

A set of old warriors were gathered at his right side with well-polished armour but long-faded names. Scale would’ve called them his closest Named Men, his royal retinue, his king’s bodyguard. But their main purpose was to remind him of old victories, and insist he was still the man he’d been when he had half the belly and twice the hands, in spite of all the evidence.

The firepit was banked high, the tables crammed with warriors, the stolen hall sweaty as a forge and noisy as a battle, women kicking and cursing as they shoved through the press with platters of meat. Clover sat with Wonderful at Black Calder’s table, in the shadows further from the firepit. There was less gold over here, and less laughter, and less ale, but a lot more power. Scale Ironhand might wear the king’s chain, but everyone who mattered knew it was his brother who made the king’s choices.

Calder had an odd guest today, though. A small man in travel-worn clothes who carried no weapon but a staff he’d left leaning against the wall. As strange a thing in this hall bristling with blades as a hen playing among foxes. Clover had seen Black Calder entertain some strange, proud, grand guests. Styrians, and Union men, and dark-skinned Southerners drawn into his spider’s web of schemes. But he never saw him treat anyone with as much respect as this nothing-looking little unarmed man.

‘He’ll be along, Master Sulfur,’ said Calder, laying a humble hand on the tabletop between them. ‘You can depend on it.’

‘You have never given me cause to doubt,’ said Sulfur. ‘Yet.’ And he gave that hand a familiar pat.

Calder swallowed and drew his hand back. ‘A shame your master couldn’t be here.’

‘Oh, indeed.’ Sulfur smiled about at the grease-smeared, ale-spattered gathering. ‘He does love sophisticated conversation. But, sadly, he is detained in the West.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘A disagreement with two other members of our order. His brother Zacharus and his sister Cawneil have … their own ways of seeing things.’

‘Families, eh?’ grunted Calder, frowning at his brother. ‘Our best friends and our worst enemies.’ And there was a clatter as the doors were heaved open.

Stour Nightfall swaggered in with chin hefted high and sword slung low, oozing so much scorn it was a wonder he didn’t tramp through the firepit and dare the flames to burn him. The warriors at his back swept the benches with fighters’ contempt as the hall fell silent. Magweer aimed a baleful glare at Clover, and Clover saluted him with a piece of half-eaten meat.

‘You come late?’ rumbled Scale, sucking the last shreds from a bone and tossing it down for his dogs to fight over. ‘To dine with your king?’

The old king and his old cunts glowered at the young heir and his young cunts, naught praiseworthy on either side but all jealous of what the others had even so. Matching groups, in many ways; Clover could almost see each warrior squaring up to his counterpart. The mean one, the handsome one, the one who hardly spoke, the one who spoke too much.

‘Like looking in a mirror,’ he muttered.

‘A mirror that makes you old,’ said Wonderful.

‘I come whenever it fucking pleases me.’ Stour hoisted his sneer up from the king’s impressive collection of stripped bones to the king’s fat face. ‘After all … my guess was … you’d be dining … a while.’

The chill moment stretched a little longer, then Scale broke out in a roar of wheezy laughter and struggled with an effort to his feet, almost upending the table as he caught it with his mighty belly. ‘Tell me of your victories, Nephew!’ And he spread his arms wide, iron hand dangling limp from the end of the withered right one.

Stour gave that wolf grin as he danced around the table. ‘None to sing of lately, Uncle,’ and he flung his arms around the king, and they clapped each other on the back with a great show of manly affection. ‘This Union bitch and this Dogman coward are still fighting over who can run away from me fastest.’

‘Ha! Keep pushing ’em, boy, keep pushing ’em! Don’t give those bastards a chance to breathe!’ Scale jabbed weakly with his iron hand as if it was an army, while he drained his cup with the other and held it out for more.

‘He should get himself a bigger cup,’ murmured Clover.