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

‘I reject this court,’ growled Vallimir, puffing up his chest. ‘I denounce it!’ Someone on the public benches flung rotten fruit at him. It missed, burst against the far wall, spraying slime across the fine old panelling. ‘You scum have no authority over me!’

‘Wrong!’ shrieked Judge. ‘Show him our credentials!’

One of the men in motley clubbed Vallimir across the head and knocked him gasping against the rail. The other dragged him up again, blood from a fresh cut streaking his face.

Judge shook her ring-covered fist at him. ‘We have the authority of the fist! We have the authority of sharpened metal! We have the authority of force, you blubbing cunt, which is the only real authority there is.’ Some light cheering from the few members of the audience still conscious. ‘You should know that. You were a soldier. Counsel for the defence? Where’s that fucker Randock?’

A man rose trembling from behind a table covered with ash, empty bottles and a flyblown chicken carcass. He was stripped naked apart from a pair of broken lenses clinging to his broken nose, hands clasped defensively around his fruits, his back a mass of purple bruises. ‘No defence, your honour,’ he gabbled out, ‘what defence could there be?’ And he gave a hysterical little titter and shrank back into his broken chair which rocked on three legs and nearly dumped him on the floor, much to the amusement of the jury.

Judge wasn’t laughing. She’d caught sight of Vick and her Breakers as they filtered through the door and spread out around the public benches. Her black eyes seemed to linger on Broad and made that guilty tickle spread all over him. He told himself she was lethal as a scorpion, but that didn’t help. Just the opposite.

‘I don’t remember calling witnesses,’ she said, lip curling. ‘I might have to find you lot in contempt.’

‘That’s one word for it,’ said Vick, glancing around. ‘Risinau sent us. He wants your prisoners.’

Judge reached for a bottle and took a long pull. Seeing folk drink always made Broad thirsty, but there was something about the way she wrapped her tongue around the glass neck made him especially want to be in her place. Or maybe it was the bottle’s place he wanted.

Judge narrowed her eyes at Vick. ‘If Risinau wants a favour, he should’ve come himself.’

‘He sent me.’

‘Should I be scared?’ The Burners were waking up to the new arrivals now, staring blearily over, hands creeping towards weapons.

Vick didn’t step forward, didn’t step back. ‘Not if you give me the prisoners.’

‘My prisoners have charges to answer, sister, but don’t worry!’ Judge waved towards the jury. ‘They deliberate like lightning, these bitches. Sometimes I have to stop ’em giving the verdict before I’ve even named the accused! If they were in charge in Adua, we’d soon have the case backlog cleared and every lawyer out of work.’

‘They’d be selling their arses in the gutter!’ squealed one of the whores, to gales of laughter from her fellow jury members, and the naked lawyer flinched, and looked down at his feet.

Judge leaned forward, smile turning to a snarl. ‘We didn’t throw down our masters just to raise up another! Far as I can see, Risinau’s setting himself up like an owner above his workers, like a king above his subjects, like—’

‘A judge above her jury?’ offered Vick.

‘Ouch!’ Judge pushed out her lips in a pantomime of upset. ‘Cut with my own razor, you cunning fucker.’ She leaned from her box to shriek at the tiny clerk’s desk below, where a bent old beggar-woman was sitting. ‘Strike that from the record!’

‘Can’t write anyway,’ muttered the beggar, and went back to drawing scribbles in the ledgers.

‘I get it.’ Vick stepped forward. ‘You want to see someone pay. No doubt there’s plenty to pay for.’ Broad didn’t know how she could stay so cool with all this sweltering madness around her. ‘No one wants to see them pay more than me. But we’ve a city full of people to think about. We need something to bargain with.’

It was a good effort. Very calm. Very reasonable. But Broad didn’t reckon this was the place for calm or reason. Strip it all back, it’s the authority of the fist that counts. Judge was right about that, and Broad knew it better than anyone. Beside him, Sarlby eased the dowel from the trigger of his flatbow.

Judge slowly stood, clenched fists on her scarred desk, bony shoulders hunched around her neck, stolen chains swinging. ‘Oh, I see. You’re going to march my prisoners up to our oppressors and swap ’em for a better world. Just you and your honeyed tongue.’ She stuck out her tongue and made the pointed end wiggle in a way Broad found disgusting and strangely exciting both at once. She was trouble made flesh. Everything he’d sworn he was done with. Felt he was breaking his word just looking at her. And he couldn’t take his eyes off her.