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

‘Nothing to do but wait.’ Whitewater Jin carefully pushed his sausages around the pan and made them sizzle. The fork looked tiny in his paw of a hand. ‘Wait, and eat.’

The smell was making Leo’s stomach rumble, but there was no way he could think of eating. He was too nervous. Too impatient. Too frustrated.

‘By the dead!’ He flung an arm towards the men scattered about the village, already in their armour. Angland’s cavalry. The best and the brightest, sitting idle. ‘She should be letting us fight! What’s she thinking?’

‘I saw an army mishandled in Styria,’ said Barniva. ‘This is not what it looks like.’

If you ask me,’ said Jurand, ‘the lady governor’s a hell of a general.’

‘No one did ask you,’ snapped Leo, even though he just had.

Jurand heaved out a sigh, and Barniva drew his blanket tight about his shoulders, and they went back to watching the sausages sizzle.

Leo frowned up at the sound of hooves. One rider trotting down the rutted track that led from the bridge. Antaup, loose in his saddle.

‘Morning!’ he called, scraping that lock of dark hair back with his fingers.

‘Any news?’ Leo couldn’t keep the eager little warble out of his voice, though it was perfectly clear there was no news at all. He was needy as a jilted lover, unable to stop pining no matter how often he was turned down.

‘No news,’ said Antaup, swinging from his saddle. He peered over Jin’s big shoulder at the pan. ‘Don’t suppose you lads have a sausage spare?’

Barniva grinned up. ‘For a boy with a smile as pretty as yours? I think we can find a sausage.’

‘Do you have to?’ snapped Leo, curling his lip with disgust. ‘What did mother say?’ He right away regretted his choice of words, but how does a man make taking orders from his mother sound good?

‘She said sit tight.’ Antaup leaned on Jin’s shoulder, made him turn, then reached around his blind side and nimbly stole the fork from his plate. ‘She said she’d let you know if anything changed.’ And he stretched over to fork one of the sausages from the pan.

‘Oy!’ snapped Jin, elbowing him away.

Leo frowned up towards the red-topped hill, a black lump against the pinking sky, here and there the telltale glint of metal where the men were getting ready for battle. Or for just another day of waiting.

The waiting, the waiting, the endless bloody waiting. He really was the worst man in the world at doing nothing.

‘I’m going up there!’ And he grabbed his helmet and strode for his horse.

‘And she said don’t go up there!’ called Antaup with his mouth full.

Leo froze for a moment, angrily clenching his jaw. Then he strode on. ‘I’m bloody going anyway!’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Jurand. ‘Keep a sausage for me!’

‘For a boy with such delicate features as yours,’ said Barniva, laughter in his voice, ‘I’ll always have a sausage.’

‘By the dead,’ grumbled Leo, hunching his shoulders.

‘I’ve got a feeling about today,’ said Wonderful.

Clover was fully occupied trimming a blister on his big toe. ‘Good feeling or bad?’

‘Just a feeling. Something’s going to happen.’

‘Well, something happens every day.’

‘Something big, you fool.’

‘Ah,’ said Clover. ‘Well, I hope I’m left out of it. I like little things, mostly.’

‘You must be pleased wi’ your cock, then.’ Magweer, sneering down from his horse with the sun behind.

Clover saw no pressing need to look away from his feet. ‘A cock’s not for pleasing yourself, boy, it’s for pleasing others. Maybe that’s where you’re going wrong.’

Magweer bristled. Always the ones quickest to insults got the thinnest skin, for some reason. ‘You spend more time on your blisters than your weapons.’

‘My blisters are more important,’ said Clover.

Magweer’s ill-favoured face crunched up in a clueless scowl.

‘If you’re lucky, you might get through a whole campaign without drawing your sword.’ Clover gave his blister one last shave with the point of his little knife, then sat back to admire the results. ‘But you will, without question, be using your feet.’

‘The man has a point,’ said Wonderful.

Magweer spat. ‘No fucking idea why, but Stour wants the two o’ you up front with him.’

‘Oh, aye?’ asked Clover. ‘Has he not got all the wise counsel he needs with you lot o’ heroes?’

‘You mocking me, old man?’

Clover puffed out a weary breath. That boy seemed determined to butt heads with him. You let things go with most men, they let things go, too. But some are just fixed on taking offence. ‘Wouldn’t dare, Magweer,’ he said. ‘But wars are depressing things, whatever the songs say. We must lighten the mood where we can, eh, Wonderful?’

‘I smile whenever possible,’ she said, stony-faced.

Magweer looked from one of them to the other, then gave a sour hiss, spat once more for luck and wrenched his horse roughly around to the west. ‘Just get up there with the scouts soon as you can or there’ll be trouble.’ And he rode off, mud flicking from his horse’s hooves, nearly riding down some poor woman who’d been off fetching water and making her drop her buckets in the mud.