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

No doubt she was fine-looking, but more than a bit mad-looking, too, wild and twitchy with a cross painted over one eye, a fat gold ring through her nose and a mass of rattling chains around her neck like she was learning to be some hillwoman sorceress but hadn’t actually got to the spells yet.

‘You sure?’ he asked.

‘Do I look like a man prone to fancy?’

Clover gave Shivers a quick glance up and down. ‘About as little as any living. And I was long ago cured of the misapprehension that I’m right on every score.’

‘The wiser a man is, the more he stands ready to be educated.’ There was a little curl at the corner of Shivers’ mouth as he watched Rikke flapping her hands around. A hint of pride, maybe. The most feeling he’d let show the whole time they’d talked. Anyone who could coax some warmth from that face-shaped block of rock was someone worth watching, Clover reckoned.

Around the edge of the Circle, the shield-carriers were starting to form up, folk pressing in behind them, eager for the best view of the murder. ‘Let me know when you want that chat, then, Shivers, you old bastard.’ Clover hefted his shield and stepped away to find his own place. ‘My ears are always open to a better way of doing things.’

Rikke had been hoping the hate would melt when she finally saw Stour Nightfall’s face, because her hate for him was getting to feel like quite the weight to carry. She’d look in his eyes and see he wasn’t the monster who’d whined his hopes for her horrible murder, who’d burned her father’s garden and killed good folk she knew, but just a man with loves and fears like any other, and her hate would melt.

As so often with hopes, and hatreds, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

The king-in-waiting strutted preening into the Circle to wild cheers from his side, lauded and clapped and slapped on the back, and stood there with a damp-eyed smirk like a wedding guest who’d pricked the bride the night before.

‘That’s Nightfall?’ murmured Finree dan Brock, sitting pale and stiff beside Rikke and quite clearly trying to put a brave face over her misery.

‘That’s him.’ Rikke narrowed her eyes, wishing she could see through him. See some clue to what he’d do. See some weakness Leo could use. See his death coming.

But the Long Eye cannot be forced open, and all she saw was that infuriating bloody smirk, like he was the one who could see the future and for him it held nothing but victories. He glanced her way, and that wolf grin grew a tooth wider each side, and he sauntered over to her half of the Circle.

‘You’re Rikke, then?’ he called out, giving her a slow look up and down with those wet eyes, his mouth open and his tongue showing. ‘You’re prettier’n I thought you’d be.’

She gave him the same sort of look, but with her mouth scorn-twisted. ‘You’re about as ugly as I was expecting.’

‘I hear you can see what’s coming. Did you see yourself sucking my cock yet?’

Jeering laughter at that, and Rikke clenched her fists. ‘Just you losing in the Circle.’

He only grinned the wider. ‘I know you’re lying about that one. Might be you’re lying about the other.’ And he gave her a sly wink as he turned away. Winked at her, the bastard, and she felt the hate boil up hotter than ever.

‘Don’t worry about it!’ she screamed, jumping to her feet and jabbing away with one clawing finger. ‘Once Leo’s broke you in half, you can suck your own!’

Got some laughs at least from the folk on her side, and some ugly stares from Stour’s shield-carriers. She recognised the Nail in their midst, staring right at her with his pale brows thoughtfully wrinkled, and she curled her tongue into a tube and blew spit at him, and he grinned, and gave a little bow.

‘Easy,’ muttered her father, pulling her back down by the elbow. ‘Hard words are for fools and cowards. Stour might be both, but you’re neither.’

‘Winking wanker,’ she growled. ‘I’ll see him fucked by a pig, the bastard. I’ll see him strung up with brambles and the bloody cross cut in him. I’ll send his guts to his daddy in a box. With herbs. So they won’t smell ’em till they open it.’

She saw her father staring at her, and looking quite worried, too.

‘What?’ she grumbled, hunching her shoulders. ‘Didn’t think I had it in me to hate a man?’

‘Be careful, is all I’m saying. Hate a man that much, you give him power over you.’

‘Maybe. But it goes back to the mud with him.’ Her voice sounded hard in her own ear. ‘The Great Leveller cancels all debts.’

The whoops and taunts from their side of the Circle became cheers as Leo pushed through the crowd, his friends at his back.

Her father leaned close. ‘Have it in you to love a man, too?’ She looked at him, caught by surprise. ‘I’m old, Rikke, not blind.’

Leo flinched as the wall of shields clattered shut behind him, like a prisoner might at the turning of the jailer’s key. He’d said he loved her. Wasn’t that she thought he was lying. Just that she doubted he’d ever love anyone more than himself.