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

Broad remembered Musselia after the sack. The slums looted and turned into smouldering ruins, corpses scattered in the streets. But the palace untouched on the high ground above the smoke. He worked his mouth and spat. ‘Always the poor pay the price.’

Folk poured out of Valbeck that night. Columns of them snaking past the abandoned barricades and across the fields. A few were Breakers, going to surrender their arms and take their chances at amnesty. Most were folk who’d heard there might be food.

The first to meet the wary queue of the filthy, hungry and dispossessed were smiling women, handing out loaves. You might’ve thought they had undiluted hope rather than bread in their barrows for the good humour they spread down the column. A few days before, folk couldn’t have found language harsh enough to describe Crown Prince Orso. A bit of bread in their bellies and they were frothing over with praise for him. Broad was no better than the rest as he caught that heavenly smell of baking, mouth watering up a rainstorm. Seeing May and Liddy’s smiles when they ate their share was a better gift even than the bread itself. Ardee didn’t smile. Broad didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile. Just chewed, staring at her shuffling feet, eyes big and damp in her thin, thin face.

Wasn’t long after the taste of bread faded that Broad was back to the worried old killer he’d been that morning. The sun slunk down towards distant woods and the cold came on and they reached a knot of blank-faced soldiers collecting weapons. There was a mismatched arsenal heaped up on either side of the road – old pikestaffs, rusted swords, butchers’ cleavers and gardener’s hatchets.

‘I’m a shoemaker,’ a man was grumbling as an officer looked over a set of gleaming blades. ‘How can I work without my knives?’

‘You want something, you have to give something up. On you go.’

Handing in a weapon had felt too close to an admission of guilt to Broad. He’d thrown his down a well before they left and been glad to see them go. Might be it’s people who kill people, but you can’t stab a man with a blade you haven’t got.

‘I’ve got nothing,’ he said to the officer in charge, shifting his lenses on his nose as if to imply he was a man of learning. ‘Wouldn’t know what to do with a blade.’

The officer looked him up and down as if that was a bit too rich for either one of them to swallow, but he jerked his head onwards.

Another hour of shuffling and the sky started to darken, the mood darkening with it. Folk muttered that the Inquisition were up ahead, asking questions. Pulling people from the column. Anyone who’d been tight with the Breakers. Soldiers on horseback prowled the fields to either side of the road, torches in gauntleted fists. Some wanted to think the best. Others were sure they’d all be hanged for treason on the spot. No one left, though. Like lambs queueing up for the slaughterman’s knife, they only huddled tighter together and kept plodding towards the bleak unknown.

‘Don’t like this,’ whispered Liddy.

Broad didn’t like it much, either. After what he’d done in Valbeck, and what he’d done on his farm, and what he’d done in Styria, could he really hope to wriggle free now? It’s coming to something when you reassure yourself with the thought that there’s no justice in the world.

A good score of soldiers were gathered where the road passed through a gate in a tumbledown wall, a good score of masked Practicals with them. All under the supervision of a black-coated Inquisitor, torchlight finding the hollows in his pale face and making him look quite the demon. While Broad was watching, two men were led away to the side and a kind of nervous moan spread through the column. He felt a sudden desire to run, glanced about for his best route of escape.

‘Calm yourselves!’ called the Inquisitor. ‘His Highness the crown prince has offered a full amnesty! There are some questions to be asked and some questions to be answered, that is all. No one will be hurt, you have my word, the word of Superior Pike and the word of Crown Prince Orso himself. There is soup for you all a little further on.’

That was what it came to. You might die, but you might get soup. Shame was, it more or less worked on Broad.

‘Got to trust ’em,’ he muttered. ‘We’ve come too far now.’

‘We could head back,’ hissed Liddy, forehead creased with worry.

‘They’d see us, think we’ve something to hide. Might be best if you two move away from me.’ Might’ve been best if they’d moved away from him a long time ago. But May wouldn’t hear of it.

‘No! We’re not splitting up. You’ve a better chance sticking—’

‘What the hell?’ While they’d been arguing, Ardee had stepped stiffly from the queue and walked straight towards the Inquisitor. ‘What’s she doing?’ If that useless bloody stray drew the wrong sort of attention, they’d be finished. But there was nothing Broad could do. Dive from the column to grab her, he’d only make it worse.