Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  Logen felt someone move behind him and his back prickled, eyes sliding to the corners. Shivers, maybe, come to settle their score and shove him off the wall. Shivers, or one of a hundred others with some grudge that Logen had forgotten but they never would. He made sure his hand was close to a blade, and he bared his teeth, and he made ready to spin and strike.

  'We did good today, though, eh?' said the Dogman. 'Lost less than twenty.'

  Logen breathed easy again, and he let his hand drop. 'We did alright. But Bethod's just getting started. He's prodding, to see where we're weakest, see if he can wear us down. He knows that time's the thing. Most valuable thing there is, in war. A day or two's worth more to him than a load of Flatheads. If he can crush us quick he'll take the losses, I reckon.'

  'Best thing might be to hold out, then, eh?'

  Off in the darkness, far away and echoing, Logen could just hear the clang and clatter of smithing and carpentry. 'They're building down there. All the stuff they'll need to climb our wall, fill in our ditch. Lots of ladders, and all the rest. He'll take us quick if he can, Bethod, but he'll take us slow if he has to.'

  Dogman nodded. 'Well, like I said. Best thing to do would be to hold out. If all goes to plan, the Union'll be here soon.'

  'They'd better be. Plans have a way of coming apart when you lean on 'em.'

  * * *

  Such Sweet Sorrow

  « ^ »

  'His Resplendence, the Grand Duke of Ospria, desires only the best of relations…'

  Jezal could do little but sit and smile, as he had been sitting and smiling all the whole interminable day. His face, and his rump, were aching from it. The burbling of the ambassador continued unabated, accompanied by flamboyant hand gestures. Occasionally he would dam the river of blather for a moment, so that his translator could render his platitudes into the common tongue. He need scarcely have bothered.

  '… the great city of Ospria was always honoured to count herself among the closest friends of your illustrious father, King Guslav, and now seeks nothing more than the continuing friendship of the government and people of the Union…'

  Jezal had sat and smiled through the long morning, in his bejewelled chair, on his high marble dais, as the ambassadors of the world came to pay their ingratiating respects. He had sat as the sun rose in the sky and poured mercilessly through the vast windows, glinting on the gilt mouldings that encrusted every inch of wall and ceiling, flashing from the great mirrors, and silver candlesticks, and grand vases, striking multi-coloured fire from the tinkling glass beads on the three monstrous chandeliers.

  '… the Grand Duke wishes once again to express his brotherly regret at the minor incident last spring, and assures you that nothing of the kind will happen again, provided the soldiers of Westport stay on their side of the border…'

  He had sat through the endless afternoon as the room grew hotter and hotter, squirming as the representatives of the world's great leaders bowed in and scraped out with identical bland congratulations in a dozen different languages. He had sat as the sun went down, and hundreds of candles were lit and hoisted up, twinkling at him from the mirrors, and the darkened windows, and the highly polished floor. He sat, smiling, and receiving praise from men whose countries he had scarcely even heard of before that endless day began.

  '… His Resplendence furthermore hopes and trusts that the hostilities between your great nation and the Empire of Gurkhul may soon come to an end, and that trade may once more flow freely around the Circle Sea.'

  Both ambassador and translator paused politely for a rare instant and Jezal managed to stir himself into sluggish speech. 'We have a similar hope. Please convey to the Grand Duke our thanks for the wonderful gift.' Two lackeys, meanwhile, heaved the huge chest to one side and placed it with the rest of the gaudy rubbish Jezal had accumulated that day.

  Further Styrian chatter flowed out into the room. 'His Resplendence wishes to convey his heartfelt congratulations on your August Majesty's forthcoming marriage to the Princess Terez, the Jewel of Talins, surely the greatest beauty alive in all the wide Circle of the World.' Jezal could only fight to maintain his stretched grin. He had heard the match spoken of as a settled thing so often that day that he had lost the will to correct the misconception, and had in fact almost started to think of himself as engaged. All he cared about was that the audiences should finally be finished with, so he might steal a moment to drown himself in peace.

  'His Resplendence has further instructed us to wish your August Majesty a long and happy reign,' explained the translator, 'and many heirs, that your line may continue undiminished in glory.' Jezal forced his smile a tooth wider, and inclined his head. 'I bid you good evening!'

  The Osprian ambassador bowed with a theatrical flourish, sweeping off his enormous hat, its multicoloured feathers thrashing with enthusiasm. Then he shuffled backwards, still bent over, across the gleaming floor. He somehow made it out into the corridor without pitching over on his back, and the great doors, festooned with gold leaf, were smoothly shut upon him.

  Jezal snatched the crown from his head and tossed it onto the cushion beside the throne, rubbing at the chafe marks round his sweaty scalp with one hand while he tugged his embroidered collar open with the other. Nothing helped. He still felt dizzy, weak, oppressively hot.

  Hoff was already ingratiating himself onto Jezal's left side. 'That was the last of the ambassadors, your Majesty. Tomorrow will be occupied by the nobility of Midderland. They are eager to pay homage—'

  'Lots of homage and little help, I'll be bound!'

  Hoff managed a chuckle of suffocating falseness. 'Ha, ha, ha, your Majesty. They have sought audiences from dawn, and we would not wish to offend them by—'

  'Damn it!' hissed Jezal, jumping up and shaking his legs in a vain effort to unstick his trousers from his sweaty backside. He jerked his crimson sash over his head and flung it away, tore his gilded frock coat open and tried to rip it off, but in the end he got his hand caught in one cuff and had to turn the bloody thing inside out before he could finally get free of it.

  'Damn it!' He hurled it down on the marble dais with half a mind to stamp it to rags. Then he remembered himself. Hoff had taken a cautious step back, and was frowning as if he had discovered his fine new mansion was afflicted with a terrible case of rot. The assorted servants, pages, and Knights, both Herald and of the Body, were all staring studiously ahead, doing their best to imitate statues. Over in the dark corner of the room, Bayaz was standing. His eyes were sunk in shadow, but his face was stony grim.

  Jezal blushed like a naughty schoolboy called to account, and pressed one hand over his eyes, 'A terribly trying day…' He hurried down the steps of the dais and out of the audience chamber with his head down. The blaring of a belated and slightly off-key fanfare pursued him down the hallway. So, unfortunately, did the First of the Magi.

  'That was not gracious,' said Bayaz. 'Rare rages render a man frightening. Common ones render him ridiculous.'

  'I apologise,' growled Jezal through gritted teeth. 'The crown is a mighty burden.'

  'A mighty burden and a mighty honour both. We had a discussion, as I recall, about your striving to be worthy of it.' The Magus left a significant pause. 'Perhaps you might strive harder.'

  Jezal rubbed at his aching temples. 'I just need a moment to myself is all. Just a moment.'

  'Take all the time you need. But we have business in the morning, your Majesty, business we cannot avoid. The nobility of Midderland will not wait to congratulate you. I will see you at dawn, brimful with energy and enthusiasm, I am sure.'

  'Yes, yes!' Jezal snapped over his shoulder. 'Brimful!'

  He burst out into a small courtyard, surrounded on three sides by a shadowy colonnade, and stood still in the cool evening. He shook himself, squeezed his eyes shut, let his head tip back and took a long, slow breath. A minute alone. He wondered if, aside from pissing or sleeping, it was the first he had been permitted since that day of madness in the Lords' Round.
>
  He was the victim, or perhaps the beneficiary, of the most almighty blunder. Somehow, everyone had mistaken him for a king, when he was very clearly a selfish, clueless idiot who had scarcely in his life thought more than a day ahead. Every time someone called him, 'your Majesty' he felt more of a fraud, and with each moment that passed he was more guiltily surprised not to have been found out.

  He wandered across the perfect lawn, giving vent to a long, self-pitying sigh. It caught in his throat. There was a Knight of the Body beside a doorway opposite, standing to attention so rigidly that Jezal had hardly noticed him. He cursed under his breath. Could he not be left alone for five minutes together? He frowned as he walked closer. The man seemed somehow familiar. A great big fellow with a shaved head and a noticeable lack of neck…

  'Bremer dan Gorst!'

  'Your Majesty,' said Gorst, his armour rattling as he clashed his meaty fist against his polished breastplate.

  'It is a pleasure to see you!' Jezal had disliked the man from the first moment he had laid eyes on him, and being bludgeoned round a fencing circle by him, whether Jezal had won in the end or no, had not improved his opinion of the neckless brute. Now, however, anything resembling a familiar face was like a glass of water in the desert. Jezal actually found himself reaching out and squeezing the man's heavy hand as though they were old friends, and had to make himself let go of it.

  'Your Majesty does me too much honour.'

  'Please, you need not call me that! How did you come to be part of the household? I thought that you served with Lord Brock's guard?'

  'That post did not suit me,' said Gorst in his strangely high, piping voice. 'I was lucky enough to find a place with the Knights of the Body some months ago, your Maj—' He cut himself off.

  An idea slunk into Jezal's head. He looked over his shoulder, but there was no one else nearby. The garden was still as a graveyard, its shadowy arcades as quiet as crypts. 'Bremer… I may call you Bremer, may I?'

  'I suppose that my king may call me whatever he wishes.'

  'I wonder… could I ask you for a favour?'

  Gorst blinked. 'Your Majesty has only to ask.'

  Jezal spun around as he heard the door open. Gorst stepped out into the colonnade with the soft jingle of armour. A cloaked and hooded figure followed him, silently. The old excitement was still there as she pushed back her hood and a chink of light from a window above crept across the lower part of her face. He could see the bright curve of her cheek, one side of her mouth, the outline of a nostril, the gleam of her eyes in the shadows, and that was all.

  'Thank you, Gorst,' said Jezal. 'You may leave us.' The big man thumped his chest and backed through the archway, pulling the door to behind him. Hardly the first time they had met in secret, of course, but things were different now. He wondered if it would end with kisses and soft words between them, or if it would simply end. The start was far from promising.

  'Your August Majesty,' said Ardee with the very heaviest of irony. 'What a towering honour. Should I grovel on my face? Or do I curtsey?'

  However hard her words, the sound of her voice still made the breath catch in his throat. 'Curtsey?' he managed to say. 'Do you even know how?'

  'In truth, not really. I have not had the training for polite society, and now the lack of it quite crushes me.' She stepped forward, frowning into the darkened garden. 'When I was a girl, in my wildest flights of fancy, I used to dream of being invited to the palace, a guest of the king himself. We would eat fine cakes, and drink fine wine, and talk fine talk of important things, deep into the night.' Ardee pressed her hands to her chest and fluttered her eyelashes. 'Thank you for making the pitiful dreams of one poor wretch come true, if only for the briefest moment. The other beggars will never believe me when I tell them!'

  'We are all more than a little shocked by the turn events have taken.'

  'Oh, we are indeed, your Majesty.'

  Jezal flinched. 'Don't call me that. Not you.'

  'What should I call you?'

  'My name. Jezal, that is. The way you used to… please.'

  'If I must. You promised me, Jezal. You promised me you would not let me down.'

  'I know I did, and I meant to keep my promise… but the fact is…' King or not, he fumbled with the words as much as he ever had, then blurted them out in an idiotic spurt. 'I cannot marry you! I surely would have done, had not…' He raised his arms and hopelessly let them drop. 'Had not all this happened. But it has happened, and there is nothing that I can do. I cannot marry you.'

  'Of course not.' Her mouth gave a bitter twist. 'Promises are for children. I never thought it very likely, even before. Even in my most unrealistic moments. Now the notion seems ridiculous. The king and the peasant-girl. Absurd. The most hackneyed story-book would never dare suggest it.'

  'It need not mean that we never see each other again.' He took a hesitant step towards her. 'Things will be different, of course, but we can still find moments…' He reached out, slowly, awkwardly. 'Moments when we can be together.' He touched her face, gently, and felt the same guilty thrill he always had. 'We can be to each other just as we were. You would not need to worry. Everything would be taken care of…'

  She looked him in the eye. 'So… you'd like me to be your whore?'

  He jerked his hand back. 'No! Of course not! I mean… I would like you to be…' What did he mean? He fumbled desperately for a better word. 'My lover?'

  'Ah. I see. And when you take a wife, what will I be then? What word do you think your queen might use to describe me?' Jezal swallowed, and looked at his shoes. 'A whore is still a whore, whatever word you use. Easily tired of, and even more easily replaced. And when you tire of me, and you find other lovers? What will they call me then?' She gave a bitter snort. 'I'm scum, and I know it, but you must think even less of me than I do.'

  'It's not my fault.' He felt tears in his eyes. Pain, or relief, it was hard to tell. A bitter alloy of both, perhaps. 'It's not my fault.'

  'Of course it isn't. I don't blame you. I blame myself. I used to think I had bad luck, but my brother was right. I make bad choices.' She looked at him with that same judging expression in her dark eyes that she had when they first met. 'I could have found a good man, but I chose you. I should have known better.' She reached up and touched his face, rubbed a tear from his cheek with her thumb. Just as she had when they parted before, in the park, in the rain. But then there had been the hope that they would meet again. Now there was none. She sighed, and let her arm drop, and stared sulkily out into the garden.

  Jezal blinked. Could that really be all? He yearned to say some last tender word, at least, some bitter-sweet farewell, but his mind was empty. What words could there possibly be that could make any difference? They were done, and more talk would only have been salt in the cuts. Wasted breath. He set his jaw, and wiped the last damp streaks from his face. She was right. The king and the peasant-girl. What could have been more ridiculous?

  'Gorst!' he barked. The door squealed open and the muscle-bound guardsman emerged from the shadows, his head humbly bowed. 'You may escort the lady back to her home.'

  He nodded, and stood away from the dark archway. Ardee turned and walked towards it, pulling up her hood, and Jezal watched her go. He wondered if she would pause on the threshold and look back, and their eyes would meet, and there would be one last moment between them. One last catching of his breath. One last tugging at his heart.

  But she did not look back. Without the slightest pause she stepped through and was gone, and Gorst after her, and Jezal was left in the moonlit garden. Alone.

  * * *

  Picked Up A Shadow

  « ^ »

  Ferro sat on the warehouse roof, her eyes narrowed against the bright sun, her legs crossed underneath her. She watched the boats, and the people flowing off them. She watched for Yulwei. That was why she came here every day.

  There was war between the Union and Gurkhul, a meaningless war with a lot of talk and no fighting, and so no sh
ips went to Kanta. But Yulwei went where he pleased. He could take her back to the South, so she could have her vengeance on the Gurkish. Until he came, she was trapped with the pinks. She ground her teeth, and clenched her fists, and grimaced at her own uselessness. Her boredom. Her wasted time. She would have prayed to God for Yulwei to come.

  But God never listened.

  Jezal dan Luthar, fool that he was, for reasons she could not comprehend, had been given a crown and made king. Bayaz, who Ferro was sure had been behind the whole business, now spent every hour with him. Still trying to make him a leader of men, no doubt. Just as he had all the long way across the plain and back, with small results.

  Jezal dan Luthar, the King of the Union. Ninefingers would have laughed long and hard at that, if he could have heard it. Ferro smiled to think of him laughing. Then she realised that she was smiling, and made herself stop. Bayaz had promised her vengeance, and given her nothing, and left her mired here, powerless. There was nothing to smile at.

  She sat, and watched the boats for Yulwei.

  She did not watch for Ninefingers. She did not hope to see him slouch onto the docks. That would have been a foolish, childish hope, belonging to the foolish child she had been when the Gurkish took her for a slave. He would not change his mind and come back. She had made sure of it. Strange, though, how she kept thinking that she saw him, in amongst the crowds.

  The dockers had come to recognise her. They had shouted at her, for a while. 'Come down here, my lovely, and give me a kiss!' one of them had called, and his friends had laughed. Then Ferro had thrown half a brick at his head and knocked him in the sea. He had nothing to say to her once they fished him out. None of them had, and that suited her well enough.