He was snarling curses as Broad walked around the horse, trying to scramble up, but he had one foot still snarled in the stirrup.
Broad caught his wrist before he could right himself and twisted it up, forced his head down onto the chopping block. Marsh screamed as his elbow popped apart, knife dropping in the dirt, but only till Broad lifted one boot and smashed his face into the scarred wood with all his weight, bone crunching one, two, three times.
Able half-stood from the wagon’s seat, eyes starting, fumbling with the string of his bow. Most men need time to act. Broad had the opposite problem. He was always loaded. Always.
Able had no time to draw the string as Broad strode to the wagon. No time to reach for a bolt, even.
He managed to swing the bow but Broad brushed it away with his forearm, caught Able by the front of his jacket. He gave a little hoot as Broad jerked him into the air and rammed him head first into the old gatepost, blood speckling the side of the wagon. He flopped down with one arm wedged through that creaky wheel, smashed skull bent all the way backwards.
Broad hopped up onto the seat while Seldom stared, reins still in his limp hands.
“Gunnar—” He tried to get up but Broad shoved him back down with his knee.
Wasn’t sure how many times he hit him, fist up and fist down, fist up and fist down, but when he stopped, Seldom’s face was just a mess of glistening red.
Broad blinked down at him, a bit out of breath. Wind blew up cold on his sweaty forehead.
Broad blinked over at Liddy. She was staring, hand clapped over her mouth.
Broad blinked at his fists. Took a painful effort to uncurl the red fingers, and he started to realise what had happened.
He sat down beside Seldom’s corpse on the wagon’s seat, all weak and shaky. Spots on his vision. Blood, he realised, on his lenses. He fumbled them off, turned the world to a smear.
Liddy didn’t say anything. Neither did he.
What was there to say?
A Sea of Business
“Welcome, one and all, to this thirteenth biannual meeting of Adua’s Solar Society!”
Honrig Curnsbick, the great machinist, resplendent in a waistcoat embroidered with golden leaves, threw up his broad hands. The applause was the most enthusiastic this theatre could have heard since Iosiv Lestek gave his final performance on its stage.
“With thanks to our distinguished patrons—the Lady Ardee, and her daughter Lady Savine dan Glokta!” Curnsbick gestured towards Savine’s box and she smiled over her fan as though her delicate feelings could hardly stand the attention. There were whoops, and calls of, “Hear, hear.” From members who particularly wanted her money, she imagined.
“We never dreamed, when nine of us first met in Lady Savine’s parlour, that only eight years later, the Solar Society would have more than four hundred members throughout the Union and beyond!” Curnsbick might not have, but Savine had always dreamed big. “We are living in bold new times! Times when only the lazy need be poor. When only the small-minded need be dissatisfied. Times when the world can be changed by the ingenuity and endeavour of a single man!” Or even, Fates help us, a single woman.
“Only yesterday, here in Adua, Dietam dan Kort completed a bridge made entirely of iron—of iron, mark you—that will bring a canal through Casamir’s Wall and into the heart of the city.” More applause, and down in the audience, Kort was clapped on the back by his peers. A back covered by a fine new coat paid for with Savine’s money, as it happened. “With it will come boundless access to raw materials. Will come new industry and new commerce. Will come better jobs and better goods and better lives for the masses.” Curnsbick flung his arms wide with a showman’s flourish, eye-lenses flashing. “Will come prosperity for all!” But especially for Savine, it hardly needed to be said. What is the point in prosperity, after all, if everyone has it?
“And now to business! The business of progress! Our first address shall be by Kaspar dan Arinhorm, on the application of the Curnsbick Engine to the pumping of water from iron mines.”
Savine rose to leave while Arinhorm was on his way to the lectern. The truth was she had never been very interested in the inventions. Her obsession was how they could be turned into money. And that particular alchemy was practised in the foyer.
A considerable crowd had already gathered beneath the three great chandeliers, buzzing with excited chatter, seething with prospects and proposals. Knots of soberly dressed gentlemen broke and re-formed, drawn into dizzying swirls and eddies, ladies’ dresses bright dots of colour bobbing on the flood. Here and there, one could even spot the fabulous robes of some relic of the old merchant guilds. Savine’s practised eye picked out those with money or connections, those without sucked spinning after them like rowing boats in the wake of great ships, desperate for patronage, involvement, investment.
It was a sea of business. Dangerous waters, swept by unpredictable storms, where fortunes could founder, enterprises be lost with all hands, reputations sink beneath the waves, but where a navigator with sufficient vision could be borne to spectacular success on the hidden currents of wealth and influence.
“God works for those who work themselves,” murmured Zuri, checking her watch.
She was ever at Savine’s shoulder, ready to guide the chaff away or, on occasion, make a note in her book for an informal meeting, perhaps an invitation to tea for the truly promising. Often at those pleasant interviews, she would make some passing observation about night-time habits, or questionable pasts, or illegitimate offspring, and how this or that scandal revealed might leave a promising career in ruins. There was almost no one worth noticing without a secret kept somewhere in her book. A dash of blackmail, tastefully administered, could always be relied upon to shift prices in the right direction. To win at this game, you had to keep one foot in the ballroom and the other knee-deep in the sewer.
“To work, then.” Savine put on her most radiant smile, snapped out her fan and glided down the steps into the melee.
“Have you considered my proposal? Lady Savine? A new design for coal boats, if you recall? Both keels and colliers! We’ll put coal in every household, however humble. Coal is the future!”
“My surveys show the hills near Rostod are riddled with copper, Lady Savine—why, you could scoop it up with your hands! Metals are the future!”
“I only need to convince the owner of the land, a relative of Lord Isher, and I know you are a close confidante of his sister…”
Savine might wear a sword, but on this battlefield she fought with a fan. A conspiratorial tap with it, closed, could coax out smiles more surely than a witch’s wand. Snapped open with a flick of the wrist, it cut fruitless conversations off more sharply than an executioner’s axe. Deftly raised, with a curl of the lip and a turn of the shoulder, it buried men deeper than a spade.
“Salt is the thing now, Lady Savine. Salt in quantity, for everyone. A partner could triple her money, within months, positively quadruple it…”
“Clocks are the thing! Accurate clocks! Affordable clocks! The potential, Lady Savine, you cannot be blind to the potential…”
“Why, a single word in the right ear at the Patent Office…”
One by one, she brought them forward with their schemes, their dreams, the light of certainty bright in their eyes. Her slightest smile lit their faces with delight. Her slightest frown doused them with horror. When she ended each interview with a snap of her fan, she thought of all the refusals she had endured, and relished her power.
“With your contacts in Styria, your patronage could make all the difference…”
“With your friends in the Agriont, it would only take an interview…”
“The one thing I need is investment!”
“Quintuple her money!”
“Lady Savine?” A woman, young, red-wigged, freckle-shouldered, with a way of peeking over her gaudy fan that was meant to be winsome but to Savine looked merely sly. “I am—forgive me—a tremendous admirer of yours.”
>
Savine had a whole queue of tremendous admirers, and no idea what gave this girl the right to jump it. “How charming.”
“My name is Selest dan Heugen.”
“Boras dan Heugen’s cousin?” Self-important oaf that he was. It appeared to run in the family.
“Only my second cousin,” simpered Selest. “I fear I’m nothing but a tiny twig at the furthest reaches of the family tree.”
“A prize bud just blooming, I am sure.”
Selest blushed in the manner of an innocent country girl out of her depth in the big city. It made Savine think of a bad actress in a bad play. “I knew you would be beautiful, but never dreamed you might be so kind. My father left me some money and I intend to invest it. Might I ask whether you have any advice?”
“Buy things that go up in value,” said Savine, turning away.
“Lady Savine dan Glokta.” A small man with curly hair and clothes that advertised both money and tasteful restraint. “I had been hoping to make your acquaintance.”
“I believe you have the advantage of me.”
“Certainly not in beauty.” He was unremarkable, it was true, apart from his bright eyes. They were different colours, one blue, one green. “My name is Yoru Sulfur.”
It was rare indeed for Savine to hear a name she had not heard before, and it always made her curious. New names meant new opportunities, after all. “And what is your business, Master Sulfur?”
“I am a member of the Order of Magi.”
Savine was not easily surprised, but she could not stop her brows lifting at that. Zuri usually shepherded the cranks away, but she seemed for once to be elsewhere. “A wizard at a meeting of investors and inventors? Are you scouting the enemy?”
“Say rather that I am seeking new friends.” His smile was full of clean, sharp, shiny teeth. “We magi have always been interested in changing the world.”
“How admirable,” said Savine, though in her experience, when men spoke of changing the world, they always meant to suit their own interests.
“There was a time, in the days of Euz and his sons, when magic was the best way to do it. But that time is long past. These days…” And Sulfur glanced about the heaving foyer and leaned close as if to share a secret. “I begin to think this is better.”
“You go where the power is,” murmured Savine, touching him gently on the wrist with her fan. “I am just the same.”
“Oh, you should meet my master. I have a feeling the two of you would have a great deal in common. He is used to dealing with your father, of course. But no one lasts for ever.”
Savine frowned. “Whatever can you—”
“Lady Savine!” Curnsbick was advancing on her, arms spread wide in a gesture of great affection. “When the hell are you going to marry me?”
“A few days after never. Besides, I swear I was at your wedding to someone else.”
He folded her hand in his and kissed it. “Say the word and I’ll throttle her myself.”
“But she’s such a lovely woman. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.”
“Don’t pretend you have a conscience.”
“Oh, I have one. But muzzled and kept well away from my business affairs. This is…” She turned to introduce Sulfur but he had already vanished into the crowd.
“Curnsbick, you old dog!” It was Arinhorm, the deliverer of the first address, blundering into their conversation like a hog into a rose garden.
“Arinhorm, my friend!” Curnsbick slapped him heartily on the shoulder. He was a genius where machines were concerned, but prone to give people far too much credit. “Might I introduce Savine dan Glokta?”
“Ah, yes.” Arinhorm offered her a particularly mirthless smile. One of those insufferable men who thought everyone existed to service his needs. “I understand you have invested in several iron mines in Angland. Indeed, I understand you are perhaps the largest single owner in the entire province.”
Savine did not like her affairs being discussed before an audience. Winning made people friendly. Winning too much made them nervous. “I believe I have some interests there.”
“You should have heard my address. The main challenge to the efficiency of mines is how quickly water can be pumped from their depths. There are limits to what can be achieved by hand or horse, but with my adaptation of Master Curnsbick’s engine, one can pump at ten times the speed and therefore dig further and deeper—”
There was sense in what he said, but Savine detested the way he said it. “My thanks, but it is not iron that interests me at the moment, but soap.”
“Pardon me?”
“Soap, glass, crockery. Things which were once luxuries for the noble have become essentials for the wealthy and will soon be a staple for everyone. Clean bodies, and glazed windows, and… crockery. Find a way to pump dinnerware out of the ground and I would be delighted to discuss it.”
“You must be joking.”
“I save my jokes for those with a sense of humour. You understand I have to be careful in my choice of partners.”
“You are making a mistake.”
“It would hardly be my first. I struggle on regardless.”
“One should never allow feelings to get in the way of profit,” he snapped, slightly blotchy with anger about the collar. Zuri had slipped from the crowd now and was doing her best to ease him away but he refused to be moved. “This only strengthens my conviction that there really is no place in business for women.”
“And yet here I am,” said Savine, smiling all the wider. “And here you are, with your begging bowl. No doubt there are many parts of Union life in which there is no place for women. But you cannot stop me buying or selling a thing.”
Curnsbick breathed on his eye-lenses and gave them a wipe. “Take care, my friend.” And he placed them on his nose and looked up from under his brows. “Before Lady Savine chooses to buy and sell you.”
“No need to worry.” Savine flicked out her fan with a snap. “I only buy things with some profit in them.”
“Master Arinhorm looks rather angry,” murmured Curnsbick as they moved away through the crowd. “You might find, in the long run, that a little generosity can repay itself five-fold. Goodwill can be the best of investments—”
She dismissed his nonsense with a fond pat of his hand. “Generosity and goodwill sit well on you but they simply do not go with my complexion at all. A certain number of bitter enemies are an essential accessory for a lady of fashion.”
“And it may be that he has procured an investor after all.”
“Damn it.” He was already deep in conversation with Selest dan Heugen. “Is she picking through my offcuts?”
“Do you know, I think she might be.”
“Like a bitch at the butcher’s bins.”
“She seems quite popular with the gentlemen of the Society.” Indeed, one could almost see the grey heads turning as she slipped through the room on Arinhorm’s arm.
“Anything with a quim is popular with them,” muttered Savine.
“Ouch. She reminds me of a younger you.”
“Younger me was poison.”
“Younger you was nectar. Almost as much so as older you. But I’ve heard it said that imitation is the most honest tribute. We have a whole theatre full of old fools trying to do a Curnsbick, after all. Do I complain?”
“Whenever you’re not boasting.”
“I’ve been boasting continuously for so long it hadn’t come up.” And Curnsbick gave her the mildest of grins. “The Circle of the World is wide, Savine. You can allow someone else to occupy one little plot of it.”
“I suppose so,” she grudgingly admitted, putting the distasteful union of Arinhorm and Heugen from her mind. “As long as they’re paying me rent.”
But Curnsbick was no longer listening. The eager chatter was falling silent, the crowd parting like soil before the plough. A man strode through the throng, his facial hair meticulously barbered and lavishly waxed, his crimson uniform festooned with gold br
aid.
“Bloody hell,” whispered Curnsbick, gripping her wrist, “it’s the bloody king!”
Whatever the criticisms of His Majesty—and there were many, regularly circulated in ever more scurrilous pamphlets—no one could have denied that King Jezal always looked the part. He chuckled, slapped arms, shook hands, traded jokes, a beacon of slightly absent good humour. A dozen fully armoured Knights of the Body clattered after him, and at least two score clerks, officers, servants, attendants and hangers-on after them, chestfuls of unearned medals glittering beneath the thousand dancing candle flames above.
“Master Curnsbick.” His Majesty ushered the great inventor up from his knee. “So sorry I’m late. This and that at the palace, you know. Management of the realm. So much to take care of.”
“Your Majesty,” frothed Curnsbick, “the Solar Society is illuminated by your presence. I regret that we had to begin the addresses without you—”
“No, no! Progress waits for no one, eh, Curnsbick? Not even kings.”
“Especially not kings, Your Majesty,” said Savine, sinking into an even deeper curtsy. One of the royal party issued a choked splutter at her insolence, but no risk, no profit.
Curnsbick held out his hand to present her. “And this is—”
“Savine dan Glokta, of course,” said the king. “It makes one very proud, to see one’s subjects showing such… enterprise and determination.” He gave a strange little shake of his fist. So strong a gesture, so weakly delivered. “I’ve always admired people who…make things.”
Savine sank lower still. She had long ago become used to men staring at her. Had learned to tolerate it, to deflect it gracefully, to turn it to her advantage. But the look the king was giving her was not the usual kind. There was something awfully sad behind his blandly handsome grin.
“Your Majesty is far too kind,” she said.
“Not kind enough.” She wondered if he had somehow found out about her and his son. Had Orso let something slip? “With such young women to lead the way, the Union’s future looks bright indeed.”
A Little Hatred Page 10