A Little Hatred

by Joe Abercrombie

  “Master Tardiche writes to say the foundry cannot be competitive without another five thousand marks for new machinery,” she said, meeting Savine’s eye in the mirror.

  Savine frowned. “I did not care for the way he spoke to me last time he visited. Great tall fellow, declaiming from on high.” She lifted her chin so Lisbit could lean in, different shades of powder smeared on the back of her hand like an easel, and set to work on her eyelids with the tip of a little finger. “Let him know I am selling my share. If he comes grovelling, I might reconsider.” She gasped as Freid gave another tug at her corset and near dragged her off her feet. “Some men just look better on their knees. Tighter, Freid.”

  “Everyone looks better on their knees. It was my favourite thing about attending temple.” Zuri set the book down to step in, winding the laces tight around her hands and pushing one knee into Savine’s back. “Breathe out.”

  Savine’s lungs were emptied in a faint groan as Zuri pulled. She might have been slender as a willow switch but, by the Fates, she was strong as a docker. The feeling of constriction was, for a moment, quite terrifying. But great results require great pains.

  People liked to think of beauty as some natural gift, but Savine firmly believed that just about anyone could be beautiful, if they worked hard at it and spent enough money. It was merely a question of emphasising the good, disguising the bad and painfully squeezing the average into the most impressive configuration. Very much like business, really.

  “That’s it, Zuri,” croaked Savine, shifting her shoulders back and letting everything settle. “Unless you feel like it’s cutting you in half, it isn’t doing the job. Knots, Freid, before they loosen.”

  “Master Hisselring called.” Zuri took up the book again. “He asks for another extension on his loan.”

  Savine would have raised her brows had Lisbit not been in the midst of shaping them. “Poor old Hisselring. It would be a shame to see him lose his house.”

  “The scriptures hold much praise for charity. But they also say only the thrifty will enter heaven.”

  “A cynic might observe that the scriptures can be used to support both sides of every argument.”

  Zuri had the tiniest smile at the corner of her mouth. “A cynic might say that is the point of them.”

  When Savine felt herself softening, even for a moment, she found it effective to taunt herself with the things other people had that she did not. At that moment, the fine, rosy blush to Lisbit’s cheek was in her eyeline. It made the girl look like a peasant, but it was fashionable. One can always find some small, irrelevant thing to be jealous of. The moment you lose your murderous edge, after all, could be the moment you lose altogether.

  Some might have said that made her self-serving, shallow and poisonous. She would have replied that the self-serving, shallow, poisonous people always seemed to come out on top. Then she would have laughed ever so sweetly, and whispered to Zuri to place a note in the book for their future destruction.

  Savine considered her face in the mirror. “A touch more blush. And I think I have given Hisselring quite long enough. Call in the debt.”

  “My lady. Then there is Colonel Vallimir, and the mill in Valbeck.”

  Savine gave the loudest groan of frustration she could while pushing her lips out for Lisbit’s brush. “Still making a loss?”

  “Quite the reverse. He reports a large profit this month.”

  Savine could not help glancing sharply around, causing Lisbit to cluck with annoyance as she smudged, then lean in so close to correct it with a fingertip that Savine could smell her oversweet breath.

  “Blessed are the thrifty… does Vallimir explain his sudden success?”

  “He does not,” said Zuri, slipping a necklace around Savine’s neck so gently she barely felt it. The new emeralds from her man in Ospria. Just the one Savine would have picked.

  “Suspicious.”

  “It is.”

  “We should pay him a visit. Make sure our partners realise that our eyes are always on the details. And we have plenty of other interests in Valbeck. There never was a city so ill-conceived, ill-built and ill-tempered, but there really is a great deal of money to be made there. Zuri, clear a few days somewhere in the next month so you and I can—”

  “I am afraid… I will not be able to accompany you.” Zuri said it as she did everything. Gently. Gracefully. But very firmly.

  Savine stared at her in the mirror, momentarily lost for words. Lisbit swallowed. Metello glanced up from the wig on its stand, comb frozen in her hand.

  “Things in the South are… worse than ever,” said Zuri, eyes to the floor. “Some say the Prophet was killed by a demon. Some say he overcame her and is recovering from the battle. The emperor has been cast down, and his five sons struggle with each other. The provinces declare their independence and look to their own survival. Warlords and bandits spring up everywhere. It is chaos.” Zuri looked up at her. “Ul-Safayn, my family’s home, has become lawless. My brothers are in danger. I have to help them get out.”

  Savine blinked. “But Zuri… you’re my rock.”

  And she was. She was beautiful, tasteful, discreet, spoke five languages, had a refined sense of humour and an effortless mastery of the workings of business, and yet somehow never stole the attention for herself. She would no doubt have held as high a place in Gurkish society as Savine did in the Union’s, had Gurkish society not crumbled into madness, causing refugees to flood across the Circle Sea and dark-skinned ladies’ companions to become so terribly fashionable in Adua.

  Since Savine’s father first introduced her, a friendless exile in desperate need of a position, Zuri had made herself indispensable in a dozen ways. But it was more than that. Savine’s acquaintance was immense. A great web of favours, partnerships and obligations that stretched across the Union and beyond. But the truth was she had no friends at all. Apart from the one she paid.

  “You’ll be back soon?” she found she had asked.

  “As soon as I can.”

  “Should I send some men with you—”

  “I will be safer alone.”

  Savine caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and realised, even with the elaborate powdering, she looked quite crushed. That would not do at all.

  “But of course you must go,” she said, a little too brightly. “Family comes first. I’ll pay for your passage.”

  “Lady Savine, I—”

  “You could check on our agents in Dagoska on the way. Make sure they are not fleecing us. And perhaps, under the circumstances, there might be some bargains to be had on the shores of the Gurkish Sea.”

  “I would not be surprised,” said Zuri, frowning over at Freid.

  She was clutching Savine’s dress like a shield, wide eyes showing over its embroidered collar. “Aren’t you worried about…Eaters?”

  Zuri sighed. “God knows I have enough real worries without inventing more.”

  “My aunt says the South is teeming with them,” said Lisbit, always keen to jump into any gossip with both feet.

  “My father saw one,” said Freid, breathless. “Years ago, at the Battle of Adua. They can steal your face, or turn you inside out just by looking at you, or—”

  “Tall tales spread by people who should know better,” said Savine, sternly. “Lisbit, you will be my companion while Zuri is away. You’d enjoy a trip to Valbeck, wouldn’t you?”

  Lisbit’s rosy cheeks went even rosier. “I’d be honoured, my lady!”

  As though her honour was Savine’s concern. Without making a sound, Zuri screamed that she was a peerless lady’s companion, and therefore that the lady she accompanied must also be peerless. Lisbit sent no such message. She was pretty enough, but she would be worse than worthless with the book and she had no taste at all. Still. We must work with the tools we have, as Savine’s father was forever saying. She smothered her disappointment with a smile.

  “And, of course, if any of your family need work, or a place to stay, they will
always be welcome with me.”

  “You are too generous,” said Zuri. “As always.”

  “I daresay Master Hisselring would not agree. If your brothers are half as useful as you, it will be the best investment I ever make.”

  There was a knock at the door and Lisbit opened it a crack, a moment later leaned close while Freid and Zuri were easing Savine’s dress on. “That girl’s here, my lady.” Her lip wrinkled with distaste. “With a message from Spillion Sworbreck.”

  Savine felt that familiar flutter in her stomach, that familiar heat in her face. “When am I due at the Rucksteds’?”

  Zuri consulted the watch. “Two hours and ten minutes.”

  Savine thought about that, but not for long. “Please send Tilde my deepest regrets, but I cannot attend. I have a headache. Show Sworbreck’s girl in.”

  She was, of course, not Sworbreck’s girl at all, but Prince Orso’s. Most princes would have employed some lord’s son as a valet, but he, with characteristic disregard for the rules, had a thirteen-year-old waif whose last job had been laundering soiled sheets in a brothel. Orso did love to surround himself with curiosities. Probably to distract as much attention from his being the heir to the throne as possible.

  The girl stood there now, freckle-faced and threadbare with a battered soldier’s cap pulled all the way down to her eyes, as incongruous in Savine’s perfumed dressing room as a rat on a wedding cake. She watched Metello clamber up onto the stool to seat Savine’s wig with horrified amazement, as though she had happened upon a coven of witches about some arcane ritual.

  “Hildi, isn’t it?” said Savine, watching her in the mirror.

  She nodded. Quick eyes, she had. “My lady.”

  “Master Sworbreck has asked for me?”

  The girl gave an impressively guarded wink. “At his office, my lady.”

  “Take your cap off in front of Lady Savine,” said Lisbit, already putting on airs now she felt she had a promotion. Savine wondered if she would have throttled her by the time Zuri returned, and gave it about evens.

  Hildi sourly pulled her cap off. She had a surprising mass of pinned-up, pale-blonde hair underneath. Metello gave a hum of interest, hopped from her stool to poke at it with a comb, rubbed a lock between finger and thumb, finally made Hildi squawk as she jerked a strand from her head and held it up to the light. She gave Savine a significant look from under her grey brows.

  “Such beautiful hair you have,” said Savine.

  “Thanks,” grumbled Hildi, still rubbing her head. “I guess.”

  “I’ll give you three marks for it.”

  “For my hair?” Her surprise did not last long. “Ten.”

  “Five. You won’t miss it under that cap.”

  “The cap won’t fit without it. Ten or nothing.”

  “Oh, I like this girl. Give her twelve, Zuri.”

  Zuri slipped out that curved knife of hers. “Hold still, child.”

  Savine watched as Zuri neatly cropped her hair to stubble. “Like sunshine in a bottle,” murmured Savine as Metello laid out the lengths. “We can stop into my wig-maker’s on the way. You run on ahead, girl.” The thought of seeing Orso had quite chased away her upset over Zuri’s forthcoming absence, and she caught Hildi’s eye in the mirror and gave her the very same wink. “Tell Master Sworbreck I’ll be delighted to see him.”

  “Shit,” she gasped, knocking over a heap of Sworbreck’s papers as she sagged back, spent, an avalanche of notes spilling onto the floor behind her. She unclenched her aching hand, the edge of the desk imprinted white across her palm.

  “You…” She untangled the fingers of her other hand from Orso’s hair and patted him on the cheek. “Have been practising.”

  “As often as possible.” Orso grinned as he wiped his face and shrugged her leg off his shoulder.

  “I really should tell Sworbreck…” her breathing still ragged as she fished a niggling letter opener from under her shoulder and tossed it away, “to get a bed in here.”

  “Oh, I’d miss this desk.” Orso leaned towards her, but not quite far enough, making her crane up to kiss him. “So many memories.”

  She pushed down her skirts and reached for his belt. “Your turn.”

  “Can we… talk first?”

  “Talk first?” She narrowed her eyes. She was still pleasantly soft, flushed and shuddery all over, but if he thought to slip something by her, he would have a rude awakening. “What are you after?”

  “It’s this business in the North.” He knelt in front of her, looking earnestly up. “We can’t leave Finree dan Brock to fight our battles for us. We’re supposed to be a bloody Union.”

  “Supposed to be—”

  “There has to be a response!” He thumped the desk, hard enough to make the glasses rattle. “And… I feel I should be the man to lead it.”

  She burst out laughing, saw he did not, and petered out into uncertain silence. “You’re serious?”

  “Deadly. I went to see my father. Then I went to see yours—”

  She jerked up. “You did what?”

  “Give me some credit, Savine, I didn’t lead with, ‘Your Eminence, I had my tongue up your daughter last night.’ He doesn’t suspect a thing.”

  “You’d be a brave man to bet on what my father suspects.”

  “And I’m not one, is that it?”

  He looked a little wounded, and she felt a little sad for him. “Oh, you poor baby.” She put her arms around his neck, drew him close and kissed him softly. “After twelve years of drinking, gambling and fucking anything with a hole in it, does no one take you seriously?”

  “Plainly you don’t.” And he stood up and started to button his shirt.

  In fact, she thought she might be the only one who did. “I’m here, aren’t I?” She pulled him back down, and pushed her hand through his hair, and held his head against her chest. “What did the great men tell Your Highness?”

  “My father gave me a battalion and said I can have command if I raise five thousand more men, but… for that I need money.” He let a fingertip trail down her collarbone to the hollow at the bottom of her throat. “You know people. Rich people. People who might consider me… an investment.”

  Savine frowned. If she judged an opportunity to be poor, she would not damage her reputation by passing it on. If she judged an opportunity to be good, she wanted it for herself. But five thousand soldiers meant a vast expense. Uniforms, weapons, armour, bedding, provisions. Then there was the army of men and women needed to get those men to the field and keep them there. The host of carts, wagons and beasts of burden. The food and supplies for them.

  And, however much she wanted to be generous, Orso was beyond unreliable. He kept a brothel’s laundry girl instead of a servant, for pity’s sake. He scarcely understood the rules of business, let alone could be expected to observe them. If she was to lend him money, she would need guarantees. A crystal-clear understanding of what she expected in return. A contract. One so tightly binding, not even a king could wriggle free of it.

  Perhaps encouraged by her thoughtful silence, he gave the slightest, uncertain smile. “What do you think?”

  Her mouth smiled in return. Then, entirely independently of her mind, it said, “I’ll give you the money.”

  There was a silence. As the expression gradually formed on his face, he looked more suspicious than grateful. And who could blame him? What the hell was she doing? “Just… like that? All of it?”

  “Why have money at all if you can’t help… a friend.” Somehow she almost choked on the word.

  “No repayment plan? No favours in kind? No speak-to-this-fellow about that-piece-of-business?”

  “It’s all in a good cause, isn’t it? Patriotic.” Good causes? Patriotism? It was as if some other person was speaking with her voice.

  He reached up and gently stroked her cheek. He could be so delicate when he wanted. “Just when I think my opinion of you can’t get any higher… you surprise me. I have to go! There’
s so much to organise.”

  It wasn’t until he whisked his hand away that she realised she’d been pressing her face against it. She still felt the heat in her cheek. She was blushing like a child and turned away, embarrassed. Furious with herself, in fact.

  “Of course.” She smoothed her dress, fiddled with her necklace, adjusted her wig. “I’ve a dinner to attend myself. With Marshal Rucksted and his wife—”

  “Sounds an absolute riot. Now, you’re sure about this?” He slipped an arm around her waist from behind, held her tight against him. “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “I always say what I mean.” And she did. Except now, for some reason.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he whispered in her ear, making her neck tingle. “Or Sworbreck will, at least.” And the door clattered shut behind him.

  Savine stood there, in silence, in Sworbreck’s cramped office, trying to understand what she had done. She loved to gamble, but she always knew the game. This was reckless. This broke all her rules.

  All those awfully intimate friends who she knew really envied and hated her would have a ready answer, of course. There is no more ambitious snake in Adua than Savine dan Glokta. That bitch hopes to ride the worthless crown prince’s cock all the way into the palace. She wants to steal the throne. Then she really can be above us all instead of merely acting like it.

  Perhaps they would have been right. Perhaps she was harbouring some childish dream of becoming High Queen of the Union. Zuri had a point, after all: everyone looks better on their knees. Had Orso not been crown prince, she would have had no interest in him. What was there to be interested in?

  Apart from his looks, of course. And his easy confidence. And the way he made her laugh. Really laugh, without a shred of pretence. That little twitch at the corner of his mouth as he thought of a joke that set hers twitching in sympathy as she wondered what it would be, never quite able to guess. No one could surprise her like he could. No one understood what she needed like he did. She thought of how dull everything was while she waited for the message from Sworbreck. The dressing, the dinners, the teas, the profits, the dressing, the gossip, the strategising, the marks in the book. Then how everything exploded with colour when the message arrived. As if she was in prison when she was not with him. As if she was buried and only came to life when—