“I used to spend a great deal of time on this very bench.” Glokta squinted into the autumn brightness. “Just watching the water. My physicians say I should get into the sun more.”
“It’s a very… restful spot,” said Vick. Small talk had never really been her strength.
“As if either one of us will find rest this side of the grave.” Glokta gave her his hollow smile. “You did an excellent job in Valbeck. You showed quick thinking, courage and loyalty. Superior Pike was most impressed, and he is a hard man to impress.”
It wasn’t lost on Vick that he was giving her the same compliments she’d just given Tallow. Some people you reel in by making them think they need you. More often, it’s making them think you need them. People want to feel good about themselves. Want to feel needed. Vick wondered if she’d been reeled in already. Long ago.
She left it at a simple, “Thank you, Your Eminence.”
“I am coming to rely on you more and more. You really are the only person I feel I can entirely trust.”
Vick wondered how many other people the Arch Lector had fed that same lie to. The idea that he might entirely trust anyone was sugaring the pudding too much, but she let it go. She let them both believe they both believed it.
“You’ve earned a reward,” he went on. “Is there anything you need?”
Vick didn’t like rewards. Not even ones she’d earned. They felt too much like debts she might have to repay. She thought about saying, Only to serve, or some patriotic guff, but that would’ve been her sugaring the pudding too much. She settled for, “No.”
“Let me get you some better lodgings, at least.”
“What’s wrong with the ones I have?”
“I know exactly what’s wrong with them. I used to live in them. When I served my predecessor, Arch Lector Sult.”
“They serve my purposes.”
“They served mine, but I didn’t mind getting better ones. There are people who take far more for far less.”
“That’s up to them.”
He smiled as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. Had expected it, even. “Perhaps you somehow feel, if you do not take the rewards for your work, it is as if you have not done the work? Because we both know you did the work.”
“I’ll take new lodgings when the job’s done, Your Eminence.” She watched a gardener rake leaves into a barrow. A thankless task, every breeze bringing more onto the narrow patch he’d already cleared. “Things could’ve gone much better in Valbeck. Risinau escaped. Judge as well. He may be dangerous. She most definitely is. Many more left the city before the crown prince arrived, and I don’t think the outcome will have made them any less eager for their Great Change.”
“Nor do I. The Breakers have been…broken… only for the time being.”
“Risinau was a fat dreamer. I don’t believe he planned the uprising on his own.”
“I am inclined to agree.” The Arch Lector swept the park with his narrowed eyes, lowered his voice a cautious fraction. “But I am beginning to suspect the roots of our problem may lie at the opposite end of the social scale.” And he shifted his glance significantly sideways. The gilded dome of the new Lords’ Round peeped glinting over the trees.
“The nobles?”
“They were taxed heavily to pay for the king’s wars in Styria.” Glokta scarcely moved his thin lips as he spoke. “They demanded reforms to compensate, acquired a great deal of common land. Many lined their pockets handsomely. Nonetheless, most of the Open Council recently signed a letter of complaint to the king.”
“Complaining of what?”
“The usual things. Not enough power. Not enough money.”
“Demanding what?”
“The usual things. More money. More power.”
“You’re suspicious of the men who signed this letter?”
“Absolutely.” Glokta reached up with his handkerchief to dab at his weepy eye. “But far less than I am of the ones who did not.”
“Names, Your Eminence?”
“The Brocks I can excuse, they have been rather busy in the North. But the young Lords Heugen, Barezin and above all Isher smile entirely too much. They lost out when the king was elected, or at any rate their fathers did. They have the largest grievances, but make no complaints.”
“You think one of them could have been behind the uprising?”
“It is the nature of men, especially ambitious men, to be unhappy. Happy ones make me nervous. And Isher, in particular, is cunning. He was involved in the drafting of these new land rules and they have made him exceptionally rich.”
“Worries at both ends of the social scale,” murmured Vick. “Troubled times.”
Glokta watched that gardener struggle to clear the unclearable lawn. “They always are.”
Civilisation
The deck creaked under her feet, the sailcloth snapped with the wind, seabirds wheeled and squawked in the salt air above.
“By the dead,” muttered Rikke.
The city was a vast cream-coloured crescent, stretching around the wind-whipped, grey-green bay. A mass of walls, and bridges, and endless buildings crusted together like barnacles at low tide, rivers and canals glinting dully among them. Towers stuck up above, and great chimneys tall as towers, their brown smoke smeared across the skies.
She’d heard it was big. Everyone had heard that. If anyone went to Adua, they’d come back scratching their heads and saying, “It’s big,” but she’d never expected it to be this big. You might’ve fitted a hundred Uffriths into it and still had room for a hundred Carleons. Her eye couldn’t make sense of the scale. The number of buildings, the number of ships, the number of people, like ants in an anthill. A thousand anthills. The thought of it was making her head spin. Or spin more, maybe. She looked down at the deck, rubbing her temples. She’d been feeling insignificant enough already.
“By the dead,” she muttered again, puffing out her cheeks.
“Adua,” said the man standing next to her. “The centre of the world.” He was a thickset old fellow with heavy brows, a short grey beard and a bald head looked like it had been beaten out of iron on an anvil, all planes and knobbles. “The poets call her the City of White Towers, though they tend towards the grey-brown these days. Beautiful, isn’t she, from a distance?” He leaned nearer. “Believe me, though, she stinks when you get close.”
“Most things do,” muttered Rikke, frowning at Leo. The Young Lion, grinning into the wind with his carefree friends, the bloody young lads together, the bloody young heroes, the bloody young pricks. She sucked some chagga juice out of her gums and sent it spinning into the churned-up water.
She kept thinking of things she could’ve said to him. Pearls of wit and wisdom like he’d never get from those idiots. He’d have died in the Circle if it wasn’t for her Long Eye. And he treated her as if she was an embarrassment.
She was working up to being properly angry when he threw back his head and gave that big, open, honest laugh of his, and all she felt was sad they’d fallen out, and jealous he wasn’t laughing with her, and let down by him and by herself and by the world. The truth was, she bloody missed him. But she was damned if she was saying sorry. It should be him saying sorry to her, on bended knees. But how could you hate a man with an arse like—
He glanced towards her and she made sure she looked away. Him catching her looking would be like he’d scored a point somehow. But looking away from Leo meant looking back to this bald bastard, who was still considering her as if he found her of quite some interest.
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” she asked. Somewhat rude, but her failed romance and her endlessly hot and smarting eye and a week or two of seasickness had worn down her patience.
His smile only grew wider. A hungry smile, like a fox at the henhouse. “My name is Bayaz.”
“Like the First of the Magi?”
“Exactly like. I am he.”
Rikke blinked. Perhaps she should’ve punched him for a liar. But there was some
thing in his glittering green eyes that made her believe it. “Well, there’s a thing.”
“And you are Rikke. The Dogman’s daughter.” She stared at him, and he smiled back. “Knowledge is the root of power. In my business, you have to know who’s who.”
“What is your business?”
He leaned close, almost hissing the word. “Everything.”
“That’s quite some area of responsibility.”
“Sometimes, I admit, I think I should have aimed lower.”
“Shouldn’t you have a staff?”
“I left it at home. However big a chest you bring, it never quite fits in. And magic, you know, it’s all rather…” And he squinted thoughtfully towards the city. “Out of fashion, these days.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said, shifting her chagga pellet across her mouth and chomping it on the other side. “I’ve been blessed with the Long Eye.” At that moment, she glimpsed the faintest phantom of a sinking ship, its mast tipping towards them as it foundered on a stormy sea. She cleared her throat, doing her best to ignore the ghostly sailors toppling into the brine. “Or possibly cursed with it.”
“Fascinating. And what have you seen?”
“Frustrating glimpses, in the main. Ghosts and shadows. An arrow and a sword. A black pit in the sky with the knowing of everything inside. I saw a wolf eat the sun and a lion eat the wolf then a lamb eat the lion then an owl eat the lamb.”
“And what does that portend?”
“I’m entirely fucked if I know.”
“What do you see when you look at me?”
She frowned sideways. “A man who could tell more truth and eat fewer pies.”
“Ah.” And he rested one broad hand on his belly. “Profound revelations indeed.”
Rikke grinned. Had to admit she was starting to like him, even if she had no idea whether to believe a word he said. “What brings the First of the Magi to Adua?”
“I have been detained far too long in the ruined West of the world by the demands of some most unreasonable siblings. They are mired in the past. Blinkered to the future. But I like to stop off in Adua whenever I can. Try to make sure no one is destroying what I have built.” He narrowed his eyes across the bay, crammed with vessels of every shape, size and design. “People’s capacity for self-harm never ceases to amaze me. They love to find their own path, even if it clearly leads off a cliff. And the Union has many enemies.”
Rikke raised her brows at the endless city. “Who’d be fool enough to make war on this?”
“The Gurkish, before their empire collapsed like an undercooked meringue. And Bethod, against my advice. Then Black Dow, against my advice. Then Black Calder. Against my advice.”
“Seems your advice ain’t as popular as you’d like,” said Rikke, glancing sideways.
Bayaz gave a disappointed sigh, like the governess in Ostenhorm when she tried to explain to Rikke what deportment was. “People must sometimes be allowed to make their own mistakes.”
She shielded her eyes against the spray as they cut through the mad confusion of shipping towards the swarming docks. She could hear the faint din of voices bellowing and wagons rumbling and cargo hitting the wharves.
“How many live here?” she whispered.
“Thousands.” The First of the Magi shrugged. “Millions maybe, now, building upwards and bloating outwards every day. Eclipsing even the great cities of old for scale, if not for splendour. People from every land within the Circle of the World. Dark-skinned Kantics fleeing the chaos in Gurkhul, pale Northmen seeking work and people of the Old Empire seeking new beginnings. Adventurers from the new kingdom of Styria, traders from the Thousand Isles, people of Suljuk, and Thond, where they worship the sun. More than can be counted—living, dying, working, breeding, climbing one upon the other. Welcome,” and Bayaz spread his arms wide to encompass the monstrous, the beautiful, the endless city, “to civilisation!”
Jurand stared towards Adua, eyes narrowed against the spray. “By the Fates, the city’s grown.”
“Hugely,” said Leo. Yet it somehow looked smaller than the last time he visited. Then he’d been just the rural-mannered young son of a lord governor. Now he was a lord governor himself, who’d beaten a great warrior in single combat, saved the Protectorate and won a famous victory for the king single-handed.
No doubt Adua had grown. But Leo dan Brock had grown more.
He found himself glancing sideways. Where he was always glancing, against his better judgement. Towards Rikke. If she’d been beside him, he could’ve pointed out all the great sights of the city. Casamir’s Wall, and Arnault’s. The House of the Maker, the dome of the Lords’ Round. The Three Farms with the plumes of smoke from its new manufactories. They could’ve been enjoying this together, if she hadn’t been such a sulky, stubborn bitch. He’d nearly died in the Circle for her. And she treated him like a traitor.
He was cranking himself up to bitter outrage when he caught sight of her, waving her arms in that mad way she had while she talked to some bald old man, and all he felt was sad, and guilty, as if he’d wandered off the right path and couldn’t find his way back. The truth was, he bloody missed her. Wasn’t long ago he’d said he loved her, and he’d at least half meant it. But he was damned if he was apologising. It should be her begging forgiveness—
She glanced over and he only just looked away in time. If she saw him looking, she’d treat it like a petty victory. Everything was so petty with her. Why couldn’t she just forgive him so they could go back to how things were?
“Looks like they’ve sent a welcoming committee,” said Glaward, pointing towards the thronging wharves.
Leo perked up at that. A decent crowd had gathered on the quay under a great banner marked with the golden sun of the Union and another with the crossed hammers of Angland. Armoured men sat on horseback in a perfect row, wearing the purple cloaks of Knights of the Body. An honour guard from the king! At the front was a man with monstrous shoulders and an even more monstrous neck, his hair clipped to grey stubble.
Jurand was leaning dangerously far over the rail to see. “Is that… Bremer dan Gorst?”
Leo squinted towards him as the ship slid in closer to the harbour, captain squawking out commands and the sailors swarming to obey. “Do you know,” he said, perking up further, “I think it is!”
When the gangplank scraped to dry land, Leo made sure he was first across, still walking with a stick, if only to remind everyone he’d been heroically wounded in a noble cause. A man with a balding pink head and a heavy chain of office started towards him. One weak chin had clearly not been weak enough, and he had opted for several spread across his fur-trimmed collar.
“Your Grace, I am Lord Chamberlain Hoff, son of Lord Chamberlain Hoff.” He paused, as though expecting gales of laughter. None came. No doubt bureaucrats were a regrettable necessity, like latrines, but Leo didn’t have to like them. Especially when bureaucracy became a family business. “And this is—”
“Bremer dan Gorst!” He would encounter important people now, of course, but there’s something special about meeting a boyhood hero. Leo had listened for hours to his father’s stories about the man’s exploits at the Battle of Osrung, hanging on every word. How he turned the tide on the bridge single-handed and led the final assault on the Heroes, hacking through Northmen like a butcher through sheep. “I once saw you fight three men in an exhibition!” Leo brushed the lord chamberlain aside to seize the big man’s hand and got a nasty surprise. You can tell a lot about a man from his grip, Leo’s father always said, and Gorst’s was shockingly limp and clammy.
“Not something I would advise on the battlefield.” Gorst’s voice was even more shocking than his handshake. Leo wouldn’t have believed so mighty a neck could produce so womanly a tone.
“I think I once heard we’re related?” he said as they began to mount up. “Fifth cousins or some such.” Leo tossed his stick to Jurand. He was damned if he’d look like a cripple in front of a man he so much admire
d. He insisted on dragging himself into the saddle in spite of the pain in his leg, stomach, side, shoulder.
“How is… your mother?” came Gorst’s odd squeak.
“She’s well,” said Leo, surprised. “Happy the war’s over. She was leading the fight when the Northmen first attacked.” He thought about the light that put him in. “Giving me some excellent advice, at least.”
“She was always highly perceptive.”
“I knew you saved my father’s life at Osrung. He used to love to tell that story. But I’d no idea you knew my mother.”
Gorst looked a little pained. “We were good friends… at one time.”
“Huh.” Leo had spent more than enough of his life worrying about his mother’s feelings. He abruptly changed the subject. “I would’ve loved to train with you while I’m here, but… I fear I’m in no fit state. Maybe I could observe?”
“Alas, there will be so many demands on Your Grace’s time,” said the lord chamberlain, oozing uninvited into their conversation. “His Majesty is keen to greet you.”
“Well… I’m at His Majesty’s disposal, of course.” Leo gave his horse a nudge and set off at a walk after the two standard-bearers.
“As are we all, Your Grace. But first His Eminence the Arch Lector wishes to discuss your triumph.”
“Since when do Inquisitors arrange parades?”
The lord chamberlain delicately cleared his throat. “Your Grace will discover there is little that happens in Adua without Arch Lector Glokta’s approval.”
One of the banners at the front of the Young Lion’s grand column had got tangled with a washing line, so they all had to sit in their splendid saddles waiting for it to get untangled. Leo himself could hardly be seen for the fawning gaggle of overpriced arse-lickers. Even Jurand and Glaward had been demoted to trailing after, eased further back with every turn. Seemed the fake adoration of strangers mattered more to Leo than his friends, or his family, or his lover. If that’s what she still was to him. If that’s what she’d ever been.
A Little Hatred Page 48