“Might be I’ll try an axe instead. Axes are always popular, where I come from.”
“I had heard.” And they smiled at each other. Savine told herself she found this girl’s artless ways endearing. The truth, as usual, was less sentimental. She did not trust herself to talk to anyone more important.
Whenever someone expressed their disingenuous condolences over her ordeal, or their unconvincing relief at her safe return, she wanted to knock them down and grind her heel into their eye. She’d been sniffing pearl dust all day. Just a pinch at sunup to chase off the nightmares. Then a pinch at breakfast to keep her head above water. Maybe a couple more before lunch. Only rather than keeping her sharp, the way it used to, it was making her twitchy and savage and strangely reckless.
“Here.” She undid the clasp of her necklace. Red Suljuk gold and the most stunning dark emeralds from Thond, beautifully worked by her man in Ospria at a cost that had raised even her eyebrows. She slipped it around the girl’s neck and fastened it. “I’ll swap you.”
The girl stared at it, nestling among that mass of beads, charms and talismans, big eyes bigger than ever. “I can’t take this.”
“I can get another,” said Savine, waving it away. “It looks far better on you. You have the chest for it.”
“It looks like a gold ring around a turd.” The girl glanced down Savine’s front. “And you’ve got twice what I’ve got.”
“I have half what you have and some very expensive corsetry.” Savine reached out with both hands, pushed the girl’s unkempt mess of red-brown hair out of her face and studied it. Presumptuous, undoubtedly, but she was in that kind of mood. “Honestly, you have some remarkable natural advantages.”
“I’ve a what?” she said, looking slightly scared.
Savine put a finger under her chin to tip her face into the light. “Fine strong bones. Excellent teeth. And your eyes, of course.” Huge and pale and so very expressive. “I’ve never seen anything quite like them.”
She flinched a little, as if that somehow touched a sore spot. “Not sure whether they’re a blessing or a curse…”
“Well, I know women who’d kill for them. Literally. An hour with my maids and I could have every person in here drooling over you.” Savine gave the girl’s face a parting pat and let her go, frowning out at the oblivious gathering. “Just goes to show what a ridiculous lie it is. What a ridiculous fucking lie everything is.” She realised she had spat that last phrase with sudden bitter fury. “Forgive me. I’m being terribly rude.”
“You’re being amazing, far as I’m concerned.” The girl looked down at the necklace, blushing now, which only made her look better. “My father saw me wearing these, he’d shit himself.”
“I don’t know what my father would think, but he shits himself routinely.”
The girl grinned up. “You’re all right, you know that?”
And Savine felt, of all things, a sudden need to cry. She looked out at the Hall of Mirrors, blinking back the tears. There was some bald old man she could not quite place, staring right at her like a butcher at a livestock sale. She flicked her fan open as though she could hide behind it. “No,” she muttered. “I’m not.”
She had to stop herself flinching at the sight of Orso, draped against a pillar, looking drunk and despondent. It was as though there was a hook in her throat, and every glimpse of him was a painful tug on it. She was ashamed to admit it, but she wanted him no less. She certainly wanted to be queen no less. Her one desire was to go over to him and put her hand in his and say yes, and kiss him, and hold him, and watch the smile spread across his face…
And marry her brother.
The thought disgusted her. But hardly any more than everything disgusted her now. She took a shuddering breath. He was lost to her for ever, and the person she had been with him was lost for ever, and she could not even tell him why. How he must despise her. Almost as much as she despised herself.
“Lady Savine?”
She found, to her horror, that the king was standing right beside her with that haunted, fascinated expression he always had in her presence.
“Your Majesty.” Savine dropped into a curtsy on an instinct, her face suddenly burning. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Northern girl clumsily trying to imitate her but, in trousers, abjectly failing.
“I so enjoyed my visit to the Solar Society,” the king was blathering. She could hardly hear the words over the thudding of blood in her head. “So impressed by what you and Master Curnsbick have achieved. The industry, the innovation, the progress. So proud to have… subjects… like you. Young ladies pointing the way to the future, and so forth—”
“Please excuse me,” she managed to whisper, turning so fast she almost stumbled. She took a wobbling step or two, weak at the knees.
“I’m Rikke,” she heard the Northern girl yammering behind her. “Rhymes with pricker.”
“The Dogman’s daughter, of course! He was a good friend of my good friend Logen Ninefingers, you know.”
“Ah, you have to be realistic.”
“Exactly!”
“Talking o’ which, my father was saying we were promised six seats on the Open Council…”
Savine tugged at her corset in a futile attempt to let in some air. She felt buried. She was sure she was about to fountain vomit all over the pinnacle of society. It was only a sudden, sobering stab of cold rage that stopped her, froze the guilt and fear and left her icy.
Selest dan Heugen, that sly bitch. She was only twenty paces off, using every weapon in her arsenal on Leo dan Brock, fanning herself as if she was on fire.
Did she think she could worm her way into Savine’s place? Steal her canal, her connections, her profits? It was precisely what Savine would have done in her tasteless shoes, of course, but that was only the more reason to make her pay for it.
Selest saw her coming, carried across the hall on a wave of poisonous fury, and darted to head her off. “Lady Savine! We are all so very glad you have returned to us unhurt.”
“Lady Selest, you’re such a treasure.”
“It must have been a terrible ordeal, what you went through.”
The temptation to bite her was almost overwhelming. But Savine only shrugged. “I was far from the only one who suffered.”
Selest was pretty, clever and rich, but she led with her chest and smiled far too much. Smile all the time and you’ll make them sick, like a cook serving nothing but meringue. Make your smile a rare treat, you’ll leave them desperate to taste another. Savine let Brock see the corner of hers, just for a moment, almost hidden behind her fan.
“I’m Leo,” he said, with that bluff, blunt Angland accent.
“Of course you are,” said Savine.
Selest’s voice dripped with tattletale venom. “Lady Savine was in Valbeck.”
As if Valbeck was some awful secret. She thought to make Savine seem ruined. But all she would do was make her seem fascinating. Savine would see to it.
“It’s true,” she said, turning away, biting her lip as though at horrible memories.
Brock blinked. “During the uprising?”
“I was visiting a manufactory in which I am… in which I was a part owner… when it happened.” She let it hang there for a long time, finally meeting Leo’s eye. As if she would not tell just anyone, but could not hide the truth from him. “The workers turned on us. Several hundred of them. I am ashamed to say I locked myself in an office. I heard them overpower the guards, heard them set upon my business partner.”
Brock stared, mouth slightly open. “By the dead…”
Savine caught a delicious glimpse of doubt on Selest’s face. As she realised that her banal drivel could not possibly compete with this. “I found a loose board, broke my nails pulling it up. I had to crawl through the machinery to get away, while they smashed down the door above.”
Brock was spellbound. “That must’ve taken some courage.”
“Or lucky cowardice, in my case. I saw one of th
e guards dragged into the machinery. His arm was ripped off in the gears.”
Selest preened and fluttered in an effort to recapture Brock’s attention, but it was futile. Sometimes pretty lies win the day. But sometimes ugly truths cut deeper. She spoke on, relentless, imagining each word was a slap in Selest’s face.
“I crawled through the guts of the building to the river and squeezed between a wall and a waterwheel. I found a filthy old coat washed up on the riverbank, disguised myself as a beggar and ran. The city was… going mad. Gangs on the rampage. Prisoners marched in columns. Owners hanged from jibs. I wish I could say I helped but I was thinking only of myself. Honestly, I was hardly thinking at all.”
“No one could blame you,” said Brock.
“I was chased through the slums. Through tenements where the husk-smokers lay twelve to a room. Through the filth of the pig pens. Two men cornered me in a blind alley…” She remembered that moment. Remembered their faces. Now she would turn her terror to her advantage. Even Selest looked gripped now, her fan hanging limp.
“What… happened?” muttered Brock, as if fearing the answer.
“I had a sword with me. A decorative thing but… sharp.” Savine let the silence stretch an almost uncomfortably long time. A blabbermouth like Selest would never understand that drama is not so much a question of words, but of the silences between. “I killed them. Both of them, I think. I hardly even chose to do it, but suddenly… it was done.” She took a breath, and it caught in her throat, and she let it go, jagged. “They gave me no choice, but… I still think about it. I think about it over and over.”
“You did what you had to,” whispered Brock.
“That makes it no easier to live with.”
Selest’s voice sounded slightly cracked. “Well, you’re back with us now, and I for one—”
Brock spoke over her as if she wasn’t there. “How did you get away?”
“I stumbled upon some decent people and… they took me in. They kept me alive, until Prince Orso delivered the city.” Selest dan Heugen knew when she was beaten. She snapped her fan open and drifted off. The chill satisfaction of victory was the closest Savine had come to pleasure in some time. She might never be Queen of the Union, but she still reigned supreme over the ballroom. “And here I am.”
“That’s… quite a story,” said Brock.
“Not compared to facing fearsome warriors in a Circle of shields, I daresay.”
“Your ordeal went on for weeks. Mine was done in moments.” He leaned close, as if sharing his own secret. “Between the two of us, Stour Nightfall’s the better swordsman.” He brushed the long scab under his eye with a fingertip and Savine realised, with a guilty thrill, that it must be a sword-cut. “He could’ve killed me a dozen times. All I did was survive long enough for his own arrogance to beat him.”
She held up her glass. “To the survivors, then.”
“I can drink to that.” He had a fine smile. Open, honest, full of excellent teeth. Even though the fight was won, Savine found she was still talking to him. More surprising still, she found she was enjoying it. “Your name is Savine?”
“Yes… Savine dan Glokta.” Say what you would for the name, you could always be sure of a reaction. Brock gave an ungainly cough. He really had no disguise at all. “You met my father, then?”
“All I can say is you got your mother’s looks, and she must be quite the beauty.”
She gave him a discerning nod. “Not a bad effort, under the circumstances.”
All she had wanted was to crush Selest dan Heugen, now fanning herself wildly beside an oblivious Lord Isher. But with the fight won, the pearl dust and the drink closed back in on Savine and she found the prize was an extremely handsome man. There truly was something of the lion in his sandy hair worn long, his sandy beard cropped short, his confident, comfortable, obvious strength. With that healing cut across his face, he looked like the hero from an overblown storybook. So manly, and so popular, and so powerful. Indeed, the young Lord Governor of Angland was surely the most eligible bachelor in the Union at that moment. If you discounted Crown Prince Orso. Which Savine feared she had to.
“It must be difficult to be a celebrated hero,” she said. Everyone wants to be sympathised with, after all, however little they deserve it.
“I’ll admit it takes some getting used to.”
“It must be hard to tell the genuine admiration from the empty breath. Surrounded by people, but all alone.” She gave a theatrical sigh. “Everyone trying to make use of you.”
“Whereas you’ve got my best interests at heart?”
“I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by pretending anything of the kind. But we might be able to make use of each other.” And she gave Leo another smile. Why not? His blunt, easy manners were the opposite of Orso’s. He brought her no puzzles to solve. His words barely had single meanings, let alone double ones. And sometimes a beautiful fool is the very thing one needs.
Savine was tired of being clever. She wanted to be rash. She wanted to hurt someone. Hurt herself. “There is one place in the city you really ought to visit while you’re here.”
“Really?”
“The office of a friend of mine. A writer. Spillion Sworbreck.”
Brock looked crestfallen. “I’m… not really much of a reader—”
“Nor am I, honestly. Sworbreck’s away on a research trip in the Near Country.” She touched Leo on the chest ever so gently with her fan, looking up at him from under her lashes. She needed… a little something. “I’ll be there, though.”
Brock cleared his throat. “Tomorrow?”
“Now,” said Savine. “Tomorrow I might have changed my mind.” She was probably making a fool of herself. She was probably causing a scandal.
But, safe to say, a smaller one than marrying one’s brother.
Orso stood, and drank.
Well, to be precise, he stood, and drank, and watched Savine. Surreptitiously, to begin with. But less surreptitiously with every drink. Just watching her was torture. Watching her with that square-jawed oaf Leo dan Brock was triply so. A torture that for some reason he could not stop inflicting on himself.
People were dancing between the two of them, he rather thought, a whole floor full of sparkling, whirling figures, but they were just a drunken blur. All he saw was Savine and the Young Lion, laughing. He had thought only he was funny enough to make her laugh that way. It turned out she could do it for entirely unfunny people, too.
That she had turned him down was hardly a surprise. But that she would, by all appearances, start trying to snare another man—and that one widely thought of as his rival—within a few days of turning him down? That hurt. He finished his glass and snatched another from a passing tray. Who was he fooling? It all hurt. He was one tremendous wound. One that would never heal.
“And this is my son! The heir to the throne, Crown Prince Orso.”
Orso turned to find his father in the company of a solidly built old man, bald as an egg and with a short grey beard.
“This is Bayaz,” said the king, with great ceremony. “First of the Magi!”
He bore only a passing resemblance to his magnificent statue on the Kingsway. Rather than a staff, he held a polished cane shod in brass and crystal. Rather than an air of mysterious wisdom, he had an expression of hungry self-satisfaction. Rather than arcane robes, he wore the clothes of a modern man of business. One owed a great deal of money by an excellent tailor.
Orso gave a sniff. “You look more like a banker than a wizard.”
“One must trim one’s style to the times,” said Bayaz, holding up his cane and admiring the way the light shone through the crystal knob. “My master used to say that knowledge is the root of power, but I rather suspect power has a golden root these days. We have met before, in fact, Your Highness. Though you, I think, cannot have been more than four years old.”
“He’s barely changed!” said the king, with a suffocatingly false chuckle.
“I’
m afraid I’ve a terrible memory for anything that happened more than an hour ago,” said Orso. “Bit of a blur.”
“I wish I could have been here more,” said Bayaz, “but there are always problems in need of solving. No sooner did I engineer a suspension of hostilities with a troublesome brother in the South than two siblings in the West chose to become… difficult.”
“Family, eh?” grunted Orso, waving his glass at his father, who was looking less comfortable with every word exchanged.
“The seeds of the past bear fruit in the present,” murmured Bayaz. “The wounds of the past, even more so. Then you can’t turn your back on the North for an hour without at least one war breaking out. Never the slightest peace. Still, I hope my erstwhile apprentice Yoru Sulfur was useful in my absence.”
“Hugely,” swooned the king. “Now if I could just—”
“Hugely,” echoed Orso, anger stabbing at him through the fug of drunkenness. “Indeed, he made himself useful in the hanging of two hundred innocent people. People I had promised amnesty!”
“Manners, Orso,” murmured the king, through gritted teeth. He was always weighed down by cares, but Orso had never seen him look truly scared. What did the King of the Union have to fear in his own palace? And yet he looked scared now, his face had lost all colour and there was a sheen of sweat across his forehead.
“Let the boy have his fun,” said Bayaz, mildly. “We all were young once, eh? Even if, in my case, it was a very long time ago. In due course, he will learn how the world really works. Just as you did.” And with a smile, the First of the Magi turned away.
“You shouldn’t indulge that old fool,” grumbled Orso.
“You weren’t there.” The king’s fingers dug painfully into his wrist. “When the Eaters came. You didn’t see… what he is capable of.” His eyes had the strangest, haunted look. “You must promise me never to defy him.”
Orso tried to twist his arm free. “What are you talking about—”
“You must promise me!”
“A word, Your Majesty!” called Bayaz, and with one backward glance, the king hurried after the magus like a dog called to heel. Orso took another swallow of wine, then turned back towards Savine, still laughing with the Young Lion.
A Little Hatred Page 51