The Trouble with Peace

by Joe Abercrombie

  Tunny stared at him. “We’re all doomed.”

  The old bureaucrats of the Closed Council looked wild-haired and flustered, and who could blame them? They had been dragged from their beds to an unscheduled meeting in which a fully armoured Knight of the Body loomed behind each chair, even the empty chair of Bayaz, down at the foot of the table. The White Chamber felt positively cramped by so much polished steel.

  Orso grimly steepled his fingers and frowned at each old face in turn. None of them gave any immediate sign of being a conspirator. But then conspirators rarely do. Not the good ones, anyway. “My lords, I am sorry to call upon you so early,” he said, “but we have grave issues to discuss.”

  “Where is Arch Lector Glokta?” asked Gorodets, glancing nervously up at Gorst, who towered implacably at Orso’s shoulder.

  “I accepted his resignation just after dawn.” There was a collective gasp. Orso held out a hand to Pike, whose spotless white garments made his face look, if anything, more blighted and expressionless than his black ones had. “Arch Lector Pike has taken charge of the Inquisition.”

  “Resigned?” whispered Hoff. “But why?”

  “Because his son-in-law, Leonault dan Brock, Lord Governor of Angland, plans to rebel against the Crown.”

  Brock’s treachery left the room even more stunned than Glokta’s resignation. Gorodets was tugging so hard at his beard Orso worried he might tear his lower jaw off. “Can we be sure?”

  “I was informed anonymously. But on my trip to Sipani I met with King Jappo of Styria.”

  “You…” Matstringer looked like he might swallow his tongue. “This is an unprecedented breach of protocol—”

  “Treason takes precedence,” grated out Pike.

  “It had to be an informal meeting,” said Orso. “Off the books.” Most of the old men were looking thunderstruck. Whether at the news of imminent rebellion, or the discovery that Orso was capable of arranging something on his own, it was unclear. “Jappo confirmed my worst fears. The Young Lion has gathered a considerable following of disaffected noblemen and means to invade Midderland.”

  “By the Fates,” croaked Hoff.

  “Worse still… he has enlisted the help of the King of the Northmen, Stour Nightfall.”

  “He plans to bring those savages onto Union soil?” The surveyor general’s voice reached so high a pitch, it was a wonder the windows did not shatter.

  “Unthinkable,” whispered Hoff, slumping back in his chair.

  “Outrageous!” frothed Gorodets. “Send to the Superior in Angland! Have Brock arrested! Have him bloody hanged!”

  “Brock is loved in Angland,” said Pike, in his emotionless drone. “We are despised. As long as he makes no move against us, he is beyond our reach.”

  “Your Majesty.” Brint leaned forward with his one fist clenched, the yellow stone on his ring glinting. “The King’s Own are scattered to counter the threat of the Breakers. Lord Marshal Rucksted is in Keln with most of the cavalry. We must concentrate our forces at once so we are ready to meet any rebel threat and decisively crush it.” And he thumped the table and made several of the other old men jump.

  “Agreed,” said Orso. The first useful contribution. “Please send out the orders, Marshal Brint, to Rucksted and the rest. In the meantime, we must do everything possible to pull the noblemen’s teeth.”

  “The Open Council stands in summer recess,” said Hoff. “Some members are in the city still, but most will have repaired to their estates.”

  Gorodets swallowed. “Several sought dispensation to raise extra soldiers because of fears over the Breakers. Very many extra soldiers… in some cases…”

  An uneasy muttering swept the table. Brint clenched his fist even tighter. The high consul glanced furtively at Gorst. Hoff dabbed at his sweaty forehead with the fur-trimmed sleeve of his gown. The whole stuffy little room reeked of panic and suspicion. By the Fates, any one of the old bastards could have been the traitor.

  “Go to your departments,” said Orso, “and make preparations. I want our defences shored up. I want forces on high alert. I want anything disloyal rooted out.” He stood, planting his hands on the table. “You are the only ones I can trust. My father’s faithful advisors. My loyal Closed Council. If we stay together, we will yet weather this storm.”

  Orso strode from the room, and with a screeching of chair legs the old men struggled up after him.

  Into the Light

  “You got them?” asked Vick.

  “We got them,” said the Practical, voice muffled through his mask.

  His black-clothed colleagues swarmed over the white-tiled bathhouse like an infestation of beetle, necks and foreheads beaded with sweat, sticks in their hands or blades wetly glinting. Men naked or wrapped in towels cringed against the walls. One lay on his side, sobbing, bloody hands clapped to his mouth. Another was sprawled face down in a dark slick, a dagger lying nearby, a pink bloom spreading into a pool beside him.

  Vick stepped over the corpse and into the steamy little chamber beyond, a mosaic of intertwined snakes just visible on the floor. Appropriate. Two men sat on a bench, naked except for cloths around their waists. One was blond-haired and handsome, with moustaches he’d clearly put a lot of effort into cultivating.

  “Lord Heugen,” she said.

  As the steam thinned, she saw the other man more clearly. Older, grey-haired, the whole left side of his body oddly withered. His left arm was gone above the elbow, a long-healed stump.

  “And Lord Marshal Brint.” Vick allowed herself the thinnest smile. “There’s one riddle solved.”

  “And who the bloody hell are you?” sneered Heugen.

  “Vick dan Teufel, Inquisitor Exempt.”

  Brint gave a resigned sigh and ever so slowly sagged back. Heugen kept bristling. “One of Old Sticks’ cronies, eh? Well, he’s gone too far this time—”

  “He’s gone altogether,” said Vick. “Retired. Didn’t the lord marshal tell you? I’m here on the king’s personal orders. So you can forget about appealing to a higher authority. There isn’t one.”

  Heugen’s voice had gone shrill. “There’s no law against visiting a bathhouse!”

  “No, but judges take a dim view of planning treason in one.”

  “How dare you! The marshal and I are old friends. We’ve been talking of surprising our families with a joint garden party—”

  “Hope I get an invite,” said Vick. “I love an outdoor function.” She glanced over at Tallow, lurking in a steamy corner, dressed like an attendant in sandals and loincloth, almost as skinny as the mop he leaned on. “Well? Did they talk about surprising the relatives? Or maybe giving someone else a shock?”

  “Lord Marshal Brint discussed a meeting of the Closed Council this morning,” said Tallow, calmly. He was actually getting good at this. “Said the king had discovered their plans. Then Lord Heugen talked of sending warnings to their friends, and of moving up the schedule. He also mentioned leaving the city at once and gathering his troops.”

  Vick raised one brow. “Sounds like a hell of a party.”

  “You led them straight to us!” Heugen bared his teeth at Brint. “You one-armed dunce!”

  “The king’s idea, in fact,” said Vick. “The man’s not half the fool you’ve taken him for. He knew someone on the Closed Council was betraying him, just wasn’t sure who, so he rattled the cage and I caught what dropped loose. And here we are.” Damn, it was hot in there. Her jacket was already clinging wet from the steam. She started unbuttoning it. “So tell me. Who else is on the guest list for your garden party? Your little conspiracy against the Crown?” She peeled her jacket off and tossed it to Tallow, leaned down over Heugen in her vest, hands on her knees. “I want names. Now.”

  “Don’t tell her a bloody thing,” said Brint.

  “Don’t worry about that,” sneered Heugen. “My lips are—”

  Vick slapped him across the face, and not gently. He gasped as his head snapped sideways, turned slowly back to st
are at her in stunned disbelief, one trembling hand raised to his pinking cheek. She wondered if it was the first time someone ever hit him hard. A life of luxury is poor preparation for a beating. Who’d know better than her, the pampered daughter of the Master of the Royal Mints, suddenly snatched away to the mines of Angland?

  Maybe that thought put a bit more venom in her next slap, hard enough to get his mouth bleeding. “You’ve given me no time to be subtle,” she hissed at him, “so this is going to get very painful very fast.” She slapped him again, even harder, her fingers stinging and blood speckling the wall beside his face. “Give me names.”

  Tears glimmered in the corners of Heugen’s eyes. The sudden pain, and the confusion, and the terrible, terrible shock of finding the world was not at all what you had thought. She knew how it felt. “I… demand—”

  Her fist thudded into his ribs and he gave a breathy grunt, eyes bulging. No doubt, safe in the armour of his wealth and status, he’d always thought himself a strong man. Now, surrounded by Practicals and with all his armour stripped away, he learned how strong he really was. Her other fist sank into his side and he twisted over, groaning, his loincloth slipping off, leaving him stark naked and helpless on the bench.

  “Names!” She climbed on top of him, knee in his back, the smacks and thuds of her punches falling dead on the steamy air.

  “Names!” He gasped and gurgled, tried to curl up into a ball, and she leaned over and punched him in the arse, caught his fruits and made him howl.

  “Names, fucker!”

  “Isher!” he squealed, sobbing. “It was all Isher’s idea!” He talked so fast he was almost sick, the names tumbling over each other. “Isher and Barezin! They brought Brock in! And Brock brought Stour Nightfall, and that woman Rikke, the Dogman’s daughter! Lots of others on the Open Council. There’s Lady Wetterlant, and… and…”

  “What’s happened to the world?” whispered Brint as he watched Heugen spill his guts with a look of disbelieving contempt.

  “Far as I can tell, it’s always been like this.” Vick jerked her head towards the Practical. “Get him to the House of Questions. See what else he knows.”

  “Wait!” slobbered Heugen as he was dragged out by the wrist, trying to cover his prick with his other hand. “I can be useful!” He clutched at the archway. “Please! No!” With an annoyed grunt, the Practical ripped him free and he was gone.

  “Have to say I’m surprised it was you.” Vick frowned over at Lord Marshal Brint. “Always took you for an honourable man.”

  “Why do you think I did it? We’re supposed to be a Union!” He roared the last word with sudden anger, clenching his one fist, and Vick stepped back, watchful. She reckoned him far more dangerous than Heugen, however many limbs he was missing.

  But all he did was sag back against the tiles. “I fought the Northmen in the High Places, you know. Held my best friend while he died. Then again at Osrung. Lost my arm there. Lost my wife there.” And he looked down at the ring on his little finger. A woman’s ring with a yellow stone. “I gave my whole life for the Union. For the idea that we stand together. Then they attacked our Protectorate. Land the king had sworn to defend. And what did we do? Nothing.” He said the word as if he couldn’t believe it. “We left Lady Finree and our brothers in Angland to fend for themselves. And why? So we could make a few more payments to the Banking House of Valint and Balk? The Closed Council sold our principles for a few marks. And they dare talk of treason?”

  He looked up at her with weary eyes. “None of this will make any difference. The noblemen are already out of your reach, gathering their forces. The Young Lion is on his way. He’ll put things right again.”

  Vick gave a snort. “You should tell the folk I saw die in the camps how right things used to be. You’re going to shed a sea of blood, and the best you’ll manage is to swap one set of bastards for another. Principles? I’d laugh if I had the stomach.” She frowned down at his hand. “Now give me that ring.”

  “Inquisitor Teufel.” Glokta smiled up, showing the yawning gap in his front teeth. “Thank you for coming.”

  It only occurred to her then that she could’ve stayed away. Could’ve ignored him. But obedience can be a hard habit to break. Ask any dog.

  “Of course.” She sat stiffly on the bench where they had met before, more than once. It took an effort not to add Your Eminence.

  She had never seen him without his white robes, his ring of office, his black-clad entourage. The awe-inspiring Arch Lector had become, overnight, a withered old man, heavily wrapped up even in the summer warmth, attended by just the one huge Practical who used to push his chair, awkward in simple footman’s clothes and with a rash about his mouth from the mask he no longer wore. Glokta had been her saviour, her mentor, her master, her jailer. She wondered what they were now, without the office and the great desk and the vast difference in power? Friends? She had to suppress a splutter of entirely inappropriate laughter at the thought of the word.

  “I hear congratulations are in order once again. Lord Heugen’s faithlessness is far from surprising but it shocks me that Lord Marshal Brint would betray the Crown.” Glokta slowly shook his head. “Ten years we sat together on the Closed Council.”

  “You think you know someone…” murmured Vick, rubbing absently at her bruised knuckles as she frowned out at the sunlight glittering on the lake. People were boating, laughing, lounging on the banks. You would never have thought a civil war was coming. But then the worst betrayals often happen in good weather. When there’s a blizzard blowing, people are too busy huddling together.

  “I am leaving Adua today,” said Glokta. “My wife thinks the country air may be good for my health. That is… what she tells me she thinks, anyway. I suspect she does not want us to become sad ghosts haunting the halls where we were once powerful. I suspect she is wise in this, as in so much else.” He cleared his throat. “Before I left, I wanted to thank you.”

  She looked sharply across at him. She should have been pleased to get the thanks of the man she’d served faithfully for so many years. But pleasure was not her first feeling.

  “For all you have done for me,” he went on, not meeting her eye. “Done for the Union. Especially given… what the Union has done for you. Or what it has failed to do. By my judgement, our new king has had few more valuable servants. So. Thank you. For your courage. Your diligence. Your… patriotism.”

  “Diligence and patriotism.” She gave a bitter snort, slowly clenching her aching fist. “That or lack of choices. That or being too much of a coward to find another way. That or sticking to the habits of the camps, and grabbing the chance to stand with the winners, and making the only move up the convict can see—from taking the beating to giving it.”

  She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly angry. Because of the things he’d made her do? Or because he wouldn’t be there to make her do more?

  “Well.” Glokta looked towards the summer revellers. So near to them, yet somehow in a different world. “I have often said that life is the misery we endure between disappointments. Whatever the reasons, you have never once disappointed me. I wish I had been so reliable in return, but I fear I have let you down. I know how much you want to be… need to be… loyal.”

  “Loyal.” She thought of all the people she’d lied to, deceived, sold out over the last eight years. It was quite the list. Malmer dangling above the road to Valbeck. Sibalt and his pathetic little dreams of the Far Country. Moor and Grise. Tallow and his sister. She could still smell the rebels’ camp in Starikland, after she told the soldiers where to find them. “I betray people for a living.”

  “Yes.” He gave her a knowing glance. “Perhaps that’s why you need to be loyal. I always imagined there would be time to give you your proper reward, but… at the pinnacle of power, as you see… time runs out suddenly. Might I at least give you one piece of advice, before I go?”

  She could have said no. She could have punched him in the face. But she did nothing.


  He reached up to gently wipe some wet from under his leaking left eye. “Forgive yourself.”

  She sat there, on that bench, jaw clenched, breath hissing fast in her nose, while down on the banks of the lake someone gave a braying peel of laughter at some joke.

  “There is no way out of the camps without His Majesty’s approval.”

  She could have stuck her fingers in her ears. She could have got up and stalked away. Instead she sat there, her skin turned cold and every muscle rigid.

  “Your brother’s little prisoners’ revolution was doomed from the start.”

  She remembered that last glimpse of his face. The shock and the hurt as they dragged him away. She remembered it as if it was happening now.

  “It would have been easy to give in to sentimentality,” said Glokta. “But you did the brave thing. The right thing. Turning him in. Buying your freedom.”

  She closed her eyes, but her brother’s accusing face was still there. As if it was etched into her lids.

  “He would only have dragged you down with him. Some people… cannot be saved.”

  Now she stood, wobbly, ready to run, almost, but Glokta caught her wrist. Caught it with surprising strength. When she turned back, his eyes were fixed on her, fever-bright.

  “Everyone should forgive themselves, Vick.” He gave her wrist another squeeze then let her go, looking out towards the lake again. “After all… no one else will.”

  Some Men Can’t Help Themselves

  Broad knelt there, in the dirt, in the darkness, axe in his fist, frowning across bare mud studded with tree stumps. Towards the road and the ruined sawmill just beyond.

  He’d promised Liddy no more trouble.

  Yet here he was, armed to the teeth in the moonlit brush with a crowd of bitter beggars, waiting to ambush the king’s soldiers so the maddest woman he ever met would help him bring down the government. If there was such a thing as no more trouble, he’d got himself about as far from it as a man could get.