08 A Little Hatred: Book One (The Age of Madness)

So she walked with a swagger, dressed in the dizzy height of fashion, lowering her eyes for no one. She walked painfully erect, although Zuri’s earlier heaving on the laces of her corset gave her little choice. She walked as if it was her street – and indeed she did own five decaying houses further down, packed to their rotten rafters with Gurkish refugees paying twice the going rent.

Zuri was a great reassurance on one side, Savine’s beautifully wrought short steel a great reassurance on the other. Many young ladies had been affecting swords since Finree dan Brock caused a sensation by wearing one to court. Savine found that nothing lent one confidence like a length of sharpened metal close to hand.

The link-boy had stopped at a particularly wretched building, holding his torch up to the peeling sign above its lintel.

‘This really the place?’ he asked.

Savine gathered her skirts so she could squat beside him and look in his dirt-smeared face. She wondered if he sponged the muck on as artfully as her maids did her powder, to arouse just the right amount of sympathy. Clean children need no charity, after all.

‘This is the place. Our heartfelt thanks for your guidance.’ And Zuri slipped a coin into Savine’s gloved hand so she could hold it out.

She was not at all above sentimental displays of generosity. The whole point of squeezing one’s partners in private was so they could do the squeezing in public. Savine, meanwhile, could smile ever so sweetly, and toss coins to an urchin or two, and appear virtuous without the slightest damage to her bottom line. When it comes to virtue, after all, appearances are everything.

The boy stared at the silver as though it was some legendary beast he had heard of but never hoped to see. ‘For me?’

She knew that in her button and buckle manufactory in Holsthorm, smaller and probably dirtier children were paid a fraction as much for a long day’s hard labour. The manager insisted little fingers were best suited to little tasks, and cost only little wages, too. But Holsthorm was far away, and things in the distance seem very small. Even the sufferings of children.

‘For you.’ She did not go as far as ruffling his hair, of course. Who knew what might be living in it?

‘Such a nice boy,’ said Zuri, watching him hurry away into the gloom with the coin in one fist and his sputtering torch in the other.

‘They all are,’ said Savine. ‘When you have something they want.’

‘None more blessed, my scripture-teacher once declared, than those who light the way for others.’

‘Was that the one who fathered a child on one of his other pupils?’

‘That’s him.’ Zuri’s black brows thoughtfully rose. ‘So much for spiritual instruction.’

The grimy ale-hall fell silent as Savine swept in, as if some exotic jungle beast had wandered off the street.

Zuri whipped out a cloth and wiped down a vacant section of the counter, then, as Savine sat, she slipped out the pin and whisked away her hat without disturbing a hair. She kept it close to her chest, which was prudent. Savine’s hat was probably worth more than this entire building, including the clientele. At a brief assay, they only reduced its value.

‘Well, well.’ The man behind the counter was easing forwards, wiping his hands on his stained apron and giving Savine a lingering look up and down. ‘I’m tempted to say this is no place for a lady like you.’

‘We’ve only just met. You really have no idea what kind of lady I am. Why, you could be taking your life in your hands just talking to me.’

‘Reckon I’m brave enough if you are.’ By his squinty grin, he had somehow convinced himself he held some appeal to the fairer sex. ‘What’s your name?’

She planted one elbow on the stretch of counter Zuri had wiped so she could lean closer and draw out both syllables. ‘Savine.’

‘That’s a lovely name.’

‘Oh, if you enjoy the tip, you’ll go mad for the whole thing.’

‘That so?’ he purred at her. ‘How does it go?’

‘Savine … dan …’ And she leaned even closer to deliver the punchline. ‘Glokta.’

If a name had been a knife and she had cut his throat with hers, the blood could not have drained more quickly from his face. He gave a strangled cough, took a step back and nearly fell over one of his own barrels.

‘Lady Savine.’ Majir was coming from an upstairs office, wooden steps creaking under her considerable weight. ‘What an honour.’

‘Isn’t it, though? Your man and I were just getting acquainted.’

Majir glanced towards the ghost-faced barman. ‘Would you like him to apologise?’

‘For what? Not being as brave as he claimed? If we executed men for that, I swear there wouldn’t be a dozen left alive in the Union, eh, Zuri?’

Zuri clasped Savine’s hat sadly to her breast. ‘Heroes are in lamentably short supply.’

Majir cleared her throat. ‘If I’d known you were coming all the way down here yourself—’