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

‘But you don’t want him to go anywhere?’ asked Isern, rolling a new pellet for herself.

Rikke planted her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands and sagged unhappily into them. ‘Exactly.’

Her father swiped the second pellet from Isern’s fingers and stuck it down behind his own lip. ‘Just as well you’re going with him, then.’

Rikke looked up. ‘I’m going where now?’

‘Adua.’

‘I need to go back to Uffrith, with you. Tend to the garden, and whatever.’ Though she’d never had much patience for it, and less than ever these days.

‘Isern and Shivers’ll go with you, make sure you don’t get into mischief.’

‘Or that you do?’ muttered Isern, eyeing them both carefully as she rolled a third pellet.

‘You can pour a drink on my old friend Grim’s grave.’ He gave a little smile. ‘No need for words over it. He never liked ’em. But there’ll be deals done in Adua, and we need to be represented. After the battle at Osrung, we were promised six chairs on the Open Council. Never happened.’

‘Promises are like flowers,’ said Isern, stretching her arms wide. ‘Often given, rarely kept.’

‘Well, if Leo sticks by us, maybe it’ll be kept now.’

Rikke pushed her pellet sourly from one side of her lip to the other. ‘I haven’t proved myself too good at making Leo stick to things.’

‘Try again. You might improve. And it’ll do you good to see the world. There’s more to it than forests, believe it or not.’

‘Adua,’ muttered Rikke. ‘The City of White Towers.’ She’d heard a lot about it but never thought to go herself. A year in Ostenhorm had been hard enough work.

‘Just promise me one thing.’

‘Anything.’

‘Let go of it.’

‘Of what?’

‘The feuds,’ said her father, and of a sudden, he looked so tired. ‘The grudges. The enemies. Take it from a man with a wealth o’ bitter experience. Vengeance is just an empty chest you choose to carry. One you have to go bent under the weight of all your days. One score settled only plants the seeds of two more.’

‘So you’re telling me I should just forget what they said? Forget what they did?’

‘There’s no forgetting. I’m hemmed in by the memories.’ And he flapped an arm about as though the shadows were full of an invisible crowd. ‘Besieged by the bastards. The hurts and the regrets. The friends and the enemies and those who were a bit o’ both. Too long a lifetime of ’em. You can’t choose what you remember. But you can choose what you do about it. Time comes … you got to let it all go.’ He smiled sadly down at the tabletop. ‘So you can go back to the mud without the baggage.’

‘Don’t talk that way,’ said Rikke, putting her hand down on the back of his. She felt like she was on stormy seas and he was the one star she had to sail by. ‘You’re a long way from the mud.’

‘We’re all of us only a hair away, girl, all the time. At my age, you have to be ready.’

Rikke realised she’d got swept away in her bitterness then, and she leaned forward and hugged her father tight, and propped her chin on his balding head.

‘I’ll let go of it. I promise.’ But it was starting to seem like she was no good at letting go.

Behind his back, Isern tapped her fist against her heart and mouthed one word.

‘Stone.’

Like Rain

‘Home,’ said Savine as the carriage lurched to a halt. Broad never rode in one before and it had been a bone-shaking business. Like most luxuries, he was starting to realise it was more about how it looked than how it felt.

Savine’s home would’ve been daunting as a fortress, let alone a house. An almighty box of pale stone, acres of dark windows frowning onto the Kingsway across gardens on fire with autumn colour. It had a great porch with great pillars like it was some temple of the Old Empire. It had a tower at one corner with slit windows and battlements. It had a pair of guardsmen holding ceremonial halberds, still as statues on either side of the sweeping marble steps.

Broad looked at Liddy, and swallowed, and she looked back, eyes wide, and neither one of them had a thing to say. Footmen helped them down from the carriage. Footmen with emerald-green jackets and mirror-polished boots and great flapping lace cuffs. May stared at the man when he offered her his spotless white-gloved hand as if she was worried her fingers might stain it.

‘The bloody footmen look like lords,’ muttered Broad.

‘One of them is a lord,’ Savine threw over her shoulder.

‘Eh?’

‘I’m joking. Relax. This is your home now.’ Which was easy for her to say, she was stepping through her front door. Broad felt like he was sticking his head into a dragon’s mouth. Though few dragons could’ve had a maw half the size of the towering front doors.

‘I don’t feel too relaxed,’ he muttered to Liddy as he shuffled up the steps.

‘Would sir prefer a cell in the House of Questions?’ she forced through an unconvincing smile to one of the guards. ‘Or a gibbet over the road to Valbeck?’

Broad cleared his throat. ‘You’ve a point.’

‘Shut your mouth and be thankful, then.’