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

The Ambassador from Here or There. The Over-Secretary for Whatever. The niece of Lord What’s-his-Face. Some bald old smirker someone might’ve called the First of the Magi, who blurted some magical nonsense about defeating Eaters in a Circle of salted iron being just like fighting Stour Nightfall in a Circle of grass. Leo assumed it was a joke, and not a very funny one. His cheeks ached from returning all the beaming smiles, the promises of never-ceasing friendship which ceased with the next breath.

This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To be fawned over by the greatest people in the realm? But close up, it all felt so false. He’d much rather have been in a barn with the Dogman, and his warriors, and his friends. He caught a glimpse of Jurand, standing on his own across the room, and Leo felt himself smile. He made it one step towards him before he was cut off.

‘It’s an outrage, if you ask me,’ murmured a tall man maybe ten years older than Leo, though his carefully swept hair was pure white.

‘What is?’ asked Leo, never able to resist the bait.

‘That you must share your triumph with the crown prince. You bled for the nation. What did our half-Styrian heir do? Hang some peasants?’

It was like this white-haired fellow had peered into Leo’s skull and read out the contents. ‘I suppose taking credit for other men’s work is why we have royalty,’ murmured Leo.

‘I am Fedor dan Isher.’ If you could know a man by his handshake, then Isher was firm, cool and careful. ‘These are my colleagues from the Open Council – Lords Barezin,’ a heavy man stuffed into a braid-wreathed uniform, with pinking cheeks and a boyish riot of blond hair, ‘and Heugen.’ Small and handsome with bright little eyes and sculpted moustaches around a pouty mouth.

‘Good to meet you all.’ It was pleasing to finally hear names Leo had heard before. These were the heads of three of Midderland’s most powerful noble families. Men with seats next to his on the front row of the Lords’ Round.

‘My father knew your father well.’ Barezin’s jowls shook with feeling. ‘Such a wonderful man, he was always telling me, such a man’s man, such an exemplar of the noble virtues! They were close friends.’ As far as Leo could remember, his father had always written the Open Council off as a nest of vipers. But this was a new generation, and he reckoned you can never have too many friends.

‘We all wish to thank you for the great service you did the Union,’ droned Isher.

‘It was a disgrace that you had to manage the business alone,’ frothed Barezin. ‘A shameful business, awful!’

‘New laws prevent us from keeping standing armies of our own.’ Heugen spoke with great pace and precision while constantly shaking his head, as though nothing ever met his high standards. ‘Or we would have sprung to your aid ourselves.’

‘Too kind,’ said Leo. Though actual aid would’ve been even kinder.

‘Our ancient rights and privileges are under constant attack,’ said Isher, dropping his voice. ‘From Old Sticks and his cronies.’

Heugen nodded away like a chicken pecking at seed. ‘The Closed Council are—’

‘A crowd of bureaucratic arseholes,’ burst out Leo. He couldn’t hold it in. ‘The gall of that bastard Glokta! Then the chancellor! Grilling me about extra taxes after we bled ourselves white winning their war! Good men gave their lives. Folk in Angland’ll be …’ He was about to say fucking incandescent, then realised how loud he was talking and settled for, ‘very displeased.’

Isher looked quite delighted, however. ‘The Open Council must present a united front. Especially with all this unrest among the lower orders.’

‘Your place is with us,’ said Barezin.

‘As the foremost of us,’ said Heugen.

‘As our champion,’ said Isher, languidly clenching a fist, ‘just as your grandfather was.’

‘Really?’ asked Leo, getting just a bit suspicious of their close-harmony flattery. ‘I heard he was a traitor.’

Isher wasn’t put off at all. He leaned closer to murmur, ‘I heard he was a patriot. He simply refused to be cowed by Bayaz.’ And he nodded towards that bald man, deep in a murmured conversation with Lord Chancellor Gorodets, who did, it had to be admitted, look thoroughly cowed.

‘That actually is Bayaz?’ asked Leo, baffled.

Isher’s lip curled. ‘During the last war, he promised my uncles that they would be chamberlain and chancellor, then, when he had the crown in his pocket, he snatched the rug from under them.’

‘Loyalty is an admirable quality,’ said Barezin. ‘Admirable. But it must cut both ways.’

‘Loyalty to a corrupt regime,’ added Heugen, ‘is foolishness. Worse. Cowardice. Worse! It’s disloyalty!’

Leo wasn’t sure he followed the logic. ‘It is?’

‘We leading lights of the Open Council really must meet,’ said Barezin.

‘Discuss the advancement of our mutual interests,’ said Heugen.

‘To have a genuine hero among us would make all the difference,’ said Isher.