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

‘It would certainly make all the difference to me.’ Leo looked around to find a very striking red-haired woman at his shoulder. ‘Your lordships really mustn’t hog the man of the moment. Since you haven’t the manners to introduce me …’ Though she’d given them no chance and could clearly manage it herself. ‘I am Selest dan Heugen.’ And she held her hand out.

‘Charmed,’ said Leo, bending to kiss it. And he really was charmed, as well. ‘The quality of the company’s looking up,’ he said, and she gave a silvery laugh, and fanned herself, and he smiled, and she fanned him, and he laughed, and Isher, Barezin and Heugen melted away with a few grumbles about speaking later, but Leo wasn’t really paying much attention any more.

Selest. Had a nice ring to it. And she had this breathless way of acting as though every word he said was a delightful surprise.

‘Have you been enjoying our city?’ she asked.

‘A lot more since you came over.’

‘Why, Your Grace, I suspect you’re flattering me.’ She brushed his wrist with her fingertips in a way that couldn’t have been accidental. Could it? She leaned towards him, voice slightly husky. ‘You really should take a tour of my new manufactory while you’re in Adua.’ As if touring manufactories was a forbidden thrill. The way her eyes met his over the feathers of her fan made him wonder whether a tour of other things might be on offer.

‘What do you—’ His voice came as squeaky as Bremer dan Gorst’s, and he had to clear his throat and try again. ‘What do you make there?’

‘Money.’ She gave another giggle. ‘What else?’

Riding through Adua in a grand procession, Rikke had thought she couldn’t feel more out of place. Now she discovered her error.

It was like they’d had a contest to dream up the circumstances she’d feel most horribly small, twitchy and ugly in, and this right here had been the winning idea. All she needed to complete the horror was to have a fit and shit herself across the pristine tiled floor.

Everyone was so clean. Everyone smelled so good. Everyone’s shoes were so shiny. They all had these little smiles, worn like masks, so you’d no notion what they were really thinking. They all spoke in whispers, like everything was a secret meant only for particular ears and those ears certainly weren’t hers. At least the Long Eye was leaving her alone for now. The only ghosts in attendance were her own awkward reflections, wincing at her, profoundly unimpressed, from the mirrored walls of the hall.

She felt as if her own skin didn’t fit her, let alone her clothes. She wished she had some chagga to chew but she hadn’t brought any ’cause it hadn’t seemed the kind of place where you chewed chagga, and indeed it wasn’t. Where would you spit? Down someone else’s back? There were only a handful of people she knew in the whole vast room. Bayaz she could hardly call a friend, and the magus had as fine a suit of clothes as anyone, slipping through the crowds with bald pate gleaming, trading hushed secrets as though he belonged there. Jurand stood alone, apparently pining for Leo even worse than Rikke was, while the Young Lion himself was forever at the centre of a gaggle of fine new friends who’d no doubt stab him in the back the moment he turned it.

As if to rub salt in her still smarting wounds, some woman had floated up to him. Some pale and unearthly beautiful woman with hair redder than hair had any right to be, all scraped up with golden combs then swirling down her bare, freckled shoulders. Her tits looked on the point of popping out the whole time, but by some sorcery of tailoring never quite managed it. A fact which Leo was evidently not blind to. You’d have thought she had the secret of creation tucked in her cleavage, the way his eyes kept drifting back to it. She had a necklace of sparkling red stones, and a bracelet to match, and flashing crystals stitched into her bodice and by the dead, on her shoes, too.

Rikke had a ring through her nose, like a troublesome bull.

Summed it up. She wished she could pull the bloody thing out but there was no way to do it without ripping half her nose off. She doubted even that would’ve got anyone’s attention. She hadn’t the slightest notion how to play this intricate game of fans and eyelashes and hints dropped over the shoulder and not quite but oh-so-nearly out tits, let alone the tools to win.

She slurped down some more of the thin wine they’d given her. Didn’t taste of much but it was already having an effect. Namely making the tips of her ears feel hot and sinking her ever deeper into jealous depression. They tell you drink makes you happy, but what they mean is it makes happy folk happier. They don’t tell you that it makes unhappy folk more fucking unhappy than ever.

She gave an unpleasantly sweet burp and scraped her tongue on her teeth. ‘Men,’ she muttered, helplessly.

‘I know,’ came a voice from beside her. ‘There’s no reasoning with them.’