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

‘I can get another,’ said Savine, waving it away. ‘It looks far better on you. You have the chest for it.’

‘It looks like a gold ring around a turd.’ The girl glanced down Savine’s front. ‘And you’ve got twice what I’ve got.’

‘I have half what you have and some very expensive corsetry.’ Savine reached out with both hands, pushed the girl’s unkempt mess of red-brown hair out of her face and studied it. Presumptuous, undoubtedly, but she was in that kind of mood. ‘Honestly, you have some remarkable natural advantages.’

‘I’ve a what?’ she said, looking slightly scared.

Savine put a finger under her chin to tip her face into the light. ‘Fine strong bones. Excellent teeth. And your eyes, of course.’ Huge and pale and so very expressive. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like them.’

She flinched a little, as if that somehow touched a sore spot. ‘Not sure whether they’re a blessing or a curse …’

‘Well, I know women who’d kill for them. Literally. An hour with my maids and I could have every person in here drooling over you.’ Savine gave the girl’s face a parting pat and let her go, frowning out at the oblivious gathering. ‘Just goes to show what a ridiculous lie it is. What a ridiculous fucking lie everything is.’ She realised she had spat that last phrase with sudden bitter fury. ‘Forgive me. I’m being terribly rude.’

‘You’re being amazing, far as I’m concerned.’ The girl looked down at the necklace, blushing now, which only made her look better. ‘My father saw me wearing these, he’d shit himself.’

‘I don’t know what my father would think, but he shits himself routinely.’

The girl grinned up. ‘You’re all right, you know that?’

And Savine felt, of all things, a sudden need to cry. She looked out at the Hall of Mirrors, blinking back the tears. There was some bald old man she could not quite place, staring right at her like a butcher at a livestock sale. She flicked her fan open as though she could hide behind it. ‘No,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not.’

She had to stop herself flinching at the sight of Orso, draped against a pillar, looking drunk and despondent. It was as though there was a hook in her throat, and every glimpse of him was a painful tug on it. She was ashamed to admit it, but she wanted him no less. She certainly wanted to be queen no less. Her one desire was to go over to him and put her hand in his and say yes, and kiss him, and hold him, and watch the smile spread across his face …

And marry her brother.

The thought disgusted her. But hardly any more than everything disgusted her now. She took a shuddering breath. He was lost to her for ever, and the person she had been with him was lost for ever, and she could not even tell him why. How he must despise her. Almost as much as she despised herself.

‘Lady Savine?’

She found, to her horror, that the king was standing right beside her with that haunted, fascinated expression he always had in her presence.

‘Your Majesty.’ Savine dropped into a curtsy on an instinct, her face suddenly burning. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Northern girl clumsily trying to imitate her but, in trousers, abjectly failing.

‘I so enjoyed my visit to the Solar Society,’ the king was blathering. She could hardly hear the words over the thudding of blood in her head. ‘So impressed by what you and Master Curnsbick have achieved. The industry, the innovation, the progress. So proud to have … subjects … like you. Young ladies pointing the way to the future, and so forth—’

‘Please excuse me,’ she managed to whisper, turning so fast she almost stumbled. She took a wobbling step or two, weak at the knees.

‘I’m Rikke,’ she heard the Northern girl yammering behind her. ‘Rhymes with pricker.’

‘The Dogman’s daughter, of course! He was a good friend of my good friend Logen Ninefingers, you know.’

‘Ah, you have to be realistic.’

‘Exactly!’

‘Talking o’ which, my father was saying we were promised six seats on the Open Council …’

Savine tugged at her corset in a futile attempt to let in some air. She felt buried. She was sure she was about to fountain vomit all over the pinnacle of society. It was only a sudden, sobering stab of cold rage that stopped her, froze the guilt and fear and left her icy.

Selest dan Heugen, that sly bitch. She was only twenty paces off, using every weapon in her arsenal on Leo dan Brock, fanning herself as if she was on fire.

Did she think she could worm her way into Savine’s place? Steal her canal, her connections, her profits? It was precisely what Savine would have done in her tasteless shoes, of course, but that was only the more reason to make her pay for it.

Selest saw her coming, carried across the hall on a wave of poisonous fury, and darted to head her off. ‘Lady Savine! We are all so very glad you have returned to us unhurt.’

‘Lady Selest, you’re such a treasure.’

‘It must have been a terrible ordeal, what you went through.’

The temptation to bite her was almost overwhelming. But Savine only shrugged. ‘I was far from the only one who suffered.’