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

She gave him a discerning nod. ‘Not a bad effort, under the circumstances.’

All she had wanted was to crush Selest dan Heugen, now fanning herself wildly beside an oblivious Lord Isher. But with the fight won, the pearl dust and the drink closed back in on Savine and she found the prize was an extremely handsome man. There truly was something of the lion in his sandy hair worn long, his sandy beard cropped short, his confident, comfortable, obvious strength. With that healing cut across his face, he looked like the hero from an overblown storybook. So manly, and so popular, and so powerful. Indeed, the young Lord Governor of Angland was surely the most eligible bachelor in the Union at that moment. If you discounted Crown Prince Orso. Which Savine feared she had to.

‘It must be difficult to be a celebrated hero,’ she said. Everyone wants to be sympathised with, after all, however little they deserve it.

‘I’ll admit it takes some getting used to.’

‘It must be hard to tell the genuine admiration from the empty breath. Surrounded by people, but all alone.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Everyone trying to make use of you.’

‘Whereas you’ve got my best interests at heart?’

‘I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by pretending anything of the kind. But we might be able to make use of each other.’ And she gave Leo another smile. Why not? His blunt, easy manners were the opposite of Orso’s. He brought her no puzzles to solve. His words barely had single meanings, let alone double ones. And sometimes a beautiful fool is the very thing one needs.

Savine was tired of being clever. She wanted to be rash. She wanted to hurt someone. Hurt herself. ‘There is one place in the city you really ought to visit while you’re here.’

‘Really?’

‘The office of a friend of mine. A writer. Spillion Sworbreck.’

Brock looked crestfallen. ‘I’m … not really much of a reader—’

‘Nor am I, honestly. Sworbreck’s away on a research trip in the Near Country.’ She touched Leo on the chest ever so gently with her fan, looking up at him from under her lashes. She needed … a little something. ‘I’ll be there, though.’

Brock cleared his throat. ‘Tomorrow?’

‘Now,’ said Savine. ‘Tomorrow I might have changed my mind.’ She was probably making a fool of herself. She was probably causing a scandal.

But, safe to say, a smaller one than marrying one’s brother.

Orso stood, and drank.

Well, to be precise, he stood, and drank, and watched Savine. Surreptitiously, to begin with. But less surreptitiously with every drink. Just watching her was torture. Watching her with that square-jawed oaf Leo dan Brock was triply so. A torture that for some reason he could not stop inflicting on himself.

People were dancing between the two of them, he rather thought, a whole floor full of sparkling, whirling figures, but they were just a drunken blur. All he saw was Savine and the Young Lion, laughing. He had thought only he was funny enough to make her laugh that way. It turned out she could do it for entirely unfunny people, too.

That she had turned him down was hardly a surprise. But that she would, by all appearances, start trying to snare another man – and that one widely thought of as his rival – within a few days of turning him down? That hurt. He finished his glass and snatched another from a passing tray. Who was he fooling? It all hurt. He was one tremendous wound. One that would never heal.

‘And this is my son! The heir to the throne, Crown Prince Orso.’

Orso turned to find his father in the company of a solidly built old man, bald as an egg and with a short grey beard.

‘This is Bayaz,’ said the king, with great ceremony. ‘First of the Magi!’

He bore only a passing resemblance to his magnificent statue on the Kingsway. Rather than a staff, he held a polished cane shod in brass and crystal. Rather than an air of mysterious wisdom, he had an expression of hungry self-satisfaction. Rather than arcane robes, he wore the clothes of a modern man of business. One owed a great deal of money by an excellent tailor.

Orso gave a sniff. ‘You look more like a banker than a wizard.’

‘One must trim one’s style to the times,’ said Bayaz, holding up his cane and admiring the way the light shone through the crystal knob. ‘My master used to say that knowledge is the root of power, but I rather suspect power has a golden root these days. We have met before, in fact, Your Highness. Though you, I think, cannot have been more than four years old.’

‘He’s barely changed!’ said the king, with a suffocatingly false chuckle.

‘I’m afraid I’ve a terrible memory for anything that happened more than an hour ago,’ said Orso. ‘Bit of a blur.’

‘I wish I could have been here more,’ said Bayaz, ‘but there are always problems in need of solving. No sooner did I engineer a suspension of hostilities with a troublesome brother in the South than two siblings in the West chose to become … difficult.’

‘Family, eh?’ grunted Orso, waving his glass at his father, who was looking less comfortable with every word exchanged.