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

Still, feeling is free, so there was no shortage of emotion as the glittering ranks tramped past. There was jealous admiration: of beggars for commoners, of commoners for gentry, of gentry for nobility, of nobility for royalty, all twisting their necks looking always up to what they didn’t quite have. There was warlike enthusiasm, mostly from those who’d never drawn a sword in their lives, since those used to swinging them tend to know better. There was patriotic fervour enough to drown an island full of foreign scum, and righteous delight that the Union made the best young bastards in the world. There was civic pride from the denizens of mighty Adua, City of White Towers, for no one breathed vapours so thick or drank water as dirty as they did, nor paid so much for rooms so small.

When it came to feeding the people, or housing them better than dogs, there were always harsh limits on what government could afford. But for a royal triumph, the Closed Council would find a way. Someone who’d starved in the camps, who’d lied her way into the hearts and beds of good people, who’d tricked and tortured to betray a cause she halfway believed in for the sake of one she didn’t at all, might’ve felt a little bitter at seeing all this money wasted.

But Vick had a harder heart than that, and for damn sure a harder head. Or so she told herself.

‘Been looking all over for you.’ Tallow was at her elbow. No need for him to shove through the crowds. He was that thin, he could just slip through the gaps like a breeze under a door. He’d brought a girl, wearing a best bonnet that even Vick, who’d never worn a bonnet in her life, could tell had been out of fashion a century ago. ‘This is my sister.’

Vick blinked. ‘The one who—’

‘I’ve only got the one.’

There was no telling how old she was. When children don’t get fed properly, sometimes they look far younger than they are, sometimes far older. Sometimes both at once. She had her brother’s big eyes but a face even thinner, so hers looked even bigger, like a tragic frog’s. Vick could see her own stern, distorted reflection in the damp corners of them, and didn’t much like the look of it, either.

‘Go on, then,’ said Tallow, nudging his sister with his elbow.

The girl swallowed, as if she was dragging up the words from a long way down. ‘Just wanted … to thank you. It’s a good place, I been living. Clean. And they feed me. Much as I can eat. Though I don’t eat much, I guess. Just … our parents died, you know. We never had anyone looking out for us before.’

Vick was hard. Ask anyone who’d tried to cross her in the camps. Ask anyone she’d sent to the camps since. Ask anyone unlucky enough to run across her. Vick was hard. But that stung. The girl was thanking her for being a hostage. Thanking her for using her as a tool to make her brother betray his friends.

‘What did Tallow tell you?’ muttered Vick.

‘Nothing really!’ Worried she’d get him into trouble. ‘Just that he was doing some work for you, and so you were looking after me while he was doing it.’ She glanced up, fearful. ‘Is the work done?’

‘The work’s never done,’ said Vick, and the girl perked up right away. Maybe she should’ve been happy that someone was happy about more work. But Vick had never been sure what being happy felt like. Maybe it had happened and she hadn’t noticed.

There was an ear-splitting fanfare, hundreds of boot heels crashing down together as the soldiers found their final places and brought the parade to an end. For a moment, all was still. Then someone rose from among the great men of the Closed Council, from beside the king, sunlight gleaming on the arcane symbols stitched into his shimmering robes. Bayaz, the First of the Magi.

‘My noble lords and ladies! My stout yeomen and women! My proud citizens of the Union! We stand at the site of a great victory!’ And he smiled out at the Square of Marshals. A place that was still being painstakingly rebuilt after he’d levelled it no more than thirty years ago. They said it would be better than ever when they were done. But things are always going to be better, or were better long ago. No politician ever got anywhere by telling people things are just right as they are.

‘Here the best the Gurkish could send against us were utterly crushed!’ And Bayaz shook one meaty fist, calling up a patriotic grumble as a conductor calls up the percussion. ‘Here their great emperor was utterly laid low. Here the Prophet Khalul was utterly humbled, his cursed army of Eaters sent back to hell where they belonged. We were told the emperor’s soldiers were countless, the Prophet’s children indestructible. But the Union was victorious! I was victorious. The forces of superstition and savagery were defeated, and the gates opened to a new age of progress and prosperity.’ Bayaz’s smile was huge enough to be seen all the way across the arena. Clearly a magus could be as pleased with his own past glories as any other old man.