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“Guilt is a luxury reserved for those still breathing and with no unbearable pain, cold or hunger demanding all their fickle attention. Long as guilt’s your big problem, girl…” Rikke saw the faint gleam of Isern’s teeth in the gathering darkness. “Things can’t be that bad.”
She had long ago learned that at least half of everything is presentation. Seem a victim, soon become one. Seem in charge, people fall over themselves to obey.
“A notary from the firm of Temple and Kahdia is already drawing up the papers. He will be in touch.”
He might sound a clown, but His Majesty’s First Guard was not a man you trifled with.
But that’s what growing up is, maybe. Realising what a fucking arse you’ve been.
Whatever the criticisms of His Majesty—and there were many, regularly circulated in ever more scurrilous pamphlets—no one could have denied that King Jezal always looked the part.
Orso’s father worked his mouth unhappily and the old scar through his beard twisted. “The Northmen don’t fool about when it comes to bloodshed. I could tell you some stories about my old friend Logen Ninefingers—”
“Since the death of her father, I daresay Finree dan Brock is the Union’s most competent general. You know her, don’t you, Gorst?” The king’s hulking bodyguard, normally beyond expressionless, winced. “A little, Your Eminence.”
It’s a rare man who’s made better by a bit of power.
Wet leaves rustled and a man stepped into the clearing. A big man in a weather-stained coat, holding a scarred shield and a sword with a silver letter near the hilt. Even through the grey hair hanging lank across his face, Rikke could see the awful scar, from his forehead through his brow and across his cheek to the corner of his mouth, and in the misshapen socket of his left eye there was no eye at all, but a bright ball of dead metal, gleaming as the sun broke through above.
The goal of government, you see,” and the Arch Lector prodded at the air with his bony forefinger, “is to load the unhappiness onto those least able to make you suffer for it.”
“Believe it or not, we all want what’s best. The root o’ the world’s ills is that no one can agree on what it is.”
He looked at her hand on his shoulder, then up at her, and didn’t smile at all. “Why were you never scared of me?” “You just never seemed all that scary. Always found your eye sort of pretty. Shiny.” Rikke patted his scarred cheek. “You always just seemed… lost. Like you lost yourself and didn’t know where to look.” She put her hand on his chest. “But you’re in there, still. You’re in there.”
Truly clever things are said with short words. Long ones are used to hide stupidity.
“The wiser a man is, the more he stands ready to be educated.” There was a little curl at the corner of Shivers’ mouth as he watched Rikke flapping her hands around. A hint of pride, maybe.
“You can pour a drink on my old friend Grim’s grave.” He gave a little smile. “No need for words over it. He never liked ’em.
“There’s no forgetting. I’m hemmed in by the memories.” And he flapped an arm about as though the shadows were full of an invisible crowd. “Besieged by the bastards. The hurts and the regrets. The friends and the enemies and those who were a bit o’ both. Too long a lifetime of ’em. You can’t choose what you remember. But you can choose what you do about it. Time comes… you got to let it all go.” He smiled sadly down at the tabletop. “So you can go back to the mud without the baggage.”
“I’m Rikke,” said Rikke, “rhymes with—
Orso gave a sniff. “You look more like a banker than a wizard.” “One must trim one’s style to the times,” said Bayaz,
