A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

Battles may sometimes be won by the brave, but wars are always won by the clever.

‘If killing folk ever starts to feel right, you’ve a worse kind of problem. Guilt can sting, but you should be thankful for it.’ ‘Thankful?’ ‘Guilt is a luxury reserved for those still breathing and with no unbearable pain, cold or hunger demanding all their fickle attention.

‘Why haven’t you just left me behind?’ she asked. ‘I gave my word to your da.’ ‘Aye, but everyone says you’re the most untrustworthy bitch in the whole North.’ ‘No one should know better than you what the things everyone says are worth. Truth is, I only care about keeping my word to folk I like.

When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

He wondered why he hadn’t sung out. She’d just looked like such a desperate, ragged little scrap to have all these bastards chasing her, and when the hunt was on, he’d always secretly rooted for the fox. If you can’t find a way to win that doesn’t involve torturing some half-mad girl, then maybe you don’t deserve to win at all. Or maybe that was all shit, and it was just ’cause she was pretty. The sad truth is that pretty people can slide through all kinds of scrapes that’d end very badly for the ugly.

One cannot eliminate unhappiness any more than one can eliminate darkness. 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.’

When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

The Arch Lector’s narrow left eye twitched and Orso inwardly cursed. These flourishes of cleverness never did him the slightest good. He would get further with powerful men if they thought they were indulging an idiot. They probably were, after all.

‘The beauty o’ making yourself a promise is that no one else complains if you break it.’

Leo had never been comfortable around women. But perhaps his problem had been finding the right one. Rikke was nothing like the ladies his mother would manoeuvre into his path in Ostenhorm. They always seemed to say one thing but mean another, like talking was a game you won by making the other player totally confused.

She could kidnap a conversation and in a breath carry it off into strange territory.

She’d never been in a council of war before but, like fucks and funerals, her first time was something of a let-down.

‘A cock’s not for pleasing yourself, boy, it’s for pleasing others. Maybe that’s where you’re going wrong.’

‘I like that boy a lot. Reminds me of me as a young man.’ Clover shook his head. ‘If I’d been an absolute cunt.’ ‘You were an absolute cunt,’ said Wonderful. ‘And I’ve observed no significant changes in that regard.’

What a waste. Waste of people, waste of things, waste of effort. But that was war for you.

What else could she do? Getting folk to do what your chief says is what being a second is all about. Whether or not your chief’s a prick is beside the point.

‘You’re not nobody any more, Sticky Rikke.’ Isern opened her eyes very wide. ‘The legend grows.’ ‘Legend.’ Rikke snorted. ‘I’m nothing and no one.’ ‘Ah, but isn’t that how all the best legends begin?