The Trouble with Peace (The Age of Madness, #2)

by Joe Abercrombie

There’s nothing like a prop to shore up a lie. Something you can touch. Something with a story. Even if, when you really thought about it, she could’ve stolen it from a one-armed man in a bathhouse.

Lady Brock was a formidable liar herself, of course. Used to flipping investors about her knuckles like a magician flips a coin. But she was nowhere near as good as she thought she was. Vick had been staking her life on her lies for years.

What he really wanted to say was that if you don’t like dead folk you shouldn’t start wars, but the best he could think of was, “I’m told it went wrong.” He’d thought when Dancer said it nothing could’ve sounded worse, but somehow he managed it.

“Trust me, Young Lion,” snarled Stour, looking as untrustworthy as any man ever. “I’m all about the justice.”

From what he understood of the species, the males had the big reputations but the females did all the killing.

Seek him out with the most pomp, ceremony and military bluster possible. Tunny, I want your bloody salute to take an hour minimum.”

“Might be he had a collection of interesting bird skulls, or an excellent singing voice, or a lot of love for his sadly passed sister that caused him to weep at the quiet times.” Rikke looked at the rest of the men, all of them staring over with wide eyes. “But there’s so much to feel sorry for in the world. Can’t waste too much on folk who act like pricks.”

“We’d choose patriots!” shouted Brock, thumping the table again but with less conviction. “Men of quality.” Moving away from the sun-drenched uplands of anger and into the shadowy thickets of politics, he was rather less impressive. “Men who can… well… take the Union back to its founding principles.” “But whether a man is a patriot, or for that matter of quality, all depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?

Heroes are defined not by what they do, after all, or why, but by what people think they have done.

If Orso had to lose, and her father, and Rikke, so be it. She would be safe. She would be powerful. If the world had to lose so she could win, so be it. The dice were already rolling.

“I find reputations rarely fit people all that well. What are they, after all, but costumes we put on to disguise ourselves?

“I understand cowards,” said Pike softly. “I used to be one. Who among us never had a weak moment, after all? It cannot all be darkness. We must have a little mercy.” He leaned sideways to whisper it. “As long as no one sees.”

If Stour had been an eight-year-old, he’d have got a slap from his mummy. Instead, he got every bastard bowing and grinning and pandering to him, even those he kicked cookpots at. That, of course, only made him rage the worse.

“Alas, the younger generation refuses to honour the debts of the older. The debts that put them where they are.

He wished Jurand and Glaward were there. He’d always known what they were. Nothing to be proud of but they were good men still.

Canlan pulled the trigger and sent another bolt flying towards the neat blocks of Anglanders. He didn’t wait to see where it came down. That wasn’t his business.

He lifted the bow to his shoulder, knocked the dowel out of the trigger, lined up on the ranks of marching pikemen, their armour gleaming dully in the sun as they came on. Gave him a worried feeling, for a moment, seeing ’em like that. Weren’t quite close enough to make out their faces. Weren’t quite close enough to tell who they were. But they soon would be. He frowned as he lifted the bow to adjust for distance. So he was looking towards the sky, rather than towards the men. That was better. Who they were wasn’t his business.

A bloody hero, like in the storybooks. Starling joined up ’cause of what that man had done at Red Hill. And beating Stour Nightfall in the Circle, and all. He’d seen the way the girls gasped when they heard the tale told and thought, Bloody hell, that’s the job for me.

Some harsh words and some jostling and all over in a few silly angry moments. This

reminds me of Vinland Saga, especially season 2

He caught a glimpse of the enemy. Pikes and full armour. Open helmets so he could see their faces. Young faces and old. Scared faces and bared teeth. A fellow with a big moustache. Another smiling—smiling at a time like this. Another with tears on his face. Looked a lot like they did, really. Like they were advancing at a bloody mirror. It was mad, wasn’t it? It was mad.

“Push!” yelled Longridge, and the men behind pushed at him, and pushed at him, and pushed him onto the blade.

bolts.

I love how messy joe's battle scenes are

“So a battle’s no place for a woman?” she’d snapped at him. “A battle’s no place for anyone,” he’d said, and she’d walked out.

“Shush,” she crooned, but it came out panicked and jolting with her footfalls. She’d fondly imagined a woman’s voice might help calm them, the way it had in Spillion Sworbreck’s book about that dauntless frontier girl that she’d found so inspiring. But nothing calmed them. Nothing but death, anyway.

The sad fact was, if she was honest with herself… she loved Orso. Not loved loved. Not in love. She loved him like an older brother. Like a helpless, hopeless, hesitant older brother who just happened to be King of the Union. He was good to her. No one else ever had been.

No one else had ever thought she was worth being good to. He was above everyone, but somehow he treated her, who was lower than dirt, like an equal. It would’ve been strange if she hadn’t loved him.

Years back, when they first made him a sergeant, he’d imagined the officers must have all the answers. When he was given his commission, he’d imagined the generals must have all the answers. When King Orso made him a general, he’d imagined the Closed Council must have all the answers. Now, as a lord marshal, he finally knew it for an absolute fact. No one had the answers.

The fight was a mess. Lines long gone. Melted into tangles of murder.

Perhaps that was all courage really was. Being so convinced of one’s own importance one came to believe death was something only other people need worry about.

Leo dan Brock had been so very taken with it when they led that parade through Adua together, had looked so admiringly upon it at dinner. A man who placed a lot of faith in flags, one way or another.

In battle, his father had always told him, a man finds out who he truly is.

“Sounds somewhat underhanded put that way. But once you’ve stabbed a man in the back, you’re best off stabbing him a few more times, don’t you reckon? Make sure of the job.”

“Sitting in it’s nothing special. It’s staying in it that’s the trick.”

And then, finding he was already balls-deep in conspiracy with Isher, what choice did she have but to join them and do everything to make a success of their preposterous scheme? Making successes from men’s preposterous schemes was what she did, after all. It was terribly unfair on her, when you thought about it, that she had lost everything because of who her mother fucked, by definition some time before she was born.

The truth was, like all gamblers who suddenly lose big, she had only thought about what there was to win.

He leaned against the mast to rub at the wound on his leg.

parallel to Leo

No, no, don’t deny it.” No one had thought about denying it.

All done too close and too quiet and too sudden for swords. Just the way Clover always said it should be done.

“You got some bones, calling me traitor,” he said. “You, who murdered your own uncle. All I’ve done is what I always told you to do. Wait for your moment. Then go all the way.” He leaned down closer. “It’s just you weren’t fucking listening.”

Once you’ve chosen your moment, holding back is folly. Holding back is cowardice.

Clover leaned down and undid the buckle on his cloak, and dragged it free of him, and swept it around his own shoulders. “Always liked this,” he said, rubbing his cheek against that fine fur. “Suits you,” said Sholla.

He was an odd-looking bastard, the Nail, all stringy and loose, all shoulders and elbows. But Clover never saw a man hit so fast. From nowhere, his fist crunched into Stour’s ribs and the King of the Northmen doubled up, wheezing out a long string of drool, the diamond on his chain dangling. “Ow,” said Sholla, deadpan.

A small knife, it was, with a bright little blade. But a knife don’t have to be big to change things.

Those big names o’ the past you’re always wanking over. Shama Heartless. Black Dow. The Bloody-Nine. The dead know they were bastards, but they earned those names. They tore ’em from the world with their hands and their will.

“What the fuck is that? You were born with it. All you have you’ve been handed. Well, here’s the thing, boy…” And he caught hold of that big diamond and tore the great chain that Bethod once wore over Stour’s head. “What’s easily given… is easily took away.”

Now achieving the impossible meant standing up.

Parallel with Stour and Glokta

He saw now that their tyranny had only been an excuse, and a flimsy one too. All he’d wanted was an enemy to fight. Jurand had been right about that. Jurand had been right about everything.

Orso cut him off after a minute or two with a curt, “If you wanted to change the world you should have won.”

Those of us who walk, talk, sleep with the enemy, well—we see that they are people. We hear their motives, their hopes, their justifications. Despite your efforts to prove the contrary, you are not made of stone, Inquisitor. None of us are. Proud men like Sibalt. Noble men like Malmer. How could you not sympathise? Given where you come from?”