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

by Joe Abercrombie

“In times of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“A ladder is of no use if all the rungs are at the top,” said Bayaz.

“Your Majesty, we are not here to set right all the world’s wrongs.” Orso stared back at him. “What are we here for, then?” Bayaz neither smiled nor frowned. “To ensure that we benefit from them.”

All tears are for oneself, in the end.

“By the Fates, I despise that woman,” muttered Savine. “The highest compliment you could pay her,” said Zuri, with a warning glance up from her book. “One cannot despise a thing without acknowledging its importance.”

Trouble with the good fight, I find… once the fight starts, the good stops.”

Loved as only politicians free from power—and therefore from disappointment—ever can be.

“Could be worse. Now folk here’ll know what I’ve never doubted.” He gave her a stronger grin. “That you’re the wrong woman to mess with.”

“Whatever it costs,” said Vick. “That’s what His Eminence told me.” Tallow had that worried look again. “Easy to say for him who won’t be paying.”

But if you’re furious whenever the Closed Council does something infuriating, you’ll be furious all the time. Rare anger can be inspiring. Frequent anger becomes contemptible.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “Could you just for once be wrong, Mother?” “I’ve tried it a couple of times. It really didn’t suit me.”

Downside was frowning at the Shanka corpses, weighing his axe and wondering where to start. “Never thought o’ myself as a man who fills sacks with heads.” “No one sets off in that direction,” said Clover, puffing out his cheeks one more time. “But before you know it, there you bloody are.”

“Help with strange problems comes from strange people.”

“Everything’s a matter of where you stand.”

“You sure about this?” Tallow caught her by the elbow, hissing in her ear over the rattle of pans, spoons, knives, the calls of the hawkers. “Lorsen told us to leave him be.” “If I always did what I was told I’d still be down a mine in Angland. Or dead.” Tallow raised his brows. “Or both?”

Doesn’t matter how skilled, or tough, or big a man is if he doesn’t see you coming.

“The traditional punishment,” pattered the high justice. “For such crimes. Is hanging.” “I’m a member of the Open Council!” “You’ll find we all hang much the same,” said Glokta, softly.

“I would ask you to look into your heart.” “Oh, mine’s a very small one. People who seek for anything of much significance in there are inevitably disappointed.”

“I must confess I have always had some sympathy with villains. Heroism makes fine entertainment but sooner or later someone has to get things done.”

A man is measured by his enemies. Worthy ones can be more missed than friends.”

Truly, as he loved to say, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

“What exactly was he offering me?” she muttered. Her father gave a bitter snort. “The First of the Magi never gives, only takes. That was not an offer to you, it was a threat to me.” “Threats, and blackmail, and banks?” It was one of those moments when you realise the world may not be quite what you had thought it was. She had been experiencing a lot of those lately. “What kind of wizard is he?” Her father frowned up at Bayaz’s towering statue. “The kind you obey.”

“The truth is overrated.” Vick let the purse drop into his hand. “An actor should know that.”

“Got no pride, eh, Clover?” “Used to have, my king. Used to have a fucking surfeit. Like a field in spring can draw too many bees. But I found when you’re struggling, there’s not a lot you can buy with the stuff. Pride, that is, not bees. So I shed mine. Don’t miss it in the least.”

“I think…” he murmured, leaning towards her, “that I might be the luckiest man in the Union.” “Don’t be ridiculous.” She patted his elbow. “You’re the luckiest man in the world.”

It’s easy to scream about the fence when you’re on the wrong side of it. Some mad twist of fortune lands you on the right side, though, the fence starts to look like it might not be such a bad idea. Might even be worth all the sacrifices. Other people’s sacrifices aren’t that hard to make.

“All this bloody self-pity. It was fun when you were a crown prince, but fuck, it doesn’t suit a king.” Tunny took a pull on his pipe, but it was dead, and he angrily smacked the ashes out on the tabletop. “Get back to the palace and get on with it. We’ll miss you, but these lovely ladies need to make some money and you’re scaring away the guests.”

“There’s only one kind of good news, and that’s dead enemies.

“You’re a woman,” said Oxel, with a sneer. “True,” said Rikke. “I realised that the first time I tried to piss standing up. Most disappointing day of my life.”

The Queen Dowager issued a frustrated tutting of her tongue. “Please, Orso, you are not the tragic lead in some overwrought play. You are a king. You have no business talking about the right thing.”

“Far as the Long Eye goes, I’ve got my doubts,” said Calder, sighing as he stood. “But that girl’s got a sharp mind and a hard heart.” He waved over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “Let me know when you’re bored of ruining things. I’ll do my best to stitch ’em back together.”

I came to the North to see how things are done here. Not to do things my way regardless.”

“Few of us get to pick our battles,” said Savine. “The battles pick us.” “Maybe you should let this one pick someone else.”

Leo had stepped out into the sun, a worried look on his face. There was no disguise in him at all. He couldn’t have hidden a tree in a forest.

Rikke gave her a hug, which was like hugging cut glass, then she gave Leo a hug, which felt very strange. She held him tight, and smelled that smell he still had, and remembered how she used to feel, snuggling into the warmth of blankets with his arms around her. Safe. She never felt safe any more, and it came to her that if things had been a bit different, maybe she’d be the one carrying his child. Most of her knew they’d never been well matched. But there was a piece of her that’d loved him once. And that piece ached at the loss of him, and the woman she’d been with him, and the life she might’ve had with him, so much that tears welled up unexpected in her blind eye and she had to make out something had blown into it.

Why don’t you come inside? I’ll toss a fresh log on the firepit and crack a keg of my father’s ale.” “I’d sooner have vengeance.” “Were you going to run off to Carleon and grab it ’fore sundown?” asked Shivers.

“I never realised before. The thing about crowns… there’s nothing in them, is there?”

“The one undeniable thing about the future,” murmured Orso’s mother in Styrian, “is that it comes to you, ready or not, without need for a conveyance.”

They say belief is righteous, but to Muslan only doubt was divine. From doubt flows curiosity, and knowledge, and progress. From belief flows only ignorance and decay.

The priests had said his work was against the laws of God. Ignorant cowards. Who made the minds of men, if not God? What was the desire to create, if not a humble imitation of His example? What was the grand idea, the great vision, the profound revelation, if not a glimpse of the divine?

There was something wet on her face. She touched it. Red fingertips. She realised High Justice Bruckel had pressed himself against her shoulder. How dare he? As she turned to remonstrate with him, she saw the side of his head was sheared away, blood spurting from the pulp inside and turning her dress red. Probably she should assist. Very severe injury, by all appearances.

Terrible decision. Did Orso make any good ones? Couldn’t think of any. Probably the blame was his. It usually was. A king was just a kind of bin for all the blame to go in.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s rarely any need to wade into the bitter ocean for your vengeance. It’ll wash up on the shore soon enough.”

I have been trying to garner some words of Northern, but I fear I am a poor study.” “Oh, no doubt.” Calder snorted. “The first thing I think when I look at you is—there’s a woman who’s not crafty enough.”

“Strange, isn’t it? You keep having to check how disgusting it is. Then, one day, you check and you find you actually like it. Soon after, no other drink will quite scratch that itch. I’ve often felt that people are the same.” He dipped the tip of his tongue into his glass and thoughtfully smacked his lips. “The ones you like straight away rarely turn out to be your favourites. I’ve a feeling you might be an acquired taste, Victarine dan Teufel.”

“Any o’ you girls know a fellow called Sarlby?” Broad asked, holding up a silver mark. “You talk to those girls, it’ll cost you,” said a rat-faced pimp, skulking over from an alleyway. Broad gave him a look. “You sure?” The man frowned, and twitched, and skulked back into the shadows.

“My womb does not exist so you can distract our mother. A sentence I had hoped I would never have to utter.”

“I have made my decision, Mother. I hope you will accept it.” He had expected a ferocious dressing-down. A furious Styrian tirade. Or, worse yet, the deadly gliding off followed by days of icy silence. But all the Queen Dowager of the Union did was cock her head on one side and calmly consider him. “You have grown up, Orso. A bittersweet moment for a mother.”

“Winning teaches you nothing,” said Tunny. “You see what a man really is when he loses.”

“Some might say there’s a natural order to things,” Leo forced through gritted teeth. “If we were constrained by the natural order we would still be wriggling naked in the filth.”