The Wisdom of Crowds (The Age of Madness #3)

by Joe Abercrombie

Vick didn’t like the way the crowd greeted his flowery appeals for reason with shaken weapons and howls of approving fury. She never saw more damage done than by folk acting on high principle.

“Threats for tomorrow don’t cut very deep when today is so damn threatening.

Siding with the winner is forever sensible, of course. The trouble starts when you’re not sure who the winner might be. Quite the pickle.

The Great Change had been a basket of dreams. A bouquet of promises. All things to all men. Which was grand until, against all expectations, the Breakers won. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t enough just to have a change, it had to be a change into something. Trouble was, soon as you tried to actually deliver the bastard, to mould it into policies, with costs as well as benefits, and losers as well as winners, well, nine-tenths of folk found the Great Change wasn’t the change they’d wanted after all and wouldn’t fucking have it.

“Pick out some ringleaders. And someone fish that idiot out of the canal!” He blinked at her. “How do I tell who the ringleaders are?” “They’ll be the ones you’re pointing at.”

It was better not to mention things unless you were sure of the right language. Every day brought new wrong words to avoid. New ideas at odds with the Great Change. Everyone was free to say what they wanted now, of course. You just had to be careful in case it got you hanged.

She was madness, and fire, and violence, and all the things he’d told himself he didn’t want. But here’s the sorry truth—if you really don’t want a thing, you don’t have to keep telling yourself so.

“Why do you never have enough clothes?” “No one’s got enough clothes now.” “Scarf on a Constable. Not exactly fearsome, is it?” “More fearsome than froze to death, I daresay.”

But she knew better than to let the pain show. Letting it show is the same as asking for more.

A sad indictment of the life she’d chosen. The one person she trusted was the one she’d blackmailed into betraying his friends.

“The past has never interested me. For better or worse it is done, and set, and littered with disappointments as a battlefield is littered with the dead. But the future is a ploughed field, full of potential. The future we can twist into wonderful shapes.

“History is not the story of battles between right and wrong, but between one man’s right and another’s. Evil is not the opposite of good. It is what we call another man’s notion of good when it differs from ours.”

“If it isn’t Jonas fucking Clover.” “It’s the longer version of my name,” said Clover, already shivering, “but used often enough that I’m obliged to answer to it.”

Chances are that men who’ll hurt folk for one master won’t flinch at hurting folk for another. It’s a job. A potter doesn’t need a grand cause to shape his clay for, does he? Why hold a thug to a higher standard?

He much preferred the word “cellar” to “dungeon.” The place was designed for wine, after all, even if the purpose it was being put to now was, one had to admit, more than a bit dungeony.

There’s the big problem with bones as armour. They don’t bloody work.

“The man who brings me that witch’s head gets its weight in silver!” he roared. He’d been thinking about gold, but even at a time like this you have to get value for money.

His uncle had warned him it was no business for a boy o’ twelve. Now he saw it wasn’t only man’s work, but madman’s work.

Too much trust could kill you in a heartbeat. She’d learned that lesson in the camps. Learned it too well, maybe, because now it seemed too little trust could kill you just as dead. Only it happened slowly, during years spent alone and looking over your shoulder.

Still alive, as the Bloody-Nine was once so fond o’ saying. There wasn’t much else to take pride in, for a man who carried a sword.

That’s marriage. People change, and not always in the way you want, and you’re chained together anyway.

“No point asking my forgiveness,” said Vick. “I’m not allowed any.

“Jurand!” She ignored his hand and gave him a hug instead. “Still…” She waved a hand at him, trying to find the right words. “Juranding, then?” He respectfully bowed his head. “I wouldn’t know how to do anything else.”

“It has pleased the Lord and Lady Regent to appoint me interim Lord Chamberlain.” Isern was giving him an approving look-over. “You can be lord o’ my interim whenever you please,” she said.

Besides, a man who’s moved by grovelling will never get enough grovelling for his taste. Let him once set his foot on your back and you’ll have a fucking bootprint ’twixt your shoulder blades till the day you’re buried.

But there comes a time you have to say no to what you’re given and reach for what you want.

“Pregnancy and motherhood are hardly compatible with the fencing circle. I am awfully out of practice.” “That was my first thought just now as I lay on my back with your sword at my throat. How awfully out of practice you seem.”

“Doubts and regrets, they’re the cost of casting a shadow. The only folk without ’em are the dead.

That’s what I do. Teach sword-work.” Well, that and betray employers, but that probably wasn’t something a potential employer needed to hear.