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

by Joe Abercrombie

It was quite the shocking disappointment. Like popping some delightful sweetmeat into one’s mouth and, upon chewing, discovering it was actually a piece of shit. But that was the experience of being a monarch. One shocking mouthful of shit after another.

Broad slowly hooked his lenses over his ears, carefully settled them into that familiar groove on the bridge of his nose and gave a heavy sigh. He’d sworn to keep away from trouble, but here was the problem. Trouble wouldn’t keep away from him.

“The thing about history is you don’t know what the right side is till long afterwards, and by then it hardly matters.”

“Threats for tomorrow don’t cut very deep when today is so damn threatening. You might want to keep ’em to yourself.”

They all say, Yours will seem beautiful, of course. In a smugly knowing way, as if shitting out a child comes with secret knowledge, like joining the Order of Magi. They all say it, but you tell yourself the poor things are just trying to wring some shred of advantage from the curse of parenthood and let them have their self-delusion. Now it appeared they had been understating the case all along. Her own baby was astonishingly, breathtakingly beautiful, its every twitch a miracle. What a cliché.

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.

“I could tire of the wisdom of crowds,” Vick whispered to herself.

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.

“Faith must be shaken from time to time, or it becomes rigid. An excuse for any outrage. I have come to believe that the righteous… should always have doubts.”

You still have friends, Your Majesty. When the time is right, I will have your standard ready. With best wishes, (always) Your Friend and Servant, (always) Corporal Tunny

“By the Fates.” Orso wondered for a moment if it could be some elaborate ruse, but to what end? No. He knew the truth. The notoriously faithless Corporal Tunny was the one truly loyal man in Adua.

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.

“I freely admit that I have never been a brave man. Once, out in the Far Country, I met a fellow called Lamb, who had travelled hundreds of miles, facing down Ghosts and mercenaries and Dragon People and every danger searching for his children. Whatever the odds, he simply… would not be cowed. I think about him often. I wish I was more like him, but every day out there, I was scared.

“Brings it all back, I guess, being here.” Shivers stepped over the crest of the hill and onto its flat top, frowning towards the great ring of stones they called the Heroes, black against the white sky, like the prongs on a giant’s crown. “The good and the bad.”

“Aye, and you cheated,” said Isern, “and dinged Black Dow in the back of the head with that sword you’re wearing, and so Calder became Black Calder, and stole the North, and gave Skarling’s Chair to his brother to sit in, who gave it to his nephew to sit in.” She stuck her bottom lip out and scratched at her throat. “Come to think of it, all this is your fault.”

“And now,” said Rikke, “there’s no unpicking the warp and weft of all the things said and done since that day. It’s not a right choice or a wrong, any more than wind blown or snow fallen.”

“Well, have a shit, then, you little ingrate maggot!” she snarled, spraying chagga juice and making Rikke flinch back. “You little painted piss-smear! You fucking one-eyed wanker!” “There’s some very pleasant one-eyed folk,” grunted Shivers.

“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.”

“No,” she said brightly. “I don’t see it. If everyone knew you chose the kings, and you had all the power, they might get it in their heads to take it from you. I reckon you’d sooner stay behind the curtain, where it’s safe, and have others do the burning.”

There was no mistaking that high little voice. It was Bremer dan Gorst.

Crushed by giant tits. It was the way Tunny had always wanted to go.

“But I learned my lesson. I learn it fresh every time I try to hold one of my babies, climb the stairs or pull my prick out to piss.” Some grudging nods there. Most of them were veterans. They might not respect much, but they respected wounds, and they respected swearing.

“The sad truth is, men love to follow a man other men fear,” said Clover. “Makes them feel fearsome, too. We tell the odd fond story of the good men. The straight edges. Your Rudd Threetrees, your Dogmen. But it’s the butchers men love to sing of. The burners and the blood-spillers. Your Cracknut Whirruns and your Black Dows. Your Bloody-Nines. Men don’t dream of doing the right thing, but of ripping what they want from the world with their strength and their will.”

“But… all this really changes is the timing,” Pike was saying. “How is your conspiracy coming along, by the way?”

“Caul Shivers knows what to do with a horn.” And she barked out a cackle. “Believe me. Learned it in Styria, he said.”

He was a bloody whirlwind, like his father at his best. Or his worst. Beloved o’ the moon, he was, and smiled upon by chances. He thought someone might’ve cut him but it didn’t seem to make much difference. He was still swinging the hammer so he reckoned he’d live and if he didn’t, well, here was a death the moon would smile upon.

“What do you want?” And Scunlich heard a thing he had never heard before in the voice of Stand-i’-the-Barrows and had never thought to hear. The quaver of fear. The witch smiled, skin twisting and puckering around the golden stitches. “Your bones,” she said.

Calder looked up as its shadow fell across him. “Been a long time.” “Aye,” said Shivers. “I remember when you saved my life. In the Circle at the Heroes.” “Aye.” “Quite the irony. That it should be you who ends it.” “Aye.” “Well. I can hardly say I don’t deserve it.”

Still, if you could only bring one man to a fight with the future of the Union hanging on the outcome, she reckoned Bremer dan Gorst a good pick.

One cannot climb high without standing on others, and all she had wanted was to reach the top. What a waste it all seemed now. There is nothing at the summit, in the end, but a long drop.

Her mother had always warned her a man is judged by his best moment, a woman by her worst.

“Come here, bitch,” he said in that piping voice.

There were faces here he knew. Faces he wanted to cry even more at the sight of. Old friends and loyal comrades. Lord Marshal Forest—battle-worn and reliable. Corporal Tunny—looking as if he’d won big at the gaming table. Hildi—who had stolen a new soldier’s cap from somewhere, her face smeared with soot. Victarine dan Teufel—even though her nose was bloated and bloody and surrounded by a spectacular blooming of bruises. Even Bremer dan Gorst—with steels still in his hands and a most unfamiliar grin.

Orso turned to the Young Lion—pale, gaunt and ungainly on his false leg, blond hair darkened with sweat and that sickly smile still on his face. For various reasons, several of them good ones, Orso had grown to dislike the ex-Lord Governor of Angland quite intensely. But his father once said you can measure a man by how he treats those he dislikes. He had said he would be a king for everyone, and he meant it. The lowest as well as the highest, his enemies as well as his friends. And Brock had come through for him today. There was no denying that.

Shivers was turning that ring with the red stone around and around his little finger. “I hear little Leo’s taken a turn towards the vengeful.”

“And jokes,” said Shivers, stony-faced. “I’ve always liked a laugh.”

Savine had brought her lawyer Temple over from the Near Country to help draw it up, the keenest eye she knew for both the art and science of a contract.

The past isn’t made of facts, not really, just stories people tell to make themselves feel better. To make themselves look better.

Now he turned towards Leo, blocking the narrow jetty with his body. A very big body, with a noticeable lack of neck. Bremer dan Gorst. The king’s bodyguard pulled a final buckle tight on his unmarked breastplate and stood, swords at his sides, a bright buckler on his left arm. “I am afraid I cannot allow it,” he said in that ridiculous squeak.

Leo gave a frustrated growl. “I’ve nothing but respect for you as a swordsman! But we’re boarding that ship. In the name of King Harod, step aside!” He’d never seen Gorst smile before. He’d seemed a man incapable of expressions. But he smiled now as he raised his steels, metal flashing in the sun. Like a man who feels a wonderful relief. “In the name of King Orso,” he piped, his boots grinding into the weathered wood as he lowered himself into a ready crouch, “no.”

The bolt punched into Gorst’s face, under one eye. His head snapped up. He lost all momentum.

“Do you believe…” His voice sounded much like anyone else’s, whispering. “In redemption?” “I don’t fucking care.” “You’re young. Give it time.”

“I hope Gorst got away.” “He wasn’t planning to,” said Tunny.

If there was one good word said over his grave, it’d be that Gunnar Broad was no coward. It’d be a lie, but still.

“Gunnar?” she said. And he just started crying. A jolting sob first, that came all the way from his stomach. Then there was no stopping it. He fumbled his lenses off and all the tears he hadn’t shed the last six months came burning down his crushed-up face.

“Ah, why do I do this? Why?” Glokta gazed down at the squares board. “Because sometimes… to change the world… we must burn it down. Bayaz controlled everything. We all were pieces in his game.” He nudged one of the smallest pieces forwards into empty space. “He owned the banks, and the banks owned the merchants, owned the nobles, owned the treasury, even. The king himself danced to Bayaz’s music. The Closed Council, too. Even me, though I’m not much of a dancer these days. The Great Change was the only way I could see to cut all the puppet strings at once. The only way I could see to make us…” Glokta shrugged his bony shoulders, wincing as though even that much movement gave him pain. “Free.”

Savine stared at him, cold all over. “You freed us from Bayaz…” “Yes!” “So you could become Bayaz.” He narrowed his eyes. “That is unfair.”

Her father slowly, effortfully swivelled his chair towards the door to the hallway. “Get behind me,” he said.