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

by Joe Abercrombie

“You damn well should feel pleased with yourself, Your Majesty,” frothed Lord Marshal Rucksted, and few men knew more about feeling pleased with themselves than he.

He was the kind of brutal, exploitative owner who made it hard for everyone else to properly exploit their workers.

They march openly in the Three Farms, calling for… well, the resignation of His Majesty’s Closed Council.” Orso did not care for the way he said resignation. It felt like a euphemism for something considerably more final.

Can you name a lord marshal with weak lungs? his brother used to ask. Lungs define an officer!

“I’ve always been very lovable.” “Specially with a few hundred armed men at your command.” “I find the better armed they are the more lovable I get.

A crowd of gabbling voices, happy and angry at once. The warrior’s favourite mood.

but men’s mercy often runs out the very moment they’re called upon to use it.

Bastard was crying. To suffer bravely takes practice, and he’d never had any.

“You’re always saying your da was an arsehole.” “Most yawning arsehole in the whole Circle of the World.”

She’d just have to blow the door down with lies, like usual.

Freedom did not seem to have made anyone any less angry. But then the price of bread kept going up, and Chairman Risinau’s oratory wasn’t edible.

Why waste energy on hatred, after all? The world in which they had been rivals had dropped into oblivion beneath them like a sunken ship. They all were treading water to survive.

“Folk want bread,” he said. “Then safety. Then shelter. Freedom’s far down the list, and principles far behind that.”

She wanted to cry, but she was crying already.

The Breakers had ripped out most of the machinery of government; now Risinau and his stooges waggled the levers around, apparently never realising they were no longer connected to anything.

Downside, since you made the corpses, reckon it’s only fair you bury ’em, too.” “Fuck,” he grunted, sliding his axe away. “Tell you what, it’s thankless work, killing folk.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Vick as he peered at the ill-printed pages through his lenses. “The Great Change didn’t solve every problem, so the answer must be more of it.”

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.

Savine had always thought that people who were liked were simply not trying hard enough to be envied.

Not long ago his pride would’ve made him stomp from the room. But his pride must’ve been in his leg, as it hardly seemed to bother him these days.

But here’s the sorry truth—if you really don’t want a thing, you don’t have to keep telling yourself so.

She pressed a smile down on top of her dread like the lid on a box of snakes.

And to run would be to admit her guilt. Of what, she hardly knew. They would think of something.

Sworbreck was dealing with the baker first. He was a chubby man, which made him look guilty of eating well, and he was sweating profusely, which made him look guilty of being warm, both of them capital crimes in this lean winter of the Great Change.

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?

She struck him as a woman who did not get out of bed without three or four strong plans in place.

And Stand-i’-the-Barrows is growing restless. If we don’t find him some folk to kill, he’ll find ’em here.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how vengeance, falling from a great height, can spatter the most innocent o’ bystanders.

In the end, the only thing a man can really do is pick his moment. Watch for the opening, and recognise it when it comes, and seize it.

“It’s worth giving your enemies a chance. They know they can’t expect one and might be thankful for it.” Rikke frowned sideways. “Friends are much harder to please.”

It was a wearying business. Proving yourself once as a leader is never enough. You have to do it fresh with every choice.

Take it far enough, freedom becomes chaos. The voice of the people… is just noise.