The Wisdom of Crowds Read online

  He looked even angrier, now. “Who says I want to take it back?” he snarled. “You wouldn’t understand! You’ve never had to hide a thing in your life. You’ve always said and done whatever you pleased. However hurtful. However ignorant. You’ve been celebrated for it! How blunt! How manly! Well, it’s a new world now, I hear. We all have to live with things we don’t like.”

  “Oh, there’s been a Great Change, it’s true.” Leo felt his own anger bubbling up, never far from the surface, and he slapped at his aching stump. “I’m fucked, and the world’s fucked, but there are still some things that—”

  A rattle as the door opened and Savine swept in, smiling radiantly with a baby in the crook of each arm. “Jurand! Thank the Fates you’re here. It’s so good to see you again!”

  “Lady Savine…”

  “Citizeness Savine!” She leaned close, to speak out of the side of her mouth. “We are all equal, apparently.” Jurand was staring at the two bundles. “Ah, yes. These. This is Harod, and this is Ardee. At least, I think that’s the right way round.” She laughed, just as if there was no icy tension in the room at all. “This is your father’s dearest friend, Jurand,” she cooed at the babies. “Yes it is, he’s the brains of the business, and everything will be all right now, you’ll see. Two of the little monsters, would you believe it?”

  “I… wouldn’t,” said Jurand, still staring.

  “And they’re almost as unreasonable as their father. Shush, shush, come now.” One of them had started to wriggle and squeak. Leo couldn’t be sure, but he wondered if Savine might’ve pinched it. “Could you hold him, just for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, she dumped the other in Jurand’s arms.

  “He’s beautiful,” whispered Jurand, and as he stared down at little Harod, a hint of that familiar smile touched his face.

  “He takes after his mother in that regard,” murmured Savine.

  All she’d done was walk in with the children. Put aside the past, those little bundles of innocent potential seemed to say. Look to the future. As simply as that, the mood was changed.

  Leo had sworn never to let another chance slip by. He dragged himself up, set himself as best he could, hesitantly reached out and laid his hand on Jurand’s shoulder. He didn’t shake it off.

  “I’m sorry,” said Leo. “I’m so sorry.” And he was. For the mistakes he’d made. “I was a fool. I need you.”

  “We need you,” murmured Savine, gripping Jurand’s other shoulder.

  “The Union needs you. Risinau’s position gets weaker and weaker.”

  “No one loves him, no one fears him, no one respects him.”

  “I read a newsbill more savage about him than they used to be about the king,” said Leo.

  “One of Sworbreck’s, no doubt,” said Savine. “Even he’s turning on the Chairman.”

  “Things are coming apart. Riots every day. Someone has to step into the gap.”

  Jurand glanced at Leo’s hand on his shoulder, then up into his face. “Or limp into it?”

  The time was Leo might’ve punched him for that, but now he smiled. “I was actually hoping you might carry me into it.”

  Jurand looked back to Leo’s son, sound asleep in his arms. “Things will have to be different this time.”

  “Of course,” said Leo.

  “No hotheaded folly.”

  “I’m with you there,” said Savine.

  “And I want something for myself.”

  Leo squeezed Jurand’s shoulder. “You deserve it.”

  “One thing even my enemies will concede,” said Savine, “I always pay my debts.”

  “We could begin with seats in the Assembly.” Leo tickled his daughter under the chin and made her squirm. “For you, and for Glaward, then…

  our success will be your success.”

  The side of Jurand’s face twitched as he set his jaw. “How do we begin?”

  The ground trembled. A moment later came the echoing rumble of another explosion.

  Quarrels

  She slapped him as hard as she could. It made her hand sing with pain, so she was pretty sure his face must’ve felt worse.

  “You fucking arsehole!” she screamed.

  “You mad bitch!” he roared back, spraying spit in her face. “That’s it! I’m done!” And he kicked the door wide and stomped from the bedchamber which had once been Bethod’s, once been Scale Ironhand’s, once been Stour Nightfall’s, and now was Sticky Rikke’s.

  Corleth, who’d been waiting outside, flattened herself against the wall as the Nail stormed past.

  “You’re mad as a bootful o’ bees!” he snarled over his shoulder, trying to do his sword-belt up at the same time and making a mess of both.

  Rikke’s bare feet slapped at the steps as she chased after him. “Better bloody mad than bloody stupid, say I!”

  “No need to pick! You’ve managed the pair!” He stalked out into grey daylight, raindrops prickling the chill puddles scattered about the yard, and she followed.

  “Running away, are you?”

  “Aye,” he growled, “’fore I wring your twig of a neck.”

  Folk all about had perked up at the shouting. A girl with an armload of firewood was gawping at them from under a dripping oilcloth.

  “Back to the West Valleys!” The Nail jerked his arm at his men and they fell in with him, tramping in a sullen crowd out of Bethod’s fortress and into the city, dark stone turned darker with wet, dark roofs glistening with rain. “You can fight Black Calder on your own.”

  “I’ll do that, and I’ll bloody beat him, too!”

  “You’ll bloody lose and piss away all you took.”

  “My da always said the West Valleys were a fucking sty!” she shrieked at his back. “And you don’t need the Long Eye to see they’ve birthed a litter of swine wi’ you lot!”

  “Long fucking Eye?” The Nail spun about, looming over her, face so twisted with rage she stumbled back and almost slipped on her arse. “Don’t make me laugh!” And he stuck his great scarred forefinger in her face so hard it near went up her nostril. “You can’t see what’s right under your nose, you half-blind witch!”

  “Well, at least one of us has something long.” She started forwards and jabbed her little finger in his face. “Guess we know why they call you the Nail now!”

  “My cock’s… decent-sized!” He spat at her feet. “Used to shit yourself all over Uffrith, now you’re shitting yourself all over Skarling’s Chair!” And he gave a bark of fury that nearly made her slip over again, then stomped off faster’n ever, his dour-faced family crowding after him.

  “Go on!” she screamed at their backs. “Back you go to your mummies, you batch o’ cowards! Not one decent set o’ bones in the lot of you! We’re well rid o’ you bloody chicken-fuckers! I never saw such a stack o’ fishy cunts! You bloody… bloody…” She’d run out of insults. Even bad ones. And the Nail and his boys had already made it to the gate of Carleon and vanished down the entrance tunnel. She was shouting herself raw at the wet air.

  She realised she’d wandered halfway through the city, bare feet cold on the damp cobbles, bare legs covered in gooseflesh under her cloak, damp hair plastered to her head by the chill rain. Reckoned she must have trod in something on the way, one foot was smeared brown down the side.

  “By the dead,” she muttered, hopping about while she tried to wipe it on a slippery doorstep. That was when she saw a curious crowd had built up. Townsfolk. Carls and Thralls. A couple of dirty children with a big, bedraggled dog.

  “Haven’t you shits got aught better to do?” she snapped, pulling that red cloth tight about her along with such shreds of dignity as she had left. She turned back towards Skarling’s Hall with her chin in the air, doing her best to look like a screaming row half-naked in the pissing rain was just one more step in her grand plan.

  Corleth, Isern and Shivers stood in the street behind her, and did not look convinced.

  “I’ve heard it said a clever woman can turn ene
mies into allies with her quim,” mused Isern, eyes thoughtfully narrowed. “Yours seems to work the other way around.”

  “Very funny.” Rikke pushed past her and strode back up the hill. “The Nail had his mind set on going after Calder now. If you can call it a mind. Bastard wouldn’t be argued down. Now, mark you! With winter coming on!”

  “I warned her about getting cocky,” muttered Isern from the side of her mouth. “Maybe I should’ve warned her about getting cock.”

  “We’ll make do fine without him!” Rikke roared it at the town in general. “A fucking carrot can do the same job!”

  Shivers raised his one good brow. “Doubt we’ll beat Black Calder with a carrot,” he said.

  “We will not beat him with vegetables of any kind,” said Isern as they stepped back through the gate in Bethod’s great wall. “For that we will need men, and my guess is the Nail will be taking his cousins and his uncles and his friends back to the West Valleys with him.”

  “We’ll be short-handed if Calder comes knocking.”

  “When he comes knocking.”

  “All right, all right!” snapped Rikke, stumbling on the mud-heavy hem of her cloak and having to pull it up clumsily above her ankles. “Might be I got a little carried away. But we managed before he turned up, eh, Isern?”

  Isern considered her, jaw muscles squirming as she chewed a chagga pellet. “When we were running for our lives through a freezing forest, d’you mean?”

  “I was thinking of a bit after that.”

  “When we dragged you half-dead and all mad up into the hills to be paint-pricked by a witch with her head stitched together?”

  “You’re in one o’ those moods,” snapped Rikke.

  “No,” said Isern. “You are. Sitting in Skarling’s Chair don’t make you Skarling, and wearing Savine dan what’s-her-face’s necklace don’t make you Savine dan what’s-her-face. It ain’t pouting or wrath that got you here, it’s care and planning and a humble respect for your enemies and your allies. It’s those things’ll keep you here. Head on along this path, you’ll end up taking the drop from the windows sooner’n I thought.” She gave a long sigh and put her chin in the air. “And all my efforts wasted.”

  Rikke stood in the thickening rain, watching her swagger away. She badly wanted to take a parting shot but found the quiver was empty. She glanced up at Shivers, who was frowning back at her, his grey hair turned dark by the rain.

  “Am I to take it you agree?”

  Shivers’ real eye gave away no more than his metal one. “Well, I don’t disagree.”

  Rikke hissed in disgust as she ducked back inside, wet feet slapping on the flagstones.

  “Here,” said Corleth, handing her a chagga pellet.

  “Nice to see some folk can yet be relied upon.” And Rikke pushed the pellet up behind her lip and shoved open the doors to Skarling’s Hall.

  Stour was clean now, bruises mostly healed even if his legs never would be. He’d stopped begging. Stopped talking at all. Just sat there, one white hand up on the black bars, waiting. She felt his bright, wet eyes following her, and it made the hairs on her neck prickle.

  Jonas Clover didn’t look bothered by the Great Wolf, mind you. He was one o’ those bastards could look pleased with himself sat on broken glass, warming his hands at the fire like some smug old tomcat, his wet cloak thrown over a bench to dry like this was his hall.

  “Chief!” he said, glancing up. “My hearing ain’t all it used to be, but I could swear I caught some manner of commotion.”

  “Only the Nail on his way out o’ town.”

  “A short trip or a long?” Clover raised his brows at Corleth, but no further details were forthcoming. “Well, we went over to the Redwater Valley, like you told us.”

  “And Calder’s boys were down there?” asked Rikke, dropping into Skarling’s Chair. Either it was softening or her arse was hardening, it didn’t feel so uncomfortable as it used to.

  “Ran into a dozen, led by a fellow called Trapper.”

  “Put ’em back in the mud, did you?”

  A brief pause, and Rikke got the feeling he was considering how to cast something in the best light. He did that a lot. “Some of ’em.”

  “The rest?”

  “Sent ’em back to Black Calder with my cordial greetings and hopes for a mutually beneficial future.”

  “Kept your options open, in other words.”

  And from his cage, she heard Stour Nightfall give the faintest hiss of contempt.

  “Kept the lines o’ communication open, I’d say,” said Clover. “Thought the time might come when that could be useful.”

  “Useful to me, or useful to you?”

  “Our fates are wove together, Chief! I see no difference ’twixt the two.”

  “Huh.” She shifted her chagga pellet from one side of her mouth to the other and leaned forwards, turning her left eye towards him. “I’ve seen your future, Clover.”

  He winced. “At least tell me I get to sit down.”

  “Not yet, anyway. You’re going to go pay Black Calder a visit.”

  That wince became a full grimace. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”

  “Think better of where you’re at and decide you’d rather be somewhere else? Sounds like the sort of thing you’re famous for.”

  “Knew that’d land me in trouble sooner or later. So if Calder doesn’t kill me for betraying him in the first place, what then?”

  Rikke considered him a moment. Considered the position. Turned in the chair to consider Stour Nightfall, sitting calm in his cage, hungry eyes gleaming in the shadows. She weighed the words carefully. “Tell him I’m willing to deal. Peace in the North. In return for his son.”

  Clover glanced over at the cage. Rikke heard the chain creak as Stour shifted inside, pressing himself to the bars. Heard him make that hiss again.

  “You sure?” asked Clover.

  “I’m sure about asking the question.”

  “As you wish, then.” He dragged his wet cloak from the bench and over his shoulder, slapping dew from the wolf-pelt collar. “If your answer is my head in a jar, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I’ll weep a river. And Clover?”

  “Aye?”

  “Probably best you don’t mention this business with the Nail. Wouldn’t want Calder thinking we’re weak.”

  “Goes without saying.” And he gave a little bow, and walked out.

  Corleth put one hand on the arm of Skarling’s Chair and leaned down towards her. “Reckon we can trust him?”

  “Anyone we can trust, Calder won’t talk to. Sometimes you need a man no wind can shift.” Rikke turned towards that patch of floor that was getting somewhat stained from her chagga spit and spat on it. “Sometimes you need one who bends with the breeze.”

  Too Many Principles

  “This is the Lords’ Round?” asked Glaward, dumbfounded.

  “It was,” said Leo. The place his father had talked of as the cradle of noble ideals. Where the great lords of the Union had engaged in dignified debate. Where Arnault stood alone to challenge Morlic the Mad and changed the course of history. It was easy to forget. “They call it the Commons’ Round now.”

  The stained-glass windows, with their scenes from centuries of the Union’s proud history, had been declared symbols of repression and replaced with free, equal, ideologically sound clear glass from a new manufactory in the Three Farms. Harsh daylight wasn’t kind to the place.

  The public galleries had been the playground of Adua’s highest society. Now, if they hadn’t died or fled the country, the highest society were staying well out of sight. The lowest had crowded into their place, rowdier every day. Sometimes bands would strike up bawdy songs above the Assembly, the Union’s government creaking to a halt like a mired cart till they could be clumsily evicted.

  The days were getting shorter and the endless sessions dragged into the darkness, haggard faces lit by flickering candlelight. The place was chil
l as a tomb in the mornings, overhot by lunch, stinking of stale sweat and bad breath and chagga smoke. Representatives ate at their seats, remnants of meals rotting under the greasy benches. Gunnar Broad and his men regularly broke up fights. A week before, a drunk had fallen from the upper gallery during a scuffle and been smashed to pulp on the floor before the High Table. They’d paused long enough to scrape the corpse out, then carried on arguing while the mess was being mopped up.

  “We need to be bloody civil!” Ramnard, an old tailor with a face pitted by some childhood sickness, was making one of his rude demands for politeness. “I damn well insist that Citizen Sworbreck reduce the number, not to mention the savagery, of his attacks upon members of this Assembly in his newsbills and pamphlets—”

  Sworbreck leaped up as if he was mounted on a spring. “Nothing would delight me more than to do so! The very instant we reduce the number, not to mention the corruption, of the traitors, profiteers and simple incompetents in this Assembly!”

  Laughter, applause. The public gallery were as hungry for pain, tears and passion as any audience at the theatre. Leo’s clapping days were over, but he slapped the bench beside him one-handed in fake approval.

  “Friends, please!” Risinau whined from his gilded chair. “We still have so much work to do on our constitution. The people are restless. So easily roused to anger.” As if he hadn’t ridden a wave of it to power. “Citizen Sworbreck, we merely ask for a little moderation in the frenzy of your denouncements.”

  “Moderation sells no pamphlets,” muttered Leo.

  Sworbreck was well aware of that. “Sully the high principles of this august body with dishonesty? I would rather die!” He tore his shirt open to expose a wedge of pale chest. “Plunge in your dagger there, Citizen! I will happily wash the benches of this Assembly with my heart’s blood in the cause of the Great Change, I have said so often!”

  “Washing them with something would be a step forward,” Jurand muttered in Leo’s ear. Sitting between him and Glaward was far from comfortable, given the history. What happened in Sipani. What might still be happening… But it felt better than letting them sit together.