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beeblackburn · 5 years ago

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Pretender Reads A Little Hatred, Part I, Chapter Five

If anyone would like to publicly hang me for posting more frequently after months since the first read-through, feel free! Goes without saying spoilers ahead for the entirety of The First Law works beyond the keep reading. Read at your own risk.

Chapter Title: A Little Public Hanging Point-of-View: Crown Prince Orso

As a forewarning, I just want to say this: I hate privileged royal characters. I do, I really do! They always end up as some form of ineffectual, despite being in high positions, spoiled whiners who complain about how hard their lives are, despite having vastly more than the mud-and-shit-worked peasants they rule over, and refusing to actually change things for the better.

And, after a lifetime of reading about privileged royal twats as protagonists who complained about how hard their lives were, only to end up getting a heart for the peasantry later, but not actually rocking the boat too hard, in terms of changing their monarchies to something directly more beneficial, I’m just kind of done with them?

That being said, Abercrombie wrote Jezal dan Luthar and I actually liked how he progressed, but at the same time, he wasn’t royalty at the start. Just a noble prick who had to take some hard blows before he could grow the hell up. So, we’ll see how this goes...

“I hate bloody hangings,” said Orso.

One of the whores tittered as if he’d cracked quite the joke. It was the falsest laugh he had ever heard, and when it came to false laughter, he was quite the connoisseur. Everyone was false in his presence, and he the worst actor of all.

“I guess you could stop it,” said Hildi. “If you wanted.”

Orso frowned up at her, perched on the wall with her legs crossed and her chin propped on one palm.

“Well… I suppose…” Strange how the idea had never occurred to him before. He pictured himself springing onto the scaffold, insisting these poor people be pardoned, ushering them back to their miserable lives to tearful thanks and rapturous applause. Then he sighed. “But… one really shouldn’t interfere with the workings of the judiciary.”

Lies, like everything that left his mouth, engineered to make him appear just a touch less detestable. He wondered who he was trying to fool. Hildi undoubtedly saw straight through it. The truth was, when it came to stopping this, as with so much else, he simply couldn’t be arsed. He took another pinch of pearl dust, his heavy snorts ringing out as the Inquisitor in charge stepped to the front of the scaffold and the crowd fell breathlessly silent.

My, my, Orso’s quite the charmer, isn’t he. Just this apathetic mess who can’t be bothered to act in any way real, even stop a hanging he doesn’t like. There’s a pitiful quality to him, but not in a way that arouses sympathy or love to me, given how much privilege and power his position has, especially with how much he knows he’s a shit and can afford to get away with it as crown prince.

That being said, what strikes me about this opening is just how painfully self-depreciating Orso’s voice is. To the noting of false laughter, to the knowledge that he knows he’s using his words to paint himself less awful to Hildi, to this feeling that she can see through how despicable he is (and he kind of is here!), one thing that contrasts him with a high screech against early Jezal and, more accurately, Crown Prince Ladisla, is that... Orso really doesn’t buy into any hype of his. He knows he’s a shit person, everyone knows it, so why bother denying it to himself?

Hmmm. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this, self-awareness can cut both ways in terms of reader sympathy, but he’s no Ladisla so far. He’s certainly an interesting contrast to Savine, the other Union voice, and Leo, the other male voice, so far. He’s not particular fixated on public appearances, given the ease of doing drugs out in the open, and he’s not exactly a man of action either. He’s just... kind of an inactive shit stuck in his privilege.

“These three…people,” and the Inquisitor swept an arm towards the chained convicts, each held under the armpit by a hooded executioner, “are members of the outlawed group known as the Breakers, convicted of High Treason against the Crown!”

“Treason!” someone screeched, then dissolved into coughing. It was a still day, so a bad one for the vapours. Not that there were many good days for the vapours lately, what with the new chimneys sprouting up all over Adua. People at the very back must have been struggling to see the scaffold through the murk.

“They have been found guilty of setting fires and breaking machinery, of incitement to riot and sheltering fugitives from the king’s justice! Have you anything to say?”

The first prisoner, a heavyset fellow with a beard, evidently did. “We’re faithful subjects of His Majesty!” he bellowed in a hero’s voice, all manly bass and quivering passion. “All we want is an honest wage for honest work!”

Huh, so the Breakers are effectively revolutionaries? Honestly, I can’t really blame them for railing against their conditions. As we’ve seen in Savine’s chapter, they live in some truly wretched environments. And all these passages prove is that is the new age of progress that Savine’s taking advantage is here to stay, and Orso’s eyes are a necessary lens to see all the curses of it, whereas Savine would only see the Breakers and the vapours as the inevitable collateral damage of this new world where money is power.

“I’d sooner take a dishonest wage for no work at all,” grunted Tunny.

Yolk burst out laughing while swigging from his bottle and sprayed a reeking mist of spirits, which settled over the wig of a well-dressed old lady just in front.

Hey, Tunny and Yolk! Hi, you two surviving bastards! Playing to the hits, I see.

“Yes.” Tunny showed his yellow grin and Orso winced. He hated it when Tunny used him to bully people. Almost as much as he hated hangings. But somehow he could never bring himself to stop either one.

(arches an eyebrow) Now, how did Tunny manage to get in close enough to the Crown Prince ever since serving in the war against Styria? And why get close to a Crown Prince to begin with? Is Tunny not afraid of the shitting falling on him once Orso’s enemies angling to take him and his friends out?

And, by god, Tunny’s turned into more of a shit than he originally was. I mean, given his appearance in Sharp Ends, I’m not surprised, but never let it be said that Abercrombie lets up on the negative character development he’s famous for among his characters.

The side-whisker enthusiast had turned pale as a freshly laundered sheet, something Orso had not seen in some time. “Your Highness, I had no idea. Please accept my—”

“No need.” Orso waved a lazy hand, wine-stained lace cuff flapping, and took another pinch of pearl dust. “I am a damn disgrace. Notoriously so.” He gave the man a reassuring pat on the shoulder, realised he had smeared dust all over his coat and tried ineffectually to brush it off. If Orso excelled at anything, after all, it was being ineffectual. “Please don’t concern yourself over my feelings. I don’t have any.” Or so he often said. The truth was he sometimes felt he had too many. He was dragged so violently in a dozen different directions that he could not move at all.

Honestly, as much as I don’t come out of this respecting Orso, I can relate to that last sentiment. Being so dragged apart by different responsibilities and obligations that you feel paralyzed by it. You can’t move, you can’t do anything.

That being said, Orso, you’re doing drugs while watching a hanging you can, theoretically, try to stop. I’m not seeing where you’re being dragged apart here.

And there is so much apathy and self-depreciation in these passages, so much of Orso not getting angry or petty, not even for a power high considering Side-whiskers would be fine with however he reacted, which is so telling compared to the usual reactions of nobles. There’s no knee-jerk anger at being told off like Jezal or Ladisla or Vallimir or most others here. Orso’s so inactive, he can’t even summon up the typical petty retribution that nobles do.

He’s a shit, but he’s a very different shit compared to the others, I feel.

“Majir?”

“Y’owe Majir a hundred and fifty-one marks. Said she can’t give you more credit.”

“Spizeria, then?”

“Y’owe him three hundred and six. Same story.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

Hildi gave Tunny, Yolk and the whores a significant glance. “You want me to answer that?”

Orso racked his brains to think of someone else, then gave up. If he excelled at anything, after all, it was giving up. “For pity’s sake, Hildi, everyone knows I’m good for it. I’ll be coming into a considerable legacy one of these days.” No less than the Union, and everything in it, and all its unliftable weight of care, and impossible responsibility, and crushing expectation. He grimaced and tossed her the box.

Huh! The same Majir in Savine’s chapter? A neat note, but dang, Orso, who haven’t you indebted yourself to at this point? So much privilege of never needing to mind one’s personal purse. Though, you’d think Jezal would’ve covered him or Terez, at least, told him to knock it off the frivolous spending, up to a point.

And there’s that awareness again, knowing how much weight he’s going to be under once he stops being Crown Prince and starts being King of the Union, and, to put a pause on haranguing Orso for his inactivity and open apathy, the Circle of the World might be the only series where there’s greater context to more justify a lack of feeling any agency among the royalty, given how Bayaz’s set it up and how much Jezal is ultimately a prisoner to his status, though Orso doesn’t know how bad it’ll get.

Kind of hard to do anything when stepping out of line means an “accident.”

“You owe me nine marks,” she muttered.

“Shoo!” Orso tried to wave her away, got his little finger painfully tangled in his cuff and had to rip it free. “Just get it done!”

She gave a long-suffering sigh, jammed that ancient soldier’s cap down over her blonde curls and stepped off into the crowd.

“She’s a funny little thing, your errand girl,” warbled one of the whores, dragging too heavily on his arm.

“She’s my valet,” said Orso, frowning, “and she’s a fucking treasure.”

Awww, is it wrong this made me like Orso more? If he drags himself, he elevates others as well. And he’s right, Hildi’s a damn treasure and it’s still kind of amazing a prince allows his inner circle to be contrary to him, mouthing off to him and using him in their petty power plays like with Tunny and Side-whiskers earlier.

It’s like he has so little regard for himself, that there’s room for him to think so much better of others.

On the scaffold, meanwhile, the bearded man was bellowing out the Breakers’ manifesto with ever more emotion. The noise from the crowd was growing but, much to the upset of the Inquisitor, he was starting to strike a chord. Calls of support were breaking through the mockery.

“No more machines!” the bearded man roared, veins bulging in his thick neck. “No more seizure of common land!”

He seemed a useful fellow. More useful than Orso, certainly. “What a bloody waste,” he muttered.

This is reminding me of when Last Argument of Kings had the Tanner plotline and how much the peasantry rebelled then. Except thematically... this feels different. That rebellion was an orchestrated farce at the head of it in the end, but this feels more... real.

Orso, especially stuck in his self-depreciation, can see the validity of the people involved with the movement, and see the waste of killing a good man. Yet, he’ll still let him die because his station is built upon on culling the dissidents of royalty, hence why the Inquisition are doing this.

He might believe it a waste, hell, I think he genuinely does, but ultimately, without acting, all those thoughts? Empty gestures and sighs, full of pity, Orso.

It was a riddle. This man, born with no advantages, believed in something so much he was willing to die for it. Orso, born with everything, could scarcely make himself get out of bed of a morning. Or, indeed, an afternoon.

“Bed is warm, though,” he murmured.

Well, that’s just the thing. The privileged, with their inherited wealth, don’t have to work to preserve it and their privileges. They’ve known no other life beyond it and have grown accustomed to their degree of luxury. Their wealth and privilege allows them to live as comfortably as possible, and the human lives exploited and squeezed out of their use? They’re less a consideration to the immediate pleasures of the privileges of those in high places.

Comfort and pleasure can blind you, because too much of them can close you off to the pain and anguish of others, if your luxurious life is dependent on the suffering of others. It’s only when you have skin in the game that you learn to fight for something until the bitter end, because you don’t have any luxury to fall back on when you’re knee-deep in the shit. A world’s difference between that Breaker and Orso, between those with losing and winning hands.

Rather than needing strong men or horses to haul up the condemned, some enterprising fellow had devised a system whereby prisoners could be dropped through the scaffold floor at a touch upon a lever. There was an invention to make everything more efficient these days, after all. Why would killing people be an exception?

(snorts) Done in a new way, indeed.

“Damn it,” muttered Orso, working a finger into his collar. There was nothing even faintly satisfying in this. Even if these people really were enemies of the state, they hardly looked like very dangerous ones.

In some ways, this is a shockingly naive thought in the Circle of the World. Plenty of otherwise harmless-looking or quiet people can turn out your most dangerous and ruthless enemies in this world, as Logen would point out. But, at the same time... this is still an acknowledgment of all this being wrong. Orso’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t know right or wrong, it’s that he can’t be bothered to do anything about it, and that damns him, given he, out of everyone there, could stop it. Could, at least, try! And doesn’t!

The next in line to receive the king’s justice was a girl who might not yet have been sixteen. Her eyes, wide in bruised sockets, flickered from the open trapdoor to the Inquisitor as he stepped towards her. “Have you anything to say?”

She appeared hardly to comprehend. Orso found himself wishing the vapours were thicker, and that he could not see her face at all.

“Please,” said the man beside her. There were tears streaking his dirty cheeks. “Take me but, please—”

Oof. I can’t say I’m surprised, considering West’s chapter at the Angland camp noting the Inquisition takes children in, but seeing it still punches me in the heart. And that man, just begging for leniency to that girl, for himself...

And Orso, wishing he didn’t have to see her face, in order not to feel the guilt burning in him. At staying his hand. Because looking at someone’s eyes beforehand makes it all the harder to say they deserved to die.

Orso gritted his as he looked to the scaffold. Hildi had been right, he could stop this. If not him, who? If not now, when?

There was some problem with the girl’s noose, the Inquisitor hissing furiously at one of the executioners as he dragged his hood up over his sweaty face to peer at the knots.

Orso was just about to step forward. Was just about to roar, Stop!

On a purely realistic note, I kind of wonder what would have happened, had Orso acted? Glokta’s not there, nor is Bayaz, and it can be agreed-upon the public masses that the royalty of the Union still holds the power over there. So, ultimately, it depends on whether Orso would buckle to the Inquisitors there, them telling him that the Breakers are traitors and deserve no quarter with him conceding in the end, or if he could argue that children have done no crime worth execution? In truth, the Inquisition are the real power, given Arch Lector Glokta, but at the same time, publicly undercutting the royalty might be more trouble than Orso undercutting the Inquisition, who nominally serve under him.

In short, it’s entirely possible he could’ve, at least, saved the girl, just like Jezal protected Brock’s children against his Closed Council once:

“There will be no hangings.” The king was frowning levelly at Bayaz.

Hoff blinked. “But your Majesty, you cannot allow—”

“There has been enough bloodshed. Far more than enough. Release Lord Brock’s children.”

Last Argument of Kings, Patriotic Duties

(Sobs at father/son connections)

In all honesty, if we’re talking echoes of the first trilogy, there’s a lot of later-Jezal in Orso, the self-depreciating man who was more painfully aware of how out-of-depth he was as king, except the self-depreciation is far more pointed in Orso’s case, Orso’s voice is choked full of it, so much so that it’s a miasma of disregard to himself. Not undeserved, considering how little he’s doing now, but it’s definitely a notable quality. On a structural level, I can’t help, but read a certain Crown Prince Ladisla in Orso, except, instead of just a punchline, there’s an actual character in this useless prince, and enough self-aware and want to do the right thing...

... Yet, Orso doesn’t.

But circumstances always conspired to stop him doing the right thing. He heard a soft, high voice in his ear. “Your Highness.”

Orso turned to see the broad, flat and decidedly unwelcome face of Bremer dan Gorst at his shoulder.

HEY, GORST THE WORST! How’re ya doing? :D Still the King's First Guard? Of course you are! Also still being a depressed, self-pitying murderous incel? That too, most like!

Gods, I wonder if he’s still fixated on Finree, after all these years...

“The queen has sent for you,” piped Gorst.

Orso blew out through his pursed lips to make a long farting sound. “Hasn’t she better things to do?”

Oh, SNAP! We’re getting Terez this early? My, my, I’m certainly interested in seeing her again, after how Abercrombie dropped the ball with her the first trilogy.

Orso turned away without much reluctance. He hated bloody hangings, but the girls had wanted to go and he hated disappointing people, too. As a result of which, it seemed, he disappointed everyone. At his back, there was that strange sound between gasp and cheer as the next trapdoor dropped open.

Disappointing me as well. Damn it, Orso. Nothing was stopping you from stopping the girl’s execution, at least, and then going to your mother right after. But no, you took the easy excuse of needing to be with your mother, instead of the hard choice of standing for what’s right.

Another thing Abercrombie relies on? The anti-climax, the thwarting of expectations on a chapter and series scale, I knew it as one of his writing tools going in, and I still fell for it, hoping Orso would do something useful, anything useful and stop the excessive execution of a child. I suppose I have no one to blame but myself, given even Orso’s expressed what a useless shit he is, but...

Oh, Orso, Orso, Orso. What am I to do with you?

Orso tossed his hat onto the bald head of a bust of Bayaz, congratulating himself that it came to rest on the legendary wizard at a pleasingly rakish angle.

Huh, I do wonder how a meeting between Orso and Bayaz would go down. Bayaz’s inevitable to come visit the Union at some point in this trilogy, especially if Jezal croaks in the middle of it (the Breakers would serve as an abject reason for murdering the king, given the allusions to the French Revolution). Orso hardly seem to be made of sterner stuff, even more than his father, who wasn’t exactly a lion deep down... but at the same time, that’s expected, isn’t it?

Who are you, Orso, beyond a self-aware fool I can’t respect, and pity without sympathy?

The tapping of his boot heels echoed in the vast spaces of the salon as he crossed a sea of gleaming tiles to the tiny island of furniture in its centre. The High Queen of the Union sat fearsomely erect there, dripping with diamonds, growing out of the chaise like a spectacular orchid from a gilded pot. It hardly needed to be said that he’d known her his whole life, but the sheer regality of the woman still took him aback every time.

You know, I was expecting this, but wow. We’re really getting Terez, huh! Looking the picture-perfect example of royalty.

Also, I got to love that fearsomely. Lovely detail to capture how Orso feels about his mother.

“Mother,” he said, in Styrian. Using the tongue of the country they actually ruled only aggravated her, and he knew from long experience that aggravating Queen Terez was never, ever worth it. “I was just on my way to visit when Gorst found me.”

“You must take me for a rare kind of fool,” she said, angling her face towards him.

“No, no.” He bent to brush one heavily powdered cheek with his lips. “Just the usual kind.”

“Really, Orso, your accent has become appalling.”

“Well, now that Styria is almost entirely controlled by our enemies, I get so little chance to practice.”

As an immigrant child, someone born away from my current home, I can’t entirely relate to this... but I know my parents suffered a great deal of cultural diaspora when they came to where we currently live. And, when my brother and I could, we would speak Chinese because it was part of our parents’ culture. I’m not particularly good at it, but I know enough to make my parents’ lives more convenient instead of speaking a language they’re less comfortable with.

I say all this to say? I completely get where Terez’s coming from. She was effectively sold off from her father to a foreign country to accumulate more of his power and she’s adrift from her original culture and home and just wants to keep as much as possible. And it’s honestly such a neat detail from a character who was given the short shrift in the first trilogy, writing-wise. I can already tell there’s a greater sense of detail attended to her this time.

The royal bosom, constrained by corsetry that was a feat of engineering to rival any wonder of the new age, inflated majestically as the queen sighed. “People expect a certain amount of indolence in a Crown Prince. It was quite winning when you were seventeen. At twenty-two, it began to become tiresome. At twenty-seven, it looks positively desperate.”

(looks at Crown Prince Ladisla) Different sort of man, yet, the same disappointment. I come back to the Prince Ladisla comparison because the way they’re written feels so different, despite occupying a similar useless royal twat archetype. Prince Ladisla completely bought into himself being the best thing since sliced bread, full of illusions of himself as a great general in his head. Crown Prince Orso, though? If anything, he suffers from the opposite problem: so thoroughly disillusioned of himself that he feels he can’t do anything. They’re both privileged, useless, royal twat archetypes, but how their uselessness is expressed is the difference between day and night.

“You have no idea, Mother.” Orso dropped into a chair so savagely uncomfortable it was like being punched in the arse. “I have long been thoroughly ashamed of myself.”

“You could try doing something to be proud of. Have you considered that?”

“I’ve spent whole days considering it.” He frowned discerningly through the wine as he held it up to the light from the giant windows. “But doing it really feels like such a lot of effort.”

This feels similar to the Finree/Leo dynamic, except where that mother was exasperated at her son’s inability to do anything but act, Terez takes issue with how much Orso will do anything but act. A true man of inaction against Leo’s man of action.

Also, “long been thoroughly ashamed”? How long as this been happening for Orso, then? Terez did mention that he was like this since seventeen, but... why? I mean, as Terez says, you could try doing something. Like, um, stopping an execution? Orso? Hello?

“Frankly, your father could use your support. He is a weak man, Orso.”

“So you never tire of telling him.”

“And these are difficult times. The last war did… not end well.”

“It ended pretty well if you’re King Jappo of Styria.”

His mother pronounced each word with icy precision. “Which you… are…not.”

“Sadly, for all concerned.”

“You are King Jappo’s mortal enemy and the rightful heir to all he and the thrice-damned Snake of Talins have stolen, and it is high time you took your position seriously! We have enemies everywhere. Inside our borders, too.”

Well. That answers one question about Jezal and Terez. Though, honestly, I expected as much, given those grisly circumstances. (grimaces)

Also, snrrrk. Terez, Orso barely has the energy to do the right thing for a girl, what makes you think he has the energy to take up a mortal enemy he never asked for?

Also, calling it now: Orso and Jappo are totally going to meet eventually in this trilogy and get along because they can share in their mutual burdens of dominating mothers.

“Then I trust you come to me in a receptive mood.” Orso’s mother gave two sharp claps and Lord Chamberlain Hoff strutted in. With waistcoat bulging around his belly and legs stick-like in tight breeches, he looked like nothing so much as a prize rooster jealously patrolling the farmyard.

“Your Majesty.” He bowed so low to the queen, he virtually buffed the tiles with his nose. “Your Highness.” He bowed just as low to Orso but in a manner that somehow expressed boundless contempt. Or perhaps Orso only saw his own contempt for himself reflected in that obsequious smile. “I have positively scoured the entire Circle of the World for the most eligible candidates. Dare one suggest that the future High Queen of the Union waits among them?”

HEY, Hoff! You piece of utter shit! How’ve you been?

(stares before wincing) Well, that feels familiar... though, I imagine there’s just some genuine contempt, considering that you’re not exactly the model of princely behavior.

Well, not good princely behavior.

“Oh, good grief.” Orso let his head drop back, staring up towards the beautifully painted ceiling of the peoples of the world kneeling before a golden sun. “The parade again?”

“Ensuring the succession is not a joke,” pronounced his mother.

“Not a funny one, anyway.”

“Don’t be facetious, Orso. Your sisters both did their dynastic duty. Do you suppose Cathil wanted to move to Starikland?”

“She’s an inspiration.”

“Do you think Carlot wanted to marry the Chancellor of Sipani?”

Actually, she had been delighted by the idea, but Orso’s mother loved to imagine everyone sacrificing all on the altar of duty, the way she was always telling them she had. “Of course not, Mother.”

Cathil? Carlot? What the... who named them? Orso makes me think Terez got to name the sons (oh geez, I just realized Crown Prince Orso was still a child when Duke Orso got killed, what a bad omen) and Cathil and Carlot... did Jezal name them? Where did he get those names? Now I’m wondering Jezal asking Glokta for advice on names, and Glokta asking Pike for another name for the daughter after the first one.

Either that or Cathil and Carlot are common Union names, maybe, but just imagine the awkwardness of that naming discussion between Jezal and Glokta.

Also, STARIKLAND? Where Conthus and Carlot are? Oh dear...

What strikes me about this is the idea that Orso and Carlot were close enough that he knew that she was delighted at the arrangement between her and the Chancellor of Sipani. It’s just a nugget, but it helps make Orso a little more palatable.

Also, as much as I really dislike the guilt-tripping from Terez here... there’s a sad reality that she was sacrificed for her father’s power. Whether he knew she was a lesbian or not is immaterial, he could’ve arranged her a match she actually liked and straight-up didn’t care enough to, only thinking that she would’ve whined, had he offered Euz, instead of simply a king.

“Lady Sithrin dan Harnveld,” announced the lord chamberlain.

Orso sank lower into his chair. “Do I really want a wife who measures the distance from her chin to her tits in miles?”

“Artistic licence, Your Highness,” explained Hoff.

“Call it art, you can get away with anything.”

HA! I have a few artistic friends, and have seen enough artists justify wonky perspective or anatomy, that this is endlessly amusing to me.

Honestly, Orso’s got a few good zingers here. That’s another good part about this chapter here: he’s funny in a way Rikke and Leo, or even Savine, aren’t, despite the darkness of the initial half. A lot of his quips undercut a good chunk of the darkness there. Not enough that the reality doesn’t sink in, but enough that it doesn’t choke us with the misery of child execution.

“The Countess Istarine of Affoia is a proven politician, and would bring us valuable allies in Styria.”

“From the looks of her, she’s more likely to bring me a dose of the cock-rot.”

“I had imagined you would be immune from constant exposure,” observed the queen, waving the portrait away with an exquisite flourish of her fingers.

Snrrrrk. Dang, even Terez’s got some good zingers here. This back-and-forth is delightfully fun.

And so it went, as Orso marked the turning of morning into afternoon by the steadily decreasing level of wine in the decanter, and dismissed the flower of womanhood, one by one.

“How could I abide a wife taller than me?”

“She’s a worse drunk than I am.”

“At least we know she’s fertile, she’s borne two bastards that I know about.”

“Is that a nose on her face or a prick?”

He almost wished he was back at the hanging. That, he could theoretically have stopped. Over his mother, he was utterly powerless. His only chance was to wait her out. There were a finite number of women in the Circle of the World, after all.

Yeaaaaaaaah, Orso might be a shit person, but dang, this part of him is oodles of fun, a delightful wry awareness. Though, dang, some of these are pretty damn petty complaints, all things considering.

“Finished?” asked Orso. “No portrait of Savine dan Glokta lurking in the hallway?”

(feels a chill in his spine) Oh god, no, Orso.

No, just no. Please don’t. I’m serious. Don’t fuck your half-sister!

On a less horrified note, is that why he gave those petty complaints and denials to those women? Because he has his heart set on Savine? Which, I mean, all the power to you, Orso, but it’s Savine. Putting aside the incest angle that you don’t know about, it’s Savine.

Even at this distance, he felt the chill of the queen’s displeasure. “For pity’s sake, her mother is a low-born boor, and a drunk to boot.”

“But an absolute scream at parties, and whatever you say for Lady Ardee, Arch Lector Glokta has the people’s respect. Or at any rate their abject terror.”

“A crippled worm,” spat the queen. “A torturer!”

“But our torturer, eh, Mother? Our torturer. And I understand his daughter has made herself quite spectacularly rich.”

I 100% do not blame Terez for being so visceral against Glokta. What he did to her the first trilogy is some abjectly ghastly shit. I will never hold that against her. Though, you really have to be a classist shit to Ardee, Terez?

That being said, whatever happened to Shalere? She’s not attending to Terez and she was particularly joined at the hip with Terez back in Last Argument of Kings, so... was she killed? I noticed Orso didn’t mention a brother, or did Glokta take mercy on Terez and Shalere after the former sired Orso, Cathil, and Carlot, and Terez told her lover to get out of dodge to protect her? That’s... just even more sad and lonely for Terez.

Also, huh, Ardee goes out to parties and living the high life? Good for her, I guess she doesn’t just stay home all the time, like Savine’s chapter implies. At least that’s some levity from the misery of loneliness.

“Money made through trade, and dealings, and investments.” The queen spat the words as though they were criminal enterprises. For all Orso knew, Savine’s dealings were criminal enterprises. He wouldn’t at all have put it past her.

“Oh, come now, money shamefully made from trade fills the same holes in the treasury as the kind nobly wrung from the misery of the peasantry.”

“She is too old! You are too old, and she is even older than you are.”

“But she has impeccable manners and is still quite the celebrated beauty.” He waved a loose hand towards the doorway. “She’d make a prettier portrait than any of those piglets, and the painter wouldn’t even have to lie. Queen Savine sounds rather well.” He gave a chuckle. “It even rhymes.”

I’ve said plenty about Orso’s inactivity and his shittiness for that, but he’s certainly got a brain to him, and enough understanding and no class illusions to realize that money’s money, no matter where it comes from.

Honestly, it’s a little refreshing, how much Orso isn’t the usual privileged royal twat, characterization-wise.

Also, huh! Good to know how to pronounce Savine’s name! Now, I sort of wish I knew how to pronounce your name, Orso, ya fop.

“Promise me you will have nothing to do with that ambitious worm of a woman.”

“With Savine dan Glokta?” Orso sat back with a bemused expression. “Her mother’s a commoner, her father’s a torturer and she made her money from business.” He shook the last drops from the decanter into his glass. “Quite apart from which, really, she’s far too bloody old.”

“Oh,” he gasped. “Oh! Oh fuck!”

He arched his back, clutched desperately at the edge of the desk, kicked a pot of pens onto the floor, smacked his head against the wall and sent a little shower of plaster across his shoulders. He tried desperately to squirm away, but she had him by the balls. Quite literally.

He crushed his face up, nearly swallowed his tongue, coughed and hissed one more desperate, “Fuck!” through gritted teeth, then sagged back with a whimper, kicked and sagged again, legs shuddering weakly with aching after-spasms.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

(bursts into laughter) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT! (continues howling in laughter) Oh my god, Orso!!! (descends into a strangled sort of laughter now) Wow, Orso, just wow... hahahahaha (putters in tiny, almost choked snickers) ... hahahaha...

... Shit, this is kind of bad, isn’t it. Guys, what the fuck.

Orso watched his seed float around in the wine. “That… is somewhat disgusting.”

“Please.” Savine rinsed her mouth out from the other glass. “You only have to look at it.”

“Such cavalier disrespect. One day, madam, I shall be your king!”

“And your queen will no doubt spit your come into a golden box to be shared out on holidays for the public good. My congratulations to you both, Your Highness.”

He gave vent to a silly giggle. “Why does someone as altogether perfect as you waste her energy on a dolt like me?”

Snrrrk, gods, this chapter really be a ton of fun, given how much Orso’s matching up against people his fencing level. Brings out the best in everyone, dialogue-wise.

And it doesn’t pass my notice that when Orso says the usual entitled and typical “I shall be your king” remark, just like Ladisla towards Cathil in Before They Are Hanged, Orso is clearly saying it in jest and lets the retorting quip pass with a giggle. There’s so much of Orso that feels like an intentional course-correction of that particular fantasy archetype, a forceful zag where Ladisla zigged.

She pushed out her lips discerningly, as though considering the mystery, and for a strange, stupid moment he almost asked her. The words tickled at his lips. There was no one better suited to him. She had all the qualities he wished he had. So sharp. So disciplined. So decisive. Besides, it would have been worth it just for the look on his mother’s face. He almost asked her.

But circumstances always conspired to stop him doing the right thing.

“I can only think of one reason,” she said, hitching her skirts up and wriggling onto the desk beside him.

Oh, Orso. You’re a bit of a coward and even more of a fool than I thought if you don’t see the reality that she’s only after you for your impending kingship. The writing’s on the wall here, and you’re refusing to see it because you think Savine’s just the best (I suppose not incorrect in most aspect aside from morality).

“Get to it, then.”

“You really are in no mood for romance today, are you?”

She slid her fingers into his hair, then twisted his head somewhat painfully down between her legs. “My time is valuable.”

“The naked gall.” Orso gave a sigh as he hooked her leg over his shoulder, sliding his hand down the bare skin, hearing her gasp, feeling her shudder. He kissed gently at her shin, at her knee, at her thigh. “Is there no end to the demands of one’s subjects?”

This ending and this entire sex scene really does illuminate a lot of things, like the actual Savine/Orso dynamic (sub male and dom woman), how gentle and passive-compared-to-Savine Orso is as a lover, how clever he can be with words during intimacy, and... how much Orso feels so worthless, he feels he need the best to complete him, no matter how much she might be using him for her own gains. I shake my head at this, not even taking into account the incest quality, but... there’s a sadder register to it.

As a chapter, this does set up quite a few details, like the ills of the new age, and the Breakers that’ll resist this to the point of death, the Savine/Orso affair, and Orso’s (really) apathetic and self-depreciating character. Orso’s asides manage to undercut quite a bit of the darkness of the chapter’s first half, where Orso’s inaction is condemned by even himself, and the second half is where it crackles with dialogue and fencing between more equal opponents, unlike Savine’s punching down against random putzes. It’s not quite as self-contained as Where the Fight’s Hottest, but it’s more fun than all the prior chapters so far.

As a character... honestly, Orso fascinates me in a way only Rikke also does for me. I won’t exactly say he’s more interesting than Savine at this point, but he makes for an interesting contrast to Leo as a man of inaction. Self-aware, yet useless, Orso’s kind of a huge mess and a privileged shit in a way that I should hate, and, yeah, I don’t particularly think it says great things that he still let the executions happen (at the very least, he could’ve tried to save the girl!), but... he’s a shit in a way that’s so different from most other privileged royal twats. A man who knows himself for the useless prince and just internalizes it as deep as the pearl dust he snorts. In some ways, the self-awareness damns him, because he knows he’s useless and doesn’t try for better or not being useless, but, at the same time, he’s not unintelligent, has no illusions about himself, and is certainly a sort of fun character, if blatantly aware of how trashy he is.

I kind of wonder where Abercrombie’s going to take Orso, because he’s really fascinating as a character construct, a fantasy archetype given this modernized wry self-awareness, the privileged royal twat who has no illusions of his station and what a shit he is.

PART I

Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Chapter Two: Where the Fight’s Hottest Chapter Three: Guilt Is a Luxury Chapter Four: Keeping Score Chapter Five: A Little Public Hanging Chapter Six: The Breakers Chapter Seven: The Answer to Your Tears Chapter Eight: Young Heroes Chapter Nine: The Moment

#a little hatred #a little hatred spoilers #the age of madness #the first law #joe abercrombie #crown prince orso #a little hatred part I

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