He wondered fondly what name the adoring crowds would roar at him. He could find out what he could do for them, how he could make things better. With the rebels crushed, he could finally embark on his grand tour of the Union and greet his subjects as a royal winner. He needed to get to the capital and set the ship of state on course. The future looks a different sort of place!’įor perhaps the first time in his life he was eager to find out what the future might hold – even to grapple with the bastard and force it into the shapes he desired – so he had left Marshal Forest bellowing the battle-mauled Crown Prince’s Division back into order and ridden ahead for Adua with a hundred mounted men. But one could say that about a great many things, Hildi. ‘It’s true I’ve often failed in the past. Hildi pushed back her oversized cap to doubtfully assess his stubble. He rubbed at his jaw, left unshaven for a few days in all the excitement. ‘The Young Lion, beaten bloody by the Young Lamb.’ His clothes just seemed to fit him better than they had before the battle. He could hardly remember the last time that happened. ‘I did, didn’t I.’ An unforced smile was creeping across Orso’s face, all by itself. ‘You won, Your Majesty,’ piped up Bremer dan Gorst, then snapped his mouth shut, frowning off towards the approaching towers and chimneys of Adua. His ruined leg had been buried on the battlefield alongside his ruined reputation. But then there was less of him to contain than there used to be. Leo dan Brock, that hero who a few days ago had seemed too big a man for the world to hold, was now contained in a miserable wagon with barred windows, bumping along in Orso’s wake. ‘You out-thought your enemies off the battlefield, out-fought ’em on it and took the worst traitor of the lot prisoner!’ And he stole a self-satisfied glance over his shoulder. ‘You damn well should feel pleased with yourself, Your Majesty,’ frothed Marshal Rucksted, and few men knew more about feeling pleased with themselves than he.

The man the pamphlets once dubbed the Prince of Prostitutes had emerged, like a splendid butterfly from a putrid chrysalis, as the new Casamir! Life takes strange turns, all right. How many High Kings had ridden triumphant beneath that gleaming scrap of cloth? And now – despite being outnumbered, derided and widely written off – Orso had joined their ranks. The Steadfast Standard rippled on the breeze, its white horse rampant and its golden sun aglitter, the name of Stoffenbeck already stitched among the famous victories it had witnessed. ‘I must confess to feeling rather pleased with myself.’ The corporal’s lightly bloodshot eyes slid towards Orso.

Wisdom of the crowds joe abercrombie