The Great Change (and Other Lies) by Joe Abercrombie

Author:Joe Abercrombie
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Published: 2023-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

“We use only the very best materials, of course,” said Zuri, as she led them on into the guts of the building. Fettel had to confess there was something exciting about the ever-strengthening throb of machinery that seemed to rise from the very stones and set her scalp tingling beneath her wig. “The King’s Own and the Army of Angland are our most significant clients, but we also have buyers in Styria, have recently secured a sizeable order from associates in the Old Empire, and are in negotiations with agents in Dagoska too.”

One of the gentlemen snorted. “So you sell weapons to every side of every war?”

Zuri might have been a glorified lady’s maid, but the servants of powerful people can become powerful in themselves. A Lady Governor’s lady’s maid was no one to be sniffed at. Especially not this one, Fettel suspected. Her composure was as steely as the weapons they turned out in this armoury. “Her Grace Lady Savine would no doubt observe—and she apologises profusely that she cannot be here—that a willingness to sell to every available client is the essence of the arms trade. If that is a problem, I fear you may be touring the wrong manufactory.” A ripple of polite laughter, and the gentleman retreated flushing into his high collar.

Fettel wished she was looking to invest. But what she was really after was a good match for her sister. Money is drawn to money, which made any concern in which Savine dan Brock had a share a powerful magnet for wealthy men. She took another careful glance over her fan at the prospects she had identified. The bony fellow with the carefully arranged hair was Lord Sempter. An awful bore, by all accounts, but exceedingly rich. His title had been paid for with new money, but that settles the same debts as the old kind. Fettel had heard he lost his wife last year and might be in the market for a thoroughbred—someone who could mix her pedigree with his money to make a highly respectable alloy. Fettel’s family had breeding. They had too much bloody breeding, if anything. They had breeding coming out of their arses.

It was cash they needed.

Zuri swung a pair of double doors open, the whining of machinery instantly redoubling. “This is the grinding room, where blades are finished.”

There were a few impressed-sounding grunts even from this hard-nosed audience. There must have been thousands of weapons in that huge, iron-skeletoned space, all ranged upon identical racks with the strict discipline of elite soldiers on a parade ground. A good two dozen workmen were gathered about a spinning drive-shaft that cut through the midst, working at the water-powered grinding wheels, every man sending his own shower of sparks as he milled a murderous edge onto each blade.

Zuri even made pointing out racks of weapons seem superbly elegant as she led the investors across the armoury floor. “Horseman’s axes on your left, infantry swords over there, and this is a new pattern knife for cannon crew, forged in modern crucible steel from a foundry here in Angland.

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