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The Wisdom of Crowds

Joe Abercrombie
Contents (72)
  1. PART VII
  2. Like a King
  3. Change
  4. The Little People
  5. No More Trouble
  6. Bring Out the King
  7. All the Cards
  8. Questions
  9. Citizens
  10. Miracles
  11. A Little Public Hanging
  12. Nest of Vipers
  13. Lines of Communication
  14. The Politician
  15. Anger
  16. Opportunities
  17. An Exhibit
  18. Different This Time
  19. Quarrels
  20. Too Many Principles
  21. PART VIII
  22. A Sea of Terror
  23. Conspiracies
  24. Worse Than Murder
  25. Lessons
  26. Far from Finished
  27. The Only Explanation
  28. Charity
  29. The Good Work
  30. The World a Camp
  31. Better Than Carnage
  32. A Matter of Time
  33. Taking and Keeping
  34. Thaw
  35. Love, Hate, Fear
  36. This Half-Arsed Conspiracy
  37. A Spicy Denunciation
  38. Purity
  39. None of the Cards
  40. Horror on Horror
  41. The Dragon’s Hoard
  42. None Saved
  43. The Same Side
  44. Break What They Love
  45. The Little People
  46. Satisfaction and Regret
  47. PART IX
  48. Ready for a Fight
  49. We Know Who You Are
  50. The Side of the Saints
  51. The Sentence
  52. Forging the Future
  53. A Half-Baked Loaf
  54. Sunrise
  55. We Must Have Enemies
  56. A Sea of Power
  57. Not for the Prizes
  58. Redemption
  59. It Was Bad
  60. So Many Changes
  61. Good Times
  62. Of Your Heart a Stone
  63. Answers
  64. The Only Crime
  65. Great Men’s Footsteps
  66. The Moment
  67. A Little Private Hanging
  68. The Villain
  69. Curses and Blessings
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. The Big People
  72. By Joe Abercrombie
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Joe Abercrombie

Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Cover art by Sam Weber

Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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First Edition: September 2021

Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Gollancz

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021938174

ISBNs: 9780316187244 (hardcover), 9780316379359 (signed edition), 9780316379250 (BarnesAndNoble.com signed edition), 9780316379151 (Barnes & Noble Black Friday signed edition), 9780316341912 (ebook)

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PART VII

“The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise up!”

Elysée Loustallot

Like a King

“You know something, Tunny?”

The corporal’s lightly bloodshot eyes slid towards Orso. “Your Majesty?”

“I must confess to feeling rather pleased with myself.”

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. 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 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. The lives of kings especially.

“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. “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.

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. But then there was less of him to contain than there used to be. His ruined leg had been buried on the battlefield alongside his ruined reputation.