The Wisdom of Crowds

The third and final installment of Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness trilogy picks up after the events of The Trouble with Peace. The Union, a large industrializing nation governed by a monarchy, has survived a failed rebellion by Leo dan Brock, the young Lord Governor of Angland, and his wife, Savine dan Brock, a ruthless businesswoman. King Orso defeated the rebels at the Battle of Stoffenbeck, but the nation is fracturing beneath him.

Orso rides for Adua, the Union's capital, with his prisoners: Leo, who lost a leg at Stoffenbeck and whose arm is now useless, and the heavily pregnant Savine. Instead of a triumphant welcome, Orso finds the city gripped by unrest. The Breakers, a populist revolutionary movement, are converging on the capital as the People's Army, tens of thousands strong. When the army reaches Adua's gates, soldiers refuse to fight and the gates swing open. The Breakers storm the Agriont, the fortified citadel at the city's heart, and seize the Lords' Round, the seat of the legislature. Orso discovers that Pike, the former Arch Lector and head of the secret police, is the Weaver, the mysterious figure who orchestrated the revolution from within. Orso surrenders to prevent further bloodshed. The Great Change, as the revolution is called, has begun.

An uneasy coalition governs the new order. Risinau, a self-proclaimed intellectual, becomes Chairman of a new Assembly of Representatives. Judge, a violent leader of the extremist Burners faction, commands fanatical loyalty. Pike operates as the power behind the People's Inspectorate, the renamed secret police. Gunnar Broad, a former soldier who struggles with violent tendencies, is freed from prison and becomes a reluctant captain in the People's Army. Savine gives birth to twins, Harod and Ardee, while Leo reinvents himself as a politician, renouncing his noble title and courting the Assembly's favor. Victarine "Vick" dan Teufel, a former Inquisitor, serves as Chief Inspector, carrying out Pike's campaign to shut down the Banking House of Valint and Balk, the financial institution controlled by the immortal wizard Bayaz.

Risinau proves incompetent, and Judge seizes the opportunity. She storms the Assembly, arrests Risinau, and has him and his associates thrown from the Tower of Chains, inaugurating a spectacular method of execution. She transforms the Assembly into the Court of the People, a show-trial tribunal. Broad carries out killings in a dissociated state. Orso, first displayed in a cage in the palace attic and later moved to a dungeon cellar, watches helplessly as the regime devours itself.

In the North, a vast region of warring clans, Rikke, a young woman gifted with the Long Eye, a form of prophetic vision, consolidates power from Skarling's Chair, the ceremonial throne in Carleon's great hall. She had betrayed Leo and Savine by warning Orso of their rebellion, then seized the North while Leo fought in the Union. Her prisoner is Stour Nightfall, the former King of the Northmen. Jonas Clover, a pragmatic veteran, serves Rikke while secretly communicating with Black Calder, Stour's cunning father, who is gathering forces for a counter-attack. Rikke meets Bayaz, the First of the Magi, and refuses his offer of alliance, recognizing that the wizard's help has destroyed every leader who accepted it. Bayaz departs for Calder's camp. Rikke then stages quarrels with two key allies, the Nail, a warrior from the West Valleys, and Isern-i-Phail, her hillwoman mentor, making herself appear isolated and weak. She also discovers that her aide Corleth has been spying for Calder but feeds false intelligence through the channel rather than punishing Corleth, luring Calder into a trap.

Back in Adua, Vick decides the revolution has gone too far. She approaches Orso in his dungeon, offering to restore him in exchange for four seats on the Closed Council, the Union's executive ruling cabinet, then recruits Leo and Savine to the conspiracy. Savine reveals to Leo that she is the illegitimate daughter of the late King Jezal; since Orso is Jezal's legitimate son, their children are potential heirs to the throne. Leo sees dynastic opportunity rather than scandal. He strikes a deal with Judge: command of the People's Army in exchange for not interfering with Savine's trial. Leo rides out, burns Judge's political officers alive in a barn, replaces them with loyal Anglanders, and merges his forces with Lord Marshal Forest's royalist troops marching from the east.

When Calder marches on Carleon, Rikke springs her trap. She stabs Stour in the throat and has her enforcer, the scarred warrior Caul Shivers, push his body from the gatehouse before Calder's eyes. As Calder's forces attack the walls, Hardbread, Rikke's veteran war chief, leads men down from the south; the Nail's warriors smash into the undefended baggage from the west; and Isern's hillfolk brothers charge from the north. The rout is total. Clover captures Calder, and Shivers executes him. Rikke is hailed as ruler of a united North.

In Adua, Savine faces trial after Selest dan Heugen, an aristocrat desperate to save herself, denounces Savine as King Jezal's illegitimate daughter and Orso's lover, exposing their relationship as incestuous. Savine defends herself brilliantly, nursing her baby to generate sympathy and reading from a pamphlet praising her charity. When Judge sentences her to death regardless, Orso intervenes with a rambling speech to buy time. Judge drags both prisoners to the Tower of Chains. On the roof, Broad turns against the Burners, moved by a letter Savine forged in his wife's handwriting. He frees Orso. Savine attacks Judge, and both go over the parapet; Broad catches Savine while Judge falls to her death.

Leo's cavalry smashes into the Agriont. As Orso addresses the crowd promising justice, Leo stabs Lord Marshal Forest and has Jurand, his chief advisor, hold a knife to Orso's throat. Leo declares his infant son Harod the new king and himself Lord Regent, betraying the allies who fought to restore the monarchy.

Rikke visits Adua to negotiate peace. She hands Orso over to Leo in exchange for peace between the North and the Union, after sheltering him overnight when he escaped with Savine's secret help. Orso is hanged in a private ceremony, maintaining his dignity to the end.

The full scope of the conspiracy then emerges. Savine's father, Sand dan Glokta, the former Arch Lector, reveals he was the true Weaver, engineering the Great Change to destroy Bayaz's financial control over the Union. When Bayaz's agent Sulfur attacks the palace, Savine's companion Zuri and her brothers reveal themselves as Eaters, flesh-eating sorcerers of superhuman strength serving the Gurkish Prophet Khalul, and they destroy Sulfur. Savine accepts an alliance with her parents and Zuri.

Leo and Savine settle into an adversarial co-regency: Leo controls the military while Savine builds a political coalition and outvotes him on key policies. Vick, offered the Arch Lector's ring by Glokta, rejects it and walks away, choosing freedom. Clover finds work at Bayaz's library, teaching swordsmanship to a mysterious boy, while Bayaz rebuilds his network with new instruments, including Orso's former servant Hildi.

Rikke chooses to rule the North from her father's hall in Uffrith rather than from Carleon, rejecting the cycle of violence. In the book's final scene, she wakes from a terrifying vision of Bayaz rebuilding his power, golden chains caging the North, a swordsman on a hill of bones, and a figure of light rising from the sea. Rikke tells her people everything is fine, keeping the burden of foresight to herself.