| “ | I promise, Liddy. From now on I’ll stay out of trouble | ” |
— Gunnar to Liddy Broad
| ||
Gunnar "Bull" Broad has just returned from a losing war in Styria, but the war remains in him. After fighting on foreign shores, he finds out that his own country have changed and not for the better.
Appearance and Personality[]
Gunnar Broad is a big man with hardly any neck, great brawny shoulders, and hair clipped to stubble. He wears glasses, the new kind, mounted in thin wire; a reward for saving the life of Lord Marshal Mitterick. He also has two prominent tattoos: an axe and lightning, crossed over a shattered gatehouse, on the back of his fist; and five blue stars on his knuckles.
Broad has a serious case of post-traumatic stress, verging on a split personality. On the one side, he's a loving family man, who wants to leave his violent past behind, and does best when being told what to do. He's particularly comfortable taking orders from women; his wife Liddy, his daughter May, Vick in Valbeck, and later his employer Savine. On the other side, he has difficulty keeping his temper in check. An axe just feels so right in his fist. Broad uses routine to flip between his two sides. If he carefully takes off his glasses and rolls up his sleeves, then it's best to run away.
History[]
Broad was a sheep farmer in Midderland, with his wife Liddy and daughter May, but nevertheless joined the army for King Jezal’s wars in Styria. He was a Ladderman, the storming party in a siege. Gunnar was always the first man up the ladder. He did it five times and lived to tell the tales, commemorated in the five star tattoos on his knuckles.
A Little Hatred[]
Gunnar Broad returns from the war a broken man, and barely holds it together when reunited with his family. Things have changed while he was away. The local lord, Lord Isher, has fenced in the common grazing land, and they’ve been forced to sell their flock. After all he’s sacrificed, he can barely hold in his rage. When three men turn up offering to buy their property, Broad loses it and beats the armed men to death with his bare hands.
Broad and his family move to Valbeck, where Liddy finds works sowing, and May gets a job as a maid in Colonel Vallimir’s house, but Gunnar himself struggles to find regular work. He queues for a job at a brewery called Cadman’s Ales, but the foreman is unimpressed with his lack of experience, until another worker vouches for him; Sarlby, an former comrade-in-arms. Broad is hired, restarting the ovens after a gaggle of young boys sweep the chimneys. Sarlby tries to persuade him to join the Breakers, but Broad insists that he doesn’t want trouble. That is until one of the boys is burned to death in an oven due to a mistake by a drunken foreman.
Broad is now a Breaker, and attends a meeting at a warehouse, where he meets Vick dan Teufel. As Valbeck erupts into insurrection, Broad builds a barricade to try and bring some stability to the city. Suddenly a desperate waif appears at the barricade being chased by some Burners. Broad takes her in, and she stays in his cramped two-room apartment for the rest of the insurrection, without him realising it is Savine dan Glokta. Meanwhile the Burners have taken prisoners, who would be useful hostage in any negotiations. Broad accompanies Vick to retrieve the prisoners. The leader of the Burners, Judge, is clearly a crazy-woman who has convicted and executed most of her prisoners in a kangaroo court, but Broad finds himself oddly drawn to her.
Prince Orso eventually arrives, and brings the insurrection to a swift and peaceful conclusion. As the folk of Valbeck pour out of the city, rumours are soon rife that the Inquisition is pulling Breakers from the column for questioning. Broad fears that he’ll be next until the waif “Ardee” breaks from the line, announces herself as the daughter of Arch Lector Glokta, and pulls the Broad family from the line, as per an agreement with his daughter May.
Broad and his family are given a lavish suite of rooms in Savine’s house in Adua. Gunnar is now her coachman, or so it seems. As soon as he witnesses her utter ruthlessness in business, he quickly figures out that his actual role as muscle to intimidate her partners.
The Trouble With Peace[]
The Broad family still work for Savine dan Glokta. Liddy and May are happy working for a "fine" lady; the one as a seamstress and the other with the business books. Gunnar Broad is less happy as "labour relations": beating and threatening union agitators. At Savine's wedding to Leo dan Brock, Liddy delights at how beautiful everything looks, but Broad can only think of the enormous cost; and of course his resentment at Lord Isher.
In Angland, Savine gives Broad a new task; to make contact with the Breakers, and bring them into the alliance against the Closed Council. He returns to Valbeck and finds his old comrade-in-arms Sarlby, who arranges a meeting with Judge. She has a strange effect on Broad, her madness turning him half-mad. He offers her Savine's deal, to raise uprising across Midderland to keep the King's Own distracted during the rebellion, in return for armour and weapons including a cannon. But first Judge insists on Broad proving himself, by helping them with a jail break; or so he believes. It turns out to be an ambush on armoured carriage of the new Valbeck branch of Valint and Balk. Judge then agrees to the deal, but in fact, plays no part in the Battle of Stoffenbeck.
During the battle, Savine asks Broad to stay close to Leo, and keep him alive. After his heroic but calamitous final charge, Broad fights his way into the town square to find a badly wounded Leo amidst the carnage. With nothing to be done. Leo tells him to go back to Savine, and make sure she gets away. Instead, she returns to Stoffenbeck to surrender with Broad and Zuri.
The Wisdom of Crowds[]
To be added