The Gurkish had built a palisade. A tall fence of wooden stakes that fringed the hills, cutting Dagoska off from the mainland. There were tents scattered about the other side, thin plumes of smoke rising from a cooking fire here or there. Glokta could just about make out tiny figures moving, sun glinting on polished metal. Weapons and armour, and plenty of both.
‘There used to be caravans from the mainland,’ Vissbruck murmured. ‘Last year there were a hundred of them every day. Then the Emperor’s soldiers started to arrive, and there were fewer traders. They finished the fence a couple of months ago. There hasn’t been so much as a donkey since. Everything has to come in by ship, now.’
Glokta scanned across the fence, and the camps behind, from the sea on one side to the sea on the other. Are they simply flexing their muscles, putting on a show of force? Or are they in deadly earnest? The Gurkish love a good show, but they don’t mind a good fight either – that’s how they’ve conquered the whole of the South, more or less. He lowered the eyeglass. ‘How many Gurkish, do you think?’
Vissbruck shrugged. ‘Impossible to say. At least five thousand, I would guess, but there could be many more, behind those hills. We have no way of knowing.’
Five thousand. At the least. If it’s a show, it’s a good one. ‘How many men have we?’
Vissbruck paused. ‘I have around six hundred Union soldiers under my command.’
Around six hundred? Around? You lackwit dunce! When I was a soldier I knew the name of every man in my regiment, and who was best suited to what tasks. ‘Six hundred? Is that all?’
‘There are mercenaries in the city also, but they cannot be trusted, and frequently cause trouble of their own. In my opinion they are worse than worthless.’
I asked for numbers, not opinions. ‘How many mercenaries?’
‘Perhaps a thousand, now, perhaps more.’
‘Who leads them?’
‘Some Styrian. Cosca, he calls himself.’
‘Nicomo Cosca?’ Vitari was staring down from the parapet, one orange eyebrow raised.
‘You know him?’
‘You could say that. I thought he was dead, but it seems there’s no justice in the world.’
She’s right there. Glokta turned to Vissbruck. ‘Does this Cosca answer to you?’
‘Not exactly. The Spicers pay him, so he answers to Magister Eider. In theory, he’s supposed to follow my orders—’
‘But he only follows his own?’ Glokta could see in the General’s face that he was right. Mercenaries. A double-edged sword, if ever there was one. Keen, as long as you can keep paying, and provided that trustworthiness is not a priority. ‘And Cosca’s men outnumber yours two to one.’ It would appear that, as far as the defences of the city are concerned, I am speaking to the wrong man. Perhaps there is one issue, though, on which he can enlighten me. ‘Do you know what became of my predecessor, Superior Davoust?’
General Vissbruck twitched his annoyance. ‘I have no idea. That man’s movements were of no interest to me.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Glokta, jamming his hat down tighter onto his head as another gritty gust of wind blew in across the walls. ‘The disappearance of the city’s Superior of the Inquisition? Of no interest whatsoever?’
‘None,’ snapped the General. ‘We rarely had cause to speak to one another. Davoust was well-known as an abrasive character. As far as I am concerned, the Inquisition has its responsibilities, and I have mine.’ Touchy, touchy. But then everyone is, since I arrived in town. You’d almost think they didn’t want me here.
‘You have your responsibilities, eh?’ Glokta shuffled to the parapet, lifted his cane and prodded at a corner of crumbling masonry, not far from Vitari’s heel. A chunk of stone cracked away and tumbled from the wall into space. A few moments later he heard it clatter into the ditch, far below. He rounded on Vissbruck. ‘As commander of the city’s defences, would you count the maintenance of the walls as being among your responsibilities? ’
Vissbruck bristled. ‘I have done everything possible!’
Glokta counted the points off with the fingers of his free hand. ‘The land walls are crumbling and poorly manned. The ditch beyond is so choked with dirt it barely exists. The gates have not been replaced in years, and are falling to pieces on their own. If the Gurkish were to attack tomorrow, I do believe we’d be in quite a sorry position.’
‘Not for any oversight on my part, I can assure you! With the heat, and the wind, and the salt from the sea, wood and metal rot in no time, and stone fares little better! Do you realise the task?’ The General gestured at the great sweep of the towering land walls, curving away to the sea on either side. Even here at the top, the parapet was wide enough to drive a cart down, and they were a lot thicker at the base. ‘I have few skilled masons, and precious little materials! What the Closed Council gives me barely pays for the upkeep of the Citadel! Then the money from the Spicers scarcely keeps the walls of the Upper City in good repair—’
Fool! One could almost believe he did not seriously mean to defend the city at all. ‘The Citadel cannot be supplied by sea if the rest of Dagoska is in Gurkish hands, am I right?’
Vissbruck blinked. ‘Well, no, but—’
‘The walls of the Upper City might keep the natives where they are, but they are too long, too low, and too thin to withstand a concerted attack for long, would you agree?’
‘Yes, I suppose so, but—’
‘So any plan that treats the Citadel, or the Upper City, as our main line of defence is one that only plays for time. Time for help to arrive. Help that, with our army committed hundreds of leagues away in Angland, might take a while appearing.’ Will never appear at all. ‘If the land walls fall the city is doomed.’ Glokta tapped the dusty flags underfoot with his cane. ‘Here is where we must fight the Gurkish, and here is where we must keep them out. Everything else is an irrelevance.’
‘An irrelevance,’ Vitari piped to herself as she hopped from one part of the parapet to another.
The General was frowning. ‘I can only do as the Lord Governor and his council instruct me. The Lower City has always been regarded as dispensable. I am not responsible for overall policy—’
‘I am.’ Glokta held Vissbruck’s eye for a very long moment. ‘From now on all resources will be directed into the repair and strengthening of the land walls. New parapets, new gates, every broken stone must be replaced. I don’t want to see a crack an ant could crawl through, let alone a Gurkish army.’
‘But who will do the work?’
‘The natives built the damn things in the first place, didn’t they? There must be skilled men among them. Seek them out and hire them. As for the ditch, I want it down below sea level. If the Gurkish come we can flood it, and make the city into an island.’
‘But that could take months!’
‘You have two weeks. Perhaps not even that long. Press every idle man into service. Women and children too, if they can hold a spade.’
Vissbruck frowned up at Vitari. ‘And what about your people in the Inquisition?’
‘Oh, they’re too busy asking questions, trying to find out what happened to your last Superior. Or they’re watching me, and my quarters, and the gates of the citadel all day and night, trying to make sure that the same thing doesn’t happen to your new one. Be a shame, eh, Vissbruck, if I disappeared before the defences were ready?’
‘Of course, Superior,’ muttered the General. But without tremendous enthusiasm, I rather think.
‘Everyone else must work, though, including your own soldiers.’
‘But you can’t expect my men to—’
‘I expect every man to do his part. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go back to Adua. He can go back and explain his reluctance to the Arch Lector.’ Glokta leered his toothless smile at the General. ‘There’s no one that can’t be replaced, General, no one at all.’
There was a great deal of sweat on Vissbruck’s pink face, great drops of it. The stiff collar of his uniform was dark wi
th moisture. ‘Of course, every man must do his part! Work on the ditch will begin immediately!’ He made a weak attempt at a smile. ‘I’ll find every man, but I’ll need money, Superior. If people work they must be paid, even the natives. Then we will need materials, everything has to be brought in by sea—’
‘Borrow what you need to get started. Work on credit. Promise everything and give nothing, for now. His Eminence will provide.’ He’d better. ‘I want reports on your progress every morning.’
‘Every morning, yes.’
‘You have a great deal to do, General. I’d get started.’
Vissbruck paused for a moment, as though unsure whether to salute or not. In the end he simply turned on his heel and stalked off. The pique of a professional soldier dictated to by a civilian, or something more? Am I upsetting his carefully laid plans? Plans to sell the city to the Gurkish, perhaps?
Vitari hopped down from the parapet onto the walkway. ‘His Eminence will provide? You’d be lucky.’
Glokta frowned at her back as she sauntered away, then he frowned towards the hills on the mainland, then he frowned up at the citadel. Dangers on every side. Trapped between the Arch Lector and the Gurkish, and with nobody but an unknown traitor for company. It’ll be a wonder if I last a day.
A committed optimist might have called the place a dive. But it scarcely deserves the name. A piss-smelling shack with some oddments of furniture, everything stained with ancient sweat and recent spillages. A kind of cesspit with half the cess removed. Customers and staff were indistinguishable: drunken, flyblown natives stretched out in the heat. Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune, sprawled in amongst this scene of debauchery, soundly asleep.
He had his driftwood chair rocked back on its rear legs against the grimy wall, one boot up on the table in front of him. It had probably been as fine and flamboyant a boot as one could hope for, once, black Styrian leather with a golden spur and buckles. No longer. The upper was sagging and scuffed grey with hard use. The spur was snapped off short, the gilt on the buckles was flaking away and the iron underneath was spotted with brown rust. A circle of pink, blistered skin peered at Glokta through a hole in the sole.
And a boot could scarcely be better fitted to its owner. Cosca’s long moustaches, no doubt meant to be waxed out sideways in the fashion of a Styrian dandy, flopped limp and lifeless round his half-open mouth. His neck and jaw were covered in a week’s growth, somewhere between beard and stubble, and there was a scabrous, flaking rash peering out above his collar. His greasy hair stuck from his head at all angles, excepting a large bald spot on his crown, angry red with sunburn. Sweat beaded his slack skin, a lazy fly crawled across his puffy face. One bottle lay empty on its side on the table. Another, half-full, was cradled in his lap.
Vitari stared down at this picture of drunken self-neglect, expression of contempt plainly visible despite her mask. ‘So it’s true then, you are still alive.’ Just barely.
Cosca prised open one red-rimmed eye, blinked, squinted up, and then slowly began to smile. ‘Shylo Vitari, I swear. The world can still surprise me.’ He worked his mouth, grimacing, glanced down and saw the bottle in his lap, lifted it and took a long, thirsty pull. Deep swallows, just as if it were water in the bottle. A practised drunkard, as though there was any doubt. Hardly the man one would choose to entrust the defence of the city to, at first glance. ‘I never expected to see you again. Why don’t you take off the mask? It’s robbing me of your beauty.’
‘Save it for your whores, Cosca. I don’t need to catch what you’ve got.’
The mercenary gave a bubbling sound, half laugh, half cough. ‘You still have the manners of a princess,’ he wheezed.
‘Then this shithouse must be a palace.’
Cosca shrugged. ‘It all looks the same if you’re drunk enough.’
‘You think you’ll ever be drunk enough?’
‘No. But it’s worth trying.’ As if to prove the point he sucked another mouthful from the bottle.
Vitari perched herself on the edge of the table. ‘So what brings you here? I thought you were busy spreading the cock-rot across Styria.’
‘My popularity at home had somewhat dwindled.’
‘Found yourself on both sides of a fight once too often, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But the Dagoskans welcomed you with open arms?’
‘I’d rather you welcomed me with open legs, but a man can’t get everything he wants. Who’s your friend?’
Glokta slid out a rickety chair with one aching foot and eased himself into it, hoping it would bear his weight. Crashing to the floor in a bundle of broken sticks would hardly send the right message, now, would it? ‘My name is Glokta.’ He stretched his sweaty neck out to one side, and then the other. ‘Superior Glokta.’
Cosca looked at him for a long time. His eyes were bloodshot, sunken, heavy-lidded. And yet there is a certain calculation there. Not half as drunk as he pretends, perhaps. ‘The same one who fought in Gurkhul? The Colonel of Horse?’
Glokta felt his eyelid flicker. You could hardly say the same man, but surprisingly well remembered, nonetheless. ‘I gave up soldiery some years ago. I’m surprised you’ve heard of me.’
‘A fighting man should know his enemies, and a hired man never knows who his next enemy might be. It’s worth taking notice of who’s who, in military circles. I heard your name mentioned, some time ago, as a man worth taking notice of. Bold and clever, I heard, but reckless. That was the last I heard. And now here you are, in a different line of work. Asking questions.’
‘Recklessness didn’t work out for me in the end.’ Glokta shrugged. ‘And a man needs something to do with his time.’
‘Of course. Never doubt another’s choices, I say. You can’t know his reasons. You come here for a drink, Superior? They’ve nothing but this piss, I’m afraid.’ He waved the bottle. ‘Or have you questions for me?’
That I have, and plenty of them. ‘Do you have any experience with sieges?’
‘Experience?’ spluttered Cosca, ‘Experience, you ask? Hah! Experience is one thing I am not short of—’
‘No,’ murmured Vitari over her shoulder, ‘just discipline and loyalty.’
‘Yes, well,’ Cosca frowned up at her back, ‘that all depends on who you ask. But I was at Etrina, and at Muris. Serious pair of sieges, those. And I besieged Visserine myself for a few months and nearly had it, except that she-devil Mercatto caught me unawares. Came on us with cavalry before dawn, sun behind and all, damned unfriendly trick, the bitch—’
‘I heard you were passed out drunk at the time,’ muttered Vitari.
‘Yes, well . . . Then I held Borletta against Grand Duke Orso for six months—’
Vitari snorted. ‘Until he paid you to open the gates.’
Cosca gave a sheepish grin. ‘It was an awful lot of money. But he never fought his way in! You’d have to give me that, eh, Shylo?’
‘No one needs to fight you, providing they bring their purse.’
The mercenary grinned. ‘I am what I am, and never claimed to be anything else.’
‘So you’ve been known to betray an employer?’ asked Glokta.
The Styrian paused, the bottle halfway to his mouth. ‘I am thoroughly offended, Superior. Nicomo Cosca may be a mercenary, but there are still rules. I could only turn my back on an employer under one condition.’
‘Which is?’
Cosca grinned. ‘If someone else were to offer me more.’
Ah, the mercenary’s code. Some men will do anything for money. Most men will do anything for enough. Perhaps even make a Superior of the Inquisition disappear? ‘Do you know what became of my predecessor, Superior Davoust?’
‘Ah, the riddle of the invisible torturer!’ Cosca scratched thoughtfully at his sweaty beard, picked a little at the rash on his neck and examined the results, wedged under his fingernail. ‘Who knows or cares to know? The man was a swine. I hardly knew him and what I knew I didn’t like. He had plent
y of enemies, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a real snake pit down here. If you’re asking which one bit him, well . . . isn’t that your job? I was busy here. Drinking.’
Not too difficult to believe. ‘What would your opinion be of our mutual friend, General Vissbruck?’
Cosca hunched his shoulders and sank a little lower into his chair. ‘The man’s a child. Playing soldiers. Tinkering with his little castle and his little fence, when the big walls are all that count. Lose those and the game is done, I say.’
‘I’ve been thinking the very same thing.’ Perhaps the defence of the city could be in worse hands, after all. ‘Work has already begun on the land walls, and on the ditch beyond. I hope to flood it.’
Cosca raised an eyebrow. ‘Good. Flood it. The Gurkish don’t like the water much. Poor sailors. Flood it. Very good.’ He tipped his head back and sucked the last drops from the bottle, then he tossed it on the dirty floor, wiped his mouth with his dirty hand, then wiped his hand on the front of his sweat-stained shirt. ‘At least someone knows what they’re doing. Perhaps when the Gurkish attack, we’ll last longer than a few days, eh?’ Providing we aren’t betrayed beforehand.
‘You never know, perhaps the Gurkish won’t attack.’
‘Oh, I hope they do.’ Cosca reached under his chair and produced another bottle. There was a glint in his eye as he pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room. ‘I get paid double once the fighting starts.’
It was evening, and a merciful breeze was washing through the audience chamber. Glokta leaned against the wall by the window, watching the shadows stretch out over the city below.
The First Law Trilogy Boxed Set: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings Page 66