You will hear from me soon. Until then, I serve and obey.
Sand dan Glokta,
Superior of Dagoska.
Magister Carlot dan Eider, head of the Guild of Spicers, sat in her chair, hands in her lap, and did her best to maintain her dignity. Her skin was pale and oily, there were dark rings under her eyes. Her white garments were stained with the dirt of the cells, her hair had lost its sheen and hung lank and matted across her face. She looked older without her powder and her jewels, but she still seemed beautiful. More than ever, in a way. The beauty of the candle flame that has almost burned out.
‘You look tired,’ she said.
Glokta raised his brows. ‘It has been a trying few days. First there was the questioning of your accomplice Vurms, then the small matter of an assault by the Gurkish army camped outside our walls. You appear somewhat fatigued yourself.’
‘The floor of my tiny cell is not that comfortable, and then I have my own worries.’ She looked up at Severard and Vitari, leaning against the walls on either side of her, arms folded, masked and implacable. ‘Am I going to die in this room?’
Undoubtedly. ‘That remains to be seen. Vurms has already told us most of what we need to know. You came to him, you offered him money to forge his father’s signature on certain documents, to give orders in his father’s name to certain guardsmen, to participate, in short, in the betrayal of the city of Dagoska to the enemies of the Union. He has named everyone involved in your scheme. He has signed his confession. His head, in case you were wondering, is decorating the gate beside that of your friend Islik, the Emperor’s ambassador.’
‘Both together, on the gate,’ sang Severard.
‘There are only three things he was not able to give me. Your reasons, your signature, and the identity of the Gurkish spy who killed Superior Davoust. I will have those three from you. Now.’
Magister Eider carefully cleared her throat, carefully smoothed the front of her long gown, sat up as proudly as she could. ‘I do not believe that you will torture me. You are not Davoust. You have a conscience.’
The corner of Glokta’s mouth twitched slightly. A brave effort. I do applaud you. But how wrong you are. ‘I have a conscience, but it’s a feeble, withered shred of a thing. It couldn’t protect you or anyone else from a stiff breeze.’ Glokta sighed, long and hard. The room was too hot, too bright, his eyes were sore and twitchy and he rubbed at them slowly as he spoke. ‘You could not even guess at the things that I have done. Awful, evil, obscene, the telling of them alone could make you puke.’ He shrugged. ‘They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind, and it’s incredible the room back there. Amazing what one can live with.’
Glokta glanced up at Severard’s eyes, and Vitari’s, glittering hard and pitiless. ‘But even supposing you were right, can you seriously pretend that my Practicals would have any such compunction? Well, Severard?’
‘Any such a what?’
Glokta gave a sad smile. ‘You see. He doesn’t even know what one is.’ He sagged back in his chair. Tired. Terribly tired. He seemed to lack even the energy to lift his hands. ‘I have already made all manner of allowances for you. Treason is not normally so gently dealt with. You should have seen the beating that Frost gave to your friend Vurms, and we all know that he was the junior partner in this. He was shitting blood throughout his last few miserable hours. No one has laid a finger on you, yet. I have allowed you to keep your clothes, your dignity, your humanity. You have one chance to sign your confession, and to answer my questions. One chance to comply utterly and completely. That is the full measure of my conscience.’ Glokta leaned forwards and stabbed at the table with his finger. ‘One chance. Then we strip you and start cutting.’
Magister Eider seemed to cave in, all at once. Her shoulders slumped, her head fell, her lip quivered. ‘Ask your questions,’ she croaked. A broken woman. Many congratulations, Superior Glokta. But questions must have answers.
‘Vurms told us who was to be paid, and how much. Certain guards. Certain officials of his father’s administration. Himself, of course, a tidy sum. One name was strangely absent from the list. Your own. You, and you alone, asked for nothing. The very Queen of merchants, passing on a certain sale? My mind boggles. What did they offer you? Why did you betray your King and country?’
‘Why?’ echoed Severard.
‘Fucking answer him!’ screamed Vitari.
Eider cringed away. ‘The Union should never have been here in the first place!’ she blurted. ‘Greed is all it was! Greed, plain and simple! The Spicers were here before the war, when Dagoska was free. They made fortunes, all of them, but they had to pay taxes to the natives, and how they chafed at that! How much better, they thought, if we owned the city ourselves, if we could make our own rules. How much richer we could be. When the chance came they leaped on it, and my husband was at the front of the queue.’
‘And so the Spicers came to rule Dagoska. I am waiting for your reasons, Magister Eider.’
‘It was a shambles! The merchants had no interest in running a city, and no skill at doing it. The Union administrators, Vurms and his like, were the scrapings from the barrel, men who were only interested in lining their own pockets. We could have worked with the natives, but we chose to exploit them, and when they spoke out against us we called for the Inquisition, and you beat them and tortured them and hung their leaders in the squares of the Upper City, and soon they despised us as much as they had the Gurkish. Seven years, we have been here, and we have done nothing but evil! It has been an orgy of corruption, and brutality, and waste!’ That much is true. I have seen it for myself.
‘And the irony is, we did not even turn a profit! Even at the start, we made less than before the war! The cost of maintaining the walls, of paying for the mercenaries, without the help of the natives it was crippling!’ Eider began to laugh, a desperate, sobbing laughter. ‘The Guild is nearly bankrupt, and they brought it on themselves, the idiots! Greed, plain and simple!’
‘And then the Gurkish approached you.’
Eider nodded, her lank hair swaying. ‘I have many contacts in Gurkhul. Merchants with whom I have dealt over the years. They told me that Uthman’s first word as Emperor was a solemn oath to take Dagoska, to erase the stain his father had brought upon his nation, that he would never rest until his oath was fulfilled. They told me there were already Gurkish spies within the city, that they knew our weakness. They told me there might be a way to prevent the carnage, if Dagoska could be delivered to them without a fight.’
‘Then why did you delay? You had control of Cosca and his mercenaries, before Kahdia’s people were armed, before the defences were strengthened, before I even arrived. You could have seized the city, if you had wanted. Why did you need that dolt Vurms?’
Carlot dan Eider’s eyes were fixed on the floor. ‘As long as Union soldiers held the Citadel, and the city gates, taking them would have meant bloodshed. Vurms could give me the city without a fight. My entire purpose, believe it or not, the purpose you have so ably frustrated, was to avoid killing.’
I do believe it. But that means nothing now. ‘Go on.’
‘I knew that Vurms could be bought. His father has not long to live, and the post is not hereditary. The son might only have this last chance to profit from his father’s position. We fixed a price. We set about the preparations. Then Davoust found out.’
‘He meant to inform the Arch Lector.’
Eider gave a sharp laugh. ‘He had not your commitment to the cause. He wanted what everyone else wanted. Money, and more than I could raise. I told the Gurkish that the plan was finished. I told them why. The next day Davoust was . . . gone.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And so there was no going back. We were ready to move, shortly after you arrived. All was arranged. And then . . .’ she paused.
‘Then?’
‘Then you began to strengthen the defences, and Vurms got greedy. He felt that our position was suddenly improved. He demanded more. He threatened to tell you of my plans. I had to go back to the Gurkish to get more. It all took time. Finally we were ready to move again, but by then, it was too late. The chance had passed.’ She looked up. ‘All greed. But for my husband’s greed, we would never have come to Dagoska. But for the Spicers’ greed, we might have succeeded here. But for Vurms’ greed, we might have given it away, and not a drop of blood spilled over this worthless rock.’ She sniffed, and looked back at the floor, her voice growing faint. ‘But greed is everywhere.’
‘So you agreed to surrender the city. You agreed to betray us.’
‘Betray who? There would have been no losers! The merchants could have stepped away quietly! The natives would have been no worse off under Gurkish tyranny than they had been under ours! The Union would have lost nothing but a fraction of its pride, and what is that worth besides the lives of thousands?’ Eider stretched forward across the table, her voice growing rough, her eyes wide and shining wet with tears. ‘Now what will happen? Tell me that. It will be a massacre! A slaughter! Even if you can hold the city, what will be the price? And you cannot hold it. The Emperor has sworn, and will not be denied. The lives of every man, woman and child in Dagoska are forfeit! For what? So that Arch Lector Sult and his like can point at a map, and say this dot or that is ours? How much death will satisfy him? What were my reasons? What are yours? Why do you do this? Why?’
Glokta’s left eye was twitching, and he pressed his hand against it. He stared at the woman opposite through the other. A tear ran down her pale cheek and dripped onto the table. Why do I do this?
He shrugged. ‘What else is there?’
Severard reached down and slid the paper of confession across the table. ‘Sign!’ he barked.
‘Sign,’ hissed Vitari, ‘sign, bitch!’
Carlot dan Eider’s hand was trembling as she reached for the pen. It rattled against the inside of the inkwell, dripped black spots on the table top, scratched against the paper. There was no flush of triumph. There never is, but we have one more matter to discuss.
‘Where will I find the Gurkish agent?’ Glokta’s voice was sharp as a cleaver.
‘I don’t know. I never knew. Whoever it is will come for you now, as they did for Davoust. Perhaps tonight . . .’
‘Why have they waited so long?’
‘I told them you were no threat. I told them that Sult would only send someone else . . . I told them I could handle you.’ And so you would have, I do not doubt, were it not for the unexpected generosity of Masters Valint and Balk.
Glokta leaned forward. ‘Who is the Gurkish agent?’
Eider’s bottom lip was quivering so badly that her teeth were nearly rattling in her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
Vitari smashed her hand down on the table. ‘Who? Who? Who is it, bitch? Who?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Liar!’ The Practical’s chain rattled over Eider’s head and snapped taut around her throat. The one-time Queen of merchants was hauled over the back of her chair, legs kicking at the air, hands fumbling at the chain round her neck, and flung face down onto the floor.
‘Liar!’ The bridge of Vitari’s nose was screwed up with rage, red brows drawn in with effort, eyes narrowed to furious slits. Her boot ground into the back of Eider’s head, her back arched, the chain cut white into her clenched fists. Severard looked down on this brutal scene with a slight smile around his eyes, tuneless whistling vaguely audible over the choking, hissing, gurgling of Eider’s last breaths.
Glokta licked at his empty gums as he watched her thrashing on the cell floor. She has to die. There are no options. His Eminence demands harsh punishment. His Eminence demands examples made. His Eminence demands scant mercy. Glokta’s eyelid flickered, his face twitched. The room was airless, hot as a forge. He was damp with sweat, thirsty as hell. He could scarcely draw a breath. He felt almost as if he was the one being strangled.
And the irony is that she is right. My victory is a loss for everyone in Dagoska, one way or another. Already the first fruits of my labours are groaning their last in the waste ground before the city gates. There will be no end to the carnage now. Gurkish, Dagoskan, Union, the bodies will pile up until we’re all buried under them, and all my doing. It would be better by far if her scheme had succeeded. It would be better by far if I had died in the Emperor’s prisons. Better for the Guild of Spicers, better for the people of Dagoska, better for the Gurkish, for Korsten dan Vurms, for Carlot dan Eider. Better even for me.
Eider’s kicking had almost stopped. One more thing to scrape into the dark corners. One more thing to nag at me when I’m alone. She has to die, whatever the rights and wrongs of it. She has to die. Her next breath was a muffled rattle. The next was a gentle wheeze. Almost done now. Almost done.
‘Stop!’ barked Glokta. What?
Severard looked up sharply. ‘What?’
Vitari seemed not to have noticed, the chain was as tight as ever.
‘Stop, I said!’
‘Why?’ she hissed.
Why indeed? ‘I give you orders,’ he barked, ‘not fucking reasons!’
Vitari let go the chain, sneering her disgust, and took her boot off the back of Eider’s head. She did not move. Her breathing was shallow, a rustling scarcely audible. But she is breathing. The Arch Lector will expect an explanation, and a good one. What will my explanation be, I wonder? ‘Take her back to the cells,’ he said, leaning on his cane and getting wearily out of his chair. ‘We might still find a use for her.’
Glokta stood by the window, frowned out into the night, and watched the wrath of God rain down upon Dagoska. The three huge catapults, ranged far out of bowshot beyond the city walls, had been in action now since the afternoon. It took perhaps an hour for each one to be loaded and made ready. He had watched the procedure through his eyeglass.
First the machine would be aligned, the range would be judged. A group of white robed, bearded engineers would argue with one another, peering through eyeglasses of their own, holding up swinging plumb-lines, fiddling with compasses, and papers, and abacuses, making minute adjustments to the huge bolts that held the catapult in place.
Once they were satisfied, the great arm was bent back into position. A team of twenty horses, well-whipped and well-lathered, was required to lift the enormous counterweight, a block of black iron carved in the shape of a frowning Gurkish face.
Next the huge shot, a barrel not much less than a stride across, was painstakingly manoeuvred into the waiting scoop by a system of pulleys and a team of frowning, bellowing, arm-waving labourers. Then men stepped away, hurried back fearfully. A lone slave was sent slowly forward with a long pole, a burning wad at its end. He placed it to the barrel. Flames leaped up, and somewhere a lever was hauled down, the mighty weight fell, the great arm, long as a pine trunk, cut through the air, and the burning ammunition was flung up towards the clouds. They had been flying up, and roaring down, for hours now, while the sun slowly sank in the west, the sky darkened around them, the hills of the mainland became a black outline in the distance.
Glokta watched as one of the barrels soared, searing bright against the black heavens, the path of it a fizzing line burned into his eye. It seemed to hang over the city for an age, as high almost as the Citadel itself, and then tumbled, crackling from the sky like a meteor, a trail of orange fire blazing behind. It fell to earth in the midst of the Lower City. Liquid flames shot upwards, spurted outwards, pounced hungrily upon the tiny silhouettes of the slum-huts. A few moments later, the thunderclap of the detonation reached Glokta at his window and made him wince. Explosive powder. Who could have supposed, when I saw it fizzing on the bench of the Adeptus Chemical, that it might make such an awesome weapon?
He half-saw, half-imagined, tiny figures rushing here or there, trying to pull the injured from the burning wreckage, trying to save what
they could from their ruined dwellings, chains of ash-blackened natives grimly passing buckets from hand to hand, struggling vainly to contain the spreading inferno. Those with the least always lose the most in war. There were fires all across the Lower City now. Glowing, shimmering, flickering in the wind off the sea, reflecting orange, yellow, angry red in the black water. Even up here, the air smelled heavy, oily and choking from the smoke. Down there it must be hell itself. My congratulations once more, Superior Glokta.
He turned, aware of someone in the doorway. Shickel, her slight shape black in the lamplight.
‘I’m alright,’ he murmured, looking back to the majestic, the lurid, the awful spectacle outside the window. After all, you don’t get to see a city burn every day. But his servant did not leave. She took a step forward into the room.
‘You should go, Shickel. I’m expecting a visitor, of a sort, and it could be trouble.’
‘A visitor, eh?’
Glokta looked up. Her voice sounded different. Deeper, harder. Her face looked different too, one side in shadow, one side lit in flickering orange from the fires outside the window. A strange expression, teeth half-bared, eyes fixed on Glokta and glittering with a hungry intensity as she padded slowly forward. A fearsome expression, almost. If I was prone to fear . . . And the wheels clicked into place.
‘You?’ he breathed.
‘Me.’
You? Glokta could not help himself. He let out a burst of involuntary chuckling. ‘Harker had you! That idiot stumbled on you by mistake, and I let you go! And I thought I was the hero!’ He could not stop laughing. ‘There’s a lesson for you, eh? Never do a good turn!’
‘I don’t need lessons from you, cripple.’ She took one more step. Not three strides away from him now.
The First Law Trilogy Boxed Set: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings Page 86