The First Law Trilogy Boxed Set: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Of course, your Eminence.’ And if the Gurkish come, who will we hang? Oh, Superior Glokta, of course. Why ever did that damn cripple not speak up?

  Sult’s mind had already slipped back into its well-worn circles. ‘We have thirty-one votes and Marovia has something over twenty. Thirty-one. Not enough to make the difference.’ He shook his head grimly, blue eyes darting over the papers. As if there were some new way to look at them that would alter the terrible mathematics. ‘Nowhere near enough.’

  ‘Unless we were to come to an understanding with High Justice Marovia.’ Again, a pause, even more uncomfortable than last time. Oh dear. I must have said that out loud.

  ‘An understanding?’ hissed Sult.

  ‘With Marovia?’ squealed Goyle, his eyes bulging with triumph. When the safe options are all exhausted, we must take risks. Is that not what I told myself as I rode down to the bridge, while the Gurkish massed upon the other side? Ah well, once more into the tempest . . .

  Glokta took a deep breath. ‘Marovia’s seat on the Closed Council is no safer than anyone else’s. We may have been working against each other, but only out of habit. On the subject of this vote our aims are the same. To secure a weak candidate and maintain the balance. Together you have more than fifty votes. That might well be enough to tip the scales.’

  Goyle sneered his contempt. ‘Join forces with that peasant-loving hypocrite? Have you lost your reason?’

  ‘Shut up, Goyle.’ Sult glared at Glokta for a long while, his lips pursed in thought. Considering my punishment, perhaps? Another tongue-lashing? Or a real lashing? Or my body found floating— ‘You are right. Go and speak to Marovia.’

  Sand dan Glokta, once more the hero! Goyle’s jaw hung open. ‘But . . . your Eminence!’

  ‘The time for pride is far behind us!’ snarled Sult. ‘We must seize any chance of keeping Brock and the rest from the throne. We must find compromises, however painful, and we must take whatever allies we can. Go!’ he hissed over his shoulder, folding his arms and turning back to his crackling papers. ‘Strike a deal with Marovia.’

  Glokta got stiffly up from his chair. A shame to leave such lovely company, but when duty calls . . . He treated Goyle to the briefest of toothless smiles, then took up his cane and limped for the door.

  ‘And Glokta!’ He winced as he turned back into the room. ‘Marovia’s aims and ours may meet for now. But we cannot trust him. Tread carefully.’

  ‘Of course, your Eminence.’ I always do. What other choice, when every step is agony?

  The private office of the High Justice was as big as a barn, its ceiling covered in festoons of old moulding, riddled with shadows. Although it was only late afternoon, the thick ivy outside the windows, and the thick grime on the panes, had sunk the place into a perpetual twilight. Tottering heaps of papers were stacked on every surface. Wedges of documents tied with black tape. Piles of leather-bound ledgers. Stacks of dusty parchments in ostentatious, swirling script, stamped with huge seals of red wax and glittering gilt. A kingdom’s worth of law, it looked like. And, indeed, it probably is.

  ‘Superior Glokta, good evening.’ Marovia himself was seated at a long table near the empty fireplace, set for dinner, a flickering candelabra making each dish glisten in the gloom. ‘I hope you do not mind if I eat while we talk? I would rather dine in the comfort of my rooms, but I find myself eating here more and more. So much to do, you see? And one of my secretaries appears to have taken a holiday unannounced.’ A holiday to the slaughterhouse floor, in fact, by way of the intestines of a herd of swine. ‘Would you care to join me?’ Marovia gestured at a large joint of meat, close to raw in the centre, swimming in bloody gravy.

  Glokta licked at his empty gums as he manoeuvred himself into a chair opposite. ‘I would be delighted, your Worship, but the laws of dentistry prevent me.’

  ‘Ah, of course. Those laws there can be no circumventing, even by a High Justice. You have my sympathy, Superior. One of my greatest pleasures is a good cut of meat, and the bloodier the better. Just show them the flame, I always tell my cook. Just show it to them.’ Funny. I tell my Practicals to start the same way. ‘And to what do I owe this unexpected visit? Do you come on your own initiative, or at the urging of your employer, my esteemed colleague from the Closed Council, Arch Lector Sult?’

  Your bitter mortal enemy from the Closed Council, do you mean? ‘His Eminence is aware that I am here.’

  ‘Is he?’ Marovia carved another slice and lifted it dripping onto his plate. ‘And with what message has he sent you? Something relating to tomorrow’s business in the Open Council, perhaps?’

  ‘You spoil my surprise, your Worship. May I speak plainly?’

  ‘If you know how.’

  Glokta showed the High Justice his empty grin. ‘This affair with the vote is a terrible thing for business. The doubt, the uncertainty, the worry. Bad for everyone’s business.’

  ‘Some more than others.’ Marovia’s knife squealed against the plate as he slit a ribbon of fat from the edge of his meat.

  ‘Of course. At particular risk are those that sit on the Closed Council, and those that struggle on their behalf. They are unlikely to be given such a free hand if powerful men such as Brock or Isher are voted to the throne.’ Some of us, indeed, are unlikely to live out the week.

  Marovia speared a slice of carrot with his fork and stared sourly at it. ‘A lamentable state of affairs. It would have been preferable for all concerned if Raynault or Ladisla were still alive.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘If Raynault were still alive, at least. But the vote will take place tomorrow, however much we might tear our hair. It is hard now to see our way to a remedy.’ He looked from the carrot to Glokta. ‘Or do you suggest one?’

  ‘You, your Worship, control between twenty and thirty votes on the Open Council.’

  Marovia shrugged. ‘I have some influence, I cannot deny it.’

  ‘The Arch Lector can call on thirty votes himself.’

  ‘Good for his Eminence.’

  ‘Not necessarily. If the two of you oppose each other, as you always have, your votes will mean nothing. One for Isher, the other for Brock, and no difference made.’

  Marovia sighed. ‘A sad end to our two glittering careers.’

  ‘Unless you were to pool your resources. Then you might have sixty votes between you. As many, almost, as Brock controls. Enough to make a King of Skald, or Barezin, or Heugen, or even some unknown, depending on how things go. Someone who might be more easily influenced in the future. Someone who might keep the Closed Council he has, rather than selecting a new one.’

  ‘A King to make us all happy, eh?’

  ‘If you were to express a preference for one man or another, I could take that back to his Eminence.’ More steps, more coaxing, more disappointments. Oh, to have a great office of my own, and to sit all day in comfort while cringing bastards slog up my stairs to smile at my insults, lap up my lies, beg for my poisonous support.

  ‘Shall I tell you what would make me happy, Superior Glokta?’

  Now for the musings of another power-mad old fart. ‘By all means, your Worship.’

  Marovia tossed his cutlery onto his plate, sat back in his chair and gave a long, tired sigh. ‘I would like no King at all. I would like every man equal under the law, to have a say in the running of his own country and the choosing of his own leaders. I would like no King, and no nobles, and a Closed Council selected by, and answerable to, the citizens themselves. A Closed Council open to all, you might say. What do you think of that?’

  I think some people would say that it sounds very much like treason. The rest would simply call it madness. ‘I think, your Worship, that your notion is a fantasy.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because the vast majority of men would far rather be told what to do than make their own choices. Obedience is easy.’

  The High Justice laughed. ‘Perhaps you are right. But things will change. This rebellion has convinced me of it. Things will
change, by small steps.’

  ‘I am sure Lord Brock on the throne is one small step none of us would like to see taken.’

  ‘Lord Brock does indeed have very strong opinions, mostly relating to himself. You make a convincing case, Superior.’ Marovia sat back in his chair, hands resting on his belly, staring at Glokta through narrowed eyes. ‘Very well. You may tell Arch Lector Sult that this once we have common cause. If a neutral candidate with sufficient support presents themselves, I will have my votes cast along with his. Who could have thought it? The Closed Council united.’ He slowly shook his head. ‘Strange times indeed.’

  ‘They certainly are, your Worship.’ Glokta struggled to his feet, wincing as he put his weight on his burning leg, and shuffled across the gloomy, echoing space towards the door. Strange, though, that our High Justice is so philosophical on the subject of losing his position tomorrow. I have scarcely ever seen a man look calmer. He paused as he touched the handle of the door. One would almost suppose that he knows something we do not. One might almost suppose that he already has a plan in mind.

  He turned back. ‘Can I trust you, High Justice?’

  Marovia looked sharply up, the carving knife poised in his hand. ‘What a beautifully quaint question from a man in your line of work. I suppose that you can trust me to act in my own interests. Just as far as I can trust you to do the same. Our deal goes no further than that. Nor should it. You are a clever man, Superior, you make me smile.’ And he turned back to his joint of meat, prodding at it with a fork and making the blood run. ‘You should find another master.’

  Glokta shuffled out. A charming suggestion. But I already have two more than I’d like.

  The prisoner was a scrawny, sinewy specimen, naked and bagged as usual, with hands manacled securely behind his back. Glokta watched as Frost dragged him into the domed room from the cells, his stumbling bare feet flapping against the cold floor.

  ‘He wasn’t too hard to get a hold of,’ Severard was saying. ‘He left the others a while ago, but he’s been hanging round the city like the smell of piss ever since. We picked him up yesterday night.’

  Frost flung the prisoner down in the chair. Where am I? Who has me? What do they want? A horrifying moment, just before the work begins. The terror and the helplessness, the sick tingling of anticipation. My own memory of it was sharply refreshed, only the other day, at the hands of the charming Magister Eider. I was set free unmolested, however. The prisoner sat there, head tilted to one side, the canvas on the front of the bag moving back and forth with his hurried breath. I very much doubt that he will be so lucky.

  Glokta’s eyes crept reluctantly to the painting above the prisoner’s bagged head. Our old friend Kanedias. The painted face stared grimly down from the domed ceiling, the arms spread wide, the colourful fire behind. The Maker fell burning . . . He weighed the heavy hammer reluctantly in his hand. ‘Let’s get on with it, then.’ Severard snatched the canvas bag away with a showy flourish.

  The Navigator squinted into the bright lamplight, a weather-beaten face, tanned and deeply lined, head shaved, like a priest. Or a confessed traitor, of course.

  ‘Your name is Brother Longfoot?’

  ‘Indeed! Of the noble Order of Navigators! I assure you that I am innocent of any crime!’ The words came out in rush. ‘I have done nothing unlawful, no. That would not be my way at all. I am a law-abiding man, and always have been. I can think of no possible reason why I should be manhandled in this way! None!’ His eyes swivelled down and he saw the anvil, gleaming on the floor between him and Glokta, where the table would usually have been. His voice rose an entire octave higher. ‘The Order of Navigators is well respected, and I am a member in good standing! Exceptional standing! Navigation is the foremost of my many remarkable talents, it is indeed, the foremost of—’

  Glokta cracked his hammer against the top of the anvil with a clang to wake the dead. ‘Stop! Talking!’ The little man blinked, and gaped, but he shut up. Glokta sank back in his chair, kneading at his withered thigh, the pain prickling up his back. ‘Do you have any notion of how tired I am? Of how much I have to do? The agony of getting out of bed each morning leaves me a broken man before the day even begins, and the present moment is an exceptionally stressful one. It is therefore a matter of the most supreme indifference to me whether you can walk for the rest of your life, whether you can see for the rest of your life, whether you can hold your shit in for the rest of your intensely short, intensely painful life. Do you understand?’

  The Navigator looked wide-eyed up at Frost, looming over him like an outsize shadow. ‘I understand,’ he whispered.

  ‘Good,’ said Severard.

  ‘Ve’ gooth,’ said Frost.

  ‘Very good indeed,’ said Glokta. ‘Tell me, Brother Longfoot, is one among your remarkable talents a superhuman resistance to pain?’

  The prisoner swallowed. ‘It is not.’

  ‘Then the rules of this game are simple. I ask a question and you answer precisely, correctly, and, above all, briefly. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘I understand completely. I do not speak other than to—’

  Frost’s fist sunk into his gut and he folded up, eyes bulging. ‘Do you see,’ hissed Glokta, ‘that your answer there should have been yes?’ The albino seized the wheezing Navigator’s leg and dragged his foot up onto the anvil. Oh, cold metal on the sensitive sole. Quite unpleasant, but it could be so much worse. And something tells me it probably will be. Frost snapped a manacle shut around Longfoot’s ankle.

  ‘I apologise for the lack of imagination.’ Glokta sighed. ‘In our defence, it’s difficult to be always thinking of something new. I mean, smashing a man’s feet with a lump hammer, it’s so . . .’

  ‘Pethethrian?’ ventured Frost.

  Glokta heard a sharp volley of laughter from behind Severard’s mask, felt his own mouth grinning too. He really should have been a comedian, rather than a torturer. ‘Pedestrian! Precisely so. But don’t worry. If we haven’t got what we need by the time we’ve crushed everything below your knees to pulp, we’ll see if we can think of something more inventive for the rest of your legs. How does that sound?’

  ‘But I have done nothing!’ squealed Longfoot, just getting his breath back. ‘I know nothing! I did—’

  ‘Forget . . . about all that. It is meaningless now.’ Glokta leaned slowly, painfully forwards, let the head of the hammer tap gently against the iron beside the Navigator’s bare foot. ‘What I want you to concentrate on . . . are my questions . . . and your toes . . . and this hammer. But don’t worry if you find that difficult now. Believe me when I say – once the hammer starts falling, you will find it easy to ignore everything else.’

  Longfoot stared at the anvil, nostrils flaring as his breath snorted quickly in and out. And the seriousness of the situation finally impresses itself upon him.

  ‘Questions, then,’ said Glokta. ‘You are familiar with the man who styles himself Bayaz, the First of the Magi?’

  ‘Yes! Please! Yes! Until recently he was my employer.’

  ‘Good.’ Glokta shifted in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position while bending forwards. ‘Very good. You accompanied him on a journey?’

  ‘I was the guide!’

  ‘What was your destination?’

  ‘The Island of Shabulyan, at the edge of the World.’

  Glokta let the head of the hammer click against the anvil again. ‘Oh come, come. The edge of the World? A fantasy, surely?’

  ‘Truly! Truly! I have seen it! I stood upon that island with my own feet!’

  ‘Who went with you?’

  ‘There was . . . was Logen Ninefingers, from the distant North.’ Ah, yes, he of the scars and the tight lips. ‘Ferro Maljinn, a Kantic woman.’ The one that gave our friend Superior Goyle so much trouble. ‘Jezal dan Luthar, a . . . a Union officer.’ A posturing dolt. ‘Malacus Quai, Bayaz’ apprentice.’ The skinny liar with the troglodyte’s complexion. ‘And then Bayaz himself!’
r />   ‘Six of you?’

  ‘Only six!’

  ‘A long and a difficult journey to undertake. What was at the edge of the World that demanded such an effort, besides water?’

  Longfoot’s lip trembled. ‘Nothing!’ Glokta frowned, and nudged at the Navigator’s big toe with the head of the hammer. ‘It was not there! The thing that Bayaz sought! It was not there! He said he had been tricked!’

  ‘What was it that he thought would be there?’

  ‘He said it was a stone!’

  ‘A stone?’

  ‘The woman asked him. He said it was a rock . . . a rock from the Other Side.’ The Navigator shook his sweating head. ‘An unholy notion! I am glad we found no such thing. Bayaz called it the Seed!’

  Glokta felt the grin melting from his face. The Seed. Is it my imagination, or has the room grown colder? ‘What else did he say about it?’

  ‘Just myths and nonsense!’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Stories, about Glustrod, and ruined Aulcus, and taking forms, and stealing faces! About speaking to devils, and the summoning of them. About the Other Side.’

  ‘What else?’ Glokta dealt Longfoot’s toe a firmer tap with the hammer.

  ‘Ah! Ah! He said the Seed was the stuff of the world below! That it was left over from before the Old Time, when demons walked the earth! He said it was a great and powerful weapon! That he meant to use it, against the Gurkish! Against the Prophet!’ A weapon, from before the Old Time. The summoning of devils, the taking of forms. Kanedias seemed to frown down from the wall more grimly than ever, and Glokta flinched. He remembered his nightmare trip into the House of the Maker, the patterns of light on the floor, the shifting rings in the darkness. He remembered stepping out onto the roof, standing high above the city without climbing a single stair.

  ‘You did not find it?’ he whispered, his mouth dry.