“Where did Davoust go to?”
Magister Eider paused for a moment, then carefully set down the bottle. She slid into the nearest chair, put her elbows on the table, her chin on her hands, and held Glokta’s eye. “I suspect that he was killed by a traitor in the city. Probably an agent of the Gurkish. At the risk of telling you what you already know, Davoust suspected there was a conspiracy afoot within the city’s ruling council. He confided as much to me shortly before his disappearance.”
Did he indeed? “A conspiracy within the ruling council?” Glokta shook his head in mock horror. “Is such a thing possible?”
“Let us be honest with each other, Superior. I want what you want. We in the Guild of Spicers have invested far too much time and money in this city to see it fall to the Gurkish, and you seem to offer a better chance of holding on to it than those idiots Vurms and Vissbruck. If there is a traitor within our walls I want him found.”
“Him… or her.”
Magister Eider raised one delicate eyebrow. “It cannot have escaped your notice that I am the only woman on the council.”
“It has not.” Glokta slurped noisily from his spoon. “But forgive me if I don’t discount you quite yet. It will require more than good soup and pleasant conversation to convince me of anyone’s innocence.” Although it’s a damn sight more than anyone else has offered me.
Magister Eider smiled as she raised her glass. “Then how can I convince you?”
“Honestly? I need money.”
“Ah, money. It always comes back to that. Getting money out of my Guild is like trying to dig up water in the desert—tiring, dirty, and almost always a waste of time.” Somewhat like asking questions of Inquisitor Harker. “How much were you thinking of?”
“We could begin with, say, a hundred thousand marks.”
Eider did not actually choke on her wine. More of a gentle gurgle. She set her glass down carefully, quietly cleared her throat, dabbed at her mouth with the corner of a cloth, then looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “You very well know that no such amount will be forthcoming.”
“I’ll settle for whatever you can give me, for now.”
“We’ll see. Are your ambitions limited to a mere hundred thousand marks, or is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Actually there is. I need the merchants out of the Temple.”
Eider rubbed gently at her own temples, as though Glokta’s demands were giving her a headache. “He wants the merchants out,” she murmured.
“It was necessary to secure Kahdia’s support. With him against us we cannot hope to hold the city for long.”
“I’ve been telling those arrogant fools the same thing for years, but stamping on the natives has become quite the popular pastime nonetheless. Very well, when do you want them out?”
“Tomorrow. At the latest.”
“And they call you high-handed?” She shook her head. “Very well. By tomorrow evening I could well be the most unpopular Magister in living memory, if I still have my post at all, but I’ll try and sell it to the Guild.”
Glokta grinned. “I feel confident that you could sell anything.”
“You’re a tough negotiator, Superior. If you ever get tired of asking questions, I have no doubt you’ve a bright future as a merchant.”
“A merchant? Oh, I’m not that ruthless.” Glokta placed his spoon in the empty bowl and licked at his gums. “I mean no disrespect, but how does a woman come to head the most powerful Guild in the Union?”
Eider paused, as though wondering whether to answer or not. Or judging how much truth to tell when she does. She looked down at her glass, turned the stem slowly round and round. “My husband was Magister before me. When we married I was twenty-two years old, he was near sixty. My father owed him a great deal of money, and offered my hand as payment for the debt.” Ah, so we all have our sufferings. Her lip twisted in a faint scowl. “My husband always had a good nose for a bargain. His health began to decline soon after we married, and I took a more and more active role in the management of his affairs, and those of the Guild. By the time he died I was Magister in all but name, and my colleagues were sensible enough to formalise the arrangement. The Spicers have always been more concerned for profit than propriety.” Her eyes flicked up to look at Glokta. “I mean no disrespect, but how does a war hero come to be a torturer?”
It was his turn to pause. A good question. How did that happen? “There are precious few opportunities for cripples.”
Eider nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving Glokta’s face. “That must have been hard. To come back, after all that time in the darkness, and to find that your friends had no use for you. To see in their faces only guilt, and pity, and disgust. To find yourself alone.”
Glokta’s eyelid was twitching, and he rubbed at it gently. He had never discussed such things with anyone before. And now here I am, discussing them with a stranger. “There can be no doubt that I’m a tragic figure. I used to be a shit of a man, now I’m a husk of one. Take your pick.”
“I imagine it makes you sick, to be treated that way. Very sick, and very angry.” If only you knew. “It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer.”
“On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell.”
Eider frowned. Something for her to think about, perhaps? “I would have thought your pain would give you empathy.”
“Empathy? What’s that?” Glokta winced as he rubbed at his aching leg. “It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.”
Campfire Politics
Logen shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, and squinted up at the few birds circling around over the great flat plain. Damn but his arse hurt. His thighs were sore, his nose was all full of the smell of horse. Couldn’t find a comfortable position to put his fruits in. Always squashed, however often he jammed his hand down inside his belt to move ’em. A damn uncomfortable journey this was turning out to be, in all sorts of ways.
He used to talk on the road, back in the North. When he was a boy he’d talked to his father. When he was a young man he’d talked to his friends. When he’d followed Bethod he’d talked to him, all the day long, for they’d been close back then, like brothers almost. Talk took your mind off the blisters on your feet, or the hunger in your belly, or the endless bloody cold, or who’d got killed yesterday.
Logen used to laugh at the Dogman’s stories while they slogged through the snow. He used to puzzle over tactics with Threetrees while they rode through the mud. He used to argue with Black Dow while they waded through bogs, and no subject was ever too small. He’d even traded a joke or two with Harding Grim in his time, and there weren’t too many who could say that.
He sighed to himself. A long, painful sigh that caught at the back of his throat. Good times, no doubt, but far behind him now, in the sunny valleys of the past. Those boys were all gone back to the mud. All silent, forever. Worse yet, they’d left Logen out in the middle of nowhere with this lot.
The great Jezal dan Luthar wasn’t interested in anyone’s stories except his own. He sat stiff upright and aloof the whole time, chin held high, displaying his arrogance, and his superiority, and his contempt for everything like a young man might show off his first sword, long before he learned that it was nothing to be proud of.