A small pair of scissors lay on the table before her, within easy reach. Of the type that rich women use to trim their nails. But just as good for trimming the skin from the soles of a man’s feet, for trimming his nostrils wider, for trimming his ears off, strip by slow strip…
Glokta found it decidedly difficult to move his eyes away from those polished little blades, shining in the bright lamplight. “I thought I told you never to come back,” he said, but his voice lacked its customary authority.
“You did. But then I thought… why ever not? I have assets in the city that I was not willing to relinquish, and some business opportunities that I am keen to take advantage of.” She took up the scissors, trimmed the thinnest scrap from the corner of one already perfectly-shaped thumbnail, and frowned at the results. “And it’s hardly as though you’ll be telling anyone I’m here, now, is it?”
“My concerns for your safety are all laid to rest,” grunted Glokta. My concerns for my own, alas, grow with every moment. A man is never so crippled, after all, that he could not be more so. “Did you really need to go to all this trouble just to share your travel arrangements?”
Her smile grew somewhat broader, if anything. “I hope my men didn’t hurt you. I did ask them to be gentle. At least for the time being.”
“A gentle kidnapping is still a kidnapping, though, don’t you find?”
“Kidnapping is such an ugly word. Why don’t we think of it as an invitation difficult to resist? At least I let you keep your clothes, no?”
“That particular favour is a mercy to us both, believe me. An invitation to what, might I ask, beyond a painful manhandling and a brief conversation?”
“I’m hurt that you need more. But there was something else, since you mention it.” She pared away another sliver of nail with her scissors, and her eyes rolled up to his. “A little debt left over, from Dagoska. I fear that I will not sleep easily until it is repaid.”
A few weeks in a black cell and a choking to the point of death? What form of repayment might that earn me? “Please, then,” hissed Glokta through his gums, his eyelid flickering as he watched those blades snip, snip, snip. “I can scarcely stand the suspense.”
“The Gurkish are coming.”
He paused for a moment, wrong-footed. “Coming here?”
“Yes. To Midderland. To Adua. To you. They have built a fleet, in secret. They began building it after the last war, and now it is complete. Ships to rival anything the Union has.” She tossed her scissors down on the table and gave a long sigh. “Or so I hear.”
The Gurkish fleet, just as my midnight visitor Yulwei told me. Rumours and ghosts, perhaps. But rumours are not always lies. “When will they arrive?”
“I really couldn’t say. The mounting of such an expedition is a colossal work of organisation. But then the Gurkish have always been so very much better organised than us. That’s what makes doing business with them such a pleasure.”
My own dealings with them have been less than delightful, but still. “In what numbers will they come?”
“A very great number, I imagine.”
Glokta snorted. “Forgive me if I regard the words of a proven traitor with a certain scepticism, especially as you are rather thin on the details.”
“Have it your way. You’re here to be warned, not convinced. I owe you that much, I think, for giving me my life.”
How wonderfully old-fashioned of you. “And that is all?”
She spread her hands. “Can a lady not trim her nails without giving offence?”
“Could you not simply have written?” snapped Glokta, “and spared me the chafing on my underarms?”
“Oh, come now. You never struck me as a man to bridle at a little chafing. Besides, it has given us the chance to renew a thoroughly enjoyable friendship. And you have to allow me my little moment of triumph, after what you put me through.”
I suppose that I can. I’ve had less charming threats, and at least she has better taste than to meet in a pig sty. “I can simply walk away, then?”
“Did anyone pick up a cane?” No one spoke. Eider gave a happy smile, showing Glokta her perfect white teeth. “You can crawl away, then. How does that sound?”
Better than floating to the top of the canal after a few days on the bottom, bloated up like a great pale slug and smelling like all the graves in the city. “As good as I’ll get, I suppose. I do wonder, though. What is to stop me having my Practicals follow the scent of expensive perfume after we are done here and finish what they started?”
“It is so very like you to say such a thing.” She sighed. “I should inform you that an old and trustworthy business acquaintance of mine has a sealed letter in his possession. In the event of my death, it will be sent to the Arch Lector, laying out to him the exact nature of my sentence in Dagoska.”
Glokta sucked sourly at his gums. Just what I need, another knife to juggle. “And what will occur if, entirely independently from my actions, you succumb to the rot? Or a house falls on you? Or you choke on a slice of bread?”
She opened her eyes very wide, as though the thought had only just occurred. “In any of those cases… I suppose… the letter would be sent anyway, despite your innocence.” She gave a helpless laugh. “The world is nothing like as fair a place as it should be, in my opinion, and I daresay that the natives of Dagoska, the enslaved mercenaries, and the butchered Union soldiers who you made fight for your lost cause would concur.” She smiled as sweetly as if they were discussing gardening. “Things would probably have been far simpler for you if you’d had me strangled, after all.”
“You read my mind.” But it is far too late now. I did a good thing, and so, of course, there is a price to be paid.
“So tell me, before we part ways again, for what, we can both only hope, will be the last time—are you involved with this business of the vote?”
Glokta felt his eye twitch. “My duties would seem to touch upon it.” Indeed it occupies my every waking hour.
Carlot dan Eider leaned forward to a conspiratorial distance, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. “Who will be the next king of the Union, do you suppose? Will it be Brock? Isher? Will it be someone else?”
“A little early to say. I’m working on it.”
“Off you hobble, then.” She pushed out her bottom lip. “And it’s probably better if you don’t mention our meeting to his Eminence.” She nodded, and Glokta felt the bag forced back over his face.
A Ragged Multitude
Jezal’s command post, if you could use the phrase in relation to a man as utterly confused and clueless as he felt, was at the crest of a long rise. It offered a splendid view of the shallow valley below. At least, it would have been a splendid view in happier times. As things stood, it had to be admitted, the spectacle was far from pleasant.
The main body of the rebels entirely covered several large fields further down the valley, and a dark, and grubby, and threatening infestation they seemed, glinting in places with bright steel. Farming implements and tradesman’s tools, perhaps, but sharp ones.
Even at this distance there was disturbing evidence of organisation. Straight, regular gaps through the men for the quick movement of messengers and supplies. It was plain, even to Jezal’s unpractised eye, that this was as much an army as a mob, and that someone down there knew his business. A great deal better than he did, most likely.