“No! No! Wait!” wailed Longfoot. “The priest! God help me, a priest came to the Order! A Gurkish priest! He said that one day the First of the Magi might ask for a Navigator, and that he wished to be told of it! That he wished to be told what happened afterward! He made threats, terrible threats, we had no choice but to obey! I was waiting in the city for another Navigator, who will convey the news! Only this morning I told him everything I have told you! I was about to leave Adua, I swear!”
“What was the name of this priest?” Longfoot said nothing, his wet eyes wide, the breath hissing in his nose. Oh, why must they test me? Glokta looked down at the Navigator’s toe. It was already starting to swell and go blotchy, streaks of black blood-blisters down each side, the nail deep, brooding purple, edged with angry red. Glokta ground the end of the hammer’s handle savagely into it. “The name of the priest! His name! His name! His—”
“Aargh! Mamun! God help me! His name was Mamun!” Mamun. Yulwei spoke of him, in Dagoska. The first apprentice of the Prophet himself. Together they broke the Second Law, together they ate the flesh of men.
“Mamun. I see. Now.” Glokta craned further forward, ignoring an ugly tingling up his twisted spine. “What is Bayaz doing here?”
Longfoot gaped, a long string of drool hanging from his bottom lip. “I don’t know!”
“What does he want with us? What does he want in the Union?”
“I don’t know! I have told you everything!”
“Leaning forwards is a considerable ordeal for me. One that I begin to tire of.” Glokta frowned, and lifted the hammer, its polished head glinting.
“I just find ways from here to there! I only navigate! Please! No!” Longfoot squeezed his eyes shut, tongue wedged between his teeth. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it comes…
Glokta tossed the hammer clattering down on the floor and leaned back, rocking his aching hips left and right to try and squeeze away the aches. “Very well,” he sighed. “I am satisfied.”
The prisoner opened first one grimacing eye, and then the other. He looked up, face full of hope. “I can go?”
Severard chuckled softly behind his mask. Even Frost made a kind of hissing sound. “Of course you can go.” Glokta smiled his empty smile. “You can go back in your bag.”
The Navigator’s face went slack with horror. “God take pity on me.”
If there is a God, he has no pity in him.
Fortunes of War
Lord Marshal Burr was in the midst of writing a letter, but he smiled up as West let the tent flap drop.
“How are you, Colonel?”
“Well enough, thank you, sir. The preparations are well underway. We should be ready to leave at first light.”
“As efficient as ever. Where would I be without you?” Burr gestured at the decanter. “Wine?”
“Thank you, sir.” West poured himself a glass. “Would you care for one?”
Burr indicated a battered canteen at his elbow. “I believe it would be prudent if I was to stick to water.”
West winced, guiltily. He hardly felt as if he had the right to ask, but there was no escaping it now. “How are you feeling, sir?”
“Much better, thank you for asking. Much, much better.” He grimaced, put one fist over his mouth, and burped. “Not entirely recovered, but well on the way.” As though to prove the point he got up easily from his chair and strode to the map, hands clasped behind his back. His face had indeed regained much of its colour. He no longer stood hunched over, wobbling as though he were about to fall.
“Lord Marshal… I wanted to speak to you… about the battle at Dunbrec.”
Burr looked round. “About what feature of it?”
“When you were sick…” West teetered on the brink of speaking, then let the words bubble out. “I didn’t send for a surgeon! I could have, but—”
“I’m proud that you didn’t.” West blinked. He had hardly dared to hope for that answer. “You did what I would have wanted you to do. It is important that an officer should care, but it is vital that he should not care too much. He must be able to place his men in harm’s way. He must be able to send them to their deaths, if he deems it necessary. He must be able to make sacrifices, and to weigh the greatest good, without emotion counting in his choice. That is why I like you, West. You have compassion in you, but you have iron too. One cannot be a great leader without a certain… ruthlessness.”
West found himself lost for words. The Lord Marshal chuckled, and slapped the table with his open hand. “But as it happens, no harm done, eh? The line held, the Northmen were turned out of Angland, and I tottered through alive, as you can see!”
“I am truly glad to see you feeling better, sir.”
Burr grinned. “Things are looking up. We are free to move again, with our lines of supply secure and the weather finally dry. If your Dogman’s plan works then we have a chance of finishing Bethod within a couple of weeks! They’ve been a damn courageous and useful set of allies!”
“They have, sir.”
“But this trap must be carefully baited, and sprung at just the right moment.” Burr peered at the map, rocking energetically back and forward on his heels. “If we’re too early Bethod may slip away. If we’re too late our Northern friends could be crushed before we can reach them. We have to make sure bloody Poulder and bloody Kroy don’t drag their bloody feet!” He winced and put a hand on his stomach, reached for his canteen and took a swig of water.
“I’d say you finally have them house-trained, Lord Marshal.”
“Don’t you believe it. They’re only waiting for their chance to put the knife in me, the pair of them! And now the King is dead. Who knows who will replace him? Voting for a monarch! Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
West’s mouth felt unpleasantly dry. It was almost impossible to believe that the whole business had been partly his own doing. It would hardly have done to take credit for it however, given that his part had been to murder the heir to the throne in cold blood. “Who do you think they will choose, sir?” he croaked.
“I’m no courtier, West, for all I have a seat on the Closed Council. Brock, maybe, or Isher? I’ll tell you one thing for sure—if you think there’s violence going on up here, it’ll be twice as brutal back home in Midderland, with half the mercy shown.” The Marshal burped, and swallowed, and laid a hand on his stomach. “Gah. No Northman’s anything like as ruthless as those vultures on the Closed Council when they get started. And what will change when they have their new man in his robes of state? Not much, I’m thinking. Not much.”
“Very likely, sir.”
“I daresay there’s nothing that we can do about it either way. A pair of blunt soldiers, eh, West?” He stepped up close to the map again, and traced their route northwards towards the mountains, his thick forefinger hissing over the paper. “We must make sure we are ready to move at sunup. Every hour could be vital. Poulder and Kroy have had their orders?”
“Signed and delivered, sir, and they understand the urgency. Don’t worry, Lord Marshal, we’ll be ready to go in the morning.”
“Don’t worry?” Burr snorted. “I’m the commander of his Majesty’s army. Worrying is what I do. But you should get some rest.” He waved West out of the tent with one thick hand. “I’ll see you at first light.”