Before They Are Hanged

Click, tap, pain, that was the rhythm of Glokta’s walking. The confident click of his right heel, the tap of his cane on the echoing tiles of the hallway, then the long scrape of his left foot with the familiar pain in the knee, arse and back. Click, tap, pain.

He had walked from the docks to Ardee’s house, to the Agriont, to the House of Questions, and all the way up here. Limped. On my own. Without help. Now every step was agony. He grimaced with each movement. He grunted and sweated and cursed. But I’m damned if I’m slowing down.

“You don’t like to make things easy, do you?” muttered Vitari.

“Why should they be?” he snapped. “You can console yourself with the thought that this conversation will most likely be our last.”

“Then why even come? Why not run?”

Glokta snorted. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am an exceptionally poor runner. That and I’m curious.” Curious to know why his Eminence didn’t leave me there to rot along with all the rest.

“Your curiosity might be the death of you.”

“If the Arch Lector wants me dead, limping the other way will do me little good. I’d rather take it standing up.” He winced at a sudden spasm through his leg. “Or maybe sitting down. Either way, face to face, with my eyes open.”

“Your choice, I suppose.”

“That’s right.” My last one.

They came into Sult’s ante-room. He had to admit to being somewhat surprised to have come this far. He had been expecting every black-masked Practical they had passed in the building to seize hold of him. He had been expecting every black-clothed Inquisitor to point and scream for his immediate arrest. And yet here I am again. The heavy desk, the heavy chairs, the two towering Practicals flanking the heavy doors, were all the same.

“I am—”

“Superior Glokta, of course.” The Arch Lector’s secretary bowed his head respectfully. “You may go in at once. His Eminence is expecting you.” Light spilled out of the Arch Lector’s office and into the narrow chamber.

“I’ll wait here.” Vitari slid into one of the chairs and swung her damp boots up on an other.

“Don’t bother waiting too long.” My last words, perhaps? Glokta cursed inwardly as he shuffled towards the doorway. I really should have thought of something more memorable. He paused for just a moment at the threshold, took a deep breath, and hobbled through.

The same airy, round room. The same dark furniture, the same dark pictures on the bright walls, the same great window with the same view of the University, and the House of the Maker beyond. No assassins loitering under the table, no axemen waiting behind the door. Only Sult himself, sitting at his desk with a pen in hand, the nib scratching calmly and evenly across some papers spread out before him.

“Superior Glokta!” Sult started up and swept gracefully across the polished floor towards him, white coat flapping. “I’m so glad you are safely returned!” The Arch Lector gave every impression of being pleased to see him, and Glokta frowned. He had been prepared for almost anything but this.

Sult held out his hand, the stone on his ring of office flashing purple sparks. Glokta grimaced as he bent slowly to kiss it. “I serve and obey, your Eminence.” He straightened up with an effort. No knife in the back of the neck? But Sult was already flowing across to the cabinet, grinning broadly.

“Sit, please sit! You need not wait to be asked!”

Since when? Glokta grunted his way into one of the chairs, taking only the briefest moment to check for poisoned spikes on the seat. The Arch Lector, meanwhile, had plucked open the cabinet and was rummaging inside. Will he pull out a loaded flatbow, and shoot me through the throat? But all that emerged were two glasses. “It would seem congratulations are in order,” he threw over his shoulder.

Glokta blinked. “What?”

“Congratulations. Excellent work.” Sult grinned down at him as he slid the glasses gracefully onto the round table, eased the stopper, clinking, from the decanter. What to say? What to say?

“Your Eminence… Dagoska… I must be candid. It was on the point of falling when I left. Very soon now, the city will be overrun—”

“Of course it will.” Sult dismissed it all with a wave of his white-gloved hand. “There was never the slightest chance of holding it. The best I was hoping for was that you’d make the Gurkish pay! And how you did that, eh, Glokta? How you did that!”

“Then… you are… pleased?” He hardly dared say the word.

“I am delighted! If I had written the tale myself, it could not have worked out better! The incompetence of the Lord Governor, the treachery of his son, it all showed how little the regular authorities can be relied upon in a crisis. Eider’s treason exposed the duplicity of the merchants, their dubious connections, their rotten morality! The Spicers have been dissolved alongside the Mercers: their trade rights are in our hands. The pair of them, consigned to the latrine of history and the power of the merchants broken! Only his Majesty’s Inquisition remained staunch in the face of the Union’s most implacable enemy. You should have seen Marovia’s face when I presented the confessions to the Open Council!” Sult filled Glokta’s glass all the way to the top.

“Most kind, your Eminence,” he muttered as he took a sip from it. Excellent wine, as always.

“And then he got up in the Closed Council, before the King himself, mark you, and declared to everyone that you wouldn’t last a week once the Gurkish attacked!” The Arch Lector spluttered with laughter. “I wish you could have been there. I’m confident he’ll do better than that, I said. Confident he’ll do better.” A ringing endorsement indeed.

Sult slapped the table with his white-gloved palm. “Two months, Glokta! Two months! With every day that passed he looked more of a fool, and I looked more of a hero… we, that is,” he corrected himself, “we looked like heroes, and all I had to do was smile! You could almost see them, each day, shuffling their chairs away from Marovia and down towards me! Last week they voted extra powers to the Inquisition. Nine votes to three. Nine to three! Next week we’ll go further! How the hell did you manage it?” And he gazed at Glokta expectantly.

I sold myself to the bank that funded the Mercers, then used the proceeds to bribe the worlds least reliable mercenary. Then I murdered a defenceless emissary under flag of parley and tortured a serving girl until her body was mincemeat. Oh, and I let the biggest traitor of the lot go free. It was, without doubt, a heroic business. How did I manage it? “Rising early,” he murmured.

Sult’s eye flickered, and Glokta caught it. A trace of annoyance, perhaps? A trace of mistrust? But it was quickly extinguished. “Rising early. Of course.” He raised his glass. “The second greatest virtue. It comes just behind ruthlessness. I like your style, Glokta, I’ve always said so.”

Have you indeed? But Glokta humbly inclined his head.

“Practical Vitari’s despatches were filled with admiration. I particularly enjoyed the way you dealt with the Gurkish emissary. That must have wiped the smile from the Emperor’s face, if only for a moment, the arrogant swine.” So she kept her end of the bargain, then? Interesting. “Yes, things proceed smoothly. Except for the damn peasants making a nuisance of themselves, and Angland of course. Shame about Ladisla.”

“About Ladisla?” asked Glokta, baffled.

Sult looked sour. “You didn’t hear? Another of High Justice Marovia’s brilliant notions. He had it in mind to lift the Crown Prince’s popularity by giving him a command in the North. Something out of the way, where he’d be in no danger and we could heap him with glory. It wasn’t a bad scheme, really, except that out of the way became in the way, and he commanded himself straight into his grave.”

“His army with him?”

“A few thousand of them, but mostly that rubbish the nobles sent as levies. Nothing of much significance. Ostenhorm is still in our hands, and it wasn’t my idea so, all in all, no harm done. Between you and me it’s probably