Before They Are Hanged

make do, Glokta. Demonstrate that resourcefulness that made you so famous in the Kantic War.

I trust that you will not disappoint me.

Sult

Arch Lector of his Majesty’s Inquisition.

“Matters proceed with the greatest speed, Superior, if I may say so. Since the gates to the Upper City were opened the work-rate of the natives has tripled! The ditch is down below sea level across the entire peninsula, and deepening every day! Only narrow dams hold back the brine at either end, and at your order the entire business is ready to be flooded!” Vissbruck sat back with a happy smile on his plump face. Quite as if the whole thing had been his idea.

Below them in the Upper City, the morning chanting was beginning. A strange wailing that drifted from the spires of the Great Temple, out over Dagoska and into every building, even here, in the audience chamber of the Citadel. Kahdia calls his people to prayer.

Vurms’ lip curled at the sound. “That time again already? Damn those natives and their bloody superstitions! We should never have let them back into their temple! Damn their bloody chanting, it gives me a headache!”

And it’s worth it for that alone. Glokta grinned. “If it makes Kahdia happy, your headache is something I can live with. Like it or not, we need the natives, and the natives like to chant. Get used to it, is my advice. That or wrap a blanket round your head.”

Vissbruck sat back in his chair and listened while Vurms sulked. “I have to admit that I find the sound rather soothing, and we cannot deny the effect the Superior’s concessions have had on the natives. With their help the land walls are repaired, the gates are replaced, and the scaffolds are already being dismantled. Stone has been acquired for new parapets but, ah, and here is the problem, the masons refuse to work another day without money. My soldiers are on quarter pay, and morale is low. Debt is the problem, Superior.”

“I’ll say it is,” muttered Vurms angrily. “The granaries are close to capacity, and two new wells have been dug in the Lower City, at great expense, but my credit is utterly exhausted. The grain merchants are after my blood!” A damn sight less keenly than every merchant in the city is after mine, I daresay. “I can scarcely show my face any longer for their clamouring. My reputation is in jeopardy, Superior!”

As if I had no larger concerns than the reputation of this dolt. “How much do we owe?”

Vurms frowned. “For food, water, and general equipment, no less than a hundred thousand.” A hundred thousand? The Spicers love making money, but they hate spending it more. Eider will not come up with half so much, if she even chooses to try.

“What about you, General?”

“The cost of hiring mercenaries, excavating the ditch, of the repairs to the walls, of extra weapons, armour, ammunition…” Vissbruck puffed out his cheeks. “In all, it comes to nearly four hundred thousand marks.”

It was the most Glokta could do to keep from choking on his own tongue. Half a million? A king’s ransom and more besides. I doubt that Sult could provide so much, even if he had the mind, and he does not. Men die all the time over debts a fraction of the size. “Work however you can. Promise whatever you want. The money is on its way, I assure you.”

The General was already collecting his notes. “I am doing all I can, but people are beginning to doubt that they will ever be paid.”

Vurms was more direct. “No one trusts us any longer. Without money, we can do nothing.”

“Nothing,” growled Severard. Frost slowly shook his head.

Glokta rubbed at his sore eyes. “A Superior of the Inquisition vanishes without leaving so much as a smear behind. He retires to his chambers at night, the door is locked. In the morning he does not answer. They break down the door and find…” Nothing. “The bed has been slept in, but there is no body. Not the slightest sign of a struggle even.”

“Nothing,” muttered Severard.

“What do we know? Davoust suspected a conspiracy within the city, a traitor intending to deliver Dagoska to the Gurkish. He believed a member of the ruling council was involved. It would seem likely that he uncovered the identity of this person, and was somehow silenced.”

“But who?”

We must turn the question on its head. “If we cannot find our traitor, we must make them come to us. If they work to get the Gurkish in, we need only succeed in keeping them out. Sooner or later, they will show themselves.”

“Rithky,” mumbled Frost. Risky indeed, especially for Dagoska’s latest Superior of the Inquisition, but we have no choices.

“So we wait?” asked Severard.

“We wait, and we look to our defences. That and we try to find some money. Do you have any cash, Severard?”

“I did have some. I gave it to a girl, down in the slums.”

“Ah. Shame.”

“Not really, she fucks like a madman. I’d thoroughly recommend her, if you’re interested.”

Glokta winced as his knee clicked. “What a thoroughly heartwarming tale, Severard, I never had you down for a romantic. I’d sing a ballad if I wasn’t so short of funds.”

“I could ask around. How much are we talking about?”

“Oh, not much. Say, half a million marks?”

One of the Practical’s eyebrows went up sharply. He reached into his pocket, dug around for a moment, pulled his hand out and opened it. A few copper coins shone in his palm.

“Twelve bits,” he said. “Twelve bits is all I can raise.”

“Twelve thousand is all I can raise,” said Magister Eider. Scarcely a drop in the bucket. “My Guild are nervous, business has not been good, the great majority of their assets are bound up in ventures of one kind or another. I have little cash to hand either.”

I daresay you have a good deal more than twelve thousand, but what’s the difference? I doubt even you have half a million tucked away. There probably isn’t that amount in the whole city. “One would almost think they didn’t like me.”

She snorted. “Turning them out of the temple? Arming the natives? Then demanding money? It might be fair to say you’re not their favourite person.”

“Might it be fair to say they’re after my blood?” And plenty of it, I shouldn’t wonder.

“It might, but for the time being, at least, I think I’ve managed to convince them that you’re a good thing for the city.” She looked levelly at him for a moment. “You are a good thing, aren’t you?”

“If keeping the Gurkish out is your priority.” That is our priority, isn’t it? “More money wouldn’t hurt, though.”

“More money never hurts, but that’s the trouble with merchants. They much prefer making it to spending it, even when it’s in their own best interests.” She gave a heavy sigh, rapped her fingernails on the table, looked down at her hand. She seemed to consider a moment, then she began to pull the rings from her fingers. When she had finally got them all off, she tossed them into the box along with the coins.

Glokta frowned. “A winning gesture, Magister, but I could not possibly—”

“I insist,” she said, unclasping her heavy necklace and dropping it into the box. “I can always get more, once you’ve saved the city. In any case, they’ll do me no good when the Gurkish rip them from my corpse, will they?” She slipped her heavy bracelets off her wrists, yellow gold, studded with green gemstones. They rattled down amongst the rest. “Take the jewels, before I change my mind. A man lost in the desert should take such water—”

“As he is offered, regardless of the source. Kahdia told me the very same thing.”

“Kahdia is a clever man.”