Before They Are Hanged

“He is. I thank you for your generosity, Magister.” Glokta snapped the lid of the box shut.

“The least I could do.” She got up from her chair and walked to the door, her sandals hissing across the carpet. “I will speak with you soon.”

“He says he must speak with you now.”

“What was his name, Shickel?”

“Mauthis. A banker.”

One more creditor, come clamouring for his money. Sooner or later I’ll have to just arrest the pack of them. That will be the end of my little spending spree, but it will almost be worth it to see the looks on their faces. Glokta gave a hopeless shrug. “Send him in.”

He was a tall man in his fifties, almost ill-looking in his gauntness, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed. There was a stern precision to his movements, a steady coldness to his gaze. As though he is weighing the value of all he looks at in silver marks, including me.

“My name is Mauthis.”

“I was informed, but I am afraid that there are no funds available at the present moment.” Unless you count Severard’s twelve bits. “Whatever debt the city has with your bank will have to wait. It will not be for much longer, I assure you.” Just until the sea dries up, the sky falls in, and devils roam the earth.

Mauthis gave a smile. If you could call it that. A neat, precise, and utterly joyless curving of the mouth. “You misunderstand me, Superior Glokta. I have not come to collect a debt. For seven years, I have had the privilege of acting as the chief representative in Dagoska, of the banking house of Valint and Balk.”

Glokta paused, then tried to sound off-hand. “Valint and Balk, you say? Your bank financed the Guild of Mercers, I believe.”

“We had some dealings with that guild, before their unfortunate fall from grace.” I’ll say you did. You owned them, from the ground up. “But then we have dealings with many guilds, and companies, and other banks, and individuals, great and small. Today I have dealings with you.”

“Dealings of what nature?”

Mauthis turned to the door and snapped his fingers. Two burly natives entered, grunting, sweating, struggling under the weight of a great casket: a box of polished black wood, bound with bands of bright steel, sealed with a heavy lock. They set it down carefully on the fine carpet, wiped sweat from their foreheads, and tramped out the way they came while Glokta frowned after them. What is this? Mauthis pulled a key from his pocket and turned it in the lock. He reached forward and lifted the lid of the chest. He moved out of the way, carefully and precisely, so Glokta could see the contents.

“One hundred and fifty thousand marks in silver.”

Glokta blinked. And so it is. The coins flashed and glittered in the evening light. Flat, round, silver, five mark pieces. Not a jingling heap, not some barbarian’s horde. Neat, even stacks, held in place by wooden dowels. As neat and even as Mauthis himself.

The two porters were gasping their way back into the room, carrying between them a second box, slightly smaller than the first. They placed it on the floor and strode out, not so much as glancing at the fortune glittering in plain view beside them.

Mauthis unlocked the second chest with the same key, raised the lid, and stood aside. “Three hundred and fifty thousand marks in gold.”

Glokta knew his mouth was open, but he could not close it. Bright, clean, gold, glowing yellow. All that wealth seemed almost to give off warmth, like a bonfire. It tugged at him, dragged at him, pulled him forward. He took a hesitant step, in fact, before he stopped himself. Great big, golden, fifty mark pieces. Neat, even stacks, just as before. Most men would never in their lives see such coins. Few men indeed can ever have seen so many.

Mauthis reached into his coat and pulled out a flat leather case. He placed it carefully on the table and unfolded it: once, twice, three times.

“One half of one million marks in polished stones.”

There they lay on the soft black leather, on the hard brown table top, burning with all the colours under the sun. Two large handfuls, perhaps, of multi-coloured, glittering gravel. Glokta stared down at them, numb, and sucked at his gums. Magister Eiders jewels seem suddenly rather quaint.

“In total, I have been ordered by my superiors to advance to you, Sand dan Glokta, Superior of Dagoska, the sum of precisely one million marks.” He unrolled a heavy paper. “You will sign here.”

Glokta stared from one chest to another and back. His left eye gave a flurry of twitches. “Why?”

“To certify that you received the money.”

Glokta almost laughed. “Not that! Why the money?” He flailed one hand at it all. “Why all this?”

“It would appear that my employers share your concern that Dagoska should not fall to the Gurkish. More than that I cannot tell you.”

“Cannot, or will not?”

“Cannot. Will not.”

Glokta frowned at the jewels, at the silver, at the gold. His leg was throbbing, dully. All that I wanted, and far more. But banks do not become banks by giving money away. “If this is a loan, what is the interest?”

Mauthis flashed his icy smile again. “My employers would prefer to call it a contribution to the defence of the city. There is one condition, however.”

“Which is?”

“It may be that in the future, a representative of the banking house of Valint and Balk will come to you requesting… favours. It is the most earnest hope of my employers that, if and when that time comes, you will not disappoint them.”

One million marks worth of favours. And I place myself in the power of a most suspect organisation. An organisation whose motives I do not begin to understand. An organisation that, until recently, I was on the point of investigating for high treason. But what are my options? Without money, the city is lost, and I am finished. I needed a miracle, and here it is, sparkling before me. A man lost in the desert must take such water as is offered…

Mauthis slid the document across the table. Several blocks of neat writing, and a space, for a name. For my name. Not at all unlike a paper of confession. And prisoners always sign their confessions. They are only offered when there is no choice.

Glokta reached for the pen, dipped it in the ink, wrote his name in the space provided.

“That concludes our business.” Mauthis rolled up the document, smoothly and precisely. He slipped it carefully into his coat. “My colleagues and I are leaving Dagoska this evening.” A great deal of money to contribute to the cause, but precious little confidence in it. “Valint and Balk are closing their offices here, but perhaps we will meet in Adua, once this unfortunate situation with the Gurkish is resolved.” The man gave his mechanical smile one more time. “Don’t spend it all at once.” And he turned on his heel and strode out, leaving Glokta alone with his monumental windfall.

He shuffled over to it, breathing hard, and stared down. There was something obscene about all that money. Something disgusting. Something frightening, almost. He snapped shut the lids of the two chests. He locked them with trembling hands. He shoved the key in his inside pocket. He stroked the metal bindings of the two boxes with his fingertips. His palms were greasy with sweat. I am rich.

He picked up a clear, cut stone the size of an acorn, and held it up to the window between finger and thumb. The dim light shone back at him through the many facets, a thousand brilliant sparks of fire—blue, green, red, white. Glokta did not know much about gemstones, but he was reasonably sure that this one was a diamond. I am very, very rich.

He looked back at the rest, sparkling on the flat piece of leather. Some of them were small, but many were not. Several were larger than the one he held in his hand. I am immensely, fabulously wealthy. Imagine what one could do with so much money. Imagine what one could control… perhaps, with this much, I can save the city. More walls, more supplies, more equipment, more mercenaries. The Gurkish, thrown back from Dagoska in