Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

“It was you, wasn’t it, outside the tent… the other night?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it was. I simply came to check if there was anything you needed,” he lied. “I really had no idea… who you would be with.”

“I certainly never meant for you to—”

“The Dogman?” he muttered, face suddenly crunching up with incomprehension. “Him? I mean… why?” Why him instead of me, was what he wanted to say, but he managed to stop himself.

“I know… I know you must think—”

“You’ve no need to explain yourself to me!” he hissed, though he knew he’d just asked her to. “Who cares what I think?” He spat it out with a deal more venom than he had intended, but his own loss of control only made him angrier, and he lost more. “I don’t care what you choose to fuck!”

She winced and stared down at the ground beside his feet. “I didn’t mean to… well. I owe you a lot, I know. It’s just that… you’re too angry for me. That’s all.”

West stared at her as she trudged off up the hill alter the Northmen, hardly able to believe his ears. She was happy to bed that stinking savage, but he was too angry? It was so unfair he almost choked on his rage.

Colonel Glokta charged into his dining room in a tremendous hurry, wrestling manfully with the buckle on his sword belt.

“Damn it!” he fumed. He was all thumbs. Couldn’t get the thing closed. “Damn it, damn it!”

“You need some help with that?” asked Shickel, sitting wedged in behind the table, black burns across her shoulders, cuts hanging open, dry as meat in the butcher’s shop.

“No I do not need bloody help!” he shrieked, flinging his belt onto the floor. “What I need is for someone to explain what the hell is going on here! This is a disgrace! I will not have members of my regiment sitting around naked! Especially with such unsightly wounds! Where is your uniform, girl?”

“I thought you were more worried about the Prophet.”

“Never mind about him!” snapped Glokta, worming his way onto the bench opposite her. “What about Bayaz? What about the First of the Magi? Who is he? What’s he really after, the old bastard?”

Shickel smiled a sweet smile. “Oh, that. I thought everyone knew that. The answer is…”

“Yes!” muttered the Colonel, mouth dry, eager as a schoolboy, “The answer is?”

She laughed, and slapped at the bench beside her. Thump, thump, thump.

“The answer is…”

The answer is…

Thump, thump, thump. Glokta’s eyes snapped open. It was still half dark outside. Only a faint glow was coming through the curtains. Who comes belting at the door at this hour? Good news comes in the daylight.

Thump, thump, thump. “Yes, yes!” he screeched. “I’m crippled, not deaf! I damn well hear you!”

“Then open the bloody door!” The voice came muffled from the corridor, but there was no mistaking the Styrian note. Vitari, the bitch. Just what one needs in the middle of the night. Glokta did his best to stifle his groans as he carefully disentangled his numb limbs from his sweaty blanket, rolling his head gently from side to side, trying to stretch some movement into his twisted neck, and failing.

Thump, thump. I wonder, when was the last time I had a woman beating down my bedroom door? He snatched his cane from its place, resting against the mattress, then pressed one of his few teeth hard into his lip, grunting softly to himself as he wormed his way down the bed and let one leg flop off onto the boards. He threw himself forward, eyes squeezed shut at a withering pain through his back, and finally reached sitting, gasping as though he had run ten miles. Fear me, fear me, all must fear me! If I can just get out of bed, that is.

Thump. “I’m coming, damn it!” He footed his cane on the floor and rocked himself up to standing. Careful, careful. The muscles in his mutilated left leg were shaking violently, making his toeless foot twitch and flop like a dying fish. Damn this hideous appendage! It would feel like someone else’s, if it didn’t hurt so much. But calm, calm, we must be gentle.

“Shhh,” he hissed, like a parent trying to sooth a wailing child, kneading softly at his ruined flesh and trying to breathe slow. “Shhh.” The convulsions slowly calmed to a more manageable trembling. About the best that we can hope for, I fear. He was able to pull his nightshirt down and shuffle to the door, flip the key angrily round in the lock, and pull it open. Vitari stood outside in the corridor, draped against the wall, a darker shape in the shadows.

“You,” he grunted, hopping to the chair. “You just can’t stay away, can you? What is your fascination with my bedchamber?”

She sauntered through the door, peering around scornfully at the miserable room. “Perhaps I just like seeing you in pain.”

Glokta snorted, rubbing gingerly at his burning knee. “Then you must be wet between the legs right now.”

“Surprisingly, no. You look like death.”

“When don’t I? Did you come to mock my looks, or have we some business?”

Vitari folded her long arms and leaned against the wall. “You need to get dressed.”

“More excuses to see me naked?”

“Sult wants you.”

“Now?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh no, we can take our time. You know how he is.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.” And she upped her pace, making him gasp and wince, snorting his aching way through the dim archways, down the shadowy lanes and the grey courtyards of the Agriont, colourless in the thin light of early morning.

His clumsy boots crunched and scraped in the gravel of the park. The grass was heavy with cold dew, the air thick with dull mist. Trees loomed up, black and leafless claws in the murk, and then a towering, sheer wall. Vitari led him towards a high gate, flanked by two guards. Their heavy armour was worked with gold, their heavy halberds were studded with gold, the golden sun of the Union was stitched into their surcoats. Knights of the Body. The King’s personal guard.

“The palace?” muttered Glokta.

“No, the slums, genius.”

“Halt.” One of the two knights raised his gauntleted hand, voice echoing slightly from the grill in his tall helmet. “State your names and business.”

“Superior Glokta.” He hobbled to the wall and leaned against the damp stones, pressing his tongue into his empty gums against the pain in his leg. “As for the business, ask her. This wasn’t my idea, I can damn well tell you that.”

“Practical Vitari. And the Arch Lector is expecting us. You know that already, fool, I told you on the way out.”

If it were possible for a man in full armour to appear hurt, this one did. “It is a matter of protocol that I ask everyone—”

“Just get it open!” barked Glokta, pressing his fist into his trembling thigh, “while I can still lurch through on my own!”

The man thumped angrily on the gate and a small door opened inside it. Vitari ducked through and Glokta limped after her, along a path of carefully-cut stones through a shadowy garden. Drops of cold water clung to the budding branches, dripped from the towering statuary. The cawing of a crow somewhere out of sight seemed ridiculously loud in the morning stillness. The palace loomed up ahead of them, a confusion of roofs, towers, sculptures, ornamental stonework outlined against the first pale glow of morning.

“What are we doing here?” hissed Glokta.

“You’ll find out.”

He limped up a step, between towering columns and two more Knights of the Body, still and silent enough to have been empty suits of armour. His cane clicked on the polished marble floor of an echoing hallway, half lit by flickering candles, the high walls covered entirely with dim friezes. Scenes of forgotten victories and achievements, one king after another pointing, brandishing weapons, reading proclamations, standing with their chests puffed out in pride. He struggled up a flight of steps, ceiling and walls carved entirely in a glorious pattern of golden flowers, flashing and glittering in the candlelight, while Vitari waited impatiently for him at the top. Their being priceless doesn’t make them any easier to climb, damn it.