Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

Ardee was frowning over at him. “Something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” he croaked, striving to keep his voice from sounding strangled. “An old associate. Could you give me the room for a moment? I need to talk with this gentleman.”

“Of course.” She got up and started to walk to the door, her dress swishing on the carpet behind her. She paused halfway, looked over her shoulder, biting her lip. She went to the cabinet and opened it, pulled out the bottle and the glass. She shrugged her shoulders. “I need something.”

“Don’t we all,” whispered Glokta at her back as she went out.

Mauthis stepped through the door a moment later. The same sharp bones in his face, the same cold eyes in deep sockets. There was something changed in his demeanour, however. A certain nervousness. A certain anxiety, perhaps?

“Why, Master Mauthis, what an almost unbearable honour it is to—”

“You may dispense with the pleasantries, Superior.” His voice was shrill and grating as rusty hinges. “I have no ego to bruise. I prefer to speak plainly.”

“Very well, what can I—”

“My employers, the banking house of Valint and Balk, are not pleased with your line of investigation.”

Glokta’s mind raced. “My line of investigation into what?”

“Into the murder of Crown Prince Raynault.”

“That investigation is concluded. I assure you that I have no—”

“Speaking plainly, Superior, they know. It would be easier for you to assume that they know everything. They usually will. The murder has been solved, with impressive speed and competence, I may say. My employers are delighted with the results. The guilty man has been brought to justice. No one will benefit from your delving any deeper into this unfortunate business.”

That is speaking very plainly indeed. But why would Valint and Balk mind my questions? They gave me money to frustrate the Gurkish, now they seem to object to my investigating a Gurkish plot? It makes no sense… unless the killer did not come from the South at all. Unless Prince Raynault’s murderers are much closer to home…

“There are some loose ends that need to be tied,” Glokta managed to mumble. “There is no need for your employers to be angry—”

Mauthis took a step forward. His forehead was glistening with sweat, though the room was not hot. “They are not angry, Superior. You could not have known that they would be displeased. Now you know. Were you to continue with this line of investigation, knowing that they are displeased… then they would be angry.” He leaned down towards Glokta and almost whispered. “Please allow me to tell you, Superior, as one piece on the board to another. We do not want them angry.” There was a strange note in his voice. He does not threaten me. He pleads.

“Are you implying,” Glokta murmured, scarcely moving his lips, “that they would inform Arch Lector Sult of their little gift to the defence of Dagoska?”

“That is the very least of what they would do.” Mauthis’ expression was unmistakable. Fear. Fear, in that emotionless mask of a face. Something about it left a certain bitterness on Glokta’s tongue, a certain coldness down his back, a certain tightness in his throat. It was a feeling he remembered, from long ago. It was the closest he had come to being afraid, himself, in a long time. They have me. Utterly and completely. I knew it when I signed. That was the price, and I had no choice but to pay.

Glokta swallowed. “You may tell your employers that there will be no further enquiries.”

Mauthis closed his eyes for a moment and blew out with evident relief. “I am delighted to carry that message back to them. Good day.” And he turned and left Glokta alone in Ardee’s living room, staring at the door, and wondering what had just happened.

The prow of the boat crunched hard into the rocky beach and stones groaned and scraped along the underside. Two of the oarsmen floundered out into the washing surf and dragged the boat a few steps further. Once it was firmly grounded they hurried back in as though the water caused intense pain. Jezal could not entirely blame them. The island at the edge of the World, the ultimate destination of their journey, the place called Shabulyan, had indeed a most forbidding appearance.

A vast mound of stark and barren rock, the cold waves clutching at its sharp promontories and clawing at its bare beaches. Above rose jagged cliffs and slopes of treacherous scree, piled steeply upwards into a menacing mountain, looming black against the dark sky.

“Care to come ashore?” asked Bayaz of the sailors.

The four oarsmen showed no sign of moving, and their Captain slowly shook his head. “We have heard bad things of this island,” he grunted in common so heavily accented it was barely intelligible. “They say it is cursed. We will wait for you here.”

“We may be some time.”

“We will wait.”

Bayaz shrugged. “Wait, then.” He stepped from the boat and waded through knee-high breakers. Slowly and somewhat reluctantly the rest of the party followed him through the icy sea and up onto the beach.

It was a bleak and blasted place, a place fit only for stones and cold water. Waves foamed greedily up the shore and sucked jealously back out through the shingle. A pitiless wind cut across this wasteland and straight through Jezal’s wet trousers, whipping his hair in his eyes and chilling him to the marrow. It snatched away any trace of excitement he might have felt at reaching the end of their journey. It found chinks and holes in the boulders and made them sing, and sigh, and wail in a mournful choir.

There was precious little vegetation. Some colourless grass, ill with salt, some thorny bushes more dead than alive. A few clumps of withered trees, higher up away from the sea, clung desperately to the unyielding stone, curved and bent over in the direction of the wind as though they might be torn away at any moment. Jezal felt their pain.

“A charming spot!” he shouted, his words flying off into the gale as soon as they left his lips. “If you are an enthusiast for rocks!”

“Where does the wise man hide a stone?” Bayaz hurled back at him. “Among a thousand stones! Among a million!”

There certainly was no shortage of stones here. Boulders, rocks, pebbles and gravel also were in abundant supply. It was the profound lack of anything else that rendered the place so singularly unpleasant. Jezal glanced back over his shoulder, feeling a sudden stab of panic at the notion of the four oarsmen shoving the boat back out to sea and leaving them marooned.

But they were still where they had been, their skiff rocking gently near the beach. Beyond them, on the churning ocean, Cawneil’s ill-made tub of a ship sat at anchor, its sails lowered, its mast a black line against the troubled sky, moving slowly back and forward with the stirring of the uneasy waves.

“We need to find somewhere out of the wind!” Logen bellowed.

“Is there anywhere out of the wind in this bloody place?” Jezal shouted back.

“There’ll have to be! We need a fire!”

Longfoot pointed up towards the cliffs. “Perhaps up there we might find a cave, or a sheltered spot. I will lead you!”

They clambered up the beach, first sliding in the shingle, then hopping from teetering rock to rock. The edge of the World hardly seemed worth all the effort, as far as final destinations went. They could have found cold stone and cold water in plenty without ever leaving the North. Logen had a bad feeling about this barren place, but there was no point in saying so. He’d had a bad feeling for the last ten years. Call on this spirit, find this Seed, and then away, and quickly. What then, though? Back to the North? Back to Bethod, and his sons, racks full of scores and rivers of bad blood? Logen winced. None of that held much appeal. Better to do it, than to live in fear of it, his father would have said, but then his father said all kinds of things, and a lot of them weren’t much use.