Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

“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.”

“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.”