Joe Abercrombie: Before They Are Hanged

“I am Harker, senior Inquisitor in the city.”

“Until I arrived,” snapped Glokta. “How many others have you?”

The Inquisitor frowned. “Four Inquisitors and some twenty Practicals.”

“A small complement, to keep a city of this size free of treason.”

Harker’s frown grew more surly yet. “We’ve always managed.” Oh, indeed. Apart from mislaying your Superior, of course. “This is your first visit to Dagoska?”

“I have spent some time in the South.” The best days of my life, and the worst. “I was in Gurkhul during the war. I saw Ulrioch.” In ruins after we burned the city. “And I was in Shaffa for two years.” If you count the Emperors Prisons. Two years in the boiling heat and the crushing darkness. Two years in hell. “But I have never been to Dagoska.”

“Huh,” snorted Harker, unimpressed. “Your quarters are in the Citadel.” He nodded towards the great rock that loomed up over the city. Of course they are. In the very highest part of the highest building, no doubt. “I’ll show you the way. Lord Governor Vurms and his council will be keen to meet their new Superior.” He turned with a look of some bitterness. Feel you should have got the job yourself, eh? I’m delighted to disappoint you.

Harker set off into the city at a brisk pace, Practical Frost trudging along beside him, heavy shoulders hunched around his thick neck, sticking to every trace of shade as though the sun were shooting tiny darts at him. Vitari zig-zagged across the dusty street as if it was a dance-floor, peering through windows and down narrow side-streets. Glokta shuffled along doggedly behind, his left leg already starting to burn with the effort.

“The cripple shuffled only three strides into the city before he fell on his face, and had to be carried the rest of the way by stretcher, squealing like a half-slaughtered pig and begging for water, while the very citizens he was sent to terrify watched, dumbstruck…”

He curled his lips back and dug his remaining teeth into his empty gums, forced himself to keep pace with the others, the handle of his cane cutting into his palm, his spine giving an agonising click with every step.

“This is the Lower City,” grumbled Harker over his shoulder, “where the native population are housed.”

A giant, boiling, dusty, stinking slum. The buildings were mean and badly maintained: rickety shacks of one storey, leaning piles of half-baked mud bricks. The people were all dark-skinned, poorly dressed, hungry-looking. A bony woman peered out at them from a doorway. An old man with one leg hobbled past on bent crutches. Down a narrow alley ragged children darted between piles of refuse. The air was heavy with the stink of rot and bad sewers. Or no sewers at all. Flies buzzed everywhere. Fat, angry flies. The only creatures prospering here.

“If I’d known it was such a charming place,” observed Glokta, “I’d have come sooner. Seems the Dagoskans have done well from joining the Union, eh?”

Harker did not recognise the irony. “They have indeed. During the short time the Gurkish controlled the city, they took many of the leading citizens as slaves. Now, under the Union, they are truly free to work and live as they please.”

“Truly free, eh?” So this is what freedom looks like. Glokta watched a group of sullen natives crowding round a stall poorly stocked with half-rotten fruit and flyblown offal.

“Well, mostly.” Harker frowned. “The Inquisition had to weed out a few troublemakers when we first arrived. Then, three years ago, the ungrateful swine mounted a rebellion.” After we gave them the freedom to live like animals in their own city? Shocking. “We got the better of them, of course, but they caused no end of damage. After that they were barred from keeping weapons, or entering the Upper City, where most of the whites live. Since then, things have been quiet. It only goes to show that a firm hand is most effective when it comes to dealing with these primitives.”

“They built some impressive defences, for primitives.”

A high wall cut through the city before them, casting a long shadow over the squalid buildings of the slum. There was a wide pit in front, freshly dug and lined with sharpened stakes. A narrow bridge led across to a tall gate, set between looming towers. The heavy doors were open, but a dozen men stood before them: sweating Union soldiers in steel caps and studded leather coats, harsh sun glinting on their swords and spears.

“A well-guarded gate,” mused Vitari. “Considering that it’s inside the city.”

Harker frowned. “Since the rebellion, natives have only been allowed within the Upper City if they have a permit.”

“And who holds a permit?” asked Glokta.

“Some skilled craftsmen and so forth, still employed by the Guild of Spicers, but mostly servants who work in the Upper City and the Citadel. Many of the Union citizens who live here have native servants, some have several.”

“Surely the natives are citizens of the Union also?”

Harker curled his lip. “If you say so, Superior, but they can’t be trusted, and that’s a fact. They don’t think like us.”

“Really?” If they think at all it will be an improvement on this savage.

“They’re all scum, these browns. Gurkish, Dagoskan, all the same. Killers and thieves, the lot of them. Best thing to do is to push them down and keep them down.” Harker scowled out at the baking slum. “If a thing smells like shit, and is the colour of shit, the chances are it is shit.” He turned and stalked off across the bridge.

“What a charming and enlightened man,” murmured Vitari. You read my mind.

It was a different world beyond the gates. Stately domes, elegant towers, mosaics of coloured glass and pillars of white marble shone in the blazing sun. The streets were wide and clean, the residences well maintained. There were even a few thirsty-looking palms in the neat squares. The people here were sleek, well dressed, and white-skinned. Aside from a great deal of sunburn. A few dark faces moved among them, keeping well out of the way, eyes on the ground. Those lucky enough to be allowed to serve? They must be glad that we in the Union would not tolerate such a thing as slavery.

Over everything Glokta could hear a rattling din, like a battle in the distance. It grew louder as he dragged his aching leg through the Upper City, and reached a furious pitch as they emerged into a wide square, packed from one edge to the other with a bewildering throng. There were people of Midderland, and Gurkhul, and Styria, narrow-eyed natives of Suljuk, yellow-haired citizens of the Old Empire, bearded Northmen even, far from home.

“Merchants,” grunted Harker. All the merchants in the world, it looks like. They crowded round stalls laden with produce, great scales for the weighing of materials, blackboards with chalked-in goods and prices. They bellowed, borrowed and bartered in a multitude of different languages, threw up their hands in strange gestures, shoved and tugged and pointed at one another. They sniffed at boxes of spice and sticks of incense, fingered at bolts of cloth and planks of rare wood, squeezed at fruits, bit at coins, peered through eye-glasses at flashing gemstones. Here and there a native porter stumbled through the crowds, stooped double under a massive load.

“The Spicers take a cut of everything,” muttered Harker, shoving impatiently through the chattering press.

“That must be a great deal,” said Vitari under her breath. A very great deal, I should imagine. Enough to defy the Gurkish. Enough to keep a whole city prisoner. People will kill for much, much less.