Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

“Well said, your Majesty, well said!” The red-faced drunkard stood, not giving anyone the chance to get a word in. “Then only one order of business remains before the Open Council stands in recess.” He turned with an oily smile and a hand-rubbing bow. “Let us offer our thanks to Lord Bayaz, the First of the Magi, who, by the wisdom of his council and the power of his Art, drove out the invader and saved the Union!” He began to clap. The cripple Glokta joined him, then Duke Orso.

A burly lord in the front row sprang up. “Lord Bayaz!” he roared, smashing his fat hands together. Soon the whole hall was resounding with reluctant applause. Even Heugen joined in. Even Isher, although he had a look on his face as if he was clapping at his own burial. Logen let his hands stay where they were. If he was honest, he felt a touch sick even being there. Sick and angry. He slumped back in his chair, and kept on frowning.

Jezal watched the great worthies of the Union file unhappily out of the Chamber of Mirrors. Great men. Isher, Barezin, Heugen, and all the rest. Men that he had once gaped at the sight of. All humbled. He could hardly keep the smile from his face as they grumbled their helpless discontent. It felt almost like being a king, until he caught sight of his queen.

Terez and her father, the Grand Duke Orso, were engaged in what appeared to be a heartfelt argument, carried out in expressive Styrian, accentuated on both sides by violent hand movements. Jezal might have been relieved that he was not the only family member she appeared to despise, had he not suspected that he was the subject of their argument. He heard a soft scraping behind him, and was mildly disgusted to see the twisted face of his new Arch Lector.

“Your Majesty.” Glokta spoke softly, as if he planned to discuss secrets, frowning towards Terez and her father. “Might I ask… is all well between you and the queen?” His voice dropped even lower. “I understand that you rarely sleep in the same room.”

Jezal was on the point of giving the cripple a backhanded blow across the face for his impudence. Then he caught Terez looking at him, out of the corner of his eye. That look of utter contempt that was his usual treatment as a husband. He felt his shoulders sag. “She can scarcely stand to be in the same country as me, let alone the same bed. The woman’s an utter bitch!” he snarled, then hung his head and stared down at the floor. “What am I to do?”

Glokta worked his neck to one side, then the other, and Jezal suppressed a shudder as he heard a loud click. “Let me speak to the queen, your Majesty. I can be quite persuasive when I have the mind. I understand your difficulties. I am myself but recently married.”

Jezal dreaded to think what manner of monster might have accepted this monster as a husband. “Truly?” he asked, feigning interest. “Who is the lady?”

“I believe that the two of you are distantly acquainted. Ardee is her name. Ardee dan Glokta.” And the cripple’s lips slid back to display the sickening hole in his front teeth.

“But not—”

“My old friend Collem West’s sister, yes.” Jezal stared, speechless. Glokta gave a stiff bow. “I accept your congratulations.” He turned away, limped to the edge of the platform, and began to lurch down the steps, leaning heavily on his cane.

Jezal could hardly contain his cold shock, his crushing disappointment, his utter horror. He could not conceive of what blackmail that shambling monstrosity might have employed to trap her. Perhaps she had simply been desperate when Jezal abandoned her. Perhaps, with her brother ill, she had been left with nowhere else to turn. Only the other morning, in the hospital, the sight of her had tugged at something in him, just the way it used to. He had been thinking to himself that perhaps, one day, with time…

Now even such pleasurable fancies were brought crashing to the ground. Ardee was married, and to a man that Jezal despised. A man who sat on his own Closed Council. To make matters even worse, a man to whom he had, in a moment of madness, just now confessed the total emptiness of his own marriage. He had made himself appear weak, vulnerable, absurd. He cursed bitterly under his breath.

It seemed now that he had loved Ardee with an unbearable passion. That they had shared something he would never find again. How could he not have realised it at the time? How could he have allowed it all to fall apart, for this? The sad fact was, he supposed, that love on its own was nothing like enough.

Logen felt a lurch of disappointment as he opened the door, and close behind it an ugly wave of anger. The room was empty, neat and clean, as though no one had ever slept there. Ferro was gone.

Nothing had worked out the way he’d hoped. He should’ve expected it by now, maybe. After all, things never had before. And yet he kept on pissing into the wind. He was like a man whose door’s too low, but instead of working out how to duck, keeps on smacking his head into the lintel every day of his miserable life. He wanted to feel sorry for himself, but he knew he deserved no better. A man can’t do the things he’d done, and hope for happy endings.

He strode out into the corridor and down the hallway, his jaw clenched. He shouldered open the next door without knocking. The tall windows stood open, sunlight pouring into the airy room, hangings stirring in the breeze. Bayaz sat in a carved chair in front of one of them, a teacup in his hand. A fawning servant in a velvet jacket was pouring into it from a silver pot, a tray and cups balanced on his outspread fingertips.

“Ah, the King of the Northmen!” called Bayaz. “How are—”

“Where is Ferro?”

“Gone. She left something of a mess behind, in fact, but I have tidied up, as I so often find myself—”

“Where?”

The Magus shrugged. “South, I would imagine. Vengeance, or some such, if I was forced to guess. She always said a very great deal about vengeance. A most ill-tempered woman.”

“She is changed.”

“Great events, my friend. None of us are quite the same. Now, will you take tea?”

The servant pranced forward, silver tray bobbing. Logen seized him by his velvet jacket and flung him across the room. He squealed as he crashed into the wall and sprawled on the carpet, cups clattering around him.

Bayaz raised an eyebrow. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

“Shit on that, you old bastard.”

The First of the Magi frowned. “Why, Master Ninefingers, you seem in bullish mood this morning. You are a king now, and it ill becomes you to let your baser passions rule you in this manner. Kings of that sort never last. You have enemies still in the North. Calder and Scale, up in the hills causing trouble, I am sure. Manners should be repaid by like manners, I have always thought. You have been helpful to me, and I can be helpful in return.”

“As you were to Bethod?”

“Just so.”

“Much good it did him.”

“When he had my help, he prospered. Then he became proud, and unruly, and demanded things all his own way. Without my help… well, you know the rest.”

“Stay out of my business, wizard.” Logen let his hand fall onto the hilt of the Maker’s blade. If swords have voices, as the Magus had once told him, he made it give a grim threat now.

But Bayaz’ face showed only the slightest trace of annoyance. “A lesser man might find himself upset. Did I not buy your life from Bethod? Did I not give you purpose when you had nothing? Did I not take you to the very edge of the World, show you wonders few men have seen? These are poor manners. Why, the very sword with which you threaten me was my gift to you. I had hoped we might come to a—”

“No.”

“I see. Not even—”