Joe Abercrombie: Last Argument of Kings

“Steps. Bastard things. If I could torture one man, do you know who it would be?” Pike’s face was a single, expressionless scar. “Well, never mind.” Glokta struggled to the bottom without incident, limped on a few more painful strides to a heavy wooden door, bound with iron.

“We are here.” Glokta slid a bunch of keys from the pocket of his white coat, flicked through them until he found the right one, unlocked the door, and went in.

Arch Lector Sult was not the man he used to be. But then none of us are, quite. His magnificent shock of white hair was plastered greasily to his gaunt skull, dry blood matted in a yellow-brown mass on one side. His piercing blue eyes had lost their commanding sparkle, sunken as they were in deep sockets and rimmed with angry pink. He had been relieved of his clothes, and his sinewy old man’s body, somewhat hairy around the shoulders, was smeared with the grime of the cells. He looked, in fact, like nothing so much as a mad old beggar. Can this truly once have been one of the most powerful men in the wide Circle of the World? You would never guess. A salutary lesson to us all. The higher you climb, the further there is to fall.

“Glokta!” he snarled, thrashing helplessly, chained to his chair. “You treacherous, twisted bastard!”

Glokta held up his white-gloved hand, the purple stone on his ring of office glinting in the harsh lamplight. “I believe your Eminence is the proper term of address.”

“You?” Sult barked sharp laughter. “Arch Lector? A withered, pitiable husk of a man? You disgust me!”

“Don’t give me that.” Glokta lowered himself, wincing, into the other chair. “Disgust is for the innocent.”

Sult glared up at Pike, looming menacingly over the table, his shadow falling across the polished case containing Glokta’s instruments. “What is this thing?”

“This is an old friend of ours, Master Sult, but recently returned from the wars in the North, and seeking new opportunities.”

“My congratulations! I never believed that you could find an assistant even more hideous than yourself!”

“You are unkind, but thankfully we are not easily offended. Let us call him equally hideous.” And just as ruthless, too, I hope.

“When will be my trial?”

“Trial? Why ever would I want one of those? You are presumed dead and I have made no effort to deny it.”

“I demand the right to address the Open Council!” Sult struggled pointlessly with his chains. “I demand… curse you! I demand a hearing!”

Glokta snorted. “Demand away, but look around you. No one is interested in listening, not even me. We all are far too busy. The Open Council stands in indefinite recess. The Closed Council is all changed, and you are forgotten. I run things now. More completely than you could ever have dreamed of doing.”

“On the leash of that devil Bayaz!”

“Correct. Maybe in time I’ll work some looseness into his muzzle, just as I did into yours. Enough to get things my own way, who knows?”

“Never! You’ll never be free of him!”

“We’ll see.” Glokta shrugged. “But there are worse fates than being the first among slaves. Far worse. I have seen them.” I have lived them.

“You fool! We could have been free!”

“No. We couldn’t. And freedom is far overrated in any case. We all have our responsibilities. We all owe something to someone. Only the entirely worthless are entirely free. The worthless and the dead.”

“What does it matter now?” Sult grimaced down at the table. “What does any of it matter? Ask your questions.”

“Oh, we’re not here for that. Not this time. Not for questions, not for truth, not for confessions. I have my answers already.” Then why do I do this? Why? Glokta leaned slowly forwards across the table. “We are here for our amusement.”

Sult stared at him for a moment, then he shrieked with wild laughter. “Amusement? You’ll never have your teeth back! You’ll never have your leg back! You’ll never have your life back!”

“Of course not, but I can take yours.” Glokta turned, stiffly, slowly, painfully, and he gave a toothless grin. “Practical Pike, would you be so good as to show our prisoner the instruments?”

Pike frowned down at Glokta. He frowned down at Sult. He stood there for a long moment, motionless.

Then he stepped forward, and lifted the lid of the case.

The sides of the valley were coated in white snow. The black road ran through it like an old scar, down to the bridge, over the river, up to the gates of Carleon. Black sprouts of sedge, tufts of black grass, black stones poked up through the clean white blanket. The black branches of the trees were each picked out on top with their own line of white. The city was a huddle of white roofs and black walls, crowded in around the hill, pressed into the fork in the black river under a stony grey sky.

Logen wondered if this was how Ferro Maljinn saw the world. Black and white, and nothing else. No colours. He wondered where she was now, what she was doing. If she thought about him.

Most likely not.

“Back again.”

“Aye,” said Shivers. “Back.” He hadn’t had much to say the whole long ride from Uffrith. They might have saved each other’s lives, but conversation was another matter. Logen reckoned he still wasn’t Shivers’ favourite man. Doubted that he ever would be.

They rode down in silence, a long file of hard riders beside the black stream, no more than an icy trickle. Horses and men snorted out smoke, harness jingled sharp on the cold air. They rode over the bridge, hooves thumping on the hollow wood, on to the gate where Logen had spoken to Bethod. The gate he’d thrown him down from. The grass had grown back, no doubt, in the circle where he’d killed the Feared, then the snow had fallen down and covered it. So it was with all the acts of men, in the end. Covered over and forgotten.

There was no one out to cheer for him, but that was no surprise. The Bloody-Nine arriving was never any cause for celebration, especially not in Carleon. Hadn’t turned out too well for anyone the first time he visited. Nor any of the times after. Folk were no doubt barred into their houses, scared that they’d be the first to get burned alive.

He swung down from his horse, left Red Hat and the rest of the boys to see to themselves. He strode up through the cobbled street, up the steep slope towards the gateway of the inner wall, Shivers at his shoulder. A couple of Carls watched him come. A couple of Dow’s boys, rough-looking bastards. One of them gave him a grin with half the teeth missing. “The king!” he shouted, waving his sword in the air.

“The Bloody-Nine!” shouted the other, rattling his shield. “King o’ the Northmen!”

He crunched across the quiet courtyard, snow piled up into the corners, over to the high doors of Bethod’s great hall. He raised his hands and pushed them creaking open. It wasn’t much warmer inside than out in the snow. The high windows were open at the far end, the noise of the cold, cold river roaring from far below. Skarling’s Chair stood on its raised-up platform, at the top of the steps, casting a long shadow across the rough floorboards towards him.

Someone was sitting in it, Logen realised, as his eyes got used to the dark. Black Dow. His axe and his sword leaned up against the side of the chair, the glint of sharpened metal in the darkness. Just like him, that. Always kept his weapons close to hand.

Logen grinned at him. “Getting comfortable, Dow?”

“Bit hard on the arse, being honest, but it’s better’n dirt for sitting in.”