Joe Abercrombie - Last Argument of Kings

Glokta’s eyes followed the clerk as he hurried out with the documents. Or is it merely a receipt for ten bits, refused? Who can say? The door was pulled softly and precisely shut with the gentlest of smooth clicks.

Mauthis paused only to align his pen precisely with the edge of his desk, then he looked up at Glokta. “I am truly grateful that you have answered promptly.”

Glokta snorted. “The tone of your note did not seem to allow for delay.” He winced as he lifted his aching leg with both hands and heaved his dirty boot up onto the chair beside him. “I hope you will return the favour and come promptly to the point. I am extremely busy.” I have Magi to destroy, and Kings to bring down, and, if I cannot do one or the other, I have a pressing appointment to have my throat cut and be tossed in the sea.

Mauthis’ face did not so much as flicker. “Once again, I find that my superiors are not best pleased with the direction of your investigations.”

Is that so? “Your superiors are people of deep pockets and shallow patience. What now offends their delicate sensibilities?”

“Your investigation into the lineage of our new King, his August Majesty Jezal the First.” Glokta felt his eye twitch, and he pressed his hand against it with a sour sucking of his gums. “In particular your enquiries into the person of Carmee dan Roth, the circumstances of her untimely demise, and the closeness of her friendship with our previous King, Guslav the Fifth. Do I come close enough to the point for your taste?”

A little closer than I would like, in fact. “Those enquiries have scarcely even begun. I find it surprising that your superiors are so very well informed. Do they acquire their information from a crystal ball, or a magic mirror?” Or from someone at the House of Questions who likes to talk? Or from someone closer to me even than that, perhaps?

Mauthis sighed, or at least, he allowed some air to issue from his face. “I told you to assume that they know everything. You will discover it is no exaggeration, particularly if you choose to try and deceive them. I would advise you very strongly against that course of action.”

“Believe me when I say,” muttered Glokta through tight lips, “that I have no interest whatsoever in the King’s parentage, but his Eminence has demanded it, and keenly awaits a report of my progress. What am I to tell him?”

Mauthis stared back with a face full of sympathy. As much sympathy as one stone might have for another. “My employers do not care what you tell him, provided that you obey them. I see that you find yourself in a difficult position, but speaking plainly, Superior, I do not see a choice for you. I suppose you could go to the Arch Lector, and lay before him the whole history of our involvement. The gift you took from my employers, the conditions under which it was given, the consideration you have already extended to us. Perhaps his Eminence is more forgiving of divided loyalties than he appears to be.”

“Huh,” snorted Glokta. If I did not know better, I might have almost taken that for a joke. His Eminence is only slightly less forgiving than a scorpion, and we both know it.

“Or you could honour your commitment to my employers, and do as they demand.”

“They asked for favours, when I signed the damn receipt. Now they make demands? Where does it end?”

“That is not for me to say, Superior. Or for you to ask.” Mauthis’ eyes flickered towards the door. He leaned across his desk and spoke soft and low. “But if my own experience is anything to go by… it will not end. My employers have paid. And they always get what they have paid for. Always.”

Glokta swallowed. It would seem that, in this case, they have paid for my abject obedience. It would not normally be a difficulty, of course, I am every bit as abject as the next man, if not more so. But the Arch Lector demands the same. Two well-informed and merciless masters in direct opposition begins too late to seem like one too many. Two too many, some might say. But as Mauthis so kindly explains, I have no choice. He slid his boot off the chair, leaving a long streak of dirt across the leather, and shifted his weight painfully as he began the long process of getting up. “Is there anything else, or do your employers merely wish me to defy the most powerful man in the Union?”

“They wish you also to watch him.”

Glokta froze. “They wish me to what?”

“There has been a great deal of change of late, Superior. Change means new opportunities, but too much change is bad for business. My employers feel a period of stability is in everyone’s best interests. They are satisfied with the situation.” Mauthis clenched his pale hands together on the red leather. “They are concerned that some figures within the government may not be satisfied. That they may seek further change. That their rash actions might lead to chaos. His Eminence concerns them especially. They wish to know what he does. What he plans. They wish, in particular, to know what he is doing in the University.”

Glokta gave a splutter of disbelieving laughter. “Is that all?”

The irony was wasted on Mauthis. “For now. It might be best if you were to leave by the back entrance. My employers will expect news within the week.”

Glokta grimaced as he struggled down the narrow staircase at the back of the building, sideways on like a crab, the sweat standing out from his forehead, and not just from the effort. How could they know? First that I was looking into Prince Raynault’s death, against the Arch Lectors orders, and now that I am looking into our Majesty’s mother, on the Arch Lector’s behalf. Assume they know everything, of course, but no one knows anything without being told.

Who… told?

Who asked the questions, about the Prince and about the King? Whose first loyalty is to money? Who has already given me up once to save his skin? Glokta paused for a moment, in the middle of the steps, and frowned. Oh, dear, dear. Is it every man for himself, now? Has it always been?

The pain shooting up his wasted leg was the only reply.

West sat, arms crossed upon his saddle-bow, staring numbly up the dusty valley. “We won,” said Pike, in a voice without emotion. Just the same voice in which he might have said, “We lost.”

A couple of tattered standards still stood, hanging lifeless. Bethod’s own great banner had been torn down and trampled beneath horses’ hooves, and now its threadbare frame stuck up at a twisted angle, above the settling fog of dust, like clean-picked bones. A fitting symbol for the sudden fall of the King of the Northmen.

Poulder reined in his horse beside West, smiling primly at the carnage like a schoolmaster at an orderly classroom.

“How did we fare, General?”

“Casualties appear to have been heavy, sir, especially in our front ranks, but the enemy were largely taken by surprise. Most of their best troops were already committed to the attack on the fortress. Once our cavalry got them on the run, we drove them all the way to the walls! Picked their camp clean.” Poulder wrinkled his nose, moustaches trembling with distaste. “Several hundred of those devilish Shanka we put to the sword, and a much greater number we drove off into the hills to the north, from whence, I do not doubt, they will be greatly reluctant to return. We wrought a slaughter among the Northmen to satisfy King Casamir himself, and the rest have laid down their arms. We guess at five thousand prisoners, sir. Bethod’s army has been quite crushed. Crushed!” He gave a girlish chuckle. “No one could deny that you have well and truly avenged the death of Crown Prince Ladisla today, Lord Marshal!”