Last Argument of Kings

Dagoska today. There are none left at all,
alas. Lord Governor Vurms was relieved of his post. His son lost his
head and could not attend. As for the rest of the city—it was
conquered by the Gurkish. Well. Some wastage is inevitable. We will
struggle on without them. The board is set, the pieces ready to be
moved. Who will be the winner of this sordid little game, do we
suppose? We shall soon see…
    The Announcer
stepped forwards into the centre of the circular floor, lifted his
staff high above his head and brought it down with a series of mighty
crashes that echoed from the polished marble walls. The chatter
faded, the magnates shuffled round to face the floor, every face
drawn with tension. A pregnant silence settled over the packed hall,
and Glokta felt a flurry of twitches slink up the left side of his
face and set his eyelid blinking.
    â€œI call
this meeting of the Open Council of the Union to order!â€

The Trap
    Coming up into
the High Places again, and the air felt crisp and clear, sharp and
familiar in Logen’s throat. Their march had begun gently as
they came up through the woods, a rise you’d hardly notice.
Then the trees thinned out and their path took them up a valley
between grassy fells, cracked with trickling streams, patched with
sedge and gorse. Now the valley had narrowed to a gorge, hemmed in on
both sides with slopes of bare rock and crumbling scree, getting
always steeper. Above them, on either side of that gorge, two great
crags rose up. Beyond, the hazy hints of mountain peaks—grey,
and light grey, and even lighter grey, melted in the distance into
the heavy grey sky.
    The sun was out,
and meaning business, and it was hot to walk in, bright to squint
into. They were all weary from climbing, and worrying, and looking
behind them for Bethod. Four hundred Carls, maybe, and as many
painted-face hillmen, all spread out in a great long column, cursing
and spitting, boots crunching and sliding in the dry dirt and the
loose stones. Crummock’s daughter was struggling up ahead of
Logen, bent double under the weight of her father’s hammer,
hair round her face dark with sweat. Logen’s own daughter would
have been older than that, by now. If she hadn’t been killed by
the Shanka, along with her mother and her brothers. That thought gave
Logen a hollow, guilty feeling. A bad one.
    â€œYou want
a hand with that mallet, girl?â€

Horrible Old Men
    The tall windows
stood open, allowing a merciful breeze to wash through the wide
salon, to give the occasional cooling kiss to Jezal’s sweating
face, to make the vast, antique hangings flap and rustle. Everything
in the chamber was outsized—the cavernous doorways were three
times as high as a man, and the ceiling, painted with the peoples of
the world bowing down before an enormous golden sun, was twice as
high again. The immense canvases on the walls featured life-size
figures in assorted majestic poses, whose warlike expressions would
give Jezal uncomfortable shocks whenever he turned around.
    It seemed a
space for great men, for wise men, for epic heroes or mighty
villains. A space for giants. Jezal felt a tiny, meagre, stupid fool
in it.
    â€œYour arm,
if it please your Majesty,â€

Prepared for the Worst
    Glokta sat in
his dining room, staring down at his table, rubbing at his aching
thigh with one hand. His other stirred absently at the fortune in
jewels spread out on the black leather case.
    Why do I do
this? Why do I stay here, and ask questions? I could be gone on the
next tide, and no one any worse off. Perhaps a tour of the beautiful
cities of Styria? A cruise round the Thousand Isles? Finally to
faraway Thond, or distant Suljuk, to live out my twisted days in
peace among people who do not understand a word I say? Hurting no
one? Keeping no secrets? Caring no more for innocence or guilt, for
truth or for lies, than do these little lumps of rock.
    The gems
twinkled in the candlelight, clicking against each other, tickling at
his fingers as he pushed them through one way, and back the other. But his Eminence would weep and weep at my sudden disappearance.
So, one imagines, would the banking house of Valint and Balk. Where
in all the wide Circle of the World would I be safe from the tears of
such powerful masters? And why? So I can sit on my crippled arse all
the long day, waiting for the killers to come? So I can lie in bed,
and ache, and think about all that