The Blade Itself

“You know nothing, cripple! Some small business with tax, some petty bribery, that’s all we were guilty of!”

“And the trifling matter of nine murders.”

“We had no choice!” screamed Kault. “We never had any choices! We had to pay the bankers! They loaned us the money, and we had to pay! We’ve been paying them for years! Valint and Balk, the bloodsuckers! We gave them everything, but they always wanted more!”

Valint and Balk? Bankers? Glokta threw an eye over the ridiculous opulence. “You seem to be keeping your head above water.”

“Seem! Seem! All dust! All lies! The bankers own it all! They own us all! We owe them thousands! Millions!” Kault giggled to himself. “But I don’t suppose they’ll ever get it now, will they?”

“No. I don’t suppose they will.”

Kault leaned across the desk, the rope hanging down and brushing the leather top. “You want criminals, Glokta? You want traitors? Enemies of King and state? Look in the Closed Council. Look in the House of Questions. Look in the University. Look in the banks, Glokta!” He saw Frost, edging round the cabinet no more than four strides away. His eyes went wide and he started up from his chair.

“Get him!” screamed Glokta. Frost sprang forward, lunged across the desk, caught hold of the flicking hem of Kault’s robe of office as the Magister span round and hurled himself at the window. We have him!

There was a sickening rip as the robe tore in Frost’s white fist. Kault seemed frozen in space for a moment as all that expensive glass shattered around him, shards and splinters glittering through the air, then he was gone. The rope snapped taut.

“Thhhhh!” hissed Frost, glaring at the broken window.

“He jumped!” gasped Jalenhorm, his mouth hanging open.

“Clearly.” Glokta limped over to the desk and took the ripped strip of cloth from Frost’s hands. Close up it scarcely seemed magnificent at all: brightly coloured but badly woven.

“Who would have thought?” muttered Glokta to himself. “Poor quality.” He limped to the window and peered through the shattered hole. The head of the honourable Guild of Mercers was swinging slowly back and forth, twenty feet below, his torn, gold-embroidered gown flapping around him in the breeze. Cheap clothes and expensive windows. If the cloth had been stronger we would have got him. If the window had more lead, we would have got him. Lives hinge on such chances. Beneath him in the street a horrified crowd was already gathering: pointing, babbling, staring up at the hanging body. A woman screamed. Fear, or excitement? They sound the same.

“Lieutenant, would you be so good as to go down and disperse that crowd? Then we can cut our friend loose and take him back with us.” Jalenhorm looked at him blankly. “Dead or alive, the King’s warrant must be served.”

“Yes, of course.” The burly officer wiped sweat from his forehead and made, somewhat unsteadily, for the door.

Glokta turned back to the window and peered down at the slowly swinging corpse. Magister Kault’s last words echoed in his mind.

Look in the Closed Council. Look in the House of Questions. Look in the University. Look in the banks, Glokta!

Three Signs

West crashed onto his arse, one of his steels skittering out of his hands and across the cobbles. “That’s a touch!” shouted Marshal Varuz, “A definite touch! Well fought, Jezal, well fought!”

West was starting to tire of losing. He was stronger than Jezal, and taller, with a better reach, but the cocky little bastard was quick. Damn quick, and getting quicker. He knew all of West’s tricks now, more or less, and if he kept improving at this rate he’d soon be beating him every time. Jezal knew it too. He had a smile of infuriating smugness on his face as he offered his hand to West and helped him up from the ground.

“We’re getting somewhere now!” Varuz slapped his stick against his leg in delight. “We may even have ourselves a champion, eh, Major?”

“Very likely, sir,” said West, rubbing at his elbow, bruised and throbbing from his fall. He looked sidelong at Jezal, basking in the warmth of the Marshal’s praise.

“But we must not grow complacent!”

“No, sir!” said Jezal emphatically.

“No indeed,” said Varuz, “Major West is a capable fencer, of course, and you are privileged to have him as a partner but, well,” and he grinned at West, “fencing is a young man’s game, eh, Major?”

“Of course it is, sir,” muttered West. “A young man’s game.”