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The Hero's Welcome

It was raining as Superior Glokta hobbled back into Adua. A mean, thin, ugly sort of rain on a hard wind off the sea, that rendered the treacherous wood of the gangplank, the squealing timbers of the wharf, the slick stones of the quay, all slippery as liars. He licked at his sore gums, rubbed at his sore thigh, swept his grimace up and down the grey shoreline. A pair of surly-looking guardsmen were leaning against a rotten warehouse ten paces away. Further on a party of dockers were involved in a bitter dispute over a heap of crates. A shivering beggar nearby took a couple of paces towards Glokta, thought better of it, and slunk away.

No crowds of cheering commoners? No carpet of flower petals? No archway of drawn swords? No bevy of swooning maidens? It was hardly too great a surprise. There had been none the last time he returned from the South. Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don't so much as blush for 'I did my best'. Nor will the Arch Lector, I fear.

A particularly vicious wave slapped at the sea wall and threw a cloud of sullen spray all over Glokta's back. He stumbled forward, cold water dripping from his cold hands, slipped and almost fell, tottered gasping across the quay and clung to the slimy wall of a crumbling shed at the far side. He looked up and saw the two guards staring at him.

'Is there something?' he snarled, and they turned their backs, muttering and pulling up their collars against the weather. Glokta fumbled his coat tight around him, felt the tails snatching at his wet legs. A few months in the sun and you feel as though you'll never be cold again. How soon we forget. He frowned up and down the empty wharves. How soon we all forget.

'Ome ageh.' Frost looked pleased as he stepped off the gangplank with Glokta's box under his arm.

'You don't much like hot weather, do you?'

The Practical shook his heavy head, half-grinning into the winter drizzle, white hair spiky with wet. Severard followed behind him, squinting up at the grey clouds. He paused for a moment at the end of the plank, then he stepped off onto the stones of the quay.

'Good to be back,' he said.

I only wish I could share your enthusiasm, but I cannot relax quite yet. 'His Eminence has sent for me, and judging by the way we left things in Dagoska, I think it more than likely that the meeting will… not go well.' A spectacular understatement. 'You had better stay out of sight for a couple of days.'

'Out of sight? I don't plan to see outside of a whorehouse for a week.'

'Very wise. And Severard. In case we don't see each other again. Good luck.'

The Practical's eyes glinted. 'Always.' Glokta watched him stroll off through the rain towards the seedier parts of town. Just another day for Practical Severard. Never thinking more than an hour ahead. What a gift.

'Damn your miserable country and damn its bloody weather,' Vitari grumbled in her sing-song accent. 'I have to go and speak to Sult.'

'Why so do I!' cried Glokta with exaggerated glee. 'What a charming coincidence!' He offered her his bent elbow. 'We can make a couple, and visit his Eminence together!'

She stared back at him. 'Alright.'

But the pair of you will have to wait another hour for my head. 'There's just one call I need to make first.'

 

The tip of his stick cracked against the door. No answer. Damn it. Glokta's back was hurting like hell and he needed to sit down. He rapped again with his cane, harder this time. The hinges creaked, the door swung open a crack. Unlocked. He frowned, pushed it all the way. The door frame was split inside, the lock shattered. Broken open. He limped across the threshold, into the hall. Empty and frosty cold. Not a stick of furniture anywhere. Almost as if she moved out. But why? Glokta's eyelid gave a twitch. He had scarcely once thought about Ardee his whole time in the South. Other matters seemed so much more pressing. My one friend gave me this one task. If anything has happened to her…

Glokta pointed to the stairs, and Vitari nodded and crept up them silently, bending and sliding a glinting knife out from her boot. He pointed down the hall and Frost padded off deeper into the house, pressed up into the shadows by the wall. The living room door stood ajar, and Glokta shuffled to it and pushed it open.

Ardee was sitting in the window with her back to him: white dress, dark hair, just as he remembered her. He saw her head move slightly as the door's hinges creaked. Alive, then. But the room was strangely altered. Aside from the one chair she sat in, it was entirely empty. Bare whitewashed walls, bare wooden boards, windows without curtains.

'There's nothing fucking left!' she barked, voice cracked and throaty.

Clearly. Glokta frowned, and stepped through the door into the room.

'Nothing left, I said!' She stood up, still with her back to him. 'Or did you decide you'd take the chair after all?' She spun round, grabbing hold of the back, lifted it over her head and flung it at him with a shriek. It crashed into the wall beside the door, sending fragments of wood and plaster flying. One leg whizzed past Glokta's face and clattered into the corner, the rest tumbled to the floor in a mass of dust and splintered sticks.

'Most kind,' murmured Glokta, 'but I prefer to stand.'

'You!' He could see her eyes wide with surprise through her tangled hair. There was a gauntness and a paleness to her face that he did not remember. Her dress was rumpled, and far too thin for the chilly room. She tried to smooth it with shivering hands, plucked ineffectually at her greasy hair. She gave a snort of laughter. 'I'm afraid I'm not really prepared for visitors.'

Glokta heard Frost thumping down the hall, saw him looming up at the doorway, fists clenched. He held up a finger. 'It's alright. Wait outside.' The albino faded back into the shadows, and Glokta hobbled across the creaking boards into the empty sitting room. 'What happened?'

Ardee's mouth twisted. 'It seems my father was not nearly so well off as everyone imagined. He had debts. Soon after my brother left for Angland, they came to collect.'

'Who came?'

'A man called Fallow. He took all the money I had, but it wasn't enough. They took the plate, my mother's jewels, such as they were. They gave me six weeks to find the rest. I let my maid go. I sold everything I could, but they wanted more. Then they came again. Three days ago. They took everything. Fallow said I was lucky he was leaving me the dress I was wearing.'

'I see.'

She took a deep, shuddering breath. 'Since then, I have been sitting here, and thinking on how a friendless young woman can come by some money.' She fixed him with her eye. 'I have thought of only one way. I daresay, if I had the courage, I would have done it already.'

Glokta sucked at his gums. 'Lucky for us both that you're a coward, then.' He shrugged one shoulder out of his coat, then had to wriggle and flail to get his arm out. Once he finally did, he had to fumble his cane across into his other hand so he could finally throw it off. Damn it. I can't even make a generous gesture gracefully. Finally he held it out to her, tottering slightly on his weak leg.

'You sure you don't need it more than me?'

'Take it. At least then I won't have to get the bloody thing back on.'

That brought half a smile from her. 'Thank you,' she muttered as she pulled it round her shoulders. 'I tried to find you, but I didn't know… where you were…'

'I am sorry for that, but I am here now. You need not worry about anything. You will have to come and stay with me tonight. My quarters are not spacious, but we'll find a way.' There will be plenty of room once I am face down in the docks, after all.

'What about after that?'

'After that you will come here. Tomorrow this house will be just as it was.'

She stared at him. 'How?'

'Oh, I will see to it. First of all we get you in the warm.' Superior Glokta, friend to the friendless.

She closed her eyes as he spoke, and he heard breath snorting fast through her nose. She swayed slightly, as if she hardly had the strength to stand any longer. Strange how, as long as the hardship lasts, we can stand it. As soon as the crisis is over, the strength all leeches away in an instant. Glokta reached out, almost touched her shoulder to steady her, but at the last moment her eyes flickered open, and she straightened up again, and he pulled his hand away.

Superior Glokta, rescuer of young women in distress. He guided her into the hallway and towards the broken front door. 'If you could give me one moment with my Practicals.'

'Of course.' Ardee looked up at him, big, dark eyes rimmed with worried pink. 'And thank you. Whatever they say, you're a good man.'

Glokta had to stifle a sudden urge to giggle. A good man? I doubt that Salem Rews would agree. Or Gofred Hornlach, or Magister Kault, or Korsten dan Vurms, General Vissbruck, Ambassador Islik, Inquisitor Harker, or any of a hundred others scattered through the penal colonies of Angland or squatting in Dagoska, waiting to die. And yet Ardee West thinks me a good man. A strange feeling, and not an unpleasant one. It feels almost like being human again. What a shame that it comes so late in the day.

He beckoned to Frost as Ardee shuffled out in his black coat. 'I have a task for you, my old friend. One last task.' Glokta slapped his hand down on the albino's heavy shoulder and squeezed it. 'Do you know a moneylender called Fallow?'

Frost nodded slowly.

'Find him and hurt him. Bring him here and make him understand who he has offended. Everything must be restored, better than it was, tell him that. Give him one day. One day, and then you find him, wherever he is, and you start cutting. You hear me? Do me that one favour.'

Frost nodded again, his pink eyes glinting in the dim hallway.

'Sult will be expecting us,' murmured Vitari, peering down at them from the stairs, arms crossed, gloved hands hanging limp over the rail.

'Of course he will.' Glokta winced as he hobbled to the open door. And we wouldn't want to keep his Eminence waiting.

 

Click, tap, pain, that was the rhythm of Glokta's walking. The confident click of his right heel, the tap of his cane on the echoing tiles of the hallway, then the long scrape of his left foot with the familiar pain in the knee, arse and back. Click, tap, pain.

He had walked from the docks to Ardee's house, to the Agriont, to the House of Questions, and all the way up here. Limped. On my own. Without help. Now every step was agony. He grimaced with each movement. He grunted and sweated and cursed. But I'm damned if I'm slowing down.

'You don't like to make things easy, do you?' muttered Vitari.

'Why should they be?' he snapped. 'You can console yourself with the thought that this conversation will most likely be our last.'

'Then why even come? Why not run?'

Glokta snorted. 'In case you hadn't noticed, I am an exceptionally poor runner. That and I'm curious.' Curious to know why his Eminence didn't leave me there to rot along with all the rest.

'Your curiosity might be the death of you.'

'If the Arch Lector wants me dead, limping the other way will do me little good. I'd rather take it standing up.' He winced at a sudden spasm through his leg. 'Or maybe sitting down. Either way, face to face, with my eyes open.'

'Your choice, I suppose.'

'That's right.' My last one.

They came into Sult's ante-room. He had to admit to being somewhat surprised to have come this far. He had been expecting every black-masked Practical they had passed in the building to seize hold of him. He had been expecting every black-clothed Inquisitor to point and scream for his immediate arrest. And yet here I am again. The heavy desk, the heavy chairs, the two towering Practicals flanking the heavy doors, were all the same.

'I am—'

'Superior Glokta, of course.' The Arch Lector's secretary bowed his head respectfully. 'You may go in at once. His Eminence is expecting you.' Light spilled out of the Arch Lector's office and into the narrow chamber.

'I'll wait here.' Vitari slid into one of the chairs and swung her damp boots up on an other.

'Don't bother waiting too long.' My last words, perhaps? Glokta cursed inwardly as he shuffled towards the doorway. I really should have thought of something more memorable. He paused for just a moment at the threshold, took a deep breath, and hobbled through.

The same airy, round room. The same dark furniture, the same dark pictures on the bright walls, the same great window with the same view of the University, and the House of the Maker beyond. No assassins loitering under the table, no axemen waiting behind the door. Only Sult himself, sitting at his desk with a pen in hand, the nib scratching calmly and evenly across some papers spread out before him.

'Superior Glokta!' Sult started up and swept gracefully across the polished floor towards him, white coat flapping. 'I'm so glad you are safely returned!' The Arch Lector gave every impression of being pleased to see him, and Glokta frowned. He had been prepared for almost anything but this.

Sult held out his hand, the stone on his ring of office flashing purple sparks. Glokta grimaced as he bent slowly to kiss it. 'I serve and obey, your Eminence.' He straightened up with an effort. No knife in the back of the neck? But Sult was already flowing across to the cabinet, grinning broadly.

'Sit, please sit! You need not wait to be asked!'

Since when? Glokta grunted his way into one of the chairs, taking only the briefest moment to check for poisoned spikes on the seat. The Arch Lector, meanwhile, had plucked open the cabinet and was rummaging inside. Will he pull out a loaded flatbow, and shoot me through the throat? But all that emerged were two glasses. 'It would seem congratulations are in order,' he threw over his shoulder.

Glokta blinked. 'What?'

'Congratulations. Excellent work.' Sult grinned down at him as he slid the glasses gracefully onto the round table, eased the stopper, clinking, from the decanter. What to say? What to say?

'Your Eminence… Dagoska… I must be candid. It was on the point of falling when I left. Very soon now, the city will be overrun—'

'Of course it will.' Sult dismissed it all with a wave of his white-gloved hand. 'There was never the slightest chance of holding it. The best I was hoping for was that you'd make the Gurkish pay! And how you did that, eh, Glokta? How you did that!'

'Then… you are… pleased?' He hardly dared say the word.

'I am delighted! If I had written the tale myself, it could not have worked out better! The incompetence of the Lord Governor, the treachery of his son, it all showed how little the regular authorities can be relied upon in a crisis. Eider's treason exposed the duplicity of the merchants, their dubious connections, their rotten morality! The Spicers have been dissolved alongside the Mercers: their trade rights are in our hands. The pair of them, consigned to the latrine of history and the power of the merchants broken! Only his Majesty's Inquisition remained staunch in the face of the Union's most implacable enemy. You should have seen Marovia's face when I presented the confessions to the Open Council!' Sult filled Glokta's glass all the way to the top.

'Most kind, your Eminence,' he muttered as he took a sip from it. Excellent wine, as always.

'And then he got up in the Closed Council, before the King himself, mark you, and declared to everyone that you wouldn't last a week once the Gurkish attacked!' The Arch Lector spluttered with laughter. 'I wish you could have been there. I'm confident he'll do better than that, I said. Confident he'll do better.' A ringing endorsement indeed.

Sult slapped the table with his white-gloved palm. 'Two months, Glokta! Two months! With every day that passed he looked more of a fool, and I looked more of a hero… we, that is,' he corrected himself, 'we looked like heroes, and all I had to do was smile! You could almost see them, each day, shuffling their chairs away from Marovia and down towards me! Last week they voted extra powers to the Inquisition. Nine votes to three. Nine to three! Next week we'll go further! How the hell did you manage it?' And he gazed at Glokta expectantly.

I sold myself to the bank that funded the Mercers, then used the proceeds to bribe the worlds least reliable mercenary. Then I murdered a defenceless emissary under flag of parley and tortured a serving girl until her body was mincemeat. Oh, and I let the biggest traitor of the lot go free. It was, without doubt, a heroic business. How did I manage it? 'Rising early,' he murmured.

Sult's eye flickered, and Glokta caught it. A trace of annoyance, perhaps? A trace of mistrust? But it was quickly extinguished. 'Rising early. Of course.' He raised his glass. 'The second greatest virtue. It comes just behind ruthlessness. I like your style, Glokta, I've always said so.'

Have you indeed? But Glokta humbly inclined his head.

'Practical Vitari's despatches were filled with admiration. I particularly enjoyed the way you dealt with the Gurkish emissary. That must have wiped the smile from the Emperor's face, if only for a moment, the arrogant swine.' So she kept her end of the bargain, then? Interesting. 'Yes, things proceed smoothly. Except for the damn peasants making a nuisance of themselves, and Angland of course. Shame about Ladisla.'

'About Ladisla?' asked Glokta, baffled.

Sult looked sour. 'You didn't hear? Another of High Justice Marovia's brilliant notions. He had it in mind to lift the Crown Prince's popularity by giving him a command in the North. Something out of the way, where he'd be in no danger and we could heap him with glory. It wasn't a bad scheme, really, except that out of the way became in the way, and he commanded himself straight into his grave.'

'His army with him?'

'A few thousand of them, but mostly that rubbish the nobles sent as levies. Nothing of much significance. Ostenhorm is still in our hands, and it wasn't my idea so, all in all, no harm done. Between you and me it's probably for the best, Ladisla was insufferable. I had to dig him out of more than one scandal. Never could keep his trousers closed, the damn halfwit. Raynault seems to be a different kind of a man. Sober, sensible. Do as he's bloody told. Better all round. Providing he doesn't go and get himself killed, of course, we'd be in a pickle then.' Sult took another swig from his glass and worked it round his mouth with some satisfaction.

Glokta cleared his throat. While he is in a good mood… 'There was one issue I wished to discuss with you, your Eminence. The Gurkish agent we found within the city. She was…' How to describe this without sounding like a madman?

But Sult was ahead of him once again. 'I know. An Eater.' You know? Even about this? The Arch Lector sat back and shook his head. 'An occult abomination. A tale straight from a story book. Eating the flesh of men. Apparently it is a practice well established down in the barbaric South. But don't concern yourself about it. I am already taking advice.'

'Who gives advice about such things as these?' The Arch Lector only flashed his silky smile. 'You must be tired. The weather over there can be so very draining. All that heat and dust, even in the winter. Take a rest. You deserve it. I'll send for you if anything comes up.' And Sult took up his pen and looked back to his papers, leaving Glokta with nothing to do but shuffle for the door, a look of profound puzzlement on his face. 'You almost look like you're still alive,' muttered Vitari as he hobbled out into the anteroom.

True. Or about as close as I come to it. 'Sult was… pleased.' He still could hardly believe it. The very words sounded strange together.

'He damn well should be, after the talking-up I gave you.'

'Huh.' Glokta frowned. 'It seems I owe you an apology.'

'Keep it. It isn't worth shit to me. Just trust me next time.'

'A fair demand,' he conceded, glancing sideways at her. But you have to be joking.

 

The chamber was filled with fine furniture. Almost overfilled. Richly upholstered chairs, an antique table, a polished cabinet, all lavish for the small sitting-room. A huge old painting of the Lords of the Union paying homage to Harod the Great entirely filled one wall. A thick Kantic carpet had been rolled out across the boards, almost too big for the floor. A healthy fire crackled in the grate between two antique vases, and the room was homely, and pleasant, and warm. What a difference a day can make, with the right encouragement.

'Good,' said Glokta as he looked round. 'Very good.'

'Of course,' muttered Fallow, head bowed respectfully, hat halfway to being crushed in his hands. 'Of course, Superior, I have done everything possible. Most of the furniture I had… I had sold already, and so I replaced with better, the best I could find. The rest of the house is just the same. I hope that… I hope that it's adequate?'

'I hope so too. Is it adequate?'

Ardee was scowling at Fallow. 'It will serve.'

'Excellent,' said the moneylender nervously, glancing briefly at Frost and then down at his boots. 'Excellent! Please accept my very deepest apologies! I had no idea, of course, absolutely no idea, Superior, that you were involved in any way. Of course, I would never… I am so very sorry.'

'It really isn't me you should be apologising to, is it?'

'No, no, of course.' He turned slowly to Ardee. 'My lady, please accept my deepest apologies.'

Ardee glared at him, lip curled, and said nothing.

'Perhaps if you were to beg,' suggested Glokta. 'On your knees. That might do it.'

Fallow dropped to his knees without hesitation. He wrung his hands 'My lady, please—'

'Lower,' said Glokta.

'Of course,' he muttered as he fell to all fours. 'I do apologise, my lady. Most humbly. If you could only find it in your heart, I beg you—' He reached out gingerly to touch the hem of her dress and she jerked back, then swung her foot and kicked him savagely in the face.

'Gah!' squawked the moneylender, rolling onto his side, dark blood bubbling out of his nose and all over the new carpet. Glokta felt his brows go up. That was unexpected.

'That's for you, fucker!' The next kick caught him in the mouth and his head snapped back, spots of blood spattering onto the far wall. Ardee's shoe thudded into his gut and folded him up tight.

'You,' she snarled, 'you…' She kicked him again and again and Fallow shuddered and grunted and sighed, curling up in a ball. Frost moved away from the wall a step, and Glokta held up his finger.

'That's alright,' he murmured, 'I think she has it covered.'

The kicks began to slow. Glokta could hear Ardee gasping for air. Her heel dug into Fallow's ribs, her toe cracked into his nose again. If she ever gets bored, she might have a bright future as a Practical. She worked her mouth, leaned over and spat onto the side of his face. She kicked him again, weakly, then stumbled back against the cabinet and leaned on the polished wood, bent over and breathing hard.

'Happy?' asked Glokta.

She stared up at him through her tangled hair. 'Not really.'

'Will kicking him some more make you happier?'

Her brows wrinkled as she looked down at Fallow, wheezing on his side on the carpet. She took a step forward and booted him hard in the chest one more time, rocked away, wiping some snot from under her nose. She pushed her hair out of her face. 'I'm done.'

'Fine. Get out,' hissed Glokta. 'Out, worm!'

'Of course,' Fallow drooled through his bloody lips, crawling for the door, Frost looming over him the whole way. 'Of course! Thank you! Thank you all so much!' The front door banged shut.

Ardee sat down heavily in one of the chairs, elbows resting on her knees, forehead resting on her palms. Glokta could see her hands trembling slightly. It can really be very tiring, hurting someone. I should know. Especially if you aren't used to it. 'I wouldn't feel too badly,' he said. 'I'm sure he deserved it.'

She looked up, and her eyes were hard. 'I don't. He deserves worse.'

That was unexpected too. 'Do you want him to have worse?'

She swallowed, slowly sat back. 'No.'

'Up to you.' But it's nice to have the option. 'You may want to change your clothes.'

She looked down. 'Oh.' Spots of Fallow's blood were spattered as far as her knees. 'I don't have anything—'

'There's a room full of new ones, upstairs. I made sure of it. I'll arrange for some dependable servants as well.'

'I don't need them.'

'Yes, you do. I won't hear of you here alone.'

She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. 'I have nothing to pay them with.'

'Don't worry. I'll take care of it.' All compliments of the hugely generous Valint and Balk, after all. 'Don't worry about anything. I made a promise to your brother, and I mean to see it through. I'm very sorry that things came this far. I had a great deal to take care of… in the South. Have you heard from him, by the way?'

Ardee looked up sharply, her mouth slightly open. 'You don't know?'

'Know what?'

She swallowed, and stared down at the floor. 'Collem was with Prince Ladisla, at this battle that everyone is talking of. Some prisoners were taken, have been ransomed—he wasn't among them. They presume…' She paused for a moment, staring at the blood on her dress. 'They presume he was killed.'

'Killed?' Glokta's eyelid fluttered. His knees felt suddenly weak. He took a lurching step back and sank into a chair. His own hands were trembling now, and he clasped them together. Deaths. They happen every day. I caused thousands of them not long ago, with hardly a thought. I looked at heaps of corpses and shrugged. What makes this one so hard to take? And yet it was.

'Killed?' he whispered.

She nodded slowly, and put her face in her hands.