If the city stands, I will be gone. More than likely, Vurms and the rest will be back in charge, and our deal will be dust. “If the city stands, you have my word that I will do everything possible.”

“Everything possible. Meaning nothing.” You get the idea.

“I need your help, so I’m offering you what I can. I’d offer you more, but I don’t have more. You could sulk down here in the slums with the flies for company, and wait for the Emperor to come. Perhaps the great Uthman-ul-Dosht will offer you a better deal.” Glokta looked Kahdia in the eye for a moment. “But we both know he won’t.”

The priest pursed his lips, stroked his beard, then gave a deep sigh. “They say a man lost in the desert must take such water as he is offered, no matter who it comes from. I accept your deal. Once the temple is empty we will dig your holes, and carry your stone, and wear your swords. Something is better than nothing, and, as you say, perhaps together we can even beat the Gurkish. Miracles do happen.”

“So I’ve heard,” said Glokta as he shoved on his cane and grunted his way to his feet, shirt sticking to his sweaty back. “So I’ve heard.” But I’ve never seen one.

Glokta stretched out on the cushions in his chambers, head back, mouth open, resting his aching body. The same chambers that were once occupied by my illustrious predecessor, Superior Davoust. They were a wide, airy, well-furnished set of rooms. Perhaps they once belonged to a Dagoskan Prince, or a scheming vizier, or a dusky concubine, before the natives were thrown out into the dust of the Lower City. Better by far than my poky shit-hole in the Agriont, except that Superiors of the Inquisition have been known to go missing from these rooms.

One set of windows faced northward, out towards the sea, on the steepest side of the rock, the other looked over the baking city. Both were equipped with heavy shutters. Outside it was a sheer drop over bare stone to jagged rocks and angry salt water. The door was six fingers thick, studded with iron, fitted with a heavy lock and four great bolts. Davoust was a cautious man, and with good reason, it would seem. So how could assassins have got in, and having got in, how could they remove the body?

He felt his mouth curving into a smile. How will they remove mine, when they come? Already my enemies mount up—the sneering Vurms, the punctilious Vissbruck, the merchants whose profits I threaten, the Practical who served Harker and Davoust, the natives with good reason to hate anyone who wears black, my old enemies the Gurkish, of course, and all that providing his Eminence does not get anxious at the lack of progress, and decide to have me replaced himself. Will anyone come searching for my twisted corpse, I wonder?

“Superior.”

Opening his eyes and lifting his head was a great and painful effort. Everything hurt from his exertions of the past few days. His neck clicked like a snapping twig with every movement, his back was stiff and brittle as a mirror, his leg veered between nagging agony and trembling numbness.

Shickel was standing in the doorway, head bowed. The cuts and bruises on her dark face were healed. There was no outward sign of the ordeal she had suffered in the cells below. She never looked him in the eye, though, always at the floor. Some wounds take time to heal, and others never do. I should know.

“What is it, Shickel?”

“Magister Eider sends you an invitation to dinner.”

“Does she indeed?”

The girl nodded.

“Send word that I will be honoured to attend.”

Glokta watched her pad out of the room, head bowed, then he sagged back onto his cushions. If I disappear tomorrow, at least I will have saved one person. Perhaps that means my life has not been a total waste of time. Sand dan Glokta, shield to the helpless. Is it ever too late to be… a good man?

“Please!” squealed Harker. “Please! I know nothing!” He was bound tightly to his chair, unable to move his body far. But he makes up for it with his eyes. They darted back and forth over Glokta’s instruments, glittering in the harsh lamplight on the scarred table top. Oh yes, you understand better than most how this will work. Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now. “I know nothing!”

“I will be the judge of what you know.” Glokta wiped some sweat from his face. The room was hot as a busy forge and the glowing coals in the brazier were far from helping. “If a thing smells like a liar, and is the colour of a liar, the chances are it is a liar, would you not agree?”

“Please! We are all on the same side!” Are we? Are we really? “I have told you only the truth!”

“Perhaps, but not as much of it as I need.”

“Please! We are all friends here!”

“Friends? In my experience, a friend is merely an acquaintance who has yet to betray you. Is that what you are, Harker?”

“No!”

Glokta frowned. “Then you are our enemy?”

“What? No! I just… I just… I wanted to know what happened! That’s all! I didn’t mean to… please!” Please, please, please, I tire of hearing it. “You have to believe me!”

“The only thing I have to do is get answers.”

“Only ask your questions, Superior, I beg of you! Only give me the opportunity to cooperate!” Oh indeed, the firm hand does not seem such a fine idea any longer, does it? “Ask your questions, I will do my best to answer!”

“Good.” Glokta perched himself on the edge of the table just beside his tightly bound prisoner and looked down at him. “Excellent.” Harker’s hands were tanned deep brown, his face was tanned deep brown, the rest of his body was pale as a white slug with thick patches of dark hair. Hardly a fetching look. But it could be worse. “Answer me this, then. Why is it that men have nipples?”

Harker blinked. He swallowed. He looked up at Frost, but there was, no help there. The albino stared back, unblinking, white skin round his mask beaded with sweat, eyes hard as two pink jewels. “I… I am not sure I understand, Superior.”

“Is it not a simple question? Nipples, Harker, on men. What purpose do they serve? Have you not often wondered?”

“I… I…”

Glokta sighed. “They chafe and become painful in the wet. They dry out and become painful in the heat. Some women, for reasons I could never fathom, insist on fiddling with them in bed, as though we derive anything but annoyance from having them interfered with.” Glokta reached towards the table, while Harker’s wide eyes followed his every movement, and slid his hand slowly around the grips of the pincers. He lifted them up and examined them, the well-sharpened jaws glinting in the bright lamplight. “A man’s nipples,” he murmured, “are a positive hindrance to him. Do you know? Aside from the unsightly scarring, I don’t miss mine in the least.”

He grabbed the tip of Harker’s nipple and dragged it roughly towards him. “Ah!” squawked the one-time Inquisitor, the chair creaking as he tried desperately to twist away. “No!”

“You think that hurts? Then I doubt you’ll enjoy what’s coming.” And Glokta slid the open jaws of the pincers around the stretched out flesh and squeezed them tight.

“Ah! Ah! Please! Superior, I beg you!”

“Your begging is worthless to me. What I need from you is answers. What became of Davoust?”

“I swear on my life that I don’t know!”

“Not good enough.” Glokta began to squeeze harder, the metal edges starting to bite into the skin.

Harker gave a despairing shriek. “Wait! I took money! I admit it! I took money!”

“Money?” Glokta let the pressure release a fraction and a drop of blood dripped from the pincers and spattered on Harker’s hairy white leg. “What money?”

“Money Davoust took from the natives! After the rebellion! He had me round up any that I thought might be rich, and he had them hanged along with the rest, and we requisitioned everything they had and split it between us! He kept his share in a chest in his quarters, and when he disappeared… I took it!”