“I merely wished to alert your Eminence to the possibility—”

“When are they coming?” The torn sailcloth flaps in the gale…

“My informant did not—”

“Where will they land?” The sailors topple screaming from the rigging…

“Again, your Eminence I cannot—”

“What will be their numbers?” The wheel breaks off in my shaking hands…

Glokta winced, and decided not to speak at all.

“Then kindly refrain from distracting us with rumours,” sneered Sult, his lip twisted with contempt. The ship vanishes beneath the merciless waves, her cargo of precious warnings consigned to the deep, and her captain will not be missed. “We have more pressing concerns than a legion of Gurkish phantoms!”

“Of course, your Eminence.” And if the Gurkish come, who will we hang? Oh, Superior Glokta, of course. Why ever did that damn cripple not speak up?

Sult’s mind had already slipped back into its well-worn circles. “We have thirty-one votes and Marovia has something over twenty. Thirty-one. Not enough to make the difference.” He shook his head grimly, blue eyes darting over the papers. As if there were some new way to look at them that would alter the terrible mathematics. “Nowhere near enough.”

“Unless we were to come to an understanding with High Justice Marovia.” Again, a pause, even more uncomfortable than last time. Oh dear. I must have said that out loud.

“An understanding?” hissed Sult.

“With Marovia?” squealed Goyle, his eyes bulging with triumph. When the safe options are all exhausted, we must take risks. Is that not what I told myself as I rode down to the bridge, while the Gurkish massed upon the other side? Ah well, once more into the tempest…

Glokta took a deep breath. “Marovia’s seat on the Closed Council is no safer than anyone else’s. We may have been working against each other, but only out of habit. On the subject of this vote our aims are the same. To secure a weak candidate and maintain the balance. Together you have more than fifty votes. That might well be enough to tip the scales.”

Goyle sneered his contempt. “Join forces with that peasant-loving hypocrite? Have you lost your reason?”

“Shut up, Goyle.” Sult glared at Glokta for a long while, his lips pursed in thought. Considering my punishment, perhaps? Another tongue-lashing? Or a real lashing? Or my body found floating— “You are right. Go and speak to Marovia.”

Sand dan Glokta, once more the hero! Goyle’s jaw hung open. “But… your Eminence!”

“The time for pride is far behind us!” snarled Sult. “We must seize any chance of keeping Brock and the rest from the throne. We must find compromises, however painful, and we must take whatever allies we can. Go!” he hissed over his shoulder, folding his arms and turning back to his crackling papers. “Strike a deal with Marovia.”

Glokta got stiffly up from his chair. A shame to leave such lovely company, but when duty calls… He treated Goyle to the briefest of toothless smiles, then took up his cane and limped for the door.

“And Glokta!” He winced as he turned back into the room. “Marovia’s aims and ours may meet for now. But we cannot trust him. Tread carefully.”

“Of course, your Eminence.” I always do. What other choice, when every step is agony?

The private office of the High Justice was as big as a barn, its ceiling covered in festoons of old moulding, riddled with shadows. Although it was only late afternoon, the thick ivy outside the windows, and the thick grime on the panes, had sunk the place into a perpetual twilight. Tottering heaps of papers were stacked on every surface. Wedges of documents tied with black tape. Piles of leather-bound ledgers. Stacks of dusty parchments in ostentatious, swirling script, stamped with huge seals of red wax and glittering gilt. A kingdom’s worth of law, it looked like. And, indeed, it probably is.

“Superior Glokta, good evening.” Marovia himself was seated at a long table near the empty fireplace, set for dinner, a flickering candelabra making each dish glisten in the gloom. “I hope you do not mind if I eat while we talk? I would rather dine in the comfort of my rooms, but I find myself eating here more and more. So much to do, you see? And one of my secretaries appears to have taken a holiday unannounced.” A holiday to the slaughterhouse floor, in fact, by way of the intestines of a herd of swine. “Would you care to join me?” Marovia gestured at a large joint of meat, close to raw in the centre, swimming in bloody gravy.

Glokta licked at his empty gums as he manoeuvred himself into a chair opposite. “I would be delighted, your Worship, but the laws of dentistry prevent me.”

“Ah, of course. Those laws there can be no circumventing, even by a High Justice. You have my sympathy, Superior. One of my greatest pleasures is a good cut of meat, and the bloodier the better. Just show them the flame, I always tell my cook. Just show it to them.” Funny. I tell my Practicals to start the same way. “And to what do I owe this unexpected visit? Do you come on your own initiative, or at the urging of your employer, my esteemed colleague from the Closed Council, Arch Lector Sult?”

Your bitter mortal enemy from the Closed Council, do you mean? “His Eminence is aware that I am here.”

“Is he?” Marovia carved another slice and lifted it dripping onto his plate. “And with what message has he sent you? Something relating to tomorrow’s business in the Open Council, perhaps?”

“You spoil my surprise, your Worship. May I speak plainly?”

“If you know how.”

Glokta showed the High Justice his empty grin. “This affair with the vote is a terrible thing for business. The doubt, the uncertainty, the worry. Bad for everyone’s business.”

“Some more than others.” Marovia’s knife squealed against the plate as he slit a ribbon of fat from the edge of his meat.

“Of course. At particular risk are those that sit on the Closed Council, and those that struggle on their behalf. They are unlikely to be given such a free hand if powerful men such as Brock or Isher are voted to the throne.” Some of us, indeed, are unlikely to live out the week.

Marovia speared a slice of carrot with his fork and stared sourly at it. “A lamentable state of affairs. It would have been preferable for all concerned if Raynault or Ladisla were still alive.” He thought about it for a moment. “If Raynault were still alive, at least. But the vote will take place tomorrow, however much we might tear our hair. It is hard now to see our way to a remedy.” He looked from the carrot to Glokta. “Or do you suggest one?”

“You, your Worship, control between twenty and thirty votes on the Open Council.”

Marovia shrugged. “I have some influence, I cannot deny it.”

“The Arch Lector can call on thirty votes himself.”

“Good for his Eminence.”

“Not necessarily. If the two of you oppose each other, as you always have, your votes will mean nothing. One for Isher, the other for Brock, and no difference made.”

Marovia sighed. “A sad end to our two glittering careers.”

“Unless you were to pool your resources. Then you might have sixty votes between you. As many, almost, as Brock controls. Enough to make a King of Skald, or Barezin, or Heugen, or even some unknown, depending on how things go. Someone who might be more easily influenced in the future. Someone who might keep the Closed Council he has, rather than selecting a new one.”

“A King to make us all happy, eh?”

“If you were to express a preference for one man or another, I could take that back to his Eminence.” More steps, more coaxing, more disappointments. Oh, to have a great office of my own, and to sit all day in comfort while cringing bastards slog up my stairs to smile at my insults, lap up my lies, beg for my poisonous support.