The Blade Itself

by Joe Abercrombie

  ‘Begin!’

  . . . completely lost. The pain lanced through his side and made him gasp. Suddenly he was afraid, and tired, and weak again. Gorst growled and unleashed his savage cuts, jarring the steels in Jezal’s hands, making him jump like a frightened rabbit. The mastery was gone, the anticipation, the nerve, and Gorst’s onslaught was more brutal than ever. He felt a terrible lurch of despair as his long steel was torn from his buzzing fingers, flew through the air and clattered into the barrier. Jezal was bludgeoned to his knees. The crowd gasped. It was all over . . .

  . . . It was not over. The blow was arcing down towards him. The final blow. It seemed to drift. Slow, slow, as though through honey. Jezal smiled. It was a simple matter for him to push it away with his short steel. The strength flowed again. He sprang upwards, shoved Gorst away with his empty hand, flicked another swing aside, and then another, his one sword doing the work of two with time to spare. The arena was breathless silent but for the rapid clashing of the steels. Right and left, right and left went the short blade, flashing faster than his eye could follow, faster than his mind could think, seeming almost to be dragging him along behind it.

  There was a squeal of metal on metal as it tore Gorst’s notched long steel from his hand, then another as it flickered across and did the same with his short. For a moment, all was still. The big man, disarmed and with his heels on the very edge of the circle, looked up at Jezal. The crowd was silent.

  Then Jezal slowly lifted his short steel, all of a sudden seeming to weigh a ton, and poked Gorst gently in the ribs with it.

  ‘Huh,’ said the big man quietly, raising his eyebrows.

  Then the crowd exploded into deafening applause. The noise went on and on, rising and rising, washing over Jezal in waves. Now that it was finished he felt drained beyond description. He closed his eyes, swaying, his sword dropped from his nerveless fingers and he sank to his knees. He was beyond exhaustion. It was as though he had used a whole week’s energy in a few moments. Even kneeling was an effort he was not sure he could sustain for long, and if he fell he was not sure he could ever get up again.

  But then he felt strong hands taking him under the arms, and felt himself being lifted. The noise of the crowd grew even louder as he was hoisted into the air. He opened his eyes—bleary, blurry colour flashed in front of him as he was turned around. His head rang with the sound. He was up on someone’s shoulders. A shaved head. Gorst. The big man had lifted him up, as a father might lift his child, displaying him to the crowd, smiling up at him with a big, ugly grin. Jezal smiled back despite himself. It was a strange moment, all in all.

  ‘Luthar wins!’ cried the referee pointlessly, barely audible. ‘Luthar wins!’

  The cheering had resolved itself into a steady chant of ‘Luthar! Luthar! Luthar!’ The arena shook with it. Jezal’s head swam with it. It was like being drunk. Drunk on victory. Drunk on yourself.

  Gorst lowered him back to the circle as the cheering of the crowd began to fade. ‘You beat me,’ he said, smiling wide. His voice was strangely high and soft, almost like a woman’s. ‘Fair and square. I’d like to be the first to congratulate you.’ And he nodded his big head and smiled again, rubbing at the cut under his eye without the slightest bitterness. ‘You deserve it,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ Jezal flashed a sour smile and gave the man’s big paw as cursory a squeeze as possible, then he turned away towards his enclosure. Of course he fucking deserved it, and he was damned if he would let that bastard bask in his reflected glory a moment longer.

  ‘Bravely done, my boy, bravely done!’ frothed Marshal Varuz, slapping him on the shoulder as he stumbled back to his chair on wobbly legs. ‘I knew you could do it!’

  West grinned as he handed him the towel. ‘They’ll be talking about this for years.’

  Other well-wishers crowded in, offering their congratulations, leaning over the barrier. A whirl of smiling faces, and in amongst them the face of Jezal’s father, shining with pride. ‘I knew that you could do it, Jezal! I never doubted! Not for a minute! You’ve brought honour to our family!’ Jezal noticed that his elder brother didn’t look all that pleased about it, though. He had the usual stodgy, envious expression on his face, even at Jezal’s moment of victory. The stodgy, envious bastard. Could he not be happy for his brother, if only for one day?

  ‘May I too congratulate the winner?’ came a voice from over his shoulder. It was that old idiot, the one from the gate, the one whom Sulfur had called his master. The one who had used the name Bayaz. He had sweat on his bald skull, a lot of it. His face was pale, his eyes sunken. Almost as if he had just done seven touches with Gorst. ‘Well done indeed, my young friend, an almost . . . magical performance.’

  ‘Thank you,’ muttered Jezal. He was not at all sure who this old man was, or what he was after, but he did not trust him in the least. ‘I am sorry though, I must—’

  ‘Of course. We will talk later.’ He said it with a disturbing finality, as if it were a thing already arranged. Then he turned away and vanished smoothly into the crowds. Jezal’s father stared after him, ashen-faced now, as though he had seen a ghost.

  ‘Do you know him, father?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Jezal!’ Varuz grabbed his arm excitedly. ‘Come! The King wishes to congratulate you!’ He dragged Jezal from his family and towards the circle. A scattering of applause rose up again as they walked together across the dry grass, the scene of Jezal’s victory. The Lord Marshal slung a fatherly arm around his shoulder, and smiled up at the crowds as though the applause was all for him. Everyone wanted a piece of his glory, it seemed, but Jezal was able to shake the old man off as he mounted the steps of the royal box.

  Prince Raynault, youngest son of the King, was first in line, humbly dressed, honest and thoughtful-seeming, scarcely looking like royalty at all. ‘Well done!’ he shouted over the roar of the crowd, sounding truly delighted for Jezal’s victory. ‘Well done indeed!’ His older brother was more exuberant.

  ‘Incredible!’ shouted Crown Prince Ladisla, the sunlight glinting off the golden buttons on his white jacket. ‘Capital! Amazing! Spectacular! I never saw such a thing!’ Jezal grinned and bowed humbly as he went past, hunching his shoulders as the Crown Prince slapped him somewhat too hard on the back. ‘I always knew you’d do it! You were always my man!’

  The Princess Terez, only daughter of the Grand Duke Orso of Talins, watched Jezal pass with a tiny, disdainful smile, tapping two languid fingers against her palm in a quarter-hearted imitation of clapping. Her chin was raised painfully high, as though just to be looked at by her was an honour he could never fully appreciate, and certainly did not deserve.

  And so he came at last to the high seat of Guslav the fifth, High King of the Union. His head was slumped sideways, squashed down under the sparkling crown. His pasty pale fingers twitched on his crimson silk mantle like white slugs. His eyes were closed, chest rising and falling gently, accompanied by gentle splutterings as spittle issued from his slack lips and ran down his chin, joining the sweat on his bulging jowls and helping it to turn his high collar dark with wet.

  Truly, Jezal was in the presence of greatness.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ murmured Lord Hoff. The head of state did not respond. His wife the Queen looked on, painfully erect, a fixed, emotionless smile plastered across her well-powdered face.

  Jezal hardly knew where to look, and settled on his dusty shoes. The Lord Chamberlain coughed loudly. A muscle twitched beneath the sweaty fat on the side of the King’s face, but he did not wake. Hoff winced, and, glancing around to make sure no one was watching too closely, jabbed the royal ribs with his finger.

  The King jumped, eyelids suddenly flicking wide open, heavy jowls wobbling, staring at Jezal with wild, bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Your Majesty, this is Captain . . .’

  ‘Raynault!’ exclaimed the King, ‘my son!’

  Jezal swallowed nervously, doing his best to maintain a
rigid smile of his own. The senile old fool had mistaken him for his younger son. Worse yet, the Prince himself was standing not four paces away. The Queen’s wooden grin twitched slightly. Princess Terez’ perfect lips twisted with scorn. The Lord Chamberlain gave an awkward cough. ‘Er, no, your Majesty, this is . . .’

  But it was too late. Without any warning, the monarch struggled to his feet and folded Jezal in an enthusiastic embrace, his heavy crown slipping over to one side of his head and one of its jewel-encrusted prongs nearly poking Jezal in the eye. Lord Hoff’s jaw opened silently. The two Princes goggled. Jezal could only manage a helpless gurgle.

  ‘My son!’ blubbered the King, his voice choked with emotion. ‘Raynault, I’m so glad you’re back! When I am gone, Ladisla will need your help. He is so weak, and the crown is such a heavy weight! You were always the better suited for it! Such a heavy weight!’ he sobbed into Jezal’s shoulder.

  It was like a hideous nightmare. Ladisla and the real Raynault gawped at each other, then back at their father, both looking sick. Terez was sneering down her nose at her prospective father-in-law with undisguised contempt. From bad to much, much worse. What the hell did one do in such a situation? Could there possibly be any etiquette devised for this? Jezal patted his King awkwardly on his fat back. What else could he do? Shove the senile old idiot over on his arse, with half of his subjects looking on? He was almost tempted to do it.

  It was a small mercy that the crowds took the King’s embrace for a ringing endorsement of Jezal’s fencing abilities, and drowned out his words with a fresh wave of cheering. No one beyond the royal box heard what he said. They all missed the full significance of what was, without doubt, the most embarrassing moment of Jezal’s life.

  The Ideal Audience

  Arch Lector Sult was standing by his huge window when Glokta arrived, tall and imposing as always in his spotless white coat, gazing out across the spires of the University towards the House of the Maker. A pleasant breeze was washing through the great circular room, ruffling the old man’s shock of white hair and making the many papers on his enormous desk crackle and flutter.

  He turned as Glokta shuffled into the room. ‘Inquisitor,’ he said simply, holding out his white gloved hand, the great stone on his ring of office catching the bright sunlight from the open window and glittering with purple fire.

  ‘I serve and obey, your Eminence.’ Glokta took the hand in his, and grimaced as he bent down to kiss the ring, his cane trembling with the effort of keeping upright. Damn it if the old bastard doesn’t hold his hand a little lower every time, just to watch me sweat.

  Sult poured himself into his tall chair in one smooth motion, elbows on the table top, fingers pressed together before him. Glokta could only stand and wait, his leg burning from the familiar climb through the House of Questions, sweat tickling his scalp, and wait for the invitation to sit.

  ‘Please be seated,’ murmured the Arch Lector, then waited while Glokta winced his way into one of the lesser chairs at the round table. ‘Now tell me, has your investigation met with any success?’

  ‘Some. There was a disturbance at our visitors’ chambers the other night. They claim that—’

  ‘Plainly an attempt to add credence to this outrageous story. Magic!’ Sult snorted his disdain. ‘Have you discovered how the breach in the wall was really made?’

  Magic, perhaps? ‘I am afraid not, Arch Lector.’

  ‘That is unfortunate. Some proof of how this particular trick was managed might be of use to us. Still,’ and Sult sighed as though he had expected no better, ‘one cannot have everything. Did you speak to these . . . people?’

  ‘I did. Bayaz, if I may use the name, is a most slippery talker. Without the aid of anything more persuasive than the questions themselves, I could get nothing from him. His friend the Northman also bears some study.’

  One crease formed across Sult’s smooth forehead. ‘You suspect some connection with this savage Bethod?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Possibly?’ echoed the Arch Lector sourly, as though the very word was poison. ‘What else?’

  ‘There has been a new addition to the merry band.’

  ‘I know. The Navigator.’

  Why do I even bother? ‘Yes, your Eminence, a Navigator.’

  ‘Good luck to them. Those penny-pinching fortune-tellers are always more trouble than they’re worth. Blubbering on about God and what have you. Greedy savages.’

  ‘Absolutely. More trouble than they’re worth, Arch Lector, though it would be interesting to know why they have employed one.’

  ‘And why have they?’

  Glokta paused for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Huh,’ snorted Sult. ‘What else?’

  ‘Following their night-time visitation, our friends were relocated to a suite of rooms beside the park. There was a most grisly death a few nights ago, not twenty paces from their windows.’

  ‘Superior Goyle mentioned this. He said it was nothing to concern myself about, that there was no connection with our visitors. I left the matter in his hands.’ He frowned at Glokta. ‘Did I make the wrong decision?’

  Oh dear me, I need not think too long over this one. ‘Absolutely not, Arch Lector.’ Glokta bowed his head in deep respect. ‘If the Superior is satisfied, then so am I.’

  ‘Hmm. So what you are telling me is that, all in all, we have nothing.’

  Not quite nothing. ‘There is this.’ Glokta fished the ancient scroll from his coat pocket and held it out.

  Sult had a look of mild curiosity on his face as he took it and unrolled it on the table, stared down at the meaningless symbols. ‘What is it?’

  Hah. So you don’t know everything. ‘I suppose you could say that it’s a piece of history. An account of how Bayaz defeated the Master Maker.’

  ‘A piece of history.’ Sult tapped his finger thoughtfully on the table top. ‘And how does it help us?’ How does it help you, you mean?

  ‘According to this, it was our friend Bayaz who sealed up the House of the Maker.’ Glokta nodded towards the looming shape beyond the window. ‘Sealed it up . . . and took the key.’

  ‘Key? That tower has always been sealed. Always. As far as I am aware there is not even a keyhole.’

  ‘Those were precisely my thoughts, your Eminence.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Slowly, Sult began to smile. ‘Stories are all in how you tell them, eh? Our friend Bayaz knows that well enough, I dare say. He would use our own stories against us, but now we switch cups with him. I enjoy the irony.’ He picked up the scroll again. ‘Is it authentic?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Sult rose gracefully from his chair and paced slowly over to the window, tapping the rolled-up scroll against his fingers. He stood there for some time, staring out. When he turned, he had developed a look of the deepest self-satisfaction.

  ‘It occurs to me that there will be a feast tomorrow evening, a celebration for our new champion swordsman, Captain Luthar.’ That cheating little worm. ‘The great and the good will be in attendance: the Queen, both Princes, most of the Closed Council, several leading noblemen.’ Not forgetting the King himself. It has come to something when his presence at dinner is not even worth mentioning. ‘That would be the ideal audience for our little unmasking, don’t you think?’

  Glokta cautiously bowed his head. ‘Of course, Arch Lector. The ideal audience.’ Providing it works. It might be an embarrassing audience to fail in front of.

  But Sult was already anticipating his triumph. ‘The perfect gathering, and just enough time to make the necessary arrangements. Send a messenger to our friend the First of the Magi, and let him know that he and his companions are cordially invited to a dinner tomorrow evening. I trust that you will attend yourself?’

  Me? Glokta bowed again. ‘I would not miss it for anything, your Eminence.’

  ‘Good. Bring your Practicals with you. Our friends might become violent when they realise the game is up. Barbarians
of this sort, who can tell what they might be capable of?’ A barely perceptible motion of the Arch Lector’s gloved hand indicated that the interview was finished. All those stairs, just for this?

  Sult was looking down his nose at the scroll as Glokta finally reached the threshold. ‘The ideal audience,’ he was muttering, as the heavy doors clicked shut.

  In the North, a chieftain’s own Carls ate with him every night in his hall. The women brought the food in wooden bowls. You’d stab the lumps of meat out with a knife and with a knife you’d cut them up, then you’d stuff the bits in your mouth with your fingers. If you found some bone or gristle you’d toss it down on the straw for the dogs. The table, if there was one, was a few slabs of ill-fitting wood, stained and gouged and scarred from having knives stuck in it. The Carls sat on long benches, with maybe a chair or two for the Named Men. It’d be dark, especially in the long winters, and smoky from the fire-pit and the chagga pipes. There’d often be singing of songs, usually shouting of good-natured insults, sometimes screaming of bad-natured ones, and always a lot of drink. The only rule was that you waited for the chief to begin.

  Logen had no idea what the rules might be here, but he guessed there were a lot.

  The guests were sat round three long tables set out in a horseshoe, sixty people or more. Everyone had their own chair, and the dark wood of the table tops was polished to a high sheen, made bright enough for Logen to see the blurry outline of his face in by hundreds of candles scattered round the walls and down the tables. Every guest had at least three blunt knives, and several other things scattered about in front of them that Logen had no idea of the use for, including a big flat circle of shiny metal.

  There was no shouting and certainly no singing, just a low murmur like a bee-hive as people muttered between themselves, leaning towards each other as if they were swapping secrets. The clothes were stranger than ever. Old men wore heavy robes of black, red and gold, trimmed with shining fur, even in the heat.