The Blade Itself tfl-1

by Joe Abercrombie

  “A woman, really?” This story becomes more ridiculous by the second. “Anything else? Can we narrow our search beyond half the population?”

  “It was cold. Very cold.”

  “Cold?” Of course, why not? On one of the hottest nights of the year.

  Glokta stared into the Northman’s eyes for a long time, and he stared back. Dark, cool blue eyes, deeply set. Not the eyes of an idiot. He may look an ape, but he doesn’t talk like one. He thinks before he speaks, then says no more than he has to. This is a dangerous man.

  “What is your business in the city, Master Ninefingers?”

  “I came with Bayaz. If you want to know his business you can ask him. Honestly, I don’t know.”

  “He pays you then?”

  “No.”

  “You follow him out of loyalty?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But you are his servant?”

  “No. Not really.” The Northman scratched slowly at his stubbly jaw. “I don’t know what I am.”

  A big, ugly liar is what you are. But how to prove it? Glokta waved his cane around the shattered chamber. “How did your intruder cause so much damage?”

  “Bayaz did that.”

  “He did? How?”

  “Art, he calls it.”

  “Art?”

  “Base magic is wild and dangerous,” intoned the apprentice pompously, as though he were saying something of great importance, “for it comes from the Other Side, and to touch the world below is fraught with peril. The Magus tempers magic with knowledge, and thus produces High Art, but like the smith or the—”

  “The Other Side?” snapped Glokta, putting a sharp end to the young moron’s stream of drivel. “The world below? Hell, do you mean? Magic? Do you know any magic, Master Ninefingers?”

  “Me?” The Northman chuckled. “No.” He thought about it for a moment and then added, almost as an afterthought, “I can speak to the spirits though.”

  “The spirits, is that so?” For pity’s sake. “Perhaps they could tell us who this intruder was?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Ninefingers shook his head sadly, either missing Glokta’s sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. “There are none left awake in this place. They are sleeping here. They have been for a long time.”

  “Ah, of course.” Well past spirits’ bedtime. I tire of this nonsense. “You come from Bethod?”

  “You could say that.” It was Glokta who was surprised. He had expected at best a sharp intake of breath, a hurried effort at concealment, not a frank admission. Ninefingers did not even blink however. “I was once his champion.”

  “Champion?”

  “I fought ten duels for him.”

  Glokta groped for words. “Did you win?”

  “I was lucky.”

  “You realise, of course, that Bethod has invaded the Union?”

  “I do.” Ninefingers sighed. “I should have killed that bastard long ago, but I was young then, and stupid. Now I doubt I’ll get another chance, but that’s the way of things. You have to be… what’s the word for it?”

  “Realistic,” said Quai.

  Glokta frowned. A moment ago, he had teetered on the brink of making sense of all this nonsense, but the moment had slipped away and things made less sense than ever. He stared at Ninefingers, but that scarred face held no answers, only more questions. Talking with spirits? Bethod’s champion but his enemy? Assaulted by a mysterious woman in the dead of night? And he doesn’t even know why he’s here? A clever liar tells as much truth as he can, but this one tells so many lies I hardly know where to begin.

  “Ah, we have a guest!” An old man stepped into the room, thickset and stocky with a short grey beard, vigorously rubbing his bald head with a cloth. So this is Bayaz. He threw himself down in the one intact chair, moving with none of the grace one would expect from an important historical figure. “I must apologise. I was taking advantage of the bath. A very fine bath. I have been bathing every day since we arrived here at the Agriont. I grew so besmirched with the dirt of the road that I have positively seized upon the opportunity to be clean again.” The old man rubbed his hand over his hairless scalp with a faint hissing sound.

  Glokta mentally compared his features to those of Bayaz’ statue in the Kingsway. There is hardly anything uncanny about the resemblance. Half as commanding and a great deal shorter. Given an hour I could find five old men who looked more convincing. If I took a razor to Arch Lector Sult, I could do better. Glokta glanced at his shiny pate. I wonder if he takes a razor to that every morning?

  “And you are?” asked the supposed Bayaz.

  “Inquisitor Glokta.”

  “Ah, one of His Majesty’s Inquisitors. We are honoured!”

  “Oh no, the honour is mine. You, after all, are the legendary Bayaz, First of the Magi.”

  The old man glared back at him, his green eyes prickly hard. “Legendary is perhaps a shade too much, but I am Bayaz.”

  “Your companion, Master Ninefingers, was just describing last night’s events to me. A colourful tale. He claims that you caused… all this.”

  The old man snorted. “I am not in the habit of welcoming uninvited guests.”

  “So I see.”

  “Alas, there was some damage to the suite. In my experience one should act quickly and decisively. The pieces can always be picked up afterward.”

  “Of course. Forgive my ignorance, Master Bayaz, but how, precisely, was the damage caused?”

  The old man smiled. “You can understand that we do not share the secrets of our order with just anyone, and I am afraid that I already have an apprentice.” He indicated the unconvincing youth.

  “We met. In simple terms then, perhaps, that I might understand?”

  “You would call it magic.”

  “Magic. I see.”

  “Indeed. It is, after all, what we Magi are best known for.”

  “Mmm. I don’t suppose you would be kind enough to demonstrate, for my benefit?”

  “Oh no!” The so-called wizard gave a comfortable laugh. “I don’t do tricks.”

  This old fool is as hard to fathom as the Northman. The one barely speaks, while the other talks and talks but says nothing. “I must admit to being somewhat at a loss as to how this intruder got in.” Glokta glanced round the room, examining the possible means of entrance. “The guard saw nothing, which leaves the window.”

  He shuffled cautiously to the hole and peered out. There had been a small balcony, but a few stubby splinters of stone were all that remained. Otherwise the wall fell smooth and sheer all the way to the glittering water far, far below. “That’s quite a climb to make, especially in a dress. An impossible one, wouldn’t you say? How do you think this woman made it?”

  The old man snorted. “Do you want me to do your job for you? Perhaps she clambered up the latrine chute!” The Northman looked deeply troubled by that suggestion. “Why don’t you catch her and ask her? Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

  Touchy, touchy, and consummately acted. An air of injured innocence so convincing, he almost has me believing this garbage. Almost, but not quite. “Therein lies the problem. There is no sign of your mysterious intruder. No body has been recovered. Some wood, small pieces of furniture, the stones from the wall, they were scattered widely in the streets below. But nothing of any intruder, of either sex.”

  The old man stared back at him, a hard frown beginning to form on his face. “Perhaps the body burned to nothing. Perhaps it was torn apart, into pieces too small to see, or boiled away into the air. Magic is not always precise, or predictable, even in the hands of a master. Such things can happen. Easily. Particularly when I become annoyed.”

  “I fear I must risk your annoyance, though. It has occurred to me that you might not, in fact, be Bayaz, the First of the Magi.”

  “Indeed?” The old man’s bushy eyebrows drew together.

  “I must at least entertain the possibility…” a tense stillness had settled on the room “…that
you are an impostor.”

  “A fraud?” snapped the so-called Magus. The pale young man lowered his head and backed quietly away towards the wall. Glokta felt suddenly very alone in the midst of that rubble strewn circle, alone and increasingly unsure of himself, but he soldiered on.

  “It had occurred to me that this whole event might have been staged for our benefit. A convenient demonstration of your magical powers.”

  “Convenient?” Hissed the bald old man, his voice unnaturally loud. “Convenient, say you? It would be convenient if I was left to enjoy a night’s sleep uninterrupted. Convenient if I was now sitting in my old chair on the Closed Council. Convenient if people took my word as law, the way they used to, without asking a lot of damn fool questions!”

  The resemblance to the statue on the Kingsway was suddenly much increased. There, now, was the frown of command, the sneer of contempt, the threat of terrible anger. The old man’s words seemed to press on Glokta like a great weight, driving the breath from his body, threatening to crush him to his knees, cutting into his skull, and leaving behind a creeping shred of doubt. He glanced up at the yawning hole in the wall. Powder? Catapults? Labourers? Is there not a simpler explanation? The world seemed to shift around him, as it had in the Arch Lector’s study a few days before, his mind turned the pieces, pulling them apart, putting them together. What if they are simply telling the truth? What if…

  No! Glokta forced the idea from his mind. He lifted his head and gave the old man a sneer of his own to think about. An aging actor with a shaved head and a plausible manner. Nothing more. “If you are as you say, you have nothing to fear from my questions, or from your answers.”

  The old man cracked a smile and the strange pressure was suddenly released. “Your candour at least, Inquisitor, is quite refreshing. No doubt you will do your utmost to prove your theory. I wish you luck. I, as you say, have nothing to fear. I would only ask that you find some proof of this deception before bothering us again.”

  Glokta bowed stiffly. “I will try to do so,” he said, and made for the door.

  “There is one more thing!” The old man was looking towards the gaping hole in the wall. “Would it be possible to find some other chambers? The wind blows rather chill through these.”

  “I will look into it.”

  “Good. Perhaps somewhere with fewer steps. Damn things play hell with my knees these days.” Indeed? There, at least, we can agree.

  Glokta gave the three of them one last inspection. The bald old man stared back, his face a blank wall. The lanky youth glanced up anxiously then quickly turned away. The Northman was still frowning towards the latrine door. Charlatans, impostors, spies. But how to prove it? “Good day, gentlemen.” And he limped towards the stairs with as much dignity as he could muster.

  Nobility

  Jezal scraped the last fair hairs from the side of his jaw and washed the razor off in the bowl. Then he wiped it on the cloth, closed it and placed it carefully on the table, admiring the way the sunlight glinted on the mother-of-pearl handle.

  He wiped his face, and then—his favourite part of the day—gazed at himself in the looking glass. It was a good one, newly imported from Visserine, a present from his father: an oval of bright, smooth glass in a frame of lavishly-carved dark wood. A fitting surround for such a handsome man as the one gazing happily back at him. Honestly, handsome hardly did him justice.

  “You’re quite the beauty aren’t you?” Jezal said to himself, smiling as he ran his fingers over the smooth skin of his jaw. And what a jaw it was. He had often been told it was his best feature, not that there was anything whatever wrong with the rest of him. He turned to the right, then to the left, the better to admire that magnificent chin. Not too heavy, not brutish, but not too light either, not womanly or weak. A man’s jaw, no doubt, with a slight cleft in the chin, speaking of strength and authority, but sensitive and thoughtful too. Had there ever been a jaw like it? Perhaps some king, or hero of legend, once had one almost as fine. It was a noble jaw, that much was clear. No commoner could ever have had a chin so grand.

  It must have come from his mother’s side of the family, Jezal supposed. His father had rather a weak chin. His brothers too, come to think of it. You had to feel a little sorry for them, he had got all the looks in his family.

  “And most of the talent too,” he murmured happily to himself. He turned away from the mirror with some reluctance, striding into his living room, pulling his shirt on and buttoning it up the front. He had to look his best today. The thought gave him a little shiver of nerves, starting in his stomach, creeping up his windpipe, lodging in his throat.

  By now, the gates would be open. A steady flood of people would be filing into the Agriont, taking their seats on the great wooden benches in the Square of Marshals. Thousands of them. Everyone who was anyone, and plenty more who weren’t. They were already gathering: shouting, jostling, excited, waiting for… him. Jezal coughed and tried to push the thought from his mind. He had kept himself awake with it for half the night already.

  He moved over to the table, where the breakfast tray was sitting. He picked up a sausage absently in his fingertips and took a bite off the end, chewing it without relish. He wrinkled his nose and tossed it back in the dish. He had no appetite this morning. He was just wiping his fingers on the cloth when he noticed something lying on the floor by the door, a slip of paper. He bent and picked it up, unfolded it. A single line, written in a neat, precise hand:

  Meet me tonight, at the statue of Harod the Great near the Four Corners

  —A.

  “Shit,” he murmured, disbelieving, reading the line over and over. He folded the paper shut, glancing nervously round the room. Jezal could only think of one “A”. He had pushed her to the back of his mind the last couple of days, he had been spending every spare moment training. This brought it all back though, and no mistake.

  “Shit!” He opened the paper and read the line again. Meet me tonight? He could not escape a slight flush of satisfaction at that, and it slowly became a very distinct glow of pleasure. His mouth curled into a gormless grin. Secret meetings in the darkness? His skin prickled with excitement at the prospect. But secrets have a way of coming to the surface, and what if her brother found out? That thought brought on a fresh rush of nerves. He took the slip of paper in both hands, ready to tear it in half, but at the last moment he folded it instead, and slipped it into his pocket.

  As Jezal made his way down the tunnel he could already hear the crowd. A strange, echoing murmur, seeming to come out of the very stones. He had heard it before, of course, as a spectator at last year’s Contest, but it hadn’t made his skin sweat and his guts turn over then. Being part of the audience is a world away from being part of the show.

  He slowed for a moment, then stopped, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall, the noise of the crowd rushing in his ears, trying to breathe deep and compose himself.

  “Don’t worry, I know just how you feel.” Jezal felt West’s consoling hand on his shoulder. “I nearly turned around and ran the first time, but it’ll pass as soon as the steels are drawn, believe me.”

  “Yes,” mumbled Jezal, “of course.” He doubted that West knew exactly how he felt. The man might have been through a couple of Contests before, but Jezal thought it unlikely he had been considering a surreptitious meeting with his best friend’s sister the same night. He wondered whether West would be quite so considerate if he knew the contents of the letter in Jezal’s breast pocket. It did not seem likely.

  “We’d better get moving. Wouldn’t want them to start without us.”

  “No.” Jezal took one last deep breath, opened his eyes and blew out hard. Then he pushed himself away from the wall and strode rapidly down the tunnel. He felt a sudden surge of panic—where were his steels? He cast about him desperately, then breathed a long sigh. They were in his hand.

  There was quite a crowd in the hall at the far end: trainers, seconds, friends, family members and hangers-o
n. You could tell who the contestants were, though; the fifteen young men with steels clutched tightly in their hands. The sense of fear was palpable, and contagious. Everywhere Jezal looked he saw pale, nervous faces, sweaty foreheads, anxious eyes darting around. It wasn’t helped by the noise of the crowd, ominously loud beyond the closed double doors at the far end of the room, swelling and subsiding like a stormy sea.

  There was only one man there who didn’t seem at all bothered by the occasion, leaning against the wall on his own with one foot up on the plaster and his head tipped back, staring down his nose at the assembly through barely open eyes. Most of the contestants were lithe, stringy, athletic. He was anything but. A big, heavy man with hair shaved to dark stubble. He had a great thick neck and a doorstep of a jaw—the jaw of a commoner, Jezal rather thought, but a large and powerful commoner with a mean streak. Jezal might have taken him for someone’s servant but that he had a pair of steels dangling loosely from one hand.

  “Gorst,” West whispered in Jezal’s ear.

  “Huh. Looks more like a labourer than a swordsman to me.”

  “Maybe, but looks can lie.” The sound of the crowd was slowly fading, and the nervy chatter within the room subsided along with it. West raised his eyebrows. “The King’s address,” he whispered.

  “My friends! My countrymen! My fellow citizens of the Union!” came a ringing voice, clearly audible even through the heavy doors.

  “Hoff,” snorted West. “Even here he takes the King’s place. Why doesn’t he just put the crown on and have done with it?”

  “One month ago today,” came the far-off bellow of the Lord Chamberlain, “fellows of mine on the Closed Council put forward the question… should there be a Contest this year?” Boos and shouts of wild disapproval were heard from the crowd. “A fair question!” cried Hoff, “for we are at war! A deadly struggle in the North! The very liberties which we hold so dear, the very freedoms which make us the envy of the world, our very way of life, stand threatened by the savage!”

  A clerk began making his way around the room, separating the contestants from their families, their trainers, their friends. “Good luck,” said West, clapping Jezal on the shoulder, “I’ll see you out there.” Jezal’s mouth was dry, and he could only nod.