“Shame,” grunted Brint with heavy irony, “he sounded like a real charmer.”
“But Wetterlant has asked for the king’s justice,” said Bruckel.
“His mother has demanded it!”
“And since he has a seat on the Open Council—”
“Not that his arse has ever touched it.”
“—he has the right to be tried before his peers. With Your Majesty as the judge. We cannot refuse.”
“But we can delay,” said Glokta. “The Open Council may not excel at much, but in delay it leads the world.”
“Postpone. Defer. Adjourn. I can wrap him up. In form and procedure. Until he dies in prison.” And the high justice smiled as though that was the ideal solution.
“We just deny him a hearing?” Orso was almost as disgusted by that option as by the crime itself.
“Of course not,” said Bruckel.
“No, no,” said Gorodets. “We would not deny him anything.”
“We’d simply never give him anything,” said Glokta.
Rucksted nodded. “I hardly think Fedor dan bloody Wetterlant or his bloody mother should be allowed to hold a dagger to the throat of the state simply because he can’t control himself.”
“He could at least lose control of himself in the absence of seventeen witnesses,” observed Gorodets, and there was some light laughter.
“So it’s not the rape or the murder we object to,” asked Orso, “but his being caught doing it?”
Hoff peered at the other councillors, as though wondering whether anyone might disagree. “Well…”
“Why should I not just hear the case, and judge it on its merits, and settle it one way or another?”
Glokta’s grimace twisted still further. “Your Majesty cannot judge the case without being seen to take sides.” The old men nodded, grunted, shifted unhappily in their uncomfortable chairs. “Find Wetterlant innocent, it will be nepotism, and favouritism, and will strengthen the hand of those traitors like the Breakers who would turn the common folk against you.”
“But find Wetterlant guilty…” Gorodets tugged unhappily at his beard and the old men grumbled more dismay. “The nobles would see it as an affront, as an attack, as a betrayal. It would embolden those who oppose you in the Open Council at a time when we are trying to ensure a smooth succession.”
“It seems sometimes,” snapped Orso, rubbing at those sore spots above his temples, “that every decision I make in this chamber is between two equally bad outcomes, with the best option to make no decision at all!”
Hoff glanced about the table again. “Well…”
“It is always a bad idea,” said the First of the Magi, “for a king to choose sides.”
Everyone nodded as though they had been treated to the most profound statement of all time. It was a wonder they did not rise and give a standing ovation. Orso was left in no doubt at which end of the table the power in the White Chamber truly lay. He remembered the look on his father’s face as Bayaz spoke. The fear. He made one more effort to claw his way towards his best guess at the right thing.
“Justice should be done. Shouldn’t it? Justice must be seen to be done. Surely! Otherwise… well… it’s not justice at all. Is it?”
High Justice Bruckel bared his teeth as if in physical pain. “At this level. Your Majesty. Such concepts become… fluid. Justice cannot be stiff like iron, but… more of a jelly. It must mould itself. About the greater concerns.”
“But… surely at this level, at the highest level, is where justice must be at its most firm. There must be a moral bedrock! It cannot all be… expediency?”
Exasperated, Hoff looked towards the foot of the table. “Lord Bayaz, perhaps you might…”
The First of the Magi gave a weary sigh as he sat forward, hands clasped, regarding Orso from beneath heavy lids. The sigh of a veteran schoolmaster, called on once again to explain the basics to this year’s harvest of dunces.
“Your Majesty, we are not here to set right all the world’s wrongs.”
Orso stared back at him. “What are we here for, then?”
Bayaz neither smiled nor frowned. “To ensure that we benefit from them.”
A Long Way from Adua
Superior Lorsen lowered the letter, frowning at Vick over the rims of his eye-lenses. He looked like a man who had not smiled in some time. Perhaps ever.
“His Eminence the Arch Lector writes you a glowing report. He tells me you were instrumental in ending the uprising at Valbeck. He feels I might need your help.” Lorsen turned his frown on Tallow, standing awkwardly in the corner, as if the idea of his being helpful with anything was an affront to reason. Vick still wasn’t sure why she’d brought him. Perhaps because she had no one else to bring.
“Not need my help, Superior,” she said. No bear, badger or wasp was more territorial than a Superior of the Inquisition, after all. “But I don’t have to tell you how damaging it would be, financially, politically, diplomatically… if Westport voted to leave the Union.”
“No,” said Lorsen crisply. “You do not.” As Superior of Westport, he’d be looking for a job.
“Which is why His Eminence felt you could perhaps use my help.”
Lorsen set down the letter, adjusted its position on his desk and stood. “Forgive me if I am dubious, Inquisitor, but performing surgery upon the politics of one of the world’s greatest cities is not quite the same as smashing up a strike.” And he opened the door onto the high gallery.
“The threats are worse and the bribes better,” said Vick as she followed him through, Tallow shuffling behind, “but otherwise I imagine there are similarities.”
“Then may I present to you our unruly workers: the Aldermen of Westport.” And Lorsen stepped to the balustrade and gestured down below.
There, on the floor of Westport’s cavernous Hall of Assembly, tiled with semi-precious stones in geometric patterns, the leadership of the city was debating the great question of leaving the Union. Some Aldermen stood, shaking fists or brandishing papers. Others sat, glumly watching or with heads in hands. Others bellowed over each other in at least five languages, the ringing echoes making it impossible to tell who was speaking, let alone what was being said. Others murmured to colleagues or yawned, scratched, stretched, gazed into space. A group of five or six had paused for tea in a distant corner. Men of every shape, size, colour and culture. A cross section through the madly diverse population of the city they called the Crossroads of the World, wedged onto a narrow scrap of thirsty land between Styria and the South, between the Union and the Thousand Isles.
“Two hundred and thirteen of them, at the current count, and each with a vote.” Lorsen pronounced the word with evident distaste. “When it comes to arguing, the citizens of Westport are celebrated throughout the world, and this is where their most dauntless arguers stage their most intractable arguments.” The Superior peered towards a great clock on the far side of the gallery. “They’ve been at it for seven hours already today.”
Vick was not surprised. There was a stickiness to the air from all the breath they’d wasted. The Fates knew she was finding Westport more than hot enough, even in spring, but she had been told that in summer, after particularly intense sessions, it could sometimes rain inside the dome. A sort of spitty drizzling back of all their high-blown language onto the furious Aldermen below.
“Seems the opinions are somewhat entrenched down there.”
“I wish they were more so,” said Lorsen. “Thirty years ago, after we beat the Gurkish, you couldn’t have found five votes for leaving the Union. But the Styrian faction has gained a great deal of ground lately. The wars. The debts. The uprising in Valbeck. The death of King Jezal. And his son is, shall we say, not yet taken seriously on the international stage. Without mincing words—”
“Our prestige is in the night pot,” Vick finished for him.
“We joined the Union because of their military might!” A truly mighty voice boomed out, finally cutting through the hubbub
. The speaker was thickset, dark-skinned and shaven-headed with strangely gentle gestures. “Because the Empire of Gurkhul threatened us from the south and we needed strong allies to deter them. But membership has cost us dear! Millions of scales in treasure and the price forever rises!”
Agreement floated up to the gallery in an echoing murmur.
“Who’s the man with all the voice?” asked Vick.
“Solumeo Shudra,” said Lorsen, sourly. “The leader of the pro-Styrian faction and a royal thorn in my arse. Half-Sipanese, half-Kadiri. A fitting emblem for this cultural melting pot.”
Vick knew all this, of course. She made a great deal of effort to go into every job well informed. But she preferred to keep her knowledge to herself whenever possible, and let others imagine themselves the great experts.
“During the forty years since we joined the Union, the world has changed beyond all recognition!” bellowed Shudra. “The Empire of Gurkhul has crumbled, while Styria has turned from a patchwork of feuding city-states into one strong nation under one strong king. They have defeated the Union in not one, not two, but three wars! Wars waged for the vanity and ambitions of Queen Terez. Wars we were dragged into at vast expense in silver and blood.”
“He talks well,” said Tallow, softly.
“Very well,” said Vick. “He almost has me wanting to join Styria.”
“The Union is a waning power!” boomed Shudra. “While Styria is our natural ally. The hand of the Grand Duchess Monzcarro Murcatto is extended to us in friendship. We should seize it while we still can. My friends, I urge you all to vote with me to leave the Union!”
Loud boos, but even louder cheers. Lorsen shook his head in disgust. “If this were Adua, we could march in there, drag him from his seat, force a confession and ship him off to Angland on the next tide.”
“But we’re a long way from Adua,” murmured Vick.
“Both sides worry that an open display of force might turn the majority against them, but things will change as we move towards the vote. The positions are hardening. The middle ground is shrinking. Murcatto’s Minister of Whispers, Shylo Vitari, is mounting an all-encompassing campaign of bribery and threats, blackmail and coercion, while printed sheets are flung from the rooftops and painted slogans spring up faster than we can scrub them off.”
“I’m told Casamir dan Shenkt is in Westport,” said Vick. “That Murcatto has paid him one hundred thousand scales to shift the balance. By any means necessary.”
“I had heard… the rumours.”
She got the sense that Lorsen had heard the same rumours she had, delivered in breathless whispers with a great deal of lurid detail. That Shenkt’s skills went beyond the mortal and touched the magical. That he was a sorcerer who had damned himself by eating the flesh of men. Here in Westport, where calls to prayer echoed hourly over the city and cut-price prophets declaimed on every corner, such ideas were somehow harder to dismiss.
“Might I lend you a few Practicals?” Lorsen peered at Tallow. To be fair, the lad didn’t look as if he could stand up to a stiff breeze, let alone a flesh-eating magician. “If Styria’s most famous assassin is really on the prowl, we need you well protected.”
“An armed escort would send the wrong message.” And would do no good anyway, if those rumours really were true. “I was sent to persuade, not intimidate.”
Lorsen was less than convinced. “Really?”
“That’s how it has to look.”
“Little would look worse than the untimely death of His Eminence’s representative.”
“I don’t intend to rush at the grave, believe me.”
“Few do. The grave swallows us all regardless.”
“What are your plans, Superior?”
Lorsen took a weary breath. “I have my hands full protecting our own Aldermen. The ballots are cast in nineteen days, and we cannot afford to lose a single vote.”
“Taking away some of theirs would help.”
“Providing it is done subtly. If their people turn up dead, it is sure to harden feelings against us. Things are finely balanced.” Lorsen clenched his fists on the railing as Solumeo Shudra boomed out another speech lauding the benefits of Styria’s welcoming embrace. “And Shudra has proved persuasive. He is well loved here. I am warning you, Inquisitor—don’t go after him.”
“With all due respect, the Arch Lector has sent me to do the things you can’t. I only take orders from him.”
Lorsen gave her a long, cold stare. Probably it was a look that froze the blood in people used to Westport’s warm climate, but Vick had worked down a half-flooded mine in an Angland winter. It took a lot to make her shiver. “Then I am asking you.” He pronounced each word precisely. “Don’t go after him.”
Below them, Shudra had finished his latest thunderous contribution to noisy applause from the men around him and even noisier booing from the other side. Fists were shaken, papers were flung, insults were grumbled. Nineteen more days of this pantomime, with Shylo Vitari trying everything to twist the outcome. Who knew how that would turn out?
“His Eminence wants me to keep Westport in the Union.” She headed for the door with Tallow at her heels. “At any cost.”
A Sea of Trouble
“Welcome, one and all, to this fifteenth biannual meeting of Adua’s Solar Society.”
Curnsbick, resplendent in a waistcoat embroidered with silver flowers, held up his broad hands for silence, though the applause was muted. The members used to raise the roof of the theatre. Savine remembered it well.
“With thanks to our distinguished patrons—the Lady Ardee and her daughter Lady Savine dan Glokta.” Curnsbick gave his usual showman’s flourish towards the box where Savine sat, but the clapping now was yet more subdued. Did she even hear a few tattletale whispers below? She’s not all she was, you know. Not one half of what she was…
“Ungrateful bastards,” she hissed through her fixed smile. Could it only have been a few months since they were soiling their drawers at the mention of her name?
“To say that it has been a difficult year…” Curnsbick frowned down at his notes as though they made sad reading. “Hardly does justice to the troubles we have faced.”
“You’re fucking right there.” Savine dipped behind her fan to sniff up a pinch of pearl dust. Just to lift her out of the bog. Just to keep some wind in the sails.
“A war in the North. Ongoing troubles in Styria. And the death of His August Majesty King Jezal the First. Too young. Far too young.” Curnsbick’s voice cracked a little. “The great family of our nation has lost its great father.”
Savine flinched at the word, had to give her own eye the slightest dab with the tip of her little finger, though no doubt any tears were for her own troubles rather than a father she had hardly known and certainly not respected. All tears are for oneself, in the end.
“Then the terrible events in Valbeck.” A kind of sorry grumble around the theatre, a stirring below as every head was shaken. “Assets ruined. Colleagues lost. Manufactories that were the wonder of the world left in ruins.” Curnsbick struck his lectern a blow. “But already new industry rises from the ashes! Modern housing on the ruins of the slums! Greater mills with more efficient machinery and more orderly workers!”
Savine tried not to think of the children in her mill in Valbeck, before it was destroyed. The bunk beds wedged in among the machines. The stifling heat. The deafening noise. The choking dust. But so awfully orderly. So terribly efficient.
“Confidence has been struck,” lamented Curnsbick. “Markets are in turmoil. But from chaos, opportunity can come.” He gave his lectern another blow. “Opportunity must be made to come. His August Majesty King Orso will lead us into a new age. Progress cannot stop! Will not be permitted to stop! For the benefit of all, we of the Solar Society will fight tirelessly to drag the Union from the tomb of ignorance and into the sunny uplands of enlightenment!”
Loud applause this time, and in the audience below, men struggled to their feet.
“Hear! Hear!” someone brayed.
“Progress!” blurted another.
“As inspiring as any sermon in the Great Temple of Shaffa,” murmured Zuri.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say Curnsbick has taken a stiffener himself,” said Savine, and she ducked behind her fan and sniffed up another pinch. Just one more, to get her ready for the fight.
Battle was already joined beneath the great chandeliers in the foyer. A sparser melee than at recent meetings. Less buoyant. More bitter. Hungrier dogs, snapping over leaner pickings.
The press reminded her of the crowd in Valbeck when the Breakers brought food around the slum. They wore silk rather than rags, they stank of perfume rather than stale sweat, the ever-present threat was of ruin rather than violence, but the jostling and the hunger were very much the same. There had been a time when Savine was as comfortable in this crawling activity as a queen bee in her hive. Now her whole body tingled with chilly panic. She had to smother the urge to lash out with her elbows and run screaming for the door.
“Calm,” she mouthed to herself, trying to let her shoulders relax so her hands would stop shaking, instantly losing all patience and flexing every muscle instead. “Calm, calm, calm.”
She squeezed her face into a smile, snapped out her fan and forced herself into the midst of the press with Zuri at her shoulder. Eyes turned in her direction, expressions harder than she was used to. Assessing, rather than admiring. Scornful, rather than envious. They used to crowd around her like pigs around the one trough in the farmyard. Now the most tempting morsels went elsewhere. Savine could scarcely see Selest dan Heugen through the swarm of gentlemen competing for her attention. Only a flash of that garish red wig. A snatch of that hideous, brash, overdone laugh that other women were beginning to imitate.
“By the Fates, I despise that woman,” muttered Savine.
“The highest compliment you could pay her,” said Zuri, with a warning glance up from her book. “One cannot despise a thing without acknowledging its importance.”
The Trouble with Peace Page 2
