Before They Are Hanged (9 page)

A committed optimist might have called the place a dive.
But it scarcely deserves the name.
A piss-smelling shack with some oddments of furniture, everything stained with ancient sweat and recent spillages.
A kind of cesspit with half the cess removed.
Customers and staff were indistinguishable: drunken, fly-blown natives stretched out in the heat. Nicomo Cosca, famed soldier of fortune, sprawled in amongst this scene of debauchery, soundly asleep.

He had his driftwood chair rocked back on its rear legs against the grimy wall, one boot up on the table in front of him. It had probably been as fine and flamboyant a boot as one could hope for, once, black Styrian leather with a golden spur and buckles.
No longer.
The upper was sagging and scuffed grey with hard use. The spur was snapped off short, the gilt on the buckles was flaking away and the iron underneath was spotted with brown rust. A circle of pink, blistered skin peered at Glokta through a hole in the sole.

And a boot could scarcely be better fitted to its owner.
Cosca’s long moustaches, no doubt meant to be waxed out sideways in the fashion of a Styrian dandy, flopped limp and lifeless round his half-open mouth. His neck and jaw were covered in a week’s growth, somewhere between beard and stubble, and there was a scabrous, flaking rash peering out above his collar. His greasy hair stuck from his head at all angles, excepting a large bald spot on his crown, angry red with sunburn. Sweat beaded his slack skin, a lazy fly crawled across his puffy face. One bottle lay empty on its side on the table. Another, half-full, was cradled in his lap.

Vitari stared down at this picture of drunken self-neglect, expression of contempt plainly visible despite her mask. “So it’s true then, you are still alive.”
Just barely.

Cosca prised open one red-rimmed eye, blinked, squinted up, and then slowly began to smile. “Shylo Vitari, I swear. The world can still surprise me.” He worked his mouth, grimacing, glanced down and saw the bottle in his lap, lifted it and took a long, thirsty pull. Deep swallows, just as if it were water in the bottle.
A practised drunkard, as though there was any doubt. Hardly the man one would choose to entrust the defence of the city to, at first glance.
“I never expected to see you again. Why don’t you take off the mask? It’s robbing me of your beauty.”

“Save it for your whores, Cosca. I don’t need to catch what you’ve got.”

The mercenary gave a bubbling sound, half laugh, half cough. “You still have the manners of a princess,” he wheezed.

“Then this shithouse must be a palace.”

Cosca shrugged. “It all looks the same if you’re drunk enough.”

“You think you’ll ever be drunk enough?”

“No. But it’s worth trying.” As if to prove the point he sucked another mouthful from the bottle.

Vitari perched herself on the edge of the table. “So what brings you here? I thought you were busy spreading the cock-rot across Styria.”

“My popularity at home had somewhat dwindled.”

“Found yourself on both sides of a fight once too often, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“But the Dagoskans welcomed you with open arms?”

“I’d rather you welcomed me with open legs, but a man can’t get everything he wants. Who’s your friend?”

Glokta slid out a rickety chair with one aching foot and eased himself into it, hoping it would bear his weight.
Crashing to the floor in a bundle of broken sticks would hardly send the right message, now, would it?
“My name is Glokta.” He stretched his sweaty neck out to one side, and then the other. “Superior Glokta.”

Cosca looked at him for a long time. His eyes were bloodshot, sunken, heavy-lidded.
And yet there is a certain calculation there. Not half as drunk as he pretends, perhaps.
“The same one who fought in Gurkhul? The Colonel of Horse?”

Glokta felt his eyelid flicker.
You could hardly say the same man, but surprisingly well remembered, nonetheless.
“I gave up soldiery some years ago. I’m surprised you’ve heard of me.”

“A fighting man should know his enemies, and a hired man never knows who his next enemy might be. It’s worth taking notice of who’s who, in military circles. I heard your name mentioned, some time ago, as a man worth taking notice of. Bold and clever, I heard, but reckless. That was the last I heard. And now here you are, in a different line of work. Asking questions.”

“Recklessness didn’t work out for me in the end.” Glokta shrugged. “And a man needs something to do with his time.”

“Of course. Never doubt another’s choices, I say. You can’t know his reasons. You come here for a drink, Superior? They’ve nothing but this piss, I’m afraid.” He waved the bottle. “Or have you questions for me?”

That I have, and plenty of them.
“Do you have any experience with sieges?”

“Experience?” spluttered Cosca, “Experience, you ask? Hah! Experience is one thing I am not short of—”

“No,” murmured Vitari over her shoulder, “just discipline and loyalty.”

“Yes, well,” Cosca frowned up at her back, “that all depends on who you ask. But I was at Etrina, and at Muris. Serious pair of sieges, those. And I besieged Visserine myself for a few months and nearly had it, except that she-devil Mercatto caught me unawares. Came on us with cavalry before dawn, sun behind and all, damned unfriendly trick, the bitch—”

“I heard you were passed out drunk at the time,” muttered Vitari.

“Yes, well… Then I held Borletta against Grand Duke Orso for six months—”

Vitari snorted. “Until he paid you to open the gates.”

Cosca gave a sheepish grin. “It was an awful lot of money. But he never fought his way in! You’d have to give me that, eh, Shylo?”

“No one needs to fight you, providing they bring their purse.”

The mercenary grinned. “I am what I am, and never claimed to be anything else.”

“So you’ve been known to betray an employer?” asked Glokta.

The Styrian paused, the bottle halfway to his mouth. “I am thoroughly offended, Superior. Nicomo Cosca may be a mercenary, but there are still rules. I could only turn my back on an employer under one condition.”

“Which is?”

Cosca grinned. “If someone else were to offer me more.”

Ah, the mercenary’s code. Some men will do anything for money. Most men will do anything for enough. Perhaps even make a Superior of the Inquisition disappear?
“Do you know what became of my predecessor, Superior Davoust?”

“Ah, the riddle of the invisible torturer!” Cosca scratched thoughtfully at his sweaty beard, picked a little at the rash on his neck and examined the results, wedged under his fingernail. “Who knows or cares to know? The man was a swine. I hardly knew him and what I knew I didn’t like. He had plenty of enemies, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a real snake pit down here. If you’re asking which one bit him, well… isn’t that your job? I was busy here. Drinking.”

Not too difficult to believe.
“What would your opinion be of our mutual friend, General Vissbruck?”

Cosca hunched his shoulders and sank a little lower into his chair. “The man’s a child. Playing soldiers. Tinkering with his little castle and his little fence, when the big walls are all that count. Lose those and the game is done, I say.”

“I’ve been thinking the very same thing.”
Perhaps the defence of the city could be in worse hands, after all.
“Work has already begun on the land walls, and on the ditch beyond. I hope to flood it.”

Cosca raised an eyebrow. “Good. Flood it. The Gurkish don’t like the water much. Poor sailors. Flood it. Very good.” He tipped his head back and sucked the last drops from the bottle, then he tossed it on the dirty floor, wiped his mouth with his dirty hand, then wiped his hand on the front of his sweat-stained shirt. “At least someone knows what they’re doing. Perhaps when the Gurkish attack, we’ll last longer than a few days, eh?”
Providing we aren’t betrayed beforehand.

“You never know, perhaps the Gurkish won’t attack.”

“Oh, I hope they do.” Cosca reached under his chair and produced another bottle. There was a glint in his eye as he pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it across the room. “I get paid double once the fighting starts.”

It was evening, and a merciful breeze was washing through the audience chamber. Glokta leaned against the wall by the window, watching the shadows stretch out over the city below.

The Lord Governor was keeping him waiting.
Trying to let me know he’s still in charge, whatever the Closed Council might say.
But Glokta didn’t mind being still for a while. The day had been a tiring one. Slogging round the city in the baking heat, examining the walls, the gates, the troops. Asking questions.
Questions to which no one has satisfactory answers.
His leg was throbbing, his back was aching, his hand was raw from gripping his cane.
But no worse than usual. I am still standing. A good day, all in all.

The glowing sun was shrouded in lines of orange cloud. Beneath it a long wedge of sea glittered silver in the last light of the day. The land walls had already plunged half the ramshackle buildings of the Lower City into deep gloom, and the shadows of the tall spires of the great temple stretched out across the roofs of the Upper City, creeping up the slopes of the rock towards the citadel. The hills on the mainland were nothing more than a distant suggestion, full of shadows.
And crawling with Gurkish soldiers. Watching us, as we watch them, no doubt. Seeing us dig our ditches, patch our walls, shore up our gates. How long will they be content to watch, I wonder? How long before the sun goes down for us?

The door opened and Glokta turned his head, wincing as his neck clicked. It was the Lord Governor’s son, Korsten dan Vurms. He shut the door behind him and strode purposefully into the room, metal heel tips clicking on the mosaic floor.
Ah, the flower of the Union’s young nobility. The sense of honour is almost palpable. Or did someone fart?

“Superior Glokta! I hope I have not kept you waiting.”

“You have,” said Glokta as he shuffled to the table. “That is what happens when one comes late to a meeting.”

Vurms frowned slightly. “Then I apologise,” he said, in the most unapologetic tone imaginable. “How are you finding our city?”

“Hot and full of steps.” Glokta dumped himself into one of the exquisite chairs. “Where is the Lord Governor?”

The frown turned down further. “I am afraid that my father is unwell, and cannot attend. You understand that he is an old man, and needs his rest. I can speak for him however.”

“Can you indeed? And what do the two of you have to say?”

“My father is most concerned about the work that you are undertaking on the defences. I am told that the King’s soldiers have been set to digging holes on the peninsula, rather than defending the walls of the Upper City. You realise that you are leaving us at the mercy of the natives!”

Glokta snorted. “The natives are citizens of the Union, no matter how reluctant. Believe me, they are more inclined to mercy than the Gurkish.”
Of their mercy I have first-hand experience.

“They are primitives!” sneered Vurms, “and dangerous to boot! You have not been here long enough to understand the threat they pose to us! You should talk to Harker. He’s got the right ideas as far as the natives are concerned.”

“I talked to Harker, and I didn’t like his ideas. I suspect he may have been forced to rethink them, in fact, downstairs, in the dark.”
I suspect he is rethinking even now, and as quickly as his pea of a brain will allow.
“As for your father’s worries, he need no longer concern himself with the defence of the city. Since he is an old man, and in need of rest, I have no doubt he will be happy to pass the responsibility to me.”

A spasm of anger passed across Vurms’ handsome features. He opened his mouth to hiss some curse, but evidently thought better of it.
As well he should.
He sat back in his chair, rubbing one thumb and one finger thoughtfully together. When he spoke, it was with a friendly smile and a charming softness.
Now comes the wheedling.
“Superior Glokta, I feel we have got off on the wrong foot—”

“I only have one that works.”

Vurms’ smile slipped somewhat, but he forged on. “It is plain that you hold the cards, for the time being, but my father has many friends back in Midderland. I can be a significant hindrance to you, if I have the mind. A significant hindrance or a great help—”

“I am so glad that you have chosen to cooperate. You can begin by telling me what became of Superior Davoust.”

The smile slipped off entirely. “How should I know?”

“Everyone knows something.”
And someone knows more than the rest. Is it you, Vurms?