Glokta gave a sad smile. 'You see. He doesn't even know what one is.' He sagged back in his chair. Tired. Terribly tired. He seemed to lack even the energy to lift his hands. 'I have already made all manner of allowances for you. Treason is not normally so gently dealt with. You should have seen the beating that Frost gave to your friend Vurms, and we all know that he was the junior partner in this. He was shitting blood throughout his last few miserable hours. No one has laid a finger on you, yet. I have allowed you to keep your clothes, your dignity, your humanity. You have one chance to sign your confession, and to answer my questions. One chance to comply utterly and completely. That is the full measure of my conscience.' Glokta leaned forwards and stabbed at the table with his finger. 'One chance. Then we strip you and start cutting.'

Magister Eider seemed to cave in, all at once. Her shoulders slumped, her head fell, her lip quivered. 'Ask your questions,' she croaked. A broken woman. Many congratulations, Superior Glokta. But questions must have answers.

'Vurms told us who was to be paid, and how much. Certain guards. Certain officials of his father's administration. Himself, of course, a tidy sum. One name was strangely absent from the list. Your own. You, and you alone, asked for nothing. The very Queen of merchants, passing on a certain sale? My mind boggles. What did they offer you? Why did you betray your King and country?'

'Why?' echoed Severard.

'Fucking answer him!' screamed Vitari.

Eider cringed away. 'The Union should never have been here in the first place!' she blurted. 'Greed is all it was! Greed, plain and simple! The Spicers were here before the war, when Dagoska was free. They made fortunes, all of them, but they had to pay taxes to the natives, and how they chafed at that! How much better, they thought, if we owned the city ourselves, if we could make our own rules. How much richer we could be. When the chance came they leaped on it, and my husband was at the front of the queue.'

'And so the Spicers came to rule Dagoska. I am waiting for your reasons, Magister Eider.'