What have I done? Consigned a city full of people to death or slavery, for what? For the Kings honour? A drooling halfwit who can scarcely control his bowels, let alone a country. For my pride? Hah. I threw it all away long ago, along with my teeth. For Sult's approval? My reward is like to be a rope collar and a long drop.

He could just see the darker outline of the rock against the dark night sky, the craggy form of the citadel perched on top of it. Perhaps even the slender shapes of the spires of the Great Temple. All moving off into the past.

What could I have done differently? I could have thrown in my lot with Eider and the rest. Given the city away to the Gurkish without a fight. Would that have changed anything? Glokta licked sourly at his empty gums. The Emperor would have set about his purges just the same. Sult would have sent for me, just as he has done. Little differences, hardly worth commenting on. What did Shickel say? Few indeed are those who get a choice.

A chill breeze blew and Glokta pulled his coat tight around him, folded his arms across his chest, winced as he worked his numb foot back and forward in his boot, trying to make the blood flow. The city was nothing but a dusting of pinprick lights, far away.

It is just as Eider said—all so the Arch Lector and his like can point at a map and say this dot or that is ours. His mouth twitched into a smile. And after all the efforts, all the sacrifices, all the scheming, and plotting, and killing, we could not even hold the city. All that pain, for what?

There was no reply, of course. Only the calm waves lapping against the side of the boat, the soft creaking of the rowlocks, the soothing slap, slap of the oars on the water. He wanted to feel disgust at himself. Guilt at what he had done. Pity for all those left behind to Gurkish mercy. The way other men might. The way I might have, long ago. But it was hard to feel much of anything beyond the overwhelming tiredness and the endless, nagging ache up his leg, through his back, into his neck. He winced as he sagged back on his wooden seat, searching, as always, for a less painful position. There is no need to punish myself, after all. Punishment will come soon enough.

Jewel of Cities

Jewel of Cities

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