No crowds of cheering commoners? No carpet of flower petals? No archway of drawn swords? No bevy of swooning maidens? It was hardly too great a surprise. There had been none the last time he returned from the South. Crowds rarely cheer too loudly for the defeated, no matter how hard they fought, how great their sacrifices, how long the odds. Maidens might wet themselves over cheap and worthless victories, but they don't so much as blush for 'I did my best'. Nor will the Arch Lector, I fear.

A particularly vicious wave slapped at the sea wall and threw a cloud of sullen spray all over Glokta's back. He stumbled forward, cold water dripping from his cold hands, slipped and almost fell, tottered gasping across the quay and clung to the slimy wall of a crumbling shed at the far side. He looked up and saw the two guards staring at him.

'Is there something?' he snarled, and they turned their backs, muttering and pulling up their collars against the weather. Glokta fumbled his coat tight around him, felt the tails snatching at his wet legs. A few months in the sun and you feel as though you'll never be cold again. How soon we forget. He frowned up and down the empty wharves. How soon we all forget.

'Ome ageh.' Frost looked pleased as he stepped off the gangplank with Glokta's box under his arm.

'You don't much like hot weather, do you?'

The Practical shook his heavy head, half-grinning into the winter drizzle, white hair spiky with wet. Severard followed behind him, squinting up at the grey clouds. He paused for a moment at the end of the plank, then he stepped off onto the stones of the quay.

'Good to be back,' he said.

I only wish I could share your enthusiasm, but I cannot relax quite yet. 'His Eminence has sent for me, and judging by the way we left things in Dagoska, I think it more than likely that the meeting will… not go well.' A spectacular understatement. 'You had better stay out of sight for a couple of days.'

'Out of sight? I don't plan to see outside of a whorehouse for a week.'

'Very wise. And Severard. In case we don't see each other again. Good luck.'

The Practical's eyes glinted. 'Always.' Glokta watched him stroll off through the rain towards the seedier parts of town. Just another day for Practical Severard. Never thinking more than an hour ahead. What a gift.

'Damn your miserable country and damn its bloody weather,' Vitari grumbled in her sing-song accent. 'I have to go and speak to Sult.'

'Why so do I!' cried Glokta with exaggerated glee. 'What a charming coincidence!' He offered her his bent elbow. 'We can make a couple, and visit his Eminence together!'

She stared back at him. 'Alright.'