One set of windows faced northward, out towards the sea, on the steepest side of the rock, the other looked over the baking city. Both were equipped with heavy shutters. Outside it was a sheer drop over bare stone to jagged rocks and angry salt water. The door was six fingers thick, studded with iron, fitted with a heavy lock and four great bolts. Davoust was a cautious man, and with good reason, it would seem. So how could assassins have got in, and having got in, how could they remove the body?

He felt his mouth curving into a smile. How will they remove mine, when they come? Already my enemies mount up—the sneering Vurms, the punctilious Vissbruck, the merchants whose profits I threaten, the Practical who served Harker and Davoust, the natives with good reason to hate anyone who wears black, my old enemies the Gurkish, of course, and all that providing his Eminence does not get anxious at the lack of progress, and decide to have me replaced himself. Will anyone come searching for my twisted corpse, I wonder?

'Superior.'

Opening his eyes and lifting his head was a great and painful effort. Everything hurt from his exertions of the past few days. His neck clicked like a snapping twig with every movement, his back was stiff and brittle as a mirror, his leg veered between nagging agony and trembling numbness.

Shickel was standing in the doorway, head bowed. The cuts and bruises on her dark face were healed. There was no outward sign of the ordeal she had suffered in the cells below. She never looked him in the eye, though, always at the floor. Some wounds take time to heal, and others never do. I should know.

'What is it, Shickel?'

'Magister Eider sends you an invitation to dinner.'

'Does she indeed?'

The girl nodded.

'Send word that I will be honoured to attend.'

Glokta watched her pad out of the room, head bowed, then he sagged back onto his cushions. If I disappear tomorrow, at least I will have saved one person. Perhaps that means my life has not been a total waste of time. Sand dan Glokta, shield to the helpless. Is it ever too late to be… a good man?

'Please!' squealed Harker. 'Please! I know nothing!' He was bound tightly to his chair, unable to move his body far. But he makes up for it with his eyes. They darted back and forth over Glokta's instruments, glittering in the harsh lamplight on the scarred table top. Oh yes, you understand better than most how this will work. Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now. 'I know nothing!'