Equally, at any rate. After all, whoever wins the vote will have but a brief celebration if the Gurkish arrive and slaughter the lot of us a week later. 'It has been suggested to me… that the Gurkish are preparing to invade Midderland.'

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause. Scarcely a promising reception, but we have set sail now. What else to do but steer straight for the storm? 'Invade?' sneered Goyle. 'With what?'

'It is not the first time I have been told they have a fleet.' Trying desperately to patch my foundering vessel. 'A considerable fleet, built in secret, after the last war. We could easily make some preparations, then if the Gurkish do come—'

'And what if you are wrong?' The Arch Lector was frowning mightily. 'From whom did this information come?'

Oh, dear me no, that would never do. Carlot dan Eider? Alive? But how? Body found floating by the docks… 'An anonymous source, Arch Lector.'

'Anonymous?' His Eminence glowered through narrowed eyes. 'And you would have me go to the Closed Council, at a time like this, and put before them the unproven gossip of your anonymous source?' The waves swamp the deck…

'I merely wished to alert your Eminence to the possibility—'

'When are they coming?' The torn sailcloth flaps in the gale…

'My informant did not—'

'Where will they land?' The sailors topple screaming from the rigging…

'Again, your Eminence I cannot—'

'What will be their numbers?' The wheel breaks off in my shaking hands…

Glokta winced, and decided not to speak at all.

'Then kindly refrain from distracting us with rumours,' sneered Sult, his lip twisted with contempt. The ship vanishes beneath the merciless waves, her cargo of precious warnings consigned to the deep, and her captain will not be missed. 'We have more pressing concerns than a legion of Gurkish phantoms!'

'Of course, your Eminence.' And if the Gurkish come, who will we hang? Oh, Superior Glokta, of course. Why ever did that damn cripple not speak up?

Sult's mind had already slipped back into its well-worn circles. 'We have thirty-one votes and Marovia has something over twenty. Thirty-one. Not enough to make the difference.' He shook his head grimly, blue eyes darting over the papers. As if there were some new way to look at them that would alter the terrible mathematics. 'Nowhere near enough.'

'Unless we were to come to an understanding with High Justice Marovia.' Again, a pause, even more uncomfortable than last time. Oh dear. I must have said that out loud.

'An understanding?' hissed Sult.