'If your contract is ended, why are you still in the city?'

'Because… because…' The Navigator's eyes darted round the room.

'Oh, dear me, no.' The heavy hammer came down with all of Glokta's crippled strength and crushed Longfoot's big toe flat with a dull thud. The Navigator gaped at it, eyes bulging from his head. Ah, that beautiful, horrible moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the hurt. Here it comes. Here it comes. Here it— Longfoot let vent a great shriek, squirmed around in his chair, face contorted with agony.

'I know the feeling,' said Glokta, wincing as he wriggled his own remaining toes around in his sweaty boot. 'I truly, truly do, and I sympathise. That blinding flash of pain, then up washes the sick and dizzy faintness of the shattered bone, then the slow pulsing up the leg that seems to drag the water from your eyes and make your whole body tremble.' Longfoot gasped, and whimpered, tears glistening on his cheeks. 'And what comes next? Weeks of limping? Months of hobbling, crippled? And if the next blow is to on your ankle?' Glokta prodded at Longfoot's shin with the end of the hammer. 'Or square on your kneecap, what then? Will you ever walk again? I know the feelings well, believe me.' So how can I inflict them now, on someone else? He shrugged his twisted shoulders. One of life's mysteries. 'Another?' And he raised the hammer again.

'No! No! Wait!' wailed Longfoot. 'The priest! God help me, a priest came to the Order! A Gurkish priest! He said that one day the First of the Magi might ask for a Navigator, and that he wished to be told of it! That he wished to be told what happened afterward! He made threats, terrible threats, we had no choice but to obey! I was waiting in the city for another Navigator, who will convey the news! Only this morning I told him everything I have told you! I was about to leave Adua, I swear!'

'What was the name of this priest?' Longfoot said nothing, his wet eyes wide, the breath hissing in his nose. Oh, why must they test me? Glokta looked down at the Navigator's toe. It was already starting to swell and go blotchy, streaks of black blood-blisters down each side, the nail deep, brooding purple, edged with angry red. Glokta ground the end of the hammer's handle savagely into it. 'The name of the priest! His name! His name! His—'

'Aargh! Mamun! God help me! His name was Mamun!' Mamun. Yulwei spoke of him, in Dagoska. The first apprentice of the Prophet himself. Together they broke the Second Law, together they ate the flesh of men.

'Mamun. I see. Now.' Glokta craned further forward, ignoring an ugly tingling up his twisted spine. 'What is Bayaz doing here?'