So Logen shrugged again. 'It's nothing. What a man should do for his crew, that's all. I owe you a lot more. I know that. I can never pay what I owe you.'

'No. But it's some kind o' start at it, far as I'm concerned.' Shivers got up and took a step away. Then he stopped, and turned back, firelight shifting over one side of his hard, angry face. 'It ain't ever as simple, is it, as a man is just good or bad? Not even you. Not even Bethod. Not anybody.'

'No.' Logen sat and watched the flames moving. 'No, it ain't ever that simple. We all got our reasons. Good men and bad men. It's all a matter of where you stand.'

The Perfect Couple

« ^ »

One of Jezal's countless footmen perched on the stepladder, and lowered the crown with frowning precision onto his head, its single enormous diamond flashing pricelessly bright. He gave it the very slightest twist back and forth, the fur-trimmed rim gripping Jezal's skull. He climbed back down, whisked the stepladder away, and surveyed the result. So did half a dozen of his fellows. One of them stepped forward to tweak the precise positioning of Jezal's gold-embroidered sleeve. Another grimaced as he flicked an infinitesimal speck of dust from his pure white collar.

'Very good,' said Bayaz, nodding thoughtfully to himself. 'I believe that you are ready for your wedding.'

The peculiar thing, now that Jezal had a rare moment to think about it, was that he had not, in any way of which he was aware, agreed to get married. He had neither proposed nor accepted a proposal. He had never actually said 'yes' to anything. And yet here he was, preparing to be joined in matrimony in a few short hours, and to a woman he scarcely knew at all. It had not escaped his notice that in order to have been managed so quickly the arrangements must have been well underway before Bayaz had even suggested the notion. Perhaps before Jezal had even been crowned… but he supposed it was not so very surprising. Since his enthronement he had drifted helplessly through one incomprehensible event after another, like a man shipwrecked and struggling to keep his head above water, out of sight of land, dragged who knew where by unseen, irresistible currents. But considerably better dressed.

He was gradually starting to realise that the more powerful a man became, the fewer choices he really had. Captain Jezal dan Luthar had been able to eat what he liked, to sleep when he liked, to see who he liked. His August Majesty King Jezal the First, on the other hand, was bound by invisible chains of tradition, expectation, and responsibility, that prescribed every aspect of his existence, however small.

Bayaz took a discerning step forward. 'Perhaps the top button undone here—'

Jezal jerked away with some annoyance. The attention of the Magus to every tiny detail of his life was becoming more than tiresome. It seemed that he could scarcely use the latrine without the old bastard poking through the results. 'I know how to button a coat!' he snapped. 'Should I expect to find you here tonight when I bring my new wife to our bed-chamber, ready to instruct me on how best to use my prick?'