And what makes you suppose that I want to know about it? 'Wanted, you say? How wonderful. And now?'

She looked miserably down at the ground, and Glokta felt just the smallest trace of guilt. But guilt only really hurts when there's nothing else to worry about.

'It was hardly as if it was true love.' He saw the thin sinews in her neck moving as she swallowed. 'But somehow I always thought it would be me making a fool of him.'

'Huh.' How rarely any of us get what we expect.

The royal party processed gradually out of view, the last splendid courtiers and shining bodyguards tramping after them, the sound of rapturous applause creeping off towards the palace. Towards their glorious futures, and we guilty secrets are by no means invited.

'Here we stand,' murmured Ardee. 'The off-cuts.'

'The wretched leavings.'

'The rotten stalks.'

'I wouldn't worry over much.' Glokta gave a sigh. 'You are still young, clever, and passably pretty.'

'Epic praise indeed.'

'You have all your teeth and both your legs. A marked advantage over some of us. I do not doubt that you will soon find some other highborn idiot to entrap, and no harm done.'

She turned away from him, and hunched her shoulders, and he guessed that she was biting her lip. He winced, and lifted his hand to lay it on her shoulder… The same hand that cut Sepp dan Teufels fingers into slices, that pinched the nipples from Inquisitor Harker's chest, that carved one Gurkish emissary into pieces and burned another, that sent innocent men to rot in Angland, and so on, and so on… He jerked it back, and let it fall. Better to cry all the tears in the world than be touched by that hand. Comfort comes from other sources, and flows to other destinations. He frowned out across the square, and left Ardee to her misery.

The crowd cheered on.

It was a magnificent event, of course. No effort or expense had been spared. Jezal would not have been at all surprised if he had five hundred guests, and no more than a dozen of them known to himself in any significant degree. The Lords and Ladies of the Union. The great men of Closed and Open Councils. The richest and the most powerful, dressed in their best and on their best behaviour.

The Chamber of Mirrors was a fitting venue. The most spectacular room in the entire palace, as big as a battlefield and made to seem larger yet by the great mirrors which covered every wall, creating the disconcerting impression of dozens of other magnificent weddings, in dozens of other adjoining ballrooms. A multitude of candles flickered and waved on the tables, and in the sconces, and among the crystal chandeliers high above. Their soft light shone on the silverware, glittered on the jewels of the guests, and was reflected back from the dark walls, gleaming into the far, dim distance: a million points of light, like the stars in a dark night sky. A dozen of the Union's finest musicians played subtle and entrancing music, and it mingled with the swell of satisfied chatter, the clink and rattle of old money and new cutlery.