Somewhere in the shadows a clock vomited up a few sluggish chimes. Good and late already. The more shrivelled the man, the longer the wait on his pleasure. But I can be patient, when I must. I have no dazzling banquets, no ecstatic crowds, no beautiful women waiting breathlessly for my arrival, after all. Not any more. The Gurkish saw to that, in the darkness beneath the Emperors prisons. He pressed his tongue into his empty gums and grunted as he shifted his leg, needles from it shooting up his back and making his eyelid flicker. I can be patient. The one good thing about every step being an ordeal. You soon learn how to tread carefully.

The door beside him opened sharply and Glokta snapped his head round, doing his best to hide a grimace as his neck bones crunched. Lord Ingelstad stood in the doorway: a big, fatherly man with a ruddy complexion. He offered up a friendly smile as he beckoned Glokta into the room. Quite as though this were a social call, and a welcome one at that.

'I must apologise for keeping you waiting, Superior. I have had so many visitors since I arrived in Adua, my head is in quite a spin!' Let us hope it doesn't spin right off. 'So very many visitors!' Visitors with offers, no doubt. Offers for your vote. Offers for your help in choosing our next king. But my offer, I think, you will find painful to refuse. 'Will you take wine, Superior?'

'No, my Lord, thank you.' Glokta hobbled painfully over the threshold. 'I will not stay long. I, too, have a great deal of business to attend to.' Elections don't rig themselves, you know.

'Of course, of course. Please be seated.' Ingelstad dropped happily into one of his chairs and gestured to another. It took Glokta a moment to get settled, lowering himself carefully, then shifting his hips until he discovered a position in which his back did not give him constant pain. 'And what did you wish to discuss with me?'

'I have come on behalf of Arch Lector Sult. I hope you will not be offended if I am blunt, but his Eminence wants your vote.'

The nobleman's heavy features twisted in feigned puzzlement. Very badly feigned, as it goes. 'I am not sure that I understand. My vote on what issue?'

Glokta wiped some wet from beneath his leaking eye. Must we engage in such undignified dancing? You have not the build for it, and I have not the legs. 'On the issue of who will next occupy the throne, Lord Ingelstad.'

'Ah. That.' Yes, that. Idiot. 'Superior Glokta, I hope I will not disappoint you, or his Eminence, a man for whom I have nothing but the highest respect,' and he bowed his head with an exaggerated show of humility, 'when I say that I could not, in all good conscience, allow myself to be influenced in any one direction. I feel that I, and all the members of the Open Council, have been given a sacred trust. I am duty bound to vote for the man who seems to me to be the very finest candidate, from the many excellent men available.' And he assumed a grin of the greatest self-satisfaction.