There were no piles of shining gold ingots on display. There was not so much as a single coin in evidence. Only pens, and ink, and heaps of dull paper. Valint and Balk's employees were not swaddled in fabulous robes such as Magister Kault of the Mercers had worn. They did not sport flashing jewels as Magister Eider of the Spicers had. They were small, grey-dressed men with serious expressions. The only flashing was from the odd pair of studious eye-glasses.

So this is what true wealth looks like. This is how true power appears. The austere temple of the golden goddess. He watched the clerks working at their neat stacks of documents, at their neat desks arranged in neat rows. There the acolytes, inducted into the lowest mysteries of the church. His eyes flickered to those waiting. Merchants and moneylenders, shopkeepers and shysters, traders and tricksters in long queues, or waiting nervously on hard chairs around the hard walls. Fine clothes, perhaps, but anxious manners. The fearful congregation, ready to cower should the deity of commerce show her vengeful streak.

But I am not her creature. Glokta shouldered his way past the longest queue, the tip of his cane squealing loud against the tiles, snarling, 'I am crippled!' if one of the merchants dared to look his way.

The clerk blinked at him when he reached the front of the line. 'How may I—'

'Mauthis,' barked Glokta.

'And who shall I say is—'

'The cripple.' Convey me to the high priest, that I might cleanse my crimes in banking notes.

'I cannot simply—'

'You are expected!' Another clerk, a few rows back, had stood up from his desk. 'Please come with me.'

Glokta gave the unhappy queue a toothless leer as he limped out between the desks toward a door in the far, panelled wall, but his smile did not last. Beyond it, a set of high steps rose up, light filtering down from a narrow window at the top.

What is it about power, that it has to be higher up than everyone else? Can a man not be powerful on the ground floor? He cursed and struggled up after his impatient guide, then dragged his useless leg down a long hallway with many high doors on either side. The clerk leaned forward and humbly knocked at one, waited for a muffled 'Yes?' and opened it.

Mauthis sat behind a monumental desk watching Glokta hobble over the threshold. His face could have been carved from wood for all the warmth or welcome it displayed. On the expanse of blood-coloured leather before him pens, and ink, and neat piles of papers were arranged with all the merciless precision of recruits on a parade ground.

'The visitor you were expecting, sir.' The clerk hastened forward with a sheaf of documents. 'And there are also these for your attention.'

Mauthis turned his emotionless eyes to them. 'Yes… yes… yes… yes… all these to Talins…' Glokta did not wait to be asked. And I've been in pain for far too long to pretend not to be. He took a lurching step and sagged into the nearest chair, stiff leather creaking uncomfortably under his aching arse. But it will serve.