'And you are yourself ready to leave, I hope?' He followed her into the warm living room, shutters and curtains closed, illuminated by the shifting glow from the coals on the fire.

'In fact, I have decided to stay in the city.'

'Really? The tragic princess, pining in her empty castle? Abandoned by her faithless servants, wringing her helpless hands while her enemies surround the moat?' Glokta snorted. 'Are you sure you fit the role?'

'Better than you fit that of the knight on the white charger, come to rescue the damsel with blade a-flashing.' She looked him scornfully up and down. 'I'd hoped for a hero with at least half his teeth.'

'I thought you'd be used to getting less than you hoped for by now.' I know that I am.

'What can I say? I'm a romantic. Have you come here only to puncture my dreams?'

'No. I do that without trying. I had in mind a drink and a conversation which did not include the subtext of my mutilated corpse.'

'It is hard to say at this stage what direction our conversation might take, but the drink I can promise you.' She poured him a glass and he tossed it back in four long swallows. He held it out again, sucking his sweet gums.

'In all seriousness, the Gurkish are no more than a week from taking Adua under siege. You should leave as soon as possible.'

She filled his glass again, and then her own. 'Haven't you noticed that half the city has had the same idea? Such flea-bitten nags not requisitioned by the army are changing hands at five hundred marks a piece. Nervous citizens are pouring out to every corner of Midderland. Columns of defenceless refugees, wandering through a mass of mud at a mile a day as the weather turns cold, laden down with everything of value they possess, easy prey for every brigand within a hundred miles.'

'True,' Glokta had to admit as he wriggled his painful way into a chair near the fire.

'And where would I go to anyway? I swear I have not a single friend or relative anywhere in Midderland. Would you have me hide in the woods, lighting fires by rubbing sticks together and hunting down squirrels with my bare hands? How the hell would I stay drunk in those circumstances? No, thank you, I will be safer here, and considerably more comfortable. I have coal for the fire and the cellar is full to capacity. I can hold out for months.' She waved a floppy hand towards the wall. 'The Gurkish are coming from the west, and we are on the eastern side of town. I could not be safer in the palace itself, I daresay.'