Severard unravelled himself and got up with the usual grin around his eyes. 'Alright, chief, so what's all the—'

Cosca stepped through the gate and wandered lazily across the broken paving, tapping a few lumps of masonry away with the toe of one shabby boot. He stopped beside a ruined fountain and scraped some muck out of it with a finger. 'Nice place. Nice and…' He waved the finger around, and the muck with it. 'Crumbly.' His mercenaries were already spreading out slowly around the rubble-strewn courtyard. Patched coats and tattered cloaks twitched back to display weapons of every size and shape. Edges, points, spikes and flanges glinted in the shifting light from their lanterns, their steel as smooth and clean as their faces were rough and dirty.

'Who the hell are these?' asked Severard.

'Friends.'

'They don't look too friendly.'

Glokta showed his Practical the yawning hole in his front teeth. 'Well. I suppose that all depends whose side you're on.'

The last traces of Severard's smile had vanished. His eyes flickered nervously around the yard. The eyes of the guilty. How well we know them. We see them on our prisoners. We see them in the mirror, when we dare to look. One might have hoped for better from a man of his experience, but holding the blade is a poor preparation for being cut by it. I should know. Severard dashed towards the house, quick as a rabbit, but he only got a step before a heavy white hand chopped into the side of his neck and flung him senseless on the broken paving.

'Take him downstairs, Frost. You know the way.'

'Downthairth. Unh.' The hulking albino dragged Severard's limp body over his shoulder and set off towards the front door.

'I have to say,' said Cosca, flicking the scum carelessly off his finger, 'that I like your way with your men, Superior. Discipline, I've always admired it.'

'Fine advice from the least disciplined man in the Circle of the World.'

'I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes.' Cosca stretched his chin up and scratched at his scabby neck. 'The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.'

'Huh,' grunted Glokta as he laboured up the steps. A curse we all have to bear. Round and round in circles we go, clutching at successes that we never grasp, endlessly tripping over the same old failures. Truly, life is the misery we endure between disappointments.

They stepped through the empty doorway and into the deeper darkness of the entrance hall. Cosca held his lamp high, staring up towards the ragged roof, his boots squelching heedless in the bird droppings spattering the floor. 'A palace!' His voice echoed back from the shattered staircases, the empty doorways, the naked rafters high above.