They rose, quickly, quietly, and in good order. Torlichorm, Halleck, Kroy and all the rest filed slowly from the room. Glokta himself struggled up, his leg still aching with the memory of the morning's cramps, only to find that the Lord Chamberlain had, once again, remained behind. And he looks far from amused.

Hoff waited until the door shut before he spoke. 'Imagine my surprise,' he snapped, 'to hear of your recent marriage.'

'A swift and understated ceremony.' Glokta showed the Lord Chamberlain the wreckage of his front teeth. 'Young love, you understand, brooks no delays. I apologise if the lack of an invitation offended you.'

'An invitation?' growled Hoff, frowning mightily. 'Hardly! This is not what we discussed!'

'Discussed? I believe we have a misunderstanding. Our mutual friend,' and Glokta let his eyes move significantly to the empty thirteenth chair at the far end of the table, 'left me in charge. Me. No other. He deems it necessary that the Closed Council speak with one voice. From now on, that voice will sound remarkably like mine.'

Hoff's ruddy face had paled slightly. 'Of course, but—'

'You are aware, I suppose, that I lived through two years of torture? Two years in hell, so I can stand before you now. Or lean before you, twisted as an old tree root. A crippled, shambling, wretched mockery of a man, eh, Lord Hoff? Let us be honest with one another. Sometimes I lose control of my own leg. My own eyes. My own face.' He snorted. 'If you can call it a face. My bowels too, are rebellious. I often wake up daubed in my own shit. I find myself in constant pain, and the memories of everything that I have lost nag at me, endlessly.' He felt his left eye twitching. Let it twitch. 'So you can see how, despite my constant efforts to be a man of sunny temper, I find that I despise the world, and everything in it, and myself most of all. A regrettable state of affairs, for which there is no remedy.'

The Lord Chamberlain licked his lips uncertainly. 'You have my sympathy, but I fail to see the relevance.'

Glokta came suddenly very close, ignoring a spasm up his leg, pressing Hoff back against the table. 'Your sympathy is less than worthless, and the relevance is this. Knowing what I am, what I have endured, what I still endure… can you suppose there is anything in this world I fear? Any act I will shrink from? The most unbearable pain of others is at the worst… an irritation to me.' Glokta jerked even closer, letting his lips work back from his ruined teeth, letting his face tremble, and his eye weep. 'Knowing all that… can you possibly think it wise… for a man to stand where you stand now… and make threats? Threats against my wife? Against my unborn child?'