Her smile grew somewhat broader, if anything. 'I hope my men didn't hurt you. I did ask them to be gentle. At least for the time being.'

'A gentle kidnapping is still a kidnapping, though, don't you find?'

'Kidnapping is such an ugly word. Why don't we think of it as an invitation difficult to resist? At least I let you keep your clothes, no?'

'That particular favour is a mercy to us both, believe me. An invitation to what, might I ask, beyond a painful manhandling and a brief conversation?'

'I'm hurt that you need more. But there was something else, since you mention it.' She pared away another sliver of nail with her scissors, and her eyes rolled up to his. 'A little debt left over, from Dagoska. I fear that I will not sleep easily until it is repaid.'

A few weeks in a black cell and a choking to the point of death? What form of repayment might that earn me? 'Please, then,' hissed Glokta through his gums, his eyelid flickering as he watched those blades snip, snip, snip. 'I can scarcely stand the suspense.'

'The Gurkish are coming.'

He paused for a moment, wrong-footed. 'Coming here?'

'Yes. To Midderland. To Adua. To you. They have built a fleet, in secret. They began building it after the last war, and now it is complete. Ships to rival anything the Union has.' She tossed her scissors down on the table and gave a long sigh. 'Or so I hear.'

The Gurkish fleet, just as my midnight visitor Yulwei told me. Rumours and ghosts, perhaps. But rumours are not always lies. 'When will they arrive?'

'I really couldn't say. The mounting of such an expedition is a colossal work of organisation. But then the Gurkish have always been so very much better organised than us. That's what makes doing business with them such a pleasure.'

My own dealings with them have been less than delightful, but still. 'In what numbers will they come?'

'A very great number, I imagine.'

Glokta snorted. 'Forgive me if I regard the words of a proven traitor with a certain scepticism, especially as you are rather thin on the details.'

'Have it your way. You're here to be warned, not convinced. I owe you that much, I think, for giving me my life.'

How wonderfully old-fashioned of you. 'And that is all?'

She spread her hands. 'Can a lady not trim her nails without giving offence?'

'Could you not simply have written?' snapped Glokta, 'and spared me the chafing on my under-arms?'

'Oh, come now. You never struck me as a man to bridle at a little chafing. Besides, it has given us the chance to renew a thoroughly enjoyable friendship. And you have to allow me my little moment of triumph, after what you put me through.'