“Any other cunt wants to lend support to our defendant can come down and join her in the dock.” Judge’s black eyes swept the balconies, the benches. “No? No one?” A silence so complete it was a pressure on the ear. “Didn’t fucking think so.”

Sworbreck wrung his hands. “Citizeness Judge—”

“Sit the shit down, you posturing dunce!” she snarled back at him. “’Fore I send you to the Tower ahead!”

Sworbreck sat.

Judge turned her glare on Savine. “Let’s stop tickling the rim and come to the point. You’ve dressed like a nursemaid, and you’ve smiled at some orphans, and you’ve handed out a blanket or two, congratulations. But you are Savine dan Glokta. You are the daughter of not one tyrant, but two, not to mention the sister of a third.”

“Should I be punished for my birth?” she asked, but her voice was giving out. It sounded thin.

“I’ve seen folk convicted for less.” Judge nodded towards Orso’s cage. “But if you want weightier crimes, I understand you and the king knew each other a little better’n a brother and sister should.”

In spite of everything, she could not help looking at him. Could not help meeting his eye. Could not help feeling the same as she always had.

Judge followed the look between them, red brows high. “I mean to say, you’ll find no broader minds than mine, but even I get itchy around incest.”

Savine felt her face burning and knew she must look guilty as the plague. Knew she was guilty as the plague.

“I never knew… he was…” She could not even finish the sentence.

“Spare your blushes.” Judge waved a generous hand. “Put the brother-

fucking to one side. Put all the rest in the best baby-nurturing, orphan-housing, loaf-giving light you’ve got. Truth is you are a profiteer. You did exploit the working man, and woman, and child. You have built your palaces from their bones. You’re the worst o’ the old regime, squeezed into the shape of a woman. You’re fucking guilty, girl, guilty as Glustrod, and I know it, and you know it, and we all damn well know it.”

Savine did know it. The list of people she had used unrolled pitilessly before her. The desperate supplicants at the Solar Society. The partners she had bullied and blackmailed. The workers she had beaten and tortured. The children slaving in her mill in Valbeck. The soldiers buried in shallow graves at Stoffenbeck. Even her own husband, who she had deftly prodded into serving her ambitions, then left him to pay the bill with his arm and his leg.

One cannot climb high without standing on others, and all she had wanted was to reach the top. What a waste it all seemed now. There is nothing at the summit, in the end, but a long drop.

A different kind of murmur was coming from the galleries, and not nearly so friendly.

“But this court is not without mercy!” called Judge, holding up a hand for silence. “We see you’ve tried to make amends. We see you’ve done some good. The same hands that clawed profits from the people have given ’em back to the needy. You’ve put a toe on righteous earth, even if you left the other foot on evil! So we’ll give you a chance. To come down on the side o’ the saints, as your Gurkish friends might say.”