“If they don’t like it they can find another fucking job, can’t they? They weren’t my idea.”

“Then whose—ah!”

She twisted her fingers in his hair and dragged his head painfully round so she was speaking right into his face. “Forget about them! You came here for me, didn’t you?”

“Yes… yes, of course!”

“Say it, then!” Her hand pressed up hard against his trousers, almost painful, but not quite.

“Ah… I came for you.”

“Well? Here I am.” And her fingers fumbled with his belt and dragged it open. “No need to be shy now.”

He tried to catch her wrist. “Ardee, wait—” Her other hand caught him a stinging slap right across the face and knocked his head sideways, hard enough to make his ears ring.

“I’ve been sitting here for six months doing nothing,” she hissed in his face, words slightly slurred. “Do you know how bored I’ve been? And now you’re telling me to wait? Fuck yourself!” She dug roughly into his trousers and dragged his prick out, rubbing at him with one hand, squeezing at his face with the other while he closed his eyes and gasped shallow breaths into her mouth, nothing in his mind but her fingers.

Her teeth nipped at his lip, almost painful, and then harder. “Ah,” he grunted. “Ah!” She was decidedly biting him. Biting with a will, as though his lip were a piece of gristle to be chewed through. He tried to pull away but the table was at his back and she had him fast. The pain was almost as great as the shock, and then, as the biting went on, considerably greater.

“Aargh!” He grabbed hold of her wrist with one hand and twisted it behind her back, yanked her arm and shoved her down onto the table. He heard her gasp as her face cracked hard against the polished wood.

He stood over her, frozen with dismay, his mouth salty with blood. He could see one dark eye through Ardee’s tangled hair, expressionless, watching him over her twisted shoulder. The hair moved round her mouth as she breathed, fast. He let go of her wrist, suddenly, saw her arm move, the marks left by his fingers angry pink on her skin. Her hand slid down and took hold of a fistful of her dress and pulled it up, took another fistful and pulled it up, until her skirts were all tangled around her waist and her bare, pale arse was slicking up at him.

Well. He might have been a new man, but he was still a man.

With each thrust her head tapped against the plaster, and his skin slapped against the backs of her thighs, and his trousers sagged further and further down his legs until his sword-hilt was scraping against the carpet. With each thrust the table made an outraged creaking, louder and louder every time, as though they were fucking over the back of some disapproving old man. With each thrust she made a grunt, and he made a gasp, not of pleasure or pain in particular, but a necessary moving of air in response to vigorous exercise. It was all over with merciful swiftness.

So often in life, moments that are long anticipated prove to be a profound disappointment. This was undoubtedly one of those occasions. When he had spent all those interminable hours out on the plain, saddle-sore and in fear of his life, dreaming of seeing Ardee again, a quick and violent coupling on the table in her tasteless living-room had not been quite what he’d had in mind. When they were done he pushed his wilting prick back inside his trousers, guilty, and ashamed, and miserable in the extreme. The sound of his belt-buckle clinking made him want to smash his face against the wall.

She got up, and let her skirts drop, and smoothed them down, her face to the floor. He reached for her shoulder. “Ardee—” She shook him angrily off, and walked away. She tossed something on the floor behind her and it rattled on the carpet. The key to the door.

“You can go.”

“I can what?”

“Go! You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

He licked disbelieving at his bloody lip. “You think this is what I wanted?” Nothing but silence. “I love you.”

She gave a kind of cough, as if she was about to be sick, and she slowly shook her head. “Why?”

He wasn’t sure he knew. He wasn’t sure what he meant, or how he felt any more. He wanted to start again, but he didn’t know how. The whole thing was an inexplicable nightmare from which he hoped soon to wake. “What do you mean, why?”

She bent over, fists clenched, and screamed at him. “I’m fucking nothing! Everyone who knows me hates me! My own father hated me! My own brother!” Her voice cracked, and her face screwed up, and her mouth spat with anger and misery. “Everything I touch I ruin! I’m nothing but shit! Why can’t you see it?” And she put her hands over her face, and turned her back on him, and her shoulders shook.

He blinked at her, his own lip trembling. The old Jezal dan Luthar would most likely have made a quick grab for that key, sprinted from the room and off down the street, never to come back, and counted himself lucky to have got away so easily. The new one thought about it.

He thought about it hard. But he had more character than that. Or so he told himself.

“I love you.” The words tasted like lies in his bloody mouth, but he had gone far too far now to turn back. “I still love you.” He crossed the room, and though she tried to push him off he put his arms around her. “Nothing’s changed.” He pushed his fingers into her hair, and held her head against his chest while she cried softly, sobbing snot down the front of his garish uniform.

“Nothing’s changed,” he whispered. But of course it had.

They did not sit so close that it was obvious they were together. Two men who, in the course of their daily business, happen to have placed their arses on the same piece of wood. It was early morning, and although the sun cast a stinging glare in Glokta’s eyes and lent the dewy grass, the rustling trees, the shifting water in the park a golden glow, there was still a treacherous nip to the air. Lord Wetterlant was evidently an early riser. But then so am I. Nothing encourages a man to leave his bed like being kept awake all night by searing cramps.

His Lordship reached into a paper bag, drew out a pinch of bread dust between thumb and forefinger, and tossed it at his feet. A mob of self-important ducks had already gathered, and now they fussed at each other furiously in their efforts to get at the crumbs while the old nobleman watched them, his lined face a slack and emotionless mask.

“I am under no illusions, Superior,” he droned, almost without moving his lips and without looking up at all. “I am not a big enough man to compete in this contest, even should I wish to. But I am big enough to get something from it. I intend to get what I can.” Straight to business, then, for once. No need to talk about the weather, or how the children are, or the relative merits of different-coloured ducks.

“There is no shame in that.”

“I do not think so. I have a family to feed, and it grows by the year. I strongly advise against too many children.” Hah, That shouldn’t be a problem. “And then I keep dogs, and they must be fed also, and have great appetites.” Wetterlant gave a long, wheezing sigh, and tossed the birds another pinch of bread. “The higher you rise, Superior, the more dependents cry at you for scraps; that is a sad fact.”

“You carry a large responsibility, my Lord.” Glokta grimaced at a spasm in his leg, and cautiously stretched it out until he felt his knee click. “How large, might I ask?”

“I have my own vote, of course, and control the votes of three other chairs on the Open Council. Families tied to my own by bonds of land, of friendship, of marriage, and of long tradition.” Such bonds may prove insubstantial in times such as these.

“You are certain of those three?”

Wetterlant turned his cold eyes on Glokta. “I am no fool, Superior. I keep my dogs well chained. I am certain of them. As certain as we can be of anything, in these uncertain times.” He tossed more crumbs into the grass and the ducks quacked, and pecked, and beat at each other with their wings.