‘No! We’re not splitting up. You’ve a better chance sticking—’
‘What the hell?’ While they’d been arguing, Ardee had stepped stiffly from the queue and walked straight towards the Inquisitor. ‘What’s she doing?’ If that useless bloody stray drew the wrong sort of attention, they’d be finished. But there was nothing Broad could do. Dive from the column to grab her, he’d only make it worse.
One of the Practicals blocked her path, stick gripped tight in his fists. ‘Get back with the others, girl.’
‘I am Savine dan Glokta!’ she called in a ringing voice that seemed to carry for miles in the still evening. ‘Daughter of His Eminence the Arch Lector! I demand to speak to Crown Prince Orso at once!’
There was a pause while the Inquisitor stared at her. While the Practicals stared at her. While everyone stared at her, Broad included. He couldn’t believe it. After all they’d done for her, she’d land them on the scaffold.
But there was something different about her voice. So pure, and smooth, and commanding. Something different about the way she held herself, stiffly upright with her shoulders back, her long, thin neck stretched out and her sharp jaw proudly raised. She looked half a head taller of a sudden.
‘At once!’ she snarled at the Inquisitor.
He stared at her for a moment longer, then bowed his head. ‘Of course.’
The Practical looked as dumbstruck as a man could with a mask on. ‘We’re just going to—’
‘If this young lady is who she claims to be then she deserves our immediate assistance. If she is not … we’ll soon find out. And the world feels like a brighter place if you believe in people’s fundamental honesty.’ He offered his hand with extravagant politeness.
‘Thank you, Inquisitor,’ she said. ‘These three are with me.’
The Inquisitor gave Broad a doubtful look up and down. ‘I cannot exempt everyone—’
‘Of course not,’ said Ardee. Or Savine. Or whoever the hell she was. ‘Just these three. I must insist.’
‘Very well.’ The Inquisitor beckoned them to follow. Broad looked at Liddy, but what could she do? What could any of them do?
‘Better hope that girl’s telling the truth,’ the Practical growled in Broad’s ear as he followed them up the road through the gathering darkness.
‘I’m surprised as you are,’ muttered Broad, then nearly bit his tongue as the man shoved him and his boot caught in a rut. He was sorely tempted to punch him in the head, but it would only have got him killed and perhaps his family, too. Fighting every fight you’re offered doesn’t make you a big man, it makes you a fool.
‘Did you know about this?’ he hissed out of the corner of his mouth at May.
‘’Course I did. I arranged it.’
‘You bloody what?’
Liddy was staring at her from the other side. ‘What did you do, May?’
‘What I had to.’ May stared straight ahead, jaw muscles working on the side of her face. ‘It’s high time someone put this family first.’
The New Woman
Savine chewed at her cracked lips. She fussed at the frayed hems of the horrible, over-starched dress they had given her. She picked at the peeling skin around her broken fingernails.
She used to take such particular care over her hands. Their elegance had often been commented upon. Now, however she tugged at her sleeves, there was no hiding the scabs, cracks, callouses. All she had been through, cut into her crooked fingers.
She was no longer Ardee, the little lost waif. But she certainly was not Savine dan Glokta, feared and fearless scorpion-queen of investors. She used to be drawn to her reflection like a bee to a bloom. Now she shunned the mirror, dreading what she might see there. But then, she dreaded everything.
She knew she should have felt overwhelming relief to no longer be hungry. Joy to finally be clean. Blubbing gratitude for all the unlikely chances that had led to her salvation. She knew few who had been trapped in Valbeck were anywhere near so fortunate.
But all she felt was a constant, nagging terror. More like a hostage taken than a prisoner freed. As bad as when she fled through the crazed streets of Valbeck on the day of the uprising. Worse, because then fear had made sense. Now, she was supposed to be safe.
She heard voices outside and spun, heart suddenly pounding. On some sluggish instinct from long ago, she thought of arranging herself to best advantage. A lady of taste should always be discovered in the midst of something more important. She reached up to adjust her wig, realised there was nothing there but her own shapeless, graceless, colourless fuzz. She ended up frozen, less a beauty arranged for a portrait, more a burglar surprised in a darkened hallway, one scabbed hand twisting the other as someone ripped the flap aside and ducked into the tent.
Orso.
The red and gold of his uniform looked impossibly vivid. In Valbeck, towards the end, everything had been the colour of dirt. He looked weightier than he used to. Or perhaps she was so used to seeing everyone famished that the merely well fed looked like members of another species. He had the strangest expression when he saw her. Horror? Pity? Disgust? He gave a kind of shudder and put a hand over his eyes, as though the sight of her was painful.
‘It is you,’ he whispered. ‘Thank the Fates.’ He took a step towards her but stopped awkwardly mid-stride. ‘Are you … hurt?’
‘No.’ They both knew she was lying, and not even with any conviction. She was mauled inside and out. She was torn apart and badly stitched back together.
‘Good.’ He forced a crooked smile. ‘You look well.’
She could not smother a bark of bitter laughter. ‘You always were a champion liar, Orso, but that one’s a little too big even for you to lift.’
‘You look beautiful to me,’ he said, holding her eye. ‘Whatever you might think.’
She had no idea what to say to that. She was a wretched understudy, kicked from the wings onto the empty stage and gazing horrified towards the crowd, not knowing her lines. Not even knowing the play.
When she finally spoke, it was a shock how calm she sounded. ‘There were some people with me. A family. I wouldn’t have—’
‘They are safe and cared for. You don’t have to worry about anything.’
‘Not worry,’ she whispered. She was nothing more than a sheaf of worries, held together by a shitty dress. ‘I’m sorry … you had to come here,’ she managed to dredge up. ‘I know how much … you wanted to go North.’
‘When I heard you were in danger, I didn’t think twice. I didn’t think once. Not that your father or mine were going to give me any choice. Probably best I leave the North to men’s men like Leo dan Brock. I think we can all agree I’m not really cut out to be a soldier.’
‘The uniform suits you.’
‘I may be a sheep on the battlefield, but when it comes to wearing the uniforms, I’m an absolute tiger.’
There had been a time she could talk for hours and beautifully say nothing. Now it felt obscene. Swapping light-hearted pleasantries while one party is shitting themselves all over the floor.
She felt an entirely unreasonable stab of fury. Why hadn’t he come sooner? Why had he sat out here waiting, the useless fucking coward? She wanted to tear at him with her nails. Instead, she vomited up compliments. ‘From where I stand, it seems you managed the whole business rather well.’
‘More by luck than skill, I rather think.’
‘Everyone’s alive.’ A flash of blood spattering that guard’s face as his arm was dragged into the grinding gears. Savine had to cough, swallow acid. ‘Most. Most are.’
‘You are. That’s all that matters. I’m so sorry it took me so long. To get here. To find you.’ He looked into her eyes with an intensity she could not stand to meet. ‘To realise … what I feel for you. I don’t see how things can carry on between us … the way they did before.’