A Little Hatred (The Age of Madness #1) - Joe Abercrombie Page 0,61

voice gave her away. Just for a moment. Then she carried on fastening the buttons with her blood-crusted fingers, mask back on. ‘Is that a problem, Your Eminence?’

‘Not for me. We all yearn for a simple world, but people are imperfect, unpredictable, contradictory beasts with sympathies, and needs, and feelings. Even people like us.’

‘Feelings didn’t come in to it,’ said Vick, pulling on the trousers.

She had a sense he saw through her. ‘If they did not, you have demonstrated your commitment. If they did, you have gone one better and demonstrated your loyalty.’

‘I know what I owe you. I don’t forget.’

‘I try never to blame a person for what they think. Only for what they do. And you have done all I could have asked.’

Vick sat back in the chair, facing him. ‘Sibalt was the leader. I doubt any of the others know much.’

‘We will soon see.’

Vick looked him in his eyes. Those deep-set, fever-bright eyes. ‘They’re not bad people. They just want a little more.’

‘I thought feelings did not come into it?’ The Arch Lector’s left eye had started to weep, and he pulled out a white handkerchief and gently dabbed it. ‘You grew up in the camps, Inquisitor Teufel.’

‘You know I did, Your Eminence.’

‘You have seen humanity in the raw.’

‘About as raw as it gets, Your Eminence.’

‘So tell me. These good people. If they get a little more, what will they want then?’

Vick paused a moment, but there was nothing else to say. ‘A little more.’

‘Because that is the nature of people. And their little more must be taken from someone else, and that someone else will be less than delighted. One cannot eliminate unhappiness any more than one can eliminate darkness. The goal of government, you see,’ and the Arch Lector prodded at the air with his bony forefinger, ‘is to load the unhappiness onto those least able to make you suffer for it.’

‘What if you misjudge who can make you suffer?’

‘Misjudgement is as much a part of life as unhappiness. It is nice to hold the power and make the choices for everyone. But the risk of making any choice is always that you might make the wrong one. We must make our choices nonetheless. Fear of being a grown-up is a poor reason to remain a child.’

‘Of course, Your Eminence.’ There’s only so much you can do. Then you move on. The camps had taught her that lesson, too.

‘Where did they get the Gurkish Fire?’

‘They spoke of friends in Valbeck.’

‘More Breakers?’

‘A more organised group, perhaps. They mentioned the Weaver.’

Glokta gave no reaction to the name. But then he buried his feelings even more deeply than Vick did. If he still had any. However hard the camps, they were soft beside the place where he learned his lessons.

‘Valbeck is a large city,’ he said, ‘and growing every day. New mills. New slums. But it is somewhere to start. I shall ask your friends about their friends in Valbeck, and see if we can learn any more about this … Weaver.’

Just one more try, maybe. Vick sat forward, clasping her hands. ‘With your permission – I think the boy Tallow might be turned.’

‘You can ensure his loyalty?’

‘He has a sister. With her in custody …’

The Arch Lector flashed that toothless smile. ‘Very well. You can go next door and deliver him from his chains. I am glad someone will get good news tonight. No doubt you will want to be on your way to Valbeck. To rip this conspiracy up by the roots.’

‘I am eager to begin, Your Eminence.’

‘Don’t work too hard. Practical Dole!’ The door flew open, the hulking Practical almost filling the frame. ‘Wheel me out, would you?’ Dole fished up the wedge, wheels squeaking as he pulled the chair away, but Glokta stopped him in the doorway with a raised finger and looked back. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘I know, Your Eminence,’ she said, meeting his sunken eyes. ‘I’ve no doubts.’

When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it.

Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

Tallow stared at her with those big eyes, manacled hands on the table and his scrawny shoulders hunched around his ears. He really did look like her brother. There were no marks on him yet. That was something, she supposed.

‘Did you escape from them?’ he whispered.

Vick gave a sad smile as she sat down opposite him, in the chair for the one who asks the questions. ‘No one escapes from them.’

‘Then—’

‘I am them.’

He looked at