not sure how they relate to our Northern troubles—’
‘Change, Your Highness. At a pace and of a kind that has never been seen before. An order that has stood for centuries buckles and twists. Traditional barriers, however we might try to shore them up, collapse like sandcastles before the tide. Men fear to lose what they have, covet what they do not. It is a time of chaos. Of fear.’ The Arch Lector shrugged, tentatively, as though even that gave him pain. ‘A time of opportunity, if you are as clever as my daughter, but a time of great danger, too. Not long ago, the Inquisition rooted out a scheme, devised by a group of disaffected labourers, to burn down that mill I told you of and raise the workers against your father’s government.’
‘Ah.’
‘Every day, threats are sent to the owners of manufactories. Every night, workers with soot-smeared faces cause wanton damage to machinery. In Hocksted, yesterday morning, the funeral of an agitator devolved into a full-scale riot.’
‘Ah.’
‘Below us, in the cells, are members of the group called the Breakers, apprehended only last night in the act of blowing up a foundry not two miles from where we sit. We are even now persuading them to help us uproot a conspiracy that spans the breadth of the nation.’
Orso’s eyes rolled down towards the floor. ‘That sounds … bad.’ He wasn’t sure whether he was thinking of the plot or the fate of the plotters. Perhaps both.
‘There is disloyalty everywhere. Treason everywhere. People love to say that things have never been so bad—’
Orso smiled. ‘They do, they do.’
‘But things really have never been so bad.’
Orso’s smile vanished. ‘Ah.’
‘I wish we were free to do what we thought right. I truly do.’ The Arch Lector glanced up at a huge, dark portrait on the wall. Some fearsome bald bureaucrat of the past, glowering down watchfully upon the little people. Zoller, maybe. ‘But we simply cannot risk any overseas adventures, however well intentioned, however deeply desired, however apparently necessary.’ He clasped his long, thin hands and gazed levelly at Orso, eyes glittering in skull-like sockets. ‘Put simply, the government of the Union hangs by a thread and must look first to its own security. To the legacy of the king. To the position of his heir.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your making his position comfortable.’ Orso gave a helpless shrug. He was quite out of ideas. ‘It’s a question of politics, then?’
‘Your Highness,’ and Arch Lector Glokta smiled, once again displaying that yawning gap in his front teeth. ‘It is always a question of politics.’
Orso shuffled through his hand again, but it was as awful as it had been when it was dealt.
‘I fold,’ he grunted, tossing his cards down in disgust. ‘What a pig of a day. Makes you wonder how anything gets done.’
‘Or realise why nothing does,’ said Tunny as he raked in the pot.
‘It gives me scant enthusiasm for the job of being king, that’s sure.’
‘Not that you had much in the first place.’
‘No. One begins to understand why my father is … how he is.’
‘Ineffectual, you mean?’ Yolk chuckled. ‘He must be the most ineffec—’
Orso grabbed a fistful of his shirt and dragged him half out of his chair. ‘I get to mock him,’ he snarled in Yolk’s shocked face. ‘You fucking don’t.’
‘There’s no point bullying that idiot,’ said Tunny, managing to smoke a chagga pipe, stare at Orso through narrowed eyes and deal expertly all at once. ‘He’s an idiot.’
Yolk spread his palms in mute agreement, and Orso gave a disgusted hiss and dumped him back in his chair, sweeping up his new hand and casting a lazy eye over it. It was every bit as awful as the last. But perhaps good card players are the ones who can win with bad cards.
‘Forget those old bastards in the government.’ Tunny pointed at Orso with the stem of his pipe. ‘They’ve no vision. No audacity. We need to look at this another way. We need to frame it as a bet.’ And he tossed a couple of silvers into the empty centre of the table. ‘You need someone with money. With ambition. With patience. Someone who’ll see a few favours from you down the line as a solid gamble.’
‘Won’t be me,’ said Yolk, sadly, tossing his hand away.
‘Rich, ambitious and patient,’ mused Orso, frowning at those two glinting coins. ‘A gamble. Or … an investment? Pass me that pencil.’ And Orso scrawled a few words across