“We just deny him a hearing?” Orso was almost as disgusted by that option as by the crime itself.
“Of course not,” said Bruckel.
“No, no,” said Gorodets. “We would not deny him anything.”
“We’d simply never give him anything,” said Glokta.
Rucksted nodded. “I hardly think Fedor dan bloody Wetterlant or his bloody mother should be allowed to hold a dagger to the throat of the state simply because he can’t control himself.”
“He could at least lose control of himself in the absence of seventeen witnesses,” observed Gorodets, and there was some light laughter.
“So it’s not the rape or the murder we object to,” asked Orso, “but his being caught doing it?”
Hoff peered at the other councillors, as though wondering whether anyone might disagree. “Well…”
“Why should I not just hear the case, and judge it on its merits, and settle it one way or another?”
Glokta’s grimace twisted still further. “Your Majesty cannot judge the case without being seen to take sides.” The old men nodded, grunted, shifted unhappily in their uncomfortable chairs. “Find Wetterlant innocent, it will be nepotism, and favouritism, and will strengthen the hand of those traitors like the Breakers who would turn the common folk against you.”
“But find Wetterlant guilty…” Gorodets tugged unhappily at his beard and the old men grumbled more dismay. “The nobles would see it as an affront, as an attack, as a betrayal. It would embolden those who oppose you in the Open Council at a time when we are trying to ensure a smooth succession.”
“It seems sometimes,” snapped Orso, rubbing at those sore spots above his temples, “that every decision I make in this chamber is between two equally bad outcomes, with the best option to make no decision at all!”
Hoff glanced about the table again. “Well…”
“It is always a bad idea,” said the First of the Magi, “for a king to choose sides.”
Everyone nodded as though they had been treated to the most profound statement of all time. It was a wonder they did not rise and give a standing ovation. Orso was left in no doubt at which end of the table the power in the White Chamber truly lay. He remembered the look on his father’s face as Bayaz spoke. The fear. He made one more effort to claw his way towards his best guess at the right thing.
“Justice should be done. Shouldn’t it? Justice must be seen to be done. Surely! Otherwise… well… it’s not justice at all. Is it?”
High Justice Bruckel bared his teeth as if in physical pain. “At this level. Your Majesty. Such concepts become… fluid. Justice cannot be stiff like iron, but… more of a jelly. It must mould itself. About the greater concerns.”
“But… surely at this level, at the highest level, is where justice must be at its most firm. There must be a moral bedrock! It cannot all be… expediency?”
Exasperated, Hoff looked towards the foot of the table. “Lord Bayaz, perhaps you might…”
The First of the Magi gave a weary sigh as he sat forward, hands clasped, regarding Orso from beneath heavy lids. The sigh of a veteran schoolmaster, called on once again to explain the basics to this year’s harvest of dunces.
“Your Majesty, we are not here to set right all the world’s wrongs.”
Orso stared back at him. “What are we here for, then?”
Bayaz neither smiled nor frowned. “To ensure that we benefit from them.”
A Long Way from Adua
Superior Lorsen lowered the letter, frowning at Vick over the rims of his eye-lenses. He looked like a man who had not smiled in some time. Perhaps ever.
“His Eminence the Arch Lector writes you a glowing report. He tells me you were instrumental in ending the uprising at Valbeck. He feels I might need your help.” Lorsen turned his frown on Tallow, standing awkwardly in the corner, as if the idea of his being helpful with anything was an affront to reason. Vick still wasn’t sure why she’d brought him. Perhaps because she had no one else to bring.
“Not need my help, Superior,” she said. No bear, badger or wasp was more territorial than a Superior of the Inquisition, after all. “But I don’t have to tell you how damaging it would be, financially, politically, diplomatically… if Westport voted to leave the Union.”
“No,” said Lorsen crisply. “You do not.” As Superior of Westport, he’d be looking for a job.
“Which is why His Eminence felt you could perhaps use my help.”
Lorsen set down the letter, adjusted its position on his desk and stood. “Forgive me if I am dubious, Inquisitor, but performing surgery upon the politics of one of the world’s greatest cities is not quite the same as smashing up a strike.” And he opened the door onto the high gallery.
“The threats are worse and the bribes better,” said Vick as she followed him through, Tallow shuffling behind, “but otherwise I imagine there are similarities.”
“Then may I present to you our unruly workers: the Aldermen of Westport.” And Lorsen stepped to the balustrade and gestured down below.
There, on the floor of Westport’s cavernous Hall of Assembly, tiled with semi-precious stones in geometric patterns, the leadership of the city was debating the great question of leaving the Union. Some Aldermen stood, shaking fists or brandishing papers. Others sat, glumly watching or with heads in hands. Others bellowed over each other in at least five languages, the ringing echoes making it impossible to tell who was speaking, let alone what was being said. Others murmured to colleagues or yawned, scratched, stretched, gazed into space. A group of five or six had paused for tea in a distant corner. Men of every shape, size, colour and culture. A cross section through the madly diverse population of the city they called the Crossroads of the World, wedged onto a narrow scrap of thirsty land between Styria and the South, between the Union and the Thousand Isles.
“Two hundred and thirteen of them, at the current count, and each with a vote.” Lorsen pronounced the word with evident distaste. “When it comes to arguing, the citizens of Westport are celebrated throughout the world, and this is where their most dauntless arguers stage their most intractable arguments.” The Superior peered towards a great clock on the far side of the gallery. “They’ve been at it for seven hours already today.”
Vick was not surprised. There was a stickiness to the air from all the breath they’d wasted. The Fates knew she was finding Westport more than hot enough, even in spring, but she had been told that in summer, after particularly intense sessions, it could sometimes rain inside the dome. A sort of spitty drizzling back of all their high-blown language onto the furious Aldermen below.
“Seems the opinions are somewhat entrenched down there.”
“I wish they were more so,” said Lorsen. “Thirty years ago, after we beat the Gurkish, you couldn’t have found five votes for leaving the Union. But the Styrian faction has gained a great deal of ground lately. The wars. The debts. The uprising in Valbeck. The death of King Jezal. And his son is, shall we say, not yet taken seriously on the international stage. Without mincing words—”
“Our prestige is in the night pot,” Vick finished for him.