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He knew that a lady should remain out of the sun whenever possible, but looking at her, he really couldn’t remember why.
You have to learn to love the small things in life, like a hot bath. You have to love the small things, when you’ve nothing else.
‘But a sword . . . a sword has a voice.’ ‘Eh?’ ‘Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only
put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy’s ear.’ He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. ‘A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?’ Logen nodded slowly. ‘Now,’ murmured Bayaz, ‘compare it to the sword half drawn.’ A foot length of metal hissed out of the sheath, a single silver letter shining near the hilt. The blade itself was dull, but its edge had a cold and frosty glint. ‘It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?’ Logen nodded again, his eye fastened on that glittering edge. ‘Now compare it
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‘For pity’s sake! It’s dark down here!’ ‘You’ll get used to it!’ Glokta called over his shoulder. Amazing, what one can get used to.
The young officer helped him up the rest of the steps. Glokta did not have the energy to refuse him. Why bother? A man should know his limitations. There’s nothing noble in falling on your face. I should know that.
‘Now listen to me, and listen carefully. Times are changing. I don’t need men with good blood. I need men who can plan, and organise, give orders, and follow them. There will be no room in my army for those who cannot do as they are told, I don’t care how noble they are.
‘Frightened? You?’ ‘Always.’ Logen had barely slept since they arrived. It was never properly dark here, never properly quiet. It was too hot, too close, too stinking. Enemies might be terrifying, but enemies could be fought, and put an end to.
‘My father used to say the seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.’
Ferro hated luxury even more than she hated gardens. Luxury meant captivity more surely than the bars of a cage. Soft furniture spelled danger more surely than weapons.
Trust is what binds a band together, and out there in the wilds that can make the difference between living or dying.
‘The failure of something great is never a simple matter, but, where there is success and glory, there must also be failure and shame.
Eider frowned. Something for her to think about, perhaps? ‘I would have thought your pain would give you empathy.’ ‘Empathy? What’s that?’ Glokta winced as he rubbed at his aching leg. ‘It’s a sad fact, but pain only makes you sorry for yourself.’
‘What? A family?’ Ninefingers frowned, rubbing grimly at the stump of his middle finger. ‘I did have one. And now I’ve got another. You don’t pick your family, you take what you’re given and you make the best of it.’ He pointed at Ferro, then at Quai. ‘You see her, and him, and you?’ He slapped his hand down on Jezal’s shoulder. ‘That’s my family now, and I don’t plan on losing a brother today, you understand?’
‘Anyone can face ease and success with confidence. It is the way we face trouble and misfortune that defines us. Self-pity goes with selfishness, and there is nothing more to be deplored in a leader than that. Selfishness belongs to children, and to halfwits.
Ferro shook her head. ‘You expect too much out of life, pink.’ He grinned. ‘And here was me thinking you expect too little.’ ‘Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.’ ‘Expect nothing and you’ll get nothing.’
Just another day for Practical Severard. Never thinking more than an hour ahead. What a gift.
How the hell did you manage it?’ And he gazed at Glokta expectantly. I sold myself to the bank that funded the Mercers, then used the proceeds to bribe the world’s least reliable mercenary. Then I murdered a defenceless emissary under flag of parley and tortured a serving girl until her body was mincemeat. Oh, and I let the biggest traitor of the lot go free. It was, without doubt, a heroic business. How did I manage it? ‘Rising early,’ he murmured.
He scowled and rolled away, pulling his own covers over his head, and lay there in the darkness, listening to Ninefingers’ throaty grunting and Ferro’s urgent hissing growing steadily louder. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt a sting of tears underneath his lids. Damn it but he was lonely.
To spare the delicate sensibilities of the ladies present. Watching a man’s entrails spilling out is excellent entertainment, but the sight of his cock, well, that would be obscene.
It was a fitting irony, to West’s mind, that having tried every roundabout method and been bloodily repulsed, the Union army had finally entered the inner fortress by its open front gate.
You can never have too many knives, his father had told him. Unless they’re pointed at you, and by people who don’t like you much.
‘A lot more’n us, anyway,’ Dogman said, keeping his voice low. ‘Aye. But fights aren’t always won by the bigger numbers.’ ‘Course not.’ Dogman worked his lips as he looked at all them men. ‘Just mostly.’
The dockers had come to recognise her. They had shouted at her, for a while. ‘Come down here, my lovely, and give me a kiss!’ one of them had called, and his friends had laughed. Then Ferro had thrown half a brick at his head and knocked him in the sea. He had nothing to say to her once they fished him out.
If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person? You have to be realistic.
Men’ll talk hard for gold. Not sure they’ll fight hard for it, when the time comes.’
You do not reach my position, or even yours, without understanding that each man stands alone, in the end.’
‘I always dreamed of a man I could dance with.’ She looked up and held his eye. ‘But I think, perhaps, that you suit me better. Dreams are for children. We both are grownups.’
First it is done to us, then we do it to others, then we order it done. Such is the way of things.
