Before They Are Hanged (The First Law, #2)

by Joe Abercrombie

“We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.” —Heinrich Heine

If the measure of a man was the size of his hat, these were great men indeed.

Above all, he has learned the trick of saying a great deal less than he knows.”

“Don’t try to be clever with me, Captain Luthar, you have not the equipment.

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s in pain.

“Superior Glokta! I hope I have not kept you waiting.” “You have,” said Glokta as he shuffled to the table. “That is what happens when one comes late to a meeting.”

“What am I?” sneered Vurms. “Your grocery boy?” “I suppose you’re whatever I tell you to be.”

“You’d have to be a bold man to bet your life on what I’d dare.

“Time comes you got to stick at something, don’t you? That’s the thing about trust, sooner or later you just got to do it, without good reasons.” “Why?” “Otherwise you end up like us, and who wants that?” “Huh.”

Knowledge is so often the antidote to fear. But not here. Not now.

“It still seems a strange decision, though, for the tortured to turn torturer.” “On the contrary, nothing could be more natural. In my experience, people do as they are done to. You were sold by your father and bought by your husband, and yet you choose to buy and sell.”

“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.”

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say that he’s stealthy.

He was smiling on the inside, though. Small gestures and time. That was how he’d get it done.

Never to want for anything, or work for anything, or show the tiniest grain of self-discipline in a whole life must give a man a strange outlook on the world,

The skies make no special dispensation for Magi, boy, they piss on everyone the same.

“A man who doesn’t want opinions should keep his own mouth shut.”

“Open your ears and listen for once,” he said, “…’cause I don’t want to be telling you this every mile we go. The world ain’t how I’d like it in all kind o’ ways. Ninefingers has gone back to the mud. Bethod’s made himself King of the Northmen. The Shanka are fixing to come swarming over the mountains. I’ve walked too far, and fought too long, and heard enough shit from you to fill a lifetime, and all at an age when I should have my feet up with sons to take care o’ me. So you can see I got bigger problems than that life hasn’t turned out the way you hoped. You can harp on the past all you please, Dow, like some old woman upset ’cause her tits used to stay up by themselves, or you can shut your fucking hole and help me get on with things.”

Laughing with a man was a good step forward. First comes the laughter, then the respect, then the trust.

One day I beg for money, the next I spend it as if it burns? I was forced to borrow, Your Eminence. Indeed? How much? No more than a million marks. Indeed? And who would lend such a sum? Why, our old friends at the banking house of Valint and Balk, Your Eminence, in return for unspecified favours, which they might call in at any moment. Of course, my loyalty is still beyond question. You understand, don’t you? I mean to say, it’s only a fortune in jewels. Body found floating by the docks…

“But if, say, you’re stuck out on some great wide plain in the middle of nowhere and can’t avoid it, there’s three rules I’d take to a fight. First, always do your best to look the coward, the weakling, the fool. Silence is a warrior’s best armour, the saying goes. Hard looks and hard words have never won a battle yet, but they’ve lost a few.”

“Second, never take an enemy lightly, however much the dullard he seems. Treat every man like he’s twice as clever, twice as strong, twice as fast as you are, and you’ll only be pleasantly surprised. Respect costs you nothing, and nothing gets a man killed quicker than confidence.”

“Third, watch your opponent as close as you can, and listen to opinions if you’re given them, but once you’ve got your plan in mind, you fix on it and let nothing sway you. Time comes to act, you strike with no backwards glances. Delay is the parent of disaster, my father used to tell me, and believe me, I’ve seen some disasters.”

Ninefingers folded his arms. “Just once,” he murmured, “I’d like to take someone else by surprise.”

The red-haired man moved suddenly, leaping forward and swinging his sword over his head. He moved fast, but Ninefingers was faster. He stepped sideways so that the whistling blade missed his face by inches, then he slashed his opponent across the belly as he passed. The man grunted, stumbled a step or two. Ninefingers’ heavy sword chopped into the back of his skull with a hollow clicking sound. He tripped over his own feet and pitched onto his face, blood bubbling from the gaping wound in his head. Jezal watched it spread slowly out through the dirt around the corpse. A wide, dark pool, slowly mingling with the dust and the loose soil on the valley floor. No second touch. No best of three.

“We’re a lot different, you and me. Different in all kind of ways. I see you don’t have much respect for my kind, or for me in particular, and I don’t much blame you. The dead know I got my shortcomings, and I ain’t entirely ignorant of ’em. You may think you’re a clever man, and I’m a stupid one, and I daresay you’re right. There’s sure to be a very many things that you know more about than I do. But when it comes to fighting, I’m sorry to say, there’s few men with a wider experience than me. No offence, but we both know you’re not one of ’em. No one made me the leader, but this is the task that needs doing.”

Doing better next time. That’s what life is.”

“This is no time to panic,” growled Glokta. “I don’t want to end up floating in the docks any more than you do, but this is a delicate balance. Let them think they might get their way, then no one will make any rash moves. Not until I’m good and ready. Understand me when I say, Practical, that this will be the first and the last time that I explain myself to you. Now take your fucking hand off me.”

“Strange, isn’t it,” mused Glokta as he watched him struggle for air. “Big men, small men, thin men, fat men, clever men, stupid men, they all respond the same to a fist in the guts. One minute you think you’re the most powerful man in the world. The next you can’t even breathe by yourself. Some kinds of power are nothing but tricks of the mind. Your people taught me that, below your Emperor’s palace. There were no rules of war there, I can tell you. You know all about certain engagements, and certain bridges, and certain young officers, so you know that I’ve been just where you are now. There is one difference, however. I was helpless, but you can stop this unpleasantness at any time. You need only tell me who the traitor is, and you will be spared.”

“A neat job.” She nodded slowly to herself. “Very neat. I’m happy to say I was right about you all along.” Glokta snorted. “Your approval is worth less to me than you can ever know.”

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a fighter.

A choice between killing and dying is no choice at all. You have to be realistic about these things.

She jumped at him with the sword, but he turned in time and caught the blade on his own. They crashed down into the grass together and rolled over in a tangle. He scrambled up, thrashing and screaming, clutching at his bloody face. The arrow sticking from her shoulder had stabbed him through the eye as they struggled on the floor. Lucky for her.

“Well, you’ve led us a merry dance, I’ll give you that, but we got here in the end.” “Got where?” Logen looked down at the corpse of the brown-eyed man, sat against the stone beside him. “If this was what you wanted you could have killed yourselves days ago and saved me the trouble.”

Finnius frowned. “You’ll find I’m made of different stuff from these fools, Northman.” “We’re all made of the same stuff. I don’t need to carve another body to find that out.” Logen stretched his neck out, hefted the Maker’s sword in his hand. “But if you’re set on showing me your contents, I’ll not disappoint you.”

The time comes to act, you strike with no backwards glances. The one on Jezal’s left came at him. He saw the man snarl, saw him rear up, saw the great unwieldy backswing. It was an absurdly simple matter for him to step out of the way and let it thud into the turf beside him. On an instinct he thrust with his short steel and buried it in the man’s side up to the hilt, between his breastplate and his backplate, just under his bottom rib. Even as Jezal was ripping the blade back he was ducking under the other’s axe and whipping his long steel across at neck height. He danced past them and spun around, steels held ready, waiting for the referee’s call. The one he had stabbed staggered a step or two, wheezing and grabbing at his side. The other stood there, swaying, his piggy eyes bulging, his hand clutched to his neck. Blood began to pour out between his fingers from his slit throat. They fell almost at the same time, facedown, right next to each other.

Magister Eider carefully cleared her throat, carefully smoothed the front of her long gown, sat up as proudly as she could. “I do not believe that you will torture me. You are not Davoust. You have a conscience.” The corner of Glokta’s mouth twitched slightly. A brave effort. I do applaud you. But how wrong you are. “I have a conscience, but it’s a feeble, withered shred of a thing. It couldn’t protect you or anyone else from a stiff breeze.” Glokta sighed, long and hard. The room was too hot, too bright, his eyes were sore and twitchy and he rubbed at them slowly as he spoke. “You could not even guess at the things that I have done. Awful, evil, obscene, the telling of them alone could make you puke.” He shrugged. “They nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind, and it’s incredible the room back there. Amazing what one can live with.” Glokta glanced up at Severard’s eyes, and Vitari’s, glittering hard and pitiless. “But even supposing you were right, can you seriously pretend that my Practicals would have any such compunction? Well, Severard?” “Any such a what?” Glokta gave a sad smile. “You see? He doesn’t even know what one is.” He sagged back in his chair. Tired. Terribly tired. He seemed to lack even the energy to lift his hands. “I have already made all manner of allowances for you. Tre...

“All an arsehole knows about is shit.”

“They have that most strange and dangerous of qualities,” said Cosca. “They think they’re in the right.”

“Easy.” A scarred face swam into view above. Ninefingers. Jezal grabbed at him, wildly, and the Northman caught his hand in his own big paw and squeezed it tight. “Easy, now, and listen to me. It hurts, yes. Seems like more than you can take, but it isn’t. You think you’re going to die, but you won’t. Listen to me, because I’ve been there, and I know. Each minute. Each hour. Each day, it gets better.” He felt Ninefingers’ other hand on his shoulder, pushing him gently back down into the cart. “All you got to do is lie there, and it gets better. You understand? You got the light duty, you lucky bastard.” Jezal let his limbs go heavy. All he had to do was lie there. He squeezed the big hand and the hand squeezed back. The pain seemed less. Awful still, but within his control. His breath slowed. His eyes closed.

“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 half-wits. A great leader puts others before himself. You would be surprised how acting so makes it easier to bear one’s own troubles. In order to act like a King, one need only treat everyone else like one.”

He realised, with increasing horror, that he could scarcely think of a single selfless thing that he had ever done.

She had to admit, now that she was getting used to him, the big pink was not so bad. They had fought together, more than once, and he had always done his share. They had agreed to bury each other, if need be, and she trusted him to do it. Strange-looking, strange-sounding, but she had yet to hear him say he would do a thing and see him not do it, which made him one of the better men she had known. Best not to tell him that, of course, or give away the slightest sign that she thought it. That would be when he let her down.

“Fighting? It’s got me everything I have.” And he held his big empty hands up to show her. “Nothing but an evil reputation and an awful lot of men with a burning need to kill me. Fighting? Hah! The better you are at it, the worse off it leaves you. I’ve settled some scores, and that can feel grand, but the feeling don’t last long. Vengeance won’t keep you warm nights, and that’s a fact. Overrated. Won’t do on its own. You need something else.” 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.”

She had much preferred it when no one had liked each other. That was comfortable, and familiar. That she understood. Trust, and comradeship, and good humour, these things were so far in the past for her that they were almost unknown. And who likes the unknown?

The best lessons one teaches oneself.”

“Look around you, old friend.” And the First of the Magi smiled as he clambered up into his saddle. “None of your hopes ever come to anything.”

“You bit him! You bit his fucking nose off! I knew you were a mad bastard!”

Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered. It is through struggle, not ease, that fame and honour are won. It is through conflict, not peace, that wealth and power are gained.

Besides, he was starting to wonder if a long, poor life in utter obscurity would really be such a terrible thing.