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Ardee West stared hatefully at her reflection in the mirror.
"You selfish, useless, fucking whore," she hissed.
Her eyes were red. Her cheeks were puffy.
"Ugly drunk slattern."
Ardee dug her fingernails into her face, battled with the impulse scratch to the blood, then puffed out her chest instead, fluttered her eyelashes. She twisted her face this way and that.
"Why, but isn't it Ardee West!" she purred. "The most beautiful jewel of our kingdom. Extraordinarily charming even though she is so terribly common. The queen pales in comparison. No wonder our king couldn't resist to fuck her."
Her eyelids were bloated. She did look like a drunk slattern. Must be all the drinking. An extraordinarily attractive drunk slattern.
Ardee poured herself another glass of wine, raised it at her reflection, staring hard. Daring her brother to slap it out of her hand. Daring the ghost of her father to punch her in the face.
"Pathetic common wretch," she said, to nobody in particular, and emptied her glass.
Her visitor couldn't have arrived in a more timely manner.
A minute later and she might have punched her fist into the mirror after all, and what a mess that would have been. All that blood on her pretty expensive dress. A pretty expensive dress extorted under duress by a ruthless benefactor, to recall.
Here came the possibly single one more loathsome and despised face in Adua, and wasn't she glad to see it.
"You somehow manage to look even worse than usual," she told him for a greeting.
Superior Glokta licked at his empty gums, stared at her from deeply sunken eyes, and smiled.
"Why, and here I thought I was the most resplendent ambitious young man in this kingdom, or was I misled?"
"Ambitious, maybe. You have been quite busy it would seem. Superior."
Ardee didn't bother to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Somehow my only friend in this entire wretched city is a notoriously vile master torturer. Who is too busy torturing to find time for poor little me. Woe me, how could this happen, it must be my winning personality.
"Ambition isn't the term I'd use," said Glokta. "Maybe... habit."
He did look more exhausted than even usual, grey-faced and twitching like he had trouble keeping himself upright. Unlucky for him, because he had promised Ardee an outing to the park, and Ardee would hold him to it.
"Habits can be hard to break," she agreed. "I for instance have a habit of drinking and whoring."
She swept her coat around her shoulders, fastened it with a silver broach. She held out her arm for Glokta, who ignored it, as usual.
"A few ill-advised tumbles with the then-not-yet king hardly qualify as whoring. Or did he pay you?"
The sun was out, the air was mild. When was the last time I left the house? Ardee wondered. People were bustling around, busy with their commitments and advancements. Unlike Ardee West, who was busy drinking herself into a stupor every day.
"Oh, he paid me in sweat and ache all right. You do know how to comfort a young lady."
Glokta stumbled over a cobblestone and caught himself, wincing.
"Were you looking for comfort? My apologies. That's really outside my expertise."
Ardee exhaled into Glokta's direction, daring him to comment on the alcoholic smell, even though she knew he never did.
Stop me, she thought. Control me. Force me to take better care of you, of myself. Yes, comfort me. But she asked for none of it out loud. And Glokta offered none of it, doggedly pushing himself to match her pace.
"I'm sure you know how to torment young ladies, however."
Glotka's foot scraped against the pavement. He was struggling. "I do," he said.
His joyless tone of voice gave her pause. Ardee laid her hand under his elbow, steered him towards a bench. He sat down with a quiet sigh, slowly stretched out his leg. Ardee swallowed her guilt.
"But you helped me."
He looked at her with feverish eyes. The dark circles under his eyes were black enough to resemble bruises. There was something in his expression she couldn't quite place, a hunger, maybe. Then he giggled, licking his gums. He twisted his head and his neck clicked.
"Ahhh," he sighed. "To be so easily helped."
Why do I even bother?
"There's no help against being a low-bred drunkard's daughter who only knows how to make a laughing stock out of herself, unfortunately."
"Is that so? There's no help against being a vile, disgusting cripple, sadly."
"You could stop torturing people, it might make you less vile."
"You could stop drinking."
It was a nice bench they were sitting on, with a view down the hilly park, onto the lake. A slight breeze moved at the maples leaves. The sun shimmered on the lake's surface.
Ardee could spot Mira sand Vermer and Lissa sand Grom down by the lake, giggling with the brothers dan Wurm.
"Even if I was chaste and sober they wouldn't deign throw a glance my way."
The self-pity was just spilling down her lips today. Useless, selfish, fucking whore that she was. Slap me for it, maybe, she thought.
Glokta followed her gaze.
"I could arrange an opportunity for you to torment one of them, if that'd help you feel better."
Nothing about his gaze or intonation indicated whether he was joking or not. Maybe it should scare her that she couldn't tell. Instead, she felt oddly warmed. The single one more loathsome and despised face in Adua.
"Too generous, Superior. I might get back to you on it."
"These particular specimens are exceptionally vapid, there's no need to crave their regard, really."
"I stand corrected. It must be my needy country bumpkin ways, always greedy for more than I deserve."
"That must be it. Nobody gets what they deserve, thankfully. For instance, this pretty young man deserves to face-plant into the lake, and yet, here he is, standing on two good legs."
"Magnificently unfair."
"Irredeemably so."
Glokta smiled his toothless smile and Ardee smiled her drunken smile. This was shaping up to be a pleasant afternoon, all considered.
The stone Glokta chose for her wedding ring was big. Ridiculously big, really. A massive clunker of a gem mounted on a delicate golden circle. Ardee turned her hand under the light, admiring. To see this kind of stone worn by this kind of person would piss off some people. Ardee revelled in the thought for a minute.
Sand, she corrected herself. She could come to call him Sand. After all, she was a dan Glokta herself, now.
And just like that, all your problems solved, you stupid girl, isn't that right? All her little silly dreams answered. Safety, wealth, access to power, a noble name, recognition, and not to forget, inspiring conversation on the daily. The sand Harns and sand Bons of the world forced to greet her with courtesy, no matter that it galled them. The consequences of her actions, neatly escaped. She had even managed to stay sober for days on end.
There was the small manner, of course, of her husband being the kind to eliminate those that let him down. There was the tiny detail of dismembered fingers tangled in her hair, of prisoners with crushed toes crying for mercy. Memories never spoken of again, but not forgotten. She had always known what he was, after all. Just as he knew her for what she was.
And I will let him down, surely, I always let everyone down. Did he realise that?
So Ardee did what she always did: Play with the fire, dare it to punch her in the face. Or chop her fingers off, maybe. She would make this man her husband. She would be his wife. She would have it all.
"We've been invited to a party. Literally we . It says here Sand and Ardee dan Glokta."
Ardee still couldn't quite believe in this fairy-tale come true.
"Ah, yes, the feast to celebrate our glorious victory. All the notables will be present."
"As will we." Ardee smiled at the thought.
Her husband wiped his thumb over a smear of soup that had dribbled past his lip. It was already late evening. She wondered if he had eaten anything between this and his half-hearted breakfast, but somehow doubted it.
"Oh, my best dancing days are over, I'm afraid. I'd only get in your way. But you go."
Ardee raised an eyebrow.
"You'd let me go to such a party unchaperoned? Whatever will the people say?"
Sand cackled his toothless smile.
"You're my wife. People will say only the sweetest things to you, shitting their pants at the thought of displeasing you. You'll see."
He poked listlessly as his soup, as if uncertain whether to endure another spoonful or not.
Some fire started burning under Ardee's skin, some panicked urgency, and she couldn't help herself.
"Is that the truth? What if I was to displease you, though? I am, after all, a notorious slattern, and the king will be present."
Sand gobbled up another spoonful.
"So?"
"So, you did all that to save my life, but what if I'm beyond saving? What if I'm an incurable floozy? The king wants me still."
Sand put down his spoon.
"He can want you all he wants and you him, as long as you don't fuck. Which you won't, you're not ready to die yet."
There we go, she thought. There we go!
Ardee felt a heady feeling, like she was at the top of the stairs, a second from being shoved down.
"So you'd have me killed, should I step out of line?"
Sand licked at his gum, seemingly thinking it over.
"We could arrange for you to disappear out of sight. Out of town. But it's not as safe. My power has limits."
Something deflated in Ardee.
"I must anger you, nagging and needling at you like a bored housewife after a hard day at work torturing people."
"As Arch-Lector I mostly get to delegate." Sand sighed. "When I proposed our arrangement, I knew you might chose death over marriage with... this. I suppose if it's too unbearable, the choice is still yours. I'll help anyway I can. Tell me if there's somewhere specific you'd prefer."
The rest of his soup was cooling down. He hadn't eaten half of it. His left eye was twitching and leaking. Ardee felt like utter shit.
"No," she said. "I want to stay here with you. I chose you. If you'll still have me."
Some more soup had dribbled down his chin. Ardee leaned forward to wipe it off. Sand jerked back, hand half raised as if to ward off a blow.
"Sorry," he said, lowering his hand. "Habit. I'm glad to hear that."
Habit. Yes.
"My father used to hit me when I gave him lip like that," it spilled off Ardee's tongue. A little sob story to make excuses. "Were you hit as a child?"
He chuckled mirthlessly. "More extensively as an adult. I'm afraid my best hitting days are over. I did win some contest once, though, would you believe it. It was all about hitting each other with little knives."
"Sounds barbaric. My father mostly used pans, or fists, or rods, or whatever at hand, really. Once he tried to kill me with some stairs."
"Stairs. A bastard enemy we have in common, then. I'm not your father."
"I know. I'm sorry."
She leaned forward again, slowly, intent not to spook him. He stayed still as she laid her hand against his cheek, wiped the wetness off with her thumb. She lowered her lips towards his, pressed them into a kiss. He trembled under her touch, but opened his lips, reciprocating.
"Am I unbearable?" she asked.
He stared at her from hollow eyes, unsmiling.
"You'll find I'm able to bear a lot."
Ardee had fun at the party, and at the next, and at the next. It was as Sand had said: No one would dare antagonise her. Not her. No matter how antagonising she was. Needling and slashing her way through conversations. No one who would dare hurt her. Her belly was growing, yet causing surprisingly little discomfort, and if anyone had thoughts about that, they made sure to never share them.
Her husband, in the meanwhile, painfully whined and whimpered through his sleep and cried out in agony most mornings.
"You shouldn't do this," he said, when she pressed her thumbs into his thigh in the morning until it stopped twitching.
"Shut up," she said. They'd been over that. She helped him sit up.
"At least, I didn't shit myself today. Happy morning to you. I never asked you to do this."
"Since when do I do as I am asked. Did you sleep at all?"
"Some. I dreamed of you, in fact."
"Oh, my. Was I being a bitch?"
"Quite. You mocked my dancing. Even though I was being so gallant."
He leaned against her as they hobbled to the bath. She'd have carried him, but he insisted on doing as much as he could on his own. He sharply exhaled in pain, and she tightened her hold on him.
"That is very bitchy of dream me. Real me would never."
That got her a chuckle. She lowered him into the bath and watched his shoulders relax.
"I didn't marry you to be my nurse," he couldn't help complaining.
"No, you married me to save a slutty maiden in distress, even though she rather deserved what she got. Surprisingly heroic of you."
"You weren't quite a maiden. You didn't deserve what you got."
A powerful protector who'd refuse to hurt her no matter her misdeeds? No she rather didn't deserve that.
"Have you ever considered that I'm a selfish, useless bitch, and somewhat evil myself, and that helping me get away with my shit doesn't in fact qualify as 'good deed'?"
He laughed. "Arch-Lector Glokta, not in fact heroic? You're really bursting my bubble."
He stretched out his legs with a sigh.
"You give yourself too much credit in the 'evil' department. I'm an expert, I would know."
She soaped up the washing cloth.
"A selfish, useless bitch, at least, then?"
She should come up with better solutions for his nutrition, she thought, watching the bones pressed against scarred skin. He was too skinny.
He stared at her, eyes narrowed with surprising intensity.
"Is that why you keep molesting me, then? Trying to feel useful?"
She snapped out of her reverie as if slapped.
"Molesting you?"
She stared at him, incredulous.
"I never gave you permission to busy yourself with my body so!"
What? Ardee was reeling.
He didn't, it's true, but she thought...
"You accepted my help well enough these last weeks!" she said, indignant.
She washed his shit, soothed his cramps and held his shaking limbs. And now this?
"I'm not your pet cripple. I'm not your redemption story. You're debasing yourself cleaning my waste to make up for some imagined misdeeds? Because you got yourself knocked up by a ridiculous would-be-king? Because your father hit you? Because you think that makes you evil? Get out."
"I..."
"Get out!"
Ardee dropped the soap into the bath and got out.
Sand didn't come home this night, nor the night after. She'd want to hope he found another place to sleep, but probably he ended up working through his nights. Ardee bought herself a bottle of wine, threw it away, bought herself another bottle of wine, stashed it at the back of the cabinet.
There was nobody to talk to, because she didn't, in fact, have any friends. He's my only friend and I alienated him. She went through their morning a hundred times in her head, trying to find the mistake, the exact moment their conversation turned on its head, ended up crying instead.
She got the bottle of wine out, poured herself a glass, stared hatefully at her reflection in the mirror, and drunk it in one go, in full view of her growing belly.
See? she thought. Evil after all. How much more selfish and irresponsible than that can you get?
She poured herself a second glass, emptied its contents down the drain, considered draining the rest of the wine as well, but ended up stashing the bottle back into the cabinet instead.
She pulled on her cloak and went out.
Reconstruction was underway anywhere you looked in the city. Debris were still carried away, ruins rebuilt. The homeless and dislocated were assembled in tents. Those that had fled during the Gurkish assault were still trickling back into the city, some finding their houses destroyed, swelling the ranks of those waiting in limbo for future solutions. Charities were distributing bread, distributing blankets.
Ardee walked around town for a while longer, sun deceptively warm and cheerful on her skin. Then she entered one of the tents where food was being distributed and offered her services.
When she came home in the evening, she found her husband sitting at the table, in front of his hardly-touched soup.
"Feeling useful, then?" he told her.
"Some," she admitted.
He looked bad, underslept, underfed, and in pain, but she stopped herself from ruminating on ways to improve him.
"I don't want to impose on you," she said. "I'd like to assist you, but only if you'll have me."
He shook his head, wincing as his neck spasmed at the motion.
"I'm a bitter, ruthless villain, but even I am not twisted enough to expect you to pay me back like that."
He hates himself even more than I hate myself, Ardee remembered with a start.
"But let's say I want to. I want to. Will you allow me?"
"You want to what?" he said, looking lost and slightly scared.
"I want to touch you. I want to be close to you. I want to help you clean and take care of you. I also want to kiss you. I want to lay with you. I want to be your wife."
He was shrinking into himself on his seat.
"But I'm disgusting. You can't want that. If you're lonely, you can have other men, as long as it's not the king, or other notables that would get us into trouble."
One of the most powerful men in the Union. Trembling in his seat as she leaned closer.
"I say, I want to. Will you allow me?"
"I just don't understand how you could want--"
"I said, I want to! Will you allow me?"
She wouldn't touch him if he didn't want to.
One of the most powerful men in the Union. Trembling in his seat at the thought of gentle touch. A selfish girl could come to enjoy this kind of power. He really would never, ever hurt me, she realised, with another pang.
"I don't know," he whispered.
"All right," Ardee said, leaning back again. "I might ask you again."
His eye was twitching and leaking.
"You must think me pathetic," he said, quietly.
"Actually, I was thinking of those that hurt you so, and how I'd like to hurt them. I was thinking of who taught you to believe some scars and pains make you disgusting, and how to make them pay."
He snorted. "'Some scars and pains' is rather the understatement. I think shitting and peeing myself because my genitals got mangled into mush counts as objectively disgusting."
"I'm sure this child of ours I carry will shit and pee themselves quite a bit for a long while. I'd hope you won't find them too disgusting for it."
He leaned back. "Wow," he said, then started laughing.
"You really do know how to comfort a cripple."
"Get over yourself. You're quite impossible to comfort and you know it."
He chuckled, expression softer than she yet had seen on him.
"There's no accounting for bad taste, I suppose. You did after all decide to fuck famous idiot Jezal dan Luthar."
"Quite so," she agreed.
They sat in companionable silence for a while.
He gathered his legs and his cane under him, then said: "If you'd want to help this sad cripple hobble to bed, it would be appreciated. I am very tired."
She hooked her hand under his elbow, the way she had already learned hurts him the least, then helped him stand.
They quietly walked together to his bed.
As she was leaving, he said: "Ardee."
She turned around.
"Not tonight. But ask me again."
She smiled.
"I will."
Baby steps.