The Tyrant
Page 48
Captain Nullsin. Report.”
Rear Admiral Samne Maroyad rose through a cloud of mint-cigarette smoke. Barhu’s first impressions were of a pale brown Bastè Ana woman in navy reds, long of body but short of limb. There was a thin place at the collar of her uniform where she’d rubbed her admiral’s insignia against the fabric. Otherwise she was immaculate.
This was the woman who’d sent Aminata to find Barhu.
Captain Asmee Nullsin saluted with his good hand. “Mam. It is my sworn duty to introduce the Emperor’s own enmasqued representatives Durance and Agonist. As a servant of the Republic and its people, I have, wherever possible, done my utmost to obey both your lawful orders and the Hierarchic Qualm. But where they conflicted, I—”
“Spare me the legalist bullshit, Asmee.” Maroyad’s eyes flicked between Barhu and Yawa. “I see your mission was compromised. Lieutenant Commander Aminata would be here if it was at all possible, so she’s wounded, or under arrest, or . . .”
“Missing,” Barhu said, with an uncaring hardness she had to falsify. “Presumed dead. She gave her life to destroy Juris Ormsment.”
Maroyad looked at them across the pine barrier of her desk. Through the windows behind her a swarm of fishing felucca filed out of Cautery Plat harbor, unaware of cholera and cancer, innocent of what the wind brought close.
Barhu watched Maroyad pack up all her hopes and ambitions, stow them away, and make herself ready for the worst. Make a fire list, the teachers in school had told Barhu. The things you must save when you smell smoke.
Maroyad tapped her desk with one forefinger. “I heard that Ormsment had abandoned her post in Aurdwynn. She’s dead?”
“Yes.” Barhu’s blue-tinged polestar mask helped her keep the confidence in her tone: Kimbune had brought it from Eternal, bless her. “Though not before she murdered several hundred Imperial Advisory staff, sacked a Morrow Ministry station, destroyed Oriati diplomatic escorts in battle, and knowingly attacked a vessel with the Oriati ambassador aboard. A matter of significant concern to the Emperor, as you can imagine.”
Yawa leaned corvine on the back of a chair. “Paramount concern. The Emperor Itself has taken personal interest.” It did not take a personal interest in anything, being a lobotomite straitjacketed to a marble throne, but that made no difference. The power was in the Throne behind the throne.
Maroyad stared into the clamshell ashtray on her desk. “Asmee, precisely what happened to Lieutenant Commander Aminata?”
“She died on Sulane, mam. She went aboard to . . . to be sure it had to be done. When she failed to convince Province Admiral Ormsment to stand down, she begged me to fire on her. And I complied.”
His voice wanted forgiveness. His face said he would never accept it.
Maroyad nodded tightly. “I see. She was an extremely promising officer. I will make personally certain that she receives Parliament’s notice.”
“Difficult to do.” Yawa’s machinated rasp, air blown through ticking gears, made Maroyad grimace. “How can Parliament take notice of circumstances the navy can never admit? ‘Brevet-Captain Aminata persuaded the navy to murder its own flag-ranked traitor.’ That’ll make for a difficult commendation, don’t you think?”
Maroyad flicked her chin to the door. “Asmee. You’re dismissed.” She waited for the door to click shut behind him. “Lock it.”
Barhu turned the steel key. Tiny complicated things happened inside the door. Yawa, ghost-slow in her quarantine gown, descended upon one of the chairs. Buttresses and ribs creaked as she sat.
Maroyad folded her hands on the desk and composed her face. “I have no knowledge of any seditious, mutinous, or provocative acts conducted by officers of the navy.”
“Of course you don’t,” Yawa said. They had agreed she would take the harsher tack. “You were never in contact with Juris Ormsment about her intention to mutiny. You did not conceal a vitally important prisoner from Parliament and the Republic. And you were certainly never in communication about this prisoner with Province Admiral Falcrest, Ahanna Croftare. Making her complicit in your conspiracy to conceal facts material to the Imperial Republic’s safety. None of those things happened, hm?”
“I have no information to contribute to these accusations, whether by admission or by omission.”
Barhu slid her chair closer to the admiral’s desk. “Rear Admiral, please. We know you have Abdumasi Abd. We know you warned Juris Ormsment about my role in provoking the Oriati attack on Aurdwynn. We even know you urged her not to move against me.”
Maroyad stiffened. “Move against you? You’re Baru Cormorant?”
Barhu nodded silently.
“You little fuck,” Maroyad hissed. “You drove her to mutiny. And now you’ve killed her, too?”
“Your own loyal sailors killed her. Captain Nullsin and Lieutenant Commander Aminata did their duty to the navy and to the Empire.”
“Oh, I’m sure they thought they were doing the right thing. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You make us believe we have a duty to die for you.”
Maroyad began to rise from her chair. Yawa tapped her finger threateningly, as if she wore a judge’s steel-tipped gauntlet, but Maroyad did not stop.
“What did you tell Aminata? That she had to die to protect the Republic? Or was it blackmail? Did you have some sealed file on her, a bribe she took, a man she shouldn’t have fucked?” Arctic voice, cold as wind through frozen sails, tearing at iced-up spars. “You’ve been baiting the Oriati toward open war since last autumn. Enticing them to strike Aurdwynn. And for what? So you could tell Parliament they were conspiring against us? ‘War, Parliamins’ ”—she was baying now, like a preacher or a wolf—“ ‘war is the only balm for this burn on our dignity. There’s timber to be taken, and mines to be dug, and great reserves of gold, and new crops to be found. Cheap labor, and untouched reserves of culture, and babies, so many babies, to clean and render hygienic! We’ll force our way through Segu Mbo to the Black Tea Ocean and all the islands of spice and platinum beyond! And on that note, we’d better be sure we have the right admirals commanding our ships—agreeable, constructively minded men, men with stakes in the proper concerns, who know how to send the plunder to the right purses—’ ”
“There’s a Cancrioth ship on its way to Isla Cauteria,” Barhu said.
Maroyad sank hard back into her chair. It was like watching Iraji pass into syncope, except the thing about to obliterate Maroyad’s consciousness was not faint but rage.
“What ship,” she said.
Barhu did not need to explain herself. “We believe that they will negotiate for the return of Abdumasi Abd, who is a member of their secret society. That gives us a chance to reach a broader agreement, one which might avert war entirely. It would entail new trade relations with the Oriati: concessions from their markets to convince Falcrest that war is less profitable than peace. That would be in the navy’s interest, would it not?”
“What fucking ship? How soon?”
“They’ll be arriving tomorrow. Unless they put up more sail, risk a night approach in waters they don’t know. Then perhaps tonight.”
“Fuck,” Maroyad said. “Fuck!” She snatched up the clamshell ashtray from her desk and hurled it at the abstract paintings of sailing ships on the wall beside Yawa. It ricocheted and did not break. “You bring this to me when Parliament’s just castrated my command—those worm-shit fucks!”
The ashtray rattled on the floor, turning around some unsustainable axis, and collapsed. Yawa’s breath ticked in and out through the voice changer.
“Parliament—” Maroyad smoothed her palms on her desk. “Parliament has rendered the navy insolvent. I have operating reserves, but if I expend them, my sailors will know I can’t make good on their back pay. They’ll desert.”
“Leave the money to us,” Barhu said. “We have accounts to draw upon.”
“Is the Cancrioth ship a threat to my island?”
“It’s not your concern, Rear Admiral.”
“That judgment no longer belongs to you.” Barhu wished she would not shout so loud. “You will obey the Emperor’s edict. We have determined that the Cancrioth ship will be granted harbor.”
“And if I don’t obey?”
Yawa leaned forward as if bending to study carrion. “We will use the evidence available to us to implicate both you and Ahanna Croftare in Ormsment’s crimes. You will face charges of permissive mutiny, grand treason by omission, conspiracy, and material aid to an enemy of the Republic. The investigation will taint every woman who belongs to the so-called ‘Merit Admirals.’ Your entire faction in the Admiralty will be purged.”
Maroyad looked as if she might yet clamber over her desk to slit their throats. But she knew her duty.
“I seem to be in your power,” she said, with bitter calm. “You will find, however, that there are principles I will not compromise.”
“We understand,” Barhu said. “You should know, Rear Admiral, that we never asked your officers to compromise themselves, either. When Aminata made her choice, she did it by her own free will.”
“Don’t matronize me. I don’t give a shit what kind of nostrums you’ve boiled up to soothe me. If you had a single short cunt-hair of moral character, you’d be here asking me for my help, not blackmailing me into it.” She fell back into her chair. “Tell me about the Cancrioth ship. No. Wait. I’ll get that from Nullsin, who actually understands ships. Are you serious about bringing them across the Caul for negotiations? What could you possibly negotiate with these . . . things?”
“You don’t really want to know, do you?” Barhu reminded her, calm and smooth as porcelain.
“No. I suppose I don’t.” Maroyad stared down at her white clenched knuckles. “This won’t go away, will it? The blackmail. You’ll keep on me as long as I’m useful. So I want you to know, right now, that if you continue to push me—”
Yawa laughed. It came out as a blast of tangled steel. “You should consider yourself lucky. We can trust you now, Maroyad. We can trust Ahanna Croftare. Because we have a hold on you. There’s an Empire Admiralty in her future, and a Province Admiralty in yours.”
“Milk from snakes,” Maroyad murmured.
“Oh, don’t play innocent,” Yawa snapped. “You made your choices. No one forced you to conceal Abd, lie to Parliament, and keep silent about what you knew Ormsment might do. Hundreds of people are dead because of her. You could’ve stopped it.”
Maroyad smiled briskly at her. “I’m sure we can spend all day arguing over the moral weather gage here. I just hope you know what becomes of politicians who think they make fine military leaders. I’ll have freedom to choose my own tactics, I hope?”
“Certainly. Although I strongly suggest you put a torchship alongside Eternal when she moors. They’ll respect that threat.” Barhu rose from the chair, careful to turn right so that she would not blindside Maroyad.
“An entire torchship? Do you know how many frigates we could sail for the cost of—”
“Believe me,” Barhu said. “When you see Eternal, you’ll understand.”
“When this goes wrong,” Maroyad said, “I know I’ll be blamed. It’s not a coincidence that you chose a Bastè Ana admiral to blackmail, is it? Any more than it’s a coincidence the Emperor chose foreigners—and you are both foreigners, I suspect—to execute this little intrigue. We’re all easier to scapegoat.”
“Then let’s not do anything worth scapegoating, shall we?” Yawa rasped.
“Fine.” Maroyad puffed her cheeks and blew: that universal fuck me gesture. “Well. Consider me swayed by political authority. Now, if you’ll make yourselves scarce, I have a ball to cancel.”
“Wait!” Barhu put her maimed hand out. “What ball?”
“Didn’t you see the bunting on your way in?” Maroyad pushed a schedule book across the desk, ragged with inserts and amendments. “Her Excellence Heingyl Ri is hosting the Governor’s Ball tonight, in my Arsenal Ballroom, with half the island in attendance. I was going to panhandle for donations to keep the harbor patrol running. But if the island’s in danger of attack, then I can’t very well hold a social function—”
“You won’t cancel it.” Barhu thought very quickly. Eternal would not be here until tomorrow; they had opened the distance on the approach to Cauteria, and she still had a torpedo wound in her hull. The ball was too good an opportunity to pass up. “Yes. The ball will go forward, and you’ll make only one change.”
Maroyad glared at her. “What now?”
“Tell Governor Ri she’s been supplanted. Announce that Her Excellence Agonist, victorious in Aurdwynn, will be the guest of honor.”
Barhu had a proposal to make.
I’m so thirsty,” Osa groaned. “I’d peel the rest of my face off for a drink.”
“I thought you were a miserere,” Aminata said.
“What’s a miserere?”
“Little daggers they used in Old Falcrest to mercy kill the survivors of royal torture. I think.”
“I’m not a little dagger.”
“It’s figurative, Osa. For people who think life is about enduring pain.”
“I suppose I think that,” Osa said, “except I like to complain, too. Knife now.”
Very carefully, Aminata passed Shao Lune’s sharpened haircomb down to Osa. There would be no retrieving it if it fell. Nothing beneath them except the bumpy white tongue of Eternal’s wake.
She and Osa had climbed down the stern of the ship from the windows of their prison. Not ten feet below them, where the hull cut away to make room for Eternal’s mighty rudder, a fence of rusty nails jutted from the wood: hasty measure to keep divers off the hull.
The Cancrioth were not seasoned soldiers, and they were not expert prison-makers, either. Aminata had discovered that the windows of the stern sunroom could, with some trickery, be undone. Then, if you trusted your clambering skills, you could descend to the deck below, stick a knife between the rattan shutters, and saw through the piece of cord holding them closed.
This would be the first, inglorious step in retaking Eternal.
“They keep the pigs down there,” Osa said. “Tau told me that. I guess they didn’t want to waste glass windows on a pigpen.”
Now Osa wedged Shao Lune’s haircomb into the windowjamb, hammered it in with the heel of her hand, and began to saw at the rope.
“Get Iraji now,” she grunted.
“You’re sure you’ll be ready?” Was she even ready? This was all Tau-indi’s plan, especially the insane and sorcerous parts. Why was she going along with it? Because the alternative was waiting to die with everyone else aboard when Eternal attacked Isla Cauteria.
“I’ll be ready,” Osa said. “Don’t drop him.”
Aminata pulled herself back up. Iraji waited, curled acrobatically in the window. “Hi,” Aminata said, cheerfully: she liked seeing him there. “Get on.”
Last night, when the tension and the guilt of staying away from him had become too much, when she’d driven herself round like a one-oared boat wondering if Tau’s “war magic” would drive Iraji permanently mad, she had asked to see him, alone, in one of the other staterooms. Innibarish had allowed it.
She’d apologized to Iraji for avoiding him. She’d apologized for checking the cuffs and collar of her scratchy half-washed uniform instead of looking at him. Apologized for pretending that they had not hidden in Eternal’s underbelly together, both afraid for their lives. Apologized most of all for pretending that they had not become friends in the process.
Iraji had kissed her.
Aminata had made a face. “Weird,” she’d said. “That’s not what I came for.”
“I’m sorry,” he’d said, his own face rather stubbly, not at his usual sleek finest. “I thought, after all the things Tau’s been teaching me, that you might . . . you might think I was wr
ong, somehow.”
“No, not that, just—well, a little of that,” she laughed, oh, how would she explain this navy thing to Iraji, “but you and I, we went through some action together. So it’s like you’re my shipmate now.”
“And thus off limits?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” he’d said, frowning intently, except at the corner of his smiling eyes. “Well, we’d best fix that.”
And through a little laughter, and a surprising mutual comfort, they had come to hold each other, kissed each other upon neck and wrist and breast (not mouths: it seemed too sentimental), until they came together, kneeling, her legs parted across his just like she’d imagined it would be. Aminata had moved upon him quietly, warmly, looking him in the eye when she had her eyes open at all.
“You’re brave,” she’d told him. “Coming back here for Baru. Taking that poison. You’re so brave.”
“You’re brave. That ship—they said you were on Sulane when it burnt—you saved everyone here.”
And they had gone on like that, whispering praise to each other, things they might have been too abashed to say, if they were not so carnally bashed: you’re magnificent, you’re good, you will do it all so well.
Afterward, washing him off her stomach, she’d asked, “Was this some kind of . . . spy thing? Because you work for the red-haired man? Is this like the homme fatale in the books, where you keep me loyal by . . .”
“No, no.” He’d looked at her upside down, his head thrown back over the edge of the bed, arms dangling, shoulders magnificent, every cord and swell of muscle glistening with sweat. “I only meant it as . . . I like to give things to my friends. Are we friends?”
“Friends. Yeah. I think, uh”—she’d waved her hand between them—“we probably needed to get this out of the way.”
“Yes. I could tell.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll want to do it again.”
“That’s all right.”
She’d paused, struck by that thought. “Iraji,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever fucked anyone I really liked before.”