by Julia Knight
“So then, if not to watch Van Gast swing from the walls of Oku’s temples, why did you leave the ship?”
“I told you, to see my family. I was as surprised as anyone when the guards turned up.”
It wasn’t the truth, Holden was sure of that, but he wasn’t sure it was a lie either. She looked straight at him, candor stamped all over her face and a puzzled merriment behind her eyes, in the lift of her lips. She reached out for his hand, and he let her. Her fingers were warm and tingled his skin. He wondered what she would taste like if he kissed her.
“What about Ilsa?” she said.
Holden pulled his hand away, though he could still feel the touch of her fingers on his. “What about her?”
“Why did she leave the ship? She was just ahead of me.”
A question Holden didn’t have an answer for, and he wasn’t sure he wanted one. He drained his drink and stood up. “Come on, I want you back aboard. You can explain to Van yourself what you were doing.”
“Why should he care?”
She left her drink where it was, but got up with him. He was suddenly aware of her nearness, of her warmth, the way she was looking at him. That he could talk to her as he couldn’t with his own wife.
“Because you make him itch.”
“Wait—wait. Holden, I can—no, I can’t explain. But I can show you.”
“Show me what?”
“Where Josie’s berthed the ship, the Ghost. Van wants to know, doesn’t he? I’ll show you and then you’ll know I’m all right. Van wasn’t supposed to go—”
“Go where? To the temple?”
Tallia shrank back from him, from his sudden glare. “I can’t say. I can’t. But I can show you where Josie is, then it’ll be all right, won’t it?”
Her hand found his again, her eyes pleading with him. He wanted to believe her, not because he thought she was telling the truth but because he didn’t want to believe she was lying to him, didn’t want to have to distrust her. And yet that was the problem—the way she looked at him, the way her hand felt, was getting in the way of seeing clearly. He shook his head, as though that would make everything better, but it was all still there when he’d done.
He found his voice and turned away before he said it. “I need to find Ilsa.” He needed to make it right with her, not with this girl, who was looking at him as though she liked him. Who kept taking his hand. Who made Van Gast itch.
* * *
Rillen scrambled up the wall after Van Gast, swearing under his breath. He didn’t have years of experience running the yards on a ship or climbing the rigging. His strength and experience lay in sword and pistol and guile, not clambering like a sodding monkey.
By the time he made it to the roof, Van Gast was no longer in sight, though three of Rillen’s men were skittering after him. A pistol flashed out a bullet and it whined off the tiles. A shout from Rillen to the men left below, telling them which direction to aim for, and then he plunged after Van Gast.
The tiles slipped and skidded under his boots, and he cursed again. Van Gast came into view, briefly, running over the steeply sloping roof as though it was level ground. Not aiming for any one of the easy ways off the roof, but heading straight for a long drop. Rillen paused to aim, but, contrary to all expectation, Van Gast dropped out of sight in a jangle of bells.
Rillen led the way after him, listening for those bells that marked his position as clearly as if Rillen could see him. Loose tiles made the slope treacherous, and Rillen took care, more care than Van Gast had, and peered over the edge of the roof.
A long drop—too damned long and why he’d not even thought Van Gast would go this way. Rillen slid over the edge with care, dangled as far as he could and dropped, his men close behind. One fell awkwardly, with a broken scream and the snap of bone. Rillen ignored him, ignored the wrench of his own leg, the jar on his bones and limped on.
Yet no matter how fast they ran, how they jigged around obstacles through the alley and into a square, Van Gast was always a step ahead and wasn’t in the square when they reached it.
Rillen swore viciously under his breath. He’d thought he’d blocked all ways from the roof. He had done, blocked every sane way. Van Gast hadn’t even tried them, had instead gone straight for the insane way, the sloping roof that was almost sheer, the long drop. He alone didn’t seem to have done himself an injury—Rillen’s leg throbbed where it had twisted on landing, and none of his men from the roof were much better.
The rest of his men came at a run from the Godsquare, just as a stallholder was pointing to a dark, narrow alley full of rubbish. A nod from Rillen, and the fresh men leaped after Van Gast. Rillen stayed where he was, glaring at anyone who looked like they were about to speak.
Van Gast was gone, slipped through his fingers like smoke. Kyr’s mercy, Rillen had enough men here to take an entire ship, and yet one man eluded them. Eluded everyone. For now. Don’t think I’ll stop. There will be another way. Yet it was still a failure, would still have to be reported as such. Haban’s niece better come through with something else.
He moved at that thought, made his slow way back to the Godsquare, turning over and over in his mind how he would tell his father he’d failed. Sod his father, it was Bissan he wanted to impress now, and this wasn’t impressive.
He reached the square and found a vantage point. Haban’s niece was gone. Rillen frowned, annoyed. No sign of her. She’d disappeared into the heaving, curious crowds. She turned him in, what else do you want?
He wasn’t sure, but something made him uneasy. A stallholder shoved a pan under Rillen’s nose and tried to persuade him to buy it, his hand fast on Rillen’s arm. Rillen yanked it away.
Haban’s niece had better get in touch again, find another way to catch Van Gast, or Haban’s life would be worth less than his next piss.
* * *
Holden let Tallia lead the way through the crush, though he kept his eyes sharp. For Ilsa, who he should be trying to find, should be trying to make it up to. He’d looked and looked but finding one person in this press of people would be nigh on impossible, and in the end he’d given in and let Tallia take him to see where Josie was berthed.
The crowds buffeted them this way and that, pressed them close, too close for Holden’s comfort, and pulled them apart again. Somewhere in the Godsquare, Tallia took his hand and he didn’t let go as he should have. On the plaza outside the walls, the crush was worse, the vast space filled to bursting with racks and merchant crews, traders grabbing for customers with sly, beguiling hands. Next to a stand selling wooden toys, the crowd shoved Tallia right into his arms so that he had to grab her to stop them both from falling.
The worst thing was that he didn’t want to let go, that she was everything Ilsa had ceased to be. Warm where Ilsa was cold, soft where Ilsa was a sharp shoulder. Smiles where Ilsa was a frown.
He set Tallia on her feet again, kept his face still, tried not to let anything show. It was Ilsa he should be thinking of, not Tallia. And Van, who even now was chasing his way across rooftops, probably laughing at the guards who chased him, having his thrill. But Van was in trouble, more trouble than he knew, and Tallia could help Holden figure it out. Maybe Tallia was why he was in trouble. Business, this was business.
Tallia’s smile faltered and she led him on, silent now. They left the plaza and headed out into the delta, sparsely lit compared to the city and its surrounds so that every shadow was a threat. Tallia tried to take his hand again, but he kept it on the butt of his pistol. The delta wasn’t for the faint of heart even in daylight, worse in the dark. Holden had never been to the delta before, but he’d heard enough.
They passed drift-inns alight with torches and laughter, thick with the smell of rend-nut as it shredded the minds of those who smoked it. Night traders taking advantage of the cool, dealing in everything from fish to troupes of acrobats. He’d heard it said that everything could be found in the delta if you looked hard enough, and everything was for sale.
They
passed an isolated yard full of cages of exotic animals. A big cat prowled one, spotted and striped, orange and yellow and black with a twitching tail and wild eyes. It brought him to a halt as he wondered if that was the sort they called a lion. I want to see lions, Ilsa had said to him once, when they’d still been bonded. A confession he’d had to drag from her when he’d demanded she want something for herself, demanded she struggle against the bond. He wondered if lions were still what she wanted, and he realized he had no idea, none at all. He didn’t know even if she knew what she wanted.
“Holden?” Tallia’s voice snapped him back to the narrow alley. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. How far?”
She didn’t answer straightaway, but moved closer into the faint light shed by the torch in the yard. The flickering light half-hid her face, made what he could see a tantalizing mix of swirling lines and moving shadows. No comforting straight lines, only curves. The way she looked at him—he turned away, back to the lion, or whatever it was, back to what reminded him of Ilsa, of his duty, what he’d promised. Because if Tallia kept looking at him like that, as though she liked what she saw, he was going to forget.
Her hand on his chin brought him back, turned him to face her again as she leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him, a briefest touch of lips that made not grabbing her and kissing her almost impossible. He clenched his fist against it, jerked his head away from the taste of warm sunlight and sultry afternoons.
Tallia pulled away, a hurt look in her eyes, then turned and began to lead the way again. Holden followed, unsure of what he was doing anymore, what he was feeling, who he was. That question had plagued him, worse and worse as the weeks had spun on since the bond had gone. The answer was he didn’t yet know who or what he was.
He hurried after Tallia, wanting to take her hand again, and not wanting to. When she stopped in the lee of a tattered shop that stank of fish, she kept from looking at him while she spoke. “There she is. Lone Queen, Josie’s renamed her. Been berthed here a few days.”
But Holden wasn’t looking at the ship. “Tallia, I—”
Her sharp glance stopped him. She was still for once, no bounce, no laugh ready to be laughed. “It’s not often a rack turns down an offered tumble. But you’re not some usual rack, are you? Different, you are, as different to them as the sun to the stars.”
“I’m sorry, I wish I could be who you wanted.” He did, and that tore at him, made guilt weigh a stone in him. He couldn’t work out what he was supposed to do with his freedom. Keep away from Tallia, if he wanted to keep his sanity and his wife.
Especially when she smiled at him as she did now, a smile just for him that seemed to light her up. “Don’t be sorry. That’s what I like about you. Look, come on. There’s Josie’s ship. You can tell Van where it is, that’ll please him, let him know I’m on the level. Just tell him Fishhook Lane, he’ll know where to come.”
“You can tell him, once I’ve made sure it is hers.”
A quick movement on the deck caught Holden’s eye. One of the crew, shinning up a mast, to relieve the lookout, he supposed. A lookout, even in port, and the crewman one he recognized. This was Josie’s ship all right.
Holden turned back to Tallia with a smile, but all he turned to was shadows and empty space.
* * *
Rillen headed back to the palace, cursing his men, himself and, most of all, the slippery bastard Van Gast. His men were still chasing him but Rillen knew the rack was lost, for now. He allowed himself a small, tight smile. Other plans, there were always other plans, better ones. He just had to work out what they might be.
The night breeze ruffled his hair as he entered the palace, the heels of his boots clicking on the tile floors, loud in the silence.
Too silent.
The door to his father’s audience chamber lay open ahead of him, lamplight spilling through. One of the mages’ slaves came out, eerily silent on bare feet, his copper-bronze face oddly featureless in his numbness. Rillen’s lip curled against it, against the horror of the man’s emotionless eyes, the way they turned blindly to follow him as he moved. The man’s hand came up, limp as a dead fish, and beckoned him into the chamber. He considered carrying on, pretending he’d never seen the thing, just walking past and on to his room to wait for news.
“Your father commands you,” it said, the voice worse than the eyes. A flat monotone, a dead voice with the chill of tombstones on it.
“Commands me what?” Rillen couldn’t suppress the shiver that trickled across his shoulders, or the sharp edge of fear that crept into his voice.
The man waved him toward the chamber again.
He had nothing to fear. Bissan wouldn’t bond him. Not him but maybe fat Old Toady, should their plans work out, if he could ever catch Van Gast. Nothing to fear from this pitiful thing.
Rillen swallowed back fear-sharp bile in his throat, made wide berth around the slave and entered the chamber. All his fear melted away at the sight of Old Toady on his dais. Fool, stupid old fool.
His father smiled, a rare true one, no hint of slyness or artifice about it. “News?”
“Not yet, sir.” Hold your tongue. Bite it if you have to.
“So, no Van Gast in our cells. Well, Rillen, I think I may be able to help.” The smile twisted, became pregnant with condescension. “An informant.”
“Do you think I need one?”
“Oh yes. He’s not in the cells yet, is he? And disgruntled women make the very best informants.”
“They can be treacherous too. Do you trust this one?” Rillen let his glance encompass the mages, and one in particular.
“Absolutely” was all Bissan said.
Urgaut took over, saving the mage from having to move any more. “As he says, we trust this source absolutely. She has the very best of reasons for giving us the information. There’s nothing like revenge from a betrayed woman.”
“So what are your orders?”
“You’ve proved yourself incapable of catching the man in the past, so it appears that you could use this woman’s service. But this time, use this woman and her information to draw him out.”
Van Gast wasn’t that stupid and neither was Rillen. He said nothing, only waited for his father to go on. Rillen could tell by the way his face was wobbling he was holding on to something, stringing it out, hoping to impress. Rillen bit back a grin as one of the mages stole the wind from his father’s sails.
“I see you’re skeptical, and I see why. The mages tried to use his enemy against him last time. We shan’t make that mistake. This time, we shall use those closest to him. Those he loves. Bait for a trap.”
Rillen watched the mage carefully as he considered. “You know who these people are? No matter how we try, we’ve never got close enough to him to tell who’s his friend and who are just people he knows. And we’ve tried very hard.”
The mage managed a smile without cracking too many crystals. “We know. We hear the screams of the dungeons from our rooms. Very thorough, but a rack will never give up information about another. Unless they want to, unless there is something in it for them. As is the case here, with this woman. Ten thousand sharks—and revenge. Plenty of incentive, and she says her information will help you. From what she has told me, I think she’s right.”
“Then your orders are?”
Urgaut, unable to keep quiet for long, butted back in. “Wait, for now. You can never tell with these racks what they’ll do, which way they’ll turn or who they’ll betray, so planning too far in advance is heading for disaster. You can talk to our informant, briefly, because she needs to return. Find out what she knows, how she can help.” He waved a hand in dismissal and Rillen turned to go.
Fat old fool. He smiled tightly to himself and made his way to talk to the woman prepared to turn over Van Gast. Maybe he wouldn’t need Haban’s niece anymore after all.
He found the woman in a plush little drawing room on the east side, away from the stifling heat of the dying sun so the small space
was cool and dim. Someone had thought to provide her with hot mint tea and the scent overpowered the room.
She looked startled when he came in but soon settled when he introduced himself. She smiled, awkward and unsure. Nervous. Pretty little thing too, just his sort. Soft and round, with wide eyes that were just that tad naïve.
“For a moment I thought, well, I thought you were a rack and they’d found out I was here, what I’m doing.”
“I assure you, no rack enters this palace without us bringing them here. They don’t leave.” Or not alive, anyway.
She relaxed at that and sipped her tea. “Good. If they find out—”
“They won’t, not from me. Now, I’m told you have information that can help us catch Van Gast.”
“Oh yes, he’s docked not far from Mucking Lane. The Glass Dagger. I told the mage that.”
“Mucking Lane?” Brazen, and rash, so close to the city walls. It might make his life a whole lot easier. So might she, if you play her right.
Rillen poured himself a glass of the tea and smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “A tricky area to start a war in. Too many racks on Van Gast’s side. I prefer subtle, and him on his own, in my territory. The mages mentioned bait. Those close to Van Gast. They said you can tell me who those people are.”
Her smile grew sly, her voice vicious. Maybe not so naïve as he’d first thought.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Where do you want him to be? Wherever it is, I can make him get there or die trying. I know the bait that will hook him.”
Rillen let his smile match hers. I like the way you think, lady. I like the snake under that pretty face. “I’d rather kill him myself.”
“If you like. Just let me know where and when you want him. I can get on board his ship without a drop of trouble. I have a berth there already. I can tell you more too. More people you’re after, more secrets that you don’t know.”
The smooth wheels of Rillen’s mind began to turn, pondering, planning, plotting. He lifted his glass in a gesture of thanks. “Something a little stronger perhaps, to seal a deal? Forgive me, I never asked for your name.”
