Retribution Falls

Nineteen

An hour later, and Crake had begun to remember why he’d been so bored with the aristocracy. He seemed to be en countering the same people over and over again. The faces were different, but the bland niceties and insipid observations remained the same. He was yet to meet anyone more interesting than the clothes they wore.

The guests fell neatly into the pigeonholes he made for them. There was the Pampered Adventurer, who wanted to use Father’s money to explore distant lands and eventually set up a business in New Vardia. They had no real concept of hardship. Then there was the Future Bankrupt, who talked enthusiastically of investing in dangerous projects and bizarre science, dreaming of vast profits that would never materialise. They were often attached to the Vapid Beauty, whose shattering dullness was only tolerable because they were so pleasant to look at. Occasionally he spotted a Fledgling Harpy, spoiled daughter of a rich family. Unattractive, yet intelligent enough to realise that their fiancée was only with them for their money. In revenge for thwarting their fantasies of romance, they intended to make the remainder of his life a misery.

These, and others, he recognised from long experience. A procession of stereotypes and clichés, he thought scornfully. Each one desperately believing themselves to be unique. They parrot their stupid opinions, plucked straight from the broadsheets, and hope that nobody disagrees. How had he ever communicated with these people? How could he ever go back among them, knowing what he knew?

They’d moved into the magnificent ballroom, with its swirled marble pillars and copper chandeliers. The floor was busy with couples, some of them lovers but most not. They exchanged partners as they moved, men and women passed around in a political interplay, gossiping and spying on one another. Crake stood to one side with Jez, talking with a pair of brothers who had recently bought an aerium mine and clearly had no idea how to exploit it.

Gallian Thade and Duke Grephen stood on the other side of the room. Crake listened. It was hard to concentrate on two conversations at once, but luckily he needed less than half his attention to keep up with either. Jez was fielding the Aerium Brothers, and Thade and his companions were saying nothing of any interest. Their talk consisted of possible business ventures, witticisms and pleasantries. He was beginning to wonder if Frey had been wise to believe Thade might give something away.

‘We should go elsewhere,’ he heard Thade murmur, through the silver earcuff. ‘There are things we must discuss.’

Crake’s eyes flickered to the host, who was talking to the Duke. Grephen nodded, and they excused themselves and began to move away across the ballroom. This was promising.

‘Miss Flay!’

It was Vexford, the rangy old soak who had taken a fancy to Jez. He gave Crake a poisonous glare as they made their greetings. He’d not forgotten his recent embarrassment at Crake’s hands. It hadn’t embarrassed him enough to keep him from trying to steal his adversary’s sweetheart, apparently.

‘Air Marshal Vexford!’ Jez declared, with false and excessive enthusiasm. ‘How good to see you again!’

Vexford puffed up with pleasure. ‘I was wondering if I might have the honour of this dance?’

Jez glanced uncertainly at Crake, but Crake wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on the sounds in his ear. Grephen and Thade were exchanging greetings with people as they passed through the ballroom towards a doorway at one end. The greetings were getting fainter and fainter as they moved out of range.

‘Damen?’ Jez enquired. He noticed her again. ‘Air Marshal Vexford wishes to dance with me.’ Her eyes were urgent: Save me!

Crake smiled broadly at the Air Marshal. ‘That would be fine, sir. Just fine,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, I must attend to something.’ He slipped away with rude haste, to spare himself Jez’s gaze of horrified betrayal.

He made his way towards the doorway Grephen and Thade were heading for, glancing around nervously as he went. He was searching for a sign of Fredger Cordwain, the man who worked for the Shacklemores. Crake hadn’t spotted him since their conversation earlier, and it worried him deeply.

When he was a child, he’d been afraid of spiders. They seemed to like his bedroom, and no matter how the maids chased them out they always came back. But frightened as he was, he found their presence easier to bear if he could see them, hiding in a corner or motionless on the ceiling. It was when he looked away, when the spider disappeared, that the fear came. A spider safely on the far side of the room was one thing; a spider that might already be crawling over the pillow towards his face was quite another. Crake wanted Cordwain where he could see him.

The sound of Thade’s voice strengthened in his ear as he drew closer to them. They passed through the grand doorway at the end of the ballroom and away. Crake followed at a distance.

Beyond was a corridor, leading through the manor to other areas: smoking rooms, galleries, halls. Guests were scattered about in groups, admiring sculptures or laughing among themselves. Crake was sweating, and not only because of the heat. He felt like a criminal. The casual glances of the doormen and servants seemed suddenly suspicious and knowing. He sipped his wine and tried to look purposeful.

‘Where are we going?’ Grephen said quietly to Thade, looking around. ‘Somewhere more private than this, I hope.’

‘My study is off-limits to guests,’ Thade replied. He halted at a heavy wooden door with vines carved into its surface, and unlocked it with a key. Crake stopped a little way up the corridor, pretending to admire a painting of some grotesque aunt of the Thade dynasty. Thade and Grephen stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

He waited for them to speak again. They didn’t. Wait: was that a murmur in his ear? Perhaps, but it was too faint to make out. The study evidently went back some distance into the manor, and they were right at the limit of his range.

Spit and blood! I knew I should have made these things more powerful, he thought, fingering his earcuff in agitation.

He looked both ways up the corridor, but nobody was paying attention to him. He walked across to the door that led to the study. If anyone asked, he could just say he got lost.

He tried the door. It didn’t open. He tried again, more forcefully. Locked.

‘I don’t think you can go in there,’ said a portly, middle-aged man who had spotted his plight.

‘Oh,’ said Crake. ‘I must be mistaken.’ He lowered his voice, and moved close to murmur: ‘I thought this was the lavatory. It’s quite desperate, you see.’

‘Other end of the corridor,’ said the man, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

‘Much obliged,’ he said, and hurried away.

His mind was racing. If Thade had anything worth hearing, he was saying it right now, and Crake was too far away to listen. This whole excursion would be wasted if he couldn’t get back in range, and quickly.

Just then he passed the foot of a staircase. It was relatively narrow and simple, with white stone steps and elegant, polished banisters. A manservant stood on the first step, barring entry to guests.

And suddenly Crake had an idea.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Would you mind terribly if I had a nose around up there?’

‘Guests are not allowed, sir,’ said the manservant.

Crake grinned hugely. His best grin, his picture-grin. His gold tooth glinted in the light of the electric bulb. The manservant’s eyes glittered like a magpie’s.

‘I’d be most grateful if you could make an exception,’ he said.

The corridors upstairs were cool and hushed and empty. The gabble of conversation and music from the ballroom were muted by the thick floors. Crake could hear a pair of maids somewhere nearby, talking in low voices, giggling as they prepared the bedrooms.

He chose a direction that he judged would take him towards Thade’s study chambers. Despite the awful thrill of trespass, his limbs were beginning to feel heavy. Using the earcuff, and now his tooth, had sapped his energy. Years of practice had trained him to endure the debilitating effect of employing daemons, but the sustained, low-level usage had worn him down.

A man’s voice joined the women’s. A butler. Chiding. Get on with your work. The three of them were up ahead, just around a bend in the corridor. They might step into view at any moment, and Crake would be seen. He could feel his pulse throbbing against his collar. His palms were clammy and wet with the terror of being caught doing something wrong. He marvelled at how people like Frey could flout authority with such ease.

Then, a murmur. The faintest of sounds. The daemon thralled to his earcuff was humming in resonance with its twin. He was picking up the conversation again.

Stealthily, holding his breath, he moved down the corridor. The butler was issuing instructions as to how the master wanted his guests’ rooms arranged. His voice grew in volume. Frustratingly, Thade’s didn’t. Crake was skirting around the limit of his earcuff’s range. Somewhere on the floor below him, Thade and Grephen were discussing the secret matters he’d come here to learn about. He had to get closer.

Crake crept up to the corner, pressing himself against it. He peered round. The butler was in the doorway of a nearby bedroom, a little way inside. His back was to the corridor, and he was talking to the maids within.

Crake took a shallow breath and held it. He had to do this now, before his nerve failed him. Soft-footed, he padded past the doorway. No voice was raised to halt him. The butler kept talking. Unable to believe his luck, Crake kept going, and the conversation in his ear grew audible.

‘. . . concern that . . . still haven’t caught . . .’

He opened a plain-looking door and ducked inside, eager to get out of the corridor. Within was a small, green-tiled room, with a shuttered window, a scalloped white sink, and a flush toilet at the end.

Well, he thought. I found the lavatory after all.

‘It’s imperative that Dracken finds him before the Archduke’s Knights do,’ said Grephen in his ear. ‘It should have been done properly the first time.’

Crake felt a guilty shiver, the chill of an eavesdropper who hears something scandalous. They were talking about Frey.

‘Nobody expected him to get away,’ said Thade. ‘I had four good pilots flying escort.’

‘So why didn’t they do their jobs?’

The lavatory had a lock on the inside, with a large iron key. Crake eased the door closed and quietly turned it, then sat down on the toilet lid. Grephen and Thade were almost directly below him now. He could hear them perfectly.

‘The survivor said they launched a surprise attack.’

‘Well, of course they did! We told them the route the Ace of Skulls would be flying! So why weren’t our pilots warned?’

‘The pilots were independents, hired through middlemen, that couldn’t be connected to you. We needed them to be reliable, untainted witnesses. We could hardly warn them an attack was coming without giving away the fact that we set up the ambush.’

Amalicia Thade was right, thought Crake. Her father wasn’t in this alone. This goes all the way up to the Duke.

‘The Ketty Jay had two outflyers—fighter craft,’ Thade went on patiently. ‘We didn’t even know Frey travelled with outflyers. He’s such an insignificant wretch, it’s a miracle he keeps his own craft in the sky, let alone three.’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘Your Grace, do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of one maggot amid the swarming cess of the underworld? A man like that puts down no roots and leaves little trace when he’s gone. The sheer size of our great country makes it—’

‘You underestimated him, then.’

Crake heard a resentful pause. ‘I miscalculated,’ Thade said at last.

‘The problem was that you didn’t calculate anything,’ Grephen said. ‘You allowed your personal hatred of this man to blind you. You saw a chance for revenge because he disgraced your daughter. I should never have listened to you.’

‘The Allsoul itself thought that Darian Frey was an excellent choice for our scheme.’

‘The auguries were unclear,’ said Grephen, coldly. ‘Even the Grand Oracle said so. Do not presume to know the mind of the Allsoul.’

‘I am saying that I trust in the Allsoul’s wisdom,’ Thade replied. ‘This is merely a hiccup. We will still emerge triumphant.’

Crake couldn’t help a sneer and a tut. Superstition and idiocy, he thought. Strange how your Allsoul can’t stop me using my daemons to listen to every word you say.

‘The survivor told us that the Ketty Jay’s outflyers were fast craft with excellent pilots,’ Thade explained. ‘The surprise attack threw them into chaos and took out half of our men. We were lucky that one witness escaped to report to the Archduke.’

Nobody spoke for a time. Crake imagined a sullen silence on Grephen’s part.

‘This is not a disaster,’ said Thade, soothingly. ‘Hengar is out of the way, and our hands remain clean. Don’t you see how things have fallen in our favour? That fool’s dalliance with the Samarlan ambassador’s daughter gave us the perfect opportunity to remove him and make it look like a pirate attack. If he’d not been travelling in secret, if your spies hadn’t discovered his affair, our job would have been that much more difficult.’

Grephen grunted in reluctant agreement, allowing himself to be mollified.

‘Not only that,’ Thade went on, ‘but leaking information about the affair to the public has turned them against Hengar and the Archduchy in general. Hengar was the one they loved, remember? He stood aside when his parents began their ridiculous campaign to deprive the people of the message of the Allsoul. His death could have strengthened the family, made them sympathetic in the eyes of the common man, but instead they have never been so unpopular.’

‘That’s true, that’s true.’

Thade was warming to his own positivity now. ‘Don’t you see how kindly the Allsoul looks on our enterprise? We have cleared the line of succession: the Archduke has no other children to inherit his title. The people will welcome you when you seize control of the Coalition. You will be Archduke Grephen, and a new dynasty will begin!’

Crake’s mind reeled. This was what it was all about? Spit and blood, they were planning a coup! They were planning to overthrow the Archduke!

It was all but inconceivable. Nobody alive remembered what it was like to live without a member of the Arken dynasty ruling the land. The rulers of the duchy of Thesk had been the leaders of the Coalition for almost a century and a half. They’d been the ones who forcefully brought the squabbling Coalition to heel after they deposed the King and threw down the monarchy. The first Archduke of Vardia had been of the family of Arken, as had every one since. The Arkens had been the ultimate power in the land for generations, overseeing the Third Age of Aviation and the Aerium Wars, the discovery of New Vardia and Jagos on the far side of the world, the formation of the Century Knights. They’d abolished serfdom and brought economic prosperity and industry to a land strangled by the stagnant traditions of millennia of royal rule.

Crake felt history teetering. Riveted, he listened on.

‘It . . . concerns me that Darian Frey is still on the run,’ said the Duke. ‘He has already been to the whispermonger you employed.’

‘Don’t worry about Quail. Dracken has made sure he won’t speak to anyone ever again.’

‘But Frey is already on the trail. He was spotted near your daughter’s hermitage.’

‘Amalicia has been questioned by the Mistresses, at my request. She swears that he never visited her. Dracken probably caught up to him before he had a chance to—’

‘What if she’s lying?’

‘You know I can’t go in there or bring her out. She must stay in isolation. We have to trust her, and the Mistresses.’

‘My point is, he must know about you. That means he may learn about me.’

‘Peace, your Grace. Who’ll believe him? With Quail dead, there’s nothing to link us but the word of a mass-murderer.’

‘It’s not a chance I want to take. If he digs deep enough, he might find something. I don’t want the Century Knights getting hold of him and giving him the chance to spout his theories to the Archduke.’

Crake was sitting atop the toilet, elbows on his knees, one hand on his forehead with his fingers clenched anxiously through his hair. Finally he understood the true seriousness of their situation. Unwittingly, they’d become entangled in a power-play for the greatest prize in the land. The only problem was they’d been inconvenient enough not to die when they were supposed to. Now they were hunted, both by those who thought they were responsible, and those who wanted them silenced. Small fry dodging the mouths of the biggest fish in the sea.

Thade’s voice was soothing again. ‘Dracken will have him soon. She guessed that he’d go to Quail, and she surmised he’d go after your daughter rather than coming for you. I am learning to respect her intuition where Frey is concerned.’ He paused. ‘She also believes he might try something tonight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘It’s his best chance of getting close to me, in amid all the chaos. But do not fear. She has men undercover all over my manor, and in the port on the mainland. The Delirium Trigger itself is hiding up in the night sky, waiting for a signal if the Ketty Jay should arrive.’

Crake felt his stomach sink. First the Shacklemores, and now Trinica Dracken was here? One step ahead of them already? This was getting altogether too dangerous. It was only through Amalicia’s invitations—and because nobody knew Crake and Jez were part of the crew of the Ketty Jay—that they’d remained undetected thus far. Crake was beginning to wish he’d never got involved in the first place.

The lavatory door rattled, making him jump. He looked up. There was a pause, then the door rattled again. A moment later, there was a sharp knock on the door.

‘Is someone in there?’

It was the butler. Crake was frozen to the spot. He said nothing, in the futile hope that the man outside would go away.

‘Hello? Is someone in there?’ He sounded angry. There was a knocking again, firmer this time.

The door was locked from the inside. Crake decided that he’d do better to own up, before the butler got really furious.

‘I’m in here,’ he said. ‘Be out in a minute.’

‘You’ll be out right now, sir!’ said the butler. ‘I don’t know how you got up here, but these are the private rooms of Master Thade.’

‘Do you trust her?’ said Grephen, from downstairs. His voice was suddenly faint. They’d moved away, walking into another room. Crake strained to hear over the voice of the butler.

‘Dracken? As much as I trust any pirate,’ Thade replied. ‘Besides, we need her. She’s our only link to—’

‘Sir! I must insist you come out here right now!’ the butler cried, knocking hard on the door.

‘Give a man a moment to finish his business!’ Crake protested, delaying his exit as long as he could. He had the sense that something important was being discussed here, but the words were becoming harder and harder to hear as the speakers moved away.

‘. . . we . . . no one else?’ Grephen asked. ‘I . . . uneasy about . . .’

‘. . . Dracken knows the . . . has charts and . . . device of some kind. Only way . . . can find that place. She . . . our . . . has to be escorted in . . . out . . . secret hideout . . .’

‘Sir!’ bellowed the butler.

‘I’m coming!’ cried Crake. He flushed the toilet, and was dismayed when the sound drowned out the last of the conversation from below him. Unable to hold out any longer, he unlocked the door and was immediately seized by the arm. The butler was a short, balding, red-faced fellow, and he was in no mood for Crake’s weak excuses. The daemonist was escorted roughly along the corridor and down the stairs, past the startled manservant who was supposed to be guarding them.

‘Sir will please stay downstairs from now on, or he shall be thrown from the premises!’ the butler snapped, loud enough to draw titters from the guests nearby. Crake blushed, despite himself. He hurried back towards the ballroom as the butler began to vent his anger on the hapless manservant who had let Crake pass minutes before.

Once in the ballroom, he looked for Jez, and found her with Vexford. The older man was towering over her, drunk on sherry and success, bawling about his outrageous exploits during the Second Aerium War. Crake strode up to them and took Jez by the arm.

‘Cra—’ Jez began, then corrected herself. ‘Sweetheart!’

‘We’re going,’ he said, pulling her away.

‘Here, now, you boor!’ protested Vexford, who was still in mid-story; but Crake ignored him, and Jez was propelled away. Vexford grabbed her wrist to stop her.

‘Sir!’ she exclaimed, breathlessly.

Vexford leaned closer and murmured huskily in her ear. ‘I have a large estate, just outside Banbarr. Anyone in the city will know where it is. If you ever tire of this ruffian, you will be most welcome.’ Then she was pulled away again by her impatient companion.

‘It’s been a great pleasure, sir!’ Jez called over her shoulder. ‘I hope to meet again!’ Then the crowd closed around them, and she turned to Crake with a narrow glare. ‘You left me alone with him,’ she accused. ‘He smells of sour milk and carrots.’

‘We’ll talk about it later, dear,’ said Crake.

‘I don’t think I want to marry you any more,’ she sulked.