I decide that’s a thought too far.
Ripping a chicken apart, Neen gives half to Iona. She finishes her half in a couple of bites, watched by Shil who can be odd about food. As for Rachel, she fills her fist with salted almonds and returns to her window.
I think she’s working on distances. Turns out, she’s watching a man bolt lengths of scaffolding together. ‘You know what he’s doing, sir?’
‘No,’ I lie.
She goes back to watching.
‘Certainly,’ Colonel Vijay says, when I ask if we can have a word. That’s one of his phrases, but it’s beginning to stick. He makes space for me to sit and offers me a plate of chicken breast.
‘I’ve eaten, sir.’
‘It’s about Shil?’
I stare at him. ‘Why would it be about her, sir?’
‘Thought it might.’ He nods to where she sits in her corner. There’s a darkness round her eyes, and a hauntedness to her face that I haven’t seen since the siege of Ilseville. There’s an air of barely restrained fury as she watches us watch her.
‘You realize,’ the colonel says, ‘she loves you?’
‘What?’
It was a fuck against a wall, and a couple of conversations since.
As far as I’m concerned we called a truce to her low-level grousing. If she sees it differently that’s her problem. Not mine, because I don’t need more problems. I have enough of those with the fallout from what happened in Farlight.
‘You serious, sir?’
‘Yes, Sven.’
My sigh sounds like bellows emptying. Fuck it, twice . . .
Is she that smart? The answer is yes, she’s smart. Probably the smartest person we’ve got in the group now Haze is off being important somewhere. But I don’t think it’s a plan. Maybe I just don’t want to think it’s a plan.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘She wins. I’ll have to throw her out after all.’
He stares at me. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’
‘Afraid so, sir.’
An orderly comes to collect our trays.
He says nothing as Neen piles what’s left of the fruit onto one plate and puts it near the wall. We get a fresh bucket as a latrine and a sheet for Vijay’s mattress, although a blanket would be more use.
Something occurs to me.
‘Why aren’t you in a better room?’
Colonel Vijay shrugs.
‘Sir,’ I say. ‘When we were on the move, you messed with the Wolf Brigade. Suitable accommodation and proper food.’
‘I asked to be with the Aux.’
‘Why?’
‘The company.’ Looking round the cell, Colonel Vijay smiles slightly. ‘You’ll look after them?’ he says. ‘If you can?’
‘Sir . . .’
‘We both know what they’re building, Sven.’
‘A scaffold,’ I say. ‘They’re going to hang you.’
‘Behead me,’ he says. ‘I have that right.’
‘To be beheaded?’ My voice is louder than I’d like. Don’t know what the others heard, but my scowl is enough to make them look down again.
‘General Luc intended to shoot me.’
The colonel’s voice is calm.
‘Through the head, obviously. He doesn’t want a bullet ruining my heart. But I’ve insisted on the sword.’ He nods, his blue eyes meeting mine. ‘And I’ve demanded he wield the blade himself.’
‘You have that right?’
Colonel Vijay smiles, almost angelically.
Chapter 52
The night retreats in a crunch of boots and the clank of ratchets, as sappers work through to build the scaffold on which Colonel Vijay will die come morning.
We hear chainsaws, and the flat slap of a nail gun, which sounds enough like small-arms fire to comfort me and keep everyone else awake.
Apart from Colonel Vijay, who sleeps curled in a ball. One arm folded under his head, the other wrapped round his knees. He looks too young to take the weight of General Luc’s hatred for Indigo Jaxx, and whatever warped need for revenge makes the Wolf want Aptitude because he couldn’t have Debro.
Shil’s shocked when I mutter this.
Sitting up, she peers into my face. There’s enough light coming through the slit window for us to see each other’s eyes, and I don’t know what she sees, but she leans forward and kisses me carefully on the cheek, while the others pretend not to notice.
‘Say it, sir,’ she whispers.
‘You get your wish.’
‘I what . . .?’
‘You’re out of the Aux. Soon as this is over.’
She’s meant to be happy about that. Not spend the rest of the night slumped in the opposite corner, with her legs pulled up and her arms holding them in place and her head buried in her knees, crying.
Outside our window the nail gun falls silent. Colonel Vijay’s scaffold is bolted together, the boards now form its floor. A strip of railing secures the back and runs along both edges, but the front is open.
Makes the execution easier to see.
A second platform sits in front of the first. It’s longer and lower, with newly built wooden benches to either side of two ornate chairs. I was wondering what kept the nail gunner so busy.
Do I have a plan?
I have several. Unfortunately, I don’t know which is right. Although Leona’s comment about the long game won’t leave my head. And her strange silver key feels heavy next to the dog tags and planet buster around my neck.
The long game.
What does a key usually open?
I think I’ve left it too late to learn to play chess. Coming to stand at my shoulder, Rachel sees the scaffolding outside and her face tightens.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He’s getting an audience.’
‘Bastards.’
We both look at Colonel Vijay at the same time. He’s still curled in the dawn light like a baby, head on his arm. Makes me wonder if he’s really sleeping, or just being kind to the rest of us. Wouldn’t put that past him either. A few minutes later, the colonel stretches and yawns.
‘Breakfast, sir?’ Iona asks.
He takes the fig she offers, and peels it carefully, lifting first one sliver of skin and then another with his fingernail. Don’t think I knew people peeled figs. Only when he has eaten and wiped his fingers does he climb to his feet and walk to the window.
‘Interesting,’ he says.
‘Sir?’
‘Those seats . . .’
Before the colonel can explain his interest, an ADC knocks at our door.
The boy is barely wide enough at the shoulder for the wolf skin General Luc’s officers wear. His boots have thick heels as if the extra height will make a difference. ‘If I could trouble you, sir?’
Colonel Vijay turns from the window.
‘I meant your lieutenant, sir.’
Wolf Brigade troopers watch as I stalk through their base.
Some meet my eye, and others glance away. A few stare. An old lieutenant in a uniform jacket frayed at the cuffs nods, as if he recognizes me. Or maybe he simply recognizes the type. He’s me, twenty years down the line. If I’m lucky enough to live that long.
I return his nod.
A sergeant, I decide. Up through the ranks.
Not rich and not well-born, but good in a scrap and forgiven his filthy jacket, poorly cut hair and greying moustache for battles fought and victories won. He would know the answer to the question occupying my mind.
‘Parole?’ I say.
He stops, stares at me.
The ADC keeps walking, only to stop in his turn. Looking back, he sees something in the lieutenant’s face that makes him stay where he is.
‘You spoke?’
The lieutenant’s voice is rough. His accent as raw as mine. We speak traveller, because that’s what people on Farlight use. Something says it’s not his natural tongue either.
‘How does it work? Parole?’
‘The generality?’
‘What does it mean?’
‘You don’t know?’ The lieutenant considers this. His slow nod says he approves of my ignorance. ‘One officer gives another his word not to fight or try to escape. In return, the officer is treated as a guest and not as a prisoner.’