Except for the fact that Halt needed him alive. And that made his victory even sweeter. This grey-bearded wretch would kill him in an instant. He probably wanted to kill him right now. But he couldn't.
O'Malley couldn't help a smile forming on his face as he thought about it.
'Sure, I'm convinced you would,' he said, almost breezily. 'But you can't, can you?'
It'd never do to gamble with this one, he thought. His eyes showed no sign of the frustration and uncertainty he must be feeling now that O'Malley had called his bluff.
'Let's just review this, shall we?' Halt said softly. 'You say I can't kill you because then I'll never find out what you know. But at the same time, you've told Will over there that you won't divulge that information…'
'Ah, well now, that may be open to negotiation,' O'Malley began but Halt cut him off.
'So if I kill you, I'm not losing anything, am I? But it will be some compensation for the trouble you've caused. On the whole, I think I rather want to kill you. You're an annoying person, O'Malley. In fact, now I think about it, I'm glad you don't want to tell me because then I would feel duty bound to spare your miserable life.'
'Now look here…' The returning confidence O'Malley had felt had gone again. He'd pushed this man too far, he realised. But now the tip of the heavy knife left his throat and pointed at the tip of his nose.
'No! You listen to me!' Halt said. He spoke quietly but his voice cut like a whip. 'Look around this room and tell me if there's anyone here who owes you any sense of loyalty or friendship. Is there anyone here who might protest for one second if I simply cut your throat?'
In spite of himself, O'Malley's eyes wandered quickly to the watchful faces. He saw no sign of help there.
'Now answer me this: once you're dead, are you sure there's not somebody in this room who might know where you took Tennyson, and who might be willing to share that knowledge?'
And that was the point where O'Malley knew he'd lost. There certainly were people in the room who knew where he had taken the white-robed man. At the time, it had been no big secret. And if he, O'Malley, wasn't around to ensure their silence, they'd fall over themselves telling this grim-faced tormentor what he wanted to know.
'Craiskill River,' he said, almost in a whisper.
The knife wavered. 'What?' Halt asked him.
O'Malley's shoulders slumped and he lowered his gaze. 'Craiskill River. It's in Picta, below the Mull of Linkeith. It's one of our rendezvous points where we deliver cargo.'
Halt frowned, disbelieving him for a moment. 'Why the devil would Tennyson want to go to Picta?'
O'Malley shrugged. 'He didn't want to go there. He wanted to get away from here. That's where I was going, so that's where I took him.'
Halt was nodding slowly to himself.
'I could take you there,' O'Malley suggested hopefully.
Halt laughed contemptuously. 'Oh, I'm sure you could! My friend, I trust you about as far as Horace could kick you – and I'm tempted to find out how far that is. Now get out of my sight.'
He released his grip on the other man's collar and shoved him back. Off balance, O'Malley tried to regain his feet, then Halt stopped him.
'No. One more thing. Empty your purse on the table.'
'My purse?'
Halt said nothing but his eyebrows came together in a dark line. O'Malley noticed that the saxe knife was still in his right hand. He hurried to unfasten his purse and spill its contents onto the table top. Halt poked through the coins with a forefinger, and selected a gold piece. He held it up.
'This yours, Will?'
'Looks like it, Halt,' Will called cheerfully. After having been humiliated by O'Malley, he'd enjoyed this evening's confrontation.
'Take better care of it next time,' Halt told him. Then he turned back to O'Malley, his face set, his eyes dark and threatening. 'As for you, get the hell out of here.'
O'Malley, finally released, rose to his feet. He looked around the room, saw nothing but contempt in the faces watching him. Then he did as he was told. Six 'Your friend isn't looking too happy.'
The ship's captain nudged Will with his elbow and gestured with a smirk at the figure huddled in the bow of the Sparrow, leaning against the bulwark, the cowl of his cloak drawn up over his head.
It was a raw, overcast day, with the wind gusting at them out of the south-east, and a choppy, unpredictable swell surging in from the north. The wind blew the tops off the waves and hurled them back at the ship as it plunged into the troughs, smashing its bow down into the racing grey sea.
'He'll be fine,' Will said. But the shipmaster seemed to be uncommonly amused by the thought of someone suffering from seasickness. Perhaps, Will thought, it gave him a sense of superiority.
'Never fails,' the skipper continued cheerfully. 'These strong, silent types on land always turn into green-faced cry-babies once they feel a ship move an inch or two under their feet.'
In fact, the Sparrow was moving considerably more than that. She was plunging, lurching and rolling against the opposing forces of wind and wave.
'Are those rocks a problem?' Horace asked, pointing to where a line of rocks protruded from the sea as each line of rollers passed over them, seething with foam. They were several hundred metres away on the port side of the ship, and the wind was taking the ship down diagonally towards the rocks.
The skipper regarded the line of rocks as they disappeared then reappeared in time to the movement of the waves.
'That's Palisade Reef,' he told them. He squinted a little, measuring distances and angles in his mind, making sure the situation hadn't changed since the last time he'd checked – which had been only a few minutes previously.
'We seem to be getting a little close to it,' Horace said. 'I've heard that's not a good idea.'
'We'll come close, but we'll weather it all right,' the captain replied. 'Land people like you always get a little edgy at the sight of Palisade Reef.'
'I'm not edgy,' Horace told him. But the stiff tone of his voice belied his words. 'I just wanted to make sure you know what you're doing.'
'Well now, my boy, that's why we've got the oars out, you see. The sail is powering us, but the force of the wind is sending us down onto the reef. With the oars out, we're dragging her upwind enough so that we'll reach the back-lift with plenty of room to spare.'
'The backlift?' Will asked. 'What might that be?'
'See how the reef line runs in to the edge of the Mull?' the captain told him, pointing. Will nodded. He could see the line of troubled water that marked the reef. It did run into the foot of the large headland to the north-west – the Mull of Linkeith.
'And see how the wind is coming from over my shoulder here, and setting us down towards the reef itself?'
Again, Will nodded.
'Well, the oars will keep us far enough to the east to avoid the reef. Then, as we get closer to the Mull, the wind will hit it and be deflected back at us – that's the backlift. In effect, it'll reverse, and we'll go about so it's actually blowing us clear of the reef. Then we've got a simple run for a few kilometres down the bay to the river mouth. We'll have to row that, because the backlift will only last for a few hundred metres – enough to get us clear of the reef.'
'Interesting,' Will said thoughtfully, studying the situation, and assessing distances and angles for himself. Now that it had been pointed out, he could see that the Sparrow would pass clear of the end of the reef as they ran in under the Mull. The captain might be lacking in sensitivity, but he seemed to know his business.
'Maybe I should go for'ard and point out the reef to your friend,' the captain said, grinning. 'That should be good for a laugh. I'll wager he hasn't noticed it yet.' He laughed at his own wit. 'I'll look worried, like this, shall I?'