‘Drop it!’ Frey yelled, in a voice so loud and commanding that he surprised himself. Quail froze, looking around, and spotted Frey and Malvery with their guns trained on him. ‘Drop it, or I’ll drop you.’
Quail dropped his gun and raised his hands, coughing. His smart jacket was smoke-stained and his collar had wilted. His sleeve was ripped, revealing the polished brass length of his mechanical forearm.
Frey and Malvery emerged from hiding. Frey grabbed the whispermonger by the lapels and dragged him down the corridor, away from the smoke and flames of the study. He slammed Quail bodily up against the wall. Quail glared at him, teeth gritted, defiance on his face. Frey saw himself reflected in Quail’s mechanical eye.
‘Right then,’ said Frey, then stepped back and shot him in the shin.
Quail screamed and collapsed, writhing on the ground, clutching at his leg. ‘What the shit did you do that for, you rotting whoreson?’ he yelled.
Frey knelt down on one knee next to him. ‘Look, Quail. I don’t have time for the preliminaries, and to be honest, I’m pretty unhappy with you right now. So let’s pretend you’ve already put up a spirited resistance to my questioning and just tell me: who set me up? Because if I have to ask again, it’s your kneecap. And after that I’m going for something you can’t replace with a mechanical substitute.’
‘Gallian Thade!’ he blurted. ‘It was Gallian Thade who gave me the job, that’s all I know! It came through a middleman but I knew something was funny so I traced it back to him. He’s a rich land-owner, a nobleman who lives out in—’
‘I know who Gallian Thade is,’ Frey said. ‘Go on.’
‘They said it should be you, specifically you that I offered the job to. But they said . . . aaah, my leg!’
‘What did they say?’ Frey demanded, and punched him in his wounded shin. Quail shrieked and writhed, breathless with pain.
‘I’m telling you, I’m telling you!’ he protested. ‘They said if you couldn’t be found, I could offer it to someone else, last-minute. The important thing . . . the important thing was that the Ace of Skulls was passing through the Hookhollows on that date, they knew that, and they wanted someone to attack it. Preferably you, but if not, any lowlife would do.’
‘You’re not in much of a position to make insults, Quail.’
‘Their words! Their words!’ he said frantically, holding up a hand to ward off further punishment. ‘Someone who wouldn’t be missed, that’s what they said. You’ll forgive me if I’m not thinking too clearly since you just shot me in my damn leg!’
‘Pain does cloud one’s judgement,’ Malvery observed sagely, crouched alongside Frey.
‘You’ve no idea what was on that aircraft?’ Frey pressed the whispermonger. He coughed into his fist. Time was getting short. The corridor was filling with hot smoke, and the only breathable air was low down. The militia wouldn’t be far away.
‘He told me jewels! He said he’d buy them from me if you came back. If not, he’d pay me a fee anyway. It was a cover story, I knew that, but I didn’t . . . didn’t find out what was underneath.’
‘You don’t want to speculate? Any idea why the Century Knights are all over me? Why there’s such a big reward offered that Trinica Dracken is involved?’
‘Dracken!’ His eyes widened. ‘Wait, I do know this! Trinica Dracken . . . she’s put the word out in the underground. Anyone sees you, they tell her. Not the Century Knights. She’s offering an even bigger reward. But it’s for information only . . . she wants to catch you herself.’
‘Well, of course she does—’
‘No, you don’t understand. Dracken doesn’t have that kind of money. Someone’s funding her. I don’t know who. But whoever it is, they want her to get you before the Century Knights do. This isn’t just about a reward, Frey. This is something more. Someone doesn’t want the Knights to find you.’
Frey’s jaw tightened. Deeper and deeper. Worse and worse.
‘We’d better go, Cap’n,’ said Malvery, coughing. ‘Smoke’s getting bad.’
‘Alright,’ Frey muttered. ‘Come on.’
‘What about me?’ Quail said, as they got up. ‘You can’t just—’
‘I can,’ said Frey. ‘You still have one good leg.’ With that, they left, the whispermonger hurling oaths after them.
‘Should we truss up the rest of his men?’ Malvery asked, as they hurried down the stairs at the end of the hall. Pinn, Jez and Silo still had the surviving guards at gunpoint at the far end.
‘No time. Besides, I think they’ll have their hands full saving the house.’ Frey raised his voice to address everyone in the hall. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, we’re out of here! Your boss is upstairs, and only mildly wounded. Go help him if you have the inclination. You’ll also notice that the house is on fire. Make of that what you like.’
Militia whistles were sounding in the distance as the crew of the Ketty Jay slipped through the front gate, their breath steaming the air. Bright yellow flames were pluming from the eaves of the house behind them.
‘This time we’re really not coming back,’ said Frey, as they headed for the dock.
‘One question,’ said Malvery as he huffed alongside. ‘Gallian Thade, this noble feller, you know him?’
‘No,’ said Frey. ‘But I knew his daughter very well. Intimately, you could say.’
Malvery rolled his eyes.
Twelve
Olden Square sat in the heart of Aulenfay’s trade district, a wide paved plaza surrounded by tall apartment buildings with pink stone facias. On a clear winter day such as this, the square was filled with stalls and people, everyone buying or selling. Hawkers offered food or theatre tickets or clockwork gewgaws; street performers imitated statues and juggled blades. Visitors and locals wandered between the attractions, the ladies in their furs and hats, men in their leather gloves and greatcoats. Children tugged at their parents’ arms, begging to investigate this or that, drawn by the smell of candied apples or cinnamon buns.
The centrepiece was a wide fountain. The water tumbled down through many tiers from a high column, on which stood a fierce warrior. He was wielding a broken sword, fighting off three brass bears that clawed at him from below. On the rooftops, pennants of brown and green snapped and curled in the breeze, bearing the Duke’s coat of arms.
Frey and Crake sat on the step of a small dais. Behind them four stone wolves guarded an ornate, black iron lamp-post, one of several dotted around the square to illuminate it at night. Frey was holding a white paper bag in one hand and chewing on a sugarplum. He offered the bag to Crake, who took a sweet absently. Both of them were watching a booth in the corner of the square, from which three Awakeners were plying their trade.
The booth was hung with banners showing a symbol made up of six spheres in an uneven formation, connected by a complicated pattern of straight lines. The three Awakeners were dressed identically, in white single-breasted cassocks with high collars and red piping that denoted their status. They were Speakers, the rank and file of the organisation.
One of them was kneeling in front of a circular chart laid out on the ground. An eager-eyed man knelt opposite, watching closely. The Speaker was holding a handful of tall sticks upright in the centre of the chart. He let go and they fell in a clutter. The Speaker began to study them intently.
‘Seriously, though,’ said Frey. ‘What’s all that about?’
‘It’s rhabdomancy,’ said Crake. ‘The way the sticks fall is significant. The one behind him is a cleromancer: it’s a similar technique. See? He drips a little animal blood in the bowl, then casts the bones in there.’