‘If you’re telling the truth, the conviction against you and your crew will likely be quashed.’
Frey laughed. ‘Likely? That’s quite a promise.’
‘It’s not my decision. I can’t say what the Archduke will do.’
‘Then the Archduke can rot.’
‘Frey, you’ll be comin’ in of your own accord, with three Century Knights vouchin’ for your good character,’ said Samandra. ‘Such as it is, anyway. They ain’t gonna string you up.’
Frey was unconvinced, and it showed.
‘We could make you, if we wanted,’ said Kyne.
‘You could try,’ Frey replied darkly.
Crake leaned back in his chair and stared at Kyne steadily. ‘Use that voice of yours, Kyne, and I’ll know it,’ he said. ‘This is his choice.’
Frey was faintly surprised by that. He hadn’t expected Crake to stand up for him in this matter. But then, Crake had always suffered from an unhealthy sense of fair play.
‘No one’s makin’ anyone do anything,’ said Bree, with a glance at her companion. ‘Look, Frey. We all want the same thing here. We all want to stop the Awakeners, right?’
Frey looked around the room. He felt hunted. Most of the room was against him, it seemed. Everyone pushing him to do what was right, to put the good of the country over his own needs. How had it come to this? He’d resented the Coalition for most of his life; now he was supposed to swallow his pride and go crawling to them?
‘We had a deal,’ said Frey. ‘I help you get the Imperators. You give me what I need to help Trinica. I kept my part of the bargain. Now you want to change the deal?’ His gaze fell stonily on Crake. ‘I need to get to her. And I need your help to get the daemon out of her. You gonna leave me to do it on my own?’
Crake swallowed. He let the daemonist squirm for a moment. ‘Cap’n-’ Crake said, but Frey held up his hand. He didn’t want to hear whatever mealy-mouthed bullshit Crake had in store to make himself feel better about betrayal.
‘Do any of you understand?’ he said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. ‘The woman I-’ He lost the word; it came out as a breath. He screwed his face into a grimace, determined to express the depth of what he felt. ‘The woman I love is out there somewhere. Might be she’s dead and something’s walking round in her skin. Might be they’ve cut out her tongue by now.’ He felt frustrated tears prick at his eyes. They stood there, but didn’t fall. ‘Might be she’s trapped in there with it, trapped in some. . some torment I can’t even begin to imagi-’ His voice failed him again. He took a hard breath, let it hiss out through his teeth. ‘Do any of you get that?’
There was silence. They knew better than to pretend they did.
‘Cap’n,’ said Silo at last, his deep voice calm. ‘Whole Awakener fleet gonna be at Thesk tomorrow. Trinica gonna be with ’em, ain’t she? Strikes me that whatever way you wanna go, it’s all the same direction.’
Frey shut his eyes, trying to keep a lid on the emotions boiling up inside him. He hadn’t considered that. He wasn’t thinking straight.
‘We need to do this, Frey,’ said Crake. ‘The whole civil war might rest on what we do right here and right now. If we don’t give it our absolute best shot, we might be handing Vardia to the daemons tomorrow. We have to.’
Frey barely heard him. Why couldn’t they all just bloody well leave him alone?
‘You got a plan for how you’re gonna get to her?’ said Samandra, more gently than before.
Frey opened his eyes and looked up. ‘What?’
‘Y’know,’ she said. ‘How you’re gonna get past the Awakeners, and then past her crew. How you’re gonna subdue her or whatever. And then how you’re gonna get her back to a sanctum where Grayther can do his stuff?’ She turned to Crake. ‘If it works, I mean. You didn’t seem too confident about it before.’
Grayther didn’t say anything, but his face said enough.
‘No,’ said Frey. All the anger had drained from him and now he was weary, so very weary. ‘I thought I could lure her out, maybe. .’
He trailed off lamely. Lure her? She probably didn’t even know him any more. Yes, Crake might cobble together some daemonic device so he could tackle her, but his chances of even getting close were appallingly slender. He had no idea how to subdue her, for she wouldn’t come willingly, and he could never smuggle her out past her crew. His only chance was getting her alone, and he couldn’t see any way that could be done. The old Trinica he knew how to manipulate; but there was no telling what now walked in her place.
There was pity in Crake’s eyes, and that was what crushed him. He saw his delusion mirrored on his friend’s face. Suddenly it all seemed so absurd, so pointless, so pathetic. Love had made him wretched and desperate. But it was time to face the truth.
Trinica was gone, or beyond his reach. Jez was a blackened corpse in the infirmary. These things were irretrievable. And here he was among all these people, and all of them wanted something from him, leadership or sacrifice, decisions too important to delay. He felt crowded, panicked, suffocated. . but most of all, he felt bone tired. And with that tiredness came a kind of bitter peace, an acceptance that turned the storms inside him to calm: the bleak cold calm of a stony desert.
Let the world do with him as it would. He didn’t care.
He stood up slowly. There was a great weakness on him. His chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back.
‘Let’s go to Thesk,’ he said, and walked over to the ladder that would take him up and out of the mess.
‘Cap’n,’ said Crake. ‘What are we going to do when we get there?’
Frey paused with one hand on a rung. He didn’t look back. ‘We’re going to surrender,’ he said.
Ashua was first out of the mess after Frey. She hurried down into the hold, her boots echoing in the silence, and had her hand on the lever of the cargo ramp before sense caught up with her.
What are you gonna do, Ashua? Where are you gonna go?
Well, there was the mansion. She wouldn’t freeze to death, at least, although it’d be cold with the generator out. The staff had aircraft to put them in touch with civilisation. No doubt they’d be flying out as soon as the blizzard cleared, to summon help. Maybe she could hitch a ride. Maybe she could steal one.
And go where?
She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut against the fear. She wanted to run. She wanted to run so badly. To remain on the Ketty Jay meant going to Thesk, to seek forgiveness for something she hadn’t even done. Presenting herself for the judgement of the rich and powerful so they could decide whether she was worthy to continue living.
This wasn’t her way. Damn it, this wasn’t even the Cap’n’s way. If Frey hadn’t been so broken down he’d have told them where to stick their absolution. Since when did they bow to anyone? Wasn’t the whole point of being a freebooter to be free?
But Crake, oh, Crake with his bloody trust in authority. And Malvery too, and Harkins. She knew what they would have said, if they’d been there. The idiocy of patriotism enraged her. She had to get out.
Now her heart was fluttering, and she trembled. She couldn’t breathe easily. Panic had her by the throat. She gritted her teeth and fought to pull herself back from the brink.
Easy, she said to herself. What’s wrong with you?
But she knew what was wrong. She’d seen it before in the slums. After a kid made his first kill, or after someone had walked out of a fight unscathed that left everyone else dead. She was shaken up badly. The adrenaline of the battle had drained away, and now the shock was setting in.