It was too awful to contemplate.
‘Think your brother’s down there somewhere?’ Samandra asked, catching his mood.
‘I should think so,’ he said. ‘Somewhere.’
He’d thought often of Condred and his father these past few days. His brother was alive, at least. It was enough to know that. He didn’t know if he’d see him again. He didn’t know if they could ever truly be brothers with the ghost of Bess hanging over them.
For his father he felt little, just a small absence in his life. It was less than he expected, but then Rogibald had always been an icon rather than a person to him. His grief was more dutiful than genuine.
‘Looks like we’re gettin’ an escort,’ rumbled Grudge. Samandra leaned over the dash and he pointed. Several cruisers were approaching. The lead cruiser was flashing a message with its electrohelio-graph.
‘Huh,’ said Samandra. ‘How’d they know we were comin’?’
Nobody had an answer. ‘At least it’s reassuring to know our side are so well-informed,’ Crake offered.
But Samandra still wore a slight frown, and that made Crake uneasy too.
The Coalition cruisers slid into position around the Wrath and the Ketty Jay, and led them in towards the Archduke’s palace. Perhaps it was meant for their protection, but Crake felt oppressed by the presence of the heavily armoured aircraft. Samandra paced the cockpit restlessly.
The Archduke’s palace was modern, not like the dark stone piles that other dukes had as their ancestral homes. Its walls were a light beige, and it was peopled with statues. Elaborate clocks overlooked lawn-covered quads. A great building of steel and glass housed a tropical arboretum, and anti-aircraft cannons nestled in the courtyards.
There was a large walled landing pad near the gates on the sloping west side of the crag. They sank towards it; the cruisers stayed overhead. The Wrath landed first, and while Grudge was powering down the aircraft Crake watched the Ketty Jay land next to them. He wasn’t used to seeing her from the outside, and was struck by how ungainly she looked: an ugly heap of angles, daubed with Awakener symbols, settling uncertainly on the ground. The Firecrow landed with a touch more grace. He looked for the Skylance, then remembered Pinn wasn’t with them any more.
Almost as soon as the aircraft had landed, two dozen soldiers in the blue and grey of the Thesk militia came sallying through a gate, carrying rifles.
‘I’m gettin’ a bad feelin’ about this,’ Samandra muttered.
By the time Crake got outside, the crew of the Ketty Jay were already making trouble.
‘Will you get that bloody gun out of my face?’ Malvery bellowed at a pox-pitted soldier who was threatening him. ‘We ain’t the enemy!’
‘Stay where you are!’ an officious young sergeant barked at him. ‘Tell your men to stay back, or we’ll shoot!’
Malvery rolled his eyes. ‘I ain’t the Cap’n!’ He thrust a finger at Frey. ‘Talk to him!’
But Frey seemed disinterested and said nothing.
‘Hold it down, Doc,’ said Silo, in lieu of any leadership from Frey. ‘Let’s all step back till we know what they’re about.’
‘Is that a Murthian?’ one of the soldiers asked. ‘What in buggery’s a Murthian doing here?’
‘Can it, soldier!’ the sergeant snapped. ‘I want these prisoners rounded up and searched for weapons!’
‘Prisoners?’ Ashua cried.
Harkins was bullied over to stand with the others, and the soldiers began patting them down. Crake hoped they were at least sensible enough to have left their weapons aboard the Ketty Jay. Then, just when it looked like some sort of order was being established, Samandra came storming out of the Wrath.
‘What the shit is this?’ she yelled at the sergeant. ‘These ain’t prisoners! They’re my guests! Who ordered all of-’
‘I ordered it!’ said Kedmund Drave, as he came striding through the ranks with four Century Knights at his back. He knew them all from the broadsheets: Eldrew Grissom and Mordric Jask — whom the others had met before — Celerity Blane and Graniel Thrate. The fact that there were so many together boded ill for someone.
Drave motioned to Grissom, who produced a device from his shabby duster. He brushed his straggly grey-white hair out of his face and panned the device around, watching the gauges. Then, without a word, he walked past the prisoners and up the ramp into the Ketty Jay’s hold.
Some kind of detection device, Crake thought. But what’s he detecting?
A soldier seized Crake by the arm and pulled him over to stand by the others. Crake thought he was rather unnecessarily rough about it.
‘Drave,’ said Samandra, barely suppressing her anger. ‘This lot came in of their own accord. I’m vouchin’ for ’em. They’ve got important information for the Archduke.’
‘Whatever they have to say can wait,’ said Drave, his face stony.
‘It can’t wait, that’s the point! Listen, we-’
‘You listen, Miss Bree,’ he said. ‘These men and women are traitors and I intend to prove it. Your own judgement is in question here, and those of your fellow Knights. I’d keep quiet if I were you.’
‘I ain’t gonna stand here and let you accuse ’em of somethin’ they ain’t-’
She was interrupted by a sharp whistle from the Ketty Jay. Grissom emerged, holding up a small object. He tossed it over to Drave, who caught it out of the air. He looked down on it and gave a grim sneer of satisfaction. Then he brandished it in front of the crew.
‘Anyone recognise this?’ he challenged them.
Crake didn’t. It was a brass cube with a press-stud on the top and a circle of glass on one face. It looked like something that might belong in his sanctum, but he was sure it wasn’t his.
‘No one?’ Drave said. He swept up and down the line, and suddenly descended on Ashua like a hawk. He leaned down and pushed his broad scarred face close to hers. ‘How about you?’
Ashua had gone very pale. Crake felt a stir of anger on her behalf. How dare he intimidate a young woman like that?
He swept away from her, holding up the device. ‘As you may be aware, there’s a civil war on. All of Pandraca’s interested in how this plays out. Yorts, Sammies and Thacians; everyone wants to know which way the wind’s blowing. And their spies are everywhere.’ He turned back to the crew and ran his gaze across each of them. Crake felt a shiver as it passed over him.
‘A few days ago we captured one of those spies. His name was Bargo Ocken.’
Ashua couldn’t keep her reaction off her face. Crake noticed it. So did Drave.
‘We found a device exactly like this on him,’ Drave continued. ‘It’s a signalling device. Little bit of daemonist know-how. Works like an electroheliograph, except you don’t have to be within sight. You press this stud,’ he raised a finger to demonstrate, but didn’t press, ‘and a light comes on in the other boxes that are linked to it. You’ll note, Miss Vode, that I said boxes. Plural. Ocken wasn’t the only one receiving your messages.’
Crake, with a sinking feeling, began to understand. The others were looking at Ashua now, puzzlement and dawning disbelief on their faces. She kept her gaze fixed on Drave. It must have been easier to meet her accuser’s eyes than her friends’.
‘Do you understand me now, Miss Bree?’ said Drave, turning back to Samandra. ‘These scum you’ve been vouching for are traitors. Whatever they have to say is a lie. They’ve been feeding information to the Samarlans the whole t-’
‘No!’ Ashua blurted. ‘It was the Thacians! Our allies! That’s who I was talking to! Ocken worked for the Thacians!’