‘. . and so it has been decreed that your loyalty to the Coalition and his Grace, the Archduke Monterick Arken, shall be determined on this day by such evidence as shall present itself, and on such evidence shall you be judged and your sentence carried out with all immediacy, or otherwise shall it commuted and judgement deferred to another day, for in such instance. .’
Frey tuned out again. That was the nub of it, anyway. They were getting the formalities out of the way now, so the executioner could do his job once Drave gave the word. Drave had explained it to them in more straightforward terms.
‘You’re going to be up there just long enough to see the Awakener fleet destroyed, Frey,’ he’d said. ‘Just long enough to prove you’re a liar. You can thank Kyne and Miss Bree that you’ve got even that much of a courtesy. I’d have seen you swinging by dawn.’
Unless the Awakener fleet wasn’t destroyed, of course. Unless the Coalition fleet fell out of the sky. Then Frey would be proved right. Except then he’d be stuck in the middle of Thesk as the Awakener army invaded with overwhelming force, and they’d all likely end up killed in the carnage anyway.
Lose-lose, then. Still, it’d be worth it to see Drave’s face.
The judge, a hangdog scarecrow of a man, snapped his book shut and stepped back. ‘Anything to say?’ Drave asked them.
‘It’s not too late, Drave!’ Crake called out. He was sweating and trembling and looked like he was about to be sick, but he still found his voice. ‘Tell the generals! Keep the fleet away! The Awakeners have a device that will destroy them all!’
Frey pitied his friend. There was something wide-eyed and hurt about him, the shock of a slapped child. He still wanted to believe in order and authority and the powers that be. He thought of the world as an upright, sensible place, where righteousness would prevail if only everyone tried hard enough. Frey knew otherwise. His only regret was that he hadn’t been strong enough to deny Crake the chance to find out for himself.
‘We know about the device, just like we know about the attack,’ said Drave. ‘We’ve known for some time. We have very good spies in the Century Knights; some of the best in the world. We know the Samarlans sold the device to the Awakeners, and that they smuggled it to the Barabac Delta and hid it there. And we know something else as well. It doesn’t work!’
It was said with such damning conviction that Frey began to doubt it himself. Had they actually seen that particular device in action? No. They’d only heard what the scientists said to the Lord High Cryptographer, scientists who were just blowing smoke up the boss’s arse to save their own necks. Hadn’t they been griping about how it hadn’t been tested enough? He’d assumed at the time that they were just being pernickety, crossing the ‘t’s and dotting the ‘i’s, but now their lives were on the line, he wasn’t so sure. Had it been tested at all? What had they actually said? He couldn’t remember exactly.
‘It does work!’ Crake insisted. ‘They got to your spies somehow. With Imperators, maybe. They want you to think it doesn’t work so you’ll bring the whole fleet to bear!’
‘Now, there you’re mistaken,’ said Drave. ‘They want us to think it does work so we won’t. It took our best operatives months to dig out the date of the attack and uncover the news that the Azryx device wasn’t working. But over the past week we’ve been getting all kinds of reports. Informants everywhere are saying the same thing: the device is operational. Awakeners have been defecting and giving themselves up just to bring us the news. Everyone has the same message: keep the fleet away from Thesk, or it’ll be destroyed. Now doesn’t that seem strange to you? News was so hard to come by, but all of a sudden it’s so very easy. Almost as if the Awakeners wanted us to know it.’
Frey felt a grudging and bitter smile touch the edge of his mouth. The Awakeners had changed their tune a week ago. Just after the crew of the Ketty Jay escaped the Barabac Delta. Well played, you slithery bastards.
The Awakeners had tricked the Coalition into believing that their device didn’t work. Then, when someone threatened to expose them, they flooded their information networks to make it seem they were desperate to convince their enemies of the opposite. The Coalition thought the Awakeners were bluffing them, but it was a double bluff. By the time Frey and his crew arrived with the truth, the Awakeners had already discredited it.
Add that to the fact that Drave had seen Frey fighting on the Awakener side with his own eyes, and Frey’s frankly patchy history with the Coalition, and Frey could understand why they never had a hope of being believed. As far as Drave was concerned, they were just another bunch of pirates in the employ of the Awakeners, peddling false information so that Thesk would be undefended when the fleet arrived.
And maybe he was right. Maybe Frey and his crew had become unwitting patsies of the Awakeners, rushing to deliver their lies. Patriotic stupidity at its finest. And if so, the Coalition fleet would shoot the Awakeners down and they’d all hang.
He faced death with resignation. Despair had robbed him of will and energy. Failure had crushed him. It didn’t even feel like he was really there, standing on the gallows. He felt disconnected from his own body. The immediacy of the danger didn’t touch him.
Once, freedom was the most important thing to him, but he was a prisoner now. Later he’d come to care about his crew, but now he’d led one of them to her death and the rest to the noose. Only Pinn, the idiot, had got out in time. Lastly, he’d come to realise the depth of his feelings for Trinica. But he’d lost her too, and with her the chance to make amends for the death of their child and everything else he’d put her through.
Even if he survived to see another day, the idea of picking himself up again and going on with his life seemed an insurmountable effort. Better to end it here and now, perhaps. Better to let fortune wash him down whichever path it saw fit. He was done trying.
There was a commotion near the gates of the courtyard. A man in ducal livery stepped through, and announced loudly: ‘His Grace, the Archduke Monterick Arken, Her Grace the Archduchess Eloithe, and the Lady Alixia!’
Even with nooses round their necks, Malvery, Harkins and Crake stood up straighter. He could see the hope in their eyes. The most powerful man in the land: surely he would set things to rights? Surely he wouldn’t be so blind?
Stop hoping, Frey thought. It only makes it worse.
The crowd of soldiers moved aside, and the Archduke and his family came to stand before the gallows. Drave moved protectively to their side.
The Archduke wore a high-collared uniform and a heavy cloak of fur that rippled in the icy wind. He was tall and straight-backed, with dark red hair and a close-cropped beard. His wife was small, but her eyes were bright and fierce. Her dark hair blew about her face as she looked up at them, the baby Alixia swaddled in her arms.
The Archduke swept his gaze along the length of the platform, taking in each of the prisoners. Malvery, Harkins and Crake, standing to attention. Silo, statuesque, showing nothing as he stared straight ahead. Ashua, trying to stay strong but barely keeping it together. And finally Frey, who just gazed back at him blandly, unimpressed.
‘This is him?’ said the Archduke, in a rich and resonant bass voice.
‘That’s him,’ said Drave.
The Archduke looked at Frey a long time. Frey returned the gaze insolently. The Archduke’s face twitched with suppressed rage, and his eyes were hateful.
Finally the Archduke turned to Drave and nodded. Drave gave a tiny bow. The Archduke laid his hand on Eloithe’s shoulder. She gave Frey a look of pure loathing and then allowed herself to be turned. Together they walked back towards the gate.