"What are you talking about?" Nora shrieked. "Be quiet!" For a moment, she seemed off balance.
"Briars," Ben said, bursting into the room. "I have great--"
I lunged for Nora as Briars ducked away, and he and the chair crashed to the floor. She was so strong, I knew within seconds I couldn't wrestle the knife out of her grasp. She started slashing in all directions, harsh, rasping, wordless sounds coming from her, Ben and I dodging her thrusts, both of us trying to get the knife from her. I heard a thud, a cracking sound, and Ben groaned and fell back. Blood streamed from a wound in his upper chest. I grabbed Nora from behind and just held on. I could feel her dragging me across the floor toward Briars, and I couldn't stop her.
I saw Ben try to get up, but he couldn't. On his hands and knees, he pulled himself over to Briars, and with one hand, the other pressed to the wound in his chest, he loosened the ropes. Free now, Briars scrambled to his feet and grabbed at Nora, too. In the struggle, the knife flew out of her hand, and slid across the floor. The three of us scrambled for it, Nora kicking and punching and howling with rage.
It took all the strength both of us could muster to pin her face down on the ground. "I've got her," Briars said. "Go and get help."
13
"I AWOKE THE NEXT morning as my feet touched a sandy beach," Carthalon said. "The captain had slipped away in the night. I cursed the day I was born, that I should have survived rather than the good captain, but I remembered my pledge to him. I did not know where I was, or how I would reach Qart Hadasht, but I knew I must. I saw far away to the south of me a town, Hadramaut, I believe, but was afraid to go there, for fear it had fallen into Agathocles' hands. For many days I hid, getting scraps of food from the refuse of small towns, seeking directions from the citizens of the countryside, who, rightly enough, regarded me with suspicion, and essentially following the coast northward. If it was not our allies I was dodging, it was Agathocles' troops. In time I made my way to Qart Hadasht and the house of Yadamalek, under whose auspices I am here today."
"So now that you are here, what have you come to tell us?" one of the men of the Council said. "That the cargo was lost?"
"We authorized this cargo and mission," another said. "This lad tells us a lie."
"The mission itself may have been sanctioned by you," Carthalon said. "But there were others with plans you knew nothing about. The poisoned air of treachery is all about us, and seeps much closer than you think. The greatest danger to our city, to our political institutions and our way of life, lies not with Agathocles, but well within these walls. Indeed it lies within this chamber. Someone here plots to take advantage of the insecurity of our citizens as we battle the Greek, to play upon our fears of defeat."
"This is nonsense," several Council members roared. "If you suspect someone, then name him. But you do so at your peril."
"This fellow is a traitor," one of the members said, rising to his feet. "He should be executed."
"I see I am not the only one to survive the shipwreck," Carthalon continued. "The honorable member who speaks, one Gisco, was also on that ship."
"You lie!" the man roared.
"You challenge a member of this Council?" another man called out.
"I do," Carthalon said.
"Then it is your word against his," another said, and many nodded.
"You do not have to take my word for it. As we all know, actions speak louder than words," Carthalon said. "And I will speak to you of treacherous activities being undertaken right now. The man who commissioned Hasdrubal's ship, and I think you will agree that Hasdrubal is an honorable man, loyal to the city . . ."
"That's the only reason we're listening to you at all," someone shouted.
"You will see soon enough that what I tell you is true," Carthalon continued, undeterred. "That person is someone whom you have entrusted as one of only two generals who will lead us into battle against Agathocles. Even now he is assembling his troops near the old city, not to take on the Greek, but instead to take Qart Hadasht.
"Even I could hardly fathom it, when Hasdrubal told me his suspicions. The name, the traitor, gentlemen, is Bomilcar. If you have a plan ready to deal with such treachery, may I suggest you put it into action now."
"This is outrageous," some of them called. Several others, however, rushed from the chamber.
"See for yourselves," Carthalon said. "As I have seen with my own eyes. And do it soon."
"W HAT I WAS coming to tell you," Ben, propped up by pillows on his hotel bed, said, "when, as you've just pointed out, I so rudely interrupted your execution, was that I have something to show you." He patted a manila envelope beside him. "But first, you've got to tell me everything that's happened. The last thing I remember hearing was Jimmy asking if I was dead. I was certain there would be some cutting comment to follow, something about the world being a better place if there was one less homosexual. You did realize Ed is not my nephew, I assume. We're no longer a couple, though. He's moved out already, and in with a younger, more energetic man. We'd planned this trip for months, though, so we decided to come anyway. A last hurrah, I suppose. Since this is true confessions time, are you two an item, by the way?"
"No," I said.
"I've tried, Ben," Briars said. "She won't have me."
I ignored that. "You may be right about what Jimmy would have said given the chance, Ben, but you'll be delighted, perhaps, to hear that Betty interrupted him in midsentence. She told him she'd been a librarian when she met him, that she'd been what he'd rather condescendingly referred to as his bride for more than thirty years, and that now she thought she'd like to be a librarian again."
"Does this mean I've broken up a heterosexual relationship?"
"I don't believe it was just you, although she's awfully fond of both you and Ed. I remember thinking way back in the Frankfurt airport that I wouldn't be surprised if the marriage didn't last the trip, and for what may be the only time since we left, I was right about somebody."
"And Nora?"
"She's confessed to killing Rick, and tampering with the tanks on Briars' boat. That's all. She's adamant that she had nothing to do with Kristi, didn't set the fire on the Susannah, and claims never to have heard of Rashid Houari. Kristi may well have done herself in, and Rashid, too, although I still think that unlikely. But his might be an isolated crime, totally unrelated to the others. I talked to Ben Osman. He's on his way down here. He says to give him a little time with her, and he thinks she might confess to more. Oh, and you know what else she confessed to? Knocking Catherine down the stairs and rearranging her clothes. She was trying to keep Catherine away from Cliff. She seemed surprised that Catherine took so long to get the message to keep away."
"She wanted Cliff all to herself, did she?"
"Probably not in the way you're thinking. She moved in with Cliff and took over his life, but I don't think she ever wanted to marry him, or even have an intimate relationship. What she wanted was security. She got him to sign a legal agreement whereby he agreed to cover all her living expenses as long as she was with him. I think he felt it was the least he could do, given her apparent selflessness in looking after his wife and him. She claimed she'd had to give up her job and her own place, and I'm sure he felt responsible for her. I'm not sure either the job or the apartment was a great loss, however. I'd say it was opportunism rather than self-sacrifice that motivated her, even early on. She was broke and alone, and the loss of her son was like a wound that wouldn't heal. I have a sense of her spending her every waking hour formulating plans to avenge her son's death, but not having the wherewithal to do anything about it. Her husband had left her. They'd lost all their money in legal fees and court costs when they sued Star Salvage and Briars; they'd mortgaged their house to keep the proceedings going. Then she happened to meet the Fieldings.