How he wished he could go back and talk some sense into that boy now. To tell him what he’d be giving up. What ruin he’d bring on both of them, and how he might never be able to make it right again. Maybe then that boy would amp; Sat ight agarsquo; ve thought twice about running out on her on their wedding day.
But, he had to admit, it would probably have made no difference. He wouldn’t have listened. And they’d still be where they were tonight, two people on opposite sides of a broken and shattered wasteland, trying to pick a path through the rubble to reach one another.
He got up as she approached and pulled her chair out for her. It made him feel absurd, but Crake had told him to do it, so he did. Trinica must have thought the gesture strange, coming from him, but to her credit she gave no sign, and seated herself as if it happened to her every day. He sat back down, mildly embarrassed but relieved that no disaster had occurred.
She looked over the balustrade at the view. ‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘When you coerced me into a private rendezvous, I didn’t expect such a lovely venue.’
‘ Coerced is a bit strong,’ said Frey. He couldn’t keep a grin off his face. ‘I’d say gently encouraged.’
‘I hope that my presence here means the relic will be delivered to me as promised? And there’ll be no more talk of running off to fence it yourself?’
‘I’ll bring it over to the Delirium Trigger when I get back,’ he said. ‘As long as you’re nice.’
‘Darian,’ she said chidingly. ‘I’m always nice.’
‘Oh, I almost forgot. I have a present for you.’ He produced a book from beneath the table and passed it to her. She looked down at it and then back up at him with something like amazement in her eyes.
‘Hope it’s something good,’ he said. ‘I can’t even read the title. Just thought, y’know… you have a lot of those sort of books in your cabin, so I nicked it off the train.’
‘It’s called The Silent Tide,’ she said. She stroked the cover lightly. ‘It’s beautiful edition. Thank you.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s a classic romance.’
‘Do they get it together at the end?’
‘No. They die. It’s a tragedy.’
‘Oh.’ He wasn’t sure if that made it a good gift or a bad one. But she seemed delighted, so he reckoned he’d done well.
The waiter, who had been hovering at a polite distance, approached and asked the Sand›
Frey bumbled. He’d been so busy gaping in horror at the wine prices that he hadn’t actually thought to pick one. He blanked for a moment then said: ‘I think the lady should choose?’ He looked at Trinica. ‘I’m sure you know your wine. Pick any one you like.’
‘ Any one?’ she said, in a tone that he didn’t like. ‘My, my.’
She laid her hand on the wine menu, drawing it towards her. She regarded him for a long moment, a faint smile playing at the edge of her lips. Then she handed the menu to the waiter without opening it, and said something to him in rapid Samarlan. The waiter took the menu, gave a little bow of acknowledgment, and left.
Frey watched her, mesmerised. When he was in the mood, he found her full of little wonders. The effortless way she dealt with the world made him melt in admiration.
She caught his look. ‘Darian,’ she said, almost as a warning. But he couldn’t help himself, he had to stare at her, and after a moment she looked away and blushed. Actually blushed. The sight shocked him. He hadn’t seen her blush in more than a decade.
They fell into their old, easy rhythms of conversation. Each time they met, it took them less and less time to relax with one another. The wine came, and they talked. Frey tried to keep the conversation light. He was keen that words shouldn’t get in the way. All he wanted was to enjoy this time with her, this being together, and he wanted her to feel that too.
Trinica ordered his dinner for him, because he didn’t recognise anything on the menu as food. When it came, it was delicious – she knew his tastes – but he was still none the wiser as to what it actually was. She picked at her dish, eating slowly with tiny, precise bites. Frey usually wolfed his meals down, but tonight he made sure to pace himself according to Crake’s instructions, and he talked with such enthusiasm that she finished before he did.
‘How was it?’ he asked, when the waiter had cleared away their plates and left dessert menus behind.
‘Wonderful,’ she said, with an earnestness that warmed him. Her eyes shone. It was as if she’d gradually been coming alive throughout the meal, as if every bite restored her more and more.
‘I thought you’d like it. All this.’ He waved a hand to indicate the restaurant. ‘Thought maybe you hadn’t been to one in a while.’
An expression of tender gratitude crossed her face, just for a moment, and then she looked away quickly and it was gone. The woman she’d been had enjoyed many meals like this, and in grander places. She was accustomed to finery, and there had been little enough of that as a pirate. This was her normality, but she’d not been normal for a long time.
Sgn=on the m‘I am rather enjoying being anonymous,’ she said. ‘No one casting sidelong glances at me, no need to worry about where the exits are or who might be out for the bounty on my head.’
‘I wish I could do what you do,’ said Frey. ‘Take off my disguise, stop being a captain for a night.’
‘What if this is the disguise?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘This is you. That pirate queen get-up might work on your crew, but you can’t fool me.’
She seemed pleased. ‘Well, disguise or not, I’m still the captain. You never stop being that.’ His face must have fallen a little then, because she frowned and said: ‘Darian, something’s troubling you.’
‘Something happened, during the heist,’ he said. But he didn’t want to tell her about the Dak with the bayonet. He wanted to drop the subject entirely, since they were straying into serious territory, but he couldn’t think of a way to deflect her.
‘You know what happened to my last crew,’ he said, eventually.
It was a statement, not a question, but she answered anyway. ‘I know. The Shacklemores told me.’
He grasped for some way to get at what he wanted to say. ‘How do you cope?’ he asked. ‘I mean, your crew worship you. They want you to lead them. But what if you get it wrong? What if you make a mistake, and all those people die?’
‘I should think, if that happened, I’d die with them.’
‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re just the kind to go down with the ship.’
‘Not with the ship. With the crew.’ She leaned forward. ‘Darian, your crew aren’t your slaves. They’re not even really employees. They choose to do what they do. They share in the risk and they share in the profit. If they’re loyal, it’s because you earned it from them. And they are loyal, though sometimes I’m at a loss as to why. They’d follow you anywhere.’
Frey nodded thoughtfully. ‘They’d follow me. That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Then he hit on a way to the heart of what was bothering him. ‘You know what it is? It never mattered if I failed before. Everyone pretty much expected me to screw up. But ever since Sakkan, it’s like I have to be right all the time. And every time I am, every time I pull off something like this train heist, it only makes it worse.’
Trinica looked sympathetic. ‘You never could handle it when things were going well.’
‘Reckon you’re right at that,’ said Frey. He sat back and sipped his wine, his face sour. ‘Never really thought I deserved it.’
Trinica cocked her head, her green eyes puzzled, as if that were the oddest thing she’d ever heard. But then her gaze dropped, and she gave a little shake of her head.
‘I wish I had something to say that would make it better, but I don’t. This is what being a captain is. And you will fail, sooner or later. If you keep the course you’re on, you will lose crew, because the both of us play a dangerous game. If you’re not ready for that, then you shouldn’t be in command.’