‘I keep them covered, for the most part,’ he explained. ‘I know how they look. They proclaim the pact I have made with my master.’ The wharfinger stared at him, wide-eyed. Eyl smiled.
‘I don’t expect you to understand. Listen to me, I gab like my sister. The isolation of the voyage has made me talkative. I am betraying secrets.’
E. F. Montvelt took a step or two back.
‘I have seen nothing,’ he said. ‘Truly, sir, I have heard nothing.’
‘Why do you say that to me?’ asked Eyl.
‘Because I fear that otherwise you are going to be obliged to kill me,’ said E. F. Montvelt.
‘I think I might,’ said Eyl. ‘Sincerely, I mean nothing by it.’
‘Please, sir,’ said the wharfinger, backing away.
‘A most dreadful thing!’ cried Lady Eyl, running along the slipway quay. ‘A most terrible accident! He fell. He just fell! Please come! There has been the most awful occurrence!’
E. F. Montvelt dropped away from the open hold jaws of the Solace. Arms spread wide, he descended into air and bright cloud. It was a long way down.
He was approaching terminal velocity, already dead. The atmosphere began to ablate him, until a tail of fire was racing out behind him, the sort of shooting star upon which one might make a wish.
He fell towards the planet. He and his late uncle had been quite correct.
The dead did seem to have a knack of finding their way back to Balhaut.
TWO
Back to Balhaut
‘Do you remember Vergule?’ asked Blenner, over lunch at the Mithredates Club.
‘Vergil?’ Gaunt replied. ‘Auguste Vergil? The Oudinot staffer?’
‘No, old man,’ Blenner laughed. ‘Ver-gule. Salman Vergule. Urdeshi fellow, served with the 42nd. We were in the field alongside him at Serpsika.’
‘You maybe,’ said Gaunt. ‘I was never at Serpsika. You’re thinking of somebody else.’
‘Am I?’ asked Blenner, with a touch of concern.
Across the table, Zettsman chuckled at them.
‘You’re like an old married couple, you pair,’ he said. He finished clipping the end of a fine, Khulan-leaf cigar, and lit it with a long, black match.
‘Are we indeed?’ replied Blenner.
‘I’m not sure which one of us should be more offended,’ said Gaunt.
‘Neither am I,’ Blenner agreed.
‘You witter on so,’ remarked Hargiter, sipping caffeine from a little, heavy-bottomed glass.
‘I’ve never wittered in my life,’ said Gaunt.
Hargiter caught the look, and shrugged.
‘Well, maybe not. But he does,’ he said, gesturing at Blenner.
‘I resemble that remark!’ returned Blenner.
‘So what were you saying about this Vergule fellow?’ asked Edur.
Blenner tapped the top sheet of the broadside gazette he had been reading. ‘It turns out he’s been here all this while. Arrived a year ago, about the same time you did, ’Bram.’
‘Wait,’ said Gaunt, putting down the sugar tongs. ‘This Vergule, was he a tall fellow with a hangdog expression?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Blenner.
‘Yes, I do remember him. He was at Phantine, I believe. Anyway, if he’s here, I haven’t seen him around.’
‘You wouldn’t have done,’ replied Blenner. ‘It says here he’s entirely dead. His body’s been in the Urdesh regimental chapel for twelve months.’
‘What did he die of?’ asked Zettsman.
‘Oh, you know, war,’ said Blenner.
‘Where?’ asked Gaunt.
‘It doesn’t say,’ said Blenner, peering at the broadside. ‘Oh, wait, it does. Morlond.’
‘Not the only good soul lost there,’ remarked Edur grimly.
Blenner looked at Gaunt. ‘I was thinking, we should go and pay our respects. This afternoon, perhaps?’
‘I’ve got things to do, Vay.’
Vaynom Blenner sighed. ‘Tomorrow morning then? Come on, old man, we ought to toddle over there and apologise to him for not dropping by sooner. It’s the decent thing.’
‘I suppose,’ said Gaunt.
The majordomo, in crimson, black and gold, hovered beside the table where the five Imperial commissars were sitting.
‘Will there be anything else, sirs?’ he asked.
Gaunt shook his head. ‘Just bring me the tab to sign, would you?’
The majordomo nodded. Blenner looked crestfallen.
‘I was considering another helping of fruit tart,’ he announced plaintively.
‘You’ll end up looking like a fruit tart,’ said Edur.
‘Steady, old man!’ Blenner replied. He looked hurt. He patted the orange Commissariat sash that was stretched around his ample stomach. ‘Solid muscle, that. Solid.’
‘Edur’s right,’ said Gaunt, taking a stylus from the majordomo to sign the bill. ‘When I came back from Gereon the first time, my duty breeches hung off me like a tent. The other morning – and they’re the same pair, mind – I realised I had begun to fasten them on the third button. I used to have a washboard stomach.’
‘Some of us still do, old man,’ said Blenner.
‘Wash-house, more like,’ muttered Hargiter.
‘Oi!’ snorted Blenner. The others laughed.
‘It’s the passage of time,’ said Blenner. ‘That’s what I’m saying. You came back from Gereon in ’76, Ibram. That’s knocking on five years ago. Face facts. We’re all getting old.’
‘Speak for yourself!’ the other four men chorused. There was more laughter.
Gaunt told the majordomo to have his car brought around. He waited for Blenner in the atrium, out of courtesy. His oldest friend had disappeared into the club’s cloakroom, complaining about a missing glove.
The atrium’s marble columns had been draped in swathes of mourning crepe, and white lilies had been set in the onyx jardinières. At the far end of the hall, under the dished window that looked out across the street and north towards the Oligarchy Gate, two craftsmen in overalls were working on the last phase of restoration to the inlaid murals. The night manager of the Mithredates had told Gaunt the work was expected to be finished in another eighteen months. It had taken fifteen years to get that far. The club had been hit by a tank round in the final hours of the war, and the intricate murals had been badly damaged.
Gaunt wondered if there might not be better things to spend fifteen years rebuilding.
‘So what’s on your plate for the rest of the day?’ asked Zettsman, buttoning up his stormcoat as he walked over.
‘I might spend a few hours with the Kapaj,’ Gaunt replied.
‘You rate them?’
‘They’re decent enough,’ Gaunt answered. ‘I’d rather spend time with my own mob, but the Kapaj need to be whipped into shape, and Section is very keen on this mentoring role.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Zettsman replied. ‘I’ve been given a group of cadets and I’m expected to get them through their SP31s. They’re appalling. Throne help me, they manage to make Blenner look like he operates at an acceptable level of competence.’
Gaunt laughed, but it rankled. Lately, Blenner had been taking too many jibes below the waterline.
‘I don’t know why you put up with him,’ said Zettsman.
‘Who?’
‘Blenner, of course.’
Gaunt paused.
‘We were at schola progenium together,’ he said. ‘Vaynom has survived longer than anyone else I’ve known. I have to give him some credit for that.’
‘I suppose,’ replied Zettsman. ‘And he was right, of course, about time rolling on. None of us are getting any younger. It must be strange for you especially.’