‘So what’s the verdict?’ Frey asked. The tension was killing him.
Garin laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Welcome,’ he said gravely. ‘We will accept your aid in our righteous cause. See the quartermaster in the town about payment.’
Frey managed to keep the relief off his face. ‘Glad to be here,’ he said. And glad you’re a massive charlatan with it, he added mentally.
Garin walked away. The others called down their companions who were guarding the crew, and then followed him out, leaving the Acolyte to tidy up the brazier. Frey waited patiently till everyone was gone, then shut the cargo door behind them.
‘Everythin’ alright, Cap’n?’ Silo enquired from the walkway above.
‘Just fine,’ said Frey, as he was heading towards the sanctum at the back of the hold. ‘We’re in!’
He pushed open the tarpaulin curtain and looked in on Ashua. He found her sitting cross-legged opposite the golem, who’d plonked down on her butt like a baby. Ashua had a large red leather book open in her lap.
‘How’d you manage to get her to keep still like that?’ he asked in amazement.
She lifted up the book to show him. Stories for Little Girls. ‘Bribery,’ she said. ‘Works a treat.’ Then she turned her attention back to Bess. ‘You ready? Alright, here we go. “The Duchess and the Daisy-Chain”.’
Fourteen
Three years. Three years and they’ve finally caught me. I suppose it’s true what they say, then. The Shacklemores always get their man in the end.
Grayther Crake sat on a metal bench in the back compartment of a small aircraft, contemplating his impending death. At least, he guessed it was small, by the sound of the engines. It was hard to tell with a sack over his head.
The past twenty-four hours had been a terrifying and humiliating ordeal. The Shacklemore Agency had a reputation built on professionalism and a gentlemanly veneer intended to put rich clients at ease. Shacklemores were polite, well-dressed and efficient: the acceptable face of bounty hunting. But scratch the surface, Crake had discovered, and underneath you’d find mercenary thugs like all the rest; proud members of the biggest gang in Vardia.
‘You won’t be using that tooth on us, mate,’ they sneered when they caught him. That was when they put the sack on, and it had hardly been off since. They cuffed his hands behind his back and pulled him, blind and helpless, through the streets of Korrene. Distant guns and nearby explosions made him shudder and cringe in fear, but they tugged him onward mercilessly until they reached an aircraft. When he felt them taking off, he knew he was lost. There was no hope of rescue after that.
He spent a day and a night in a cell, tormenting himself with thoughts of what was to come and what he’d left behind. He thought of the crew, and wondered how they were faring, and wished he’d never been so foolish as to leave. He thought of Samandra, and burned with shame. Better that she thought he’d run out on her and missed their rendezvous, or that he was dead. Better that than the truth.
He thought of Bess. . But no, he couldn’t think of Bess. Bess, the golem he’d abandoned. Bess, the little girl he’d murdered. He’d evaded justice all this time, but he couldn’t evade it for ever.
They left the bag on his head and kept him manacled like an animal. It only came off when they fed him. One man would spoon stew into his mouth while two others stood by with guns in case he should try any daemonist trickery. He ate what he was given. He didn’t have the heart to protest his treatment. He deserved it.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll be on your way soon,’ they told him. ‘We’re just waiting for someone to take you off our hands. You weren’t even supposed to be our catch, but Rokesby here remembered your warrant from the newsletter, didn’t he?’
Rokesby, the clean-shaven young man who’d caught him, gave a proud little smile. ‘Should’ve kept a bit more of a low profile, I reckon,’ he said, filling up another spoonful of stew for his prisoner. ‘Not many people ain’t heard of the Ketty Jay these days. Victim of your own success, ain’t you?’
Crake didn’t care for their explanations. Just get on with it, he thought. Just get it done.
Early in the morning, his escorts arrived. They took him from the cell and walked him to an aircraft. He could smell food cooking and heard the rough conversation of men nearby. It occurred to him that the flight from the spot he was taken had been short; they were probably in the Coalition’s forward camp, where Samandra had kissed him not two days past. A wild thought came to him, filling him with sudden hope: he should shout out for help! But the notion died as soon as it was born. Who would help him? He was a legitimately guilty man. Why would anyone, Samandra most of all, intervene to save a criminal from the law?
He stayed silent. They put him on the aircraft and took off. He didn’t need to ask where they were taking him.
They were taking him home.
I’m going to hang, he thought, as he felt the aircraft touch down. He’d thought it many times since they caught him. Grief and despair, panic and resignation all visited him in their turn while he waited in his cell.
But there were worse things, even, than the prospect of a short sudden trip to oblivion. Worse would be his father’s silent, grief-stricken disappointment. His sister-in-law Amantha’s hysterical shrieks. And Condred, oh, Condred, whose daughter he’d stabbed to death. It didn’t matter that he knew nothing about it till afterwards. It didn’t matter that the whole thing was an awful accident. He’d still have to face the distraught wrath of his brother before they sent him to the gallows.
After some time, he heard the aircraft doors open, and they came for him. They took him outside and walked him along a path. Even blind, he suspected he knew where they were. When it kinked right and went up a shallow incline, he was sure. He’d walked the route from the Crake family’s private landing pad a thousand times.
Ahead of him and to his left was the mansion he’d grown up in. Behind him, across the grounds, was Condred’s house, where Crake had spent his post-university years playing the layabout while studying daemonism in secret. Condred had taken him in as an act of arrogant charity. He thought it would improve his idle brother’s attitude to live with a family that knew the value of duty and hard work.
No doubt he’d regretted his charity since.
They took him into the foyer and along a route he recognised, though he’d seldom travelled it. The study was his father’s sanctuary. After Crake’s mother died, Rogibald took to it more and more often, until he was seldom seen elsewhere except for meals and business. His sons knew not to bother him there. Rogibald disliked being interrupted when he was working. Or thinking. Or doing pretty much anything, for that matter.
He’ll make an exception for me now, I’ll bet, Crake thought. Even in the midst of his misery, he could summon a touch of bitterness where his father was concerned.
They opened the door without knocking and led him inside. He felt a key in his cuffs and his wrists were freed. Then they pulled the bag from his head.
He blinked at the morning light streaming in through the high windows. The room was as he remembered it: expensive fixtures and furniture gone comfortably shabby with age. There were many books but no ornaments. Rogibald was not a man for sentiment, nor did he appreciate art.
His father was sitting in a high-backed red leather chair, facing the hearth. All Crake could see of him was one arm of a houndstooth suit jacket. A butler that Crake didn’t recognise was just delivering a glass of brandy on a silver tray. There was an identical chair next to Rogibald, this one unoccupied. A fire had been newly lit to fend off the chill of winter in the hills.