Retribution Falls

Fifteen

It wasn’t so much the force of the kick but the surprise that sent Frey stumbling back. He tripped and fell to the ground, holding his face, shock in his eyes.

‘What’d you do that f—’

‘Two years!’ she hissed, and her bare foot flashed out again and cracked him around the side of the head, knocking him dizzy. ‘Two years I’ve waited for you to come!’

‘Wait, I—’ he began, but she booted him in the solar plexus and the breath was driven out of him.

‘Did you know they teach us the fighting arts in this place? It’s all about being in harmony with one’s body, you see. Only when we’re in harmony with ourselves can we find harmony with the Allsoul. Utter rubbish, of course, but it does have its benefits.’ She punctuated the last word with another vicious kick in the ribs.

Frey gaped like a fish, trying to suck air into his lungs. Amalicia squatted down in front of him, pitiless.

‘What happened to your promises, Darian? What happened to “Nothing can separate us”? What happened to “I’ll never leave you”? What happened to “You’re the only one”?’

Frey had a vague recollection of saying those things, and others like them. Women did tend to take what he said literally. They never seemed to understand that because they expected—no, demanded—romantic promises and expressions of affection, they forced a man to lie to them. The alternative was frosty silences, arguments, and, in the worst case, the woman would leave to find a man who would lie to her. So if he’d said some things he hadn’t exactly meant, it was hardly his fault. She only had herself to blame.

‘Your father . . .’ he wheezed. ‘Your father . . . would’ve had . . . me killed.’

‘Well, we’ll never know that for sure, will we? You turned tail and ran the moment you realised he’d found out about us!’

‘Tactical withdrawal,’ Frey gasped, raising himself up on one hand. ‘I told you . . . I’d be back.’

She stood up and drove her heel hard into his thigh. His leg went dead.

‘Will you stop bloody hitting me?’ he cried.

‘Two years!’ Her voice had become a strangled squeak of rage.

‘It took me two years to find you!’

‘Oh, what rot!’

‘It’s the truth! You think your father advertised your whereabouts? You think it was easy finding you? He sent me away so once you’d gone you’d be hidden from me. I’ve spent two years trying to get my hands on Awakener records, mixing with the wrong kind of people, trying to stay one step ahead of your father and the . . . the assassins he set on my trail. You know he’s hired the Shacklemores? The Shacklemores have been after me ever since the day I left, and every day I’ve been trying to make my way back to you.’

It was an outrageous lie, but Frey had a talent for lying. When he lied even he believed it. Just for that moment, just for the duration of his protest, he was convinced that he really had done right by her. The details were unimportant.

Besides, he knew for sure that Gallian Thade really did still want him dead. Thade had framed him. In such a light, it was rather heroic that he’d come back at all.

But Amalicia wasn’t so easily swayed. ‘Spit and blood, Darian, don’t give me that! I sent you a letter telling you where I was! I sat here in this horrible place waiting for—’

‘I never got any letter!’

‘Yes, you did! The letter I sent you with the co-ordinates of this place.’

‘I never got any co-ordinates! In your last letter you called me a coward and a liar, among other things. In fact, the last letter I got from you left me in very little doubt that you never wanted to see me again.’

Amalicia’s hand went to her mouth. Suddenly, all the anger had gone out of her and she looked horrified.

‘You didn’t get it? The letter I sent after that one?’

Frey looked blank.

Amalicia turned away, an anxious hand flying to her forehead, pacing around the room. ‘Oh, by the Allsoul! That silly cow of a handmaiden. She must have written the wrong address, or not paid the right postage, or—’

‘Maybe it got lost in the post?’ Frey suggested generously. ‘Or someone at one of my pick-up points mislaid it. I had to stay on the move, you know.’

‘You really didn’t receive my letter?’ Amalicia asked. Her voice had taken on a note of sympathy, and Frey knew he’d won. ‘The one where I took back all those foul things I said?’

Frey struggled to his feet with difficulty. His jaw was swelling, and he could barely stand on his dead leg. Amalicia rushed over to help him.

‘I really didn’t,’ he said.

‘And you still came? You still searched for me all these years, even when you thought I hated you?’

‘Well,’ he said, then paused for a moment to roll his jaw before he delivered his final blow. ‘I made a promise.’

Her eyes shimmered with tears in the moonlight. Wide, dark, trusting eyes. He’d always liked those eyes. They’d always seemed so innocent.

She flung herself at him, and hugged him close. He winced as his injuries twinged, then slid his arms around her slender back and buried his face in her hair. She smelled clean. Cleaner than he’d smelled for a long time, that was for certain. He found himself wondering how things might have been with her, if not for her father, if not for the unfortunate circumstances that drove them apart.

No. No regrets. If he opened that door he’d never be able to close it.

She pulled herself away a little, so she could look up at his face. She was desperately sorry now, ashamed for having tragically misjudged him. Grateful that he’d come for her in spite of everything.

‘You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, Darian,’ she breathed. ‘I haven’t seen another since my father sent me to this awful place.’

Darian leaned closer, sensing the moment was right, but she drew back with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Have you?’ she asked. ‘Have you been with anyone?’

He looked at her steadily, letting her feel how earnest he was. ‘No,’ he lied, firmly and with authority.

Amalicia sighed, and then kissed him hard, clutching at him with unpractised, youthful fury. She tore at his clothes, frantic. He struggled free of his sooty greatcoat as she fumbled at the laces of his shirt before finally tugging it off and throwing it away. He pulled her nightshirt up and over her head, and then swept her up and kissed her, gratified to realise that at least part of his fantasy about sex-starved young women in a hermitage was about to come true.

Afterwards, they lay together naked on Frey’s coat, his skin prickling deliciously in the chilly night. He ran a finger along the line of her body while she stared at him adoringly. There was a dazed look in her eye, as if she was unable to quite believe that he was here with her again.

‘I saw some Imperators on the way here,’ he said.

She gasped. ‘You didn’t!’

‘Right outside. A bunch of Sentinels carried a chest out to them, and they put it on their craft and took off. One of them looked right at me.’

‘How frightening.’

‘They were guarding that chest very closely.’

‘Are you asking me if I have any idea what might have been inside?’

‘In a roundabout way, yes.’

‘I don’t know, Darian. Some stuffy old scrolls, no doubt. Perhaps it was an original copy of the Cryptonomicon. They’re terribly careful with those things.’

‘Remind me what that is again?’

‘The book of teachings. They wrote down all the insane little mutterings of King Andreal the Demented, and put them in that book.’

‘Oh,’ said Frey, losing interest immediately.

‘We have to leave together,’ she said. ‘Tonight.’

‘We can’t.’

‘It’s the only way, Darian! The only way we can be together!’

‘I want that, more than anything in the world. But there’s something I haven’t told you. Your father . . .’

‘What did he do?’ she snapped, jumping immediately to Frey’s defence.

‘You might not want to hear this.’

‘Tell me!’

‘Your father . . . well, he’s . . . Something terrible happened. An aircraft blew up, and people died. Nobody knows who did it, but your father has pinned it on me. Me and my crew. If you were caught with me, they’d hang you. It’s too dangerous. You’re safer here.’

Amalicia looked at him suspiciously.

‘I’m a lot of things, but I’m no cold-blooded killer!’ he protested. ‘The Archduke’s son was on that craft, Amalicia. Your father arranged it, but half of Vardia is after me.’

‘Hengar is dead?’ she gaped.

‘Yes! And your father is in on it.’

Amalicia shook her head angrily, eyes narrowing. ‘That bastard. I hate that bastard!’

‘You believe me, then?’

‘Of course I believe you! Spit and blood, I know what he’s capable of. Look at me! His only daughter, condemned to this place because I went against his wishes just once! He doesn’t have a heart. Money is all he cares about . . . money and that rotten Allsoul.’ She glanced around guiltily, as if afraid she’d gone too far. Then, emboldened by Frey’s presence, she went on. ‘It’s all stupid! I don’t believe any of it! They say it’s all about faith, but it’s not, because I can do it and I don’t even care about the Allsoul! It’s brought me nothing but misery. Any idiot can study the texts and learn to read the signs. Anyone with half an education can tell the Mistresses what they want to hear. But there’s nothing there, Darian! I don’t feel anything! I’m just stuck here in this prison, and after two more years they’ll put that awful tattoo on my forehead, and after that I’ll be an Awakener for ever!’ She cupped his bruised jaw with her hands and gazed desperately into his eyes. ‘I can’t let that happen. I’ll die first. You have to get me out of here.’

‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will. But first I have to get to your father.’

‘Oh, Darian, no! He’ll have you hanged for sure!’

‘Gallian Thade is the only lead I’ve got. If I can find out why he killed Hengar . . . well, maybe I can do something about it.’ Then, seeing Amalicia’s expectant expression, he added, ‘And then I’ll come back for you, and we’ll escape together as we planned.’

‘But if you pin it on my father . . .’ Amalicia said, with dawning realisation. ‘Why, he’ll be the one that hangs.’

Frey stumbled mentally. He’d forgotten about that. In clearing his name, Gallian would have to hang. He was asking a daughter to help send her own father to the gallows.

A cruel smile spread across Amalicia’s face, the terrifying smile of a child about to stamp on an insect. Malice for the sake of malice. She saw her revenge, and it pleased her. Frey was surprised; he hadn’t imagined her capable of such thoughts. Her time in the hermitage had made her bitter, it seemed.

‘If he hangs,’ she said slowly, ‘that makes me head of the family. And no one can keep me here when I’m mistress of the Thades.’

‘I hadn’t even considered that,’ Frey said, truthfully. ‘I was so wrapped up in the idea of rescuing you . . . well, it had never occurred to me that, if your father died . . .’

‘Oh, Darian, it’s brilliant!’ she said, eyes shining. She threw one leg over his thigh and pressed herself to him eagerly. Frey’s mind began to wander from his machinations and back to baser thoughts. ‘Kill him! Let the bastard hang! And then I’ll be free, and we can be together, and we won’t have to run from anyone! We’ll marry, and damn what anyone says!’

Frey’s ardour dampened at the mention of marriage. But why? he asked himself. Why not this one? She’s richer than shit and foxy to boot! Not to mention she’s almost a decade younger than you and she thinks the sun rises and sets in your trousers. Since you can’t make fifty thousand ducats any other way, why not marry them?

But however good the reasons, Frey couldn’t deny the life-sucking sense of oblivion that overtook him whenever he heard the M-word.

‘I daren’t even hope for that yet,’ he said. ‘Things are so dangerous right now . . . simply to survive would be . . . maybe, just maybe, I can win out of this. And then you’ll be free, and we can be together.’

Can, he mentally added. Not will.

‘What can I do?’ she asked, missing the fact that Frey had deftly evaded any promise of marriage. She’d heard what she wanted to hear. Frey noted that the women in his life had a tendency to do that.

‘Can you think of any reason why your father would want Hengar dead? How would it profit him?’

She lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. Frey admired her, half-listening as she spoke. ‘Well, he’s very close to the Awakeners, you know that. But the Awakeners don’t have anything against Hengar. It’s the Archduchess they hate, and the Archduke by association.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Eloithe is a big critic of the Awakeners. She doesn’t believe in the Allsoul. She says they’re just a business empire that trades in superstition. And she’s obviously inspired the Archduke, since he’s started making all kinds of moves to diminish their power. But none of that’s anything to do with Hengar.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘You know what I think? I don’t think my father’s behind this at all.’

‘Amalicia, there’s no doubt. I spoke to a—’

‘No, no, I mean . . . We’re landowners, Darian. We make our money from tenants. There’s no reason to murder the son of the Archduke.’ She sat up suddenly, her face taut with certainty. ‘I know him, Darian, he wouldn’t come up with something like this. Someone else is behind it.’

‘You think there’s someone else?’

‘I’d bet on it.’

‘Well . . . who?’

‘That I don’t know. I’ve been away a long time, in case you’d forgotten. It’s hard to keep up with my father’s business dealings when I’ve been locked in this prison for two years.’

Her tone grew harsher as she spoke, and Frey—fearing another beating—placated her hurriedly. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll look into it. I just have to find a way to get close to him.’

‘Well, there’s the Winter Ball coming up,’ she suggested.

‘The Winter Ball?’

‘You know! The ball! The one my father has every year at our estate on the Feldspar Islands.’

‘Oh, the ball!’ Frey said, though he’d no idea what she was talking about. Presumably they’d discussed it, although he was reasonably sure he’d never been to one.

‘My father always does business there. All the important people come to it. If someone put him up to this whole business of murder, I’m sure you’d find them there. And you’d be well hidden among all the people. It’s quite the event of the season, you know!’

‘Can you get me in?’

She jumped up and went to the writing desk, drew out a pen and paper and began to scribble. Frey lay on his side, idly studying the curve of her back, the bumps of her spine.

‘There are still people in the family who don’t agree with what father did. This is a letter of introduction. You can take it to my second cousin—he’ll do the rest.’

‘I need two invitations.’

Her shoulders tensed and she stopped writing.

‘Neither are for me,’ he assured her. ‘I won’t be going. Don’t fancy meeting your father again. And you know I’m not very well trained in etiquette. But I do have a friend who is. I’ll need his help.’

‘And the other?’

‘Well, you have to take a lady to these things, don’t you? Turning up without a date looks a bit odd.’

‘And I suppose you happen to know one?’

‘She’s my navigator, Amalicia,’ said Frey. He leaned over and kissed her between the shoulder blades. ‘Just my navigator. And it won’t be me that’s taking her.’

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Two invitations.’ She resumed writing, then signed with a flourish and laid the letter on top of his piled-up clothes.

Frey began getting to his feet. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you out of here. I promise.’

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

Frey looked towards the door of the attic. ‘Well, I’m technically not supposed to be here, so I should really be gone before everyone wakes up.’

Amalicia pulled him back down again. ‘It’s not even close to dawn,’ she said. ‘I’ve had nobody to lie with for two years, Darian. We still have some catching up to do.’