'Facing the truth is easier with twelve thousand gold a year,' muttered Oggosk.
'Yes, Mr Uskins, a spy,' said Ott quickly. 'What is more, the first spy ever to penetrate the ranks of the Shaggat's faithful on Gurishal. Which is to say, the first man placed on that island who was not quickly discovered, and shipped in pieces back to Babqri. His four predecessors lasted an average of a week before the Shaggat's worshippers found them out. Alyash lasted thirteen years. And even when the doubts began he managed to escape.'
'With a few souvenirs,' said Oggosk, picking at her teeth.
Alyash regarded her coldly. 'The Lady Oggosk makes reference to my scars,' he said at last. 'Would you like to know how I earned them, Duchess?'
'Not if it delays our meal.'
'When the Nessarim suspect a man of treason they hand him a knife and a mug of seawater. In the water floats a sarcophagus jellyfish — a creature so deadly that merely to touch one's lips after handling it means certain death. The suspect is given a choice: to open his veins then and there with the knife, or to swallow the whole mug of water at a gulp, jellyfish and all, and pray that the divine Shaggat neutralises the poison. They believe him capable of such miracles, even before he returns from the dead. They believe he waits in heaven, watching everything they do.
'I was accused of being a sfvantskor informant. I struck my chest three times, swore allegiance to the Shaggat, and demanded the mug. As they filled it I went to a corner to pray, and swallowed all the antitoxins I kept on my person. The fanatics knew quite well that no Mzithrini drug could protect against a sarcophagus jelly. But I had drugs from Arqual. That was my sixteenth year in Ott's service.'
'In the service of the Emperor,' Ott corrected.
'To swallow a sarcophagus jelly is to die in seconds,' said Alyash. 'I lay writhing for six minutes, burning inside. Then the believers decided I was one of them, and shoved a goad into my mouth, and I vomited onto my chin and chest, where the dissolved jellyfish burned deep into my skin. I lost consciousness, and they were afraid even to wash me clean. That, Lady Oggosk, is how I earned my souvenirs.'
Lady Oggosk's eyes were downcast. Then all at once she glanced up, realised he had finished, and waved at Rose impatiently. 'Serve the ham, Nilus, the ham!'
Ott and Alyash took their seats. Chadfallow walked to the threshold of Rose's day cabin, and leaned on the doorframe, watching the others attack their meal.
Rose pointed at Ott with his serving fork. 'You have robbed me of a bosun, Spymaster.'
'Not at all,' said the spymaster. 'Alyash has always worked from the deck of a ship — albeit a Mzithrini ship. There's more of worth in this officer than you realised, that's all.'
Chadfallow asked a clipped question in Mzithrini. Alyash glanced up at him, then lifted his bowl of crab stew and slurped.
'The doctor wishes to know how I came to be in Simja,' he said as he finished.
'That is the best part of it,' said Ott. 'The madmen on Gurishal were close to the truth, of course: Mr Alyash was not the Shaggat-worshipper he claimed. But they guessed that he was a sfvantskor, rather than what he was: a member of the Zithmoloch, the Pentarchy's formidable, if rather outmatched and archaic, guild of spies. But neither the Shaggat's men nor the Zithmoloch itself suspected the deeper truth: that he was our man from the start. Alyash told the Five Kings what we wished them to believe concerning Gurishal: that the Nessarim were weak and divided, that the Shaggat's return was a fading dream. Of course quite the opposite is true. And Alyash, meanwhile, propagated a myth among those zealots, those people starving for hope.'
'Ah!' said Drellarek. 'Then it was you who spread the prophecy of the Shaggat's return!'
'I lay the tinder, and struck the match,' said Alyash. 'But the prophecy spread of its own accord, like a blaze in dry grass. And when word reaches Gurishal that the daughter of an Arquali general has wed into a Mzithrin royal family, every man, woman and child on Gurishal will know that the hour of their God-King's return is at hand.'
'To complete the story,' said Ott. 'The Mzithrinis had never seen such an effective spy — of course they hadn't; I trained Alyash myself — and they were not about to let his service end with Gurishal. So they extended his scars to the back of his neck, obliterating his Mzithrini tattoos, and sent him to a place they wished desperately to infiltrate: Simjalla City, where the Great Peace would begin.'
'It was a natural choice,' said Alyash. 'My father traces his family line back to the Crownless Lands. At least a part of me is Simjan.'
Ott smiled, giving his brandy an interrogatory sniff. 'You might not think so,' he said, 'but most of the best spies in history are mongrels. Transplants, half-bloods, children of vagabond fathers or women taken in war.'
'Is that so for you, Mr Ott?' said Uskins, through a mouthful of ham. 'You're His Supremacy's best, of course, so-'
'Uskins,' said Rose, 'finish your meal in silence.'
'Oppo, sir.'
'And chew your food as befits a man.'
Sandor Ott was looking at Uskins as one might a horsefly whose buzzing one has resolved to suffer no more. Under his gaze the first mate became quickly unnerved. His knife squeaked. He chewed with great concentration.
'Stukey,' muttered Alyash in disgust.
Rose shot him a dark look. 'Alyash, is it the Mzithrini in you that thinks it well to visit your captain's table with a rag knotted at your neck?'
Alyash whipped the sweaty bandanna from his throat. 'Your pardon, sir.'
'I sent ashore for a bosun, not a spy. And I do not require a bosun of divided loyalties. Tell me, whom do you serve?'
'By the will of His Supremacy, sir, you are Captain and Final Offshore Authority. That means the mission is in your hands.'
'I know exactly how far my authority extends,' said Rose, 'but do you?'
'Sir, I am a true servant of Magad the Fifth. My loyalties are as clear to me now as they have been since I boarded.'
Rose looked at the man, visibly displeased with the answer. Then Lady Oggosk cleared her throat. Scraping at a patch of flaking skin on her hand, she said, 'Nilus, you should not give them leave to walk into Bramian. The island is an eater of men, and I'm not just speaking of the savages. The Lorg has a prayer-history for the husbands of its graduates who died in unwise excursions there, and the prayer takes days to chant.' She raised her milky eyes and looked squarely at Ott. 'Dreamers fare the worst,' she said.
Ott met her gaze, unblinking. 'It might surprise you to know, Duchess, that my men have been at work inside Bramian for over a year.'
'Fifty yards inside,' said Oggosk. 'And mostly underground. Not exactly the work of heroes, is it?'
There came a knock at the door. The steward answered, and whispered with someone on the threshold. Then he walked to the captain and bent to his ear.
'Let him be brought in at once,' said Rose. 'Dr Chadfallow, you will hold your tongue, or I shall have you removed.'
The steward returned to the door and swung it wide. There stood Pazel Pathkendle, held roughly by a gargantuan Turach. The youth's hands were tied behind his back, and a gag pulled his lips back severely. Fitted around his neck was a broad leather collar with iron studs, a bit like those worn by fighting dogs, except that this collar had an odd, ratchet-like device on one side.
The Turach dragged Pazel forward, into the sunlight. It was clear now that the collar was very tight, and that the rag in the boy's mouth was dark with blood. Pazel turned wild and furious eyes from one face to another. When at last they fell on Dr Chadfallow the rage that burned in them grew even stronger.
'I didn't hit him, Sergeant Drellarek,' said the soldier defensively. 'He just bit his tongue.'
'And then bit you?'
The Turach glanced sheepishly at his own bandaged forearm. He shook his head. 'That were the Treaty Bride,' he said. 'She had a blade.'
Rose was livid. 'My orders were not clear, then?'
'Sir, they were very clear; you wanted her brought as well. It mortifies me to tell you that she slipped away. I think she was expecting us, sir — she was that wary. And the Tholjassan and the Undrabust brat got in our way,
