‘Most have passed away,’ said the old woman. ‘Very sad, very sudden.’
‘Say it’s not all of them, lass,’ said the commodore. ‘I have travelled a blessed long way for a reunion. A few faces from the past to chew the fat with, that’s not much to ask for now, is it?’
‘There’s a few left,’ admitted the old woman. ‘Mostly in service with the neighbours, you understand.’
‘It would be good to see them,’ said Westwick.
The old woman hummed again. ‘Travel can be dangerous.’
‘Life can be dangerous,’ said Westwick. ‘You never know when you will have to serve a new master, one who may turn out to be most unkind.’
‘That is why there are a hundred faces in paradise,’ said the old woman, ‘so that we may always find at least one to smile upon us.’ She looked at them. ‘And which of the sects smiles upon you?’
‘I’ll take the fifty-third,’ said the commodore. ‘The old one, that is, although I’d say the new one if it was soldiers doing the asking.’
Remembering the cover story that they had agreed, Jack nodded in agreement.
‘A good choice for a salty trader and his two servants,’ agreed the old woman, leaning over to finger Westwick’s kaftan. ‘And wearing the sash of a newly wed, which of the sects did your house before marriage support?’
‘The Sect of Jabal, the seventy-seventh cent,’ said the first lieutenant.
‘Known for its fidelity and dependability,’ smiled the old woman. ‘Good, good. Very believable. If I didn’t know better, I would take you all for locals, rather than travelling tradesmen.’ She pointed at Jack’s turban. ‘Better you had been a jahani, with such hair — even concealed, but still …’ She seemed to make up her mind. ‘A reunion after all, then. We shall talk about business old and new.’
‘Tradesmen always find something to talk about,’ said Westwick.
‘There’s a lot of business about, my dear,’ said the old woman. She clapped her hands together and a thin young slave appeared. ‘Rooms for our guests, and I shall have to see if I can arrange for a few more visitors to arrive. Udal Lackmann. Yes, I shall send for Udal Lackmann.’
The commodore nodded in thanks as the old woman withdrew.
‘You know this Udal Lackmann?’ asked Jack.
‘Of old, lad, yes,’ said the commodore. ‘The caliph never supported the royalist fleet directly, but he used men such as Udal — a smuggler — to channel his aid. That way if the caliph was caught, he could throw up his arms and say, “Ah, what wicked criminals there are dealing with these foreign scoundrels.” Udal was the one I dealt with, always good for a torpedo or two, as long as they were being put in the water against parliament’s shipping and fired a deniable distance from the empire’s shores.’
‘Pasdaran?’ asked Westwick.
‘If he wasn’t, he was their creature,’ said the commodore. ‘Much as I am yours.’
‘I am flattered that you believe so,’ said Westwick, without a trace of irony in her voice.
‘Your old friends may not know about Cassarabia’s sudden leap forward when it comes to the caliph’s airships,’ said Jack.
Westwick shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure that the airships are the Caliph Eternal’s, boy. There’s been an unbalancing of power here. Yes. The Pasdaran are down, but they aren’t quite out yet. They’ll know something, count on it. If the empire is the foot that is kicking us, then the Pasdaran is a fungus attached to its sole. Even after you rip it out, the roots are still left buried deep in the flesh.’
‘You’ll tell me when you want me to try,’ said Tempest.
‘Not yet, Henry,’ said Westwick. ‘Your time will come, as soon as we find out where their celgas is coming from.’
‘Is he really immortal?’ asked Jack. ‘The Caliph Eternal, I mean.’
‘It’s how the empire controls all its client nations,’ said the commodore. ‘The velvet glove slipped over the iron fist. The caliph’s private drug, lifelast, is doled out to all the ruling families who keep their loyalty to him true. I’ve seen men down here who are over two hundred years old and still sprightlier than my creaking old frame. They say the caliph keeps the good stuff for himself and only gives out his diluted piss-water to his cronies. Maybe he will live forever.’
‘They also say that the caliph’s touch can cure sickness and that he can resurrect the dead with a drop of his blood,’ sneered Westwick, ‘and that only the one true god himself decides when a caliph’s reign is over, striking him down with lightning and calling forward a new member from the bloodline of Ben Issman.’
‘Don’t let your mother’s hatred for this land and what they did to her blind you, Maya,’ said the commodore. ‘I’ve seen some mortal unexplainable things during my years down south.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Next time you’re in Middlesteel Museum, have a look at the oldest coins they have from the empire. They’re from before the cold-time and the face on those coins is the same blessed one you’ll find on the silver loose change sewn into your robe.’
Westwick snorted. ‘Go into the town’s flesh bazaar, boy, any womb mage there would be able to give you the same face if it wasn’t a crime to do so. Tell us what you know of this smuggler, Jared.’
‘His mind is as fast as anyone’s I’ve ever known,’ said the commodore. ‘He’s a striking fellow right enough, with skin as dark as ebony and a presence that’s large enough to fill a room. His men told me once that he’s an exiled prince from the Red Forests in the deep south — one of the empire’s disputed satrapies — and he’d fallen in with the machinations of the forest people’s politics. He came riding out on one of those great bulls they ride down there, with just the clothes on his back and a single lance, so the story has it. He started off running contraband through the forest, between the empire and the Skirrtula. Now there’s not much that moves illegally in the harbour towns that Udal doesn’t have a hand in.’
‘Then he must be Pasdaran,’ said Westwick.
‘What can’t be stamped out must be controlled,’ agreed the commodore. ‘That’s the caliph’s way, alright. Always the long game, down Cassarabia way.’
‘You’re looking mournful, lad,’ said the commodore to Jack as the young sailor sat by the second-storey window looking down onto the street — taking his turn on the sentry duty that First Lieutenant Westwick had insisted on.
‘I just realized,’ said Jack, ‘that I haven’t thought of my brothers for days. How they are doing, how they are being treated …’
‘And now you are feeling guilty for how wicked selfish you’ve been?’ said the commodore. ‘Ah, you’ve discovered the terrible secret of why people take to the great game like a drunk holds to his bottle. You’re never so alive as when you’re walking with death by your side, and we’re cowards all.’
‘Cowards?’ said Jack. ‘We’re in the middle of the enemy’s territory wearing false clothes that would have us hanged as spies if that old lady downstairs takes it into her head to hand us in.’
‘Does that make us brave, Mister Keats, or mortal fools? Brave is waking up every morning and trudging into a mill or the fields before the sun is up, worrying about feeding your family, worrying about whether your children will get an education, food on their plate, or survive the next winter’s round of whooping cough. Worrying about whether the crops will fail or your manufactory will have enough work to be able to hire you on for the following month. That’s real fear, Mister Keats. Living an ordinary life takes real bravery. Letting danger chase that away from your mind is one escape, travelling on a u-boat and seeing a different shore every week is another; drinking yourself insensible or a pipe stuffed with mumbleweed are more. I’ve tried them all, lad, and the great game is the best by far.’
‘But the State Protection Board forced you to come here,’ said Jack.
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ said the commodore. ‘And that’s what you tell yourself. They’ve found me. I’m too blessed old to run away and start a new life with yet another name. So it’s just one little favour, and then another. Run some cargo here for them off-manifest, no questions asked. Pick up a man on your boat in some far-off port; drop some documents off in another. Avoid the men-of-war hunting your boat; dodge the assassin in the shadows; draw your sword for a game of tickle-my-sabre when you can’t. And all the time while you’re doing it you never think about the sister who won’t talk to you for getting her son killed, or the wife and daughter who’ve moved along the Circle before you.’
‘I won’t be like that,’ said Jack. ‘I’m getting back to Jackals to see my brothers; to buy them out of the poorhouse.’
‘Perhaps you will at that,’ said the commodore.
