They found a café and sat down together, breakfasting Gantuans looking at them curiously. ‘Looks like they don’t see a lot of out-of-towners here,’ she said, wondering whether she should be making herself so conspicuous.
‘Don’t worry,’ Cherry said, misunderstanding her. ‘You’re perfectly safe here. Gantua isn’t Brundisi.’
Their food came quickly, and although it was unfamiliar, it was excellent. After their days in captivity, they were both starving.
‘I really am grateful to you,’ Cherry said, when he’d satisfied the worst of his hunger. ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to me to escape like that if you hadn’t pushed me into it.’
‘I’m just glad it worked,’ Annalie said.
‘I’m serious,’ Cherry said. ‘If I’d been there on my own, I would have just kept on waiting until someone came for me. I don’t know how long I would’ve been stuck there. The Admiralty doesn’t pay ransoms and it doesn’t negotiate with kidnappers, so I don’t know how I expected them to get me out.’
‘Send in the marines, all guns blazing?’ Annalie said, jokingly, although she knew it wasn’t really a joke. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t have done it without you either.’
Cherry looked at her for a moment, as if he was about to say something, but eventually he just smiled. ‘I’ll get the bill.’
They stepped out into the sunshine with full stomachs. ‘We should probably head back to the harbourmaster’s office,’ Cherry said. ‘There’s just one more place we need to go first. Come with me—I need your help with something.’
A little reluctantly, she followed him into a shop that sold a jumble of wares of all kinds, including lots of shells, old and new. ‘Which one should I get?’ he asked her, indicating the shells.
‘I’m not really an expert,’ Annalie said.
The shopkeeper came over to give advice on the relative merits of the makes and models. Cherry chose one, and a chip to go with it.
They stepped out of the shop. ‘Here,’ he said, and handed her the shell, along with a modest handful of Gantuan money.
‘What’s this for?’ Annalie asked, surprised.
‘Call it a thank-you present.’ He paused. ‘Use the money. Get away from here. Tell your friends to find somewhere else to pick you up, somewhere I don’t know about.’ He paused. ‘I know who you are, Annalie.’
Annalie felt suddenly dizzy. ‘How long have you known?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t really work it out until yesterday,’ Cherry said. ‘But I wondered from the start.’
‘Oh,’ Annalie said.
He looked at her anxiously. ‘You know as soon as I get back to my ship, I’m going to have to tell them about you.’
‘Do you really have to?’
‘It’s my duty,’ Cherry said. ‘So the less I know about your plans, the better.’
Annalie felt a surge of gratitude to this surprising young man. He was letting her escape in the best way he knew how. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
She was about to turn and go when Cherry spoke again. ‘I don’t know what the real story is with you and your father,’ he said, ‘but I think you’d be an asset to the Admiralty if you ever came back.’
‘They’d never have me,’ Annalie said incredulously, ‘even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.’
Cherry frowned, perplexed. ‘I don’t know who you think we are,’ he said, ‘but we’re the good guys. Really.’
‘Some of you are,’ Annalie said.
Cherry shook his head and smiled. ‘You should go.’
‘Thank you,’ Annalie said again, and then she turned and hurried away into the crowd.
Annalie did exactly what Cherry had suggested. She contacted the others, Essie did some research, and they arranged to meet on the far side of Gantua. Annalie would travel there by train.
Gantuan trains were long and slow-moving, with many classes of carriage strung along their length, from luxury at the front to boxcar at the back. Annalie had chosen somewhere more or less in the middle, which meant she had a seat to sit on, she didn’t have to share her carriage with livestock, and there was no one cooking on the floor, although it was crowded and very noisy.
She curled up quietly in her seat, hoping not to attract too much attention, still stunned by what had just happened. Cherry had known, or at least suspected who she was from the very beginning, but he hadn’t betrayed her. He’d befriended her, helped her, and then, when he had the chance to capture her—something that would no doubt have given his career an enormous boost—he’d let her go.
She felt fairly sure he was going to tell his superiors about her; he’d made that clear enough. But he’d done his best to give her a fighting chance to get away. He’d tried to find a solution that would help her while still allowing him to do his duty. She was charmed by the thought that he wanted to do his duty. He seemed the polar opposite of Beckett and his men.
She remembered a conversation she’d had once with Essie about the Admiralty and what they stood for. Essie had grown up believing the Admiralty were a band of heroes who sailed the world, righting wrongs and protecting the weak, and she’d been very upset when Annalie suggested that perhaps there was another, darker side to the Admiralty’s power. Annalie hadn’t grown up hating the Admiralty, although she had picked up Spinner’s ambivalence about them. Her dislike and mistrust of them had really only begun when she met Beckett. He seemed like the living embodiment of everything that was frightening and hateful about the Admiralty: he was dangerous and manipulative, vindictive and violent, ruthless towards anyone he saw as an enemy. He seemed to have the freedom to sail the oceans of the world, pursuing his vendettas, and there was
