I drank, and I didn’t answer her.
How could I?
*
I most definitely had thoughts about that, but vanishingly few people I dared share them with. It was too soon to go to Ailsa with my suspicions, not without a shred of proof, and for all that I liked Iagin I wasn’t sure I trusted him that much. There was one man, though, one old pirate who I knew instinctively I could trust with my life. I fucking well hoped I could anyway, because that was exactly what I was about to do.
I had Rosie pen a letter to Ailsa’s father, who had done me the great honour of allowing me to call him Sasura. That was an Alarian word, one which was like calling someone Da but when it was your wife’s father and not your own. It was sort of their way of saying father-by-law but more intimate than that, more like you were actually part of the family by blood and not just by marriage. I had been deeply touched by that. He was a man I respected, and more to the point he was a man who had done business in Dannsburg for over forty years and lived to tell the tales of it. That had to be worth something.
My esteemed sasura,
My separation from your respected daughter pains me, and I regret that you and I have not had the opportunity to speak since my return to Dannsburg, but matters of business have been and remain most pressing. However, there is something on which I would welcome your counsel. If you have it in your heart to forgive me even a little bit, I would be very grateful for some of your time to discuss this matter with you in private.
Your most respectful son-by-law,
Tomas
I folded and sealed the letter and gave it to Fat Luka and told him to have one of his runners get it to Ailsa’s father without anyone noticing. I wondered what sort of reception it was likely to get. Ailsa’s parents had no idea what she did, or so she believed anyway, and if that was true then it stood to reason that Sasura didn’t know what I did either. I was just a gangster from Ellinburg, as far as he was concerned, a businessman who his daughter had rather inexplicably married the year before last. Still, we had got on extremely well, and it seemed we had more than a little in common where business was concerned.
I was a pirate and a smuggler, I remembered him telling me, and that still made me smile. He was the sort of man I wished my own da had been, and no mistake.
It doesn’t do to dwell on such things, I know, but it made me wonder all the same. A man like him had fathered my lioness in riches and privilege in the heart of the capital city, and an utter shit like my da had fathered me in the slums of Ellinburg. Our lives couldn’t have been more different growing up, and yet here we were together. We were both Queen’s Men, after all, and married to each other as well, for what that was worth.
Perhaps the crown doesn’t see class and education, only ability and innate talent. Or perhaps the Queen’s Men only see opportunity in the moment, and seize it when it presents itself. I knew which I thought was more likely, but that was a thought for another day. It made me think of something else, though.
‘Oh, Luka?’ I said, as he was heading out of the door of my office with the letter in his hand. ‘One more thing.’
‘Boss?’
‘You remember the Lady Lan Yetrov, don’t you?’
‘That poor cow whose husband used to batter her? That cunt you fed to his own bear, I mean. Her?’
‘Yes, her,’ I said.
‘Aye, I remember,’ he said, although that was obvious now.
‘You might find out what she’s doing these days,’ I said. ‘I think that might be an acquaintance worth renewing.’
I had made the Lady Leonora Lan Yetrov a staggeringly rich widow, after all, and in doing so had rescued her from her hellish marriage. From what little I had seen of her, under the veneer of diamonds and society that she hid behind, she struck me as an educated and, I suspected, very intelligent woman.
And she was enormously in my debt.
Seeing opportunity in the moment was a big part of being a Queen’s Man, after all, and I thought I saw an opportunity in her.
Opportunities indeed. I waited for Luka to leave, then took out the letter I had received from Jochan and not shown to Anne.
Tomas,
You won’t fucking believe this. We’ve only got a house of magicians in Ellinburg now. Enaid’s probably told Anne already, but she won’t know this bit. Because I had an idea, and I haven’t told her yet and won’t until I know I was right. The gods only know what’s happening there in Dannsburg but these magicians, they seem scared. I made a point of approaching one, asking for his counsel and wisdom and all that, and I bought him a few drinks. Well, you know me, I can drink, and this bloke couldn’t. I got him proper shitfaced, and he told me all about blasting powder and how they’re making stores of it here in Ellinburg, in case they need it. I reckon they could be persuaded to sell it. To us. To the Pious Men.
Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. Stay safe, Dannsburg sounds bad.
Jochan
That Jochan had managed to have an idea by himself that wasn’t idiotic told me that his mental state was steadily improving, and I laid the credit for that squarely at Cutter and Hanne’s feet. Between them, and with the child, they seemed to have achieved the seemingly impossible and made my poor brother happy, and I gave thanks for that.
I penned a reply thanking him for the news, and telling him to keep it absolutely to himself. I didn’t
