I did want to kill him. I wanted to feel the life go out of him under my hands. He saw my cruel expression- comprised of Tern’s rejection, Gio’s slander and six hours in a rainstorm-and he curled up, sobbing. Cinna’s predictability was consoling-I had thought I was losing the ability to read people. They seemed to be becoming gradually more incomprehensible.
“Ah…” Cinna panted. “Please don’t hurt me. Please…I…”
“How did Gio acquire the logbook?”
“I don’t know!…Ah…I swear! He’s a clever man; he has many agents. Ah…I respect you, Comet. You’re Eszai. You’re a legend in Hacilith.”
“Put the dagger down, then.”
Cinna did no such thing. I kicked his hand and the knife flew out of it.
Cinna huddled under the remnants of his broken umbrella.
“How did Gio know of Tris?”
“I informed him. I’m sorry! You never said it was a secret!”
I suddenly realized that I had told Cinna everything, six months ago, under the influence of a fingernail full of scolopendium. Shit. It began to dawn on me that this appalling turn of events could be all my fault-caused by my big, stupid mouth.
I bated forward with my wings spread, made as if to kick him and he cowered. “Are you sailing with Gio?”
“Yes…Yes, what of it? I am My Own Man.” He huffed in a breath. “I’m to be captain of the
“I see.” I drew my sword from under my coat skirts. “Do you believe all that bullshit Gio was spouting in there?”
Cinna knelt up, several acres of ghastly fawn brocade, and started prodding his saggy chest to check for broken ribs. His blond pin curls were plastered to his skull, his fat cheeks were ruddy. The pathetic specimen looked at me carefully through the pouring rain. “No, of course not…Though there’s a seed of truth in everything he said…He thinks you’re an alcoholic.” A knowing, assertive look appeared in his eyes. “I have a reliable source for decent cat, by the way.”
“Blackmail now, is it? That’s just one more reason to kill you!” I snarled, though his words set my mouth watering.
“Come on, Comet. Just because you’re illegitimate doesn’t give you free license to be a bastard. I haven’t told Gio about your love of scolopendium. Why should I? It’d bring me no benefit, and I’m a savvy businessman…Of course I don’t believe that the island is full to bursting with precious metals for the natives to bestow on us. However, I do know that Gio’s As Rich As Rachiswater. He’s paying me five times a merchant captain’s wage. He’s packing coin, plate and banknotes-he has chests full of it! He wants to set himself up on Tris. I’ve just finished conveying it all to Awndyn myself. Look, I still have the letter he gave me. I’ll show you, here.” Cinna fished inside his coat for a crumpled envelope with a broken seal, Ghallain manor’s whale emblem. I took the letter from his gnawed fingertips and raised a wing to shelter it from the rain, while I read:
TO: SITELLA GRACKLE, FIRST BANK OF HACILITH
I hereby instruct you to immediately liquidate all my assets currently in your care and to dispatch the monies to myself at the harbormaster’s office, Awndyn. They are, to whit: i) the proceeds collected to date from the sale of my academies, ii) all ordinary stocks held in the Hacilith bourse, iii) gold and silver plate held in the bank’s safe.
The bearer of this letter, Cinna Bawtere, holds my full confidence in this matter and is to be trusted as the guardian of the money.
GIO AMI
Money, lots of money, I deliberated while I refolded the letter. Cinna was smiling, showing textured teeth. “Comet, are you envious? You know you’ll never be free to escape to Tris yourself. You have to fly around the Fourlands until the inevitable happens-a goddamn Insect eviscerates you-and I don’t mean like at Slake Cross, I mean fatally. You’re cast off the Emperor’s fist like a hawk, to spy, and he lures you back and tethers you with the promise of eternal life.”
I took a squelching step toward him. “But, Bawtere, it’s jail for you! Make haste! We’ll see how far Gio sails without a captain.” I gestured with the sword and Cinna staggered to his feet, protesting and quaking. “Into town, Cariama Eske’s guard will look after you…They’ll throw you in a freezing cell, lock you in fetters and you can fuck your mother for all I care.”
“She’s dead.”
“Should make it easy for you, then. Hurry! I’ve a lot to do tonight. I’m busy because I have to find someone who will keep an eye on Gio and accurately report his plans to me when, for example, I land on the Pavonine’s gallery at dusk.”
Cinna had begun to snivel. “Okay,” he said, miserably; “I’ll do it.”
I said, “Oh, good. Then the noose can wait; tell me a little more about Gio.”
Cinna said: He knows that the Trisians distrust the Castle. He has a silver tongue, that man.
I said: Even if it was gold he couldn’t Challenge me.
Cinna said: Gio’s failed and he knows it. He might have got away with insurrection, but he tried to murder an Eszai. Oh yes, I heard from his own lips how he stabbed Lightning!
Me: He’s running?
Cinna: Yes. He can’t storm the Castle and skewer every Eszai much as he wants to. So he’s making his mark- leaving his name on history is immortality of a sort, seeing as he can’t have The Real Thing. If he holes up at Ghallain or hides out on Addald Isle it’d only be a matter of time before he’s betrayed and captured. But on Tris…
Me: Never!
Cinna: He wants to win over the Trisians. And San would have to leave him there, the King of Tris, because the Castle’s purpose is fighting the Insects. San could never fight people or invade islands.
Me: I’m glad you trust San.
Cinna: Yes, but I’m fed up of being kept in the dark. He keeps everyone hooded like falcons, whether callow Zascai or haggard old Eszai. You don’t know what San’s real quarry is, even though you’re one of his spies, and you will just go back and tell him my every word.
Me: Um…Cinna said that, not me.
San: Yes.
I skipped a few pages in my report, and resumed: “Then I said to Cinna, ‘If I fail to stop Gio setting sail, I will meet you again on the ship.’ I followed him to the tavern, stole-I mean, requisitioned-a fast horse and rode here directly, my lord. I sent a courier to lock every stable at every coaching inn between Eske and Awndyn. That’ll slow the main part of their force down by a couple of hours, and as it takes five days to walk to Awndyn those without horses might miss the
Drops of rain ran down the shafts of the wet feathers in my hair and dropped off their curled tips behind me onto the carpet. I shook my head, flicking water from the backward-pointing quills. I had ridden out of the storm; my skin was singing. I was covered in the stringy mud thrown from the horse’s hooves. My svelte boots were sheathed in white liquid mud up to the thigh. I smelled of clouds and the thin air. My heart beat hard; cat made me feel too fast and bracing, thermaling on a strange energy burst that I knew I was going to pay for later but really needed now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
San said, “Good. The majority of Gio’s followers deserted him during the battle. The only people prepared to flee with him are those who have no option and no dreams other than those he concocts. So his last act of defiance is to stop Tris joining the Empire…”
