forehead pressed against the porthole in the door, sobs wracking his body.
She was lying on her back, her head tilted, looking at him through the glass. Blood bubbled from her lips. Her gaze met his, and it was too terrible to stand. He flung himself away, and went to the control console.
There, he did what had to be done.
Jez had seen men cry before, but never like this. This was heartbreaking. Crake’s sobs were deep, wild, dredged up from a depth of pain that Jez couldn’t have imagined he held inside him. His story had become almost impossible to understand as he neared the end. He couldn’t even form a sentence through the hacking sobs that shook his whole body.
‘I didn’t know!’ he cried, his face blotched and his beard wet with tears. His nose was running, but he didn’t trouble to wipe it. He was ugly and shattered before her. It hurt to see him so. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing! Only it . . . it didn’t work like I thought. The tra . . . the tra . . . transfer wasn’t perfect. She’s different now, she’s not . . . like she was . . .’ He gasped in a breath. ‘I just wanted to save her.’
But Jez couldn’t give him pity or sympathy. She’d hardened herself too much. She saw the tragedy of him now, but if she let herself forgive him, if she gave in even a little, there would be no going back. He could perhaps be excused the crime of stabbing her, if he wasn’t in his right mind. But what he’d done next was nothing short of diabolical.
‘One thing,’ she said. Her voice was so tight that it hardly sounded like her. ‘Her name.’
‘What?’
‘All this time, you never told me your niece’s name. You’ve avoided it.’
Crake stared at her with red eyes. ‘You know her name.’
‘Say it!’ she demanded. Because she needed just this final closure, before she could walk away.
He swallowed and choked down a sob.
‘Bessandra,’ he said. ‘Bessandra was her name. But we all just called her Bess.’
Thirty
By midday, a crowd had gathered outside Orkmund’s stronghold.
In a rare moment of architectural forethought, the stronghold had been built in front of a large square which was employed for the purpose of meetings, markets and occasional executions or bouts of trial-by-combat. A wooden stage, now groaning under the weight of spectators, stood in the centre for just this purpose. Another, more temporary one had been erected just outside the stronghold, and was guarded by burly men with cutlasses. This would be Orkmund’s podium.
Frey pushed through the press of bodies, with Malvery clearing the way ahead. Pinn and Jez came behind. Pinn had been subdued by his confinement in the Ketty Jay the night before, and Frey had extracted promises of good behaviour today. He charged Malvery with enforcing them, knowing how the doctor liked to bully Pinn.
It was fun to torment the young pilot now and then, but Frey knew how much it meant to him to see Retribution Falls before they left. Just so he could say he’d been. Just so he could tell Lisinda of his adventures, on that day when he returned in triumph to sweep her into his arms. Having asserted his authority, Frey was happy to give Pinn a little slack.
The stronghold was constructed in a squared-off horseshoe shape, with two wings projecting forward around a small interior courtyard. It was dull and forbidding, with square windows and iron-banded doors. Its walls were dark stone, streaked with mould. A place built for someone who had no interest in flair or aesthetics. A fortress.
