Well, he thought. I found the lavatory after all.
‘It’s imperative that Dracken finds him before the Archduke’s Knights do,’ said Grephen in his ear. ‘It should have been done properly the first time.’
Crake felt a guilty shiver, the chill of an eavesdropper who hears something scandalous. They were talking about Frey.
‘Nobody expected him to get away,’ said Thade. ‘I had four good pilots flying escort.’
‘So why didn’t they do their jobs?’
The lavatory had a lock on the inside, with a large iron key. Crake eased the door closed and quietly turned it, then sat down on the toilet lid. Grephen and Thade were almost directly below him now. He could hear them perfectly.
‘The survivor said they launched a surprise attack.’
‘Well, of course they did! We told them the route the Ace of Skulls would be flying! So why weren’t our pilots warned?’
‘The pilots were independents, hired through middlemen, that couldn’t be connected to you. We needed them to be reliable, untainted witnesses. We could hardly warn them an attack was coming without giving away the fact that we set up the ambush.’
Amalicia Thade was right, thought Crake. Her father wasn’t in this alone. This goes all the way up to the Duke.
‘The Ketty Jay had two outflyers - fighter craft,’ Thade went on patiently. ‘We didn’t even know Frey travelled with outflyers. He’s such an insignificant wretch, it’s a miracle he keeps his own craft in the sky, let alone three.’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Your Grace, do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of one maggot amid the swarming cess of the underworld? A man like that puts down no roots and leaves little trace when he’s gone. The sheer size of our great country makes it—’
‘You underestimated him, then.’
Crake heard a resentful pause. ‘I miscalculated,’ Thade said at last.
‘The problem was that you didn’t calculate anything,’ Grephen said. ‘You allowed your personal hatred of this man to blind you. You saw a chance for revenge because he disgraced your daughter. I should never have listened to you.’
‘The Allsoul itself thought that Darian Frey was an excellent choice for our scheme.’
‘The auguries were unclear,’ said Grephen, coldly. ‘Even the Grand Oracle said so. Do not presume to know the mind of the Allsoul.’
‘I am saying that I trust in the Allsoul’s wisdom,’ Thade replied. ‘This is merely a hiccup. We will still emerge triumphant.’
Crake couldn’t help a sneer and a tut. Superstition and idiocy, he thought. Strange how your Allsoul can’t stop me using my daemons to listen to every word you say.
‘The survivor told us that the Ketty Jay’s outflyers were fast craft with excellent pilots,’ Thade explained. ‘The surprise attack threw them into chaos and took out half of our men. We were lucky that one witness escaped to report to the Archduke.’
Nobody spoke for a time. Crake imagined a sullen silence on Grephen’s part.
