by Julia Knight
“My Lord Brimeld, I—” Rillen began.
Skrymir didn’t give him the chance to finish. “This, this bastard was assaulting my wife’s honor.”
Rillen turned his flat shark eyes on Van Gast. “Is that so?”
“I demand that you do something about this, Rillen. I don’t care what your laws are, I will—”
Van Gast didn’t like Rillen’s smile. Smug and knowing, superior. He wasn’t all that keen on the words either.
“Oh, that will be my pleasure, my Lord Brimeld. I’ve been wanting to catch Van Gast for some time. Should I hang him or have him nailed to the walls of Oku’s temple?”
Van Gast’s name dropped into the silence of the atrium like a cannonball.
Oh, shit on a sodding stick. He risked a glance at Skrymir, saw the sudden hesitation, soon covered by bluster. Josie recovered better, but Van Gast could tell she was shaken by the way her lips parted, the widening of her eyes. She’d been expecting to reveal who he was, for the bounty, not have Rillen know already. Had he recognized Van Gast? Not likely, not under all this getup. Not unless he knew a lot more than he should. Traitor on the ship. Gilda knew nothing about Mr. Ibsen, and neither did Tallia… Find the lady, but which one? Too late.
Skrymir managed to speak first. “Van Gast? Are you sure?”
Rillen nodded to four of his guards, who picked Van Gast off the floor. One took his pistol and sword, another yanked his arms behind him and the subtle click of cuffs was the sound of freedom lost.
“Very sure,” Rillen said. “I have it on a firm authority. You’ve been duped by a master rack, Lord Brimeld. I’m sure we can arrange another trader to help you in your negotiations.”
A jerk of his head and the guards yanked Van Gast toward the rear of the atrium. He caught one last look of Josie before they thrust him through a door, before Rillen approached her with his shark smile, and it was enough to make the itch in his chest seem about to leap out and scratch at his face.
* * *
Rillen bowed over Josie’s hand, but she whipped it away, playing the part of outrage to perfection.
“You knew who he was?” Her voice was sharp but he didn’t miss the pulse throbbing at her throat.
Too many eyes were prying, too many ears flapping out here in the atrium. Time for the rest of it. “Lord Brimeld, I think your wife needs to recover from her shock. If you like, I’ll escort you both somewhere more private.”
“Brimeld” hesitated, waited for an almost imperceptible nod from Josie, and accepted Rillen’s offer.
Rillen laid a hand on Josie’s back and steered her to a private room. She was tense under his fingers, maybe nervous or maybe not, if her reputation was anything to go by. Oh, but you should be. He showed her in, Skrymir bringing up the rear all full of bluster, and made sure the door locked behind him.
“I don’t think you’ve met Lady Laceflower, have you? Laceflower, my love, this is Lady Amana and Lord Brimeld.”
Not a flicker of recognition from Josie at seeing her. Laceflower smiled and said a quiet greeting, which Josie returned with barely a glance. Had they never met? Then why did his lovely Laceflower want her to suffer so? Mysterious.
“My dear Lady Amana, Lord Brimeld, I’m so shocked at Van Gast inveigling his way into your trust so. I do apologize for not apprehending him sooner, but I had to be sure. Here, allow me to pour you a drink, my lady. You look rather shaken.”
She sipped at the brandy he poured for her, and truthfully she did look shaken. The brandy trembled in the glass. It took her a few moments, with a delicate crease on her forehead as she thought, but she soon recovered well enough.
Come on, Josie, tell me the rest of it. What are you planning? Where do you want to get to? I think I know, but out with it.
“I feel so ashamed, Rillen. Everything is so different here, and, well, we have nothing like racks at home. As I said before, the Gan are all about honor and trust. We trusted Mr.—sorry. What did you say his name was?”
“Van Gast, and no shame. You’re not the first to succumb to one of his cons.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Nor the first wife to be seduced by his other charms.” She actually blushed at that. “Laceflower, my love, would you go see about finding a new trading partner for our guests?”
Laceflower left with a sly, hate-filled glance at Josie’s back.
“I can’t concentrate on trading partners now.” Skrymir looked flushed, affronted and likely to lay about with his sword. A perfect display of the cuckold. “That—that wretch laid hands on my wife.” He moved over to where Josie sat with her head down, as though ashamed, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, whispered something to her. Maybe pretending to soothe her.
At last, he stood up straight and looked Rillen square in the eye. “If we’re to trade, Rillen, first we need to know you’ve dealt with this in a way I can approve. I want that sod’s head on a stick!”
“Oh, we’ll do better than that, my lord. Much better, and more painful.”
Skrymir blinked in surprise but blustered on. “I want to see him in his cell. We both do. I know Estovan doesn’t see these things as we do, I can see that in every street, a brothel on every corner. My poor wife, to be confronted with that at every turn, and now this!” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I mean, in Ganheim it’s discreet, you see? My wife—sheltered, very sheltered, and this could quite ruin her. I need to know you take this as seriously as I do.”
Oh, so that was it. Van Gast down there, and then these two as well. They were after the strong room, as he’d thought. Clever. “My Lord Brimeld, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to escort you to the cells and Van Gast myself.”
Chapter Fourteen
Holden paced the deck, unable to settle to anything. The sun had just set in a maze of silver spinners across the myriad waterways and rivulets of the delta. Gloom crept up on him, growing to inky shadows beneath the ships at berth, gathering among the buildings like hired thugs. Without order, without comfort, he couldn’t get his mind to work in straight lines. Stay with the ship, Van had said, be ready to sail. That was all very well, but something was going on and he couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. A traitor, perhaps. Tallia in the brig. Ilsa hadn’t come back, and neither had Gilda. Van and Josie off somewhere, and a traitor loose. Perhaps. Or perhaps in the brig.
Holden took a deep breath and tried to settle his mind. It was hard, had been hard all these last weeks trying to think for himself, to choose, make a decision when all his life, decisions had been made for him, thoughts been thought for him. Van Gast had set him free from that, no matter that Holden himself had shot the bullet. Van Gast and Josie, fighting, biting Josie who never gave up, not till the end, and had risked dying, risked everything she was to save Van Gast from the bond. That was what had made him shoot. Her, refusing to give up, give in, let her dreams wash away on a silent tide of the gray fog that the bond laid over your mind.
Holden stopped pacing and found himself at the top of the steps that led to the brig. They didn’t know the traitor was Tallia. Gilda was more likely, and she’d yet to return from the palace. Jumped ship most like. But Tallia was hiding something, he knew that. Maybe he could talk to her—and more likely he was fooling himself, because he liked the way she made him feel, the touch of her hand on his arm, the enthusiasm that leached into everything she did and lit up her smile.
Ilsa had closed herself off again after one night when he’d thought—well, he’d thought that things were going well, that he’d breached the gap, that he was making her happy. She came and went without talking to him. Happy in herself, in her newfound freedom.
A choice. A hard thing, when you weren’t used to it. In the end it was the thought of Van Gast, the most notorious, hardhearted rack crying over Josie, loving her in a way that Holden never could, that had made him do it, shoot the Master. That made him do this.
It was dark in the hold, the night seizing its place here first, and Holden lit a lamp. The spac
e reeked of fresh sawdust and pitch from repairs, a hint of the last cargo—silk and mangos—underneath. The brig lay at the aft end, a small cage just long enough for a man to lie down in. Tallia fitted with ease, but she looked even smaller than before behind the bars that lay like shadows across Holden’s conscience. He never could stand it, the locking up of free things, of wild things, not when it had been Josie, not now it was Tallia.
She wasn’t alone, he saw now. Another lamp lay broken and smoldering on the deck. In the dim light, he could make out the open door of the brig, a shape behind her, tall and leggy. A gasp escaped someone, a grunt of effort. Holden hurried forward. A rack, there in the brig with Tallia, a knife in hand. Gilda. Blood stained the blade and spotted Tallia’s shirt at the waist.
Holden leaped toward them, dropping the lamp before pulling his pistol and poking it into Gilda’s stomach. He cursed his lack of left hand when the lamp guttered where it fell and gloom descended, but he kept the gun where it was and cocked it.
Gilda stilled at the sound.
“Drop the knife.” Metal clattered to the deck. “Better. Someone want to tell me what’s going on? Tallia, are you all right?”
Her face was a pale smudge, and her voice wavered. “I think so. The cut’s not too bad.”
“Good. Get the lamp going again would you? Now you, Gilda, what in Kyr’s name did you think you were doing?”
It took only moments for Tallia to relight the lamp and hang it on a nail. Gilda glared at him sullenly, with a sneer at his gun, or maybe at her guess about whether he meant to use it. He shoved it in further and leaned forward, so their faces were nose to nose. “I’ll use it if I have to. Don’t doubt it.”
“Heard some talk,” Gilda muttered finally. “About this here trying to turn Van Gast in. Seems she was. It’s all over town.”
“And?”
“And seemed like if she’s tried to turn him in, she shouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t understand, neither of you. You aren’t racks.” The sneer in that last was palpable.
“Tallia?”
“I didn’t, I swear I didn’t.” Her hand was on him again, her eyes searching his, pleading with him. He couldn’t bear it, the thought of her locked up any longer than needs be. Yet the wanting, the nearness of her made thought hard. What would Van Gast do? He had absolutely no idea. He was on his own, and captain.
“Thing is, Gilda, I think it was you who tried it. You’re the one seen asking for Rillen, being let into the palace. You made a mistake coming back. You’re staying down here a while. Tallia, lock her in.”
“What about her?” Gilda burst out, making doubt sprout in Holden’s mind at her earnestness. “What if she really did—”
“I’ll deal with that, and not with a knife in the dark. Tallia, leave her the lamp, and I’ll get you patched up.”
Gilda made a last effort, a grab for the gun, but he whipped it away and stepped back, out of her reach.
“Tallia, up the stairs, come on.”
She stumbled on the stairs, and blood spotted the wood. The wound was worse than she’d let on. This was getting more complicated by the moment, and Holden’s head spun. The cool sea breeze out on deck revived him, and he caught Tallia just as she was about to fall.
Her weight was soft against him, a tantalizing promise, and her hair smelled of sunlight. He pulled himself together and helped her toward his quarters. Ilsa could help with the wound and, if she was there, he wouldn’t be tempted, could concentrate on what to do.
The door to his quarters was shut still, and he steeled himself for Ilsa’s ice, for the shame in knowing he’d let her down somehow, failed in his duty to her.
Only when he wrenched open the door he found a guttering candle lighting the dim room. Clothes were scattered across the bed as though she’d got changed in a fevered rush, a chest left open and spilling the few things they had managed to scrounge since they’d left their home in a hurry. No Ilsa. Just the sad hint of perfume lingering by the table, a few strands of hair in her brush.
He couldn’t seem to think for long moments, but Tallia stood up on her own and looked around. She turned a speculative eye on Holden. “Where’s Ilsa?”
He clamped down on his own thoughts on that. “Let’s get you patched up. And while we’re doing that, you can tell me what in Kyr’s name is going on, because you know more than you’re telling.”
He sat her down on a stool and peered at the cut. It was bleeding freely, but he didn’t think it was serious. Dressing it with one hand might be tricky. For other reasons too—she was too close, both in body and in his head. And where was Ilsa?
“Gilda wanted you to think it was me. Wanted me dead so I couldn’t deny it, so you wouldn’t suspect her. But I didn’t,” Tallia said. “I swear, I didn’t. I told you the truth.”
“Didn’t what?” Holden couldn’t seem to take his eyes from hers, from where they watched him, wide and nervous. He busied himself with making a bandage from one of the spare sheets, ripping it with his one hand and teeth.
“I didn’t tell Rillen who Van Gast was.” Her lips trembled and she hastily covered them with a hand.
Holden resisted the urge to comfort her, and handed her the bandage. “No, that was Gilda. Van saw her going to Rillen, recognized her voice. But you’re hiding something, and I’d like to know what. It’s about time you started telling the truth. Start at the beginning, and go from there.”
“I can’t—I mean, I—”
He gave in, covered her hands with his one, held them till they stopped shaking. He shouldn’t be doing this, thinking the stray thoughts that kept popping into his mind, like how he wanted to see her smile again. How uncomplicated she made life feel for him despite everything—a straight line for him to anchor himself on, a point of calm order in a world of chaos. Or she had been.
Once she stopped trembling, she reached out with hesitant fingers to stroke his hand. “I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to be the one. I don’t want you to hate me because it was me that said it.”
“Tallia, please. Van’s gone off on some mad plan that he thinks will win him Josie back, only I think he’s gone straight into something. A trap or I don’t know what. Please, Tallia. Tell me what’s going on.”
She wouldn’t look at him as she spoke, concentrated on binding the cut. Even worse, because he could see the soft curve of her stomach as she lifted her shirt, the hint of a breast, no straight lines, all curves and chaos and…
“Holden, do you love Josie?” She shocked him out of what he shouldn’t be watching.
“What?”
“Do you love her?”
The question startled him. He had done, once, he knew that. A long time ago, and Josie had loved him, before the bond had made him forget her, before duty and obedience had driven her from his mind. A long time ago, years. Then he’d found her again and let himself believe she still loved him, but she’d only been trying to save Van Gast. Even then he’d known, in the darkest parts of his soul, it wasn’t love on his part, not really. It was remembrance, it was wanting things to be otherwise, and a desperate need to be free, like she was. It was admiration, and a lust for what he thought she could give him. He’d pretended, fooled himself into believing it perhaps. Yet that one act of hers, risking all she had, every last ounce of herself, to save Van Gast…and Van Gast, the aching desolation when he’d realized what he’d done to her, what she’d done for him.
They’d shown him that what he felt wasn’t love. Want, yes. Need too, and lust and jealousy and emotions he couldn’t name all rolled into one. But it wasn’t love, not anymore, not in that way. Not the coruscating soar of emotion inside him in his youth, making all the world seem new and bright with it. Now when he thought of her it was a deeper thing, less vivid, and not love.
Tallia sat and watched as all this whispered through his head, through his heart. “You wanted to again, but you couldn’t, don’t,” she said in the end. “Or not anymore, not enough. Not the way you think you should.�
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“How do—”
She didn’t let him finish. “What about Ilsa?” Her eyes were sharp as she watched, as though looking for every tiniest movement, twitch of lip, blink of eye.
Holden shivered, suddenly cold even in the sweltering heat. “We were bonded. I—I have a duty to her. She’s my wife.”
“But do you love her?”
“Yes—no. I don’t know. I have to make her happy. She’s my wife, it’s my duty, and I want to make her happy. I’m all she has, all she’s known.”
Tallia’s eyes seemed to be the only thing Holden could see, vast wells of darkness which reflected him back. He didn’t much like what he saw and looked away, only to see himself reflected in Ilsa’s mirror, looking gray and haggard and somehow lost. He wanted to get up and walk away. Away from her tempting curves and chaos, back to straight lines, order. Safety in what he knew. Find Ilsa, love her, make her happy. Forget Tallia and her infectious smile, or how she made him feel. The Master was dead, Holden’s bonds were dead, but he had a duty, a responsibility. It was all he had left of his old life, the only straight line left to hold on to.
“What’s this got to do with anything? And what are you doing, how are you doing this? What have you done? Tallia—”
“Little-magics. I get them from my mother’s side.” She ducked her head at that, made a show of inspecting her bandaging. “Sometimes I know how people connect with each other, the strands that bind them together, the things that pull them apart. Like a web that connects everyone, and I can see it. Sometimes. And your strands are tangled so tight, I’m surprised you can move. Do you know Haban?”