Dangerous Gifts (37 page)

She’d be weak as a kitten and probably end up in the cell next to me. If they chained her, she’d be in agony.

One of the Fenac was writing something, the scritching of the pen just audible over the sighs and mutterings of the prisoners. He had his tongue pressed against his upper lip, and squinted at the page as though afraid it might leap up and bite his nose off.

That made me think of Bergast.

There was something going on with Bergast, I was convinced of it. The constant muttering of spells, the way he’d dropped his shirt over the papers in his room, the twitchiness around Mokraine... He was hiding something. Was he working for whoever wanted Enthemmerlee gone? Was he part of whatever was going on inside the Section? Had his been the eyes I’d felt?

I stared at the lampflame on the Fenac’s table. Yellow flame, glinting on the coins as they half-heartedly shoved counters about in some game.

A yellow thread, wavering in the light, plucked away and gone. It bothered me, that thread. Why did it bother me?

Yellow and blue, blue and yellow. Something, thin as a thread, wavering. Refusing to be grasped and woven into a pattern.

Blue. Blue cloth. Blue cloth glimpsed in the rain, the sound of a laugh.

Selinecree had been wearing blue, that day I’d seen Dentor sneaking off to the ruined building.

But Selinecree? Seducing
Dentor?
That had been my assumption; but then, I was thinking like me, not like a Gudain. They didn’t
seduce.
And she attended
privaiya
regularly, which meant she couldn’t feel desire even if she wanted to.

I felt a tingling in my hands. Maybe desire wasn’t the point. Maybe the point was to get to the guard. To cause trouble. To weaken their ability to protect Enthemmerlee. Which had started even before I got there. Rumours that the guard were to be disbanded – who had started them? No one knew. But it was a good way to make them unsettled, to thin an already uneasy loyalty to one
many
of them would regard with suspicion, maybe even fear.

A bottle by the captain’s doorstep. Who had put it there? I’d assumed Tantris had forgotten it, but what serious drinker
forgets
a full bottle? Keeping him oiled would certainly reduce his effectiveness.

It didn’t even have to be her who put it there. If she was in cahoots with Dentor, or more of the guard, she just needed to get one of them to leave it for her. And if the guard in question would rather the captain kept to his old slobby ways and left them to their own devices, instead of getting them to buck up, they’d be happy enough to do it.

My brain was racing now, thoughts tumbling over each other, like the fall of pebbles that heralds a rockslide.

She was the one who’d told the guard to let the Fenac in, wasn’t she? I’d thought she was just being an idiot, but maybe she wasn’t the idiot I thought.

The Statutes apply to all who are capable of being restrained by them.
I’d been affected by the smoke. Which, twisted the right way, meant I was capable of being morally restrained. And who had been there, who had been startled, by my response to the smoke?

Selinecree.

I stared at the hanging lamp, the flame trembling with my quickened heartbeat. Yellow. Yellow. Why yellow?

The thread attached to the
Ipash Dok.
The little decorated box, intended to be laid on the altar, where some natural action of the heat would make it open.

I’d never seen Lobik wearing yellow. But I’d seen Selinecree carrying a small parcel at the docks. A small parcel tied with bright yellow ribbon.

And Rikkinnet had said the
Ipash Dok
didn’t look like something Lobik would have chosen. It looked like something sold to travellers.

Something that would make a perfect vessel for... What?

Nothing good. I knew that. Nothing good at all. It would be opened at the Enkantishak; tomorrow, or – I glanced at the dark window – maybe today. I didn’t know how long I’d slept. But when it was opened, something bad would happen.

I had to get out of here.

How?

I pushed myself to my feet and looked around.

The bars were solidly set in the stone. The door, any cage’s vulnerable point, had hinges as thick as my arm and no evidence of hasty construction. There was a big, thick, ironbound and solidly locked door at the top of the stairs, with, if I remembered rightly, two Fenac standing in front of it.

If you keep your prisoners right beneath your seat of government, I guess you
really
don’t want them getting out.

“Hey. Hey,” I said.

“What d’you want? Need another piss, do you?” said the one with the torn scalp.

“No, I just... I realised something. Something dangerous to the family. The Entaire family. They need to know this.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they do.” The Fenac yawned. “I’m sure they want a message from a criminal.”

“Look, there’s a ceremony tomorrow, they’ll be there, something bad’s going to happen. They need to be told. I’m not asking you to let me out, for the All’s sake, I just want to give them a warning!”

“So what’s this bad thing, then?”

“I...”
Shit. “
I don’t know, exactly. But they’ve been given something, an
Ipash Dok,
and there’s something wrong with it. Something bad inside it.”

The Fenac snorted. “Nice try,” he said, and turned away.

“I’m serious! Dammit...” But they ignored me, moving right to the other end of the room.

“Hey, Curves,” the muscular Ikinchli hissed. “This is the Enkantishak, the welcoming of the Itnunnacklish. You say the
Ipash Dok
has something in it that will harm her?”

“Yes! And she doesn’t know!”

He turned and said something to those behind him.

There were suddenly a lot of Ikinchli eyes on me.

“This is true?” someone said.

“Yes, it’s true. I need to get a warning to her,
something.
”

“They will not take,” Muscles said. “Most of the Fenac, they
want
her to disappear. Don’t care if she dies.”

“Well, I bloody do,” I said. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then help me!”

“How?” Muscles said. “If I could make the bars melt, would have done it by now.”

He had a point.

I gripped the bars, looking at the damned Fenac with their card game and their letters home and their weapons.

Place looked a lot like a barracks.

The Fenac looked a lot like soldiers.

I
can’t believe you’re thinking this, Babylon.

I’m not. I can’t think it. There has to be another way.

Eight Fenac. Fifty or so Ikinchli, behind bars.

I sat down on the straw, leaned my head against the wall, and closed my eyes.

“You going back to sleep? Much help for the Itnunnacklish, that.”

“Shut up, all right?” I said.

But the harder I thought, the further I was from seeing any kind of solution.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a familiar, human voice should have made me feel better.

Except the voice sounded a lot like that of Angrifon Filchis. I opened my eyes, and there he was, standing at the base of the steps, holding onto the railing.

“Here, here, what are you doing here?” said the Fenac commander.

“Come to visit the prisoner,” Filchis said.

“At this hour?”

“Got to check in on one’s fellow citizens, you know,” Filchis said, grinning like a dead carp. “Oh, yes, another citizen of Scalentine. You thought I wouldn’t find out” – he waved a finger at me – “you thought I wouldn’t remember, but I did.”

“What do
you
want?” I said.

“To make sure you’re not creating trouble for our hosts, of course. Though it seems you’ve created
quite
enough already.”

“She’s been quiet,” the Fenac said. “Now, if you don’t mind...”

“Violated the Moral Statutes, I understand. Well, of course it’s hardly surprising. Lax attitudes, you see. I hope you’re keeping your men well out of her way.”

The Fenac bristled. “I hope you’re not suggesting my men are corruptible,” he snapped.

“Not at all, not at all; only I know her type, you see. Lax attitudes, as I said. Mixing with all and sundry. Getting up to who knows what.”

I realised suddenly that he wasn’t just holding onto the bannister for show.

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“You want us to throw him out, Commander?” said one of the other Fenac.

“Now, now,” Filchis said, raising his finger. “I’m here as an envoy from powerful forces in Scalentine, you know. If you want people on your side in the struggle against
undesirable elements
” – he waved at the Ikinchli in their cages – “you’ve got to recognise your friends when you see them. I just want a little word with the prisoner, that’s all.”

I saw the Fenac commander glance up the stairs, as though checking for who might be standing behind Filchis. “Make it quick, then,” he said. “And no passing anything through the bars, right? I’ll be watching.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I have no intention of passing anything.”

“Wind, maybe,” I said. “Go away, Filchis.”

He came up to the bars, too far away to grab, close enough for me to smell the wine on his breath. He put his hands behind him and swayed, looking at me.

The grin had gone. Now he looked like a stray dog that hopes for a scrap and will turn nasty if it doesn’t get it.

“What do you know?” he said.

“About what?”

“You were asking questions, earlier. Questions about why I’d been sent here.” He leaned closer. “
I want to know what you know.
”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Filchis.”

“Maybe it was just...
someone’s
way of keeping an eye on me. Is that it? He doesn’t think I can be trusted. He’d rather tell
her
all his secrets.
I
know.”

“Well,” I said. “
I
don’t. You’re not making any sense.”

“‘Get to Incandress,’ he said. ‘And then, just listen, and watch. After the barbarians have their ceremony,’ he said, ‘everything will be settled.’ But you know...” Filchis leaned back, and out came the finger again, wavering a few inches from my nose. “I don’t think I believe him.”

I felt my back hairs start to creep. “What do you know about the ceremony, Filchis? What’s supposed to happen?”

“He told me Scalentine will be just what I always wanted. A place that can no longer be corrupted by outside influences. But you know what? You know what? I think he favours her. And I don’t think he’s telling me everything.”

“Favours who?”

“The blonde. That silly woman. All very well if you need someone to stir up a crowd, but I don’t think he should be telling her important things that he’s concealing from
me.
”

My head hurt, and I fervently wished for Mokraine. I couldn’t make head or tail of what this fool was babbling about.

“‘After the Enkantishak, Scalentine will be free of outside influences?’ What does
that
mean?” I said.

“You’re claiming you don’t know.”

“I
don’t.
”

How could a religious ceremony to acknowledge the Itnunnacklish
possibly
affect Scalentine?

But whoever had sent Filchis here believed it. And Filchis believed something was being hidden from him. He believed it enough that he’d sought me out, he’d come down to this stinking hole to try and get it out of me.

I stared at him. He stared back, his full-fleshed, smooth, politician’s face flushed with drink and suspicion.

“Commander,” he said, still looking at me. “I believe this woman is concealing important information. Information that may be of importance to Incandress. I think perhaps she should be
questioned.
Closely.”

“She’s here for violation of the Moral Statutes,” the commander said.

“Which is enough to tell you that she is a person of questionable integrity,” Filchis said, every sign of drink smoothed away. Sounding reasonable. Sounding
plausible
. “Now, we both know the situation here is dangerous. You have been dealing with it with great effectiveness, so far. But should something happen, and it turns out that she is responsible, and that if she had been carefully questioned, that something could have been prevented...”

Sweat began to prickle in my hair.

The Fenac commander looked us both over, rubbing his thumb over the hilt of his mace.

He’d heard Fain’s warning about anything happening to me. But Fain was a foreigner, he wasn’t here, and he’d been very careful that his reputation should
not
precede him.

I tried, anyway. “The Scalentine government will not be happy if one of its citizens is subject to...”

“Shut up,” the commander said. He looked at Filchis. “You really think she knows something.”

“I think it’s more than likely. And as for being a citizen of Scalentine; things are changing there. The time when anyone and everyone can be considered a
citizen
is coming to an end.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“She’s up to something,” the commander said. “She was trying to get a message taken, just before you arrived.”

“Aha. Something intended for her co-conspirators, no doubt,” Filchis said. “There are others involved, then. Perhaps names can be... extracted. Imagine if you could uncover an entire
nest
of conspirators, commander.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” I said, trying, desperately, to sound calm. “He’s not on your side, commander. He’s not on anyone’s side but his own.”

“If that’s true, if you’re innocent of conspiracy,” Filchis said, “why are you sweating?”

I’m sweating because you’re talking about torture. You know it, I know it, the Fenac commander knows it. Everyone in this room knows it.

Fear was pulsing through me with every rapid heartbeat, throwing me off, making it hard to think. In a fight, I’m brave enough, because I’m good at what I do, and because there’s something I
can
do.

Torture isn’t a fight; there’s nothing to reach for, no mates at your side, no enemy to defeat except the pain, which can’t be defeated, except by dying.