Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [42]
“Not going back ’til I make my fortune,” Pinn said, a note of resentment in his voice. “She deserves the best. Gonna go back …” He raised his flagon and his voice at the same time, challenging anyone to defy him. “Gonna go back a rich man!” He slumped again and sucked at his drink. “ ’Til then, I’m stuck with you losers.”
An idea struck him. He stabbed a thick finger at Crake and said, “What about you, eh? Mister La-di-da, I-talk-so-cultured? Don’t you have a … a banquet to attend or something?” He folded his arms and smirked, pleased at this cunning reversal.
“Well, unfortunately, in the process of saving all your lives at Old One-Eye’s, I let two of the Century Knights get a rather good look at me,” Crake replied. “But it is something I’ve been meaning to bring up.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “They know Jez’s name, but they haven’t seen her. Kedmund Drave saw the rest of us, but he doesn’t have our names. As a group, we’re rather easy to identify. Apart, they’ll probably never catch us. They’ll get only Frey.”
Harkins looked uneasily around the table. Malvery shifted and cleared his throat. Frey didn’t react.
“Now, I don’t know about all of you,” Crake continued, “but I am not spending the rest of my life hiding in an icy wasteland. So what I want to know,” he said, looking directly at Frey, “is what you intend to do next. Captain.”
There was a loud plop as something fell from the rafters and into Crake’s beer. Without taking his eyes from Frey, he pushed it away from him with his fingertips.
Frey was still staring at the article, but he wasn’t really seeing it. His mind was working furiously, struggling to puzzle out this crisis, getting nowhere. He’d spent a fortnight raking over the coals of recent events, searching for some buried truth, but there were simply no answers to be had.
It didn’t make any sense. Why him? If this was a setup, why choose him? An obscure freebooter, his name all but unknown in pirate circles. Yet Quail had asked for him specifically. Quail, to whom he’d done no wrong.
Of course maybe someone had used Quail to set him up; that was always a possibility. But whom had he offended? To whom had he done such a grievous slight? It must be someone powerful if they could orchestrate something serious enough to involve the Archduke’s personal elite. The Century Knights didn’t usually concern themselves with affairs unconnected to the Archduke.
Was it an accident? A million-to-one shot that destroyed that craft? No. Frey didn’t believe in million-to-one chances. He’d been set up. Someone rigged that freighter to blow, and they put him in position to take the blame.
At least one of the pilots in the escort craft was superb. Whoever arranged all this must have banked on someone living to tell the tale. Even if no one had escaped, they’d have pinned it on him somehow, he had no doubt. But this way they had a witness, presumably unconnected to the real brains behind the operation.
What was on board that freighter?
“Frey?” Crake prompted, snapping him out of his reverie. Frey’s head came up. “I asked what you intend to do now?”
Frey shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
“I see,” said Crake, his voice dripping with scorn. “Well, let me know when you do. I’d be interested in finding out. If I’m still here.” With that, he got up and left.
There was a long silence. The crew was not used to seeing Frey so beaten. It unsettled them.
“What about New Vardia?” Malvery suggested. “Fresh start. Unknown lands. Just the sort of thing for a bunch of lads in our position.”
“No!” Harkins cried, and they all looked at him. He went red. “I mean to say, umm, the Ketty Jay might make it—I say might—but the fighters, nuh-uh. The Great Storm Belt’s still too bad to the west, and they can’t carry enough fuel to go the other route. We’d have to leave the fighters behind, and me, no way, I ain’t leaving that Firecrow, even if she does belong to the Cap’n. He leaves the Firecrow behind, I stay behind with her. Final.”
Frey was