The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [117]
They were shown in to a dim room draped in fabrics and stacked with artifacts. There were mannequins and chests of drawers, side tables and mirrors. Stuffed animals glared from the shadows with glassy eyes. The room was stifling and close. Despite the heat of the day, the boiler had to be running hard.
At a table in the corner was Osric Smult. He was sitting on an antique chair, his entire attention focused on the jigsaw before him. Two bored-looking bodyguards were staring vacantly into space as Frey and Trinica were led in. Spotting her, they shook themselves and woke up a little.
“Trinica Dracken,” said Smult, without raising his head. “Ain’t you a sight?”
Frey presumed that was meant as irony, because if Smult had any eyes at all, he certainly couldn’t see through them.
Smult was a wiry, tall man, dressed in a faded shirt, trousers, and boots, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat. Beneath his clothes, every inch of exposed skin was covered in bandages. Rusty patches of dried pus and blood seeped through here and there. His face was similarly bound, and his eyes were wrapped tight. The only gaps were for his mouth and small holes for the ears and nostrils. Glimpses of the red and blistered skin around his lips indicated some kind of disease that Frey would rather not know about. He looked up at them and smiled horribly, revealing yellowed teeth and breath that smelled of sweet rot, even from across the room.
“Osric Smult,” she said. “How’s your jigsaw?”
“Fine, fine. Man’s gotta have a hobby, huh?”
Frey was unable to stop himself. “How do you, er … how do you do a jigsaw when you can’t see?”
Smult picked up a piece, turned it round in his hand, running his bandaged fingertips over the edge.
“Don’t need to see it to make it fit,” he said. “And who’re you, sir?”
“Darian Frey, captain of the Ketty Jay,” Frey said, doing his best to make it sound more impressive than it was.
Smult tilted his head, interested. “Strange company you’re keepin’, Miss Dracken,” he said. “Real strange, considerin’.”
Considering what? thought Frey. How much does he know?
“These are strange times,” Trinica said neutrally.
“They are,” Smult agreed. “I expect you saw the Navy leave?”
“We did. Might I ask what they were after?”
“Spies,” said Smult.
“Spies?”
Smult was feeling around the ragged interior of his jigsaw, searching for a place to put the piece in his hand. “Do you remember our beloved Earl Hengar?” he asked.
Frey went pale. He remembered Hengar rather well, since he’d accidentally killed him when he accidentally blew up the Ace of Skulls, accidentally. It was an accident, though.
“What does the Archduke’s son have to do with it?” said Trinica.
“Well, we all know he was dallying with the Samarlan ambassador’s daughter, don’t we? Rumor has it that lovestruck young men sometimes say silly things. Unguarded things, the kind that a member of the Archduke’s family really shouldn’t say. Especially not to a woman who’d have been his mortal enemy only a few years before.” Smult scratched at his cheek. New bloodstains seeped through the bandages. Frey tried hard not to notice. “Apparently he said a lot of them.”
“He was leaking secrets to the Sammies?”
“Maybe. That’s what the Navy thinks, anyway, though they’d never say as much. Probably Hengar reckoned it was all over and everyone was friends again. He always was a brainless boy. That’s why the people loved him. He appealed on their level.” He lifted up his head and turned his face toward Frey. An ugly leer spread across his lips. “Whoever killed him did us all a favor.”
Frey attempted to look nonchalant, then stopped when he realized it was useless against a blind man. Hengar’s death had been widely reported as the result of a catastrophic engine malfunction. Only a few people knew Frey had been involved in it, and he wasn’t keen on advertising the fact. Smult’s grin made him distinctly uncomfortable.
“Anyways,” Smult said at length. “Seems like the Sammies suddenly know more than they should about certain things. Navy came by