The Scar - China Mieville [156]
Inside the wax-treated leather and the box, the contents remain dry.
He hands over the shorter letter, the promise to the bearer, without a word.
Sengka reads slowly, very carefully, time and again. Tanner waits.
When he finally looks up, Sengka’s face gives away nothing, (but he sets the letter very carefully to one side).
“What,” he says, “would you like me to deliver?”
Again without words, Tanner pulls out the heavy box and shows it. He removes the ring and the wax and turns the open container toward Sengka, showing him the letter and the necklace within.
The captain examines the rough necklace, pursing his lips as if unimpressed. His hand hovers over the longer letter.
“I’d carry nothing I wasn’t allowed to read,” he says. “It might say ‘Disregard the other letter.’ I’m sure you understand that. I’d only let you seal it after I’ve seen what’s within.”
Tanner nods.
It takes Captain Sengka a very long time to scan that dense, coded letter from Silas to his city. He is not reading it—he cannot; his Ragamoll is not good enough. He is looking for words that concern him: cactus, Dreer Samher, pirate. There are none. There seems to be no double cross here. When he is done, he looks up quizzically.
“What does it mean?” he says. Tanner shrugs quickly.
“I don’t know, Captain,” he says, “truly. Makes little more sense to me than you. All I know is that’s information that New Crobuzon needs.”
Sengka nods to him sympathetically, considering his options. Turn the man away and do nothing. Kill him now (easily done) and take his seal. Deliver the package; don’t deliver it. Hand the man over to the Armadan woman, the leader he is so obviously betraying, though how and for what Sengka cannot make out. But Nurjhitt Sengka is intrigued by this situation, and by this bold little intruder. He bears him no ill will. And he cannot make out for whom the man works, which aegis protects him.
Captain Sengka is unwilling to risk war with Armada, and even less with New Crobuzon. There is nothing in the letter to compromise us, he thinks, and cannot, though he tries, see a reason not to act as courier.
At the worst the letter is not honored, after he has gone a very long way out of his usual trading paths. But will that be a catastrophe? He will be in the richest city in the world, and he is a trader as well as a pirate. It would not be a good outcome, he thinks, and it is not an easy journey or a short one, but perhaps it is worth it? For the possibility?
The possibility that the letter (with the city’s seal, with the authority of its procurator) will be honored.
They stand together to complete this secret deal. Tanner seals the long letter with the ring. He nestles Silas Fennec’s necklace (And who is he? the question comes again) into the cushioned box and covers it with both letters, folded. He locks the box, and then drools more of the wax all over its seam. He pushes his old city’s ring into it as it dries, and when he pulls it away he is faced by the city’s heraldic seal in miniature, in greasy bas-relief.
He ties the fastened box back in its drab leather bag, and Sengka takes it from him and locks it in his sea chest.
The two watch each other a while.
“I’ll not go on about what I’ll do if I find you’ve betrayed me,” says Sengka. It is an absurd threat: each man knows that he will never see the other again.
Tanner dips his head.
“My captain,” he says slowly, “she can’t know.” It hurts him to say that, and he must remind himself fervently of the letter’s contents, of the reason for secrecy. He keeps his eyes level, meets Captain Sengka’s gaze, gives away nothing. The captain does not torment him with conspiratorial winks or smiles, but only nods.
“You’re sure?” says Sengka.
Tanner Sack nods. He is looking around nervously, on the prow of the ship, fearful for the telltale mosquito sounds. The captain is fascinated anew by Tanner’s refusal to accept food or wine or money. He is intrigued by this man