No. He didn’t think so. He knew Gallian Thade’s reputation, and forgiveness wasn’t something he approved of.
Besides, Amalicia herself had said as much, in the last letter she’d sent him.
Moilday Firstweek, Thresh, 145/32
Dearest one,
Through the investigations of those still loyal to me and sympathetic to our cause, I have discovered the location of the hermitage to which my father intends to condemn me. He is sending me to the Highlands. I enclose the co-ordinates, which I am sure your navigator can decode, as they are mysterious to me.
Please forgive the cruel and shameful words I wrote in my last letter. I see now that you were wise to flee when you could, for my father’s mood has not improved. He still swears terrible vengeance, and likely will desire your death until the day his own comes. My heart should break if harm were to come to you. My anger was not towards you, but towards the injustice that made me my father’s daughter and you a man born without noble blood. But our love makes mockery of such things, and I know it will make you brave.
Find me, Darian, and rescue me. You have your craft, and we have the world before us. You will be a great man of the skies, and I shall be at your side, the way we always dreamed.
This letter will depart by my most trusted handmaiden, and I hope it will reach you and find you well. There will be no further opportunity to communicate.
With love everlasting,
Amalicia
Well, I got here eventually, Frey thought.
At the top of the stairs was another corridor, and more doors on either side. Each one was a private study cell, with a small lectern on the floor, a mat for kneeling, and a window slit, high up. There were more classrooms, and a door to a library, which was locked. He was just about to try the next door when suddenly a voice came to him, startlingly close.
‘It’s Euphelia, that’s who it is. She’s the one bringing the others down.’
He bolted into a classroom and crouched inside the doorway just as two women came gliding round the corner on slippered feet.
‘She’s taking her studies very seriously,’ argued the other. ‘She’s terribly earnest.’
‘She’s just not very bright, then,’ replied the first. ‘Her understanding of the Cryptonomicon is woeful.’
Two figures swept past in the corridor. Frey caught a glimpse of them. They were middle-aged, with greying hair cut in masculine, efficient styles, and they wore the white cassocks of Speakers.
‘She has a talent for casting the bones, though,’ the second woman persisted.
‘That she does, that she does. The signals are very clear. But I wonder if she’ll ever learn to interpret them.’
‘Perhaps if we focused her more towards cleromancy and lightened her other studies?’
‘Make her a special case? Goodness, no. If we start with her, we have to do it with everyone, and then where will we be?’
The voices faded as they turned the corner, and Frey relaxed. It seemed the hermitage was still patrolled, even in the dead of night. Out to catch acolytes sneaking into the pantry, or some such thing. Well, he’d have to be careful. He didn’t think his conscience could handle punching out a woman.
He found the girls’ dormitory shortly afterwards, and slid inside.
For a time he stood just inside the door, in the dark. Moonlight fell from a pair of skylights onto two rows of bunk beds. Perhaps fifty girls were sleeping here, their huddled outlines limned in cold light. The room was soft with sighing breath, broken by the occasional delicate snore. There was a scent in the air, not perfume but something indefinable and female, present in a dangerous concentration. Frey began to feel strangely frisky.
He was something of an expert in the art of creeping through women’s rooms without disturbing them. By waiting, he was being careful. The slight disturbance caused by his entry may have brought some of the girls close to the surface of sleep, and any small noise might wake them. He was giving them time to slip back into the depths before proceeding.
That, and he wanted to exult in the moment. It really was quite special, being here.
He moved silently between the beds, looking at the moonlit faces of each girl in turn. Disappointingly, they were not quite as luscious in person as he’d imagined they might be. Some were just too young - he had standards - and others were too plain or too fat or had eyes too close together. Their hair was cut in boring styles, and none were in any way prettified. One or two slept beneath their pillows or obscured their faces with their arms, but they didn’t have Amalicia’s black hair, and their hands - always a giveaway - were too old.
He’d almost reached the end of the room when he saw her. She was sleeping on one of the bottom bunks, her head pillowed by her folded hands, mouth slightly open, face relaxed. Even without the elegant hairstyles and the expertly applied make-up he remembered her wearing, she was beautiful. Her long black hair had fallen across her face in strands; the curve of the lips, the tilt of the nose, the line of her jaw were just as they were in his memory. Frey felt a throb of regret at the sight of her, and smothered it quickly.
He knelt down, reached out and touched her shoulder. When she didn’t respond, he shook her gently. She stirred and her eyes opened a little. They widened as she saw him; she took a breath to say his name. He quickly put his finger to his lips.
For a few moments, they just looked at each other. Her gaze flickered over his face, absorbing every detail. Then she pushed her blanket aside and slid out of bed. She was wearing a plain cotton nightdress that clung to her hips and the slope of her breasts. Frey felt a sudden urge to take her in his arms as he’d often done before, but before he could act on it she grabbed his hand and led him towards a door at the far end of the dormitory.
Outside was another corridor, as dark and spartan as the rest. She checked the coast was clear and then pulled him down it. She took him through a door which led to a narrow set of stairs. At the top was an attic room, with a large skylight looking up at the full moon. It had a small writing desk in a corner, with several books piled atop it. A private study chamber, perhaps. Frey closed the door behind them.
‘Amalicia . . .’ he began, but then she roundhouse-kicked him in the face.
Fifteen
Amalicia’s Revenge - Frey’s Talent For Lying - Plans Are Made - Invitations, Lewd and Otherwise
It wasn’t so much the force of the kick but the surprise that sent Frey stumbling back. He tripped and fell to the ground, holding his face, shock in his eyes.
‘What’d you do that f—’
‘Two years!’ she hissed, and her bare foot flashed out again and cracked him around the side of the head, knocking him dizzy. ‘Two years I’ve waited for you to come!’
‘Wait, I—’ he began, but she booted him in the solar plexus and the breath was driven out of him.
‘Did you know they teach us the fighting arts in this place? It’s all about being in harmony with one’s body, you see. Only when we’re in harmony with ourselves can we find harmony with the Allsoul. Utter rubbish, of course, but it does have its benefits.’ She punctuated the last word with another vicious kick in the ribs.
Frey gaped like a fish, trying to suck air into his lungs. Amalicia squatted down in front of him, pitiless.
‘What happened to your promises, Darian? What happened to “Nothing can separate us”? What happened to “I’ll never leave you”? What happened to “You’re the only one”?’
Frey had a vague recollection of saying those things, and others like them. Women did tend to take what he said literally. They never seemed to understand that because they expected - no, demanded - romantic promises and expressions of affection, they forced a man to lie to them. The alternative was frosty silences, arguments, and, in the worst case, the woman would leave to find a man who would lie to her. So if he’d said some things he hadn’t exactly meant, it was hardly his fault. She only had herself to blame.
‘Your father . . .’ he wheezed. ‘Y
our father . . . would’ve had . . . me killed.’
‘Well, we’ll never know that for sure, will we? You turned tail and ran the moment you realised he’d found out about us!’
‘Tactical withdrawal,’ Frey gasped, raising himself up on one hand. ‘I told you . . . I’d be back.’
She stood up and drove her heel hard into his thigh. His leg went dead.
‘Will you stop bloody hitting me?’ he cried.
‘Two years!’ Her voice had become a strangled squeak of rage.
‘It took me two years to find you!’
‘Oh, what rot!’
‘It’s the truth! You think your father advertised your whereabouts? You think it was easy finding you? He sent me away so once you’d gone you’d be hidden from me. I’ve spent two years trying to get my hands on Awakener records, mixing with the wrong kind of people, trying to stay one step ahead of your father and the . . . the assassins he set on my trail. You know he’s hired the Shacklemores? The Shacklemores have been after me ever since the day I left, and every day I’ve been trying to make my way back to you.’
It was an outrageous lie, but Frey had a talent for lying. When he lied even he believed it. Just for that moment, just for the duration of his protest, he was convinced that he really had done right by her. The details were unimportant.
Besides, he knew for sure that Gallian Thade really did still want him dead. Thade had framed him. In such a light, it was rather heroic that he’d come back at all.
But Amalicia wasn’t so easily swayed. ‘Spit and blood, Darian, don’t give me that! I sent you a letter telling you where I was! I sat here in this horrible place waiting for—’
‘I never got any letter!’
‘Yes, you did! The letter I sent you with the co-ordinates of this place.’
‘I never got any co-ordinates! In your last letter you called me a coward and a liar, among other things. In fact, the last letter I got from you left me in very little doubt that you never wanted to see me again.’
Amalicia’s hand went to her mouth. Suddenly, all the anger had gone out of her and she looked horrified.
‘You didn’t get it? The letter I sent after that one?’
Frey looked blank.
Amalicia turned away, an anxious hand flying to her forehead, pacing around the room. ‘Oh, by the Allsoul! That silly cow of a handmaiden. She must have written the wrong address, or not paid the right postage, or—’
‘Maybe it got lost in the post?’ Frey suggested generously. ‘Or someone at one of my pick-up points mislaid it. I had to stay on the move, you know.’
‘You really didn’t receive my letter?’ Amalicia asked. Her voice had taken on a note of sympathy, and Frey knew he’d won. ‘The one where I took back all those foul things I said?’
Frey struggled to his feet with difficulty. His jaw was swelling, and he could barely stand on his dead leg. Amalicia rushed over to help him.
‘I really didn’t,’ he said.
‘And you still came? You still searched for me all these years, even when you thought I hated you?’
‘Well,’ he said, then paused for a moment to roll his jaw before he delivered his final blow. ‘I made a promise.’
Her eyes shimmered with tears in the moonlight. Wide, dark, trusting eyes. He’d always liked those eyes. They’d always seemed so innocent.
She flung herself at him, and hugged him close. He winced as his injuries twinged, then slid his arms around her slender back and buried his face in her hair. She smelled clean. Cleaner than he’d smelled for a long time, that was for certain. He found himself wondering how things might have been with her, if not for her father, if not for the unfortunate circumstances that drove them apart.
No. No regrets. If he opened that door he’d never be able to close it.
She pulled herself away a little, so she could look up at his face. She was desperately sorry now, ashamed for having tragically misjudged him. Grateful that he’d come for her in spite of everything.
‘You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, Darian,’ she breathed. ‘I haven’t seen another since my father sent me to this awful place.’
Darian leaned closer, sensing the moment was right, but she drew back with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Have you?’ she asked. ‘Have you been with anyone?’
He looked at her steadily, letting her feel how earnest he was. ‘No,’ he lied, firmly and with authority.
Amalicia sighed, and then kissed him hard, clutching at him with unpractised, youthful fury. She tore at his clothes, frantic. He struggled free of his sooty greatcoat as she fumbled at the laces of his shirt before finally tugging it off and throwing it away. He pulled her nightshirt up and over her head, and then swept her up and kissed her, gratified to realise that at least part of his fantasy about sex-starved young women in a hermitage was about to come true.
Afterwards, they lay together naked on Frey’s coat, his skin prickling deliciously in the chilly night. He ran a finger along the line of her body while she stared at him adoringly. There was a dazed look in her eye, as if she was unable to quite believe that he was here with her again.
‘I saw some Imperators on the way here,’ he said.
She gasped. ‘You didn’t!’
‘Right outside. A bunch of Sentinels carried a chest out to them, and they put it on their craft and took off. One of them looked right at me.’
‘How frightening.’
‘They were guarding that chest very closely.’
‘Are you asking me if I have any idea what might have been inside?’
‘In a roundabout way, yes.’
‘I don’t know, Darian. Some stuffy old scrolls, no doubt. Perhaps it was an original copy of the Cryptonomicon. They’re terribly careful with those things.’
‘Remind me what that is again?’
‘The book of teachings. They wrote down all the insane little mutterings of King Andreal the Demented, and put them in that book.’
‘Oh,’ said Frey, losing interest immediately.
‘We have to leave together,’ she said. ‘Tonight.’
‘We can’t.’
‘It’s the only way, Darian! The only way we can be together!’
‘I want that, more than anything in the world. But there’s something I haven’t told you. Your father . . .’
‘What did he do?’ she snapped, jumping immediately to Frey’s defence.
‘You might not want to hear this.’
‘Tell me!’
‘Your father . . . well, he’s . . . Something terrible happened. An aircraft blew up, and people died. Nobody knows who did it, but your father has pinned it on me. Me and my crew. If you were caught with me, they’d hang you. It’s too dangerous. You’re safer here.’
Amalicia looked at him suspiciously.
‘I’m a lot of things, but I’m no cold-blooded killer!’ he protested. ‘The Archduke’s son was on that craft, Amalicia. Your father arranged it, but half of Vardia is after me.’
‘Hengar is dead?’ she gaped.
‘Yes! And your father is in on it.’
Amalicia shook her head angrily, eyes narrowing. ‘That bastard. I hate that bastard!’
‘You believe me, then?’
‘Of course I believe you! Spit and blood, I know what he’s capable of. Look at me! His only daughter, condemned to this place because I went against his wishes just once! He doesn’t have a heart. Money is all he cares about . . . money and that rotten Allsoul.’ She glanced around guiltily, as if afraid she’d gone too far. Then, emboldened by Frey’s presence, she went on. ‘It’s all stupid! I don’t believe any of it! They say it’s all about faith, but it’s not, because I can do it and I don’t even care about the Allsoul! It’s brought me nothing but misery. Any idiot can study the texts and learn to read the signs. Anyone with half an education can tell the Mistresses what they want to hear. But there’s nothing there, Darian! I don’t feel anything! I’m just stuck here in this prison, and after two more yea
rs they’ll put that awful tattoo on my forehead, and after that I’ll be an Awakener for ever!’ She cupped his bruised jaw with her hands and gazed desperately into his eyes. ‘I can’t let that happen. I’ll die first. You have to get me out of here.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will. But first I have to get to your father.’
‘Oh, Darian, no! He’ll have you hanged for sure!’
‘Gallian Thade is the only lead I’ve got. If I can find out why he killed Hengar . . . well, maybe I can do something about it.’ Then, seeing Amalicia’s expectant expression, he added, ‘And then I’ll come back for you, and we’ll escape together as we planned.’