‘Sven . . .’ Debro comes bowling down a passageway and flings her arms around me. ‘How are you?’ she demands. ‘Where’s Anton? Why are you carrying a shotgun?’
Guess I took the pump action from the bike without thinking.
‘Anton is-’ Maybe she notices me hesitate. ‘He’s still in Farlight. We got separated.’
‘Separated?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Let me get you some water,’ Debro says. ‘You look parched.’
‘A beer would be better.’
‘Water first,’ she says firmly.
The corporal is standing to attention. So I salute briefly and dismiss him. He walks away, wondering how someone like me knows someone like her. I might be a Death’s Head lieutenant, but I’m a lieutenant in a regiment where most other junior officers are in their late teens or early twenties.
I’m almost thirty.
And with my arm, plus the scars, I look older. So I’m up from the ranks or bad at my job.
‘You OK?’ Debro asks.
‘Just thinking.’
She’s going to tell me that’s a novelty. But she changes her mind and leads me down a set of stairs to the kitchens. A glass of water is followed by a cold beer. Then she suggests a tortilla or a breast of chicken. But for all that it’s welcome, the beer tastes sour in my throat and I’m not in the mood to eat.
‘Debro,’ I say, ‘I need to see Aptitude.’
‘A message from Vijay?’ She thinks about that. ‘How is-’
My scowl cuts her question dead. ‘A message from General Luc. I need to be back at the Wolf’s Lair by daylight tomorrow. And Aptitude is going to need time to think. So I’d better see her now.’
The woman in front of me doesn’t block my way.
But she doesn’t get out of it either. She simply stands between me and the door. I could walk round her, but Debro commands respect. She also reminds me of my sister. You have to have met my sister to know how scary that is.
‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’ she says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re going to hate it.’
I don’t mention that it’s all I can do to deliver the message. We talk about the furies on the way. I’m almost at the gardens before it occurs to me that Debro hasn’t asked about what’s been happening in Farlight. Makes me wonder why not.
‘Our screens are down,’ she says in reply. ‘They’ll be back up later.’
‘Who says?’
‘The house AI.’
‘And how long has it been saying this?’
‘Since yesterday . . . Sven,’ she says. ‘Tell me what the Wolf wants with Aptitude.’
‘Can’t. Gave my word.’
‘To Luc?’
‘Colonel Vijay.’
We climb the steps to the garden in silence, and walk out under an arch that leads to an ornate array of hedges. I only know they’re box because Debro told me last time I was here. A small fountain plays in the middle of raked gravel. Water is a luxury in a landscape this hot.
Red flowers sit in clay pots. A cascade of bell-like blooms tumbles down a red brick wall. Since Wildeside is grown and its natural colour is grey, the wall has to be built so that flowers can cover it.
‘Clematis,’ Debro says.
Even now, her manners are perfect.
Aptitude sprawls in a hammock, one bare leg draped over the edge. She’s not lying along it, and she’s not sitting in it; somewhere between the two. In her hand is a slab and she’s playing some question and answer game.
Debro watches me hesitate. More than anything this tells her how bad it’s going to be. I killed Aptitude’s husband with a single shot to the head. I ruined her wedding feast, slaughtered half her guests and burnt down the villa in which she was due to live. I’ve never felt a second’s guilt for any of that.
Guilt and I don’t mix.
Anything else drives you insane.
But I’m about to ruin Aptitude’s life. She never wanted to marry Senator Thomassi, but her parents were in jail and she was a minor. She did what her uncle ordered. This is different, she loves Colonel Vijay. He is the first person she’s really loved. She’s young enough to believe he’s the last.
‘Sven!’ she says, clicking off her book.
Aptitude rolls out of her hammock and flings her arms around me.
‘You smell,’ she adds, stepping back and wrinkling her nose. Then she catches Debro’s expression and begins to say sorry. ‘Shouldn’t have said that,’ Aptitude says, leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek. ‘But you do.’
Of course I do.
Ride a gyrobike for several hours across baking wastes and you’ll smell too. I can feel the sweat under my arms and down my spine. The only reason it’s not dripping into my eyes is because I keep wiping it away.
‘What’s wrong?’ Aptitude demands.
Where to begin?
The young woman in front of me is not the girl who served behind the bar at Golden Memories; nor is she the spoilt little rich kid from that wedding party in Farlight; she’s an older version, somewhere between the two.
‘Aptitude. We need to talk.’
She glances at her mother, who nods.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Debro says. She goes without looking back.
Aptitude suggests we use the hammock, but we settle on sitting with our backs against the only bare patch on a flower-covered wall. I know I need to start talking. I just don’t know where to begin . . .
‘Sven,’ she says. ‘You’re scaring me.’
The horizon stretches to dark clouds over the rift. Dying olive groves give way to scrub and then gravel where only salt grass can live. I recognize the colour, the flat green that looks grey in direct sunlight. The same grass that edged the strip between scrub and sand north of Fort Libidad when I was a teenager.
‘The Wolf has Vijay prisoner.’
Aptitude looks at me, her mouth open.
Without knowing it, she folds her hands across her chest and draws up her knees, hugging herself tight. ‘I thought General Luc was just being cruel,’ she says. ‘When he said-’ She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. ‘He couldn’t,’ she says. ‘He wouldn’t.’
This is General Luc we’re talking about. Of course he would.
‘Why are you here?’ Aptitude asks.
‘General Luc offers you Vijay’s life. In return-’
‘He’ll let Vijay live?’
‘In return-’
‘We’ve got money,’ Aptitude says. ‘He’s always wanted our land bordering his estate. We could give him that. And there are trade routes and concessions, we’ve got the fission monopoly on-’
‘Aptitude. Listen to me.’
My tone is harder than I intend. Hard enough to shock her into silence. She waits for me to continue. ‘You have to give up Vijay. That’s his price.’
‘I renounce Vijay?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You renounce Vijay.’
‘What else?’ She glares at me. ‘I know you,’ she says. ‘I know when you’re not telling me everything. Tell me what else he wants.’ She’s half turned towards me and her fingers are fists. This is the girl I faced on the steps at Villa Thomassi. ‘Tell me,’ she demands. ‘Tell me.’
‘He wants you.’
Her face changes as if someone has flicked a switch. All the life goes out of it, leaving only a mask. A very beautiful mask, with blue eyes and long blonde hair that tumbles around her shoulders.
Seeing it is looking at Aptitude’s future.
‘As his mistress?’
‘Aptitude,’ I say, ‘he wants you as his wife.’
‘Lady Aptitude Luc.’ She tries the words for size. Tears magnify her eyes, not yet falling. She bites her lip hard enough to cut flesh. The fingers that were fists now dig nails into her hands. They dig so hard her knuckles turn white.
‘You don’t have to say yes.’
‘Of course I do.’
Her anger is enough to make the tears fall.
‘You know I do. If I don’t Luc will . . .’ She looks at me, some of the fierceness leaving her face. ‘He’ll cut out Vijay’s heart. I can’t let that happen.’
‘Aptitude.’
‘I love him,’ she says fiercely. ‘In a way I can never love anyone else.’ Not sure what she sees in my eyes, but she looks away. ‘Tell the Wolf my answer is yes. But Vijay must be free first. And I want his word he won’t hurt Vijay once we’re married.’
She glares at me.
‘I was going to wed Senator Thomassi,’ she says. ‘How can this be worse?’