Chapter 10
the shepherd knows truths the sailor does not
that every byre is a fiction
that old heifers only rest in the teeth of dogs
A few hours later Shipwright and Shroudweaver stand in front of the High Lord of Hesper.
A decanter arcs lazily over their heads and bursts against the wall, spattering a room which looks like an antiquary’s wet dream. In the middle of it all, Declan Fallon, moustache bristling, arm in a sling and looking less than positive.
‘The Volante! That skinny fucking bitch. That pallid, dead-eyed slut. I’ll take her apart bone by fucking bone and never mind that ratshit lover of hers. I’ll shove his fancy fucking gun so far down his throat he’ll be shitting lead for years.’
Another wave of the arm that had sent the decanter to a better place.
‘That. Fucking. Slit. I’ll end her, see if I don’t.’
Shipwright rocks back on her heels. That was what someone like Fallon expected, all noise and bluster, flapping his mouth because he’d found a problem that his money and his cock couldn’t solve.
It might have worked on her once, a decade ago, two decades ago.
She glances at Shroudweaver to see if he is similarly impressed. The fingers of his left hand flash a quick response in Katkani tip-speak.
Let the bag empty itself.
She chokes down a smile and turns back to Declan. ‘We agree the problem is serious.’
The large man’s face purples in rage. ‘Serious? No. Serious is when the crops are slow. Serious is when the rifles run out of bullets. Serious is maybe, maybe when my feckless son disappears two ruddy months before our fucking chat here. Serious is when my wife can’t …’
Shipwright lets it all flow over her like the tide.
‘How is your wife?’ she asks quietly.
Fallon deflates like a sodden bellows.
‘She’s …’ His voice falters, fades into emptiness. ‘She … is. I suppose.’
For a moment, Declan Fallon is not the Lord of the Grey Towers, he’s something smaller, more delicate. If Crowkisser could see him now, Shipwright thinks, she’d break him into a thousand pieces.
Perhaps she can. Shipwright’s eyes flick over the shadows in the room. Shroud’s right. This isn’t a war anymore. She doesn’t really know what it is. Somewhere between a losing battle and a reluctant surrender.
She watches Declan shrink in on himself.
Three years ago, he’d been planting trailing vines over the high balconies.
Getting drunk mid-day. Talking about another kid, maybe.
Three years ago, Shipwright had been thinking about a life on land.
What it might be like to dig the earth. She hadn’t thought about children, but she’d dreamt spaces where they might be.
Now, she watched the shadows, and waited for the hammer to drop.