thing, but many of the grand houses that young lady has entertained have exhibited an unfortunate tendency to fall victim to housebreakers. Either during or shortly after her performances at them. Who would suspect such a young flower, eh? But then, perhaps that is the point.’
‘Is it possible she’s connected to the killings?’ Boxiron asked.
‘In this instance, I think not. Damson Shades is guilty only of being reckless and impulsive. Youth personified. Were we ever that guileless at the seminary, Fidelia?’
‘Not you. You always were a queer fish,’ said the vicar. ‘Even before the gods sent you insane with their mad whisperings.’
‘I’m recovered now,’ said Daunt.
‘They are sulking,’ Boxiron explained to the vicar. ‘Your people’s ancient deities. Jethro softbody upset them.’
‘I know how they feel,’ sighed the vicar.
‘Look after the sisters, Fidelia. No more sedatives. Tonics and herbs won’t suppress what these poor girls are channelling. The Mistress of Mesmerism is my problem now.’
The vicar jerked her head towards the infirmary door. ‘If Charlotte Shades is murdered, will the sisters get better?’
Jethro Daunt shook his head. ‘Goodness, no. The sisters will, I suspect, only recover when we find and defeat the dark force their possession is attempting to warn us of. And as far as deaths go, I fear we haven’t even begun taking a true tally yet.’
Dick removed his hand from the bell pull, the peels still echoing on the other side of the tower-like building’s front door. After a minute there was a slow, heavy shuffling on the other side and the door swung open to reveal Jared Black, the bear-like man in the unbuttoned jacket of a civilian u-boat captain.
‘Blacky,’ said Dick. ‘Answering the door yourself these days are you? Hard times is it? Where’ve all your metal servants got to?’
The submariner scratched at his unkempt forked beard and eyed his unexpected visitor with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. ‘Dick Tull come visiting. Is the board out to disturb an old man’s rest again? Can you not let me have any peace? I’m done with the great game and all your lies and your schemes.’
‘That, we can talk about,’ said Dick, entering the grand hall of the tower. Iron drones stood like sentries around the sweeping walls of the oak-panelled staircase, powered down. Warm in here. Decadently warm. Your boiler chewing its way through a couple of normal men’s salaries. Not shivering like me, are you? What have you ever done that I haven’t, to end up here in this bloody grand palace of yours? ‘Your steamman friend is out of the house, then? And the writer girl who lives here? They finally got tired of your whining and complaining?’
‘Coppertracks and Molly are away in the colonies. Off on an archaeological dig accompanying an old friend of mine.’
‘Looking for old bones,’ grinned Dick, ‘while your old bones rest here. But you’ve been keeping busy, Blacky, haven’t you? And not just on keeping the town’s vintners solvent. Give me a spot of the good stuff, then. Let me drink just a little of your unexplained wealth.’
The commodore reluctantly led Dick through to the kitchen and pantry, coughing and complaining all the way.
That cough. I have heard that kind of sodding chest before. Yes, indeed.
Sitting down at a long oak table, its surface a battlefield of chopping knife scars, Dick watched the commodore’s chubby fingers pouring a measure of wine into a clear crystal glass, and Dick kept his fingers raised until the glass was sloshing with the thick, ruby liquid.
‘Drink up,’ said the commodore. ‘And I’ll tell you what I told Algo Monoshaft last time I saw the old steamer. I’m done with the blessed board. I’ve put my carcass in the way of assassin’s blades and foreign powers’ bullets for the last time for you and yours. I have lied and fought and spied in foreign fields from Cassarabia and Pericur through to the black shores of Jago and I am too mortal old for the great game anymore.’
Dick sloshed the wine about the glass, watching the liquid run slowly down the sides of the crystal. Good legs on it. Expensive. ‘You don’t need a board pension, Blacky. Not sitting in this pile. And we don’t give them out to royalist turncoats anyway. Here’s the thing, I think you’re still in the great game, but playing for whom, that is the question?’
The commodore started to cough, slugging a measure of wine to still his hacking. ‘I’m out of it.’
‘Is that what you told Symons when he came visiting?’
Watch his face closely now. See how he reacts to me knowing about his late night royalist visitor.
‘Did you catch him, then? Poor old Rufus. How many of his fingernails did you have to remove before he blew on me?’
He’s already dead, you old pirate. Did you kill him? Let’s see how much you spill when you’re on the defensive and shook up. Let’s press my advantage. ‘No more than he deserved. But you know how it is. I need your story to match Symons’. Come on, I need to know you’re still on Parliament’s side.’
The old man’s face flushed redder still with anger. ‘I’ve never been on Parliament’s side. Your people winkled me out of hiding and strong-armed my poor carcass into your service. Anything I did, I did for the people of Jackals, not your parliament of shopkeepers and mill owners. The Lords Commercial have paid for your wicked soul, not mine.’
‘What did Rufus Symons say to you last night?’
The commodore folded back into his chair, toying wistfully with a plate of cold sliced beef sitting between them. ‘There’s been a split in the cause. A dividing of the ways over how the rebels should seize the Kingdom back from Parliament.’
‘That we knew,’ Dick lied. ‘Why did Symons come to you?’
‘To ask for help. And I told him the same thing I told you. I’m out of it.’
‘Why would you want to help him and not the rival royalist faction?’
‘Because it’s my sister who’s been helping the gill-necks, Tull. Gemma Dark, captain of the fleet-in-exile now and war leader of the Star Chamber.’
Sweet Circle. The underwater nation, the Advocacy. It was true then. The head’s paranoid rantings. But which side had Symons been serving?
Dick felt the lines of his greying moustache. ‘And how do you feel about that?’
‘Well, there’s a blessed good question. It makes no sense to me. The gill-necks had no time for us surface-dwellers when I skippered for the cause. The Advocacy called us pirates too, hunted our u-boats as keenly as Parliament’s fleet ever did. As for helping the cause overthrow Parliament, why should we trust the gill-necks? Why should they trust us? Symons felt the same way. So did a lot of rebels. Helping the Advocacy fight the Kingdom felt a might too close to treachery to him. My sister and her new allies purged the royalist dissenters, and now they’re on the run from her, you, and the gill-necks both!’
‘What about your sister? Why would you—’
‘Didn’t they let you read my file, Tull? Gemma’s a hardliner. When Parliament broke the back of the fleet-in-exile at Porto Principe, I fled for my life. As far as my sister’s concerned, I’m a traitor and a coward. And that was before I got her son killed on some fool adventure and the board started blackmailing me. I’m never going to be on the same side as Gemma again. Not unless it’s planted in a grave four feet beneath her boots.’
Dick supped greedily at the rich wine. ‘That’s quite a story.’
‘It’s the blessed truth.’
‘I know it is,’ said Dick.
‘Ah, poor little Rufus. I remember him as a lad on Porto Principe, always running