The Aeronaut's Windlass (11 page)

Spire Albion, Habble Morning, Ventilation Tunnels

G
rimm strode toward the Spirearch’s Manor, his booted steps striking the stone floor with sharp, clear impacts, and reminded himself that murdering the idiot beside him in an abrupt surge of joyous violence would be in extremely bad taste.

“Perhaps her time has come,” said Commodore Hamilton Rook. He was a tall, regal-looking man, provided one desired a monarch whose nose was shaped like a sunhawk’s beak. His black hair was untouched by silver, which Grimm was certain was an affectation. His face and hands were weathered and cracked from his time aboard his ship, a battlecruiser called
Glorious
, a peer of
Itasca
, if not even remotely her rival. He was refined, well educated, exquisitely polite, and an utter ass. His Fleet uniform was a proper deep blue accented with an unseemly amount of golden braid and filigree, and bore three gold bands at the end of each sleeve. “What say you, my good Francis?”

Grimm glanced aside and up at Rook. “As ever, I ask you not to call me Francis.”

“Ah. The middle name then, I suppose? Madison?”

Grimm felt the fingers of his sword hand tighten and relax. “Commodore, you are well aware that I prefer Grimm.”

“A tad stuffy,” Rook said disapprovingly. “Might as well call you ‘Captain’ all day, as though you still had a true commission.”

Extremely bad taste, Grimm thought. Appallingly bad taste. Historically bad taste. No matter how joyous.

“I had hoped your recent successes might have made you less insecure,” Rook continued. “And you haven’t answered my question. My offer is more than generous.”

Grimm turned down a side corridor out of the main traffic of the day in Habble Morning. “Your offer to pay me a quarter of her worth to break my ship into scrap? I had assumed you were making some kind of stillborn attempt at humor.”

“Come now, don’t romanticize this,” Rook said. “She’s been a fine vessel, but
Predator
is outdated as a warship, and undersize as a ship of trade. For what I’m offering you, you could secure a merchant vessel that would make you several fortunes. Think of your posterity.”

Grimm smiled faintly. “And the fact that you would secure her core crystal for your House’s inventory is beside the point, I suppose.”

Crystals of suitable size and density to serve as a ship’s power core were grown over the course of decades and centuries. Core crystals were not expensive; they were
priceless
. In Spire Albion, all current crystal production was under commission to the Fleet, leaving a set number of core crystals available to private owners—most of whom would not part with them at any price. Over the past two centuries, the Great Houses had been steadily acquiring the remaining core crystals. Certainly they could be had from other Spires, but so far as Grimm knew, no one in the world could match in power or quality the crystals the Lancasters produced.

“Of course it would do no small amount of good for the standing of our House,” Rook replied. “But it’s an honest offer nonetheless.”

“No,” Grimm said.

“Very well,” Rook said, his voice tightening. “I’ll double it.”

“No. Twice.”

The larger man took a step in front of Grimm and stopped, glaring. “See here, Francis. I mean to have that crystal. I’ve seen the damage report your engineer turned in. You were lucky to make it back to the Spire at all.”

“Was I?”

“You need entirely new power runs, a new main lift crystal, and at least
three
new trim crystals! I’ve seen your accounts. You’ve nowhere near enough money to afford them.”

“She’s wounded,” Grimm said firmly. “Not a derelict.”

“Wounded,” Rook said, rolling his eyes. “She can barely limp up and down the side of the Spire on a tether.
Predator
isn’t an airship any longer. She’s barely a windlass.”

Grimm suddenly found himself facing Rook, his hands clenched into fists.

Rook apparently did not notice that detail. “I am making you an open and friendly offer, Francis. Don’t force me to resort to other means.”

Grimm stood silently for a moment, staring up at Hamilton Rook’s sneer. “And what means, sir,” he asked quietly, “would those be?”

“I can pursue it in the courts, if need be,” he said. “Report on the dangerously slipshod handling of your ship. Report on the number of casualties you’ve suffered. Report on the complaints and accusations of criminal behavior other Spires have forwarded to the Fleet.”

Grimm ground his teeth. “I incurred those accusations while acting on the Fleet’s behalf, and you know it.”

“And would be ordered to deny it,” Rook said, his smile widening. “Honestly, Francis. Do you really think the Fleet would rather stand by you, a disgraced outcast, than suffer a public humiliation like that?” The smile vanished. “I
will
have that core crystal, Grimm.”

Grimm nodded thoughtfully. And then, quite quickly and with no restraining gentleness whatsoever, he slapped Commodore Hamilton Rook across the face.

The smack of the impact echoed down the empty corridor. Rook reeled back, stunned by the fact of the blow more than the force of it, and stared at Grimm with wide eyes.

“
Predator
is not property,” Grimm said in a calm, level tone. “She is not my possession. She is my home. Her crew are not my employees. They are my family. And if you threaten to take my home and destroy the livelihood of my family again, Commodore, I will be inclined to kill you where you stand.”

Rook’s eyes blazed and he drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. “You arrogant insect,” he snarled. “Do you think you can slap me about without paying for it?”

In answer, Grimm took a quick step forward and did it again. Rook tried to flinch away from the blow, but Grimm’s hand was too quick for him. Again the sound of the slap echoed down the hallway.

“I’ll do it any damned time I please, sir,” Grimm said in the same level voice. “Take me to court. Let me tell the judges and the public record precisely what incensed me enough to strike you. You will be publicly humiliated. If you hoped to keep any shred of your reputation, you would have no choice except to challenge me to a duel. And, as the challenged party, I would insist upon the Protocol Mortis.”

Rook leaned his head back slightly from Grimm, as though he had opened his pantry to fetch cheese and found a crawlyscale waiting for him instead. “You wouldn’t dare. Even if you won, my family would have your hide.”

“I’d change my flag to Spire Olympia,” Grimm said. “They’d be glad to have me. Let the Rooks attempt their little game with the captain of an Olympian vessel. Do you think your corpse is worth that, Hamilton?”

Rook clenched his fists at his sides. “That’s treason.”

“For an officer of the Fleet, yes,” Grimm said, baring his teeth. “But not for a disgraced outcast like me.”

“You wretched little nothing,” Rook said. “I should—”

Grimm took a step forward, never breaking eye contact, forcing Rook to take a step back. “You should what,
Commodore
?” he said. “Say nasty things behind my back? Challenge me to a duel? You haven’t got the spine to look in a man’s eyes when you kill him. That’s something else we both know.”

Rook clenched his teeth, seething. “I will not forget this, Grimm.”

Grimm nodded. “Yes. One of your many excellent failings, Hamilton, is that you forget favors and remember insults.”

“Indeed. My House has a long memory—and wide vision.”

Grimm felt a surge of anger threaten to shatter his demeanor, but he suppressed it from everything but the tenor of his voice. “Wide vision? Is that how you style it? Know this: If anything happens to any of my men, or to any of their families—anything, no matter how small—I shall hold you personally responsible. I shall denounce you to the Admiralty and the Council within the hour. And in the duel that follows, I shall kill you and cast your body from the top of the Spire—and not necessarily in that order. Am I perfectly clear, Commodore?”

Rook swallowed and took another half step back.

Grimm pointed a finger at him and said, “Stay away from my home. Stay away from my family. Good day, sir.”

Then the captain of
Predator
turned precisely on a heel and continued marching toward the palace.

Grimm hadn’t been walking for two minutes when a calm, amused voice spoke from the darkness of an unlit side corridor. “What’s happened to you, Mad? You’ve acquired a few shreds of discretion. I remember a time when you would have braced that pompous twit in the middle of the habble market at noonday.”

Grimm snorted and didn’t slow his steps. “I’ve no time to fence with you, Bayard.”

A small, slender figure of a man appeared from the gloom and fell into step beside him. Alexander Bayard wore a commodore’s uniform almost precisely like Rook’s, if not quite as richly fashioned. It was also a great deal more weatherworn. Bayard loved to spend his days aboard ship out on the deck of his flag vessel, the heavy cruiser
Valiant
, whereas Rook hid from the elements whenever he could.

“Yes,” Bayard said easily. The smaller man lengthened his strides to match Grimm’s. “I’ve heard. You’ve a ship that can barely stay afloat and no means to repair her, so I’m certain you’re in quite the rush to clear port again.”

“Don’t make me duel you,” Grimm said.

“Why on earth not?” Bayard said, putting a bit of extra swagger in his step. He had dark, glittering eyes and hair that had gone magnificently silver decades before its time. “You’d lose and we both know it.”

Grimm snorted.

“You’re a true tradesman of violence, my stiff-necked friend,” Bayard continued. “But you’ve no ice in your soul and not a speck of reptile in your blood. It takes calculation to win a duel against a reptile, and you’ve always been impatient.”

Grimm found himself smiling. “You’ve just called yourself a reptile, Commodore.”

“And so I am,” Bayard agreed. “I’m a viper who plays every angle to his advantage.” His smile faded slightly. “Which is why I’m in uniform and you aren’t, I’m afraid.”

“There was no point in both of us being drummed out,” Grimm replied. “You know that I don’t hold it against you, Alex.”

“You needn’t. I’ll do it for you. And as for Rook . . .” Bayard shuddered. “If it comes to a duel, I hope you will call upon me to be your second.”

“I find it unlikely that I should be so desperate,” Grimm said. “I suppose that if everyone else says no, I may consider you.”

“Excellent. A day in advance at least, if you please. My mistress would never understand if I walked out on her abruptly.”

Grimm barked out a laugh. “Neither of you is married, and you’ve been seeing each other exclusively for . . . eleven years now?”

“Thirteen,” Bayard said smugly.

“God in Heaven. And yet you persist in the fiction that she is your mistress even now. Why?”

A boyish grin spread over Bayard’s face. “Because scandal, old friend, is ever so much more enjoyable than propriety. Such things are the spice of life.”

“You’re a degenerate,” Grimm said, but he was smiling widely now, and the rage and frustration he’d felt at his encounter with Rook had faded away. “How is Abigail?”

“Rosy cheeked, starry-eyed, and content, my friend. She sends her love.”

“Please convey my warmest respects,” Grimm said. He cocked his head to one side and regarded Bayard. “Thank you, Alex.”

“Rook would try the patience of an Archangel,” Bayard said, inclining his head. “You are not without friends, Grimm. Don’t waste another moment in concern for the fool.”

“I would not consider the time spent thrashing him wasted.”

Bayard let out a rich, warm laugh. “Few would, I daresay.”

They came to a dim section of largely unused tunnel, where the lumin crystals were spaced widely apart. Grimm put his hand lightly upon the tunnel wall to guide his nearly blind steps. “You didn’t just happen upon me when I needed a boost in morale. You were following me.”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

“I think you need to speak to the Spirearch.”

“That’s where I’m going now,” Grimm said.

“Ah, yes,” Bayard replied. “But you see, he is not in his manor. He sent me to bring you to him—”

Bayard stopped abruptly in his tracks. Grimm followed suit almost instantly. The tunnel was full of whispering sound: the echoes of their steps, of their voices, the distant empty exhale of air moving through the Spire’s vents, and their own breath.

Grimm was never sure, after, what tiny hiccup of sound or what flicker of motion in the gloom gave the ambush away—his instincts simply screamed that danger was at hand, and he drew his sword in a liquid whisper of copper-clad steel. Beside him, he felt as much as heard Bayard do the same, and then something, some
thing
,
shrieked in the dark and a cannonball of howling hot agony hurtled into his chest.

Chapter 8