The young man jerked, and snapped his eyes open as Ché looped the garrotte around his neck and pulled hard on the cork handles.
Brown eyes, Ché noted, near popping out of their sockets; and there, within the glassy pupils, a shadow, Ché himself looming large. The youth snorted and wheezed for air, his face bulging. His hands scrabbled at the garrotte around his throat. His legs flailed in the water spilling in waves over the side to splash around Ché’s sandalled feet. The Diplomat maintained his steady pressure. He thought of nothing as he performed the act, though he felt, strangely, a rising sense of anger.
At last, Topo stopped floundering and lay limp in the settling water. Ché maintained pressure for a few moments more, then released the garrotte with a gasp.
Panting, he kicked open the door of the stove beneath the heater and tossed in a log from the wooden bin that sat next to it, then after that as many more as would fit. Then he unlatched the lid of the pot to expose the warming water within. Quickly, he hauled the body out of the bath, with his hands slipping on its slick skin. Ché was strong enough for all his modest height; still, it was an effort to lift the dead weight of Topo into the great pot, to make it fit as the displaced water rose up around it, so he could replace and refas-ten the lid.
By the time he was finished the flames of the stove were starting to roar. He imagined the smoke tumbling out of the chimney far above his head; hoped it wouldn’t draw Romano’s early return. He stepped from the bathroom and listened for the sounds of footfalls.
Behind him, the bronze water-heater made a sudden popping sound. Ché stopped.
Another thump sounded from within it.
He’s still alive in there.
Ché hesitated, at once caught in a moment of self-doubt. He glanced back through the doorway, struggling with an impulse to rush inside and unlatch the lid and haul the lad out from there.
He fought it down. He’d spent too long at this already.
Ché strode across the main cabin while a faint scream pursued him to the open window. It shook him to hear it; his hands trembled as he clambered out onto the balcony, cursing himself for his own carelessness.
From the bathroom, the scream grew in pitch until it was consumed by the piercing shriek of steam that suddenly blasted through a whistle.
In the early evening chaos of the Chir harbour, Ché waited in line before the thronged gantry, impatient to be off the ship so that he could sample some of the attractions of the ancient cityport.
On the other side of the gantry, the dockside was awash with slaves manhandling fresh supplies onto the waiting ships, and a host of newly arrived immigrants from elsewhere in the empire, drawn to the island’s sudden land rush now that it was conveniently deserted. Through them all, in stamping columns, the grim, orderly troops of the Sixth Army marched aboard the transports in preparation for the dawn departure, when the newly combined army and fleet of the Expeditionary Force would set sail for Khos.
He was first aware of trouble when he heard the distinct sound of shouting up towards the quarterdeck. He turned instinctively towards Sasheen’s quarters, saw that the Matriarch’s door was lying open, her honour guard nowhere to be seen.
Ché swore under his breath, then bounded for the steps and the open doorway. He passed the two twins, Guan and Swan, standing at the top of the stairway with their expressions wholly neutral.
Inside, the guards were struggling with a group of priests who were trying desperately to protect General Romano. The man raved beyond reason, his spit flying towards the Holy Matriarch, who sat in a chair flanked by her two personal bodyguards, watching his fury with a self-satisfied smile. Ché’s eyes widened as he saw a flash of a blade in the young general’s hand. A priest shouted and tried to grasp it. Beyond them, bizarrely, the severed head of Lucian sat balanced on a table, watching it all with an expression of manic glee.
Footsteps sounded behind him as Archgeneral Sparus marched into the room. He took in Ché and the rest of the scene in a single unhurried glance from his eye.
‘I’ll kill you for this,’ Romano was screaming. ‘I said nothing I wouldn’t say to your face! Your son was a coward – and you, you