The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,55
as well tell us. You'll get no peace till you do.'
'Well, she might have somehow got the impression that I was in love with her.'
'Might she?' Malvery asked with a grin. 'And who gave her that idea?'
'I never bloody thought she was going to get out of that hermitage!' Frey said. In fact, he hadn't really thought about the consequences at all. He rarely did when he was making promises to women. The idea that he might have to fulfil them one day rarely crossed his mind, as long as he got what he wanted right then.
'Isn't she the head of the Thade dynasty now?' Crake asked. 'Powerful woman.'
'And filthy rich, too,' said Malvery. 'Not a bad catch, Cap'n. Can't think what she sees in you.'
'I expect it's my rugged charm and roguish demeanour.'
'Must be.'
Frey undid the string and flicked through the rest of the letters. 'There's one here for you, Pinn.'
'For me?' Pinn asked in surprise.
'Oh, that's right,' said Rusk. 'It didn't have your name on, Frey, but it was addressed to the Ketty Jay, so . . .'
Frey handed the letter to Pinn, who tore it open.
'And who's writing to you?' Malvery demanded, descending on Pinn like a slightly inebriated vulture.
'I don't know till I read it, do I?' Pinn said, shrugging him off. He squinted at the letter, concentrating hard, mouthing the words as he processed them. Pinn could just about read and write, although it required a bit of effort. After a few lines his face cleared and a huge smile split his chubby face.
'It's from my sweetheart Lisinda!'
Malvery choked on his beer and sprayed it all over the back of Frey's neck.
'She says . . . she says . . .' Pinn began, then realised he hadn't read that far and went back to the letter. Slowly his smile faded.
'What's the matter?' asked Frey, mopping himself angrily with his scarf. 'What does she say?'
Pinn looked up at them, and his eyes were bewildered and shocked. His expression was one of profound distress.
'She says she's getting married.'
After they left the Butcher's Block, they toured the bars of Marlen's Hook, looking for information about Dracken and the Delirium Trigger. Rusk hadn't been wrong: the port was noticably quieter than usual. Frey complained that many of the familiar faces were absent. It was bad luck that the Navy had come visiting recently.
Crake trudged along, uninterested in the chase. He was rather annoyed that they kept shifting venue, wasting valuable drinking time by wandering the filthy streets. But for once Frey's mind was on the job, not on the booze. He led them here and there, chatting to barmen and interrogating drunks.
Pinn hung about looking glum. He'd barely said a word since reading the letter from his sweetheart, and nobody spoke to him about it. No one was quite sure how to deal with his stunned grief.
Malvery looked particularly awkward. Presumably he was feeling guilty because of all the times he'd said that Lisinda didn't exist.
Privately, Crake sneered at Pinn. His own stupidity had put him in this position. He'd abandoned Lisinda years ago for some absurd quest for glory, and he deserved what he got. If she'd finally woken up and dumped him, well, Crake couldn't really have cared less. Pinn's pain was laughable in comparison to Crake's.
Besides, he wasn't sure if Pinn was even smart enough to feel pain in the way other humans did. It was more like separating animal companions in a zoo, and watching one of them pine for the other.
Eventually, Pinn put them all out of their misery and wandered off back to the Ketty Jay. The mood lightened immediately, though not by much. Crake had been hoping for a raucous night, ending in oblivion, but Frey was too preoccupied and Malvery had something on his mind.
Well, at least there was the booze. He didn't need much more than that.
At one point, they bumped into Grist, Crattle and a few men from the Storm Dog in the street. Grist seemed to be having a similarly frustrating time. Crake, nicely smashed by this point, allowed himself a bitter smile. Good. He'd come to despise Grist, and was quite scared of him. No matter how much Crake had wanted to plunge a machete into Hodd's neck himself, it was inexcusable that Grist had lost control like that. What was a man if he didn't have control? Nothing better than those savages from Kurg.
Let Dracken disappear without trace, he thought. She outwitted us. Move on.