Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy #2) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,29

and misery—while your innocent bystanders here in Tevanne simply…” Her eyes lingered on Sancia for a fraction of a moment. “Well. Stand by.”

Sancia cocked her head. “And what does that mean? You think I’m standing by? That I’m complicit in all this?”

“Polina…” said Gregor.

“To speak bluntly,” Polina said, “I think that if you really are what I am told you are—a freed slave with a gift for scriving—then your energies could be better placed elsewhere.”

Sancia frowned at her. “Wait. Wait, wait. You’re…You’re trying to recruit me?”

“Yes,” Polina said matter-of-factly. “I am. It is my belief that a gifted freed slave should use those gifts in freeing other slaves. Is that so mad?”

Sancia looked at Gregor. “God, Gregor. You brought me here knowing she’d ask this?”

Gregor’s face was unreadable. He gave her a small shrug.

“Gregor knows what I am here to do,” said Polina. “He thinks our goals support one another—I assault from without, creating havoc in the plantations, while you and he and the rest of your little library assault from within. But while we may share aims, we cannot share you, Sancia, nor your gifts.”

“And what would you put my gifts to?” asked Sancia. “Smuggling wine? Burning down plantations?”

“Tevanne believes its strength comes from its scriving,” said Polina. “But the houses forget—they are still human, and even scrivers need to eat. With every field we take, or burn, we make Tevanne’s soldiers and scrivers and citizens hungrier and hungrier, and weaken their hold upon the world. But with you helping us, Sancia, we could break it. And besides”—a cruel gleam flickered in Polina’s eyes—“surely you can see the justice in inflicting the pain of famine upon the houses, just as they once inflicted it upon people like you and me.”

Sancia looked at her for a long while. Then she glanced sideways at Gregor, who sat watching her with that curiously closed look on his face.

Then she thought of the vision: the thing in black, floating in the desert…

“I’m needed here,” she said.

“I appreciate that sentiment,” said Polina. “But think. When you were still in bondage, did you not dream of an emancipator? Someone who’d burn down your walls and dash your chains to pieces? You could be that, Sancia, for so many. And that won’t happen with your bloodless revolution.”

“You don’t know what we’re up against,” said Sancia. “And I’ve still got to try.”

The two of them held each other’s gaze.

“If things were different, Polina,” said Sancia, “I would join you in a shot.”

Finally Polina sighed, and sat. “I see,” she said. “Then thank you, Gregor, for bringing her to me, at least. I hope you consider it further, Sancia.” She was silent for a long time. “Now—what is this information you’re after?”

Gregor rubbed his hands along the sides of his beard—an easy tell that he was anxious. “You still have your spies among the Dandolo fleet, I assume?”

Polina’s face was as blank as a stone wall.

He looked around at the crates. “I see several new shipments, which suggests you were able to evade their patrols…”

“And what is it you wish to know?”

“I wish to know if there has been anything…unusual recently. A shipment here, to Tevanne. It might be secret, or there might be something secret on board. It would be set to arrive very soon, perhaps. And it would be a Dandolo ship, coming from the plantations.”

She looked at him incredulously. “What a tremendous heap of vagueness. So—you know nothing specific of what you’re asking about?”

“I know when it would arrive,” he said, “what kind of ship it is, and where it would come from. Beyond that, I was hoping you might know more.”

Polina opened her mouth to make another comment—but then paused. Sancia thought she spied a gleam of worry in her eyes.

“What is it?” asked Gregor.

“A ship from the plantations,” she said quietly. “An unusual one…”

“What do you know, Polina?”

“Why are you asking about this?”