The artist's blood dripped quietly onto the steel deck of the Unlikely To Fly's cargo hold. His nose was broken, seeping red; his left hand was missing a finger, dripping red; his legs and arms were bound with molecular wire that had lacerated the skin, leaking red.
Iskrin set a bowl of soapy water down at the man's feet and dipped a sponge into it. Joriquos Bos eyes him suspiciously through swollen, black eyes. "I told that fat bastard everything," he snarled as Iskrin began to mop at his wounds and Bos winced in pain, his words turning to a strangled scream of agony.
"I know," Iskrin replied calmly.
"I'll have you both hanged for this," Bos sneered as Iskrin wiped more blood away from the cuts on the painter's wrists.
"You won't," Iskrin replied evenly, his eyes focused on his work. "I'm going to remove these bonds." The captain took out a small device and disrupted the molecular contacts, which caused the wires to unwind from Bos' wrists and fall to the floor. For a moment, he thought that Bos' might try to do something stupid, but the sound of Sam cocking the hammer of his pistol caused the artist to sit still.
"You owe me a fucking finger," Bos growled at Sam.
"And you owe my friend for a fiance and ten years of pain," Sam said evenly, wiping sweat from his brow.
"I told you that was not my fault," Bos replied, his clipped, accented voice shaky with pain as Iskrin continued to clean him up. "Captain Charleton did not tell me what they were going to do to that godforsaken town. When he brought the girl onboard I tried to help her."
Iskrin slapped him hard across the face. "Lie again and you'll lose your tongue," he said quietly.
Bos prepared to speak and then stopped himself, breathing for a moment. "OK, perhaps I didn't try to help at first."
"Maybe you did a bit of raping, you mean?" Sam cut in.
"No, she wanted to... I mean."
Iskrin drew a knife from is belt and pushed the blade into the artist's mouth in one fluid movement. Bos sat staring in shock and horror, his eyes crossing as he tried to focus on the metal in his mouth, desperately attempting not to move. "Go on," Iskrin offered.
The artist shook his head very slightly and Iskrin withdrew the blade, a small trickle of blood leaking from the side of Bos' mouth. "OK. Yes," the artist agreed finally, licking at the blood on his lip. "I raped her. But when we got back to Sihnon, I tried to help her."
Iskrin moved the knife. "Seriously, I swear," Bos said desperately, watching the blade swing up in front of him. "I felt sorry for her. I tried to get her to a hospital. But they wanted to know what happened and I was not about to tell them."
"So you ran?" Sam asked, his gun pointing lazily at Bos' chest, a sour look on his face.
"I left her, yes," Bos agreed, grimacing as Iskrin applied a salve to the stump of his little finger. "But I am sure they took care of her."
His ministrations finished, Iskrin stood up, wiping his hands with the cloth and then chucking it back into the bowl with a splash. He stood staring at Bos for some time, noting the artist's fine clothes, his fashionable hair style, manicured hands, brilliant white teeth. "Let me tell you what I don't understand," the captain said, his voice quiet and calm. "Captain Charleton is dead. You'll be pleased to know he never mentioned your name, despite what I did to him."
Bos nodded. "I heard."
"But the thing is this: he always swore that keeping her wasn't his idea. That he'd planned to kill every gorram girl in the town to teach us a lesson about power. Not that doing so would o' saved him mind, which is why it always struck me as an odd thing to say." Iskrin glanced up at Sam, who had moved from leaning on the lockers to standing behind Bos.
"It is odd," Sam agreed.
"He said that one of his crew had asked him to keep the girl, but he wouldn't say which, even when I took out his eye."
Bos stared at Iskrin, mesmerized by the captain's words, panic and fear plain on his face as Iskrin spoke.
"Now I figure that member of the crew was you, Mr. Bos. So I know you ain't bein' straight with us. What do you think?"
Bos stared up at the captain, rubbing his mutilated hand and breathing hard. "I don't know," he whined, his usual, formal speech patterns lost to terror. Sam hit him in the ear with the butt of his pistol and Bos screamed. "OK, OK," he said quickly, clutching the side of his head. "I asked him to keep her. I wanted her but she was too fucking scared, too fucking stupid to know what was good for her."
Iskrin wanted nothing more than to beat this miserable excuse for a human to death, but he needed one specific piece of information that Sam still hadn't gotten out of Bos, despite the torture. "Go on," the captain said.
Bos took a steadying breath. "She kept crying and when she wasn't crying she was trying to escape. So we dumped her," he said, and then saw Sam's hand move out of the corner of his eye. "Alright!" he wailed, raising his hands protectively. "We sold her to a mercant at the Fengjin Downport. Said she'd take her as a handmaiden."
Iskrin took a moment to accept this information. Not dead, at least. And not sold for sex, if Bos could be believed. Life as a handmaiden might have been bearable for her, he thought, and then checked himself and the excuses he was making. Nothing was excusable about what had been done to Lys. "What was the merchant's name?" he finally asked, looking into the artist's frightened eyes.
For a moment it seemed as though Bos was going to refuse to answer, as he had done with Sam. But something seemed to click within him and he groaned, hanging his head and talking to the floor. "Simons. Arianne Simons."
Iskrin looked up at Sam for a reaction. The art dealer shrugged. "I know her," he said simply. "Haven't ever seen a girl in her service though."
Iskrin looked back down at Bos. "It is true. I swear it," the artist said, looking up at the two men. "I do not know what Arianne did with her, but your fat friend is right. The girl is not in her service now."
Iskrin stood in the familiar surroundings of the Unlikely To Fly, eyes closed and listening to the gentle thrum of the idle engines reverberating through the deck plating. He was so close to finding Lys that he could practically smell the gentle perfume of her hair, almost feel the warmth of her soft skin and the taste of her lips. And yet he was still so far. Arianne Simons could have done practically anything with his beloved. Finally he took a deep breath and looked down at the battered form of Joriquos Bos. "I ought ta kill ya," he said softly, watching the fear in Bos' eyes. "Or give you to the authorities. But I'm guessing the first would bring me trouble and the second would do you no harm, given who your da is."
"You are already in trouble, sir," Bos said defiantly. Iskrin slapped him again.
"You don't seem to understand Mr. Bos. None of this ever happened. An' if it did, then I may as well kill you. Are we clear?"
Bos stared at the captain for a moment before nodding slowly. "We are clear," he said finally.
Somehow Iskrin doubted that was the case, but he had no intention of returning to Sihnon once this was over in any case. "Good," he said. "So I ain't gonna kill ya, despite the pain you caused me and mine. But I am gonna leave you a measure of Three Hills justice." He glanced up at Sam who took hold of Bos' narrow shoulders in his meaty hands and held him still. Iskrin took his knife and knelt in front of the artist, unlacing the man's britches. Bos' watched him, abject terror etched into his face, his breathing ragged with fear. "This is how we deal with rapists where I come from," Iskrin growled, setting to work as Joriquos Bos screamed.
The guttural sounds of agony that rang out of the Unlikely To Fly would have turned the stomachs of any passers by had the boat not been parked on a remote patch of land some miles out of town. Later, as her atmospheric engines streamed plumes of smoke and lifted the metal hulk into the darkening sky, anyone in the area would have seen a man staggering away from where the boat had been parked, the front of his trousers bloody and tears of pain and rage streaming from his eyes. Had they been there to hear him, they would have heard his sobbing, choking whispers of "No, oh god no." But there was no one around.
Four days later, Joriquos Bos returned to Sihnon high society clad in the finest golden lace, deftly flattering and complimenting his way through an ambassadorial reception; graciously accepting praise and agreeing to paint over a dozen portraits; blaming his unfortunate broken nose on a skiing accident and wearing gloves to hide his missing finger. He hid the pain well, and the rage. Not a one of the ambassador's guests noticed any change in his demeanor or his charm. None, at least, except the ambassador's wife, who found him outside the party in the gardens, bent over and holding his groin.
"Are you OK, my dear?" she asked sweetly.
Bos looked up, trying to straighten. "Oh yes, quite alright," he said kindly, flashing her a smile. "I was just looking at the ground here."
"Oh," she said, concern in her voice for the dashing young artist. "Have you lost something? I'm sure the girls would be glad to help you look."
Bos smiled weakly. "More than you know," he answered, a grimace of pain and loss on his face and murder in his heart.
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