Page 48 of Company of Thieves
ELEVEN
“Ireally hate you,you know that, right?” I asked when Etienne came to deliver what I’d come to think of as his daily taunt, one where he stood in the doorway of the cell in which I was locked, and said mean things to me.
He sneered at me, his lip curling back in a manner that I found wholly repugnant. “Your thoughts matter little to me, Moghul bitch. As you will find out as soon as we land.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re going to torture me, and force me to tell you all of Prince Akbar’s secrets, and I’ll suffer the most intense torments known to man before you finally put me out of my misery. Heard it for the last seven days, have the T-shirt.” I strove for a bored tone, and in truth, it wasn’t too hard to achieve.
He snarled something very rude in French, and once again I mused on the fact that he hadn’t, in fact, so much as struck me. Not that I wanted him to become violent, but for a man given to daily visits in which he took great delight in telling me just how he was planning on torturing me, I found it a bit odd that he didn’t raise a finger to me. It might have been that he was all bluster and no action, or perhaps the fact that on the day when I was abducted, he had stridden into the cabin where I was confined, only to have me throw up on his feet.
“Hey, while you’re here, can you please have your steward cook something that isn’t rancid? I’ve barfed up the meals of the last three days, and it’s getting a bit old. Maybe stop for a few fresh veggies? How about some eggs? I wouldn’t balk at a steak, even though I don’t eat much red meat anymore.”
Etienne slammed the door shut, leaving me with nothing but my own company. I sighed and scooted back on the narrow bed, picking up one of the books that I’d begged from a friendly guard. It was in French, and detailed the glorious history of France, but since it was significantly different from the France I knew, I plowed my way steadily through it.
Dinner was served by Armand, the apologetic second steward, a gangly teenager with what I thought at first was acne scars, but later figured out was from smallpox.
“Your food,” Armand said, sliding a tray of reddish-brown slop before me, along with a glass of room-temperature goat’s milk. He had insisted on bringing me ale the first few days, but I quickly figured out I could barter it to him for milk, so at least now I had something to drink. “It’s ragout.”
“Eh,” I said, poking at it with a spoon. There was a lump of gray mystery meat in it. “A ragout of what?”
He shrugged before digging out from his pocket a heel of bread, set it on the tiny table that was bolted to the wall and floor, and left, locking the door behind him.
I ate around the meat lumps, nibbling on the bread, but regretted the action a few hours later when the ship gave a lurch. My stomach lurched with it, and then seemed to flop over. I dived for the closestool that sat in the corner, and heaved up my dinner.
“I swear to god, that damned Etienne is poisoning me. I’m just going to have to stop eating until I can get away,” I told myself after rinsing my mouth out with a tiny bit of water I’d saved from the daily allotment. “It’s probably arsenic. All the mysteries I’ve read say that it makes you ralph. Ugh. I hope all this barfing isn’t bad for my teeth. I really need a proper toothbrush.”
Once the poison had been ejected from my stomach, I felt much better, and moved over to open the small porthole window to let a little fresh air into the small cabin. The air was salty, with a tang of the sea on it that raised my spirits.
Below us, a town slid past. We were landing in Marseilles, Etienne’s destination according to the chatty Armand. The airship turned to the north, drifting over buildings, streets, and tiny ant-like people. Etienne wasn’t likely to land at an airfield, but he probably had some arranged spot where he could land and hide the airship. Jack and Octavia had one not far from town, I mused, doing a swift calculation in my head. According to Jack’s notebook that I’d read before I left them, they were due to be in Marseilles soon. I prayed they had arrived early, as they sometimes did in order to research whatever cargo they were planning on liberating.
“Time for the escape plan,” I told myself, watching when we skimmed lower, over the tops of a few trees, heading not into a rural area but toward the industrial part of town, one where a couple of massive warehouses held items for the many ships that visited.
I waited until we were within a few minutes of landing, then, according to the plan I’d perfected during my seven days of confinement, started banging on the door of my cell, yelling loudly for someone to help me.
Thankfully, it was Armand who answered my call, not one of the other crew members who sometimes attended to me, and who treated me in a hard, unyielding manner. “Madame? You are unwell again?”
“Oh, yes, Armand,” I said in an exaggerated manner, sagging against the doorframe just as if I couldn’t stand. “There is ... there is ... in the corner.” I gestured, and swooned backward against the door.
He stepped into the cabin, glancing in the corner that I had indicated. “What is there, madame? I see noth—”
I shoved him hard with both hands, then whirled around and was out of the door, snapping the lock into place before he realized what I’d done.
