He did not answer.
“You haven’t even been outside your room,” she said. “You are free. Don’t you wish to move about for the first time in what must be years?”
No answer.
“Don’t you at least want to bathe? We do have hot water.”
The giant man grunted slightly, as if he was about to speak but thought better of it.
“Yes?”
His accent was so thick he was almost unintelligible: “This … is not real.”
“What?”
He waved a hand. “Any of it.”
“It is. I promise you, it is. Your door is unlocked. You are free.”
He shook his head. “No. It can’t be. They are … My family …”
Shara waited, but he said no more.
“They are alive, as I told you they were,” she said softly.
“I buried them. I held their bones in my hands.”
“I cannot testify to whose bones those were, but they were not your family’s.”
“You are lying to me.”
“I am not. Your wife, Hild, was smuggled out of the country with your two daughters by a servant of yours before the coup. They crossed the border into Voortyashtan merely two days before the coup was complete. There they lived for the past six years, claiming to be relations of your servant. They had been working as farmers—poor ones, I suspect, as I doubt if someone of your wife’s background ever tilled earth, but they had made do.”
A long silence. Then: “What … ? What proof do you have of this?”
“Your family was not totally safe when I found them. They were, and are, being searched for—there are still many agents seeking any remnant of your family. We have removed your family from Voortyashtan, as I have no longer deemed that location safe. It has not been totally easy—your wife is, how shall I put this, a somewhat strong-willed woman.”
Sigrud smiles slightly.
“But, we got it done. When we did, your wife gave one of our officers a gift, as a gesture of thanks.” Shara reached into her pocket and pulled out a small burlap sack. She opened it and took out a gleaming, woven gold bracelet etched to resemble harsh, choppy waves.
She passed it to him. “Does this mean anything to you?”
He stared at it, the metal so bright and so clean in his filthy, scarred hands. His fingers began to tremble.
“Why don’t you come up to the deck with me?” she asked gently.
He stood up slowly, still staring at the bracelet. She opened the door, and he followed her out and up the stairs with the air of a sleepy child being herded to bed.
The slap of the cold wind was enough to make Shara pause, and she bent double and staggered out onto the deck of the dreadnought. The giant man took no notice, and crossed the threshold of the door and stared up at the sky in awed silence. He had avoided looking up when they brought him on board, and she had wondered about that. Of course, she thought. How long has it been since he’s been outside? The sight of it must terrify him.
“Come,” she said, and she led him to the railing. The dark cliffs of the Dreyling shores lurked far across the waves. “I am told it is not quite so far away it looks. Though you may know more about that than I do.”
He looked down at the golden bracelet, snapped it around his wrist, and held up his arm, studying it. “I cannot see them. Can I?”
She shook her head. “It would not be safe, for you or for them. Not now. But maybe someday.”
“What do you want of me?” he asked.
“Want of you? Nothing, for now.”
“You have saved my family. You have freed me from prison. Why?”
“I believe that your information on the Dreyling countries will almost certainly be quite valuable,” says Shara. “And it will likely destabilize any relationships the Dreyling Republics have with the Continent.” A hint of smugness crept into her voice: this was the first major intelligence victory of her career, and she was not yet experienced enough to bother to mask her pride.
“That is not enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“For what you have done for me.”
Shara paused, unsure what to say.
“Ask something of me,” he said.
“What?”
“Ask something of me. Anything.”
“I don’t need anything from you.”
He laughed. “Yes, you do.”
“I am a Saypuri intelligence officer,” she said, nettled. “I have no need of anything you co—”
“You are a young girl,” said the man, “who cannot sail, who cannot fight, and who has never shed blood in her life. You may be clever, but you need much from me, I think. But you have too much pride to ask for it.”