Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  Giulia nodded and sucked at her thumb. There was a long, shallow cut across the pad, gained when she’d climbed out of sight to get the drop on Falsi. A nail must have been sticking out of the tiles. Whatever it was, the damned thing wouldn’t stop bleeding.

  “Hugh, Edwin? You’ve seen some strange things. Ever heard of a man’s wounds just closing up like that?”

  Edwin rubbed his brow. “No, I’ve never heard of anything like that before. This whole business is insane.” He grimaced and rubbed his eyes. “Could he have been a mort, or some sort of ghost?”

  Giulia frowned and said, “I don’t think so. He looked normal, that’s the thing. But he shouldn’t have got up after a wound like that. And tar would have burned his face off. It just seemed to boil away.” She rubbed her temples, feeling sleepy and worn out.

  “You’ve hurt your hand,” Elayne said.

  “It’s just a cut.”

  “It won’t heal up easily: it’s in an awkward place. Here, give me your hand.”

  “It’s all right,” Edwin said helpfully.

  Uncertainly, Giulia held out her arm. She had never trusted magic. Back in the old days, when she’d been more pious, she had thought of magic as one of the things that sped your way to Hell. More recently, she’d come to see it as a tool of the wealthy and insane.

  Elayne took Giulia’s hand in her own: Giulia felt the woman’s nails lightly scrape her skin. Elayne’s hands were paler and cleaner than her own. “Don’t worry,” Elayne said, and she closed her eyes. “It’ll be fine,” she said softly, and her voice became first a whisper, then nothing.

  Giulia’s thumb tingled. She looked down: the wound was closed and scabbed over, the blood dried around it. The digit was numb, as if she had rested something heavy on it, cutting off the flow of blood.

  Elayne mouthed something, finished and looked up. She opened her eyes and smiled. “Good as new. Look.”

  Giulia lifted her hand and looked at it. The scab was now a stripe of old blood, like rust. She bent her thumb, feeling the joint prickle. “It feels strange,” she said.

  “It will for a little while,” said Elayne. “That tends to happen. Don’t worry: it won’t drop off.” She wiggled her fingers and grinned.

  Giulia made herself smile back. “Thank you.”

  Hugh leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “The way Giulia puts it, there’s no guarantee that this Varro man is actually dead. I think we need to finish him off.”

  Giulia shook her head. “I’m not going back there. Not in the daylight.”

  “Actually, I thought I could. I reckon I could sneak out, with a bit of help from Giulia.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Elayne began.

  “That’s a bloody terrible idea,” Edwin said casually, without anger.

  Giulia glanced at Hugh. He did not look offended. “Why’s that?” he asked.

  Edwin said, “Well, let’s see. We’re wanted criminals, for a start, we’re under house arrest, and the City Watch is looking for an excuse to wring our necks. How’s that?”

  “I suppose so,” said Hugh. “But what if this Varro man is still out there, looking for Giulia? We should take him on properly, get this conspiracy out where we can see it. We could do some proper fighting for a change.”

  Edwin said, “The only problem with that is that we’d be doing this ‘proper fighting’ in the middle of a city where everyone wants us dead. Come on, Hugh, talk sense. You really are up in the clouds sometimes.”

  The knight sat up as if jabbed with a fork. He stared feverishly across the table. “Then what shall we do, eh? Just sit on our arses, waiting to be hanged, like we’ve been doing ever since Giulia and I got here?”

  “Now look, everyone—” Elayne began.

  “I’m sick of sitting here like I’ve gone soft! It’s not right that someone should try to do us for killing a vicar – Old Church or New – when we weren’t even bloody there. I say we move fast, because if we don’t do something, it won’t just be you and me on the line – it’ll be these two women as well.” Hugh shifted in his chair, shrugged impatiently. “I won’t have ladies suffer on account of us just sitting here, Edwin. I won’t.”

  Edwin leaned forward. He seemed bigger, suddenly. “Look, man. We can’t just run away. It’s too bloody dangerous.”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Giulia said. “Tomorrow I’m going to go—”

  Hugh snorted. “Dangerous? It’s dangerous enough as it is! They’ll come for us all at the end of the week! You’re getting slack, Edwin.”

  “Slack? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have some responsibility these days! It’s all very well for you, prancing around like some errant knight in a song—”

  Giulia raised her voice. “Will you two listen to me, for God’s sake?”

  “Prancing? You can talk! We used to fight evil, not hide from it!”

  “I have responsibilities! I have someone to look after!”

  “Shut up!” Elayne screamed.

  They were silent. Hugh opened his mouth, moved his jaw up and down like a fish, and closed it. The men glared at each other across the table, furious but mute.

  Elayne said, “I gather you’ve got something to say, Giulia.”

  She nodded. “Thanks. I know what I’m going to do. Tomorrow morning I’m going to see this procurator, whoever he is. I heard him talking to the captain of the Watch last night, the fat man who was here this morning – Falsi called him Orvo. I overheard him telling this Orvo that he wanted this sorted out. I reckon the procurator must be able to help.”

  Elayne said, “What if the Watch won’t let you see him?”

  “I’ve got that taken care of. I should be able to go in over the Watch’s head. With a bit of luck, he’ll hear me out and help get us out of here.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Elayne asked.

  Giulia sighed. “Then we’ll just have to do it ourselves. Listen, when I spoke to Falsi he sounded uncertain about this. I don’t think it was just fear. He knows this stinks, as much as we do. If you got a second chance to talk to him, Elayne, he might just agree to help. I doubt it’d be much more than promising to look the other way while we sneak out, but still, it’s something.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Elayne looked around the table. “Right, then. Does anyone have a problem with that? Edwin?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Hugh?”

  “No. But we’re running out of time.”

  “I know,” Giulia said. “If this doesn’t work, I say we take our chances fighting our way out of here. Now, I need to write a letter, so I’m going to need some ink and a pen, and some paper to practice on. This is going to have to look just right.”

  She closed the door to her room and wedged it shut.

  Edwin had brought in the small table from his bedroom, and Giulia had pushed her cloak under the legs to keep it steady. It was now covered in a stubby forest of burning candles. A glow hung over the tabletop, like a shrine.

  Giulia approached the table like a surgeon approaching a difficult operation. She opened her bag and took out a piece of folded paper, torn from the Watch’s record book. The wax seal of the Watch lay on the paper like clotted blood.

  Elayne had given her a few sheets of fresh paper and a stoppered bottle of ink. Giulia took a fresh quill, cut a sharp nib with her knife and dipped it in the ink. She tested it on the spare paper and paused, the pen hovering above the page. Then she readied her neatest sheet of paper and wrote:

  To whom it may concern, let him who reads this know that I grant authority for—

  No, she decided, no false names. It had to come from her: she needed this procurator as an ally, and it would not do to be caught out deceiving him.

  Giulia Degarno to discuss the matter of the Death of the Priest outside the Old Arms inn,
which occurred three days ago. I request that she be allowed to make Inquiries and receive Information as though she were of the City Watch, and that she be granted admission to Matters of Importance as would a Watch-man. Sirs, I thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter. Yours in Faith,

  She scribbled ‘Orvo, Captain’ at the bottom, so badly that nobody could have guessed what his name actually said. She intended to take the letter back as soon as she had shown it to the relevant authorities. It could prove useful more than once.

  Giulia re-read the letter. It seemed sufficiently pompous. For a final touch of realism, she drew lines under the signature down to the bottom of the page. Rich people did this to stop rogues like Giulia adding extra sentences to their letters. Rich people clearly didn’t suspect that the entire text might be written by a rogue.

  Once the ink was dry, she folded the letter in on itself. Giulia pulled one of the candles close, took the paper with the Watch seal on it and very carefully held it over the flame.

  It took only a few seconds to warm the rear of the seal. Giulia tapped it, felt the wax become the consistency of mortar, and took it away from the candle. She sliced the wax away from the tattered page of the Watch record book. Then she pressed it onto the letter.

  The letter was now sealed with the Watch stamp. She blew out the candles and went to bed. For once, she didn’t dream.

  SEVEN

  Giulia woke late. The midday sun poured into her eyes as she sat up. She felt something against her side. There was a scabbarded knife under the covers with her, and she shook her head sadly as she took it out, as though some prankster had left it there for her to find.

  Out of bed and standing in the middle of the little room, Giulia swung her arms and stretched her back. Slowly, working from the main joints to the smaller ones, she warmed up until she was ready to move quickly and quietly. It made her feel alert and strong.

  She put on a low-necked undershirt, then pulled the better of her two dresses over the top. After the cold of the day before, she kept her britches and boots on. She fastened the leather bracers under her sleeves, pulled on her cloak and went downstairs. The dress made her feel cumbersome and slow.

  She filled a small bottle with wine and slipped it into her bag. Hugh sat near the door, as if awaiting permission to leave. He nodded to her as she left the inn. “Good luck.”

  The streets were full of people too cold to stand still. Giulia walked down to the edge of the canal, crossed the bridge and headed towards the place where she had found a boat the day before. She passed a man selling hot wine from a tiny stove, and she gave him two coins and quickly drained a cup. The seller stared at her face, but the warm alcohol made her feel much better.

  Mattia the boatman waited at the same dock, sitting in his boat. “Good morning, milady!”

  She climbed into the boat, gathering her skirts so they would not touch the water.

  “You’re looking very fine today, milady. Where would you like to go?”

  “I need an alchemist,” she replied. “I need to get something to hide these scars.”

  The boatman nodded, as if this sort of thing happened every day. Giulia wondered if you saw things differently if your legs didn’t work right.

  “I’ll take you to the brother of a friend of mine. He has a good shop: quiet, very cheap. What’s the word? Discreet.”

  They kept to narrow waterways, where the canals were almost deserted. The boat slid between high tenements. Giulia pulled her hood up. A window clattered above and a cheerful-looking woman looked out and studied the sky as if expecting it to rain money.

  It took half an hour to find the alchemist’s. It faced onto a narrow back-canal that the boat could barely enter, opposite a butcher’s that looked as if it would stock not just horsemeat but anything the locals pulled out of the water. “Tell him I sent you,” Mattia said.

  The inside of the shop was poky and dark. The proprietor wore a leather hat that looked like an overcooked pie. Giulia knew what she needed, and she watched him grind up a powder from four types of crushed leaf and a grey dust that smelt of lavender, then made a mental note of the place in case she had to return.

  “Where to now?” the boatman asked, as she dropped back among the damp cushions in the bows.

  “Where can I find the procurator?”

  “The procurator? The lawyer fellow? That’d be the Palace of Justice. No way you’re getting in there, though. That’s for the nobles.”

  “Has he got an estate?”

  “Got a mansion to the south-west. It’s a fair way: eight saviours to take you there.”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t know if they’ll let you in. With respect, you don’t look like his sort of people.”

  “We’ll see when we get there.”

  She took the bottle from her bag and opened the packet that the alchemist had given her. She tipped the powder into her mouth and took a deep swig of wine, then sat back and waited for the magic to get to work.

  The boat swung onto the Great Canal. It was late afternoon, and there was less traffic than the day before. Only a few barges crawled down the waterway. Narrow ferryboats like her own moved around them, flies around cattle. A boat passed by, and as the boatmen greeted each other, the other passenger looked straight at Giulia: a small, prim nobleman, looking both haughty and stricken with guilt. She wondered where he was going.

  In the far distance she could see the masts of seagoing ships, ready to head to the Glass Islands and beyond. Something twinkled: one of the big houses on the far bank was plated in silver, too bright to be just polished metal. It looked like something from a story, a magical place knights might encounter on a quest. Giulia looked at the splendid row of mansions on the waterfront and thought, This place could be beautiful – no, it is beautiful.

  “Slow down,” she said. “Stop the boat.”

  He feathered the oars and brought them to a halt. She leaned over the edge and checked her reflection in the canal. The potion had done its work: the scars were invisible. Her cheeks looked entirely smooth. Giulia sat back up. The boatman stared at her face for a moment, then rowed on.

  So, it works. She ran a finger down her face, feeling the scars. So long as he did not touch her, the procurator would be fooled. And he wouldn’t be touching her.

  Seeing her face without the scars was like meeting some long-lost sister. What would she be, this other, uncut Giulia: the wife of a wealthy artisan, used to luxury? Just as likely she’d be a petty thief still, or a washerwoman with half a dozen brats. Life might be hard, but she took nobody’s orders now. She could fight for herself.

  Which was precisely what she might have to do. There was a killer out there, hiding among thousands. She stared across the water at the magnificent sprawl of Averrio, and thought, Where the hell are you?

  The grounds of the procurator’s mansion backed onto the waterfront. Two guards stood on a broad jetty, and behind them steps rose up to a wall and an iron gate. The guards wore red-and-yellow striped uniforms and smart new armour.

  The boat swung in towards the jetty, and one of the guards walked down to take the rope while his colleague stayed back, crossbow in hand.

  “Afternoon,” said the guard. He held the rope, not tying it off. “What’s this, then?”

  “I’m here to see the procurator. I’ve got a letter.” Giulia opened her bag and fished out the paper. She passed it to the guard. Under the jetty, the water lapped softly at the poles.

  The guard looped the rope around a post. “Stay here,” he told Giulia.

  The two guards closed the door and left her on the jetty. She waited. The boatman folded his arms and dozed.

  Behind the wall, in the grounds of the procurator’s house, came the steady ting of a hammer on steel. It made her think of Varro’s boatsheds. Where the hell was the guard? Come on, come on, what’s keeping yo
u…

  The door opened, and the guard looked out. “Here you go,” he said, and he gave her the letter back. “You can come up now.”

  “One moment, please.” Giulia crouched down and counted out a pile of coins. “Here’s ten saviours. You’ve been a real help, Mattia.”

  The boatman took the coins and stashed them out of view. “It’s a pleasure,” he replied. “Always good to have an interesting passenger. Would you fine fellows cast off the rope for me?”

  One guard opened the gate while the other ushered Giulia through.

  She was in a long, walled garden, beautiful and orderly like a tidy paradise. The grass was greener, the urns whiter than she’d ever seen in a city before, especially in winter. Alchemy. They must put something in the soil.

  “This way,” said the guard, and she heard his colleague step in close behind. She began to walk.

  A paved path ran from the gate to the rear door of the house. Milk-white statues flanked the path, gazing over her head. One bearded figure stood over a fountain, a huge seashell in his hand. Another wore nothing but a crown of leaves, toasting the air with a massive cup. A huge statue threatened the clouds with an upraised club.

  Giulia carried on, trying not to stare. The grounds had that smooth perfection that came from extreme wealth. Nothing showy, just everything in the right place. Imagine robbing a place like this.

  Stone soldiers stood at the end of the path, as if to remind the procurator’s men of their duty. Two more guards waited at an arched doorway. A bird twittered in a branch overhead. The guards stepped aside and one held the door open for her.

  She walked into a cool, high-ceilinged room floored with a chequerboard of marble tiles. Religious paintings hung over fireplaces: on her left, Saint Jehann the Annunciator helped cherubs place a crown on the infant Alexis; on her right, Alexis himself hovered above a wondering crowd, wings outstretched. The gentle, reproaching eyes of the saints gazed out at her. They knew her guilt, she suddenly felt, knew how much forgiveness she would need to get into their Heaven. You’re just nervous, she told herself. Keep calm.