Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  The symbol of the city.

  She’d seen a griffon on the night Father Coraldo had died. Maybe it belonged to the killer, maybe it had just been flying overhead. But it was worth remembering.

  The second book was A Grammar Spiritual, by John Dorne, Elayne’s former tutor. Dorne was a great sorcerer and a very wise man, apparently, but the book was simply baffling. It looked more like a guide to mathematics than magic. Giulia closed it, vaguely relieved that she didn’t understand the symbols and formulae inside.

  The next was more promising. This was The Magical History of the North by Olaf Magus. Magus glowered from the front page, a stern, churchlike man. Yes, Giulia thought, he’d know. She picked through the pages, using the pictures at the head of each chapter as a guide. She stopped at a woodcut of a thing like an upright bear, and her eyes followed her finger down the page.

  …taking on a Bear’s aspect, as did Norskers in ancient days when they ate the berserking herb, or indeed wolves, as Publius Nasus relates in his Book of Changes. For it is well known that the stories of the Quaestan Empire contain transformations said to be wreaked by pagan gods upon those very Imperators…

  Was it all like this? She turned the page and ran her eyes over the words, trying to find something that might help. She stopped halfway down.

  … That wretched man did declare that he, Piter Stumpff, had been given a belt by Devils of the Forest and drunk of the blood of a man-wolf mixed with his Beer, whereupon he did tie that belt upon his arm and could at once change into a Beast and sate his hungers upon the goodfolk of the town until he chose to become a Man and walk among them … To the Judges he said that he could alter as he pleased, but was strongest at the fullness of the Moon, and that no Disease would take him, nor any wound be struck that would not close within the Hour, lest that blow was to his head or heart, or the Blade forged of lunar metal, so great was the devilry in him…

  She carried on to the bottom of the page. “Hugh?”

  The knight looked up and grunted.

  “Wake up, would you?”

  “I am awake. What’s happening?”

  “Have a read of this. That man you killed back in the inn – Varro, the wolf – this is all about it. Here.”

  She pushed the book over to him and tapped her finger on the middle of the page. Hugh leaned in close, squinting. He followed the text with a finger as pale and knobbly as a birch twig.

  “We’re going to need better weapons,” she said. “It says they just heal up unless you kill them straight off.”

  “Edwin hit Varro in the neck,” Hugh said. “That seemed to stop the bugger.”

  Giulia nodded. “It makes sense: that’s where all the pipes are on a man. Maybe that’ll stop them no matter what.” She scratched her head. “The lunar metal’s silver, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I never was much good at books,” he said gloomily. Giulia reached out for the next volume on her list.

  They were setting the tables for dinner in the Scola. Women laid out plates, giving each a quick final polish before setting it down. The younger servants slacked where they could, but whenever the head maid turned to them, they hurried as if it hurt to be caught in her gaze.

  Sometimes Giulia had thought that, had things gone differently, she would have ended up as a servant in a big house. It occurred to her that, even in a comparatively pleasant environment like the Scola, she could never have got used to being told what to do. She wandered over to the head maid, a brooding, thick-armed woman who had the bored, hard glare of a toad.

  “Hello,” Giulia said. “I’m due to stay here tonight, as a guest.”

  “Yep,” said the woman.

  “I’ll be dining in my room. Could I, ah, borrow one of the spoons?”

  The woman stared at her.

  “I’m eating soup.”

  “Take what you like,” the woman grunted. “I’ll remember you took it. I remember everything.”

  “Thanks,” Giulia said, and she picked up a shiny spoon and fled. She fetched her cloak, armed herself and slipped into the city.

  Nightfall in the Western Quarter, where pagans and heretics lived. In torchlight, unbelievers and apostates hurried home from their work. The sky was darkening, swelling with rain.

  A Purist couple passed by, the wife lagging a few steps behind her man. Under the hat-brim, his eyes were sharp and hard, shining with joyless enthusiasm. He looked like an Inquisition soldier – not just in his dark clothes, but also in his keen, bitter face. Giulia watched them go.

  “It’s not right,” a cracked voice said from the side. Giulia looked around: an old woman stood beside her. The woman’s face was small and wrinkled, her back and hands bent. She looked as though she were shrinking, folding into herself until she disappeared. “It’s not right,” the woman said again.

  “Sorry?”

  “They beat their wives, you know. They all do. With their praying all hours of the day, carrying their heathen books about… it’s not right.”

  Giulia looked at the Purists, the grim man and his meek, broken-looking wife, and reflected that even if Purists didn’t beat their wives, they certainly weren’t doing themselves any favours. And yet she resented being told so.

  “I’m looking for a smith,” Giulia said.

  “There’s one,” the crone replied. “He’s one of ’em as well.”

  “A Purist?”

  “An angel-killer. Black as midnight, he is. This used to be a good place,” the woman said. “Third street on the left, if you want. I wouldn’t use him,” she added, and she made the Sign of the Sword across her chest. “Was it the Purists that cut your face?”

  Giulia walked off.

  “I’m closing,” said the smith. He was tall, strong-looking, with a round, dark face that looked as if it ought to be smiling. His hair was neatly plaited down his back. He was an Idacian, a Jallari sect who denied the existence of angels. Or at least Giulia was fairly sure that was what they denied. Whatever it was, it was enough for them to burn when the authorities were in the mood.

  “I need some work done,” Giulia said. “It’s urgent. I can pay.”

  “I’m sure you can,” the man said. His voice was deep and pleasant. He turned and started gathering his tools. “I’m finished for today, though. Come back tomorrow and I’ll do it first thing.”

  Can I wait a day? No. Best strike while the iron is hot. She thought of the tip of the poker, felt water gathering in her eyes and nearly hissed with anger.

  “It won’t take long,” she said, making her voice stay level. “It’s just a piece of silver—”

  Patiently: “Then get a silversmith.”

  Giulia took a deep breath. The room smelt of fireplaces and greased steel. “I need it done quietly. There’s a man out there – a sorcerer – and I need silver on my knife to wound him.”

  The smith paused, head tilted to one side. “Is that so?”

  “This sorcerer is enchanted. He used to be in the Inquisition. He killed a load of magical people and stole their powers during the war. Last week he murdered a priest and tried to have my friends hanged for it, then he came after me. I need a silver edge to protect me from him.”

  The blacksmith said, “And this is true?”

  “Yes. I don’t expect you to believe me—”

  “I don’t. Show me the knife.”

  She drew it and passed it over.

  “It’s a dwarrow weapon,” he said. “That’s an unusual thing for anyone to carry, let alone a woman on her own.”

  “Well, I am unusual.”

  “So I see.” Wryly, he said, “It’s fun to stand out, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, it’s just wonderful.”

  The smith looked at her knife as if there was a message written down the blade. “I’ll put a strip on the side, near the cutting edge. It won’t be the f
inest work I’ve ever done, but if you need him to feel the silver, he will. Will that do?”

  “That’ll do fine.” She took out the spoon she had taken from the Scola. “Here. Melt it down. You can keep what’s left over.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then. If you don’t come back, I keep your blade. And your silver. Fair?” He smiled and held out his hand to shake.

  The Scola was empty, the dinner finished, and there was something cold and bleak about the statues in the hall. They seemed to judge Giulia as she passed by.

  The cleaning crews were busy now, as they would be in any big house. A couple of women passed her in soft shoes, pulling a little cart laden with buckets and mops. They nodded to Giulia and she smiled back, wondering whether she was supposed to give them a coin.

  Her arm had stopped aching now. She strolled through the corridors, wondering how badly the wound would scar. She could imagine it now, a band of pale skin, crinkled and unusually soft. It wouldn’t be too visible, but she would know it was there. She didn’t mind thinking about the wound itself. It kept her mind off the circumstances in which she’d received it.

  They didn’t break me. If I was broken, why would I still be here?

  As Giulia climbed the stairs, she realised that she didn’t want to go to bed. In the dark, the events of the week would run back through her mind. She would see all of it again, ending in the cellar and the agony in her arm. She would remember what she had been pushing to the back of her mind: the shame of talking, of betraying herself and her friends.

  I am not broken, she thought.

  On the landing, Giulia waited to get accustomed to the dark. She climbed another, thinner set of stairs, past the servants’ quarters and up into the attic. She looked at the door behind which Hugh slept, and for a moment thought of waking him.

  What good would that do? Sooner or later, you’re going to have to sleep.

  She opened her door and slipped inside. Moonlight streamed through the high window. Giulia took off her boots and borrowed dress in the dim light, then pulled her kit out from beneath the bed. She put on her trousers and her black shirt.

  There was a little parcel on top of her bag: the tile, wrapped in its scrap of cloth. She lifted it out and looked at the dead body lying at the soldier’s feet. The soldier was one of Azul’s men, she was sure of it. It felt heavy in her hands. She wished that she’d shown it to Sethis – and then felt that it was her business only, as if Father Coraldo had entrusted it to her like a quest, a wrong that she had to avenge.

  Hugh had left her crossbow beneath the bed. Giulia sat on the bed and held it, pleased at the feel of the wood in her hands. No, I’m not broken, she thought. I’m the one who breaks things. She worked the ratchet until the string was fully drawn. Giulia laid a bolt in the groove and got up. She looked out the window and lifted the bow, peering down the bolt as if to shoot the moon.

  TWELVE

  “You’ve got a strip of silver down the blade, just behind the cutting edge,” the blacksmith said, turning Grodrin’s knife over in his hands. “It’s the best I can do for now – not perfect, but if the stuff is poison to them, they’ll taste it well enough. Here.”

  He held out the knife and watched Giulia as she examined it. Giulia took the weapon and tested its weight. It looked as if a single bead of molten silver had trickled from the handgrip to the tip of the blade. The morning light filtered into the forge and, as the sunshine caught the blade, the stripe of silver looked almost white against the matt black steel.

  She made a little jabbing motion, not wanting to wield it properly in front of this man. “That’s good. I like it.”

  The blacksmith watched her sadly. “A woman shouldn’t fight,” he said. “Her husband should take up arms for her – if she doesn’t have one yet, her father. It’s a shame to see a woman armed.”

  “I don’t have either,” Giulia said. She felt pleased with the knife. “And besides, this I’m doing myself. I’m the only person I’d trust to get it done.”

  The blacksmith shrugged. “Then we’re finished. Good luck to you.”

  He put out his grimy hand, and they shook.

  “When you find this Inquisition man, put a notch on him for me,” the smith said, and he turned back to his work.

  Giulia stood in the chilly sunshine and breathed in the fresh air, listening to the sound of the hammer on the anvil in the forge behind her. The street was busy, even now. A spicy, greasy smell came from a food stand beneath an awning; a Purist carpenter sawed away across the road, his face running with sweat. Two Marmurin priests walked past in their smocks, muttering in unison.

  Busy people, these heretics.

  It was time to meet up with Falsi. She caught a boat in the next street down and headed for Printers’ Row.

  The boat slid past peeling white buildings and open windows that the shadows turned into black squares. They slipped into a narrow canal with tenements on either side. High walls blocked out the sun, and it was chilly in the shade. Giulia pulled her hood up.

  Looking down the canal, she felt that she was passing through a gate. After two days’ rest she was back in Averrio: not as a suspect or a fugitive, but as a hunter.

  She’d once read that there was a sort of fish which died if it stopped swimming. That’s me, she thought. I can’t stop now: all I can do is outrun the Melancholia and keep fighting until all my enemies are dead. The moment I stop, I’ll be admitting failure – and then I’ll sink.

  Twenty minutes later, the boat drew up to the bank. The printers’ shops were small and smelled of alchemy. From behind the open doors she heard the steady, slamming thump of print-blocks striking paper. Someone had thrown a bucket of runny ink into the road, and it was dripping into the canal. A boy sat outside one shop, slotting metal squares into a frame. He didn’t look up as she went past.

  The pub was the one where she’d ambushed Falsi a few days ago. Even in the morning sun it managed to look poky and dark. There were no other customers.

  “Help you?” the publican’s wife inquired.

  “I’ll take a cup of small beer, please,” she said. As the woman passed her a beaker, she put a couple of coppers on the table and said, “I’m supposed to be meeting a friend. I don’t know if you’ve seen him.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s older than me; he’s clean-shaven and tired-looking. A Watchman.”

  The woman nodded. “What’s your name?”

  “Giulia.”

  “Wait here.” She shuffled into the rear of the room and came back from the shadows with a flat package in her hand. “Here. He left this for you. Said you’d know what it’s about. He said he had urgent business to deal with.”

  “Thanks.” Giulia took the package and her cup and sat down by the wall. She picked the string open. Inside was a slim book without a cover, the outer pages dark with grease. A loose sheet had been pushed into the front of the book. She opened the sheet up and read the big, careful writing inside.

  Your man is called Ramon Azul. Sorry about before. Remember me when you get rich.

  Giulia began to read.

  She was looking at a record-book. She had seen things like this before, but only from a distance: it didn’t make for easy reading. She ran her eyes down the various columns, just about able to work out what they meant. Varro had built dinghies, repaired hulls, commissioned figureheads. He’d bought in timber and pitch and sent out bills to noblemen, guilds and merchant freelancers. He had been busy, but innocent.

  Someone, presumably Falsi, had ringed a set of purchases. Giulia followed the circles, tracing Varro’s work across the pages. She had no instinct for figures, but Falsi seemed to have an understanding that she lacked. Giulia turned another page, squinting in the bad light, and saw a pair of crosses in the margin, like a warning. Her finger slid down the page.

  Two hulls sold to a man named Azul,
she thought. Hulls?

  She flicked through, looking for something else. No, this seemed to be on its own: Varro had provided two identical hulls – “modified”, whatever that meant – along with a set of enchanted machinery bought in from the Clockworkers’ Guild. Someone called Azul had ordered them for the guild of glassblowers.

  Interesting, but hardly proof of anything illegal. Most large guilds in Averrio had their own boats. Payment for the hulls had been received some months after the delivery of the goods. Falsi had ringed that too. Giulia re-read the dates. Nothing strange there.

  So who was Azul? A high-ranking member of the Averrian guild of glassblowers, from the looks of it. So a serious man, a powerful merchant. Giulia sat back and tried to visualise it all, to lock the people into their roles. She thought of Varro and his jolly, lying face, and then the old man, with his sour mouth and calm, ruthless eyes. A glassmaker. God.

  So this Azul – whoever he may be – is a merchant. He needs two boats. Is he the link to the New World? Did he sail them there? Thoughts shifted at the edge of her mind like smoke, too vague to quite grasp: Sethis’ talk about the bank, Varro wearing his underwater suit, the strange tile that the dead priest had been carrying.

  It all comes down to the port. Edwin and Elayne, the priest, the Glassmakers, Varro himself. It’s all about ships. Is he some kind of smuggler?

  As soon as the thought was in her head, she wondered why she hadn’t realised it before. Averrio was the perfect place to bring in goods, a sprawling port with links from Dalagar to Albion, whose trade routes reached deep into Bergania and the Teutic League, all the way to Maidenland and Santa Carilla across the World’s End Sea. It was a nexus of trade, a gateway to other worlds. Anything could come in and go out, provided that it could slip through the Decimus’ Customs patrols.

  So is Azul bringing in illegal goods? How would he get them past the Customs? Disguise them as glass? Is it glass itself that he’s smuggling?