Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  “All right. Listen, I don’t know how you’d usually do this, but we’re going in quietly, right? I don’t want trouble if I can avoid it. Whatever happens, don’t kill anyone unless they go for us, and if you have to, put them down quick and make sure they stay down. Are you any good with that sword?”

  “I’m hardly King Alba, but yes, I’m reasonably skilled,” the dryad replied. “To be honest, this isn’t my usual line of work.”

  “It’s not mine either. Let’s go.”

  She jogged down towards the quay. The ships were as big as churches. Giulia slipped into the deep shadow cast by the hulls, the dryad running silently by her side.

  On the deck of a merchantman, two lookouts stamped their feet and shared hot wine. Steam rose from their cups. A guard strolled round the lattice of jetties and pontoons, a lantern bobbing over his head like a grave-light. Giulia stopped and crouched down.

  “There’s Edwin’s ship,” she whispered. “Up there, with the white figurehead.”

  She pointed. Sethis nodded. “I see it.”

  The guard turned and walked away from them. Now was the time to move.

  Giulia and Sethis were as small as birds in a herd of cattle. She did not like the ships: they were great beasts that whispered to one another in soft creaks, ready to swing together and crush the trespassers against their sides.

  Stay calm, she told herself. There’s work to do.

  “We need to get on board,” she said. The side of the Margaret of Cheswick loomed up like a cliff, far higher and steeper than Giulia remembered. Two clockwork cranes held it tight to the waterside. The big floats lying alongside looked like bodies risen from the deep. The gangplank was raised.

  Sethis pointed. “What about the ropes? Or the cranes?”

  Giulia did not much fancy climbing up the mooring-lines. “There,” she said. A single rope hung down from the railing, trailing over the float and into the water. “I’ll climb up. Wait until I give you the sign.”

  “Right. I’ll stay here.”

  Giulia blew on her palms and wiggled her fingers. Here we go, she thought, looking at the side of the ship. There was always something mysterious – almost magical – in taking the first step over the threshold and into someone else’s home. Into enemy territory.

  She stood at the waterside, bent her legs and jumped. She hit the float and bounced, dropping to all fours to keep her balance. It was like crouching on a huge wineskin. Giulia waited for the wobbling to subside. The float stopped shaking and she reached out and grabbed the rope.

  Giulia braced her feet against the hull and hauled herself up hand over hand until the railing was in reach. She grabbed the rail with her left hand and then the right, released the rope and heaved herself on board. She crouched down beside the railing, catching her breath as she surveyed the deck.

  It was clear and nearly empty, the ropes tied off with an almost fussy degree of care. Her eyes moved to the door to the captain’s quarters at the rear of the ship. There were lights on in there, and as she peered at it she saw that a panel in the window was cracked.

  Giulia hurried back across the deck. She reached the railing and beckoned at Sethis. The dryad stepped out of the shadows and simply ran up the mooring line, scuttling along it like a spider on a thread. Giulia stepped back, and Sethis dropped down beside her.

  She pointed at the light. “We’re going in there.”

  They crossed the deck, keeping out of view of the cabin. Giulia readied her crossbow and loaded a bolt.

  They stopped on either side of the door. “On three,” she said. “Remember, if anyone tries anything—”

  Sethis gripped his sword but didn’t draw it. “I know.”

  She reached out and took hold of the door handle. The metal was freezing against her palm. One, she counted, moving her lips. Two.

  Three – she threw the door open, strode inside with the crossbow raised and shouted “Stay still! Raise hands, everyone!”

  Edwin sat at a table, his right arm lifted in surrender. The left was in a sling. Papers lay randomly on the table, and on top of the papers there was a roll of bandage. A sailor stood next to Edwin’s chair, a pair of scissors in his hands.

  “Edwin,” Giulia said.

  He looked at her with empty eyes. “Giulia. Hugh said you’d come here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone. He went to find Elayne. I tried to stop him, but—” He looked down at his arm. “This happened.”

  Sethis looked at Giulia, eyes wide.

  “Where’s Elayne?” Giulia asked.

  “At an inn called the Althanor. Cortaag came here last night. He said that he knew people in the Council of a Hundred who could help us.” He saw her face and added, “I believed him. I thought he was a friend. So did Elayne. I thought she’d be safe with him. But Hugh said that he was in league with the men who killed that priest. He said that Cortaag kidnapped you.”

  “He did. Edwin, what exactly is happening here? I thought you were meant to have left the city.”

  “We sprung a leak. We had to stop to get the ship repaired.”

  “Right here, next to their warehouse? That’s convenient.”

  He sounded exhausted. “For them, yes. Giulia, Hugh’s half crazy. He’s gone to the Althanor, to find her. I’d have gone with him, but—” He moved his injured arm and grimaced.

  “Did Hugh do that to you?”

  “No,” he said, but she knew that, somehow, Hugh had been the cause of it.

  She said, “I came here the night before last. I broke into their warehouse, saw them unloading the gold they’ve stolen. I saw you and Cortaag on the deck, talking.”

  “I know,” Edwin said. “But—”

  “Cortaag works for Azul,” Giulia said. “If you didn’t know that already.”

  “Honest to God, Giulia, I’ve met Cortaag before, but I had no idea… not about this.”

  Giulia looked at Edwin, and wondered if he might somehow be innocent. Could it have been a mistake? Could Varro have sabotaged the Margaret of Cheswick while it had been stuck in port, to stop Edwin and Elayne getting away? Perhaps Cortaag had been instructed to befriend the two Anglians, to dupe them into joining the conspiracy. Maybe Azul had tired of the pretence.

  She didn’t have the time to find out. “I have to find Hugh. How do I get to the Althanor?”

  “It’s ten minutes from here,” Edwin said. “I can show you the way.”

  Giulia hesitated. Whatever he had or hadn’t done, she wanted him out of the way. But Elayne was his wife, after all. “All right. Just be careful.”

  “I will,” Edwin said. “Rollo, look after the boat. Nobody comes on board until we come back.”

  The man put down the scissors and nodded, as if this was, on balance, something he could just about do. “Yes, sir,” he said. “It’s bad luck to have a fey on board, anyway. Or a woman.”

  A bitter smile flicked across Edwin’s face. “You think our luck was good before they came in?”

  Whatever Edwin might have done, Giulia thought, his distress was real.

  Sethis opened the cabin door and they stepped onto the deck.

  ***

  Giulia and Edwin walked out of the Althanor tavern and stopped beside the canal. The door swung shut behind them, and the rumble of voices became a murmur again.

  Sethis was waiting outside. He looked at her and saw the bad news in her expression.

  “They never even went there,” she said. “Not Cortaag, not Elayne. The landlady never saw them enter.”

  Edwin looked how Giulia felt: desperate, lost. “Maybe she was wrong—”

  “She says she hasn’t left the place for two days solid. Nor have her family.”

  Sethis said, “Did the landlady see Hugh?”

  “Oh yes,” Giulia replied. “He came in and threatened th
e lot of them. They showed him that nobody was hiding there and told him what they’ve just told us.”

  Edwin raised his hand and touched his fingertips to his forehead. “Oh God.” He looked as if he was about to vomit. “What’re we going to do? What the hell are we going to do?”

  “Sirinara,” Giulia said.

  Sethis nodded.

  Edwin lowered his hand. “What?”

  “It’s an island, out beyond the bay. Portharion thinks that Azul might be staying there.”

  “Portharion? The sorcerer?”

  “Yes. Look, Edwin, Portharion said he’d talk to the Customs people. We might be able to sail over to Sirinara.”

  He shook his head. “Not in this weather. The wind’s either blowing into the bay or not blowing at all. Portharion could call up a wind to get us out there, though.”

  “So we have to wait for him to get here? There must be a quicker way. Can’t we row across?”

  “Giulia?” Sethis raised his hand. “There’s a little boathouse to the east, owned by one of the Scola’s members. We could use his boat. He’s, ah, something of an eccentric, but the boat’s fast. I could give you a lift to the island, then come back for the others.”

  “How long would it take you to get hold of the boat?”

  “Half an hour at most. It depends on whether the springs are wound up.”

  “Springs? Never mind. Can you meet me here in half an hour?”

  Edwin said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Giulia turned to him. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re already injured and we need you here. Go back to the ship, get your men armed and ready, and send out people to the Customs offices. Tell them to look for Portharion and Arashina, all right? They’re on our side. Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can do that. But Elayne needs—”

  “Elayne needs you to get ready. Once I’m on the island, Sethis will come back for you in the boat. I’ll try to find Hugh and we’ll meet you on Sirinara, wherever the boats unload. Understand?” He didn’t reply. “Edwin, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

  ***

  The two oarsmen worked hard as they watched Hugh preparing his weapons. They’d told him that they had been rowing people over to the islands for years, some of them very bad men, but Hugh had the feeling that they’d not seen anyone like him before.

  They could think what they liked. Hugh sat at the bows and stared out, as if the force of his glare could punch through the gathering fog. The boat turned, headed north-east.

  A cloud of thick mist lay outside the city, waiting for its chance to close in on Averrio. As they left the bay, the mist surrounded the boat, and it was as though Hugh was looking at the world through a piece of thin, grey cloth.

  A green light appeared in the air ahead. It was a soft and sickly glow, too weak to shine through the fog, but strong enough to unnerve. To Hugh, it seemed to come from some monster risen from the depths of the lagoon.

  That must be it. The place where they took Elayne.

  The glow spread and swelled as they drew closer to Sirinara.

  “That’s it,” the older of the rowers called. “The Tower of Glass.”

  The island lay low to the water. From the centre rose the single glowing spire. The upper two-thirds of the tower trapped the light so that it shone out of the fog.

  The tower grew. It seemed as if the rowers were motionless and the island was coming straight at them: a rock leviathan that would mow them down and smash their boat into planks.

  The boat creaked with every pull of the oars. Hugh looked up and found that one of the men was staring at him.

  “Problem, is there?” he said.

  “No, friend,” the man replied. Hugh suspected that one of the rowers was the other’s son. With their coats fastened and collars pulled up, they looked like a pair of murderers in a play. “No problem at all.”

  The details of the island were taking shape: the wide dock and the cranes looming over it like a row of gallows. Stop being soft, Hugh thought. You’ve stormed bigger citadels than this before.

  But not with my damsel inside.

  Anger stirred in him and he squinted across the water, eager to begin. A wide, high jetty stuck out towards them, a lantern at its end and a single figure in the lantern-light. The jetty had been made for unloading big ships: the boat could pass straight under it. Behind it, closer to the island, half a dozen smaller boats lay in a row.

  Those must belong to Azul’s men, he thought. They’re here.

  “Aim there,” Hugh said, “between the posts. As soon as I’m gone, go straight back and never tell anyone about all this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, milord,” said the older boatman.

  “Good fellow. Close the lantern and bring us in quietly.”

  The men gave the oars one last pull and the boat slid in to the dock. It slipped between the posts and under the jetty. The air smelt of damp timber and the lagoon. Hugh heard boots banging on the wood above his head. The footsteps reached the end of the jetty, turned and headed back towards the land.

  Hugh grabbed one of the posts that supported the jetty and pulled the boat in close, quickly wrapped up his things and threw his bag across his back. The posts were linked by crosspieces, slimy with accumulated muck. Hugh climbed onto the nearest crosspiece, locking his arms around the upright post. He nodded to the boatmen, and they pushed off as quickly as they could. Hugh crouched there in the cold, underneath the jetty, listening. A minute passed before he heard the guard return.

  The man walked past again, humming. Hugh listened to the boots stamping by overhead, felt the planks vibrate with the guard’s heavy tread. The footsteps reached the end of the dock and stopped.

  Hugh wondered what he was looking at, and hoped to God that it was not the boat.

  The man huffed and turned. Hugh caught a glimpse of his head. The guard’s face was young, too young to have been an Inquisition soldier back in the old days, but he looked crafty and alert. He began to walk away.

  Silent as a spider, Hugh climbed up after him. It wasn’t easy: his left knee didn’t like it much, but Hugh was not to be halted by such minor things. For God and the Land, he thought, and the old warcry made him feel strong.

  Hugh laid his bag down very carefully. The weapons were scabbarded inside, and the hilts clinked no louder than a couple of coins. Smoothly and carefully, he drew his sword. Hugh stood up and watched the guard, studying the way the man’s helmet met his neck. It wouldn’t be an honourable kill, of course, but this was a special occasion. You didn’t call the Inquisition out to single combat, especially when the life of a woman depended on it. Hugh lifted the sword in both hands, raised it slightly above his head. A diagonal cut would do it: sever the nerve-strings and windpipe in one blow. Here’s for you, kidnapper, he thought, and he loomed up behind the guard and swung.

  ***

  Giulia ran down to the docks and jogged along the waterside until she saw a gap in the wall of ships. The Great Canal was ink-black and endlessly wide. She glanced back at the Margaret of Cheswick and wondered what Edwin was doing inside. It was probably best not to stay here long.

  She tried not to think about the next few hours. Fear was beginning to seep into her bones, trying to freeze her. She rubbed her hands together and pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders.

  Something pattered on the water, a steady, fast sound like dozens of small paddles striking at once. She wondered what the Scola’s boat would look like. Did dryads have boats at all?

  It slid into view. It seemed to have been based on a gondola: long, thin, needle-like. But a spindly mast rose up from the centre, and two huge wheels flanked the hull, one on either side. Each wheel was made up of flattened spokes – the paddles she had heard – and the light flickered between the paddles as they spun.
She had seen something like it back in Pagalia, but this was a refinement on the design.

  The boat approached the dock at an awkward angle, and the prow bumped against the bank. Sethis beckoned. “Come on in!”

  Giulia sprang into the bows and climbed down between the great wheels. The rear of the boat was almost entirely taken up by clockwork, all cogs and coiled springs. “Is this safe?” she demanded.

  Sethis beamed at her. “Oh yes. I’m not much of a sailor, but we’ll be fine.” He released a lever and the wheels spun backwards, pulling them away from the dock. “It’s very quick, too. Just wait until the sails come out!”

  SIXTEEN

  Azul turned to the mirror and tugged his collar into shape. He looked his reflection over, impressed. He wore a velvet jacket under a long cloak: not actual Inquisition robes, but close enough to be reminiscent. His spectacles made him seem wise and stern. He looked like a man who knew how to get things done: how to reward friends, how to dispose of enemies, and most of all how to become rich.

  He wondered whether to wear his gloves. No: this was his event, and he’d do it by his own terms. No need to hide among friends. Besides, once they saw his snake-hand again, they’d remember that he meant business.

  The mouth at the end of his thumb yawned. It was a useful killing tool, but that had been very much a secondary benefit. While dosing his men up with serums derived from wolves and bears – and other things – Azul had altered his own body to be able to hibernate. When the end had come, and his old comrades had been hunted down and killed, he’d simply bricked himself into his cellar, gone to sleep like an adder in the wintertime and waited for everything to quieten down. His enemies had assumed that he’d fled. After that, it had been easy to start work again.

  On the far side of the room, a pair of blue alcedo birds hopped and bickered in their cage. No doubt a storm was on its way: alcedos could foresee the arrival of bad weather. Azul reached to the side of their cage, took out a little pot and tipped some more seed into their bowl.

  Someone knocked on the door – four times, in quick succession. “Come in,” he said.