Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  The griffon lifted him in its jaws. For a second, Azul’s eyes met Giulia’s. He stared at her like a damned soul staring out of Hell, desperate and terrified, and then the griffon closed its beak. Azul’s face screamed, bled, and was gone.

  The griffon raised its head, Azul dangling from its beak like an afterthought, and leaped into the air. The huge wings beat at the sky, rain glistening on feathers as it bore its prize away.

  Elayne fell against Giulia’s side. Giulia caught her, took her weight. She saw how sick the wizard looked, how fevered her eyes were.

  “I can stand,” Elayne gasped. “Oh God, look at Hugh!”

  The knight rolled over onto his side. Giulia ran to him. She knelt down, but Hugh was not looking at her.

  “Oh, Hugh,” Elayne said. She bent down and took his hand. Giulia wondered if she could heal him. Surely not, not now.

  Giulia looked out across the sea, at the distant lights of Averrio. A wave of nausea washed over her, made her shudder, and then it was gone. She took Hugh’s left hand and, with Elayne’s help, got him to sit up.

  “You rescued me,” Elayne said.

  Hugh nodded. “Yes, I did,” he replied, and he smiled weakly. “Probably shouldn’t make a habit of it, though. I’m going to need help getting down. Giulia, do you mind if I lean on you?”

  EIGHTEEN

  Rain sluiced across the city in sheets. At the edge of the canal, an old man in a fur-trimmed cloak watched a family making their way towards the waterside. Their son ran ahead, golden hair bobbing like a candle-flame.

  “Madam?”

  Giulia looked away from the window. On the other side of the table, the clerk had finished scratching into his papers. “Sorry,” she said. “I got distracted.”

  “We’d reached the point where you had come down from the rooftop,” the clerk said, his quill raised to write. “I wondered if you had anything more to add.”

  “Oh, right. No,” she said, “I think that’s about it.”

  “Hmm,” the clerk replied. He put the pen down. Behind him, a large portrait of the Decimus smiled across the room. The Decimus wore a white robe embroidered with gold thread, and a matching hat. He looked wise and gentle: not friendly, exactly, but a friend. The clerk seemed drab in comparison. “It’s quite a story,” the clerk said, managing to look completely unimpressed. “Fish-boats, griffons, men turning into beasts… quite a story.” He blew across the paper in a showy way, then rolled it up. “I think that just about covers it. Thank you for being so forthcoming.”

  I didn’t have much choice.

  “Now, then.” The clerk folded his hands. A signet ring caught the light. “We have an offer to make to you and your friends, in recognition of your services to the city. You will be given a generous sum of money as a reward, and access once again to your account at the Fiorenti Bank. In return, you and the knight Sir Hugh of Kenton will undertake to leave Averrio in a week’s time and not to return for a year and a day. You’ll be escorted to whichever exit you care to use, and then you’ll be free to do as you please. As far as the money is concerned, we were thinking of five hundred saviours between the two of you.”

  “That suits me fine,” she said. “To be honest, I’m pretty much finished here.”

  “Excellent,” the clerk said, and he stood up and held out his hand.

  “Before I go,” Giulia said, “I want to check a few things.”

  The clerk looked at his hand as if it disappointed him. He sat down. “Very well, then.”

  “The Scola san Cornelio – will it be opened again?”

  “Of course. In fact, the members are to be awarded a special plaque recognising their loyalty to the city in this, ah, difficult time.”

  “I’m sure they’ll love it. And the fey folk?”

  The clerk looked bothered. “Yes, they’ll be recognised. The Scola will of course be permitted to continue its relationship with the fey. I’m told that the issue of recruiting a new procurator will be put to the Council of a Hundred at their next meeting.”

  “Good. You ought to talk to your bosses about the New World, too. Whatever’s been happening out there, it’s nasty. You don’t want to end up connected to that.”

  “I will.” The clerk opened his hands, as if to show that none of this was his fault. “Did you have any further questions?”

  Giulia said, “No. We’ll be gone in a few days.” She stood up, looked at the door and paused. “Wait a minute. There is one more thing—”

  ***

  Children rushed around the table-legs. It was not a large room, and Rinalta Falsi struggled to get the pot to the table without being tripped. The dog looked up, as if he already sensed the possibility of spilt food. “Sit down, all of you!” she cried. “Just sit down, dammit!”

  On the other side of the table, her husband was reading a letter. He rested his forehead in his left hand, while the fingers of his right hand followed the writing down the page. His little finger was splinted.

  “Rinalta, will you shut them up?” He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. Although healing, the left side of his face was still badly bruised. One of his legs rested on a stool: the apothecary had said he’d fractured a bone in his lower leg, and for now he walked with a crutch. It was getting better, but slowly, and nobody needed a Watchman who couldn’t run.

  “I’m trying,” Rinalta said, opening the pot. “It’s having you stuck at home that does it. They’ve got you here and they think it’s a bloody holiday.” She shook her head and casually pushed Felicia, their second youngest, out of the way.

  “God almighty,” Falsi said.

  She watched him read. “What is it now? If they want their armour back, tell ’em that you pawned it.”

  He looked up and shook his head. “It’s not that. They’re making me a captain. They’ve given me Orvo’s job.”

  ***

  The rain didn’t stop all week. Hugh spent most of it in bed, in an expensive inn paid for by the authorities. He slept for days on end.

  Giulia visited him every day. She found a couple of books about knights in the Scola’s library and took them to him to help pass the time. On the second day she visited an armoury in the town. She had money to spend.

  Giulia struggled up the steps with a metal cuirass under one arm. It was of the modern type, with plates attached to the waist to hang down and cover the thighs. Two apprentices had shined it at the armourers, and she was careful not to get handprints on the steel.

  She nudged Hugh’s door open and carried the armour in. Hugh was asleep. Elayne sat beside the bed. The winter sun shone through the window, catching her hair and making the sheets and her dress look fresh and clean like the colours of a painting. It occurred to Giulia that Elayne must have been quite a beauty in her day. Giulia wondered what she would look like if she ever reached Elayne’s age.

  The wizard was holding Hugh’s hand. “He’s doing well,” she said.

  Giulia set the armour down beside the bed. “Tell him it’s from me.”

  “I will,” Elayne said, and she smiled up at Giulia.

  As Giulia walked downstairs, it occurred to her that there was a good reason why normal people didn’t step off the beaten track. Human beings were meant to grow up, learn a trade, get married and have children: anything else was swimming against the tide. Maybe it was a noble thing to want something else, or maybe it was just selfish and unwise, but no normal person would do it.

  Mattia the boatman was sitting in his boat, waiting for business. “I wondered where you’d got to, milady,” he said. “And then I thought it might be best not to know.”

  She climbed into the boat and settled down on the cushions. “Is that so?”

  He smiled. “Some women are trouble, they say. Where to?”

  “The Scola san Cornelio, please. Actually, do you remember that floating chapel you took me to? Co
uld we go there on the way?”

  “Gladly.” He pushed them off, and began to row.

  Giulia leaned back and put her hands behind her head. The sensation of moving over the water was pleasant, as if she were floating. She felt light, as though a weight had been taken from her. Then she realised that the weight she was missing was fear. “You know,” she said, stretching, “you’re right. Some women are trouble. And I’m the worst of them. Or maybe the best. I’m the meanest, smartest, most deadly woman that God ever made. Lady Macgraw, Sycorath the witch-queen? They’ve got nothing on me.”

  They swung out into the Great Canal. Giulia looked across the expanse of water, at the hundred different boats going about their work, and felt a kind of tranquil sadness that she had only ever known Averrio as a place of danger. She shielded her eyes and saw the floating shrine, with its high sides and painted sail.

  They came in alongside the ship, and the monks helped Giulia climb on board. In the quiet of the little chapel, she bowed her head to Saint Senobina.

  Thank you for delivering me from my enemies. Thank you for keeping me hidden, and for giving me the chance to take revenge on those who wronged me and others. But this was too close. I’m asking you never to let anything like this happen to me again. Just easy work from now on. Amen.

  She opened her eyes and took a little bag off her belt. There was a tradition among thieves that offerings to Senobina had to have been stolen first.

  It’s a good haul this time. It was stolen even before I took it.

  She put it into the offerings tray. Giulia had lied to the city clerk when she’d said that she had gone straight down from the roof. She’d slipped into the dining room, and found a little strong-box full of gold. Much of it would be going to Saint Senobina, as alms for the poor.

  Mattia was waiting in the boat. “To the Scola, then?”

  “Please.”

  Giulia watched the grand houses on the waterside go by. She knew that they were beautiful, that it was turning out to be a fine, crisp winter day, but she felt nothing much. Instinctively, she reached across and felt her bandaged arm. It was a little sore, no more than that.

  They reached the Scola, and Giulia tied the boat to the little pier. Strange to think that she’d knocked a man unconscious here a few days ago.

  “I’m going to be here a while,” she said. “Then I’m leaving the city. Before I go, I want you to have this.” She took another small bag from her belt and passed it over.

  He opened it and saw the gold coins. For a moment, his eyes widened. Then he composed himself. “I don’t need alms, lady. I told you that before.”

  “It’s not alms – it’s a gift. I just want to see someone rewarded who isn’t a total shit.”

  “I can’t take all this.”

  “Give some to the beggars, then. Just make sure someone deserving gets it. And keep a little for yourself, eh? Buy yourself some new oars or something.”

  “To Hell with new oars,” he replied, looking back into the bag. “I’ll pay someone to row me around the city!”

  She waved as he rowed away. She knocked on the little door, and the guard let her in.

  The Scola san Cornelio hardly looked as if it had ever closed. The burned trees in the garden could have been the results of an experiment in natural philosophy gone wrong. Giulia told the guard that she had come to return some books, but in truth it was Sethis that she wanted to see.

  He found her at the library door. “Hello there.”

  “Hello.”

  Sethis wore a loose shirt, and she guessed he was bandaged underneath. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too,” she said. “Should you be walking about?”

  He smiled. He had one of the most pleasant smiles she’d ever seen: once you were used to the pointed chin and unusual eyes, there was something rather lovable about him. “I’m almost better,” he said. “I spent a few days over the border, in the forest. It did me a lot of good. How’s your arm?”

  “Fine. I mean—” It had scarred. There would always be a scar there, little more than a white stripe across her upper arm, but a permanent reminder of the man who had put it there – and the fact that she had killed him.

  Whenever she looked at it, Azul would be there, and all the things associated with him: the terror of the interrogation, the burning hunger for revenge, the Tower of Glass and Edwin and Elayne. She remembered Alicia and the underwater-boat, the fight on the tower roof and the sound of the griffon’s beak closing on its former master’s head. Screams, accompanied by the crack of bone. “Yes,” she said. “It’s healed well. Thank you, Sethis.”

  He took off his spectacles and began fussing with them. “Thank you. You know, to be honest, I think we happened to meet at the right time.”

  “How are the others?”

  Sethis shrugged and smiled, as if discussing beloved but exasperating relatives. “Very well. Portharion’s back on his island, which suits me fine, Iacono’s back with his maps, and Arashina’s very pleased, for now.” He grinned. “We’re meeting with the Fiorenti Bank next week. Funny how keen they’ve become to talk to us, all of a sudden.” Sethis stopped smiling. “Look,” he added, “you do realise this conspiracy doesn’t stop here, don’t you?”

  Giulia shrugged. “How do you mean? Azul’s dead. Most of the others are too. That’s the end of it, isn’t it?”

  “One of the conspirators never attended. Leth, the alchemist.”

  “The one who made the wolves in the first place?”

  Sethis nodded. “Yes. We want him. But we’ll need to track him down, of course. We thought it might be your sort of work.”

  “I’m not an assassin,” she said.

  “I know. The thing is, it’s difficult for us. There are places we can’t go, people who won’t talk to us… We’d need you to find him. That’s all. We can deal with it from there.”

  “Will someone pay me for all of this?”

  “Of course,” the dryad said. “Nothing’s been decided yet, but it’s been suggested that something in the region of six thousand saviours would be fair. The work would be dangerous, though.”

  Six thousand! With a little effort, Giulia kept her voice level and said, “I’ll think it over.” Where the hell does money like that come from? I thought the fey folk didn’t use coins?

  “Thanks,” Sethis said. “Do let me know.”

  “To be honest, I’ll have to see what Hugh thinks. We take it in turn to come up with work. It’s his turn, and he wants to go hunting for wyvern scales.” She sighed. “We’ve got to leave soon. It’s part of the deal: they want us out the city.”

  Sethis did not seem terribly surprised, but he did look sad. “Well, just ask around for me. The right people will put you in touch.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  They embraced. To her surprise, he kissed her briefly on the cheek. It was the scarred side of her face. “I’ll see you soon, I hope,” he said, and he stepped away.

  ***

  A boat crewed by four oarsmen made its way slowly down the Canal of the Five Steeples. The front of the boat was bright red. A crest flew from a flagpole at the stern.

  Some people, Brother Praxis reflected, never got the hang of secrecy. He leaned on the stone railing of the Regino Bridge, and watched the boat slide under the bridge from the corner of his eye.

  “A drink for you, good sir?”

  Praxis turned. A man stood beside him in a scruffy blue coat, probably some nobleman’s cast-off. The fellow wore a small keg slung across his body with a little charcoal burner underneath. He held up a grubby cup. “It’s fine spiced ale, milord. Guaranteed to take the edge off the cold.”

  “No, thank you.” Praxis passed him a couple of coppers: enough to make the man go away, but not enough for the fellow to remember him for long.

  The red boat pulled in to
the bank, and a slim man in a grey cloak stepped out. Praxis shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted at the man in grey. It was Antonio Benevesi.

  Benevesi headed east. Praxis walked down from the peak of the bridge, pausing to pat the faded head of a gargoyle for good luck. It was always best to do as the locals did.

  Two young men stepped out of a doorway. They were neat, scholarly-looking fellows, the sort you might find strolling down any wealthy street in Averrio, discussing the latest trends in philosophy or art. They followed Benevesi at a reasonable distance, chatting as they walked.

  Benevesi passed through a long passage. Clothes hung between the tenements like curtains raised above a stage. Praxis followed, knowing where the banker was headed. He’d arranged the meeting himself.

  The passage opened into a small plaza. On the far side, a woman swept a step clean. Otherwise, it was deserted.

  Praxis watched Benevesi cross the square, followed by the two scholars. They stepped into an arched alleyway at the far side. He could see the brightness of water on the canal at the far end of the alley. All of a sudden, the three men were silhouettes.

  The left silhouette slammed its fist into Benevesi’s gut. The right silhouette threw a cord over his head, yanked it tight around his neck and dragged him kicking and thrashing out of view. The three men became part of the shadows.

  After a little while Praxis felt someone beside him. He turned and saw a broad man, solid and ageing, with a broken, boxer’s nose. The newcomer moved slowly, with a sort of gentle dignity. “So that’s Benevesi dealt with.”

  Praxis nodded. “The whole operation closed down, just like that.” He blew out and looked sadly across the square. “Do you know how long it took to set this up, Nuntio?”

  The big man said, “I can imagine. Is that all the loose ends?”

  “All the ones I can get at, for now. The Scola is under the Council of a Hundred’s protection – it’s much too dangerous to interfere with them. The actual assassins who killed Azul seem to have left the city. They can be traced, though. They’re foreigners, so they should be distinctive enough.”