Farewell to the Liar

by D. K. Fields

  ‘I trust him, Ruth. There is such a thing as stitcher’s code, remember?’

  There was a long moment of silence, broken by the sound of a door banging somewhere, followed by laughter. Then Ruth let Pruett go and turned her face to the wall.

  ‘Get on with it then,’ she said. ‘There’s somewhere I need to be.’

  Pruett went back to choosing a needle. ‘As charming as each other, but your capacity for pain is better. Cora here screamed the station down when I fixed her up after the Hook barge.’

  Was Ruth trying not to smile?

  The stitcher licked a length of black thread and stuffed it through the eye of a needle that looked to Cora thick as an ink nib. ‘How is your leg, Cora? Want me to check how it’s healing?’

  ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  He bent low over Ruth’s side and readied his needle. ‘Sure you don’t want that drink?’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Ruth said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Brace yourself.’

  Cora found she was pleased to hear Ruth scream.

  *

  When it was done, Pruett took his leave, and the madam called them a gig. A Garnuck’s gig. The madam clearly thought Commission employee wages were better than they were. Cora hoped Ruth had some money stashed about her. The madam gifted her sister a blouse made of thin red cloth, discarded by a whore no doubt, but presented to Ruth as if it was a real hardship to give it away.

  ‘With my compliments, Detective, for all your help in the last few years.’

  Ruth shot Cora a glance, but Cora ignored it, just as she ignored the wink from the madam. The bloodied remains of Ruth’s Seeder shirt were balled in the corner of the sad room when they finally left.

  ‘Where to?’ asked the gig driver, a young lad wearing a cap two sizes too big for him. Surely he couldn’t be old enough to take a pair of reins?

  ‘You know which safe house is next on the list?’ Cora asked Ruth softly as they climbed up. ‘You know where we’ll find Nullan?’

  Ruth put a hand to her side and winced. Beneath the whore’s red blouse were several thick layers of bandage wrapped around Ruth’s middle. ‘That stitcher of yours—’

  ‘He’s not mine,’ Cora said, and helped her to sit. ‘And he usually works on dead people. He’s not good with bodies that still have a pulse.’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘You know we charge by the time not the mileage?’ the driver said. ‘This ain’t a Clotham’s gig.’

  ‘Then why’s a scrawny kid like you driving it?’ Cora said.

  The driver gawped at her, revealing neat rows of good teeth. ‘Look, we going to sit here all day or you got somewhere to be?’

  ‘The docks,’ Ruth said. ‘The Murbick end.’

  ‘Finally,’ the driver muttered, shook his reins and the gig clattered off.

  ‘You’re going through with it then,’ Cora asked Ruth, ‘the trip upriver?’

  ‘Of course I am. It’s up to me to get the Wayward Hook, Cora.’

  Ruth half sat, half lay on the richly embroidered seat of the gig. The pattern was the symbol of the Tear woven in red and orange wool on a cream background. It had been so long since Cora had caught one of the expensive Garnuck’s gigs that she’d forgotten the seats bore the realm symbols. The flame of the Tear here, perhaps the horseshoe of the Wayward in the gig going the other way.

  ‘Do you remember that game we used to play,’ she said to Ruth, ‘when we took Garnuck’s gigs?’

  ‘All the gigs we took were Garnuck’s. Mother would hardly travel in anything run by Clotham, would she?’

  ‘But the game. We had a score card to keep track of the seat designs.’

  Ruth smiled, closed her eyes. ‘I remember. There were always so many gigs with Seeder spades on their seats. What colours were they?’

  ‘Green and brown,’ Cora said.

  ‘Of course they were. Seeders and Perlish. High numbers for those. Never any Wayward. You were so excited when we finally caught a gig with horseshoes on the seat.’

  Cora stroked one of the red-and-orange flames on the gig seat. ‘So were you.’

  ‘Suspect I was humouring you. The way you went on about the scorecard.’ The gig jolted over a pothole and Ruth cried out.

  ‘You won’t humour me now?’ Cora said, her gaze on her sister who lay prone in the corner of the seat, her eyes screwed shut. She was clearly feeling every uneven cobble, of which there were plenty now they were nearing the docks. It wasn’t just the roads that gave it away. The air changed too, carrying the sourness of the river here where people loaded and unloaded, sailed and docked, all day and all night.

  ‘Cora, please.’

  ‘You’re hardly in a state to go sailing.’

  Ruth kept her eyes closed, but her hand gripping the edge of the gig’s seat was as pale as the wool. ‘I have to get the Hook. To be back in time for it to be displayed according to the Commission rules, I have to leave today. There’s no time.’

  The gig rounded a corner and the oily expanse of the River Stave came in sight. It was at its dirtiest dockside. Lining the docks themselves was a jumble of barges and people swarming all over the decks, most of them inked.

  ‘And Tannir?’ Cora said. ‘He nearly killed you today, Ruth. I should have—’

  ‘Set us down here!’ Ruth called to the driver. He did as he was bid but with more speed than Cora thought was right; the gig skidded to a halt, and the horse bucked in her traces.

  Cora helped Ruth down. ‘At least you’ve got some colour in you again.’

  ‘See? Better already!’ Her sister fished some coins from the Seeder trousers she was still wearing and tossed them to the driver. He opened his mouth to protest the lack of tip, but then took one look at the women and flicked the reins. The gig went haring off down the dockside, Caskers calling out curses as it thundered past.

  ‘Some people are in too much of a hurry,’ Cora said, shaking her head.

  ‘Nullan’s crew will be waiting for us. We’ve been waylaid too long as it is. Come on.’

  To Cora’s surprise, Ruth turned away from the water’s edge and headed down an alley. Cora checked for anyone watching, before following her sister into the crate-strewn, puddled passage that ran between tall warehouses that had seen better days – blistered paint on warped wooden clapboard, windows cracked, some holes stuffed with rags. Attempts at painting the walls with pitch to keep the rain out appeared to have stopped halfway up the building fronts. This kind of dereliction wasn’t seen at all the docks in Fenest, but it was true of the Murbick end where the gig had set them down. She’d walked this patch as a constable, but not for years now. Once she made detective at Bernswick, this part of town was someone else’s problem.

  In the thin strip of sky overhead, clouds had gathered. The warmth of the day was still hanging around, much like the stink of the docks, but now there was rain on the air.

  ‘Tannir,’ Cora said, ‘he should never have been able to get that close to you.’

  ‘But he did. There’s no use going on about it.’

  She felt the first drop of water on the back of her neck. ‘I failed you.’

  Ruth spun round, wincing with the effort. ‘You saved me, Cora! Without you I’d never have made it out of the Water Gardens. I would have bled to death on that stupid little bridge, surrounded by stupid little Perlish shrubs.’

  Cora opened her mouth to argue but Ruth wouldn’t let her, grabbing her arm.

  ‘I know, I know – you want to protect me, stop murderous Wayward men from stabbing me in the first place, but they’re pretty keen on that, let’s be honest.’

  Despite herself, Cora smiled. ‘That I won’t argue with.’

  ‘Good. Come on.’ Ruth carried on down the passage, but she kept hold of Cora’s arm, leaning on it with all her weight. Not that there was much of it, but it was a surprise nonetheless.

  ‘There’s one good thing to say about Tannir managing to stab you,’ Cora said.

  ‘Th
is should be interesting.’

  ‘Tannir being the fool that he is,’ Cora said, ‘there’s a good chance he believes he killed you today.’

  The end of the alley was in sight: open water, the sound of wood being shunted about. Someone crying the price of fish. The raindrops came thicker, faster.

  ‘Let’s hope so. That would make for a quieter journey upriver.’

  ‘I was thinking the same,’ Cora said.

  They stepped out onto the dock again – Ruth’s cut-through, Cora realised now, having avoided an open corner of the quay that was crammed with Caskers and their wares. It was definitely raining now: a story for the Painter, beginning with Cora soaked through and staring at a barge.

  It was wide, low-lying and tied up opposite the alleyway – and as barges went it had seen better days. The peeling paint and the cracked windows looked a lot like the warehouses they’d just passed. On the much-patched side was the remains of a painted design. Some kind of flower?

  This wasn’t the weather to take a closer look, and there didn’t seem to be time either. Coming down the gangway towards them was a familiar figure: slight, wearing a cowl, throwing up her inked hands as if to say where have you been, what happened? Nullan hurried them onto the barge. Ruth was trying to explain, but Cora couldn’t hear them over the noise of the rain drumming on wood, and everything around her was made of wood: the barge, the cart alongside, the last of the crates and barrels being loaded by three or four inked dockhands. There was another figure with them. He turned and looked at her. A welcome sight, his auburn topknot dripping with rain, his slipdog hide glistening with the same. Even his metal cheekbones looked shinier.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ she said to Serus.

  The Rustan shrugged. ‘And miss a boat trip in this lovely weather?’

  ‘Serus. This trip – it might not be safe.’

  A cry went up from the barge. It was Nullan, calling Cora aboard.

  ‘I guess it’s time to find out,’ Serus said, then frowned. ‘Why are you wearing Seeder clothes, and is that blood on your shirt? Cora—’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Serus offered his arm. ‘My favourite kind.’

  Fifteen

  Nullan led them through the barge, explaining who was who, what went where, what not to touch, how not to get in the way of the crew – passengers in the wrong place at the wrong time were readily thrown overboard. Given the water seeping through the floor and dripping from the ceiling, the boat might sink and see them all in the water anyway.

  They were making their way along a corridor that ran the length of the barge, cutting straight through the middle. Ruth had stayed behind, sitting in the alcove near the door. She was fine, she said, though her pallor suggested otherwise.

  ‘This thing is bigger than it looks,’ Serus said to Cora, practically shouting to be heard over the noise of the rain hitting the patched wooden roof.

  ‘That’s often the way with Casker barges,’ Cora said. ‘Searched a few in my time at Bernswick. They often seem like different vessels inside.’

  ‘That sounds useful for a crew looking to smuggle cargo,’ Serus said.

  ‘They take a lifetime to search,’ Cora grumbled. ‘All the tiny cupboards and tables that turn out to be boxes…’

  Serus looked pleased at this idea. ‘Ingenious, really. Making use of every bit of space. I wonder if it’s the same in Bordair, with their houses.’

  Bordair – the inland lake the Caskers called home.

  ‘I’ve never been. You?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘But I’d like to go. Perhaps, after the election, we could—’

  ‘Watch yourself here!’ Nullan called, and just in time – Cora saw the low beam and ducked. From the thunk and the groan behind her, Serus hadn’t been so quick.

  On either side of the corridor were small rooms – ‘cabins’ Nullan called them. Each had a narrow, hard-looking bed bolted to the wall – ‘berths’. Evidently there was a whole new language to learn once you were staying on a barge rather than searching one. Cora counted four cabins, two on each side of the corridor.

  The other rooms all had obvious purposes and less than obvious Casker names: the room with a stove and jumble of dented pans was a ‘galley’, the place to sit and eat the food cooked in the galley, with wooden benches built into the walls, was called a ‘saloon’, and then there was a windowless room packed floor to ceiling with ropes and hooks, casks, folded canvas, what looked like nets, poles.

  ‘What’s the name of this one?’ Cora said.

  Nullan looked at her as if she’d lost her wits. ‘It’s a store-cupboard, Cora.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  She thought she saw something move, in a heap of nets near her feet. Cora stumbled back, bumping into Serus. His torso was solid: a wall of muscle.

  ‘You get many problems with rats?’ she asked Nullan, but the Casker was turning away. Cora quickly shut the door of the storeroom without risking another look inside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Serus said, but she waved away the question. These barges were a mystery.

  ‘Now, as to sleeping, this is the Captain’s cabin.’ Nullan pointed to the berthed room that was slightly larger than the others and with an extra piece of furniture in the form of a desk, above which were pinned maps and charts – the Union, but with all the rivers marked. There was more blue than Cora had imagined. Nullan pointed to another doorway. ‘Ruth and I will share this one, Harker is in this one, and you two will take this. Hope you don’t mind sharing. We weren’t expecting an extra passenger.’

  Nullan shot Cora a knowing look, one that made the piercings in her eyebrows dance about.

  To Cora’s great frustration, she felt her cheeks growing warm. ‘It’s fine,’ she said gruffly.

  Serus, she noticed, was suddenly interested in the water-marked and scuffed wood panelling that lined the barge’s gloomy interior. The rain thundered down and the dark, noisy corridor was at once too small and too full of embarrassment.

  ‘What’s through here?’ Cora said, pushing past Nullan to open the door at the end of corridor.

  Nullan reached out to stop her. ‘Don’t—’

  Cora banged the door open and found herself in the open air, the rain louder, the air wet, though she was spared the rain thanks to a canvas canopy, which covered the front of the barge while being open on three sides. She vaguely remembered Nullan had said this was called the ‘for’ard’. The space ahead was dominated by a large wheel and the woman standing in front of it, who spun round and was now frowning at Cora.

  ‘If you’re the sister,’ the woman said, looking Cora up and down, ‘you don’t look like you’re related.’

  ‘You’re not the first person to say that.’

  Cora extended her hand, and the grip that met it was firm, hot and calloused.

  ‘Captain Luine.’

  Short metal bolts pierced the skin on the inside of the woman’s ears. Her lips and nose were heavily ringed. One side of her face was inked with some kind of pointed design Cora hadn’t seen in Fenest before, and her spikey grey hair reminded Cora of an old broomhead.

  She looked well past seventy but might have been younger; a Casker’s life on a barge aged a body almost as fast as the Wayward aged in the saddle. A short pipe was crammed into the corner of her mouth. There was a box of levers beside the wheel, and on top of the box was a cup of something that looked and smelt to Cora like lannat: a spirit the Caskers made while sailing. It kept well on barges, apparently, and was enjoyed by a certain kind of customer in the Dancing Oak – the hard-living kind of customer, because from the smell of it, lannat stripped the pitch from barge-boards too. The captain saw her eyeing the glass.

  ‘Got to keep the chill off. This rain. Get you one?’

  ‘She doesn’t drink,’ Nullan said from behind Cora.

  Captain Luine’s eyebrows shot up. ‘They told me you worked for the Commission.’

  ‘I did, but—�
��

  ‘Those bean-counters!’ Captain Luine wasn’t listening. ‘Would drive anyone to drink, working for them. All the bleedin’ forms!’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ Cora said.

  ‘We’re moving?’ Serus peered out from underneath the canopy. ‘I wasn’t aware we’d cast off.’ He turned to Luine. ‘A smooth-running vessel you have here, Captain.’

  Luine’s pride was obvious, as was the fact Serus had just gone up in her estimation, even if he was an unexpected passenger. The captain slapped the wheel. ‘That’s the Pretty Lilly for you, my Rustan friend!’

  Lilly. That explained the faded flower design Cora had seen on the barge’s side as she’d come aboard. Pretty was a stretch though.

  Captain Luine stared lovingly at her wheel. ‘She might not be the newest barge on the river—’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Cora muttered.

  ‘—but you can trust old Lilly here to get you where you need to go. Wherever that might be.’

  The barge was making its way past the docks, close enough to the other craft moored there that Cora felt she could easily step right onto another barge. It seemed a risky course, but Captain Luine was making it with only half an eye on the river.

  ‘Go on up if you want a better view,’ Luine said. ‘You’re responsible for your own lives on this barge, but keep away from the edge of the deck, and you’ll be all right.’

  Serus needed no encouragement, and with a leap that reminded Cora of the Rustan children in the Seat of the Commoner, he was away and out of sight. Cora clambered after him, feeling a sharp pull in her leg: the injury from the Hook barge still giving her trouble.

  ‘Here.’ Serus reached for Cora’s hand and pulled her up, out of the footwell where the captain had her wheel and levers, onto the deck.

  It was possible to walk all the way round the barge on the deck, and over it too – rickety ladders leaned against the humped forms of the rooms, giving access to the roof where cargo was lashed down to keep it from rolling into the river. There were hatches between the bundles of cargo that meant a nimble Casker could drop down into the belly of the barge as needed.

  Standing on the roof now, adjusting the stained and fraying sails, the rain sluicing off him, was a tall, slim Casker roughly the same age as her. His ink began on his chin and cascaded down his neck – a pattern of hatched lines. Cora guessed this stringy man must be Harker. He, Captain Luine and Nullan formed the crew of the Pretty Lilly to take Ruth upriver. Harker stopped his work to raise a hand. The inked hatching was on his palm too. As Cora returned the gesture she realised she hadn’t let go of Serus’s hand since he’d helped her up. He was smiling and she found she was too.