Spring

  ‘Shove ’im in, Jackboy!

  Jack found himself obeying these sudden commands. He pushed past Pike and surveyed the craft below, which was long, narrow, clinker-built and very unstable-looking, rocking about on the troubled, nasty-looking water like a cork.

  He eased a leg into it, towards its prow end, got himself central and without more ado, sensing that time was of the essence, pulled Pike in after him.

  He stowed his portersac and stave, took Pike’s as he climbed aboard, and then reached a hand up for Barklice, the luggerbill now rocking around very dangerously. Barklice as good as fell into the small craft, as the young boatman helped Brief in at the stern end with a respectful, ‘That’s right, Master Brief, you just sit down and think nice thoughts!’

  Stort got in last of all and clumsily, only saved from slipping into the water by Arnold reaching down and quickly grabbing the seat of his trews, then effortlessly heaving him in so that he lay, a jumbled heap of limbs and possessions, in the bilges.

  The wind blew hard, spray spattering their faces, and Jack nearly slid into the water on the far side of the craft before he managed to squat tidily and regain his balance.

  Somehow, such was Arnold’s ability to command them all, in no time at all they were huddled down ready for their boat trip.

  Jack had always thought that canal water did not flow, but this particular waterway was flowing all right, first one way and then the other. Worse still, now they were all onboard, Jack could see why Arnold had earlier mentioned canoes. This vessel felt just like one, bobbing up and down, and side to side, with each wave that went under it and every little movement inside.

  Worse still, their combined weight was such that the luggerbill’s sides were only inches above the water at their central point.

  ‘Jack, loose that lanyard!’ called out Arnold.

  Jack guessed this must mean the rope which was precariously tied to the slender branch of an alder growing on the bank, which whipped back and forth and was slippery and hard to get hold of. His fingers were cold and they fumbled feebly to get the rope undone.

  ‘Jackboy, we’re out o’ time! Just snap the bugger off and be ready with your paddle.’

  Finally freeing the lanyard, Jack stowed it under the prow, then scrabbled around till he found a wooden paddle. His knees were sticking painfully into something hard and knobbly, but he ignored that discomfort, such was his sense of imminent disaster.

  The moment he released the rope, the canoe started bucking about, but was held fast to the bank at its other end by Arnold’s oar, whose handle end sported a hook which he had attached to a thick root protruding from the bank.

  ‘You others, get ready to bail. You’ll find tamoons stowed under the seats, and, lads, when I say bail I mean bail, ’cos our lives’ll depend on it. Ready, Jack?’

  ‘Ready,’ he said grimly, turning to face the watery darkness ahead.

  Then they were off, Jack using his paddle instinctively on one side and then the other, exerting all his strength into the water, with no idea at all where they were heading.

  Behind him, at the stern, Arnold Mallarkhi whistled cheerfully, and at one point called out, ‘Nice and easy, Jackboy, don’t overdo it. Save your strength till later. This is just the easy bit!’

  Stort began humming in a very desperate way, his most recent experience of water not having been a good one.

  Barklice stared goggled-eyed into the dark on one side of the canoe; Pike, swearing quietly under his breath, was staring out on the other side.

  Beard ruffling in the wind and rain, Brief sat erect, his eyes firmly closed.

  The only available light came from the wild sky above them, and occasionally the orange lights illuminating the bridges under which they passed.

  Ahead lay only darkness.

  But Arnold seemed to know exactly what he was doing, his cheerful whistling giving them confidence, but his occasional whooping and hollering, whenever the canoe banged and bucked, encouraged them rather less.

  ‘Jack, keep yer fingers well inside the boat, if yer after holding on to ’em! We’re about to start a jigger here.’

  The sides of the canal narrowed to become vertical walls of slimy brick, and the water was suddenly so powerful in its surge that it lifted and banged them hard from side to side.

  ‘It’s jiggering!’ called out Arnold. ‘Get ready to bail, my boys! Jack, you got to lean harder into the paddle one way when she’s going the other, else you’ll sink us!’

  It was just as well that Arnold had instructed them to be ready with the tamoons – which resembled small woks – because moments later a wall of water cascaded into the canoe from one side and then the other, and gradually they began to sink.

  ‘Backs into it now, including you, Master Brief! Jack, lean a bit harder, but yer doing good.’

  For a few seconds which felt like hours, they battled to keep the craft afloat and even the right way up. Jack, who had turned his head just as the water gushed over him, faced forward over the prow again. To his horror all he could see there was a wall of dark brick, green with weed, and with a few rusting chains dangling down into the water.

  He looked back at Arnold, who was leaning hard into his oar to bring the boat about – the vessel suddenly slow and still, while monstrous suckings and slurpings emerged from the darkness towards which they were steering.

  ‘Ready now, boys!’ shouted Arnold. ‘And listen good. We’re turning about and backing into the sewer, before it backs-up into us. Lie low, hold on, and hold yer breath. Jack, grab that lanyard and wrap it round yer wrist. If yer get swept off, just hold on till she’s through, and we’ll fish you out the other end!’

  The walls he had seen with such alarm only moments before slid slowly past until, to Jack’s amazement, he saw that Arnold had somehow managed to bring the stern of the boat round to face a small arched tunnel that looked too low in the water for their craft to enter. Worse, they were going in backwards, and worse still they were being greedily sucked in.

  It looked as if Arnold, and his oar, would be swept right off by the rim of the arch as the luggerbill shot into the tunnel beyond, but at the last moment he ducked down into the stern bilge and lowered the oar along the length of the craft.

  As it gathered speed, Jack realized that he was confronting the same threat if he did not get down quickly. At that point he noticed that Pike, looking totally terrified, had clenched the fingers of both hands across the sides of the boat.

  Jack dived forward to pull Pike’s hands out of harm’s way, before himself crouching down as low as he could.

  Bang! And they were in, the tunnel’s ceiling now just inches above their heads, jiggering from side to side, pitch blackness descending, water rushing at them from all directions. Jack’s right hand clung instinctively to the lanyard, and that was just as well, for several times, as the tunnel ceiling rose, he felt himself being pushed or even sucked out of the boat.

  But he held fast, kept down, and hoped his friends had managed to do the same.

  Then, as suddenly as it started, it all came to an end, and they were through the tunnel into a great and mysterious underground pool lit only by a solitary shaft of light angling down from some distant opening above.

  Slowly their eyes adjusted to the murk and they saw that their craft was silently circling on some unseen current in the dark deep water immediately below them, with no apparent way out of the cavern they were in.

  ‘Well, that was a jigger and a half,’ crowed Arnold cheerfully, his voice echoing about that lofty, cathedral-like space from all sides of which came the constant whisper of wild water.

  ‘It’s backing down now, so we’ve still got a wait of two or three minutes. Then hold fast again, especially you, Jack, because this time we’re going the right way through, so you’ll not want to come off or you’ll be dragged under the keel and get crushed on the rollers. Understood?’

  ‘Um . . . I do,’ said Jack, anxiously.

  ‘When we take o
ff, we’ll take off fast, so listen out for the gargling – because that’s the . . . clue . . . Jackboy . . . Jack! Doooown!’

  It was too late.

  Deadly and powerful, the water’s currents, acting in silence, had brought the craft out of the gloom towards another sewer entrance. The others had seen it, but Jack was still curious about this place they were in, and therefore turned to face the sewer entrance so late that he instinctively raised his left arm to protect himself and it was caught on some sharp obstruction at the apex of the arch, while his left was still holding on to the lanyard as the boat slipped forward beneath him.

  ‘Lift ’im!’ commanded Arnold as Pike and then the others, one by one, tried dragging Jack back into the boat. ‘Lift him!’ he yelled again.

  Only Brief understood but, powerful though he was for his age, he was unable to raise Jack high or quickly enough to get him off whatever had snagged him.

  But Arnold himself knew what to do.

  He thrust the hook end of his oar at Jack, and caught the fabric of his jacket in it, while setting the other end firmly against a rib in the stern. As the boat swept under the arch, its own momentum pushed against the oar, which lifted Jack right off the unseen obstruction, briefly up the wall, and then out over the water beyond the arch before, the boat continuing on underneath and the oar now falling flat behind the craft, he tumbled down along with it.

  ‘Grab this rope, Jackboy!’ yelled Arnold, and a length of rope came shooting out of the dark hole of the sewer mouth, straight into Jack’s outstretched hand.

  He grabbed it, quickly, looped it tight around his hand, and clenched his fist firmly over it.

  Then all was chill darkness and cold submersion as he was dragged along underwater, glad that instinct had made him gulp some air immediately before he was submerged.

  His lungs bursting, he found enough purchase on the bottom of the sewer to push himself upward, only to find himself in a space full of water.

  I’m going to die . . .

  He felt as if his arm was being half wrenched off, his body repeatedly bashed into brick projections and sills, felt himself move faster, his chest suffering a ferment of pain, and suddenly he was up and out of the water and into spinning light, spluttering and choking as willing hands grabbed him and pulled him back into the luggerbill.

  ‘You can let go the lanyard, Jack, and get back to your station, there’s still work to do!’

  Half-drowned, gasping, shoved roughly along the length of the boat and back to the prow, Jack was astonished to now see Pike holding the paddle.

  ‘Grabbed it,’ he rasped by way of explanation, ‘but you’re the expert!’

  He thrust it back into Jack’s hands just as Arnold called, ‘We’re off again!’

  ‘Couldn’t someone else have a go?’ said Jack.

  ‘You’re doing just fine,’ growled Pike, to which Arnold added, ‘He’s a natural!’

  Sopping wet and still grumbling, Jack took his position once more at the prow.

  It was only then he noticed they were outside now, in a concrete canyon it seemed, and on a watercourse of some kind, and moving faster and faster yet again.

  Above loomed the same dark sky of a stormy afternoon, while ahead lay the glow of a city lighting up for evening.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ called out Arnold Mallarkhi, with the confidence of one who knows the end is in sight, ‘bail out the bilges and hold on tight, for there’s rapids ahead!’

  Of the rest of it, Jack afterwards could never remember very much. Except he felt good, his hands strong on the paddle as he heaved and pulled it, pushed and slid it through the water to either side of their craft, responding to one obstacle or change in direction after another, and to the occasional shouted instructions of his youthful captain.

  The culvert they travelled in narrowed, the blank walls on either side changed to those of buildings, and occasional lights in human habitations appeared. As they went under one bridge, then another, the buildings alongside them changed again, this time to old warehouses and abandoned factories. At which point Arnold steered them at speed into a side channel, and the boat slid under a final arch to reach a wharf that rose some distance above their heads.

  There were shouts, the scent of food, other craft coming and going nearby, derricks and all manner of equipment. And finally Arnold’s voice again: ‘Tie her up, Jackboy. Your job’s well done.’

  They had arrived at some kind of harbour which, as they got out of the craft and climbed some slippery stone steps, Jack found was as busy a place as ever he had seen.

  Lanterns lit the cobbled ways, signs hung above shop fronts, and candle-lit stalls sold roast chestnuts, crayfish steaks and jellied eel.

  ‘Welcome to Brum, welcome to Deritend,’ said Arnold. ‘But we need towels and a hot toddy, so follow me, lads!’

  Shaken, wet, bruised and truly battered, Jack silently followed the others, feeling so tired that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

  But he had survived, and he felt as alive as he had ever done, though there was no one at the moment he would rather have seen than Katherine.

  But it seemed that before all else, there was important business to attend to.

  Arnold turned to them and said, ‘That’ll be a groat and a half each, gentlemen!’

  ‘Or five for the whole group,’ replied Barklice firmly. ‘And Master Brief and myself get a special rate, seeing who we are, which makes it four. Agreed?’

  Arnold put on a pained expression. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Mister Barklice, but a fair one, because I knows it be true that you always give a generous tip. Agreed?’

  It seemed to be so.

  The money was paid over without further ado, but for one thing.

  ‘Jack,’ said Arnold, ‘this is for you!’

  He put a coin in Jack’s hand.

  ‘Prowman always gets a share and, by the Mirror itself, I swear I’ve never had a better one for a beginner! Now listen good, for we luggerbill-boys do things certain ways. If this is your first payment on any craft, you don’t spend it for a year, maybe many more. You keep it safe against the day when there’s true reason and need for that groat. It ain’t much but it was well and fairly earned, so when the time comes you spend it wise and good, agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Jack.

  66

  BRUNTE

  It was midnight and the level of the watercourses in and around Brum had continued to rise. So far there were no reports of flooding, and the Bilgesnipe still had things under control, but further heavy rain was forecast and the strong wind was shifting in a westerly direction, making it almost certain that the River Rea would soon back up.

  The Council of Ten, the ruling body of the city, was therefore holding an emergency session. Such a meeting was never going to be welcome on the night before the High Ealdor’s birthday, when most of those now forced to attend would have preferred to get eight hours’ sleep ahead of readying themselves for his reception during the coming afternoon.

  But needs must, and Councillor Hrap Dowty, whose remit was Transport and Thoroughfares, had introduced a complication. He was a pale, taciturn transport specialist with an obsession for detail and time schedules, and he had put on the table a once-in-a-decade proposal that New Brum should be sealed off from Old Brum. The reason offered was compelling.

  Major road works undertaken in the centre of the city by the humans had resulted in a diversion of certain sewers, which made it much more likely in the present conditions, he said, that unpredictable flash flooding would occur in Deritend, and probably Digbeth too, which had the potential to spread north and east into the privileged areas of New Brum occupied by . . . most of the members of the Ten.

  However, a sealing-off would cause much greater damage to Old Brum than would be the case if the rising waters were allowed to flow more naturally. It would almost certainly result in loss of life as well, for sealing off always meant that folk got trapped.

  Dowty finished his re
port and sat down. Anyone closely observing him might have noticed how he cast a momentary and involuntary glance in the direction of the least important executive attending this meeting, namely Sub-Quentor Brunte.

  Brunte himself noticed it, as he noticed all else.

  Like some feral beast whose survival depends upon its ability to smell what its rivals are thinking, Brunte had a preternatural ability to work out others’ motives and thoughts.

  He was sniffing now, and what he got was the usual conflicting odours of self-interest among the assembled members of the Ten.

  All wanted to protect their grand residences and their businesses, and on those grounds they would vote for a Seal.

  But each one knew that this move would be unpopular, because it would cause destruction and death to the most vulnerable and weakest members of Brum society. The city had ever been a restive, radical kind of place, where revolution seethed not far below the surface, and such a Seal therefore risked giving life to that grim spectre which had always been the Sinistrals’, and through them the Fyrd’s, greatest fear concerning Brum: revolt.

  An empire, like a bank, depends for its survival upon a combination of credit and might. Each must seem to be invulnerable; though neither ever is.

  So the Ten, with the Administrator, the elderly General Elon, in the chair, debated the issue, while their three Quentors, or executives, and Brunte as Sub-Quentor, none of whom had any right to speak unless invited to do so, sat listening impassively.

  Brunte attended to this debate with all the fascination and self-interest of one who had spent his still-young life wholeheartedly studying survival and the gaining of further power. He heard – in fact he smelt, almost tasted – the thundering rain outside, and it was becoming increasingly sweet. It represented opportunity. It signalled a change long time in the making, ever since as a nineteen-year-old he had witnessed the abortive attempt to kill the giant-born.

  But the debate was diffuse, the Ten uncertain, their tendency towards deferral. Brunte sensed that an intervention was necessary, but without a direct invitation he could not speak. If he tried, it would be a step too far; if he remained silent, the decision would go against the Seal and the moment would be lost.