‘You’re not stealing this boat!’
‘Then I’m a paying passenger. Less trouble for both of us.’
The Losotan glanced between Granger and rapidly increasing gulf between his boat and dry land. Then he shook his head and climbed back to the helm. ‘We’ve got to do this fast,’ he said, ‘or I’m going to lose a whole bunch of gilders.’
Granger grunted. ‘Fast suits me just fine.’
Even before they reached his jail, Granger knew he was too late. The flap giving access to his rooms had been torn off and now lay floating on the oily surface of the canal. He leaped onto his wharf, leaving the Losotan hire captain to tie up, and ran up the steps to his garret.
The place was a mess. His cot, furniture and clothes lay strewn across the floor. Even the kitchen cupboards had been torn off the walls and smashed.
But they didn’t have enough time.
They had been looking . . . for what? Trove? His savings? It didn’t matter. A quick glance was enough to tell him that this had been a rush job. They had started to search the place but had been interrupted. A few floorboards lay ripped up, but the rest were untouched. Piles of tools and junk remained undisturbed where they’d always lain.
Granger didn’t dare to let himself hope. He ran downstairs to the cells.
Their cell door had been forced open, torn partially off its hinges. A feeling of dread gripped him as he waded along the corridor towards it.
He expected their cell to be empty. Every bone in his body told him that he’d find his prisoners missing. And so he wasn’t prepared for what he did find when he heaved the broken door aside and staggered through.
They had taken Ianthe, of course.
But not Hana.
She was lying on her back in the shallow brine, wearing the fancy dress he’d bought for her, a faint wheezing sound coming from her mouth. Almost her entire body had been submerged. Grey blisters covered her arms and legs, and patches of sharkskin had already begun to creep across her face. Her eyes stared at the ceiling from underneath an inch of seawater. Evidently she had swallowed some of it, for her breathing sounded painfully thin and ragged. And yet even now she was still trying to stay alive, forcing her mouth above the waterline to suck in air that her ruined lungs could barely absorb.
Granger approached, careful not to make waves in the brine around her, and squatted down beside her. He was still wearing his whaleskin gloves, and he reached one hand underneath her head to support it and his other hand under her chin. Her eyes moved under the water. She saw him and took a sharp intake of breath.
‘Don’t try to speak,’ he said. ‘Try not to make any sudden movements. Most of your body has already changed, and you need to keep the sharkskin wet. If I lift you out, it’s only going to hurt you even more.’
She took a gulp of air, but didn’t move.
‘Was it Creedy?’ he asked.
She tried to nod, but he held her chin firmly.
‘Don’t nod,’ he said. ‘Can you move your hands? Make a fist for me.’
Under the water, her hand moved away from her side. She clenched it.
‘How many others were with him?’
She held out two fingers.
‘Two other men? Make a fist for yes.’
She clenched her hand again and then relaxed it.
‘Did you recognize them?’
Her hand didn’t move.
‘Do you know where they took her?’
A look of distress came into her eyes, she tried to shake her head, but Granger restrained her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You need to keep still.’ She was neither one thing nor the other. Part human, part Drowned. In this condition her lungs wouldn’t last much longer. He could hardly hear her breaths now.
‘You can’t survive like this,’ he said gently. ‘Your lungs have been contaminated. They’re failing. Soon you won’t be able to breathe air. If you keep your mouth above water, you’ll die.’ He kept his gaze fixed firmly on hers. ‘I’m going to push you under.’
She panicked and struggled against him.
He held her firmly. ‘You’ll feel like you’re dying,’ he said. ‘But you won’t. The toxic shock will knock you unconscious, but there’s a decent chance you’ll wake up again. You’ll go on living.’ He could see the terror in her eyes. They both knew she might never regain consciousness – not everyone did – but Granger had no other option. ‘I’ll find Ianthe,’ he said. ‘And I’ll kill the men who took her.’
Her hand shot out of the water and gripped his glove. Her throat bobbed and she let out a gurgling, choking sound. She was trying to speak. ‘Hhhhhh . . . guuuuuh.’
‘You don’t have to say anything.’
‘Maaaaahhh . . . Awwwwd.’ She tried to lift her face up out of the brine, but he stopped her again. ‘Maaasss.’
‘Maskelyne? They mentioned Maskelyne?’
She nodded.
‘You let me worry about him,’ he said. ‘Ianthe’s in no danger. They want her to find trove.’
She relaxed her grip on his glove. For a long moment she just looked up at him from under the water. Finally she nodded.
Granger pushed her head under and held her there until she stopped moving.
Back upstairs, Granger peeled off the heavy whaleskin gloves and laid them on the top stair banister. If Hana was going to wake from her toxic shock, she’d do so some time within the next few hours. He’d need to carry her body to the opposite cell then lower her through the hole in the floorboards into deeper brine. But he’d wait until she was aware of what was happening. He didn’t want her to wake up alone.
Creedy would have taken Ianthe straight to Maskelyne, which meant she must have arrived at his island keep by now. A direct assault on Maskelyne’s fortress would be impossible without the assistance of the Imperial Navy, and Granger wasn’t in a position to arrange that. Stealth might get him to the fortress walls, but he would be unlikely to find a way inside. He’d have to wait until Maskelyne took Ianthe out onto the open seas to dredge for trove and then attack Maskelyne’s ship directly. He’d need a deepwater vessel, a crew and weapons.
And Granger had none of them.
He heard a boat’s engine thrumming in the canal outside. Something about it disturbed him. In the six years he’d lived in Ethugra, he’d grown accustomed to such noises: the post boat, his neighbours’ vessels, the passenger taxis. He didn’t recognize the sound of this one.
Quickly he ran to the window and peered out.
She was an old iron straight-sided coastal barge of the sort that used to bring whale oil into the city from the depots and shell keeps out by the Ethugran Reef. A fat bow wave surged before her as she sped along Halcine Canal. Granger spat a curse when he saw the crew waiting aboard.
Hookmen.
Six of them stood on the barge’s deck, wrapped in bulky whalers’ oilskins. Half of them clutched harpoons, flensing poles or head-spades, but the rest carried knives. The helmsman wore a brine mask and goggles, but the rest were naked-faced, scarred and bearded – hard men from the former gutting stations along Dunvale Point. They were looking Granger’s way.
He grabbed his whaleskin gloves and pulled them on. Then he ran downstairs and waded along the corridor to Hana’s cell.
She was as he’d left her – lying unconscious in the shallow brine.
Granger scooped her into his arms. As he half-dragged, half-carried her out to the corridor, he could hear through the open cell window the barge cut her engines, followed by the
sound of boots pounding across his wooden jetty.
In the opposite cell, he pulled her over to the hole in the floorboards. His chest was tight with agony again, and his breaths seemed to whistle in his throat. Now he could hear raised voices coming from upstairs.
‘I’m sorry, Hana.’ he whispered into her ear. And then he eased her body down through the hole.
Most of the air had already gone from her lungs, and so she slipped away into the brine and crumpled gently onto the floor of the flooded room below. A cloud of sediment rose around her, muddying the tea-coloured waters.
Granger dragged one of the broken pallets across the opening to hide it, and turned as the first of Maskelyne’s Hookmen came through the door.
From their appearance they might have been Drowned men themselves. Their leader stood half a foot shorter than Granger, but he was far stouter and more heavily muscled. Sharkskin covered most of his naked forearms like a skin of cracked cement. He had daubed the wounded flesh with some greasy white tincture. Five gutting knives with wooden handles and blades of varying curvature and length hung from loops on the front his padded oilskin. He grinned, displaying wide brown teeth, as the others filled the doorway behind him.
‘Hello, Tom,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, Tom?’
Granger scowled at him. ‘I know you?’
‘Don’t think so, but I know you.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I don’t like that tone of voice, Tom,’ the other man replied. ‘Why are you taking that tone of voice with me?’ He stepped forward, pushing out his chest as though challenging Granger to reach for one the knives hanging there. ‘I mean, you’re a fucking Drowned lover, aren’t you, Tom? You shouldn’t be speaking to me like that.’
Granger had seen his type in a hundred bars and back alleys. He had no patience with this fool.
‘Get out of my house,’ he said.
The Hookman grinned. ‘That’s not nice, Tom. We’re only doing a job here.’ He looked down at the pallet covering the hole. ‘I mean, you sound like someone who wants their face shoved in the fucking brine. Why would you want that, Tom?’
There were four others blocking the doorway behind, but they couldn’t all push through the door at once. Since he wasn’t getting out of here without a fight, Granger thought it best to have the fight on his own terms. No sense in waiting.
He slugged the Hookman in the face.
Granger’s blow was as hard as any he’d ever given. The Hookman grunted in surprise, but he didn’t go down. The bastard had a neck like a girder. Granger brought his other fist up in an uppercut, striking the other man under the chin. He heard the blow connect. It should have broken the Hookman’s jawbone.
But it didn’t.
The shorter man came at him in a rage, pummelling his stony fists under Granger’s ribs.
Granger didn’t want to allow him any space to let the others in, so he drew in his elbows and suffered the punches. They felt like hammer blows. He brought his elbow up into the other man’s armpit to halt one angle of attack, while trying to force him back towards the door.
But the Hookman was too strong for him. He shoved back, one fist continuing to pound Granger’s ribs, the other arm trying to reach over Granger’s elbow, scrabbling to grab his hair. With his free left hand Granger fish-hooked the man’s cheek, jerking that fat snarling face to one side. He grunted and heaved, but couldn’t find the strength to break the other man’s neck. The pair wrestled in the shallow brine, the Hookman’s teeth gnashing Granger’s fingers, dribbling spit down his wrist. Behind him, the others were pushing forward, trying to get past their leader.
Granger’s right hand was pinned against his opponent’s chest. He reached around until he felt the handle of one of the Hook-man’s knives. He grabbed the weapon and yanked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead he forced the handle down, trying to turn the blade upwards into the other man’s guts.
Out of nowhere, something cracked against his skull.
The room reeled. He tasted blood.
He wrenched the knife handle down, heard a grunt.
Another blow struck his ear.
Specks of white light flashed at the edges of his vision.
A third blow sent him staggering back against the wall.
‘Fucker cut me.’
The lead Hookman stood ankle deep in brine, clutching a wound in his side. From the small amount of blood evident, Granger could tell that the knife hadn’t gone in very deep. Beside the wounded man, another, taller, fellow gripped a long pole with a curved iron tip. This, then, had to be the weapon that had struck Granger. The pole-wielder stepped aside to let a third, bearded, man into the cell.
‘He’s going to take a swim, Bartle,’ said the beard.
‘Not now,’ said the leader. ‘I want him to see what’s coming.’
Granger’s head still smarted from the blow, and his chest had now begun to ache. He doubted he could get past all three of them without a weapon. He managed a grim smile. It occurred to him that he’d now blown his chance for diplomacy.
The Hookmen’s leader – Bartle, he’d been called – used his boot to slide the pallet away from the hole the in floor. He peered down into the brine, and grinned. ‘Sleeping like a lamb,’ he said to the beard. ‘Go get the nets.’ Then he looked up at Granger. ‘Harbouring the Drowned’s worth twenty years, if you’ve got the cash to pay Maskelyne’s fees. How you stacked for cash, Tom?’
* * *
CHAPTER 7
ANOTHER MAN’S PRISON
Two Hookmen remained in Granger’s place while the others took him back to the same jail he’d just come from on Averley Plaza. They frisked him thoroughly for weapons, then marched him up the stairs to the room where he’d met Creedy’s supposed buyer.
Ethan Maskelyne was standing beside one of the windows, his face inclined toward the late-afternoon sun. He didn’t turn around when Granger arrived, but he said, ‘You weren’t supposed to leave here quite so soon.’
Movement caught Granger’s eye. He glanced over at the olea tanks. The body of the man who had chased him outside was floating in the third chamber. Hundreds of tiny blue jellyfish clung to his skin, pulsing softly.
Maskelyne turned round. ‘You should have brought her straight to me, Mr Granger,’ he said. ‘I would have given you a fair price, and we could have avoided all this hostility.’
‘She wasn’t for sale.’ Granger judged the distance between himself and the other man. If he bolted, he could probably reach Maskelyne before his Hookmen took him down, but that wouldn’t be doing Ianthe any favours.
‘Actually, that wasn’t for you to decide.’ Maskelyne studied Granger for a moment. ‘You’re a military man, you understand hierarchy. Whether you like it or not, Mr Granger, our society is structured in a way that the rights of its wealthiest and most powerful citizens take precedence over the rights of others. Considering everything I have given back to the empire over many years, I think this is only fair. I had infinitely more right to decide the girl’s fate than you ever did.’
‘What about Ianthe? Does she have a say?’
Maskelyne smiled. ‘I understand your disappointment. But you needn’t worry about her. If her talents are half of what Mr Creedy tells me they are, she’ll be well rewarded – she’ll certainly have a better life in my care than you could ever have given her.’
How much had Creedy told him? The sergeant was a fool if he thought Maskelyne was going to cut him in on his operation. His body would end up in
a tank of seawater before the week was through. ‘Where is Creedy now?’
‘Mr Creedy is working for me,’ Maskelyne said.
‘And Hana? What do you intend to do with her?’
Maskelyne frowned.
‘The girl’s mother, the woman you left to die in my jail.’
Realization dawned on Maskelyne’s face. ‘You can’t blame my men for defending themselves,’ he said. ‘They have families too, after all.’
‘Just let her go.’
Maskelyne shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Granger, but I can’t allow the Drowned to simply wander around the city. I have a duty to uphold the emperor’s laws.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t suppose a traitor like yourself can understand that. She’ll be taken to Averley Plaza and put with the others.’
Granger couldn’t help himself. He ran at Maskelyne with the intention of breaking his bloody neck.
But the Hookmen must have been waiting for this, for they stopped him before he covered three yards. A hooked pole snagged Granger’s foot and he toppled forward and slammed into the floor. Suddenly there were two men kneeling on his spine, twisting his arms back, shoving his face down into one of the plush rugs.
‘Emperor Hu has been looking for you for a long time,’ Maskelyne said. ‘We’ll give you a trial, of course, and a cell with a view of the square in which to await your execution. I think you should use this time to reflect on everything you’ve done.’
True to his word, Maskelyne had Granger placed in a cell overlooking Averley Plaza. It was a small vaulted chamber with a concrete floor, located on the fourth storey of the jail. The bed frame was all welded metal and had been bolted to the floor, but the dusty old mattress looked soft enough. There was even a blanket. To remove the need for a cistern in the cell, the commode could only be flushed from a central pipe room. They’d use brine for that. But the steel sink had real taps providing as much purified water as Granger required – a luxury in Ethugra. All in all, the place was cleaner than most provincial hotel rooms. Only the window bars and the heavy metal door betrayed the room’s true purpose. This was a place of confinement, even if it was of a standard normally reserved for the wealthiest of prisoners. Chalk dashes covered one entire wall. Evidently the previous occupant had been here for a long time.