Part 6 (1/2)

The other man made a dismissive gesture. 'Forget it. I ain't queuing up again.' He handed his prison ledger to one of the administrators and stood there, studiously avoiding Granger's eye. The administrator looked at the ledger, then looked at Granger.

Granger leaned close to the jailer and said, 'One prisoner is as good as another.'

The other man shook his head. 'I told you,' he replied weakly. 'I'm not interested.' He rubbed sweat from his brow and stared intently down at the desk. Still, the official did nothing. The sun beat down on the plaza, on the administrators' desks, on the a.s.sembled crowds. Finally the jailer turned to Granger and whispered, 'I got another business to run, you know?' He moistened his lips. 'I can't trade her for some old man.'

'You paid extra for her?'

'You know how it is, man.'

Granger placed his remaining ticket and his ledger on the desk. 'Sign her over to me,' he said to the administrator.

The administrator gazed blankly at the sc.r.a.p of paper.

'Do it,' Granger hissed, 'before I start using words like corruption corruption and and prost.i.tution prost.i.tution. Those terms are quite clearly defined in the Evensraum Convention.'

The jailer threw his ticket down. 'Fine,' he said. 'Have her. What do I care?' He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his ledger and stormed away into the crowd.

Back in the launch, Granger felt like s.h.i.+vering despite the sun. What had he just done? His heart seemed to stutter as it wavered between feelings of responsibility and regret. He clutched his prison ledger in bloodless knuckles. Creedy steered the boat across the plaza, wrapped in a disapproving silence, while the two prisoners huddled together in the bow. Hana held her daughter tightly under a spare whaleskin cloak. She kept glancing over at Granger, a question burning in her eyes. The girl, Ianthe, stared absently across the brine, as though she wasn't really seeing anything at all, as though the world around her didn't really exist. She hadn't looked at Granger once.

n.o.body spoke until they'd left the open water and plunged into the ca.n.a.ls of Francialle, when Creedy suddenly said, 'Big mistake, Colonel. They're prisoners, for G.o.d's sake.' He picked up his boat hook and pushed the hull away from a wall with an angry grunt. 'They'd have been better off with anyone anyone else in Ethugra.' He let out a sarcastic laugh. 'And it's against the f.u.c.king law.' else in Ethugra.' He let out a sarcastic laugh. 'And it's against the f.u.c.king law.'

Creedy was right, of course, and it shamed Granger to think he had finally fallen so low. His own father would have raged and beaten him over it, would have forced him to hand Hana and Ianthe back to the prison administrators.

But his father was dead. And his mother was dead. His brother John killed in Weaverbrook, leaving a wife and child somewhere in Losoto. Even old Swinekicker had finally gone under the brine. The only family Granger had left was sitting in this boat.

CHAPTER 3.

PERCEPTION.

Dear Margaret,There's been an unexpected turn of events. One of Maskelyne's Hookmen spotted me looking out of my cell window. He wants four hundred gilders to keep his mouth shut. Mr Swinekicker needs the money by the end of the month, or Maskelyne's man will let the authorities know I'm still alive. If that happens I'll be convicted of complicity in fraud and placed in one of the city plunge tanks. They drown you, and then they drag you out again and leave you to die in the sun. Sometimes the process can last for days. There's no time to write more. I need your help.Love,Alfred The Evensraum woman and her daughter knelt on the floor in Granger's garret, their leg-irons chained to a water pipe running along the wall. He didn't know what he was going to do with them yet, and he was angry with himself for not having thought this through. The downstairs cells lay under six inches of poisonous brine. He'd have to fas.h.i.+on some kind of temporary platform, if he was going to keep them out of harm's way.

But Granger hesitated.

Creedy's parting words still rang in his ears. Drown them both and say they tried to escape. Do it now and save yourself all the grief later on. They're n.o.bodies, Tom. You'll be lucky if you get three payments for them. Drown them both and say they tried to escape. Do it now and save yourself all the grief later on. They're n.o.bodies, Tom. You'll be lucky if you get three payments for them.

Ianthe stared into s.p.a.ce like a girl in a trance, while her mother hugged her daughter's shoulders and rocked backwards and forwards, murmuring softly. They were surrounded by piles of rusting junk, broken tools and engine parts, all the things Granger had meant to fix up when he had a few spare gilders. The flap across the entrance hatch lifted in the breeze and then sank back down again.

'Listen-' Granger began.

'Thank you for doing this,' Hana said.

He tried to read the woman's face, searching for some hint of her expectations, but her bruises confounded him. He couldn't see past them. 'The cells are downstairs,' he said at last. 'That's what I do now. It's my job.'

She nodded.

'The name's Swinekicker, now,' he said. 'Don't call me Granger in public again.'

She nodded.

'I've got to sort things out,' he said. 'There's flooding down there. You stay here.' He was about to turn away, when he remembered his manners. 'Do you need something to eat? I have-'

'Some water, if you can spare it.'

He filled a jug from the spigot, then hunted for cups. They were all furred with mould, so he covered the sink with an old towel and handed her the jug. She accepted it hungrily and pa.s.sed it to her daughter, who gulped down half before handing it back.

'Tastes like rust,' Ianthe said.

'The purifier is old,' Granger replied. 'I've been planning to replace it.'

She stared at him as if he didn't exist, her pale blue eyes so striking against her earthen complexion, and yet distant at the same time. She was as beautiful as her mother had been all those years ago: that same flawless skin, those dark eyebrows that tapered to perfect points, the black flame of her hair. Ianthe's gown had been ripped at one shoulder and hung loosely over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Could he be wrong about her?

When Hana had fallen ill in those final days before his unit had been recalled from Weaverbrook, they hadn't talked about it. Disease already had a grip on the land. Hu's bombardment had caused uncountable deaths the corpses left to rot in fields and drainage ditches. They had never been able to dig enough graves.

Had Hana known she was pregnant then? Would it have made a difference if she'd told him?

Ianthe's pale Losotan eyes belonged to him and no other. He could see that clearly, and it irked him that there was something wrong with her vision. She wasn't reacting to movement or light the way a normal person would. If he hadn't seen her reach for the water jug, he'd have thought she was blind.

That the fault in her should have come from him.

Hana watched them carefully. Underneath those bruises and the scars of age Granger thought he caught a glimpse of a nervous smile. Was she thinking about those nights fifteen years ago? His unit had commandeered her grandmother's farm for the duration of the campaign. In sixty-three days of fighting, he'd lost only seven men out of fifteen hundred, while the enemy mourned for four hundred of their own. It would have been an extraordinary victory for the empire, had the empire known about it.

But telepaths were expensive. And Emperor Hu had always been unwilling to pay.

He remembered Hana's terror when the sh.e.l.ling began. By the time Hu's navy had finished there had been eight thousand more graves to dig, and scant few of his men left alive to dig them. Fewer still when the cholera took its toll.

That image just stirred his anger. Why was he doing this? He wasn't responsible for what had happened to her or her village. He'd kept her safe. He couldn't have taken her with him. He couldn't have stayed. He didn't owe owe her anything. He glanced at Ianthe again, but the sight of her just filled him with despair. A weight of expectation hung in the air between the three of them, and Granger could not define it. He didn't want to think about it. He had to get his boat repaired. He had to get away from this G.o.dforsaken city. her anything. He glanced at Ianthe again, but the sight of her just filled him with despair. A weight of expectation hung in the air between the three of them, and Granger could not define it. He didn't want to think about it. He had to get his boat repaired. He had to get away from this G.o.dforsaken city.

Drown them both and say they tried to escape.

He felt trapped and foolish. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his waterproof gloves and the galoshes Creedy had left for him. And then he grabbed his toolbox and trudged downstairs to see about fixing his prisoners somewhere to sleep.

Halfway down the steps he paused to put on the thick whale-skin gloves and to pull his galoshes over his boots. He fitted a hemp face mask over his mouth and nose and snapped his goggles into place. His breathing sounded heavy and erratic. He stared at the flooded pa.s.sageway for a long time before he dropped down into the shallow brine and waded along the corridor. He planned to use the sleeping pallets from three or four vacant cells to build a higher platform for his two new captives.

The first two rooms contained nothing of use but the dragon-bones he'd stockpiled to repair his roof. Both the pallets here were partially submerged, and even the dry sections of wood looked rotten. Worms had eaten into the ends of the planks. Granger selected a couple of yard-long thigh bones and then stood for a moment wondering if could use them. Finally he threw them away and left the room. The sound of his breaths came quicker. He could feel the icy chill of the water through his galoshes.

The pallet in the third cell was in better condition; he could use it. But the room itself was no good. The floorboards under the surface of the brine had collapsed, leaving a treacherous well that dropped into the flooded chamber below. Through this hole Granger spied dim beams of light slanting through a downstairs window and falling upon a heap of broken planks and plaster. Yellow particles hung suspended in the brown water. Something had disturbed the silt on that lower floor, for he could see foot-sized impressions around the rubble. Had the Drowned caused this damage? He doubted they were capable of such wilful destruction.

As Granger pa.s.sed the fourth cell, he heard a splash coming from the other side of the door. He didn't stop to check on his prisoner. No money, no food. No money, no food. He wasn't running a G.o.dd.a.m.n soup kitchen here. There was nothing to be done for Duka now. He wasn't running a G.o.dd.a.m.n soup kitchen here. There was nothing to be done for Duka now.

The floors in the remaining four cells looked sound, so he chose a cell facing Halcine Ca.n.a.l, where the barred window admitted more light. He gathered together all the solid pallets from the rest of the wing and nailed them down one upon the other to form a raised platform four yards long by two wide. It sloped badly towards the wall, but that was better than sloping the other way. When the construction was complete, Granger's breaths outpaced his heart. He leaned against the door jamb, wheezing, until the tightness left his chest. His shoulder throbbed. The platform he had built cleared the brine by six inches or so, enough to keep his prisoners dry for most of the coming year. It would have to do. He didn't have any more pallets.

He took some blankets from the storeroom cabinet and searched for a slop bucket in the deep lower drawers. He couldn't find a bucket so he pulled out the drawer and dumped that on the platform instead. It would have to do.

The two women hadn't moved. Hana held her daughter and rocked back and forward.