Sea Of Ghosts Part 6

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.

Ianthe said, 'I'm not going down there.'

Granger peeled off his gloves and let them drop to the floor. They were slick with brine and would have burned his captives' skin.

'Shush, Inny,' Hana said. 'We'll be fine.'

'It's thoroughly rotten. We won't survive.'

Her mother hugged her more tightly. 'We always survive.'

But Ianthe struggled out of Hana's embrace. 'There's a starving man in one of his cells,' she cried, pus.h.i.+ng her mother away. 'And a drawer for a loo. How can you say we'll be fine when he treats his captives like that?' She took a breath as if to scream. 'The man in the boat told him to drown us!'

Granger stopped and stared at her, as helpless to respond to this sudden squall of teenage anger as he was to the words themselves. How did she know these things? She couldn't have heard Creedy. She couldn't be aware of the man in the cell.

Hana tried to restrain her daughter. 'Inny, please . . .'

But Ianthe would not be pacified. She stood up, her leg-irons clattering, then picked up the chain and pulled it. The locking cuff rattled against the water pipe, but it would not yield. Suddenly she spun round to face her mother again, her face flushed and savage. 'Who is he to you?' she demanded. 'Why do you look at him like that? He's hideous. You can't know him. You can't!'

'Inny-'

Granger felt his heart sink. 'She's psychic,' he said.

'No,' Hana replied.

'You hid hid her from the Haurstaf?' her from the Haurstaf?'

The woman's expression tightened with frustration. 'No. You don't understand.'

'Do you know what they'll do to you when they find out?'

'She's not like them, I swear. They can't sense her. She-'

Ianthe cut her off with a yell. 'Don't you dare tell him!'

Hana reached for her daughter again. 'Sweetheart, maybe it's-'

Ianthe slapped her.

The sound of it snapped the argument to silence. For a long time Granger just stood there, listening to his own heart drumming in his ears. He didn't know what to say. Ianthe was trembling, breathing heavily as she gazed vacantly down at her mother. Hana sniffed and rubbed tears from her eyes.

'I'm not not psychic,' Ianthe said bitterly. psychic,' Ianthe said bitterly.

'You're untrained,' Granger said, 'unfocused.'

She snorted. 'What difference does it make? You've already got it all planned out. Sell me to the Haurstaf, build yourself a proper jail. I don't care.'

A proper jail? She'd slipped that remark in with admirable ease. He'd been thinking of selling her to buy a new boat, as she well knew. Despite himself, he felt a twinge of admiration for the girl. 'Was that particular insight intended to convince me you're not psychic?' She'd slipped that remark in with admirable ease. He'd been thinking of selling her to buy a new boat, as she well knew. Despite himself, he felt a twinge of admiration for the girl. 'Was that particular insight intended to convince me you're not psychic?'

Her hands tightened to fists. 'You just don't get it, do you?' She faced him and spoke with emphatic sarcasm, p.r.o.nouncing each word as if he were r.e.t.a.r.ded. 'I don't know what you are thinking.'

'Then explain it to me.'

Ianthe sat back down on the floor beside her mother.

After a moment Hana clasped her daughter's fingers in her own. Then she wiped away more tears and said, 'Ianthe can see and hear things that other people can't.'

'That's obvious enough,' Granger said.

'That's not what I mean,' Hana said. 'Psychics read thoughts, but Ianthe only sees sees and and hears hears whatever is around her. Her senses are just like yours or mine, only better. A lot better.' whatever is around her. Her senses are just like yours or mine, only better. A lot better.'

Granger frowned. 'She heard heard Creedy whispering to me?' Creedy whispering to me?'

Hana nodded.

'And the man downstairs?'

'Ianthe?'

The girl shrugged. 'I heard him sobbing.'

Had Duka been sobbing? Granger hadn't heard anything like that at all. He tried to think of a moment in which the starving man had made a sound that might might have revealed his condition to the girl upstairs, but there simply wasn't one. have revealed his condition to the girl upstairs, but there simply wasn't one. No money, no food No money, no food, Granger had thought. His every instinct told him he was being lied to.

'And the drawer?' he said.

Ianthe hesitated. 'What drawer?'

'The drawer in your cell,' he said. 'Did you hear that too?' He turned to find her glaring furiously at him and knew he'd trapped her. 'I'm sending a letter to Losoto tomorrow,' he said. 'I don't suppose I need to tell you who it's for and what I'm going to write.' The Haurstaf would pay a fortune for one of their own.

Her cold hard eyes narrowed. 'You don't have to tell me anything,' she growled. 'I know all about you. Your father was a beggar and your mother was Drowned when he took her. That's why you're so ugly. She squeezed you out of her womb like a fish. And your father took one look at you and wanted to vomit, so now you run this rotting prison because you can't do anything else. A sad little tinpot dictator who gets his thrills out of locking people up. You make me sick.'

Hana closed her eyes.

Granger took a deep breath. Then he unlocked the girl's leg-irons, seized her by the waist and pitched her over his shoulder. She wasn't heavy, but she fought like a cat in a kitbag, screaming and kicking and trying to scratch him. One of her boots flew off and smashed into the crockery in the sink. He carried the struggling girl down the stairs and along the flooded corridor and dumped her unceremoniously onto the platform he'd constructed in the fourth cell. And then he stood there wheezing while she scrambled back against the wall, her cheeks burning with embarra.s.sment, her eyes mere pinp.r.i.c.ks of hate.

'You . . . stay, while I get . . . your mother.'

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

He didn't bother to close the cell door behind her. The brine would damage her feet if she tried to escape. When he reached the bottom of the steps he sat down and rested his head against the wall. Ten slow breaths. Ten slow breaths. The metal stench of seawater pinched his nostrils. He could hear her sobbing further down the corridor. He gnashed his teeth and dragged himself upright and went back upstairs. The metal stench of seawater pinched his nostrils. He could hear her sobbing further down the corridor. He gnashed his teeth and dragged himself upright and went back upstairs.

Hana was sitting on the floor. 'We've been in one cell or another for the last six months,' she said. 'The detention centre, the s.h.i.+p, but the worst was Interrogation. When we didn't know the answer to their questions; they kept on asking until we did. The hard part was figuring out what they wanted to hear.'

'And that's what you've been doing with me?'

She looked at him directly. 'The Haurstaf will kill her.'