‘Look,’ I began, ‘you got me out of one hell of a hole – I haven’t done anything, but – damn, I just don’t know how to thank you –’ Then I realized I did. I fumbled in my pocket for Jyp’s coins; I could pay him back later. I pressed two into the old man’s palm, and he nodded and grinned again. ‘Now mind,’ I warned him. ‘Those are gold. You can’t spend it straight away, but you can sell it – it’s not stolen or anything. Take them to a proper coin-shop if you can, not just a bank or a jeweller or a pawnbroker. Should be worth more than the weight of the gold alone.’
The old man listened gravely. ‘Thank you, my good frien’. Dat’s Christian kindness. Like this Saint James dey name de hospital fo’, huh? Saint-Jacques, dey call him in de real ol’ days – or Santiago …’
I chuckled. ‘That’s right, the Spanish founded the place, didn’t they? You know your history.’
The old man laughed, pleased. ‘Me? I jes’ seen a lot, dat’s all. And doan’ forget. So many mem’ries, mah old cold back bends under de load!’
‘Well, you could warm it up a bit now – get yourself a new coat, for a start.’
‘I hadn’t meant it to sound patronizing, but it came out that way. The old man wagged his head amiably. ‘Son, I thank you for the good advice! But I’ve learned some better. I give you it freely – when yo’ very balls is freezin’, rum’s the only juice!’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ I promised solemnly. ‘Thanks again. But I’d better be off. The cops might come back, and I’ve got to get to the riverfront – to the docks – er, you couldn’t give me directions from here?’
He cackled, and heaved himself up before I could lift a hand to help. ‘The docks, uh?’ Again the glasses flashed at me with a peculiarly penetrating air. ‘Dat’s easily done, son. Easy.’ He nodded casually down the street. ‘A good Christian tune soon set you on yoah way!’
And before I could say a word, he clapped the battered trumpet to his lips and launched into a tune I recognized. ‘Gospel Ship’ – a revivalist song, hardly jazz at all, but he made it swing. The trumpet wasn’t mournful any more but sharp, a blade of blue notes slicing through the blackness. Its bright bell winked suddenly with reddish light, and mirrored, distorted, a web of black threads. Startled, I looked over my shoulder and saw the wedge of sky between the chasm walls turning paler, flooding with red in a tidal wave of dawn. And against that rising glow, like a winter treeline, a spiky tracery of masts stood silhouetted. Down the gloomy length of the street shone a single faint streak of gold, and danced in fire upon the bobbing trumpet.
I gaped a moment in wonder and fear, and then, forgetting everything, I began to run along that bright path. All around those gloomy walls the tune echoed, beat upon those blind windows –
The Last Trump should sound like that, maybe.
I bounded along that silent stream of dawn light like a child splashing through puddles. Then I remembered I hadn’t said goodbye to the old man, if man he was, and turned to wave. But his back was turned to me already, shuffling along towards Decatur or wherever, still playing, his card tucked tightly under his arm. I waved, anyway; I guessed he had more ways than one to see. And then from the docks I heard the shrill whistle of a steam-tug, and my heart missed a beat. Amid the forest of masts something was stirring, sliding past them, out into the stream; tall masts, not smokestacks. I ran like mad for the river.
No way could I have reached it in time, but I ran anyway. They might still be in hailing range – or I might get another boat to follow them …
I found my feet slipping on dawn-slick cobbles as I reached the wharf, steadied myself on the wall at the corner and felt the paint on the warped clapboard crackle and peel under my hand. The Core had lost its hold, and I was back. But I felt no exaltation, only amazement. For the shape that slid away down the gold-tracked waters, like a shadow of night slinking off before the dawn, had three tall masts, not two, and its high transom loomed level with the capitals of the smokestacks. I gaped up and down the dock, guessed at my way and began to run again.
The guess was right. It was no more than twenty minutes later I bounded up the springy gangplank and collapsed wheezing onto the deck, newly smooth and smelling richly of tar and linseed and sappy wood. From the quarterdeck came a stampede, Jyp and the others practically tumbling down the companionway, with old Stryge wavering excitedly after them. A man and a woman of the deck watch more or less scooped me up and sat me on the hold grating, but I had hardly enough breath to speak.
‘They – here –’
‘Aye, aye, ’tis known!’ said Mall soothingly. ‘Spare your words till the wind’s back i’ your sail. You’re not hurt otherwise? A mercy, better far than we’d feared.’
‘That’s so, shipmate,’ remarked Jyp, shaking his head with laconic relief. ‘Glad to have you back live and whole, never more so. Moment we missed you we sic’d old Stryge on your tail – and when he ups and says you’ve been drawn off by a sending, lured back into the Core – and into a trap – well … He said he’d sent out a call on your behalf, and that was the best he could do.’ He spat over the rail at the dockside. ‘Hell, we maybe should’ve guessed there might be trouble. One of the old slave trade centres, here – it’s still lousy with obeah, voodoo, you name it; part of the legacy. But why should some local bocor beat the drums for us? That’s what I don’t get. We haven’t trodden on anyone’s toes here – hell, how’d they even get to hear about us?’
‘From the Chorazin!’ I wheezed.
‘What?’
‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ I croaked. ‘It’s been docked here, too, all the time – about a mile downriver on the far bank – I saw it pulling out, not long back –’
Pierce seized my shoulder. ‘You’re sure, lad – I mean, Master?’
‘Yes, I’m sure – damn it, I was sent to see it –’
‘Masthead!’ bellowed Pierce.
The Stryge thrust his granite face unpleasantly close to mine. ‘Sent? By whom? How?’
‘A – an old black man, a busker – a street musician, you know –’
‘Deck! A smoking teakettle with a soot-black merchantman a’tow! A good league downriver!’
‘All hands!’ roared Pierce. ‘Mr Mate! Ashore with you and roust out that old tarrarag of a tugmaster! All bands! We must have hit her worse than we thought, she pulled in for repairs – and saw us come by – hah! How’s that for defiance, my fine buckoes?’
Stryge’s eye glittered frighteningly. ‘What old man? Who answered? Who came?’
‘A – an old busker, like I said – played the trumpet – he had a – a card, called himself the – Opener of the Ways, that was it –’