‘I don’t think they did.’
A voice from above called down: ‘You changed your mind about the map yet?’
Granger looked up to see an old man peering down at them from one of the barred windows above. His face was gaunt, his cheeks hollow from malnutrition, lending emphasis to his wildly protruding eyes. He gripped the bars of his cell with skeletal hands.
‘Shut your damn mouth,’ Creedy replied.
‘I told you there was no trove down there,’ the old man said. ‘Maskelyne’s men cleaned it all out years ago. You want to be looking near the Glot Madera, but I ain’t telling you where unless you buy my map.’
Creedy must have returned to this spot sometime after dawn, Granger realized. No doubt he had tried to look for the bottle on his own. This bothered him less than he would have expected. It wasn’t against the law.
‘Madman,’ Creedy muttered.
‘The original map was drawn by the Unmer,’ the old man retorted. ‘I saw it in a collection in Maggog, copied it exact from memory.’
Creedy snatched up his baling tin, scooped it full of brine and then hurled it up at the barred window. The old man yelped and disappeared as seawater splashed across the prison facade. Some of the brine must have splashed him, for he began to howl in pain.
‘Sun’s almost down,’ Creedy said. ‘We’d best go get the girl.’
‘Not tonight,’ Granger said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly that, Sergeant,’ Granger replied in a tone that implied the conversation was over.
Creedy looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Tom.’
They returned in silence. As Granger alighted on his wharf, Creedy looked up at him with malice in his eye. ‘Tomorrow night, then?’
‘Maybe. I’ll send you a message.’
The sergeant spat into the canal, then gunned his launch away, spewing muddy foam in his wake.
Granger looked at his own boat. She was a common skiff, sixteen feet long from bow to stern, and built here in Ethugra three decades ago from sea-forest wood. Most of her hull spars and seats had been replaced by dragon-bones, but her hull was entirely original, and thus rotting. He ought to make some temporary repairs while he was still wearing his brine gear, and while it was still light enough to see what he was doing. Carefully, he climbed aboard, easing his whaleskin boots into the partially flooded bilge. The old wooden planks creaked under his boots. From the bow storage compartment he took out his foot-pump, tools, storm lantern and an open tin of resin. The resin had hardened, leaving the brush jammed upright like a handle, so he placed the lantern on the wharf, lit it and balanced the tin on the lantern’s metal hood. While the resin was warming, he pumped water out of the bilge. Ideally, he should have raised her out of the water, but he didn’t need a perfect repair. Just enough to get her to the boatyard.
He spent an hour applying the sticky resin into the caulking between the hull planks. It was fully dark when the job was finally done, and his oil lantern glowed like a lonely beacon among the glooming prison buildings. A cloud of moths flitted around the flame, while scores more drifted past like grey confetti on the black water.
Granger spied another light moving down there in the depths. He snuffed his own lantern.
Several fathoms down, the Drowned man Granger had seen earlier emerged from a submerged doorway under Dan Cutter’s jail. He was heading south, hurrying across the uneven canal bed, swinging his gem-lantern to and fro as if searching for something amidst the rubble. The child who had accompanied him previously was nowhere to be seen.
A sense of unease crept over Granger, although he couldn’t say why. He suddenly felt very cold. As he turned to go back inside, he happened to glance up. The sky was moonless and clear, crammed with stars that sparkled like fragments of mica. He spotted the constellations of Ulcis Proxa and Iril, and part of Ayen’s Wheel glimmering low in the north. A tiny cluster of lights was travelling across the sky there. It stopped abruptly, then altered course, moving off in a westerly direction. Granger paused to watch it go. He’d not seen Ortho’s Chariot for five or six years, and as he stood there he couldn’t help but wonder what it might be. The last Unmer airbarque, travelling forever beyond the reach of the Haurstaf and Emperor Hu’s raging indignation? The occupants must surely be dead by now. Or was it just a star that had lost its way?
He went back inside.
He’d been gone longer than he intended to, and his prisoners would be hungry. He went downstairs to check on them.
Ianthe watched him moodily from under her hair. Hana looked drawn and weary. ‘Inny tells me it’s a beautiful night,’ she said. ‘You saw Ortho’s Chariot?’
Granger nodded. ‘It’s supposed to be a bad omen.’
‘Evensraumers don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘Inny told me about your argument with Creedy.’
‘She’s been spying on me?’
Hana raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t blame her for that, Tom. What would you do in her position?’
Granger glanced at his daughter. Of course her mother was right. He was Ianthe’s jailer before he was her father. Still, he didn’t like her prying into his affairs. ‘Then you’ll know I didn’t get to the market today,’ he said, ‘and there’s not much left in the cupboard. Supper is porridge.’
‘I hate porridge,’ Ianthe said.
‘Eat it or go hungry,’ Granger replied. ‘Decide which one of those two you hate the most.’
‘There are fish in the canal,’ she said. ‘You could catch us some supper.’
‘Forget it.’
‘Please,’ she wailed. ‘Just for an hour. It’s so dark and smelly in here. I can tell you where to cast.’
Granger found himself considering this, despite himself. He hadn’t gone fishing for months, and it was a nice night. His prisoners weren’t likely to go anywhere. ‘It’s too risky,’ he said. ‘If someone sees us…’
‘They won’t,’ Ianthe insisted. ‘I’ll be able to sense them long before they can see us. Please, please, please.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s final.’
An hour later he was standing on his jetty with his fishing rod, casting a line out across the canal waters.
‘Not there,’ Ianthe said. ‘There!’ She pointed in the direction of Cuttle’s jail. ‘There’s a shoal of angel fish around that pontoon.’
‘That’s where I cast,’ Granger insisted.
‘No you didn’t.’
Granger reeled in the line again, grumbling. He’d been at this for half an hour already.
Hana was lying on her back, stretched out on the jetty planks, breathing deeply of the fresh night air as she gazed up at the stars.
Ianthe let out a moan of frustration. ‘Mother! I need you to watch me.’
Hana’s gaze flicked to her daughter. ‘I’m sorry, Inny.’
Granger flicked out the line again. This time, his bait plopped into the water a yard beyond Cuttle’s pontoon. Ianthe scrunched her eyes up and seemed to be concentrating. After a moment she said, ‘You scared them away.’
‘You told me to cast there.’
‘Not right on top of-’ She paused. ‘Wait, there’s something else coming. Something… it’s swimming straight for the bait.’
Granger stared into the canal, but could see nothing in the black depths. ‘A fish?’
‘I don’t know what it is!’ Ianthe exclaimed. ‘It isn’t looking at itself, is it? It’s going for the bait… now.’
A splash disturbed the waters out by the pontoon. Granger saw something large and silvery flash in the gloom, and then his line gave a sudden jerk, bending the fishing rod near double. This was a good-sized fish.
Hana sat up. ‘You got one?’
‘Of course he got one,’ Ianthe snapped.
Granger grunted and pulled back on the fishing rod. He began to wind in the slack. Out in the canal, the fish exploded out of the water and then thrashed across the surface. The creature was about three feet of solid muscle, with a blunt, fist-like head crammed with teeth.
‘A grappler,’ Granger growled. ‘Get back, both of you – it’s likely to splash brine everywhere.’