‘I can’t-’ Bakune stopped himself. Can’t break the law? Whose law? These Guardians have no legitimacy. He felt his shoulders fall. ‘Yes. Very well.’
‘Good. This way.’
The priest led. The giant, who gave his name as Manask, followed him. Bakune was last. Up the hall they came to a guard station — or the remains of one. The door had been smashed open and guards lay bashed into unconsciousness. Bakune eyed Manask, who gestured proudly to encompass the scene. ‘I snuck up upon them.’
‘Yes… I see.’
‘They did not suspect a thing!’
The priest lit an oil lamp then urged them forward. Speaking as quietly as possible, Bakune demanded, ‘And just where are we going?’
‘We will flee into the wilds,’ announced Manask. ‘Live off berries and mushrooms. Slay animals with our bare hands and wear their hides.’ Bakune and the priest both wordlessly studied the man, who looked back at them, eager. ‘Yes?’
‘I’ve a boat waiting,’ the priest growled.
Bakune felt infinite relief. ‘Where are we going?’
The priest rubbed the grey bristles at his jaw and cheeks as if surprised by the question. ‘Going? Don’t know. Maybe we’ll just hide,’ and he shrugged. ‘Now, c’mon. We’ve wasted enough time.’
Bakune was surprised when the priest led them a different route from the way most prisoners were brought in. As Assessor he’d visited the Carceral Quarters a number of times, but always by the main way. The route the priest took brought them to narrower, winding halls. After a time he realized that they walked the passages of the old fort that the carcery had been built upon. A lifetime of enquiry and assessing prompted him to wonder about this.
At one point, while they waited for Manask to edge his huge bulk round a particularly tight corner, he murmured to the priest, ‘You know these ways well.’
The priest’s frog mouth widened even further into a tight smile that suggested he knew exactly what Bakune was up to. ‘I’ve been through here before. Long ago.’
‘In similar circumstances, perhaps?’
But the man just smiled. Gasping, Manask yanked himself free, his armour scraping the walls. ‘Free!’ he announced. ‘Slippery as an eel! Able to wriggle through the tightest of corners!’
The priest just shook his head; it seemed the pair knew each other well. Old friends. Old conspirators and criminal partners too? It seemed probable. There was something familiar there; something he could not quite recall. This couple must be well known. It also occurred to him that there was something strange about Manask’s armour: it appeared to consist of a great deal of layered padding. And he walked strangely upon his boots, which apparently comprised no more than tall heels and thick soles. While upon closer examination a significant portion of the man’s height was really nothing more than his immensely thick nest of hair.
After many twists and turns, the halls becoming ever narrower and more neglected, the priest stopped before a door. He whispered: ‘This should lead to the kitchens. From here we can make our way out, then down to the waterfront-’
Manask lurched forward. ‘I will sneak ahead!’
Like a moving wall he pushed Bakune ahead of him. ‘Wait! There’s not enough room! Please…’
The priest threw open the door and the three burst through like peas from a pod to crash into shelves of pots and hanging pans. Bakune bumped a table and stacked bowls came crashing down. ‘Quiet as mice now!’ Manask yelled.
A man — one of the prison cooks, obviously — bolted up from his cot to gape at them. Manask heaved a long oaken table on to the fellow, sending crockery flying in an explosion of shattering. ‘Let us creep right past this one’s nose!’ The giant charged on, upending tables in his path. ‘I will spy the way!’
Bakune and the priest remained standing amid the wreckage. The priest hung his head, sighing. He motioned Bakune onward. They picked their way through the broken crockery.
Shell was surprised that it was only a few days before she became acclimatized to the stink and the shocking lack of hygiene on board the boats of the Sea-Folk. Her gorge no longer rose. She even became rather casual about squeezing the ubiquitous fleas, all the while trying not to think about where they’d been biting her. The boats were open to the elements and so the sun roasted her during the day while the wind sucked all the warmth from her through the night. The flotilla kept to the south shore, putting in every other night at secluded coves and beaches. As they travelled the Sea-Folk caught fish and other creatures that they sometimes gutted over the sides and ate raw — a practice Shell could not bring herself to share despite their constant pressing upon her of the limp and tentacled delicacies.
Some lines should not be crossed.
These Sea-Folk also practised the revolting custom of rubbing animal fat over themselves; they lived perpetually in the same coarsely sewn hides, which they never took off or washed; their hair they never cut or washed but oiled instead into thick ropes. She felt as if all this filth were a contagion she would never rid herself of. Yet none of the huge extended family was ever obviously sick as far as she could tell.
Travelling on another of the boats, Blues and Fingers appeared to share none of her qualms. Closet barbarians, they happily rubbed fat upon themselves and ate raw things that had more eyes than was proper for any animal. Only Lazar shared her reserve; the huge fellow, taller and broader even than Skinner, his Sea-Folk hides bursting at the seams, sat with arms crossed, frowning at the family as they scampered over the boat and just shook his head as if perpetually amazed.
The young girl-mother, Ena, who seemed to have adopted her, came to her side carrying a bowl of that rancid fat. ‘Cold, yes?’ she asked. Shell, arms crossed, shivering, shook a negative.
‘No. Fine.’
The girl got a vexed look as if she were dealing with a stubborn child. ‘You are cold. This will keep you warm.’
Some privations are better endured. If only as the lesser of two evils. ‘No. Thank you.’
Ena set a hand on her broad hip. ‘You foreign people are crazy.’ And she moved off, taking wide squatting steps over the heaped gear and belongings.
We’re not the ones rubbing animal fat on ourselves.
Shell threw herself down next to Lazar at the pointed stern. She looked him up and down. ‘You’re dirty, but at least you’re not all greased up.’
He raised then lowered his shoulders. ‘I layered.’
‘Can you believe this? Some people are willing to live in absolute filth.’
The hazel eyes shifted to her. ‘Seems to me we coulda used some of that grease out on the ice.’
‘You think it works?’
The look he gave her echoed Ena’s. He raised his chin to the nearest of the clan, an elderly uncle on the boat’s tiller arm. ‘See that outer hide jacket, the leather pants, the boots?’
Shell studied the gleaming greasy leathers. ‘Yes. What of it? Other than they’ve never been washed for longer than I’ve been alive.’
‘You raised on the coast, Shell? I forget.’
‘No.’
Lazar grunted. ‘Ah. Well, all that oil makes his clothes practically waterproof. No spray or rain can get through that, so he’s toasty warm. I’m thinking these lot know what they’re doing.’
Fine. But there’s gotta be a cleaner way to do it.
Later that day Shell was roused from a doze when all at once the Sea-Folk jumped into action. The men and women went to work rearranging the gear, giving tense quiet orders. Shading her eyes, she peered around and spotted a vessel closing: two-masted, long and narrow, no merchant boat.
Ena came to her and Lazar. ‘Say nothing, yes? No matter what.’
‘What is it?’ Shell asked.
‘These navy ships, they stop us whenever they wish. Steal what they like. Call it fees and taxes.’