He bent over until his mouth was near her ear. ‘Elena, roll over,’ he whispered.
She murmured her assent and turned to face the other way, as Dalip slid his arm clear.
It had worked, and he was surprised, but now he had to creep away quietly and find somewhere he could wait his erection out. He tried to rationalise his shame away as he slowly stepped through the deep shadow, but however he tried, he was just embarrassed. His own body betrayed him◦– his cheeks burned with the still-warm memory of her pressed against him◦– and left him vulnerable to improper feelings of lust. There hadn’t been time to build two shelters, but the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and it should have.
He was a grown man, not a boy, and sharing sleeping space with women wasn’t going to help him keep pure. Especially Elena. He didn’t know if he found her attractive. He didn’t even know if he should be thinking about it, with Luiza not even cold in the ground.
He crouched down and remembered to breathe. It really wasn’t his fault. They were all vulnerable, none of them thinking straight, and nothing untoward had happened. He was doing the right thing now, and that was what was important. He wasn’t some beast who couldn’t control himself: he was fulfilling his vows and keeping the faith.
There were two lights.
The moon was behind him, halfway up the dome of night, a quarter full and appearing as bone-white horns behind the haze of high cloud. Then there was a lesser glow, coming from the beach.
At first, he thought it might be a fire, and that the remains of the Wolfman’s crew had come to the beach. Or Mary. But the light was constant and more blue than red, illuminating the cold mist that was collecting over the dunes. When he stood to check properly, he realised that it was roughly in the direction of both graves.
There was a chance that investigating was exactly the wrong thing to do. No one ever said Down was safe, and this might be one of the bad things that it might inflict on the unwary. On the other hand, if he didn’t hurry, he might miss whatever it was. Down, even when it unleashed storms that required a sacrifice to dissipate them, seemed to have the knack of choosing the right victim.
He picked his way through the brush until he reached the dunes. Climbing the first one confirmed his suspicions, that the light was centred on Luiza and the boat-womb. The air above it shone with a luminous fog that must be visible for miles. It was a beacon◦– if Mary was up there, then she would see it. If not, then, well… whoever else was abroad would look up and wonder.
Dalip walked down to the slack, then up the other side. This was the dip in which he’d interred the Wolfman. No night-time light show for him, weighed down with a load of damp, dirty sand, just decay and corruption. The fog thickened, and glowed brighter.
He didn’t quite know what he was going to find, but it was unexpected in that it wasn’t something from Down at all. As he slipped down the dune, he could see the source of the light was the small plastic egg that Elena had placed as a grave marker.
He picked it up, and he could see his bones through the redness of his fingers, though he could barely look at all. It was bright enough to bring tears to his eyes, even though the egg itself was cool to the touch.
Was it technology from some future London, or was it magic? Would he be able to tell the difference? He hadn’t been able to work out what the thing was before, but a portable light was a portable light and therefore had a high utility.
As he stood there, contemplating the marvel he held, he heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy chain, the metallic rattle of links as they passed over some solid object. For a moment, he thought of the Wolfman, but he was dead and gone and this noise was different anyway: slower and more reverential.
He put the egg back in its hollow and went to look out to sea.
There was a boat◦– no, a ship◦– off shore. In the moonlight, he saw its long, low shape and single mast, and the way both prow and sternposts arced towards the sky. It was big, too, judging from the small rowing boat that had been lowered over the side and was slowly splashing its way towards the gently sloping beach.
Now here was a dilemma worthy of the name. Other people had, without fail, brought nothing but trouble. Dalip should simply hide from them, wake the others and skip further into the forest. If these sailors had been drawn by the light, they could take it◦– if that meant them leaving him, Mama and Elena alone.
And yet, hadn’t he just been thinking about the gifts that Down gave? Here, unbidden, was a ship that might take all of them to the White City, and it looked fast. Perhaps they might even beat Crows there.
If he was a good man on Down, then there had to be others, eventually. If it all went sour, then he could escape and go with his first plan. He took his courage in both hands, and his machete in one, and walked down to meet them.
There were three people in the rowing boat. The two rowers had their backs to him, but a man sat in the stern and spotted Dalip’s silhouette on the shoreline.
‘Hello!’ he called brightly. ‘Friend or foe?’
‘That depends,’ Dalip shouted back. ‘Who are you?’
‘Pirates,’ came the reply, ‘but the good kind.’
‘I know enough about pirates to think you’re lying.’
‘Very well. I’m lying about being a pirate. But we do have a pirate ship.’ The man got up from the stern and crabbed his way towards the bow, stepping over and between the rowers. ‘If I throw you a line, will you take it?’
‘Go on, then,’ said Dalip, and a wet rope uncoiled through the air and smacked down at his feet. He scooped it up and wrapped it through his fists, pulling the line taut. The boat bobbed as the rowers lifted their oars clear of the water, and he walked backwards, pulling the boat through the last of the surf until the keel grounded hard against the sand.
The pirate captain jumped to the beach and scanned the rest of the shore cautiously.
‘No one else? Just you?’
Dalip didn’t know how to answer without knowing the man’s intentions. He said nothing, just rested his hand on the handle of his machete.
‘Can’t be too careful, old man. Calling ourselves pirates usually scares away the baser sort of cove, but there’s always one or two tricky blighters who spring something unexpected.’
The man nodded to his crew, and they stowed the oars.
‘Yonder is the Ship of Fools,’ said the man, ‘and I am Captain Simeon. We saw your beacon light at sunset, and determined we’d see what great wonder or great peril caused such illumination.’
‘Dalip Singh,’ said Dalip. ‘I’ll take you to it if you like.’
‘Gods,’ said Simeon and leaned forward. ‘A Sikh chappie. What a stroke of luck: Pater was ten years in the Punjab and had nothing but respect for your people. Came back riddled with malaria and a fondness for curry, mind. Forever going on about how bland our food was◦– drove Cook to despair.’ He turned to his crew. ‘Come on, then, men. Look lively.’
The two sailors clambered out of the boat and heaved it a little further up the beach. Both were shorter than Dalip, but considerably wider. They looked more than capable of being pirates.
‘Right then, Singh. Lead on.’
Dalip started towards the dunes, and Simeon fell into step beside him.
‘Why do you call it the Ship of Fools?’
‘Well, it was called that long before I ever set eyes on it, long before I became captain, so I can’t take credit for it. But everyone on board is a fool, so the name is most peculiarly apt.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Fools for ever stepping through that door, Singh. For accepting this fate rather than the one God ordained for us. Cowards and fools, every man jack of us. Still, we make the best of it, right, Dawson?’