‘We have to drink that,’ said Dalip, sitting down beside her.
Mama pointed to the swimmers over on the other side, and wriggled her toes. ‘My feet aren’t so much the issue. So what were you and Mr Simeon talking about?’
Dalip looked around to see who was near. ‘Not now.’
‘No?’
‘No. You’ll know what’s happening, when it happens. But let’s change the subject.’ He took a deep breath and leaned forward. ‘Elena, are you all right?’
She was the other side of Mama, knees up, arms tight across them, her head on her hands. She nodded. He thought that was the only thing he was going to get out of her, but she turned her face towards them.
‘Luiza was always the strong one. She pushed harder, argued more. She pulled me behind her, sometimes where I did not want to go. Our village was poor: we had hard lives, but we had family and friends. She wanted more than that. She wanted money and clothes and good times, and she would do what she needed to do to get them. In London, we were still poor and we still had hard lives, but we only had each other. She wanted to stay, so we stayed. Things, they got better, slowly. Our English, too.’ She wiped away a tear that was tickling across the bridge of her nose. ‘She is gone, and now I must make my own way in the world. I have to become strong, like her. This is what I choose.’
‘Don’t you worry yourself,’ said Mama. ‘We’ll take care of you. Right, Dalip?’
He thought about them hunting down Crows: nothing but an open boat against a sea serpent.
‘Right?’ repeated Mama.
‘We’ll do our best,’ he said, and felt like an utter bastard when Elena sniffed and smiled back.
Perhaps there’d be a way of them avoiding being on board when the time came◦– they could simply ask to be left on the island, because while Simeon said that it wouldn’t support all, it could be home for few people, for a short time. Or he could just put them ashore on the mainland, away from any portal, for the duration, and come back for them once all the dangerous adventure was over.
He excused himself and went to help raise the roofs of the huts, and dig out the firepits. Once it was dark, the fires would be lit using bunkered wood, and fresh food cooked, and the mere idea of it made his shipmates excited. Even Dawson, who cracked a chip-toothed grin as he and Dalip wrestled with one of the hut centre poles.
‘Hot meat and grog,’ he offered. ‘It’s a good day.’
By grog, Dalip assumed he meant some sort of home-brew spirit, because rum, and the sugar cane to make it with were conspicuous by their absence. And even the thought that a hot meal and getting drunk was the best Dawson had to look forward to was depressing, because if they didn’t go after Crows, that was all any of them had to look forward to. A life of sailing the same seas with a full watch, going ashore to grab supplies from a hostile shoreline, and only occasionally making safe harbour◦– and the only release would be death. They were free, but what were they doing with their freedom? There was nowhere to put down roots, and build up a society worth living in.
‘I know this will be a stupid question, Dawson, but where are the children?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘One person’s told me that their mother and father met here on Down, and had him, and Down was all he knew. But he was a liar. I’ve not seen a single child. Not here on board, not in the castle where I was◦– there were men and women, but no children.’ Dalip grimaced. ‘I know how babies are made, so…’
‘Well,’ said Dawson. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and scratched behind his ear. He kicked at the floor and slapped the centre pole hard enough to make it shiver. ‘There just ain’t any.’
‘Don’t people still,’ and he started to colour up, ‘do it?’
‘They do, when they can.’
‘But no one gets pregnant?’
‘Well, the men don’t for sure.’ He looked bemused by the question. ‘But neither do the lassies.’
Dawson picked up one of the roof spars and rested it in the slot, and Dalip lifted its opposite number into place.
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘I suppose, but that’s not the oddest thing about Down, is it?’
He was right. Of course he was right. It wasn’t.
‘Thanks, Dawson.’
Dawson shrugged. To him, it meant nothing, but to Dalip it was another piece of information, to be reconciled with everything else, something he had to fit into the architecture of Down, along with the portals, the lines and nodes of power, the magic and the beasts. If the maps were a jigsaw, Down’s mysteries were too.
What would happen, assuming it was possible, if he put them all together to make a Grand Unified Theory of Down. If the geomancers were right, they were so very wrong at the same time. The maps were only part of it◦– though a small, vital part◦– and in themselves meant little. Like fighting over a single cog when the rest of the mechanism was scattered.
Dawson was waiting for him to put the next roof beam up, patiently, almost bovine in his acceptance of his building partner’s faraway look. Dalip hefted it and dropped it into place.
So this was his destiny. Oh, he’d still kill Crows if he could. But this: had it ever occurred to anyone else to try and stitch all the seamless elements into a whole cloth? Of course it had, and he knew they’d all failed, because success would have meant absolute power for someone. What had they done wrong, and what was he going to get right?
When Simeon made his pitch tonight, he was going to be able to speak in its favour, with all the passion he could muster. The maps weren’t the key: they were going to show the pattern of the lock. The key would follow. He didn’t know what form it would take, or how he would make it, but he felt, for the first time, confident that it could be done.
He lifted the next spar into position, and they were finished. It was time to move on to the next one. Others would cover the roof with cloth, and then the sun would set, the fires be lit, and the grog broken out. There was a purpose to it now, and Dalip couldn’t wait.
15
First a finger, then a hand, then a head, and Mary could finally see the land beyond the top of the cliff. She reached out for the last flat stone, slapped her palm down on it, and heaved herself up. She didn’t have much strength left, but the sight of the short, scrubby bushes that dotted the inland slope gave her just enough encouragement to tip her body over the final ledge and crawl forward until her feet were no longer dangling over the precipice.
She lay there for a moment, feeling almost floaty, before rolling over on her back and reaching between her legs for the length of rope that ran taut over the edge. Her arms were so weak, they were trembling, but the longer she allowed herself, the higher the risk of Crows coming back.
She hooked the rope, pulled carefully until the sack appeared just above the top step, then inched across so she could lean over and lift it clear. It was stupid, really. She never used to be cautious, but then again she’d never had to expend so much effort to do anything. It was always easy come, easy go: now that a single mistake could spell the end of everything, she was meticulous.
The canvas bag creaked as she hugged it. That was half the hard thing done. Now for the other part: get to the White City without Crows spotting her. Firstly, she needed to move away from the staircase, and quickly. The scrub would help hide her, but it’d also hide Crows’ approach, and he needed no encouragement to sneak.
She scrambled off, sometimes on two feet, sometimes on all fours, until she’d put some distance between herself and the coast. The booming sound of the sea lessened, and the cold north wind rattled the gnarled branches around her. She crept under a bush, where the soil was bare and dusty and the black wood knitted a shelter of twigs and leaves over her head. She was exhausted, and she had to keep going. She knew that. She wasn’t safe.