‘Oh come on. You’ve got to give me more than that.’ She narrowed her eyes, picked a couple of the coins off the pile in her palm and proffered them. ‘What are these really for?’
He snorted a laugh and waved her honour back. ‘Think of it as your reputation, your influence. It’s how you get answers to the questions you have.’
‘Okay. What happens when I run out?’
‘Of honour? Well, you become dishonoured. You have to leave.’
‘And I can’t come back and get more?’
‘What do you think?’ He leaned back in his chair and waited.
‘No?’ she offered.
‘You catch on quick, girl. Now, are you armed?’
She’d left the hole-maker back in the bay. She’d meant to bring it with her, but had been too exhausted to remember. Her shoulders sagged, but it didn’t matter, since he would have taken it from her anyway. ‘No.’
The man levered himself out of the chair, shuffled across the floor and pulled back a blanket from a pile. On the next one down was arrayed a hotchpotch armoury. His hand hovered as he made his selection. ‘Fifteenth-century misericord. You don’t want anything too heavy◦– I’m not saying this is a woman’s weapon, but I think it’s a good fit for you.’
He passed it to her, hilt first.
It had a narrow, triangular blade, a short cross-guard, and a grip almost as long as the blade. The pommel was engraved with a flower.
‘I don’t understand. Why do I need this?’
‘Because you haven’t got one.’ He threw the blanket back over the rest and took to his chair again. ‘You can’t count on others to protect your honour, only you.’
She hefted the dagger and tapped her finger on the tip. ‘So you hand out knives to those who don’t have them.’
‘I don’t make the rules. I just try and help those who need help. I am right that this is your first time, yes? Some say it is when it isn’t.’
‘I haven’t been here long enough to come twice.’ Her gaze roamed across the hut’s walls and floor. ‘Is there anything else I need to know?’
‘Nothing you won’t find out for yourself in time. Most come for answers. Most leave disappointed. Some don’t leave at all, for one reason or another.’
‘If it’s “welcome to the White City, here’s your sword”, I can guess what one of those reasons is.’ One part of the hut had a stone floor◦– not that she could see much of that under the clutter. A fire smoked listlessly there, drawing up into a crude chimney that led outside. Above the fireplace was a rack, and on that rack was a rifle.
To see something of such modernity was almost a shock, as if she’d forgotten that such things had ever existed. It wasn’t even a new rifle: it looked like a museum piece, or something she’d see in an old film. But it was talisman of power and violence.
‘What about that?’ She pointed with the dagger.
‘What about it?’ he countered.
‘It’s a fucking gun.’
‘My gun. It’s a reminder to everyone who passes this way that you do so at my sufferance. The knife I gave you was for your protection. The gun is for mine. But,’ he said, ‘I can’t recall ever taking it down, except once.’
‘What happened?’
‘It ended badly.’ He sucked his teeth and tutted.
‘Tell me there’s food in the White City,’ she said.
‘There’s food, and drink, and much more. Much, much more.’ He was threatening her with abundance.
She threaded the dagger into a loop at her waist. ‘Thanks for the lift, and the knife, and,’ she held up the bag with her honours in, ‘these. I’ll probably see you on the way out.’
Mary was almost out of the door when he called after her.
‘Good luck.’
16
‘The wind’s not favourable, but we’ll tack across it.’ Simeon stood at the top of the beach and pronounced the day’s weather with a handful of dried grass seeds. Below lay the Ship of Fools, stranded in the shallow water like a great dark whale. ‘And when we can’t sail, we’ll row.’
The fresh water barrels were rolled down to the sea, and the cooked food stored for later: the hardtack would last for ever, the stew only a day. Dalip wondered about scurvy, and how long that would take to set in. None of the crew seemed affected◦– perhaps all the ones that were had died, or perhaps Down’s fish were rich in vitamin C. And if there was plenty of anything, it was cold, dried fish.
Simeon was like a lot of boys he’d met at school. Not the sons of labour, but the sons of wealth: they weren’t necessarily bad, they weren’t all stupid, they weren’t all heartless or useless or any of the other lesses. But they were overconfident. They believed, simply and completely, that the world was there for them, and they could reach out and take it.
There were maps. Simeon would take them. In his mind, it was already done.
Dalip wasn’t so sure. There was no safety net if anything went wrong, no getting out the chequebook to make a problem go away. He hoped to temper Simeon’s exuberance with some caution.
They had to load the ship first, and set it ready for the voyage. There was the raising of the heavy barrels up in nets, storing the food so that it wouldn’t become contaminated by sea-water, hauling on the ropes so that the mast was fixed in place, the readying the oars. Nothing, of itself, difficult, but all time-consuming and everybody had to lend a hand. Finally, they had to heave the boat off the sand and into deeper draught.
Dalip joined some of the bigger men in the water. They looked at him and his youth with scepticism, but although they couldn’t see the strong muscles under his shapeless boilersuit, they didn’t suggest that he shouldn’t be there, or was taking the place of a more able sailor. He put his shoulder to the hull with the best of them, and with a timed count, they pushed.
The ship slid gracefully back into the bay, and the oars lowered to stop it from floating out of reach of those not on board. Dalip splashed and half-swam to the lowered nets with the others, and strong arms hauled him in when he reached the gunwales.
The rowers backed the stern away from the shore, turned it about its axis, and headed for the open sea through the narrow opening in the cliffs. There was enough wind from the right quarter to lower the sail, though the sea-chests and oars remained on deck. The rowers stood down and the sailing crew kept trim.
Mama, holding the small of her back like it was a porcelain teacup, sat down next to him.
‘How did you do it?’ she asked.
‘Do what?’
‘Persuade Mr Simeon to go after Crows.’
‘He persuaded himself. It’s his own idea◦– that we can rid Down of the geomancers once and for all. Truth be told, I tried to talk him out of it.’
She started. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because it’s really dangerous and we could die. Not just us, but everyone on this boat. If we met Crows in open water, as a sea serpent, it could end very quickly and very badly for all of us.’
‘But he’s going to be in the White City. There won’t be any changing into snakes there. You said so.’
‘Mama, since when has anything Crows said changed what he actually does? I don’t know where he’s going. For all I know, he went back to his castle, now we’ve seen Bell off.’
‘Maybe we should go there, then.’
‘And this is the problem. We can’t go haring off around Down, looking for Crows when Crows doesn’t want to be found. The only place we stand any chance of finding him, or Mary, is the White City. If he’s not there, we’ll just go back to pirating,’ he said, as if pirating had been his life so far.
Mama hunched her shoulders. ‘That’s not going to get us home.’