‘Name of the guy who owned this place,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘I walked east.’ She raised the jug to her lips.
‘East? To where?’
‘Deslorn,’ she said. ‘Hundreds of us took that road.’ She was looking at him strangely now, trying to discover his motives. ‘When the cholera took hold in Deslorn, I moved again. Temple Oak, Cannislaw, other places. A refugee camp in the woods, that’s where Inny was born.’ She lifted the jug again.
Damn you, Ianthe. You’d let her die to prove a point? Granger put his hand on the lip of the jug and lowered it. ‘How did you end up here?’
She let out a deep sigh. ‘Trove,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Inny can spot things lying on the seabed.’ She set down the jug and looked at it. ‘We got involved with this smuggler, Marcus Law. He was dredging the waters out past Port Vassar, the Ochre Sea and places like that. And he’d send the trove he found to the Losoto markets. Illegal, of course. But you always find buyers for exceptional finds, and a lot of Inny’s finds were like that.’
Granger thought about this, now curious despite his misgivings. If Ianthe could do what her mother claimed, then what she was telling him made sense. Black-market salvage operations like these funnelled money into the Evensraum Resistance. The Imperial Navy had closed down dozens of them.
‘You’re telling me she can actually see trove down there?’
Hana nodded. ‘Like you can see me now.’ She picked up the water jug and held it out to her daughter. ‘Inny . . .’
‘I don’t want anything from him,’ the girl said. ‘You drink it.’
Hana looked up at him helplessly, then she raised the jug to her own lips.
‘Stop.’ Granger took the jug away from her. His thoughts were reeling now. Had Ianthe been about to let her mother drink brine, simply to conceal her talents? Or was it more likely that Hana was telling the truth, that Ianthe simply didn’t know about the poisoned water? He stared down at the jug in confusion. ‘I have some wine, if you’d prefer.’
‘Thank you,’ Hana said. ‘That would be nice.’
He emptied the jug in the corridor outside. Ianthe’s behaviour continued to confound him. Had mother and daughter known about the poison all along and planned that whole display for his benefit? Had Hana counted on him preventing her from taking a sip? It was the only thing he could think of that made sense.
How do you test a psychic who knows your every thought and plans to confound you?
Had they simply outwitted him? Granger let out a growl of frustration and went to find them some wine.
At noon he cooked them thrice-boiled fish, adding oats to turn it into a thick porridge. If he was going to outwit his prisoners, he decided, it was best to earn their trust first. He found a little honey he’d been saving for himself and spooned that in too. It made the gruel more pleasant. He tasted it with his finger, then added salt and tasted it again. Not too bad. He felt quite pleased with himself. As he was ladling the mixture into bowls he heard the sound of a bell ringing outside. He went over to the open hatch and ducked outside.
The postboat was moving slowly along Halcine Canal, puffing steam from its short brass funnel. She was an old Valcinder coastal cruiser, slender and graceful. East Empire shipwrights had carved her hull from the jawbone of a hexen barracuda and fashioned her stem from hundreds of white and yellow angui bones that still gleamed like twists of marzipan. The waterway here was narrow enough to allow the postman’s son, Ned, to toss bundles of letters onto the prison wharfs or into the open decks of the jailers’ own tethered boats. Most of Granger’s neighbours had postboxes fixed to their wharfs, but it wasn’t raining so Ned wasn’t bothering to use them. The Hoekens and Mrs Pursewearer would complain about that, and Ned would just laugh uproariously and carry on as usual.
On the opposite side of the canal Dan Cuttle was climbing down a series of ladders that zigzagged all the way down one side of his brick jail like huge iron stitches. He waved and called down, ‘Fine hot day.’
‘It’s cooler down here in the shade,’ Granger replied. ‘Any time you want to swap your business for mine, I’d be happy to oblige you.’
Dan laughed and shouted back, ‘I’ve got plenty of leftover bricks if you need them, Tom. Odd sizes, I’m afraid, but I’m sure you could use ’em. Rather give ’em to you than let the bloody Drowned have ’em back.’
‘I might take you up on that, Dan. Thanks.’ He thought about the Drowned family he’d seen going into the other man’s basement, but then decided not to mention them. Dan would have Maskelyne’s Hookmen down here in droves.
As the postboat slipped past, Ned threw a single envelope towards Granger’s wharf. It looped momentarily in the air, before missing the wharf altogether and drifting down onto the open hull of Granger’s rotten little boat.
Ned laughed. ‘Sorry Tom.’
‘Every time,’ Granger muttered.
His vessel, Hana, was sitting lower in the water than ever before. He allowed his gaze to linger a moment on the name he’d painted across her bow. He could barely make out the faded letters among the cracks and blisters. The hull was in bad shape. Brine had leaked through cracks in the resin along the keel and pooled in the bottom. Thankfully the letter had landed on the centre board and remained dry. He balanced his foot on her port gunwale, but her hull tilted and the letter slid an inch closer to the brine. The toe rail cracked under his weight. A sloshing sound came from somewhere under the thwarts. Even at full stretch, he couldn’t quite reach the letter, so he ripped loose a couple of long sections of toe rail and used them like pincers to grab the envelope.
It was addressed to Mr Alfred Leach c/o Captain R. Swinekicker, Halcine Canal and it contained four hundred gilders in fifties, and a letter. Granger pocketed the money and wandered back upstairs, reading the letter.
Dearest Alfred,
Your last letter didn’t give me much time to raise the money. I was forced to visit that money lender in the Trove Market. Please forgive me, I know how much you despise them. Sally spoke with him alone, and – god love her – she managed to convince him to lower his rates. Bright girl, that one. So you needn’t worry too much. It’s all done now. Ronald and Gunny send their love. They keep asking if you ever mention them in your letters.
I tell them yes, of course. I tell them that you miss them, as I’m sure, deep down, you do.
Love,
Margaret
Granger crumpled up the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket. He went back to the stove and ladled the cooling porridge into two bowls. Then he washed and refilled the water jug and carried the lot down to his captives.
The moment he entered the cell he could see that Ianthe had mustered her rage for another outburst. Her jaw was tight, her eyes brimming with cruel intent.
He tried to pre-empt her. ‘Should I just throw this into the brine and save you the effort of rejecting it?’ By the time he’d closed his mouth he regretted ever opening it.
She actually snarled. ‘Fish porridge? Isn’t that like cannibalism for you? Boiling up your own relatives to feed to your prisoners?’ She was speaking through her teeth. ‘I know beggars eat that muck, but they normally have the decency not to inflict it on others. Take it away and bring us something edible, or just leave us to starve to death.’ She snorted. ‘That’s what you’re going to do anyway, isn’t it? When the council payments run out?’
‘Inny, please!’ Hana reached for her daughter, but the girl snatched her hand away.
Ianthe had adopted
an air of smug self-righteousness. ‘I can’t believe you slept with him,’ she said to her mother. ‘Did he wear a bag over his head? Or did he rape you? That, at least, would be understandable. You’re never really fulfilled unless you’re somebody’s victim.’
Hana’s cheeks flushed.
‘That’s enough.’ Granger stood there in the open doorway with an armload of crockery: a great lumbering, red-faced fool. Ianthe must have known about her parentage from the beginning. How do you keep secrets from a psychic? But he was surprised to find the girl’s hostility directed at her mother, rather than him. He set their food down on the platform, weary and anxious to leave. ‘I don’t care if it’s not what you’re used to, it’s all I can afford right now.’
‘Poor you,’ Ianthe scoffed. ‘If only you had four hundred gilders in your pocket.’
He stopped. A slow grin spread across his face. ‘Four hundred gilders, Ianthe?’
She snorted.
There was no doubt left in Granger’s mind now. Only a psychic could have known about the money. ‘I need it for something else.’
‘Whores, I suppose.’
He took a deep breath. He was about to speak, but then he changed his mind and voiced his thoughts internally instead. I didn’t want be your father. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to write to the Haurstaf. You’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks and you can spend the rest of your life living in a marble tower, causing wars and blackmailing emperors and screwing the Unmer and whatever else it is you people do. He smiled grimly. ‘Did you get all that? Or would you like me to repeat it out loud?’
Ianthe glared at him defiantly.
Hana glanced at her daughter, then back at Granger. ‘I told you she doesn’t read minds.’
Granger lost his temper. ‘You’ve told me nothing but lies,’ he exclaimed. ‘It seems to me that I’m the only one who’s acting in our daughter’s interests. What is it with you? Pride? Selfishness? Are you so afraid of being alone that you’d keep her rotting in jail when she could be out of here in a heartbeat?’ He set down the bowls roughly, spilling porridge everywhere. ‘I don’t get it, Hana. Do you think I’m suddenly going to become the good father? My responsibilities to you ended fifteen years ago in Weaverbrook, when you chose to keep your pregnancy a secret.’
Hana stiffened. She closed her eyes. In a voice no louder than a whisper she said, ‘You wouldn’t have stayed with me.’
‘I was an Imperial soldier.’
Ianthe had paled. ‘Lies,’ she said. ‘You were never in Weaverbrook.’
‘Inny . . .’ Hana reached for her.
‘No!’ She snatched her hand away. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. You told me you met him years before Dad died, you said . . .’ She let out a small shriek of frustration, then shook her head fiercely. ‘He can’t have been in Weaverbrook.’
‘Inny, please.’
‘He’s not my father.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Granger stared in astonishment as Ianthe began to wail.
* * *
CHAPTER 4
TREASURE-HUNTERS
To Sister Briana Marks:
My name is not important. I am a jailer in Ethugra who has recently, and legally, been granted incarceration rights to a powerful psychic. Given this person’s value to your Guild, I would be glad to hand them over in return for a finder’s fee of two hundred thousand gilders. If this is agreeable, please have a Guild representative (yellow-grade only) meet me at Averley Plaza on the 30th HR. I will find her.
Faithfully,
A Friend
Granger stared at the letter. How could he send it now? Ianthe was more of a mystery to him than ever before. She knew things she couldn’t possibly have known: the slop drawer, the four hundred gilders. And yet she seemed blind to the most crucial information of all: the poisoned water, her own parentage. Every one of his instincts told him that her reaction to that last revelation was genuine. She hadn’t known he was her father.
Had Hana been telling the truth all along?
Or had they outwitted him again?
He cradled his head in his hands. She couldn’t have seen him put the money into his pocket. She couldn’t have known about Duka’s condition from hearing his sobs. So why hadn’t she known he was her father? Nothing made sense – not least her supposed ability to find trove. Psychics didn’t find treasure. The sea had no mind to read.
Granger folded up the letter and slid it down inside his sock. If Ianthe turned out to be valuable, he would send it, and if she didn’t, well, it might at least stop Creedy’s damn whaleskin galoshes from chaffing his ankle so much.
Ianthe ignored him for four days. Granger went about his duties in a workmanlike fashion, bringing his captives food and water and emptying the slop drawer. Ianthe kicked all their food into the brine before her mother had a chance to protest or even to thank Granger. But she drank the water and she allowed her mother to drink it too.
On the fifth day she said, ‘If you want me to find trove, you’ll have to let me out of here.’
‘Who says I want to find trove?’ Granger replied.
She threw the water jug at him.
Two more days passed.
On the seventh day of their incarceration he found Ianthe in an edgy, restless mood. She sat with her chin pressed against her knees, gripping the soles of her boots as though making a conscious effort to stop her coiled muscles from lashing out again. They had, at last, eaten their breakfasts and left the empty bowls for Granger to collect. He took this to be a small victory.
‘She wants to work with you,’ Hana said.
‘Does she? Was this her idea, or yours?’
Ianthe stared at the wall.
‘Take her out in your boat, she’ll find treasure.’
Granger shook his head. ‘I could lose my licence if anyone sees me.’
‘Then go at night,’ Hana said. ‘Her sight is good enough.’
It was bad enough being on the brine in daylight, but the thought of trawling Ethugra’s canal’s at night felt like a lead weight in his gut. ‘My boat leaks.’
‘Your friend’s boat doesn’t.’
Creedy scratched at the Gravediggers tattoo behind his thumb. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘She’s either psychic or she isn’t.’
Granger sat in the bow of the sergeant’s launch beside a tarpaulin that hid their dredging equipment – the lamps, ropes, nets and iron hooks Creedy had borrowed from another of his cousins. Stone façades and barred windows slipped by on either side, both above and below water. The seabed was about seven fathoms down here, and the honey-coloured water unusually clear, but Granger couldn’t see anything of worth in the flooded street below. Rubble. A torn net. Bones and paint cans. ‘Maybe it’s instinctual,’ he said.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, birds once used to migrate across the oceans. How did they navigate? What guided them across the endless wastes to the same roosting spots year after year? Or dragons . . . You’ve seen the way berserker dragons hunt the Drowned off the Losotan coast. They know where to dive and where to avoid.’
‘I once saw a dragon taken by an erokin samal,’ Creedy said. ‘Man, that was nasty.’
Granger shrugged. Maybe that wasn’t such a good example. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain Ianthe’s talents yet. She might not
be psychic, but she has something.’
Creedy shook his head in disapproval. ‘I know a con when I smell one, Colonel.’
A passenger boat puttered by, almost identical to the vessel Granger had taken out to Creedy’s place. This one was full of jailers’ wives back from the Averley Day Market, their wares piled between their knees, but it was as overcrowded as any other. Ethugran captains liked to pack them in. Long rays of sunlight slanted into the city from the west, turning the top stories of the buildings to gold.
Gloom had filled Halcine Canal by the time they reached Granger’s wharf. Creedy tied up, and then the two men climbed up the ramshackle stairs into Granger’s garret.
To keep Ianthe hidden, Granger looked out a spare whale-skin cloak from the storeroom: a sour old garment, hardened by long exposure to rain and brine spray. He felt sure she would complain.
She complained and raged and threw it on the floor. But when he made it clear she’d wear the cloak or remain inside, she snatched it back up and swept it fiercely about her shoulders. Creedy said nothing but he stared at Ianthe in a way that made Granger feel uncomfortable.
Shortly after sunset, the three treasure-hunters departed in Creedy’s launch. High cloud had drifted in from the south and veiled the dusk. There were no stars, but a half moon shone through the clouds like a faint illusion. Creedy manned the wheel while Granger swung a lantern from the bow to light their way. Ianthe told them to head to Francialle, and then she yanked her foul-smelling cloak over her face and buried her head in her knees. They left Halcine Canal and turned into Elm Canal and then Broughton Canal, before finally nudging the boat into the old Unmer district via the Rat Passage. Night deepened around them. Creedy cut the engine and took up his boat hook. ‘What now?’
‘She starts looking.’
They waited.
‘Ianthe?’