City of Lies - Lian Tanner [5]
The bootprints led the children to an old wooden wharf, where fishing boats were moored nose to tail, with their nets strung out to dry and lobster pots piled high on their decks. A mist was rolling in from the south. The stink of seaweed and fish hung over everything.
Goldie could hear the water lapping against the piles beneath her, and the slow creak of wooden hulls. Somewhere, a chain rattled. As the mist thickened, she began to feel as if she were tracking Bonnie through a dream. A gray-spotted cat darted across her path like a puff of smoke. The chain rattled again, very close this time.
There was a hiss of gas, and an engine struggled to life.
The children shrank back into the shadows, peering at the boat opposite. It was small and stumpy, with a single mast and a deckhouse at the back. A coarse rope net hung over its side. Its engine belched uncertainly, then steadied.
Toadspit’s fingers dug into Goldie’s flesh. “It’s them,” he hissed. “It must be.”
As he spoke, the engine took on a deeper note. The water swirled and slapped against the wooden piles. The mast trembled, and the boat began to edge away from the wharf.
There was no time to wonder if it really was the right boat. Goldie and Toadspit raced across the wharf and threw themselves over the widening gap. It was a long jump and Goldie almost didn’t make it. Her fingers touched the rope net. Missed. Touched again. Her right hand fumbled. Her left hand clung desperately. Her feet flailed in midair—
Then, just when she thought she must fall and be swallowed up by the cold, churning water, her toes found the net. She clutched at it, pressing her whole body against the side of the boat and gasping for breath.
Beside her, Toadspit was already crawling upward. Goldie scrambled after him, and the two of them slipped over the rail and sank down behind the deckhouse, with Bonnie’s bow between them.
Somewhere nearby a man cried, “Half speed!” The boat surged, and the lights of Jewel disappeared into the mist. Ahead, everything was darkness.
The Grand Protector of Jewel was at her desk when the note from Vice-Marshal Amsel arrived. She pushed her papers and her early-morning cup of hot chocolate to one side, adjusted her eyeglasses and read the hastily scribbled message.
“You’re joking!” The words burst out of her before she could stop them.
“It’s no joke, Your Grace,” said the corporal of militia who had brought the note. “The prisoner walked up to the Eastern Gate an hour ago. Looked as if he’d been living rough for a while.”
The Protector gulped a mouthful of hot chocolate and reread the note, her pulse beating an angry tattoo. “He gave himself up? He wasn’t captured?”
The corporal shook his head.
“Well,” said the Protector. “I suppose I must see him. Tell the vice-marshal to send him to me.”
As soon as the corporal had gone, she took her gold chain and stiff crimson robe from the corner closet and put them on. Then she sat down to await the arrival of the worst traitor the city had ever known. The man who had plotted to enslave its citizens and set himself up as dictator. The man whom everyone had assumed to be dead, lost in the Great Storm.
Her younger brother. The Fugleman of Jewel.
The Protector almost laughed when they brought the prisoner in. He wore so many chains that he clanked like an iron foundry. She leaned back in her chair and studied him.
He was thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and everything about him was ragged and filthy. His hair was still black, of course, and he had a certain handsomeness beneath the grime. But his shoulders were slumped and his eyes were fixed on the floor. The fine proud Fugleman of six months ago had disappeared completely.
At the memory of that terrible time, when the city had come so close to disaster, the temptation to laugh vanished. “Wait outside,” the Protector said to the militiamen.
The guards backed out the door. There was silence in the office.