Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [33]
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