Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [35]
‘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