Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [43]
Creedy snatched up his baling tin, scooped it full of brine and then hurled it up at the barred window. The old man yelped and disappeared as seawater splashed across the prison façade. Some of the brine must have splashed him, for he began to howl in pain.
‘Sun’s almost down,’ Creedy said. ‘We’d best go get the girl.’
‘Not tonight,’ Granger said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly that, Sergeant,’ Granger replied in a tone that implied the conversation was over.
Creedy looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, Tom.’
They returned in silence. As Granger alighted on his wharf, Creedy looked up at him with malice in his eye. ‘Tomorrow night, then?’
‘Maybe. I’ll send you a message.’
The sergeant spat into the canal, then gunned his launch away, spewing muddy foam in his wake.
Granger looked at his own boat. She was a common skiff, sixteen feet long from bow to stern, and built here in Ethugra three decades ago from sea-forest wood. Most of her hull spars and seats had been replaced by dragon-bones, but her hull was entirely original, and thus rotting. He ought to make some temporary repairs while he was still wearing his brine gear, and while it was still light enough to see what he was doing. Carefully, he climbed aboard, easing his whaleskin boots into the partially flooded bilge. The old wooden planks creaked under his boots. From the bow storage compartment he took out his foot-pump, tools, storm lantern and an open tin of resin. The resin had hardened, leaving the brush jammed upright like a handle, so he placed the lantern on the wharf, lit it and balanced the tin on the lantern’s metal hood. While the resin was warming, he pumped water out of the bilge. Ideally, he should have raised her out of the water, but he didn’t need a perfect repair. Just enough to get her to the boatyard.
He spent an hour applying the sticky resin into the caulking between the hull planks. It was fully dark when the job was finally done, and his oil lantern glowed like a lonely beacon among the glooming prison buildings. A cloud of moths flitted around the flame, while scores more drifted past like grey confetti on the black water.
Granger spied another light moving down there in the depths. He snuffed his own lantern.
Several fathoms down, the Drowned man Granger had seen earlier emerged from a submerged doorway under Dan Cutter’s jail. He was heading south, hurrying across the uneven canal bed, swinging his gem-lantern to and fro as if searching for something amidst the rubble. The child who had accompanied him previously was nowhere to be seen.
A sense of unease crept over Granger, although he couldn’t say why. He suddenly felt very cold. As he turned to go back inside, he happened to glance up. The sky was moonless and clear, crammed with stars that sparkled like fragments of mica. He spotted the constellations of Ulcis Proxa and Iril, and part of Ayen’s Wheel glimmering low in the north. A tiny cluster of lights was travelling across the sky there. It stopped abruptly, then altered course, moving off in a westerly direction. Granger paused to watch it go. He’d not seen Ortho’s Chariot for five or six years, and as he stood there he couldn’t help but wonder what it might be. The last Unmer airbarque, travelling forever beyond the reach of the Haurstaf and Emperor Hu’s raging indignation? The occupants must surely be dead by now. Or was it just a star that had lost its way?
He went back inside.
He’d been gone longer than he intended to, and his prisoners would be hungry. He went downstairs to check on them.
Ianthe watched him moodily from under her hair. Hana looked drawn and weary. ‘Inny tells me it’s a beautiful night,’ she said. ‘You saw Ortho’s Chariot?’
Granger nodded. ‘It’s supposed to be a bad omen.’
‘Evensraumers don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘Inny told me about your argument with Creedy.’
‘She’s been spying on me?’
Hana raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t blame her for that, Tom. What would you do in her position?’
Granger glanced