The White City

11

‘You are very quiet, Mary.’

She’d made shit up, about finding everyone dead and there being a slow, smouldering fire on which they all burned. It was close enough to the truth that she didn’t have to tell him about the portal, because knowledge of the portal was power. If there wasn’t a map of it in the crate, she’d draw it herself when she could. For now, she’d have to remember the shape of the land and the directions of the lines of houses.

What she said she’d found was excuse enough not to talk. The truth was, she didn’t know how easy plague was to catch. She hadn’t seen any rats, and the men hadn’t got anywhere near her◦– but she’d touched the stone Nathaniel had thrown at her. That, surely, wasn’t enough?

And if it was, she’d be making damn certain she gave it to Crows before she died.

How long? A day? Two? She should have asked. Or she shouldn’t have hung around long enough to ask. All she had instead was uncertainty.

So, yes. She was quiet. Checking herself for fever, or a cough, or feeling sick. She felt fine, though. Tense, nervous, sad, but not ill.

‘Just leave me alone.’

‘Very well. I will, I believe, catch myself some breakfast.’

He hadn’t taught her how to power the boat◦– not refused as such, more simply neglected to pass on the information◦– so when he collapsed the standing wave that pushed it forward, the wave travelled ahead of them and washed into the swell. The boat began to slow, and to bob.

Crows moved from the stern seat from where he controlled the rudder, to perch on the side. The boat tilted, and the waves lapped at the rail. Crows lifted his feet and pitched backwards into the green, churning sea. The splash he made was lost almost immediately. The boat righted itself and, just like that, he was gone below the surface. Moments later, a loop of scales rose from the surface, the water cascading from the edges of their overlapping edges, and a head, sleek and snake-like, leaned over Mary from a great height.

Mary stared into the glassy black eyes, determined not to look the least bit concerned. He could, easily enough, eat her. But she wouldn’t go quietly: he could fit a small brown girl in his maw, but not a giant falcon. He risked the maps, if nothing else, and he didn’t dare.

‘Go, if you’re going. It’s not like we’re moving while you’re pissing around in the water.’

The head turned away and scanned the horizon. Looking for land, or the best place to fish? Who knew? The waves closed over the crown of Crows’ black head and he was gone.

She waited a minute◦– actually counted out the seconds, one elephant, two elephant◦– then searched the boat from stem to stern.

Down had provided a locker at the pointed bow, and it was almost big enough for her to climb completely inside. She found coils of rope, heavy parcels of thick white cloth, and odd-shaped pieces of wood as long and thick as her forearm, square at one end, rounded at the other. There were paddles, too, short and broad.

A sail, then, and something for when the wind didn’t blow. Dalip hadn’t expected to move the boat by magic, and if there was a sail, there had to be a mast◦– she knew that much. When she turned around and looked properly beneath her feet for the first time, she saw the long tapered pole lying in the bottom, next to the beam of the keel. In the centre was a wooden bung, which she heaved out, and there was the hollow to receive the mast.

She couldn’t lift it upright on her own. There were other lengths of wood too, but she’d exhausted her knowledge. There’d be no sailing away for her, and even if she could, she couldn’t outrun Crows in serpent form. If she got the better of him in a fight, tied him tight with the rope so he couldn’t change, then she was still stuck. Unless she was able to recreate the wave which chased them across the bay, that was.

Too many ifs. Her head was starting to hurt. What she could do, was what she’d already thought of: make a bag from sail cloth and carry the maps aloft, out of Crows’ reach. She’d never been one for needlework, but she was willing to give it a go and, somehow, she was going to have to do it right under Crows’ nose and not have him suspect anything. It was a plan, but she needed tools. A knife, at least.

She traced an uneven path, past the crate, to the back of the boat, and found two more cupboards, closed with little brass catches.

If there were sails, there might be a way to repair them. And there was: a series of thick, hooked needles as long as her finger, thread that was as stiff as wire, spring-gripped shears, curved knives with bone handles, squares of spare cloth.

At the very back of the cupboards, which shared one space between the two doors, was something like a small biscuit tin. She had to duck under the rudder arm in order to reach it, and she almost dropped it when she finally got her fingers to it, it was so surprisingly heavy.

She checked the four quarters of the sea for sight of Crows. He wasn’t there, so she sat down with the tin in her lap and wrestled it open.

It was a clock. No, not a clock, because it only had one long hand and there were no hours marked out. Well, it could be a clock, a Down clock that worked by its own rules. She lifted it up to listen to it and check for ticking, and as she did so, the hand pivoted about its middle, and the whole glass face rocked.

She put it back down and poked the dial, which not only moved under her touch, but turned every which way. The hand swung back and forth across the markings on the dial.

This was treasure. Not just the boat and the sails, but the needle and thread and this… thing. And it had all been grown out of Down’s land. She looked at it through half-closed eyes and it reminded her of Bell’s brass instruments. Had Down given them to Bell, just as it had given her this?

A compass. There was only one direction marked, west, but if she gave it some thought, north and south should be easy enough to work out.

If she only knew how, she could now sail the oceans of Down, and navigate at the same time. Her breath came in quick, shallow pants. In the right hands◦– not hers, obviously◦– this was almost as good as a map, and she had it. She couldn’t remember Crows showing any interest in the contents of the lockers. For him, the boat was simply a means of transporting the maps across the bay without getting them wet.

First things first. She checked again for Crows, and saw him in the middle distance, loops of his body rising and falling in the water. She had time, then.

The compass: lid on, and moved to ‘her’ end of the boat. Then she heaved up a corner of sailcloth and tucked it securely underneath. She went back for some of the spare cloth, the needles, the shears and one of the knives, and stowed it as far from the door as she could reach. It seemed dry enough in there, despite the sea being just the other side of the planks.

Then she dragged it all back out. That wouldn’t work◦– she didn’t need to hide the sail-making equipment, but to have a reason to have it out, on show.

She’d been cold last night. She’d make herself a cape: a big, all-encompassing cloak that she could turn, with a few tugs and folds, into a giant carrying bag. What could Crows do about that? He would gaze at her, and she at him, and she’d go back to her stitching.

There was only one problem with her plan. She didn’t know how to sew. For sure, they’d tried to teach her but, as with so many other skills she’d been shown by well-meaning teachers, she’d abandoned the lesson because she didn’t want to learn something so mundane. She could get her clothes from market stalls, or nick them from department stores, so why learn to hem and stitch and shape?

If they’d presented the task with a warning that her life depended on being able to make a buttonhole, she might have approached it◦– and her whole life◦– differently. As it was, she’d have to guess as she went along.

She took one of the squares◦– a piece big enough to cover a restaurant table◦– and cut it in two, then into four, so she had something to practise on. The needles were too fat to slip between the weft of the cloth, even when she wedged one against the side of the boat and tried to ram the cloth over it. She went back to the stern lockers and searched. She found one of the needles wasn’t a needle, but a metal spike which would punch a hole clean through with a grunt of effort. The hole was big enough to squeeze one of the needles through, and the hooked end could work the cord-like thread after it.

She realised that whatever she was going to make, be it simple or complicated, it was going to take a fuck-load of time and energy. She almost gave up before she started, looking for an easier solution. Or she could just not do it, because she always avoided doing anything difficult.

Mary scowled at the cloth, the needle, the cord, and picked up the hole-maker. It was sharp enough in its own right to qualify as a weapon. Useful. Crows had better not come too close.

It was only when the boat tilted rather than rocked that she looked up from her work. Two brown hands were clinging to the side rail, the nails pinked with effort. An elbow hoisted itself up, and Crows’ head appeared, then his foot hooked over. He tumbled, soaked, into the bottom of the boat, and lay there for a moment, before turning over to look at her and what she was doing.

‘You took your own sweet time,’ she snapped. She glanced up, then concentrated on getting the tension in her thread right. Too loose was no good, but too tight made the cloth bunch.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m doing something that’s not quite as boring as staring out to sea, while waiting for you.’

‘All that was here? The cloth, the needles?’

‘Came with the boat.’ She held up the piece she was working on, and gave the two halves an experimental tug. The seam stretched. It looked pretty amateur◦– she wasn’t even sure she’d used a recognised stitch, and from Crows’ expression, she hadn’t◦– but at least it held.

‘Is that so?’ He raised himself up, and concentrated on driving the moisture from his clothes. Mist rose around him, as if he was steaming. A neat trick, and another she’d have to learn. He was joined at the rudder by a pair of crows, who rattled their beaks and clattered their wings before rising into the sky. ‘We may have drifted,’ he said. ‘I must see where we are, before setting a new course.’

‘It’s almost like you know where you’re going.’ She didn’t look up this time. ‘Do you?’

‘Whether I do or not remains to be seen,’ he replied, not admitting one way or another.

She snorted. ‘What is it with blokes and directions? Always too fucking proud to admit you’re lost.’

‘We are in Down,’ said Crows. ‘For some, that is lost, and for some, that is found.’

She searched the horizon for any sight of land, but saw none. It was water as far as she could see. She had never been this alone before in her life: her experience had always been the noise and chaos of a children’s home, when there was always someone around. It was wealth and privilege that bought privacy, locked doors and high walls.

She started to laugh, and Crows looked at her as if she was deranged, which only made her laugh harder, until she was all but incapable of speech. She was rich, not in any way she could understand, but she was here to stay. Down was everything she’d ever wanted. It wasn’t heaven, it was more like hell, but it made her feel alive.

‘It is good to laugh,’ said Crows, still not sure what to make of it, or her. ‘After the… unfortunate incident on the beach, I thought your heart would always be sad.’

Mary panted for a while, and managed to sit upright again. ‘Oh, you’ll pay for that, one way or another, one day. And just so you know, when that moment comes, you’re on your own.’

‘Your friends have to catch me first.’ A wave rose slowly from the deep and rolled towards the stern, at the same time a trough formed ahead of the bow. The boat pitched forward, and the sensation of movement, if not the visible signs of it, began.

‘Don’t write them off too fast.’ She rearranged the sewing in her lap. ‘They’re full of surprises.’

Crows considered it. ‘One old women, one scared girl, and your Dalip Singh, who is brave but naïve and simply too trusting to survive here. You should not pin your hopes on seeing them again.’

‘Ever?’

‘Down is vast, and ever is a long time. But Bell is not the only geomancer, and hers not the only castle. It would be a kindness if they were taken by someone else; at least, they would not then starve.’

‘I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just… you know. Stuff like that has a habit of coming back and biting you on the arse.’ She punctuated her words with stabs of the hole-maker through the sail cloth.

‘I will watch my arse carefully.’ Crows folded his hands into his lap. ‘You are right. Miracles do sometimes happen, and so may Dalip Singh.’

She made more holes, then started to thread them together. She would find a way to open the portals, get her friends home, and… then what? Would the chaos brought about by the geomancers end because she’d finally cracked the problem? Or would she have to fight them all, either one by one or in groups? Because she was up for that. The Red Queen’s army would sweep across Down, opening every last dungeon and freeing every last captive.

‘You are smiling,’ said Crows.

‘Am I? Just concentrating.’ She needed the maps first, before any of that could happen. How long was this journey supposed to take? Probably not long enough, but if she was walking◦– or flying◦– she wouldn’t be able to sew at the same time. Better get on with it. Stop daydreaming and stitch like it was all that mattered in this world.

Mama could do this sort of shit, she bet. Luiza and Elena too, maybe. Dalip◦– did Sikh boys get taught needlecraft? She thought probably not. So there was at least something she could do better than him. She pulled and sewed and tightened, frowning at the stiffness of the cloth and the springiness of the thread.

Yet when she tied a knot in the end of the line, and snipped off the excess with the shears, she was◦– if not happy◦– satisfied with the result. The two pieces of sailcloth didn’t part when she pulled at them, and when she let go, they sprang back along the join. There were still things like drawstrings to consider, that would change a wearable cloak into a functional sack. There’d be no point in stealing the maps and then dropping them, one by one, into the ocean as the wind took them.

She had no idea about patterns or how to cut cloth in order to give it shape. There was no way around that problem: she’d just have to manage with as much guile and tenacity as she could muster. One thing was certain, and that was: she was learning. Her second attempt was far better than her first.

Crows was watching her closely, his eyes half-closed. She held up her handiwork for his inspection, and he pursed his lips and looked to one side.

This will be your undoing, she thought. Not magic, not power, not weapons, not cheating or lying, neither great plans nor sudden surprises, but this: your cynicism. I know what that’s like, but I’m better than that now.

‘You are smiling again.’

‘Just, you know. Finding something I’m not bad at, after years of thinking I’m shit at everything.’

‘Your stitching is workmanlike,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong with stitching like a workman?’

He fanned his fingers wide. ‘I could show you how to do better,’ he said. ‘Sailors have always had to mend their own clothes, even after the age of sail.’

This was better than her plan. Crows would show her how to stitch the bag she’d use to steal the maps.

‘You’re on. Can you do that at the same time as you move the boat?’

Whether he said yes or no, she had her answer ready.

‘It would be,’ he considered, ‘difficult.’

‘We’re in no hurry, right?’ Mary gathered up her practice pieces, the thread, the needles and the wickedly sharp spike. ‘And I need something to do while you steer.’

She waddled towards the stern and dumped herself on the other side of the rudder.

‘Now?’ He seemed disconcerted by her eagerness to learn.

‘Now,’ she said firmly.

She’d backed him into a corner, and he had no graceful way out. He shrugged. ‘It is a strange request, but, very well.’

He took the first of her attempts, snipped through the securing knot, and unthreaded in an instant what had taken so long to create. He selected a needle from the assortment, then arranged the work over his knees.

‘Like this,’ he said.