Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  ***

  Ricardo Varro’s boatyard faced straight onto the wide Sarreri Canal, close to the opening of the lagoon. To the east, the vast military dockyard known as the Arsenal loomed over the civilian yards like a monstrous castle.

  Giulia shielded her eyes and looked south, across the cold, calm waters of the lagoon to the great harbour walls, where batteries of cannon turned slowly on clockwork pedestals. The Golden Griffon stood out in the bay on top of its column, its huge claws raised over the ships as they came in to dock.

  As Giulia stepped onto land, half a dozen barefooted, sweating men were hauling a skiff up the slipway and into a cavernous shed. From within the outhouses came the continual tinkle of muffled hammering.

  Giulia approached the boatsheds. A dripping brown figure lumbered from behind the skiff: leather-skinned, goggle-eyed, trailing a tendril from its head. Giulia tensed. Her right hand slid into her left sleeve, fingers closing around the handle of the knife stashed there.

  The water-man reached up and pulled a leather helmet from his head. A pale, soggy human face appeared. It’s some sort of armour, she realised, and she felt foolish for having reached for her blade.

  “Nothing underneath that I could see,” the man announced. “Damn, it’s cold in there,” he added, and he trudged up the slipway and out of view. Giulia realised that he’d somehow been walking about under the water. She was a long way from home.

  A sign hung above the boatyard: a painting of a galleon. A pennant on the ship’s mast bore the word Varro. Giulia paused, smoothed her dress down, and walked in.

  In the yard, half-built boats lay on trestles like the skeletons of sea-beasts. Smooth, curved lengths of oak were propped up against a long shed. A man stood shaping a keel with a two-handed plane. Curls of pale wood lay around his shoes, as though he had been shearing sheep. As Giulia walked over, her boots deliberately loud on the cobbles, he raised his head and stared at her. She wondered if he was eyeing her scars or trying to recognise her face.

  “Help you?”

  Giulia wasn’t going to sound like a local. She made her voice a little tighter, a little more exotic. “I’m looking for Master Varro,” she replied. “It’s about a commission.”

  He looked past her. “Just you?”

  She nodded. “Just me.”

  The man nodded and laid down the plane. “I’ll take you to him. This way.”

  They walked up to a long shed together. Giulia followed him inside, hand close to her knife again.

  The shed was dark and stank of pitch and stagnant water. The walls seemed infused with the smell of the canal, even more so than the waterway itself. Even the windows were clogged up with green stuff, as if they had been salvaged from the deep.

  The smell unnerved Giulia. It reminded her of the place in Pagalia where her enemies had left her to drown, her face ripped open, her lungs desperately straining for air. Stop it. That was a long time ago. Those men are dead.

  A man was stirring a pot of pitch with a spoon at the rear of the room, gazing into it as if hoping for a revelation. He wore a leather apron. As he moved, Giulia realised that he was the same person who had emerged from the canal. The workman coughed, and he looked up.

  He was big, with a broad frame and heavy muscles and a beer gut. His damp hair was light for Averrio, the colour of sand. The face under it was tough, friendly and round, and as it saw Giulia it smiled.

  “Woman to see you, Boss.”

  “So I see. Good afternoon, madam.”

  For the first time, Giulia realised just how high the ceiling was: needle-shaped skiffs hung in it as if roosting. Water rippled in the frosted window behind Varro’s head. In the yard outside, the light, steady hammering pattered away like rain.

  “You too,” she said. She made her accent a little more refined. “Are you Ricardo Varro?”

  “That’s me,” the big man said cheerily. He pulled off his heavy gloves and approached, sticking out a hand. They shook, his fist enveloping Giulia’s. His hand was as pink and meaty as a ham. “Ricardo Varro, at your service.”

  “Giulia Corvani. Pleased to meet you.”

  Varro glanced at his man. “Back to work, Luca.” He watched Luca go, waiting until the door closed before he said, “So, madam. Is that House Corvani of Pagalia?”

  “Only a distant relation, I’m afraid. I was schooled in Vorland. Which is where I got these,” she added, waving a hand at the long scars on her face.

  “From duels? I heard men fought them, but women…?”

  “A hunting accident. Boar, you see.”

  “I thought boars struck at the legs, rather than the face?”

  Oh fuck. “That, sir,” she replied, “depends rather on the boar.” She made what she hoped looked like an aristocratic shrug.

  Varro raised his eyebrows, but she couldn’t tell whether he was impressed or amused. “I’m sure. Well, you’re not the first Corvani to come here. We did some repairs on Lady Tabitha’s barge when she visited Averrio a few years ago.”

  “Really? I never actually met her. I’ve heard she was a truly remarkable woman.” Giulia remembered her own encounter with Lady Tabitha and thought, Remarkable indeed. Crafty, power-hungry and very slightly mad. “I’m new in town, as a matter of fact. I’ve come down from Montalius. Averrio is very beautiful.”

  “It’s a lovely city to look at,” Varro said. “Just try to ignore the smell.” He laughed. “Actually, you picked the right time to visit. Come summer, the canals stink. They say when God looks down at Averrio he holds his nose. Now, how can I help?”

  “Well,” said Giulia, “it’s a long story.”

  “Then come and sit down. Take a seat, please.”

  He pointed to a table and two battered chairs. Giulia sat down while Varro took a bottle of wine down from a shelf and hunted for something to drink from. Giulia got a clay cup, Varro a dented tankard. The boatbuilder poured the drinks out carefully, trying to make them equal, then he sat down opposite her. “Ah, that’s a bit better. Sorry if the wine’s not up to much.”

  She sipped. “It’s fine.” She looked at the rowing boats that ran along the roof, the oars and parts resting against the walls. Her eyes stopped on the underwater helmet, now drying on a workbench. It looked like a hangman’s hood, with big glass lenses where the eye-holes should be. A leather pipe ran out of the hood, ending in a wooden object the size of a bell.

  “Oh, that,” Varro said, seeing where she was looking. “It’s a water-suit. It lets you work underwater. We use a couple: that one’s not sprung any leaks yet, but I think the enchanting’s wearing thin.” He looked back to her. “So, then, are you thinking of commissioning some work?”

  “Not exactly. But there is money involved.”

  He rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Always good. I’m like a dwarrow miner when it comes to gold.”

  “It’s a delicate matter. You see, I’ve been told you can help me – but I don’t know who told me, and I don’t know how.”

  Varro frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

  “A friend of mine has been falsely accused of a crime. She’s under house arrest. As you can imagine, I’m reluctant to tell anyone her name. I got a message today from one of the Watch, telling me to go and talk to you. It was left for me to see it.”

  The boatbuilder took a slow, thoughtful sip. “They told you to come to me? What’s your friend accused of?”

  “The murder of a priest.”

  “That’s serious business.”

  “I know. They found him in the canal, cut up. His name was Sebastian Coraldo. He was floating outside the inn where we’re staying. That was enough for the Watch to pin it on us.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He was stabbed. And a big dog was set on him. He might have drowned after that. Overall, someone didn’t like him very much.”

 
Varro shook his head and took a gulp of wine from his tankard. “And that to a priest. Terrible. What was he, an apostate?”

  “I don’t know. I wondered if you might be able to help me there.”

  The big, round head shook from side to side. “Sorry. I don’t know anything about it. Do they think he was pushed into the canal from a boat?”

  Giulia tried to imagine Falsi, or any of his colleagues, coming to such an elaborate conclusion. “I don’t think they know. I’ve not heard it said.”

  Varro stood up, walked to the fire and stirred the bucket of pitch. He walked back, looking thoughtful. “I don’t see how I can help you, then. Unless it was some madman who bought a boat from us. But I don’t see how. I don’t sell to the fey folk, or to dissenters, God help them, and if it was a madman who bought the boat from me – then I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

  Giulia felt the conversation sliding from her grip. Varro knew nothing: the only connection with the murder was that someone had dropped his name. What if they gave me his name just to waste my time? God-damned Watch bastards. “I suppose you would.” She glanced around, trying to fit this together, feeling the frustration that would soon swell into outright anger. “Can you think of any reason why they would have told me to see you?”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Someone in the Watch, I suppose.”

  Varro stood up. “Would you excuse me for a minute? I just need to tell my foreman something.”

  He stepped to the door. She heard it open and saw it swing closed.

  Giulia glanced around the room: at the paddles propped like brooms against the walls, the greened-up windows, the boats roosting in the roof. She looked at her hand, at the broken knuckle on her little finger. He’s gone to get the Watch. No, he hasn’t. Why should he?

  The door opened again, and a sudden thunder of hammering followed Varro back into the room. He closed the door. The noise continued, slightly muffled.

  “Sorry, we’ve got an important job on. I have to keep checking, or else the lads slack off.” He smiled and sat down. “Now, then: is there anything else you know? Anything that might help at all? Did this Father Coraldo have any friends? Perhaps I might have known them.”

  “Well, he spoke to someone before he died.”

  “Who was that?”

  Giulia remembered Anna in her little room. “Nobody much. Just a prostitute.”

  “What was this whore like? Can you describe her to me?”

  “She wasn’t much. Just a girl. Dark hair, held up with combs. Nothing special.”

  “What did he say to her?”

  “She said he just talked about anything. The new order of the world, she said, stuff like that.”

  “The new world order, did she say that?”

  Giulia frowned. “Why?”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “Yes, I think.”

  “The New World Order.” Varro paused. “No, I’m sorry. Doesn’t mean anything, I’m afraid.”

  He took a deep draught from his tankard, lowered it from his lips, and drove it into the side of Giulia’s head.

  She twisted away, but not fast enough. The tankard hit her temple, her chair tipped over, and the ground rushed up and struck her palms. She scrabbled aside, rolled and came up, and as Varro lumbered in, she plucked the knife from her sleeve and threw it at him.

  He dodged and her knife clattered against the wall. Varro dropped into a fighting stance, arms up and hands open, fingers tensed. Giulia’s stinging hands folded into fists.

  Varro filled the room: he was the room. His hard breath and the hammering, the stink of pitch that crawled into her mouth and lungs, all came from the same place, the same net that surrounded her.

  The hammering became loud and desperate, loud enough to drown out screams. She yanked her dress up to reach the knife in her boot, and Varro came scuttling in, quick on his big flat feet, and his fist swung out at her eye. She skipped aside, his hand shot past, and she drove her thumbs one-two into his ribs.

  He did not even flinch; his arm dropped around her shoulder and suddenly she was wrapped in his embrace. Varro snarled, and his arms closed bear-like around her waist and hauled her, thrashing, off the ground.

  He waded across the shed with Giulia squirming round trying to get at his face, and she saw what he was going towards – the fireplace. Varro threw her down hard, and before she could get her footing he had knocked her onto her knees, one arm across her shoulders to keep her in place, his hand on the back of her head.

  Varro pushed her down towards the bucket of pitch that bubbled on the hearth. Giulia saw it open up before her like a hole into Hell, saw the crusted black filth around the rim, the spoon sticking up from it, her desperate face reflected in the bubbles on its surface. The reek of pitch flooded her mind.

  She couldn’t quite reach her boot.

  Her neck was nothing compared to his arm. The hammering rang through the room like drums. The simmering pitch was six inches from her face. Her knife felt like a mile away.

  Giulia reached out, seized the spoon and flicked it at his face.

  He screamed and staggered back, hands clamped around his eye. Giulia grabbed her skirt, pulled it up and snatched the knife from her boot. Varro tripped and stumbled away, babbling something behind his hands, and she lunged in and punched the blade into his neck. He fell against the wall like a drunk, slid down and flopped onto the floor.

  Varro lay on the floor, legs stuck out in front of him, blood spreading over his front. The right side of his face was raw. He was still breathing; soon he would be gone. Giulia stepped back, knife in hand. She was breathing hard, not quite panting. Her body ached. She crossed the room and picked up her stiletto, slid it into her sleeve, and bent down to put the other knife back into her boot.

  Varro laughed. It was a low, dirty chuckle, hardly audible over the pounding racket from outside. She looked up. He shouldn’t be able to make a sound like that.

  The burn on his face was shrinking. It looked as if the red marks were evaporating, like droplets of water on a hot stove. His skin was sealing up, coming back together again, pushing the tar out of the wound like black sweat.

  “Clever, isn’t it?” He got up as awkward as a toddler, rolling onto his hands and hauling himself to his feet. The light caught his face. He looked a little sunburnt.

  How? How could that happen?

  Varro brushed his hands together. “You’ve got to try harder than that, girl!” He looked drunk with glee. Delighted with her shock, he yelled something that she couldn’t make out, then: “Surprise, little lady!”

  He lunged. Giulia sprang back and, as his punch swung past, she snapped her left hand around his wrist. Giulia kicked him in the shin and yanked his arm. He lost his balance and stumbled forward, and she shoved his arm against a gondola, turned her body and punched her knife straight through the back of his hand.

  The knife sank into the wood up to the hilt, pinning him to the boat. Varro howled, a long, mad, castrate whoop.

  She stepped back, eyes racing over the room. Varro gawped at his hand, horrified, but it couldn’t be long before he tore free.

  Giulia glanced around and saw what she needed. She bent into the shadows and came up with a paddle.

  Varro’s eyes were wet with pain, but they fixed on her. There was something wrong with his mouth, she saw, as though he’d packed out his gums with wool. “You do that,” he snarled through a mess of teeth, “and I swear you’ll fucking pay.”

  She smashed the paddle into his skull. Varro’s legs gave way and she hit him with it again, knocking him to his knees. She raised the oar a third time, judged her aim and broke the blade over Varro’s head.

  Outside, the hammering continued. She tossed the paddle on top of him.

  Varro lay on his front, arm still pinned to the boat. More than his corpse, or the
blood all over his head, the raised arm made her feel sick. She stepped in and pulled the knife out. Varro’s arm dropped.

  They set me up, she thought. They sent me here so he could kill me. He looked dead, but she kept the knife ready, held down by her side.

  Giulia stood by the far window, listening. The hammering was coming from the other side of the boatyard. She crossed the room and bolted the door, and then she returned to the window.

  She used the knife to cut out some of the lead in the window-pane, until she could hook the blade round and bend the window down to her. Giulia tore the window open and looked out. The prows of finished boats jutted out like arrowheads.

  Varro didn’t move.

  There wasn’t enough room to sit on the sill, but she could squeeze her shoulders through the gap. Halfway out, she heard cloth snag and rip. Fucking dress. She crawled out the window, onto her scratched palms. Grimacing, she slid her legs out and stood up.

  Giulia brushed herself down and checked the skirt: the tear was only small. She took a deep breath and walked between the prows, away from the waterfront.

  Quickly and neatly, Giulia crossed the yard and slipped out the gates. The hammering went on behind her. Somewhere far away, a dog barked its response.

  SIX

  The streets were full of the sound of work. Men called to one another across the canal. Two robed scholars argued as they walked by. A barber chatted with his neighbour outside his shop, proudly displaying the blood on his apron to show how busy he was. Any of them could have been a friend of Ricardo Varro.

  Giulia took the long way back to the inn, keeping to backstreets, doubling back on herself, ducking into shops and doorways to watch the road behind. She had to walk: a boat could have taken her across the bay in half the time, but Varro was a boatbuilder. Who knew how many of the local boatmen were his customers? Suddenly the whole city seemed to turn its eyes to her, and it no longer felt as if a murderer hid in Averrio, but that all its inhabitants were part of the same conspiracy. She hurried on, with her head down and the chill of winter closing around her cheeks and hands, wishing for nightfall to hide her face.