Blood Under Water

by Toby Frost

  Every breath hurt. Sometimes, for a whole few seconds, she’d have it under control, but then it would rush back, pounding through her flesh like a drum that couldn’t be silenced, as though she’d started to rot.

  He stepped out of view and she heard the poker on the hearth. He was heating it up again. Terror flooded her, made her crazy with fear. “Listen to me, listen to me!” she yelled.

  So she told them about Hugh. The man listened for what felt like an age. She told him what Hugh was like, how they’d met – the old man raised his eyebrows and she swore it was true – anything she could think of to avoid getting to the other stuff. Talking about Edwin and Elayne terrified her, because she didn’t know much about them and he wouldn’t believe her.

  He stepped back into view, without the poker. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he would be friends.

  “Your colleagues don’t interest me, Giulia,” he said. He spoke very carefully. “I want to know all about the New World Order.”

  “I – I don’t know what that is.”

  He hesitated. “Hmm.” Stepped out of view. Then back and – Oh, God, please no – the poker was back in his hand.

  “Your arm will scar,” he said. “It won’t be pretty, but it won’t be painful, either.” He turned to his chair and carefully touched the poker to the middle of the seat. He watched it scorch the wood. “The New World Order, Giulia. Does that sound familiar to you?”

  “Please, I don’t know. Please.”

  “You’re not trying. Remember what I can do to you.”

  She screamed it at him: “I am trying! I don’t know! I don’t fucking know! Listen to me, I don’t fucking know what it is! Why won’t you listen to me? Open your fucking ears, you deaf little prick! I – don’t – know! I – don’t – know!”

  “I didn’t ask if you knew what it was. I asked if you’d heard of it before. Think, please. I know you’re very frightened, but if you don’t think, I will push this deep into your flesh and give you wounds that will never heal.” He lifted the poker and examined the glowing tip. “It is possible to die of pain, you know. They killed one of the kings of Albion that way, many years ago.”

  “The priest said about the New World Order,” she said. “Father Coraldo.”

  “Good!” He glanced at the bearded man, who nodded approvingly. “See? You do know. You can do it when you put your mind to it. Good girl.”

  He reached forward with his empty hand, towards her face, her eyes. The snake tattoo writhed as if there was a live serpent beneath his skin. Giulia cringed back, found there was nowhere left to go. And to her absolute revulsion, he smiled and ruffled her hair.

  ***

  Azul tapped Cortaag on the shoulder and they left the room. In the corridor, he pulled off his gloves and said, “She’s told us all she knows.”

  “Then can we clear up and go?” The big man took up the whole passage, like a portrait too large for its frame. “I’m sick of listening to her. Besides, who is this Publius Severra, anyway? Did she really kill him, like she said?”

  Azul licked his lips. “He was a minor nobleman from Pagalia. A thorn in our side, as a matter of fact: he was trying to strike a deal with the Anglian embassy when someone cut his throat. If she did murder him, which I very much doubt, she did us something of a favour.” Azul looked at the door, suddenly very aware of the woman on the other side of it. “But if she did half of what she says, I’d be surprised.”

  Cortaag scowled. He leaned forward slightly, ready for violence. “She’s lying, even now?”

  Azul shook his head. “Not knowingly. By this stage she’ll just be telling us anything she thinks we’d like to hear. It happens.” He looked at his left hand. “I’m out of venom for now. Get Alicia and walk our guest out to the yard.”

  Cortaag nodded and moved towards the door.

  Azul raised a hand. “Oh, and not the canal this time. Put the body on the cart out back and take it to the warehouse. We’ll get rid of the remains once we’re there. And don’t allow yourself to change. Have some self-control this time. It’s that which got us into all this trouble to begin with.”

  It took a few minutes for Cortaag to fetch Alicia from upstairs. She came down, scowling.

  “You took too long,” Azul said, looking the pair of them over. “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “You were sulking. You need to sharpen up, both of you. Varro got slack, and look what happened to him. We’ve got hard work to do before the others get here. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Cortaag said.

  “I understand,” Alicia replied.

  “Good.” Azul turned to the door. “Now, let’s deal with our guest.”

  Giulia Degarno sat slumped in the chair, head drooping. Her dark hair had fallen forward, and it hung over her face as if wet.

  Azul clapped his hands. Giulia’s head rose slowly, as though lifted by a winch. She looked at him, dull-eyed. “Good news!” Azul said. “We need detain you no longer. You can go. Cortaag here will escort you outside, and from there on you’re your own woman again. I’d suggest you seek attention for that burn,” he added. “It looks nasty. Cortaag, would you?”

  Cortaag stepped over to the chair. He bent and unlaced the cords holding her right arm in place. Meekly, she lifted her arm onto her lap and flexed the fingers as if she was not quite sure what they did. Cortaag moved on to her left arm, his big hands making heavy work of the knots. Alicia looked at Azul and smiled. “He has fat fingers,” she said, and she knelt down and undid the ropes around Giulia’s feet.

  Giulia’s hand flicked out and knocked against Cortaag’s side: hardly a blow at all. He glanced down – and Giulia lurched up and left. Azul saw a blade in her hand and shouted, but only a ragged croak came out. Giulia’s hand caught Alicia’s head, yanked her off balance, pulled her chin up to reveal her throat. Alicia knelt on the floor before her, head drawn back like a sheep being sheared.

  Giulia yelled, “Back! Keep back!”

  Cortaag turned to Azul with his hands raised. The dinner-knife was gone from his belt.

  Giulia jabbed the tip of the blade into the tendons of Alicia’s neck. Alicia howled. “Don’t move!” Giulia shouted. “Touch me and I’ll kill her! I’ll cut your whore’s throat, I fucking swear I will!”

  Alicia’s eyes swept the room. They were big and scared. “She will, she will!”

  “Damn right I will.” Giulia grinned at the men. “Well? Get the door open! Touch me and she fucking dies!”

  “Step away, Cortaag,” Azul said.

  Cortaag stood back, heavy and awkward in the little room.

  A bit of hair fell in front of Giulia’s eyes and she flicked her head. She bared her teeth and spat.

  “You’re not well,” Azul said. “Not well at all. You should put the knife down before you hurt yourself.”

  Giulia’s shoulders twitched. Azul stared, unable to tell whether she was laughing or crying.

  “You’ve had a bad experience,” he said. He took a single step towards her. “A very bad experience. You must be feeling very unwell right now.”

  “Get away from me.”

  Alicia stared at Azul, terrified.

  “I said you could go, and you have my word on that. There’s no need for you or anyone else to get hurt. Just calm down.”Azul took a second step.

  Giulia looked down. “Get up,” she said. Alicia drew up her legs. Azul glanced at Cortaag, took another step. Alicia started to rise.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Azul said. “You need to rest.” Close now. Two yards from her. He could lunge and grab her arm where he’d burned her. The pain would make it easy to overpower her. He opened his hands. “Come on. Be reasonable now. Just pass me the knife and we can all be friends.”

  Giulia gasped again. It sounded like a sob. Her will was flaggin
g. They did that sometimes: all the fight went out of them and they just folded up and cried. Azul held out his hand. “Just give me the knife, Giulia.”

  Her arm flicked out. Searing pain raced across his palm and he snatched his hand away. The mouth in his thumb opened and hissed.

  Giulia’s knife darted back to Alicia’s throat, drove half an inch into the meat of her neck. Alicia squealed.

  Azul looked down at his hand. Blood leaked across the palm. He bit his lip and clenched his fist. He felt water in his eyes. “Bitch!”

  Alicia blubbered.

  “Touch me again and I’ll slit her throat,” Giulia said. “Door. Now. Open the fucking door!”

  Azul turned, scowling, to Cortaag. “Open the door,” he croaked.

  ***

  Cortaag opened the door. He stepped aside like a sullen footman.

  “Good, good.” Giulia’s left hand pulled Alicia’s chin up, revealing her pale throat. Her right hand held the knife. Sweat ran over the handle. “That’s it. Everyone keep back.” Giulia and Alicia edged towards the door together, a creature of four legs, two heads, one blade. They began to back through the door.

  Alicia drove her elbow into Giulia’s ribs.

  The knife tore free, Alicia weeping and snarling at once, and Giulia shoved her away. Alicia stumbled back into the room. Giulia grabbed the door, slammed it shut and tore off down the corridor. The door burst open behind her: grunts and bellows filled the passage as she bounded up the steps, heart ripping at her chest. Azul shouted, “Get the guns, get the guns!” and a crazy whoop drowned him out, Alicia no doubt, and Giulia reached the top of the stairs and ran into a kitchen. A man sitting at the table saw her and started to rise, so she drove Cortaag’s knife into his neck and he went down choking on blood.

  Sudden pressure on her upper arm, and agony turned the world white. Her back arched and she screamed. Cortaag leaned in over her shoulder, grinning as she shrivelled like an ember from the searing pain in her arm. “Now I’ve—”

  The door burst open in front of her and a figure ran in, shoulder down, and charged straight into Cortaag’s side. He released Giulia’s arm, his eyes wide, and she saw that there was a sword buried to the hilt in his gut. Cortaag stood impaled at the top of the stairs, gasping.

  Hugh drew his leg up and stamped into Cortaag’s chest as if kicking down a door. The sword slid free and Cortaag fell back, clutching the air. He bounced down the stairs, end over end.

  “Hello, Giulia,” Hugh said.

  “Hugh?” He seemed incredibly precious in this evil place. “We’ve got to get out. We’ve got to go. Oh God – I’m going to puke.”

  She retched. Nothing much came out.

  “Come on,” she said, and she stepped towards the door, her right arm holding the left straight by her side.

  “You’re hurt,” Hugh said. His eyes widened and his lips drew back from his teeth. “By the lord God,” he bellowed, “they’ve tortured you!”

  “Got to go,” Giulia said. Getting out was all that mattered now: getting far away and hiding somewhere, armed.

  She struggled into the hall. It was a big house, deserted, probably abandoned long ago. Giulia glanced up the stairs and saw darkness. No sound came from behind them. Pain soaked through her arm like gangrene.

  A man lay sprawled across the hall. His death had been fast and messy, without the chance for much sound. Giulia headed towards the door. Hugh picked up a bag lying by the stairs. “Got your things here,” he said.

  Giulia put her back against the front door. Waves of pain soaked up from her arm, setting her head spinning. Her saliva was sour and hot.

  “Give me the crossbow,” she said.

  Hugh lifted it out. “I’ll load it for you.”

  “Good. Quick.” She watched him work the ratchet. The dark of the house was creeping in on them. She wanted to snatch the bow from his old, slow hands. They could be anywhere: in the cellar, in the streets, upstairs, summoning reinforcements to drag her back downstairs—

  “Here,” Hugh said.

  She took the bow in her right hand, kept the injured arm flat by her side. Her breath came out in shudders. “Let’s go,” Giulia said.

  The night air was nauseatingly cold. Keep your eyes on the street, she thought. Keep watching.

  There was a dead man in the shadows. He looked as if he’d charged head-first into the wall. The bulk of a mastiff lay beside him. Giulia spat and tried not to think.

  “Boat’s this way,” Hugh said.

  The walk blurred into pain. She felt herself wobble with each step, as if she stumbled down the deck of a ship in a gale. Got to go, got to go, she thought. They’ll come back.

  “Where’re we going?” she asked. She looked down, wanting to peel the singed cloth away. It was stuck to the wound with dried blood. “God almighty, my arm fucking hurts.”

  “We’re nearly there,” Hugh said. “This way.”

  A boat lay beside the canal, a sliver of a boat with an axe-head prow. A man stood up in the boat. He climbed onto the bank and very gently helped her in, hardly touching her. Giulia dropped onto a pile of cushions in the bows, still holding her crossbow. Hugh climbed in and nodded to the boatman. “Get moving.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m going,” he said. “Is she all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Giulia said. “Just fucking go.”

  The man pushed off and the boat swung awkwardly into the middle of the canal. Watch him, Hugh, Giulia thought. We don’t know if we can trust him.

  The boat slipped down the canal like a snake down a rabbit-hole. Giulia tasted hot spit and gritted her teeth. Under her, the cushions smelt of damp. “Wait,” she said. “Where’re we going?”

  Hugh looked over his shoulder at her. “It’s all right. We’re going somewhere safe.”

  “Where, Hugh?”

  “The Scola san Cornelio.”

  “No,” she said. “Go north. Up near the Old Arms there’s a tavern with a barrel over the door. There’s a fey woman in there, a dryad. Tell her to get out.”

  Hugh’s frown echoed the droop of his moustache. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Her name’s Anna. Go and get her. I mean it. They’ll be after her.”

  “Yes, but why would they want—”

  “Because I told them about her.”

  “Oh,” said Hugh, and he turned away to talk to the boatman.

  The Kingdom of the Dogs

  TEN

  Giulia heard the voices long before her brain made sense of them. One was a low, droning grumble, the other slightly higher: a young man’s voice, perhaps. I know you, she thought, as the deeper voice began again. I know you…

  She woke again. Her shoulder and upper arm were numb; her mouth felt strange. What? What’s happening?

  She opened her eyes and there were faces looming over her, inhuman faces with enormous eyes, their little mouths making sounds. A memory rushed into her mind of being trapped, tied down, people leaning in to ask questions and hurt her. She yelled and lunged. The faces whipped back, their big eyes full of dismay.

  A hand grabbed her wrist. “Please, I’m trying to help you,” one of the faces said – a man, she thought. There was a sharp pain in her shoulder, a sense of something colder than water being painted onto her skin, and she screamed and thrashed, shouted every curse she knew, but the world was already fading.

  Where am I?

  The room was white and strangely-angled, as if she was in an attic. There was a woodcut on the wall. It showed a bearded man in baggy trousers, carrying a pike over one shoulder. He looked like a mercenary.

  Giulia was sitting up in bed. Time had passed, she knew that, but she did not know how long. Light streamed in through a small window.

  It must be morning. She couldn’t think straight, but it didn’t frighten her. Nothing did. Her m
ind was clear but everything felt distant, as though she was thinking about people far away, who had nothing to do with her.

  There were two chairs near the door, and Hugh was sitting on one. “Good morning,” he said.

  Suddenly, she knew that she had to get out. “Hugh? What’s going on?” Panic broke loose in her mind like a startled bird, and she stood up quickly, leaving the sheets behind. “We’ve got to go!”

  Giulia stopped and looked down. She wore a white dress, without sleeves. It ended a few inches below her knees. She felt awkward to be wearing so little. “What is this place?”

  “We’re in the Scola,” Hugh said. “You’re safe.”

  “The Scola? Where’re my things?”

  “Over here,” Hugh said. He pointed to a dark pile beside his chair. “It’s quite safe here. I’m keeping watch, don’t worry.” He glanced at the window. “You’ve been asleep for a while, you know. There’s a dryad fellow who’s been looking after you. He seems decent enough.”

  Giulia nodded. There was something she hadn’t remembered yet: it was as though her mind was waking up piece by piece. “Yes,” she said. “I saw him, I think.” Memories waited to come back to her, but she couldn’t quite reach them. She imagined them hiding out of sight, like fish under the water. Where had she seen that image before? In an inn, when someone – Elayne – had showed her a piece of glass that moved. Elayne… she’d been shouting something – something about a square, full of pillars.

  Giulia pulled her left arm across her body. It was numb. A bandage had been wound around her arm from elbow to shoulder. She could feel the tightness of the bandage on her skin. It smelt of cut grass.

  Elayne screaming – moonlight between the pillars – men on rooftops, in boats – waking up on some kind of chair – an old man with a sour face –

  The truth dropped on her like a rock.