China Mieville - The Scar

It is to Mayor Rudgutter, and it is an outline of the grindylow invasion plan.

Much of it is opaque to me. Silas has written in a terse shorthand that approaches code-there are abbreviations I do not recognize and references to things of which I have never heard-but there is no mistaking its meaning.

Status Seven , I read at the top of the sheet, Code: Arrowhead , and though I do not understand them the words chill me.

Silas has been sparing me details, I realize (the most dubious favor one can do). He knows the plans of the invasion well, has laid them out in cold, precise terms. He warns of units and squadrons in specific numbers, carrying obscure ordnance described in one letter or syllable, no less disturbing for that.

Demi-regiment Ivory Magi/Groac’h to advance south along Canker equipped with E.Y.D. and P-T capacity, Third Moon Quarter, I read, and the scale of what faces us terrifies me. Our previous eagerness to escape, the effort we poured into focusing on that, appalls me now, it is so petty and so small.

There is enough information here to defend the city. Silas has discharged his duty.

Again, at the bottom of that letter is the city’s seal, vindicating it, making it, for all its soulless, banal language, horribly real.

With the letters is a box.

It is a jewelry box; simple, solid, and very heavy darkwood. And within, nestling on its plumply cushioned lining, is a necklace and a ring.

The ring is for me. Its large silver-and-jade face is carved with an inverted imprint-it is the seal. It is crafted with breathtaking artistry. Within its circuit Silas has placed a nugget of red sealing wax.

This is mine. When I have shown our captain the letters and the necklace, I will close them within the cushioned box and lock it, seal it within the leather pouch, and touch the hot wax with this ring, which I will keep. That way the captain will know what is inside, that we are not betraying him, but that he cannot tamper with the contents if the recipients are to believe and reward him.

(As I think through this chain of events I could become dispirited, I must confess. It seems so tenuous. I am sighing as I write this. I will think on this no longer.)

The necklace is to cross the sea. In distinction to the ring, it is a crude, simple piece, designed without any esthetics at all. A thin, plain iron chain. At its end, an ugly little flap of metal that is adorned only with a serial number, a stamped symbol (two owls under a crescent moon), and three words: Silas Fennec Procurator .

It is my identification, Silas tells me in his letter. It is the ultimate proof that the letters are genuine. That I am lost to New Crobuzon, and that this is my valedictory.

Later still. The sky is darkening.

I am disturbed.

Uther Doul has spoken to me.

I was on the deck of berths above the gondola, coming out of the heads. I was vaguely amused by the thought of all our amassed stools and piss cascading from the sky.

A little way down the corridor I heard a shuffling sound and saw light from a doorway. I peered in.

The Lover was changing. I caught my breath.

Her back was as crosshatched with scars as her face. Most looked old, the scored skin greying and pale. One or two, though, were livid. The marks spread down her back and over her buttocks. She was like a marked animal.

I could not but gasp.

The Lover turned at the sound, unhurried. I saw her bosom and sternum, as wounded as her back. She watched me, pulling a shirt on. Her face, with all its intricate cuts, was impassive.

I stammered some apology and turned abruptly and walked toward the stairs. But with horror I saw Uther Doul emerge from the same room and eye me, his hand on his fucking sword.

This letter I write was burning in my pocket. I was carrying enough evidence to have myself and Silas executed for crimes against Garwater-which would doom New Crobuzon in the process. I was very afraid.

Pretending I had not seen Doul, I descended to the main gondola and took a post by the window, frantically watching the cirrus. I hoped that Doul would leave me be.

It was no good. He came to me.

I felt him standing by my table, and I waited a long time for him to go, to leave without speaking, his intimidation successfully completed, but he did not. Eventually, against my will, it seemed, I turned my head and looked at him.

He watched me silently for a while. I grew more and more anxious, though I held my face still. Then he spoke. I had forgotten how beautiful his voice is.

“They are called freggios,” he said.

“The scars: they’re called freggios.” He indicated the seat opposite me and inclined his head. “May I sit?”

What could I say to that? Could I say No, I wish to be alone, to the Lovers’ right-hand man, their guard and assassin, the most dangerous man on Armada? I pressed my lips together and shrugged politely: It is no concern of mine where you sit, sir .

He clasped his hands on the table. He spoke (exquisitely), and I did not interrupt him or walk away or discourage him with apparent lack of interest. Partly, of course, I was afraid for my life and safety-my heart was beating very fast.

But it was also his oration: he speaks like one reading from a book, every sentence carefully formed, written by a poet. I have never heard anything like it. He held my gaze and seemed not to blink.

I was fascinated by what he told me.

“They are both press-ganged,” he said. “The Lovers.” I must have gaped. “Twenty-five, thirty years ago.

“He came first. He was a fisherman. A water peasant from the north end of the Shards. Spent all his life on one or other of those little rocks, casting his nets and lines, gutting and cleaning and filleting and flensing. Ignorant and dull.” He watched me with eyes a darker grey than his armor.

“One day he rowed too far out and the wind took him. A Garwater scout found him and stole his cargo and debated whether or not to kill him, terrified, skinny little fisherboy. In the end they took him back to the city.”

His fingers shifted, and he began gently to massage his own hands.

“People are made and broken and remade by their circumstances,” he said. “Within three years the boy ruled Garwater.” He smiled.

“Less than three quartos after that, one of our ironclads intercepts a vessel-a gaudy recurved sloop-on its way from Perrick Nigh to Myrshock. One of Figh Vadiso’s noble families, it appears: A husband and wife and daughter, with their retainers, relocating to the mainland. Their cargo was stripped. The passengers were of no interest to anyone, and I’ve no idea what happened to them. They may have been killed; I don’t know. What is known is that when the servants were inducted and welcomed as citizens, there was one maid who caught the new ruler’s eye.”

He looked out into the sky.

“There are some who were there, on board the Grand Easterly , at that meeting,” he said quietly. “They say she stood tall and smiled crooked at the ruler-not like one trying to ingratiate herself, or one terrified, but as if she liked what she saw.

“Women don’t have it well in the northern Shards,” he said. “Each island has its own customs and laws, and some of them are unpleasant.” He clasped his hands. “There are places where they sew women shut,” he said, and watched me. I met his eye: I do not intimidate. “Or cut them, excise what they were born with. Or keep them chained in houses to serve the men. The isle our boss was born to was not so harsh as that, but it… exaggerated certain traits that you might recognize from other cultures. From New Crobuzon, for example. A certain sacralization of the woman. A contempt masked as adoration. You understand, I’m sure. You published your books as by B. Coldwine. I’m sure you understand.”