Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘They have a mortal aversion to our people, which is a pity for us, as the Advocacy experiences more than its fair share of surface-dwelling fortune hunters trespassing across their territory.’

‘What does the Advocacy have that’s so valuable?’ Sadly asked, his interest perking up at the mention of fortunes.

‘Their engineering’s based on crystals. They grow what they need near high-pressure fissures on the seabed. Gems like diamonds and as big as boulders. Common to them, but rare enough to us to bring a constant stream of fool lubbers trying to sneak into the gill-necks’ waters, thinking how easy it’ll be to pillage their crystal fields.’

‘I take it that those they capture are not treated with leniency, good captain?’ said Daunt.

‘Never seen again, is what they are,’ said the commodore. ‘The gill-necks and the people of the underwater nations are born to the sea. This is their realm. Visitors to it are all we will ever be, and blessed unwelcome ones when we trespass into their territory.’

‘Crystals,’ hummed Daunt. ‘Interesting.’

‘Your sister is going to tell us what’s going on then, Blacky?’ said Tull. ‘We just sail up to her and she’ll spill her guts out about why Walsingham and the gill-necks have suddenly taken it to mind to support the rebel cause?’

‘There’ll be doubts,’ said the commodore. ‘In the royalist ranks, people like Rufus Symons. Tossing out a parliament of thieving tradesmen is one thing, collaborating with a foreign occupation of Jackals is another kettle of fish.’ The commodore unfolded a chart across the table and laid a finger in the ocean. ‘This is the muster point for the convoys to the colonies that are passing across the disputed waters. We can join one as a free trader, then slip away from the convoy and sneak out into the heart of the Advocacy waters.’

‘Won’t we be a little conspicuous sailing into their territory, good captain?’ said Daunt.

‘Right enough,’ said the commodore, ‘but we won’t be going in as surface traders.’ He pointed to an adjacent area on the charts. ‘This is the territory of the seanore… ocean nomads. Some of them are close enough to the gill-necks in form and tolerated as ocean dwellers; a multiracial society like the Kingdom — even a few of the race of man who’ve embraced a life on the seabed among their numbers. Humans known by the moniker of wetbacks by us salty sea-dog types. I’ve had dealings with the seanore before. If we can get in tight with the nomads, then we can travel into a gill-neck city without raising too many hackles.’ He looked over at Boxiron. ‘Apart from you, old steamer.’

‘I can travel underwater,’ protested Boxiron. ‘All I need is a respirator for my stacks and a buoyancy tank.’

‘That you may,’ said the commodore, ‘but while a seanore clan might count three or four of the underwater races among their number, one species you will never find among them is a steamman. The gill-necks will tolerate the odd wetback among the seanore as some poor unfortunate surface dweller trying to do the natural thing and return back to the sea-essence, but if they spy your metal hull bobbing along above their coral, they’ll rumble our game in a blessed minute. My sister Gemma isn’t exactly the trusting type, and we’ll have enough trouble trying to find a friendly face among the royalists without Gemma spotting me first. With a steamman by my side, I might as well swim into the gill-neck capital dragging the lion and portcullis of the House of Guardians on a standard behind me.’

Daunt’s heart sank. Boxiron shook angrily — a mixture of anger and shame at being left out of the fray. The ex-parson had only just managed to get his steamman friend engaged with the case; occupied enough to set aside his increasingly maudlin broodings about the reduced state of his body. Boxiron had little enough to live for as it was. A once-proud steamman knight, reduced into the frame of a semi human-milled monstrosity, crude and malfunctioning.

How can I abandon Boxiron on the Purity Queen, grieving about his exile from his people? His so-called duty to suicide? What will he do without me?

But when it came to it leaving his friend behind, when push turned to shove, Daunt would have no choice. The stakes were too high to do anything else.

After the others had gone, Dick noticed the commodore was watching him. The spy ran his fingers over King Jude’s sceptre, a calculating look on his face as he estimated how much he could get from melting it down and stripping it of its jewels.

‘Your people have already stolen the blessed thing once from its true owners,’ accused the commodore.

Dick reached for his hip flask and took a quick hit of its warm contents. ‘And what will you be doing with it, Blacky, when all of this is done? You got the Jackelian crown squirreled away somewhere too? An ermine-lined souvenir for you to keep your brainbox warm? Settle yourself down in your favourite easychair back in the big house, wrap your fingers around the sceptre and dream of the good old days when your ancestors got to lord it over mine?’

‘When this is all over, lad, I’m figuring I’ll be too. I’m on my way out, but where I’ll be going, you won’t be so far behind me.’

‘There you’re wrong, Blacky. I’m planning on a long, happy retirement.’ He glanced at the richly appointed sceptre. A fortune waiting to be smelted into a form no policeman would be able to trace. I just need a little more money, a little more luck. Maybe I’ll take my share of yours, you old pirate. Someone’s got to come out of this ahead.

‘A cosy cottage on the cliffs above the sea? Nosing out a previously undiscovered knack for tending roses? Men like you and me, Dick Tull, we’re good for lying and scheming and killing and trickery. Playing the great game all our lives, you think you can take your eyes off the board? It’s too late for us. This is all we know and all we’re fit for. You think you’re going to find a wife now, raise a family to replace the ones who died off or were scared off? There’s no sight as sad as a rusty old sabre trying to turn itself a garden trowel.’

‘You’re talking about yourself, not me,’ said Dick. But we’re not, are we? All the lies of our trade. Can we fool ourselves too?

The commodore reached out and tugged at Dick’s jacket. ‘Cheap cloth. Taking your meals at an ordinary and telling yourself it’s where your informants are, living your cheap life. How much money do you think you need to leave the State Protection Board behind? Ten guineas a year, a hundred, a thousand? It’ll never buy you what it takes to leave.’

‘Says the man living in a grand tower with a private orchard to do his bloody philosophising in.’

‘We are what we are,’ coughed the commodore. ‘And we’re it under a roof with one room or seventy.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said Dick, his confidence wavering. ‘The board’s just a job, and I won’t miss one hour of this life when I’m done with it.

Liar, something deep within him whispered. How often have you dreamed of what you’re going to do outside of the board? Where are your hopes of another life? A man who wanted out would have a dream, wouldn’t he, a plan, something?

‘What happened to you, lad?’ asked the commodore. ‘We’ve done enough business together over the years, you and I. You could have been one of the great ones, but here you are at the end of the game, huddled like a miser counting coals in front of his fire.’

‘Give it a bloody rest. The only cause you’ve ever really worked for is yourself. You try doing it for parliament and country all your life. Not as some quality, not as officer class, but as a mere humble bloody ranker. For the last forty years I’ve done the job as fine as anyone, and watched well-connected carriage folk take the credit for every one of my successful operations while sliding me a plate of shit to eat on the failures. If my father had been an industrial lord or a bishop, I’d be a colonel in the board by now. Instead, I’m counting a ranker’s pension and nicking candlesticks to put a pair of new shoes on my tired old feet.’ Dick made to tip his hip flask to his mouth again, but Blacky stopped him.