Саймон Морден - The White City

After the Lord of the White City had left, no one else had come until Mary turned up, and by then he’d been long past help.

‘Why am I alive?’

Mama folded the book shut and laid it down next to her on the sea-chest.

‘There’s no easy answer to that,’ she said. ‘Not that I’m saying you should have died just so I don’t have to give a reason. The short way of saying it is that she fixed you up. The long way is, well: more complicated.’

‘Mary? But I was…’

‘Cut stem to stern down to the giblets? There was that.’

‘So what did she do?’ Mary had arrived with nothing, not even the most rudimentary of first-aid equipment, let alone anything that would have saved his life.

‘Be easier to show you,’ said Mama. ‘Shame I haven’t got a mirror.’

His hands were across his chest. He worked out that his fingers would move, even his wrists, but there was no strength in them. All the same, he had to know. ‘What did she do?’

‘She fixed you up that only way she could.’ Mama clasped her big hands together. ‘If she can explain it, she’s learnt to do it since she tried explaining it to me.’

‘Magic? She used magic?’

‘She did. She did it well enough that you’re still here and you and me are talking about the hows and the whys of it.’ She shrugged and her hands drifted apart, gesturing to the sea. ‘The whys are simple enough. She wasn’t ready to let you go.’

‘She wasn’t ready to let me go?’

‘We can spend all of today you just repeating me. I don’t mind. I’ve got nothing to hurry for, and neither have you, but if you wanted to make it easier, you could just believe me.’ Mama leaned forward and pressed her hand on his forehead. ‘There’s no fever. If anything, you’re colder than you ought to be. We’ll get a fire going later, see if that makes any difference.’

‘I was… dying,’ he said. ‘I’d made my peace with God. I was ready.’

‘Listen to yourself! How old are you?’

‘Nineteen. Maybe twenty. I don’t know any more.’

‘Let me tell you something. Boys your age know nothing about anything. They don’t know when to be scared, when to run, when to back down or when to shut up. Give it a few years and you might have something worth saying.’ Mama huffed. ‘Peace with God indeed. You need a life of service and knowing you’re on the right path for that.’

Dalip found he didn’t have the energy to argue.

‘Am I going to get better?’

‘Mercy, considering the state you were in when we brought you here, you are better. You can open your eyes, you can breathe, you can talk. And don’t you be ungrateful, either. No one likes a failed martyr.’

‘Martyr?’

‘You’re alive, and you’ll just have to get used to it. And try not to throw yourself into the mouth of the nearest lion next time.’

‘There were no lions.’

‘Don’t get fresh with me. That was a metaphor.’ She huffed again. ‘You hungry?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

She frowned. ‘You should be hungry. I’ve got some clear broth I made for you.’

‘Maybe later.’

‘You should have some. See if you can take it.’

‘Later.’

If anything was going to make him better quickly, it was the thought of being nursed back to health by Mama. She meant well, but it was going to drive him to distraction. He was already twitching.

‘Actually, I do want something. I want to see what’s happened to me.’

‘You’re not up to that yet.’ Mama stood up and stood over him. ‘Promise me you’re not going to try and look any time soon.’

‘Okay, I want to look even more now.’ He took a deep breath and moved his hands to the sides of the hammock. He tried to lever himself to a sitting position, failed, and slipped down even further towards the knotted end by his feet.

‘I’m not helping,’ said Mama. ‘I sewed you up, and I see it every time I look at you. I just don’t think you’re strong enough right now.’

He was so frustrated. He wriggled uselessly until he was almost completely cocooned in the hammock, and was in a worse position than before.

‘You want some of that soup now?’ she asked him.

‘No. Thank you.’

She sat back down and opened the board-covered book, peering at the page held almost at arm’s length. Her lips moved with the archaic syllables, and eventually he stopped struggling and watched her.

‘I thought you couldn’t read it.’

‘I had help: a man called Edmund who’s on the boat. He’s from the fifteenth century, you know. Anyhow, once you get your eye in, it’s not so bad.’ She ostentatiously turned to the next page. ‘It’s very interesting. Especially where it talks about the Lady Grace of Almond Eyes.’

‘It does what?’ He couldn’t sit up, but his whole body started.

‘Oh, you think you know everything there is to Down, then it comes up with another dirty little secret. Turns out half the crew have met Grace at some point or other.’

‘How? We’ve been here for, what?’

‘A couple of months. Might be three by now. Grace has been here for years. Decades. Maybe even longer.’

‘But she came through with us.’

‘She did. Doesn’t mean she hasn’t been here before. Repeatedly.’

‘Then how? That would mean—’

‘She has a way of travelling back through the portals. And always had.’

‘But then—’

‘She was no waif we picked up. She was using the portal to get out of danger. She knew what was coming.’

‘All this time, we’ve been wondering what happened to her. And she… that’s…’ He didn’t what else to say. ‘What’s she doing here?’

‘She’s crossing Down, going from one door to the next. Going back and forward through time, I suppose. Safe to say, if we stay here long enough, we’ll get to ask her ourselves.’ She closed the book again, her point made. ‘We could have gone home. She was there, with us, at the portal. She could have done whatever it is she does, and we’d all be home now. Stanislav and Luiza would still be with us. You wouldn’t have suffered the way you have. Mary wouldn’t be out looking for Elena right now. Simeon wouldn’t have been dragged into this fight of ours, and we would never have met Bell or Crows.’

‘Crows,’ said Dalip. ‘I could have killed him, twice over. Instead, he killed me.’

‘Oh hush. Mary told me what happened, but he’ll have escaped the valley, you can count on that. He’s slipperier than the Devil himself. But Grace: she could have kept us away from all those people. And even if she couldn’t, then, have sent us home through a portal, there are others. We could have gone to the next one along and used that. Instead, she just abandoned us. What sort of person does that?’

‘She does. Over and over again, apparently.’

A shadow flicked over the canopy. His gaze followed the movement and saw a giant falcon skim the sand.

‘Mary’s back,’ said Mama.

‘So where’s Grace now?’ He was wondering out loud, but she took it as a question.

‘Who knows? We don’t. We don’t even know if she’s working with, or against, the White City. There’s no one left to ask.’

‘There’s the ferryman.’

‘You shot him, remember?’

‘I might be able to repair him. If I ever get out of this hammock.’

‘Good luck with that. Good luck with both, because I don’t think you’ve the faintest idea where to start mending some robot from the future. What you’ve got to do is rest, Dalip, and take it easy.’

Mary was walking across the beach towards them, the breeze driving her red dress against the shape of her legs. She looked thoughtful, determined, in control, and when she ducked under the edge of the canopy, she smiled at him.