She laughed, and suddenly there was no need for him to feel awkward around her any more. They’d seamlessly picked up their friendship where they’d left off. Everything was all right between them again.
‘What will you do if we work out a way of going home?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ She looked round from the window. ‘Let’s worry about that later.’
The egg began to glow, a pale moon in the dark.
23
There’d been some supplies in the building, presumably kept to feed travellers: those had been quickly exhausted by the sheer number of hungry pirates. It wasn’t Mary’s problem, though. It had been made quite clear that she and Dalip were to concern themselves with the maps and nothing else.
She didn’t know what to make of that: it wasn’t like she had any secret knowledge that would help in either ordering the individual fragments, or making sense of the whole.
Dalip knew more about Down stuff than she did. Mama was better at jigsaws. All she was, was a better thief than Crows.
First thing in the morning, Simeon had hand-picked two small groups, who would leave the valley together, then separate. One was to head back to the pirate ship and collect Mama, the other was to scale the cliffs at the Bay of Bones and retake Mary’s boat. The captain had shown more excitement over the possibility of new sailcloth than the use it was to be put, but she understood why, and gave him the compass to help the second group navigate their way back to the White City.
The city itself was quiet, but not calm. Tension seethed behind every barred door. She didn’t quite understand how the pirates had taken the place so easily: they’d killed several of the Lords and Ladies’ servants, but there were still more. Simeon’s crew were more prepared to use violence, which counted for a lot in her experience◦– one scary fucker could intimidate a whole street◦– but the figure in the robe yesterday had been able to grab a sword and force it down. And just how many bosses there were was a mystery.
They had to be planning something. This was their manor, and they’d try and take it back, no matter what. All the more reason for them to start soon, and finish sooner.
The egg had burned bright all night. It was still alight in the morning, and showed no sign of going out. They had almost too much light.
Dalip suggested putting the egg higher, near the ceiling. There was nothing to hang it with, or on, but he said he’d come up with something. Mary used the time to start the laborious task of laying all the maps out on the floor. If they were folded, she would carefully open them out. If they were crumpled, she would press her palm on them and try to iron out some of the creases.
There were so many of them. Each one a journey, sometimes short, sometimes long, from portal to castle, where, inevitably, the journey would end. She’d laid out ten, so she left a gap, and started on the next batch. She was up to nineteen when she heard the shot.
She stiffened and sat up. The echo of it came and went, came and went, then faded away.
Dalip barrelled into the room. ‘What was that?’
‘Someone’s got the gun.’
‘The gun? What gun?’
‘The ferryman had one.’
‘He has a gun?’
‘Didn’t you see it? Over the fireplace?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Didn’t you see the ferryman when you crossed the river? He’s in the hut just behind it.’
‘We swam the river and sneaked past. What sort of pirates knock on the door and ask to come in?’
‘The sort that just got shot at. Fuck. I forgot. Otherwise I would have told you.’ She got up and peered through one of the window slits. ‘Can’t see anything.’
‘Just when you think it can’t get any worse. I need to find the captain: what sort of gun was it?’
‘How the fuck should I know?’
‘Was it long, short, modern, old?’
‘I don’t know!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘Long. Like you’d find in a war film.’
‘Some sort of rifle, then.’ He turned and disappeared again.
She’d forgotten about the gun: with everything else that was going on, it had just been one of those perfectly normal things. Monsters, pirates, doorless buildings, crappy little towns pretending they’re cities.
So when Simeon appeared with Dalip, she shouted out: ‘I didn’t know you hadn’t seen it. It’s not my fault.’
‘Mary,’ said Simeon, ‘not everything is your fault.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘We are now, however, trapped in the valley. We are also one man down, which sorely grieves me. I’ve sent remnants of that party across the river and up to the top, to see if they can find an alternative route down. Barring that, we wait till nightfall’s dark embrace and ambush the shooter. It loses us a day, and it brings my crew discomfort. Maintaining discipline on these fellows just became a great deal more difficult, so I implore you to redouble your efforts.’ He looked at what little had been done so far. ‘Time is not our friend, shipmates: it is our enemy.’
He left, leaving Dalip and Mary staring at the maps.
‘Right,’ she said. She picked up a handful of paper and shoved it at Dalip. ‘Without Mama, we’re going to have to go even faster. You sort these out. I really hope something comes up, because otherwise, we’re screwed.’
‘It’s only one rifle.’
‘So? One bloke with a rifle and box of bullets, waiting for anyone coming down that path, could hold off a fucking army.’
‘He has to sleep sometime.’
‘Does he? If he’s one of those face-peeling things, he probably doesn’t need to eat, sleep, shit or breathe.’ She waved his objections away. ‘Come on. Get on with it.’
She turned her back on him and deliberately concentrated on her work, arranging the maps in groups of ten, going back for more when she was done. He was doing the same, following her lead, and by the time they had finished, the floor was half-covered.
They met in the space in the middle, the egg on the floor throwing strange shadows up at their faces.
‘How many’ve you got?’
Dalip looked behind him. ‘Eighty-seven.’
‘One hundred and twenty-four. That’s…’
‘Two hundred and eleven. Any way you look at it, it’s a lot of maps.’
‘So what do we do now? Apart from wait for the next shot?’
‘We had two maps together beforehand. At the beach.’
‘And then?’
‘Mama might not be here, but we can still use her method.’ He turned slowly, taking in all the maps, stroking at his beard. ‘We find everything with a coast, and try to line them up.’
They toured their respective collections, gleaned the maps that clearly had a coastline drawn on, and reconvened.
‘We know,’ he said, handing her his maps, ‘the coast goes roughly east-west. Make a line right here on the floor. Just lay them out, and I’ll be right back.’
‘Where are you going?’ She held the papers against her to stop them spilling.
He wouldn’t say, just skipped away and out.
She’d just finished laying them in a row when Dalip returned with Simeon.
‘I cannot be the wet nurse to this enterprise,’ he was saying. ‘Do you know how much there is to being a pirate captain?’
‘Unless there’s anyone else in your crew who knows exactly where they are by the shape of the coastline, then you’re the only person who can help. We,’ and he pointed at himself and Mary, ‘can stare at these until the sun goes out. But if you can do what you say, this is going to take you ten minutes.’
Simeon tutted and looked at all the scraps of paper. ‘Ten minutes?’
‘Not those.’ Mary laid her hand on the nearest strip of coast. ‘Just these.’