‘How does it look?’ she asked.
‘Like an actual map.’ It did too. It looked like a real map, with names, and a history.
‘That’s a start, I suppose.’ Her voice was slightly huffy.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Dalip. ‘I meant it looks like a place that exists.’
‘You shouldn’t act all surprised by that. It does exist. Otherwise it wouldn’t hurt so much.’
‘I should know all about that. But I still struggle. Here, not so much. It feels like it’s real here. Out there, it’s… the magic. I still baulk at accepting it.’
‘Even when you know it’s changed you?’ She looked up from the map for a moment.
‘And where magic doesn’t work, I change back. I realised when I went for the hooded… thing down by the river. I should have just knocked him off his feet. It was like hitting the side of a truck. I kept on going, and I gave it everything I had, and it almost wasn’t enough. I discovered I’ve lost whatever it is I’d gained, and I never felt more human.’
‘Then the fight between you and Sebastian…?’
‘Was just me against him. Away from the White City, I could probably have disarmed him and let him live. Here, it was all I could do to get him to the ground and keep him there. And he died not because I was strong, but because I was weak. I needed Dawson to help me. I needed help.’ He picked up the egg and held it cool in his hand. ‘I have to face facts. I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want to be a warrior. I’m not my grandfather. I’m a better person when I’m weak and vulnerable and scared.’ He blew out a stream of air, and changed the subject. ‘This would still be much better hanging from the ceiling, like a light bulb.’
Mary punched his arm. ‘You do all right.’
‘You concentrate on the maps. I’ll be back with something. At least, now we should be able to move around the building without worrying about getting stabbed.’
He left her with the egg, marking the coastline maps with consecutive numbers, copying those same numbers on to the cloth to show where the information had come from. It was meticulous: something he’d never thought of her as being.
After wandering from room to room, he eventually sourced a small piece of netting and a sharp tack that would work as a nail. On his way back to what he was already thinking of as the map room, he passed by an open window into the courtyard.
There was a trial going on.
He stopped, then got the best view he could without showing himself. Simeon was centre stage, seated at a table that had been dragged out and placed at one end. The pirate crew were arranged around the sides and the back of the yard, and Elena was on her own, in the middle. She wore a veneer of defiance which, considering Sebastian’s body had been dumped at her feet, was commendable.
If it had been Luiza, she would have spat in Simeon’s eye and damned him to do his worst. It wasn’t Luiza.
Simeon looked almost as resigned to his fate as his prisoner did. He plucked his hat from his head, placed it on the table, and turned it a few times, before looking up.
‘Elena. Did I warn you? Did I warn you both?’
She nodded stiffly.
‘Yet I’ve lost a perfectly decent sailor and a good crewman because you infected him with your particularly pestilential desire for revenge. And the charge for that is singularly unfounded. We’re pirates, if you hadn’t noticed. Lying and cheating and stealing and yes, killing, is our stock in trade◦– just so long as you remember that once you are taken on as crew, you do not indulge yourself in that behaviour with your fellows.’ He slapped the table top hard, and the noise cracked the hush in the courtyard. ‘That is the iron rule. You do not foul your own bed.’
There were murmurings of assent from the assembly, even from those who previously had to be dragged apart for fighting.
‘You were in no doubt of this. I told you to drop your silly grudge. Now a man, who I could ill afford to lose, is dead, and you’ve placed this whole expedition in jeopardy.’
There was no question which way he was leaning. Everyone could see it. Even Dalip.
‘If we were at sea, I’d put you ashore and give your fate no more thought. Circumstances are currently different, so we must arrive at a different solution. Before I give you your sentence, do you have anything to say in your defence?’
She didn’t. She stood, mute, surrounded by her accusers, knowing that she was guilty and there was no justice except this rough kind.
Simeon picked up his hat, inspected the brim for a moment, then positioned it deliberately on his head.
‘It is my duty to see that your contagion doesn’t spread throughout the crew. You are banished from our company forthwith. Where you go or what you do is no longer any concern of ours, save that you might cause further mischief. With that, and despite that it might be more expedient to allow that damned rifleman to waste a shot on you, you are commanded to cross the river, climb the cliffs and disappear. If we see you again, any one of us, your life is forfeit.’
Dawson stepped forward, took her arm, and started to turn her around. Dalip rushed to the window. ‘Wait.’
Simeon pushed his chair back and took off his hat again.
‘Do you have any criticism of the court, Singh, or my right to preside over it?’
That there was even a court at all had been a surprise. ‘No.’
‘Do you have any criticism of the sentence?’
Given the alternatives, he didn’t. ‘No.’
‘Down is a harsh land, with harsh rules. Perhaps if you’d remembered that earlier, Crows wouldn’t still be around to make his merry tricks.’
Dalip had voted for Crows to stay with them. Luiza had not. He’d been wrong, she’d been right, and there was a direct line between that decision and where they were now.
‘Nothing else, Singh?’
Full of regret, he could only say: ‘No, Captain. Nothing.’
He slunk back to the shadows, and Dawson led her away and out of sight.
Dalip went back to the map room, and busied himself with the light, not trusting himself to say anything. Mary was working on the first batch of inland maps. She’d already made one match, which she’d placed, numbered and drawn on to the cloth.
The ceiling was just too far away for him to reach. Although he only needed something to stand on, even that simple act of temporary failure was enough to make him well up. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and told himself to get it together. He’d behaved honourably. Mary had done nothing wrong, and what had started as the disaster of Luiza’s death had ended in the tragedy of Sebastian’s.
And still he felt responsible for it all. If he’d been wiser, or more assertive, then none of the decisions he’d had a hand in would have piled up into the train wreck of fatal consequences it had become.
A tear fell on to a map at his feet, soaking into the paper. The dark halo expanded across its surface and threatened the drawn lines.
‘Careful,’ said Mary, and looked up. ‘Fuck, Dalip. You all right?’
‘They’ve sent Elena away,’ he said.
‘Not a lot we could’ve done about that.’ She stood up under his arms, brushing them aside. ‘You’re not to blame.’
‘Thing is, I think I am. And I can’t change that.’
She reached up and used her thumb to rub away the line of moisture on his left cheek. He turned his head aside, and she dragged it back.
‘I’ve lived my whole life fucking it up,’ she said. ‘I still am. But here’s the secret: everybody’s doing it. Fucking it up, getting over it, maybe learning from it, maybe not. We’ve got a job to do, possibly the most important job ever, and it’d be really fucking it up if we didn’t give that everything, right now.’