Pretend not to notice it, she had told herself. You’re probably being watched right now, so lock up the cases and pretend not to notice. Which she had done, just in time for the porter to take the cases down to the tender.
Now she was bounding around on Jubal’s purple ocean, almost at the launch site and herself seemingly the only passenger for Serendipity. Well, that’s what Rheme had said. No one was getting off of Jubal these days. No body and no thing.
Except for brou. And the things the Honorable Wuyllum had stolen. And the things Honeypeach had stolen. And a few cartons near her feet that were tagged as belonging to Aphrodite Sells.
‘The rets are deserting the sinking ship,’ she quoted, without having any clear idea what rets were. Something little and scaley, with unpleasant teeth, that came onto ships simply in order to leave them, ships like the ones on Serendipity, shallow and gently curved, with long, triangular sails.
‘We’ll miss you, Mayzy,’ Honeypeach had said. ‘You have no idea how much.’ There had been a threat in that, which Maybelle had pretended not to hear.
‘Settle yourself in,’ her father had directed. ‘Pick the best part of the capital city and rent yourself some kind of expensive-looking place. Rheme’s arranged for some woman to help you; he’ll give you her name.’ That was all the Honorable Wuyllum had to say on the matter, but then he was much preoccupied with stripping Jubal of as much wealth as possible in the few days or weeks that remained.
That’s funny,’ said the boatman. ‘The loading ramp’s not down.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, a queasy feeling rising from her stomach to the bottom of her throat and resting there as though it had no intention of moving.
‘It means we can’t get onto the ship,’ he muttered. ‘Dumb shits.’ He hit a button on the control panel and a horn blatted over the sound of wave and wind.
Maybelle put her hands over her ears. The horn went on blaring for some time. When it was cut off, she heard an answering howl from the tower.
‘Return to port. Ship is lifting in the hour and will accept no passengers or additional cargo, by order of the launch commander.’
‘Tell him who’s on board,’ Maybelle directed between dry lips.
‘He knows,’ the boatman mumbled in a surly voice. ‘You think he don’t know!’ Still, he put the amplifier to his lips and told the tower who he was carrying.
‘Return to port,’ the tower blared. ‘Ship is lifting in the hour….’
Maybelle fell back onto the seat. There had been that vicious tone in Honeypeach’s voice when she had said goodbye. Something eager, lascivious, and sniggering. If anyone could have arranged this disappointment, Honeypeach could. All she would have to do was call Justin….
‘We have to go back,’ the boatman said. ‘We’ll get fried if we stay out here when she lifts.’
Maybelle had nothing to say. What was there to say? What would she do when she reached shore? Run? Run where? She huddled on the seat, oblivious to the blare of the tower or the liquid slosh of the waves, lost in apprehension. When they came within sight of the dock, she saw the ebony and gold of the guards from Government House. Someone had sent them to meet her. Someone had known she wouldn’t be leaving.
The sound of a hailing voice brought her head around. A small fishing boat lay just off their port bow. The plump figure at the helm was shouting at them. The tender boatsman slackened speed, let the boat come almost to a stop.
‘Miss Maybelle Thonks?’ the helmsman cried. Plump. With gray hair. She thought she had seen him somewhere before, though she could not see much of his face behind the goggles and high-wound scarf.
‘Yes,’ she nodded, petrified with fright.
‘Mr Gentry asked us to pick you up, Miss. If you wouldn’t mind.’ He smiled at her in a grandfatherly manner.
She cast a quick look again at the dock. Household guards still there, and among them someone else. Someone in an extravagant hat and drifting multicolored veils. Honeypeach. Oh, yes.
‘I’ll go with this man, boatman,’ she said in her rarely used imperative voice, covering fear with a pretence of arrogance. ‘Hold the boats together while I toss my luggage in.’
She transferred herself from tender to fishing boat, hearing angry shouts from the dock over the slupping waves. It wasn’t until she was in the other boat, together with all her belongings, that she realized anyone could have used Rheme’s name. By then it was too late to do anything about it. The wake of the BDL boat was disappearing in the direction of the dock, and the boat she was in was speeding north along the shore.
16
Tasmin, Donatella, Clarin, and Jamieson left the north-south valley by striking southeast through a gap that the charts identified as the Ogre’s Stair. There was no Password and they had an anxious time getting past the Presence. Donatella thought she had a Password that could be adapted, but the Ogre was not amenable. They were about to give up in anger and frustration when Clarin stopped them.
‘Let me,’ she said, opening her music box and kneeing her mule to the forefront. ‘Tasmin, help me.’
She touched the keys and began singing. It took Tasmin only a moment to realize what she had done. Once or twice Don’s previous efforts had seemed to quiet the Stair. Clarin had taken those brief phrases and wound them together, amplifying and extending the melody, attaching a harmonic line from quite another score, and then orchestrating the whole thing as she
