they each flew off in a different direction, covering the eight points of the compass rose.
Arthur was too tired to worry about what the seabirds were doing, or who they might be alerting. All he cared about was the fact that now the top half of the buoy was open, he could pull himself up on it and have a rest.
Arthur had only just enough energy to drag himself over and into the buoy. It was full of water, but he could sit in it quite comfortably and rest. That was all he wanted to do for a while. Rest.
But after only twenty minutes, according to his still-backwards but otherwise reliable and waterproof watch, Arthur found that he had rested enough. Though there was still no visible sun, it felt like one was beating down on him. He was really hot, and he was sure he was getting sunburned and that his tongue had started to swell from lack of water. He wished he’d managed to keep a sheet from the bed to use as a sunshade. He took his dressing gown off and made that into a makeshift turban, but it didn’t really help.
At that point, Arthur started to hope that whoever the birds were supposed to alert would show up. Even if they thought he was a thief. That implied there was something to steal here, which didn’t seem to be the case. The buoy was just a big, empty, floating ball with the top hemisphere opened up. There was nothing inside it except Arthur.
Another baking, uncomfortable hour passed. Arthur’s broken leg began to ache again, probably because the painkillers he’d had in the hospital were wearing off. The high-tech cast didn’t seem to be operational any more and Arthur could see distinct holes in it now.
Arthur picked at one of the holes and grimaced. The cast was falling apart. He was definitely sunburned as well, the backs of his hands turning pink, as if trying to match the bright red stain on his palms. According to Arthur’s watch it was nine o’clock at night, but there was no change in the light. Without being able to see any sun, he couldn’t tell whether night was approaching. He wasn’t even sure there would be a night. There was in the Lower House, but that didn’t mean anything. There might not be any relief from the constant heat.
He wondered if he should try and swim somewhere, but dismissed the idea as quickly as it came up. He was lucky to have found this buoy. Or perhaps it wasn’t luck, it was the Mariner’s disc that had led him here. In any case, Arthur couldn’t swim for more than half an hour at the most, and there wasn’t much chance of finding land in that time. Better to sit here and hope that the smoky seabirds brought someone.
Two hours later, Arthur felt a much cooler breeze waft across the back of his neck. He opened his puffy eyes to see a shadow passing across the sky. A veil of darkness advanced in a line across the horizon. Stars, or suitable facsimiles of them, began to twinkle as the light faded before the approaching line of night.
The wind and the lapping sea grew cold. Arthur turned his turban back into a dressing gown, shivered and hunched up into a tighter ball. Clearly he was going to be sunburned during the day and then frozen at night. Either one would kill him, so not dying of hunger and thirst was no great bonus.
As he had that thought, Arthur saw another star. A fallen star, quite close to the sea, and moving towards him. It took another moment for his heat-addled brain to recognise that it was in fact a light.
A light fixed to the bowsprit of a ship.
The fallen star grew closer and the ship became more visible, though it was still little more than a dark outline in the fading light. A rather rotund outline, for this ship looked to be very broad, wallowing its way through the waves. It had only two masts, rather than the three of the ship that had picked up Leaf, and its square-rigged sails were definitely not of the luminous variety.
Arthur didn’t care. He stood up gingerly, his muscles cramping from weariness and confinement in the buoy, and waved frantically.
“Help! I’m over here! Help!”
There was no answering shout from the ship. It rolled and plunged towards him, but he could see some of the sails being furled, and there were Denizens rushing about on the deck. Somebody was shouting orders and others were repeating or questioning them. All in all, it didn’t appear very organised.
Particularly as the ship sailed right past him. Arthur couldn’t believe it. He shouted himself hoarse and almost fell out of the buoy from jumping up and down. But the ship kept on its way, till Arthur could only see the glow of the single lantern that hung from its stern rail.
Arthur watched till the light disappeared into the darkness, then he sat down, totally defeated. He rested his head in his hands and fought back a sob.
I am not going to cry, he told himself. I will work something out. I am the Master of the Lower House and the Far Reaches. I am not going to die in a buoy in some rotten sea!
Arthur took a deep breath and lifted his head up.
There will be another ship. There must be another ship.
Arthur was clutching at this hope when he saw the light again, followed by another.
Two lights!
They were a hundred feet apart and perhaps two hundred yards away. It took Arthur only a second to understand that he was looking at the bow and stern lights of the ship. He’d lost sight of the stern light as the vessel turned, but now it was heaved-to, broadside on to him.
A few moments later, he heard the slap of oars in the water and Denizens chanting as they rowed a small boat towards him. Arthur couldn’t make out the words till they were quite close and the light of a bull’s-eye lantern flickered across the water, searching for Arthur and the buoy.
“Flotsam floats when all is sunk.Jetsam thrown isn’t just junk.Coughs and colds and bright red soresWaiting for us, so bend yer oars!”
The yellow beam of light swept over Arthur, then backtracked to shine directly in his face. Arthur raised his arm to shield his eyes. The light wasn’t bright enough to blind, but it made it hard to see the boat and its crew. There were at least a dozen Denizens aboard, most of them rowing.
“Back oars!” came a shout from the darkness. “Yarko was right! There is a Nithling on that buoy! Make ready your crossbows!”
“I’m not a Nithling!” shouted Arthur. “I’m… I’m a distressed sailor!”
“A what?”
“A distressed sailor,” replied Arthur. He had read that somewhere. Sailors were supposed to help one another.
“What ship? And what are you doing on that treasure marker?”
“Uh, my ship was the Steely Bed. It sank. I swam here.”
There was a muttering aboard the boat. Arthur couldn’t clearly hear all the words, but he heard “claim”, “ours”, “stick ’im and sink ’im” and the sound of someone being knocked on the head and grunting in pain. He hoped it was the Denizen who said “stick ’im”, since he was fairly sure he was the “’im” being referred to.
“Give way,” shouted the Denizen in charge. The oars dipped into the sea again and the boat moved forward. As it came alongside the buoy, Arthur got his first real look at the crew, with the Denizen holding the bull’s-eye lantern opening its shutters to spread the light around.
They were not a good-looking bunch. There were eight men and five women. They might have started with the usual handsome features of Denizens, but the great majority of them had eye patches, livid scars across their faces and an illustrated catalogue of tattoos, ranging from ships to storms to skulls and snakes, up and down their forearms, on cheeks and foreheads and bared midriffs. They wore many different styles of