‘Gesti of Poseidon's Sons sent me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For coin.’ Simeon smiled.

  Mangat snorted and stepped closer, drawing a scimitar off his hip.

  ‘Stay your hand, Tarry,’ the Doge said.

  ‘Listen to the Doge, Tarry,’ Simeon said, interested to see what Mangat would do.

  ‘You will answer for the Willing Victim, Simeon,’ Mangat said. ‘My brother died, trampled to death!’

  ‘Not now.’ The Doge stepped forward, pushing Mangat aside. ‘Gesti sent you with Lady Merret?’ she asked Simeon. ‘Have you heard of Dagon? Or those who worship Dagon? They come from the great deep of the ocean.’

  ‘Tales to scare children,’ Princess Irene said, snorting.

  ‘Not so. There's truth there,’ the Doge said. ‘Eons ago, before mankind arose, there was only water. No land, just a single vast ocean. And in there dwelt a race of inhuman creatures that worshipped Dagon, their pale, drowned god. Finally the world moved and shifted land up through the ocean to give us the continents we walk on now. Man was born and drove Dagon's brood deep into the seas. Mankind dominated the land and our civilisations arose.’

  The Doge stepped closer. ‘These things, these dwellers of the ocean are not human, and they hate us all. For our ancestors claimed the world for themselves. Gesti longs to destroy us and have the ocean take us all. If she seizes East Watch, who knows what might happen next?’

  ‘You took East Watch yourself.’

  She nodded. ‘I took it from your emperor, Stone Snake. But I did not take it to give to Dagon.’

  ‘They cannot take the city from us,’ Mangat said confidently, ‘while the giant sleeps beneath us.’

  ‘What is this giant?’ Simeon asked.

  ‘Only those who hold the city need know that,’ the Doge said, glowering at Mangat. Then she nodded to Merret. ‘She tells us that you were turned out of the imperial court. You are masterless, Baron Simeon. But so are we. You could join us. Are you with us, or against? For the realm of man, or for Dagon?’

  Simeon looked at Princess Irene. ‘And this one? Does she side with you to hold the city against Dagon?’

  Irene said, ‘I have been given little choice. And told nothing since my ship was taken and my servants slaughtered.’ Her voice was cold, more controlled than her father's red scream.

  The Doge said, ‘The Princess is our guest, and my hostage.’

  Merret said, ‘Think carefully, Simeon. We cannot stay loyal to Gesti after what we've learned. She lied to us. She is no pirate, she worships Dagon and will destroy us all.’ Merret's eyes shone with urgency. ‘Throw in your lot with the Doge.’

  It seemed to Simeon that Merret had been looking for something to believe in throughout her long exile.

  ‘I care not for Gesti,’ Simeon said to the Doge. ‘But I require Princess Irene.’

  ‘He says no,’ Mangat said. He smiled and raised his scimitar.

  ‘Hold,’ Merret said urgently.

  ‘That time is over,’ Mangat said, and he pushed the Doge aside. Simeon took a quick step towards the Doge. As Mangat cut him off, Simeon threw a lamp off its table and into his face. The oil flared and Simeon turned and ran back to Princess Irene.

  ‘To me!’ Tarry Mangat shouted at the Doge's men and Simeon shoved the bald servant into their path. Then he had Irene, sweeping her back to the alcove.

  A hand grabbed Simeon from behind. He turned and Mangat's scimitar flowed like molten gold towards his face. Simeon kicked Mangat hard in the knee then clubbed him in the face with the axe handle. He felt teeth crack under the axe and Mangat went flat on his back.

  ‘Stop that man. Do not let him near the giant!’ the Doge shouted. Simeon shoved the Princess before him. Irene tripped through the broken doorway and down the dark slope. Simeon ran forward but a man locked his arm round Simeon's throat and hauled him backwards. Somebody else hit Simeon, punching his body.

  ‘Stand clear!’ Tarry Mangat shouted. But nobody stood clear.

  Simeon dragged at his axe, trying to free it from under all those men piled upon him and weighing him down like the roof had fallen in. They choked and yanked and punched him. The alcove grew slippery with heat, like a dark steam room. The man pulling Simeon back was a strong Scythian. More men crowded and Simeon went to his knees. It was too tight in the alcove to use their weapons but that didn't seem to matter, there were so many of them, crowding him in the darkness and still he couldn't lift the axe.

  The Doge shouted, ‘No blood! Don't rouse the giant.’

  Simeon had no time to wonder about that. He still couldn't lift the axe, but he could slide his knife out of his belt. Left-handed, where no one could see, he drew it free and then he was stabbing in and out of the press of bodies and the men fell away, screaming as he cut into thighs and groins and bellies. Simeon tipped the Scythian on his back over his shoulders. Losing his balance, the man panicked and Simeon slammed him into the stone wall. Then Simeon had his right arm free, and he swung hard with the axe, hearing bone split beneath it and another man screamed. Simeon butted, kicked, stabbed at men he couldn't clearly see. He was free of them for an instant and he stumbled away. Blood stuck to the soles of his boots and he tripped into the bare rock tunnel and down to whatever lay below ground.

  ‘Back. Everyone back!’ the Doge shouted, and the men stopped. Simeon suspected a trap but he took the respite the Doge's command offered. He steadied himself, but they didn't come – not even Mangat – and Simeon edged away, down the long passage and into the earth.

  He descended into darkness. The only light lay behind him, dull and soon smudged and distant. His eyes adjusted to the gloom only enough to feel the walls press in, and to see the lop-sided roof brush his head. The tunnel turned, sinuous as an eel, but always descending.

  ‘Is it the Stone Snake?’ Irene's voice.

  ‘It is,’ Simeon said. He could not make the Princess out in the dark tunnel.

  ‘You have taken me from my captors, sir,’ she said.

  ‘True enough.’ Simeon drew closer.

  ‘And yet you are not my father's man. They say you were banished from my father's court. So . . . am I captured anew?’

  Simeon took the Princess's arm and felt her stiffen.

  ‘Princess, you are not injured?’

  When Irene shook her head, Simeon could only tell when the girl's body moved beneath his hand. ‘Then keep moving. We must be away.’

  Without choice, Simeon descended. The ground continued to slope, rough beneath his boots. The Doge had called her men back. But she would be up there, scheming, planning to recapture Irene.

  Down and down they went.

  ‘We go on further?’ Irene asked.

  ‘We do.’

  ‘But we must go up to escape the manse. Up, not down.’ Irene's confidence faltered.

  ‘The only way is down.’

  Below the earth his doom waited. Simeon knew that with the certainty of a dream. Something dark and terrible lurked here, something that wanted them both. Was it Gesti? Was she truly Dagon's servant? He fought to shake those fears off, dismissing them as children's stories. But Gesti's voice, sibilant and hollow within her silver mask echoed in his mind. What lay behind the false girl's face?

  The tunnel ended abruptly. In the darkness, Simeon had the sense of an echoing, empty space before them. The air smelt like stagnant water left to stand. He reached down and found a lip of rock, then a drop. Sensing his hesitation, Irene stepped off the path and dropped onto the ground. ‘Come, it holds.’

  When he landed beside the Princess, Simeon stood on a stodgy, giving surface. His feet splashed in foul smelling water.

  ‘What is this place?’ Irene asked.

  ‘This place?’ a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness at them. ‘Why, this is a prison. And you are my tormentors, are you not?’

  Simeon faced the voice, his eyes straining. Something moved with a dragging sound as of a vast weight, like a bolder rolling, but he saw nothing.

  ‘Two of you come, I see,’ the voice said, rumbling deeper than any normal voice might. The speaker's eyes must be very keen to see them. Simeon pulled Irene behind him. ‘Come no closer,’ he warned.

  The distant figure laughed sadly. ‘I will not.’

  When Simeon said nothing, the voice said, ‘Ahh, normally you come to me with a lantern or a brand to light your way. Men's eyes are weak without fire. There is a sconce behind you, mortal. Try that.’ Simeon, without turning, sloshed backwards till he reached the wall. He ran his hand over damp rock and found an unlit torch in a bracket.

  ‘Let me,’ Irene said, and took the torch. Simeon heard Irene's hand fumble in the sconce and the Princess said, ‘There is a flint too.’ Simeon couldn't see what she did, but the Princess worked in the darkness and soon Simeon heard flints crack together. After the third strike they sparked, the white light jumping searingly in the gloom. The sparks burst again and the torch's pitch began burning. She held the light aloft and Simeon saw that they stood in a tall chamber with the walls stretching wide until they fell into shadows. A white liquid covered the ground.

  Simeon's eyes took in a stone block the size of a horse, and on it, the slumped figure of the one who'd spoken to them. He was five times' Simeon's size, with a huge head and shoulders. Simeon stared, his breath still and his stomach tight. This was truly a giant.

  Scraggy hair ran down the giant's head and teeth gaped from rough lips. Then Simeon took in the sagging dugs on the chest. The giant was a woman. Her huge legs and arms were still far more muscled than a normal man's, and the voice deeper, but perhaps this creature was smaller than a male might be. . .

  ‘Ogre, tell me, why are you here?’ Irene asked. Her voice quavered, but Simeon heard the Princess find her resolve.

  ‘The emperor put me here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I am all that keeps East Watch safe.’

  Simeon said, ‘From below the earth? How do you do that?’

  ‘There are those that worship Dagon, the undying god from the ocean. They would consume this city and then the realms of men. While I am here, they cannot come closer.’

  ‘Even buried?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Even buried. They fear my might.’

  ‘How did the emperor put you here?’ Simeon asked.

  ‘Through trickery. It is not tunnels that hold me still.’

  ‘Then what does?’ Irene said.

  ‘There is a device, a book in the manse above me.’

  ‘A book?’ Simeon said. ‘I heard a grey mare held you captive.’

  Perhaps a man would laugh, but the she-giant only corrected him. ‘Grimoire, not grey mare. It is a book that holds me ensorcelled. Not a horse. Should Dagon come close, the emperor's man was taught how to use it to call on me as his warrior. Should that be destroyed, I will have the strength again to rise free.’

  Irene spoke. ‘My father – ‘

  Simeon tapped her shoulder and Irene stopped speaking.

  ‘We came in here to escape the Doge and his minions,’ Simeon said.

  ‘The Doge hunts you?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘The Doge traps me just as the emperor's man did.’

  ‘Then perhaps you'll let us pass?’ Irene said.

  ‘There is another way out, at the far end of this chamber,’ the giant said. ‘But why would I let men past, when men lied to me for so many years?’

  Simeon watched her, thinking that talking would not get them past her bulk. He wondered how to fight a giant and win.

  ‘We are not merely men,’ Princess Irene said. ‘We are men of power in the empire.’

  ‘It was men of power who tricked me into slavery,’ the giantess said. Though her voice rumbled and rolled it seemed mild to Simeon, almost gentle.

  ‘What will you do if you escape?’ Irene asked.

  ‘Return home. Find my mate and my children, if they still live.’

  Irene paused, then asked, ‘How long have you been trapped here?’

  The she-giant gathered herself, perhaps counting. ‘Twenty man years.’

  The idea of such confinement churned through Simeon. Twenty years would drive him mad. Simeon kicked his way through the pasty fluid to the giantess. ‘We must go past you,’ he said.

  ‘You would fight me?’ the giantess asked.

  ‘Not willingly.’

  The ravaged ugly lips quivered and Simeon realised that she smiled. ‘You are wise then, mortal.’

  ‘I know what you want,’ Simeon said.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘To be free – as I and my companion wish to be. To be free of the Red Manse and East Watch. We can only find freedom by going past you. And if we gave you your freedom, would that be payment enough?’

  ‘Aye mortal. But you cannot set me free while the grimoire holds me.’

  ‘Let us go, and we will find this book and destroy it.’

  The giantess fell silent for so long that Simeon began to think she slumbered. Then her head rose and she said, ‘I risk nothing in letting you pass. Only more lies from men if you betray me. So swear you will release me if you escape this chamber. Give me the word that man says he values so highly.’

  ‘You would believe an oath from a man, after men trapped you here?’ Irene asked.

  ‘If you lie and I get free, I will find you, mortal.’ And that rumbling voice carried a threat that Simeon would not forget easily.

  ‘You are immortal?’ Princess Irene asked.

  Again that long pause, as if the giantess drew herself back from somewhere far away. ‘Longer lived than a man.’ She raised her huge hand and beckoned them forward.

  They approached through the white fluid.

  In the light of the brand, Simeon saw Irene stare at him. He nodded slightly and he turned to the giantess. ‘I give my word,’ Irene said with solidity. ‘Let us pass, giant, and I give my oath that we will free you if it is possible.’

  ‘Good enough, mortal. Pass in peace.’

  Simeon didn't move yet. ‘One thing, giant. If you get free, ships will come to the city. Can you destroy them?’

  ‘I can destroy anything if I am released from here.’

  ‘Simeon, what are you doing? That will be the Royal Fleet, come to liberate the city.’

  Still talking to the giant, Simeon said, ‘Black ships will come and come quickly. If we release you, crush those ships.’

  The giant stared at him above her ruined mouth. Her eyes were very blue. ‘I will.’

  Irene, shocked, said, ‘Simeon.’

  ‘Good enough, giant.’

  Simeon nudged Irene forward. The Princess glared but they walked on, close enough to touch the giant and be harmed by her. Simeon watched the giantess, lolling on her great altar, watched her shovel hands and bulging arms. She could snap his head off in an instant. . .Yet Simeon and Irene passed unharmed. She stared at them, content to let them go, honest to her promise.

  At the next wall stood a gate, hanging open on loose hinges. Simeon glanced back. ‘Should I succeed and you become free of this dungeon, you will still be in the Red Manse.’

  ‘Yes, mortal,’ the deep voice said.

  ‘It would please me if you sought out the Doge's men who kept you here.’

  Out of the great chest, the deep voice rumbled, ‘As it would also please me. . .’

  *

  They climbed upwards using steps cut from the rock. The torchlight played back and forth till Simeon and Irene appeared as misshapen and ill-formed as the giantess. Irene coughed harshly with the dust they disturbed. She was used to a life of silk and servants, not these dark passageways.

  ‘Where are we? Do you know, Baron? Are we at the manse yet?’

  ‘It's the manse.’ Simeon set the shadows jumping, running the torch across the walls. They were formed from brick now. They reached another doorway and Simeon shielded the flame. But no guard stood here.

  ‘Can we escape?’ Irene asked.

  ‘No,’ Simeon said, running the light over heavy hinges and a thick lock. The Doge's men had not forced this door.

  ‘Where would your father's man keep the grimoire?’ Simeon asked.

  Irene thought for a moment. ‘The Royal library is at the top of the manse's tower. But it should have been well guarded by imperial troops.’

  Simeon turned the torch to a set of stairs beside the heavy door.

  ‘It was,’ he said, looking over brown stains of blood from earlier fighting. ‘The Doge killed every soldier here…’

  Simeon began climbing the stairs. ‘This way.’ He led Irene up, the shadows jumping again till their bodies appeared slanted and stick-like on the narrow staircase. The torch guttered then strengthened as cool air struck Simeon's hand.

  The stairs opened through a trap door onto a furnished room. It stood like a nomad's tent, with fine tapestries for walls spread across the beams of the building. The room was empty and bookshelves covered each wall. This was the library.

  Moonlight shone like a grin through a gap in the ceiling where the walls came together in a point. ‘Still dark outside,’ Irene said, staring upwards. ‘Has so little time passed?’

  Glancing round, Simeon realised that they had climbed above the manse and into its tower. He crossed to one wall and a glass case. Simeon saw illuminated books bound into sturdy leather and piles of scrolls, brittle and yellowed. Any one of these could be the grimoire.

  Irene said, ‘Have you found the book?’

  ‘Possibly. We'll destroy them all to be sure.’

  ‘No, Simeon, I cannot allow it.’

  Simeon glanced back and saw that the Princess had a knife in her hand. Simeon's knife, he realised.

  He laughed. ‘You're light fingered and stealthy.’

  ‘We promised the giant her freedom. I'd honour that – but you bade her destroy the Royal Fleet. You would destroy the empire. I cannot allow it.’

  Before Simeon could speak, the ladder shifted and Tarry Mangat climbed into the room. He moved quickly to stand and draw his scimitar.

  ‘Allow what, Princess Irene?’ he asked.

  Irene glared at Mangat. ‘The giantess, the prisoner underground, is held by the power of a grimoire. If Simeon finds it, he will destroy it and the giantess will rise. He means to punish my father for his banishment.’