“As I would have expected.”
Ignoring the comment, Ethan went below. It didn’t take him long to find the other three army officers in their hammocks. Satisfied that all the commissioned men were accounted for, he began to work his way through the hold, counting soldiers. But he knew that Geoffrey had been right: He was wasting his time. All the officers and crew were here on the ship. The regulars would be, too.
Except that they weren’t.
There should have been forty-nine soldiers belowdecks. He counted forty-eight. He counted them twice more and reached the same total each time. At last he went back onto the deck and counted the men up there a second time. Twenty-four. He read through the manifest again, searching for any other notations of soldiers lost in transit to Boston. But there were none.
“How many regulars do you see up here?” Ethan asked.
Brower stood and turned a slow circle. “Twenty or so, I’d say.”
“No, I need you to count them.”
Geoffrey made no effort to hide his displeasure, but he walked a swift circle around the deck, halting by Ethan.
“Twenty-four.”
“Please make a count below as well.”
“Now, see here, Ethan—”
“Do it! Or would you rather I mentioned to Lieutenant Senhouse how unconcerned you seem with the loss of life on this ship? I don’t imagine your friends at Customs would look kindly on such callousness on your part.”
Brower glowered at him, and Ethan glared right back.
Geoffrey was the first to look away. He went back to the hatch, muttering to himself and sending a filthy look Ethan’s way before vanishing from view.
While Geoffrey searched the hold, Ethan checked the wardroom and captain’s cabin again, just in case the missing regular had died in either chamber. He found only the officers he had seen earlier.
Geoffrey was waiting for him on deck when he stepped out of Waite’s cabin.
“Forty-eight,” Geoffrey said, his tone bitter. “Would you care to tell me what this is about?”
“One of the regulars is missing.”
Brower’s eyes went wide. “What? That’s impossible.”
Ethan held out the manifest. “Have a look yourself. The Graystone left Halifax with seventy-four soldiers. One died on the way here. That should leave seventy-three, but we can only find seventy-two. This may be why the purser had the manifest out in the first place. A man is missing.”
“Perhaps another man died and the commander and purser both neglected to make note of it.”
Ethan shook his head. “I’ve been at sea, and I can tell you that no commander worth his salt would fail to note the death of a passenger or crewman. Besides, look at that manifest. It’s as detailed as any I’ve seen. No, if another man had died before this morning, it would say so there.”
“So, are you suggesting that the missing soldier killed all these men?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you that one of the regulars is missing.”
Geoffrey looked down at the nearest of the dead regulars. “Damn,” he muttered. “We have to tell Senhouse. And I expect he’ll have to speak with Gell.” He glanced Ethan’s way again. “I think you’ve just assured yourself of a late night.”
Ethan had no doubt that he was right.
* * *
Senhouse returned to the Graystone a short time later with a second naval officer and several crewmen. The naval officer, Dr. William Rickman, was the surgeon on board the Launceston and had been sent to certify the deaths of those aboard the ship. The crew had been sent to help Senhouse sail the Graystone to Castle William. In all likelihood, Senhouse had prepared the men for what awaited them on the ship because they managed in short order to hoist anchor, unfurl the sails, and get the ship under way. A few times, Ethan spotted one of them staring at the dead, but for the most part they kept to their work.
The doctor enlisted Ethan and Geoffrey’s help in arranging the dead at the stern; grim work to be sure, but neither of them complained.
After some time, though, Ethan excused himself and approached the quarterdeck to speak with Senhouse of the missing soldier.
The lieutenant managed to conceal his dismay at Ethan’s discovery although he did pull out his kerchief and mop his brow. His hand appeared to tremble.
“Well, this certainly complicates matters,” he said, his voice low.
He paused to mark the ship’s progress toward the island and to shout a command to the crewman at the wheel. “I’ll have to inform Captain Gell,” he went on. “But I expect he’ll want us to to identify all of the dead and compare their names with those on the manifest. He’ll want this other man found. Frankly, I want him found, too, regardless of whether he’s our killer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you stay on with us at Castle William?”
“Stay on with you?” Ethan said.
“I’d like you to work with Doctor Rickman. I don’t know yet if it will be possible to identify these men without making it known to every other soldier in their regiment that they’re dead. But I’m sure that the doctor will need every bit of help he can get.”
Ethan stared off toward Castle William, which loomed large before them. The fortress dominated the island, rising from a mound of stone, austere and formidable. The king’s colors flew above it, the blue, red, and white gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. Somehow, Ethan realized, as he watched the flag snapping in the wind, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a matter of the British navy, something he had vowed after Toulon never to do again. And yet ninety-eight men were dead—or at least ninety-seven were. How could he refuse Senhouse’s request?
“If you can feed and house me for the night, I’ll be happy to do what I can for the doctor.”
Senhouse actually smiled, looking so relieved that Ethan had to smile as well. “Thank you, Mister Kaille.”
A short time later, they docked at Castle Island. Soon Ethan, the soldiers, and even the officers were carrying bodies off the ship and up into the fortress. It was backbreaking, depressing work that grew ever more unsettling as the skies darkened overhead.
The fleet commander had ordered that the dead be kept as far from the barracks as possible, and so Ethan and the others carried the men from the island’s wharf, past the smith’s shop and garden sheds, to the underground vaults that were set aside for food and munitions storage in the unlikely event of a siege. By using the north entrance to the vaults they were able to avoid the barracks, which lay at the south end of the parade.
Stars had begun to appear in the sky when Ethan and Dr. Rickman carried the last of the bodies through the garden toward the vault. The air had turned cold, but still Ethan had sweated through his shirt and waistcoat. He and the doctor said little as they worked. Ethan could just make out faint strains of song in the distance, but he thought little of it until a sudden explosion overhead startled him so, he almost dropped the man he was helping Rickman carry.
“What in God’s name was that?” he demanded.
Before the doctor could answer, another blast illuminated the fortress grounds and was met with cheers.
“They’re celebrating the coming occupation,” Rickman said.
“Who are?”
“The soldiers out on the harbor. Haven’t you heard the singing?”
“I haven’t paid much attention to it,” Ethan said.
“Listen.”
They halted, still holding the corpse. A third rocket went off above them, brightening the fortress like summer lightning and drawing more cheers. Even after the singing commenced once more, it took Ethan a moment to make out the tune. When he did, he shook his head and chuckled. The men were singing “Yankee Doodle,” which British soldiers had been using to mock colonial militia since the Seven Years’ War.
Ethan couldn’t help thinking that the regulars seemed rather full of themselves. But he kept this to himself. He nodded once, signaling to Rickman that they should begin walking a
gain. Rockets continued to burst overhead, and the singing and cheers drifted across the grounds from the harbor.
One last time they descended the steep stone stairs that led into the vaults, barely trusting their footing in the inconstant light of the torches that lined the stairway.
When at last they set down this last man, Ethan straightened and stretched the stiff muscles in his back and shoulders. The air belowground was even colder than it had been above. It was damp as well, but Ethan thought it likely that the bodies would keep longer in the vaults than anywhere else they might have been placed.
“I meant no offense,” Rickman said.
Ethan looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
The doctor was tall and hale with a kindly, round face and piercing dark eyes. His features were youthful, but his curly hair, which he wore far shorter than was the fashion in Boston, had already turned white.
“I didn’t mean to anger you by pointing out what the men were singing,” the doctor explained.
Ethan shook his head. “You didn’t.” He retrieved the ship’s manifest from a low stone ledge where he had placed it some time before and began to walk down the narrow corridor of the vault, looking over the bodies. He could hear more rockets going off, although down underground the explosions sounded muffled and dull. He couldn’t hear the singing anymore. “Do you know many of these men?”
“Hardly any of them.” The doctor spoke softly in an accent that marked him as a native of southern England, perhaps Southampton or Portsmouth. “Last I heard, Captain Gell intended to ask some of the officers from the Twenty-ninth Regiment to join us here and help identify them.” He eyed Ethan in the torchlight. “Lieutenant Senhouse asked me to examine the men, but he still hasn’t asked me what killed them. The crewmen did, but not William. Neither have you, for that matter. Why is that?”
“I’ve been carrying the dead for hours, Doctor. As grim a task as that was I didn’t wish to make it worse. But you’ve raised the matter so why don’t you tell me what you think killed them.”
Rickman shook his head. “I have no idea. And what’s more, I don’t believe you. I think you do know, or at least can offer a theory. So before the officers arrive why don’t we dispense with the games? Tell me what happened to these men.”
Ethan didn’t answer right away. He should have denied that he knew anything, but something in the doctor’s manner stopped him. The man seethed with passion, with a righteousness that Ethan remembered from his own youth. In truth, Rickman reminded Ethan of another young man he knew—Trevor Pell, a minister at King’s Chapel who had first helped him with his work several years before when Ethan was inquiring into the death of Jennifer Berson. He wondered if Rickman would accept that Ethan was a conjurer, as had Pell.
Before he could say anything, though, he heard boots scraping on the stone stairs leading into the vault. He looked back at the entrance, and Rickman turned as well.
Two men stepped into the vault, both wearing bright red uniforms. One of the men appeared to be in his early twenties—a young officer, who looked at the bodies arrayed before him with an expression of abject fear. His eyes twitched; it seemed that he was continually fighting the urge to close them and shut out the horror before him. His skin looked pasty, even in the warm light of the torches.
The other man couldn’t have been more different. He was tall and broad in the shoulders. Some might have thought him handsome, though Ethan thought he looked more rough than refined, with a long nose, a strong chin, sunken cheeks, and widely spaced pale eyes. He wore his graying hair in a plait beneath his tricorn hat, a hat which he did not remove even here, in the presence of so many dead soldiers. His eyes swept over the bodies and came to rest at last on the doctor.
“Captain Gell sent me,” he said, his voice thick with an Irish burr. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me why, Doctor.”
“I’d suggest you look around you, Captain,” Rickman answered, his tone icy. “These men are the reason why.”
The officer’s mouth twitched. “I can see that. But what is it you require of me?”
“Captain Preston, this is Ethan Kaille,” the doctor said. “He is a thieftaker here in Boston, and is conducting an inquiry into the deaths of these men. All of them are from your regiment and one of them is missing. We need to match faces to names and see if we can determine which man escaped the fate of his comrades.”
To this point, Preston had ignored Ethan, but he fixed his eyes upon him now, a faint smile on his lips. “A thieftaker?” he said. “You think these men were robbed?”
Ethan stared back at him. “Yes. Of their lives, at the very least.”
The smile faded from the captain’s face. “All right. Let’s get started, then. I want to get back to my soldiers. The rest of them…” he amended after a brief, awkward pause.
“By all means,” Rickman muttered, just loud enough for Ethan to hear. “We wouldn’t want to inconvenience the man.”
Chapter
SEVEN
Captain Preston’s manner might have been gruff, but he worked with swift efficiency, as did the young corporal he had brought with him. They moved down the line of dead soldiers, peering at their faces and, after a bit of deliberation, assigning a name to each one. Dr. Rickman held the manifest and checked off names as the officers worked. Ethan trailed behind them, feeling that with the bodies arrayed in the vaults his work here was complete.
Watching the other men, though, Ethan had an idea. He would have been best off waiting until he was alone with the dead soldiers, but he couldn’t be certain that such an opportunity would present itself.
“Veni ad me,” he whispered as quietly as he could. Come to me.
His conjuring sang in the stone walls and the ground beneath his feet, and Uncle Reg winked into view at his side, his russet glow almost bloodlike in the dim space.
Preston glanced Ethan’s way. “What did you say?” he asked. He gave no indication that he could see Reg or that he had felt Ethan’s conjuring.
“It was … a prayer,” Ethan said.
Reg grinned. The captain went back to examining the dead, but Rickman eyed Ethan for another moment. As soon as the doctor turned his attention to the manifest once more, Ethan looked toward the glowing ghost.
I need to know if any of these men were conjurers, he said within his mind. Do you understand me?
Reg nodded and began to drift back along the corridor past the bodies that had already been identified. A short distance from the stairway, he halted, hovering beside the body of a regular. He stared back at Ethan, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. Ethan could hardly believe that the ghost had found someone. He had thought this a lark.
You’re sure? he asked in his mind, as he approached the dead soldier.
Reg nodded to him and drifted off once more.
Stopping by the soldier Reg had indicated, Ethan looked down at the man. He was a large, young man with a broad fleshy face and long black hair.
“Can you tell me this man’s name?” Ethan asked, still looking down at him.
“We’ve got him already,” Preston said.
“Yes, I know. What was his name?”
The captain glowered at Ethan. Finally he shook his head in disgust. “Go,” the captain told his corporal, his voice flat. “See who he’s talking about.”
The young officer joined Ethan by the dead soldier and looked down at the man. “That’s Jonathan Sharpe,” he said. “He was from York originally, but he fought over here against the French, and remained in Halifax with the regiment.” The young man turned to Ethan. “Why? Is there something wrong?”
“No,” Ethan said. “I thought I’d seen him before. Sorry to have troubled you.” The lie came easily to him, though once again he caught the doctor eyeing him. He wondered if Senhouse or even Geoffrey had revealed to Rickman that Ethan was a speller.
Looking past the doctor, Ethan saw that Uncle Reg hadn’t vanished again, as he thought the ghost might. Rather, he had positioned himself
by the dead soldiers whom Preston and his aide had yet to identify. As before, the ghost’s glowing eyes were locked on Ethan’s. Deliberately, he turned to gaze down upon one of the men and then looked up at Ethan again.
“Can I go back to the captain, sir?” the corporal asked.
Ethan barely heard him. “Another one?” he whispered.
Uncle Reg nodded.
“I’m sorry?” the corporal asked.
With a sharp shake of his head, Ethan looked away from the ghost.
“Aye, of course,” Ethan told the man. “I’m sorry to have pulled you away from what you were doing.”
The man edged away from him and rejoined Preston. Ethan followed him, forcing himself not to hurry, though his pulse was racing. Could there have been two conjurers among these men? The odds against such a thing were staggering. There were maybe fifteen conjurers among all of Boston’s fifteen thousand residents, and yet it seemed that there had been two among these seventy-two soldiers.
He slipped past Rickman, Preston, and the corporal, walking until he reached Uncle Reg and the second conjurer the ghost had found. Ethan leaned back against the wall of the vault, and waited for the other men to reach this man.
You’re certain? he asked Reg.
The ghost nodded.
Are there more, or just these two?
Reg held up two glowing fingers.
And you’re really sure about both of them?
This time Reg scowled at him.
Right. Sorry.
Ethan watched Preston and his corporal. Seeing that they remained engrossed in what they were doing, Ethan turned his attention to the man Reg had indicated. He appeared to be somewhat older than the other soldiers; there were lines around his mouth and eyes, and his brown hair was flecked with silver. But he had a boyish face, with round cheeks and a smooth brow. Ethan guessed that he would have had a pleasant smile.
Before long, Rickman and the others reached the man.
“Do you know this one, Corporal?” Preston asked.
“Not well, sir, no. I think his last name might be Osborne.” The young man looked back at the doctor. “Is there an Osborne on the manifest?”
Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles) Page 9
