by Eric Flint
“Something has happened,” he said to Skenadoa, who said nothing in return but led him to the longhouse. He stepped inside and in a darkness interrupted only by a pair of hanging oil-lamps, he saw a very old chief—the Tadodaho himself—and a familiar white man sitting opposite on blankets spread on the floor.
The rest of the longhouse was vacant, except for three old women sitting off to the side, which was itself unusual—both the vacancy as well as the presence of the women under these circumstances. Joseph recognized one of the women—her name was Osha, if he remembered correctly—and she was the Clan Mother of the Heron clan. He assumed the other women represented two of the other clans.
The clan mothers occupied a very powerful position among the Iroquois. They presided over the longhouses, they controlled land use, and they had the right to choose the sachems of the various tribes.
“Hello, Joseph,” the white man said, turning his head but not rising.
“Sir William,” Joseph answered. Joseph was the white name he had been given by Sir William Johnson, the white sachem who had become his patron a few years earlier; Johnson seemed unsurprised to see him. “What has happened to the Fire?”
“Put out,” Skenadoa said at last. “Something has extinguished the Council Fire.”
“When?”
“A few nights ago. When the great broom-star fell,” the Tadodaho said, his thin, old voice sounding like rustling paper. “It is as foretold. The world is changing, young chieftain’s son.”
“And where is everyone now? Where are all the sachems, honored Tadodaho?”
“They are out,” the old man replied. “They are watching for enemies.”
Joseph was ready to ask another question, but Johnson rose slowly from his seat and took him by the elbow, leading him to the doorway of the longhouse.
“You are looking well, young Joseph,” Johnson said, placing his hands on Joseph’s shoulders. “Why have you come? The news of the Council Fire cannot have reached Canajoharie yet.”
“My father sent me. Something else has happened—a few hands of days ago we witnessed the spirits of the dead in the mists near Ticonderoga. They call for Abercromby.”
“What sort of spirits?”
Joseph was surprised that Johnson seemed unfazed by the idea of spirits in the mist. The Englishman—his patron in the world of the Europeans—had always been pragmatic and rational, respecting but never quite believing in the stories of the shamans of the Iroquois.
“They were Scotsmen, Sir William. General Abercromby sent them to their death against the French in their hill-fort. I remember. I watched it happen. The English general threw their lives away, throwing them at the French defenses.”
“Highlanders.” Johnson looked away. “Abercromby ordered the soldiers of the Highland Brigade against the abatis. The brave men were too proud to withdraw and too soldierly to refuse the order. And now . . . they are returning to walk the earth?”
“Excuse me, Sir William, but don’t you find that—strange? I would not have expected you to just accept the account as anything but a tale by a . . . ”
“A savage.”
“Yes. The Tadodaho would accept this as true, but not a white man. I did not think you believed in such things.”
“Since the fall of the comet—the broom-star—I have come to believe many things. I was here the night it happened, a few sunrises before you saw your apparition. We were gathered around the Fire and suddenly there was a cloud of light, like mist. In an instant the Fire was snuffed out as if it was covered with a great dark blanket. The Tadodaho said that there had been an omen about this: a shaman had predicted that it would happen.”
“What else did he predict?”
Before Johnson could answer, they heard a cry from outside. Joseph hesitated for a moment as Johnson went to the door of the longhouse; the Tadodaho waved at him, indicating that he should go.
When he came out into the clearing, Joseph could see an apparition at the edge of the trees. Floating up near the upper branches was a hideous glowing object, shaped roughly like a large head. It had fiery eyes and long, tangled hair; its mouth was a rictus filled with sharp teeth, and it was muttering words that he could not understand.
“Konearaunehneh,” Joseph whispered. “But—what has brought it?”
“It hardly matters,” Johnson said, coming up beside him. He had a musket in his hand and had picked up a powder-horn. “It means us harm.”
“I don’t know if a musket-ball will do anything to it,” Joseph said. “That is a creature of evil dreams.”
“It doesn’t seem to be affected by the warriors’ arrows,” Johnson said, pointing toward the two warriors shooting at it a dozen yards away.
Joseph squinted, looking at the hideous apparition in the bright moonlight. He could see—barely—a tendril of something, like a spider’s web but somewhat thicker, trailing from the bottom of the head toward the ground.
“What about that?” he said, pointing toward the trailing tendril.
“What?”
“The string. It hangs down from the head.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“I do,” Joseph said, and began to run toward the place where it seemed to trail on the ground.
He could hear Sir William Johnson call his name as he ran, and caught a glance of the two archers, who turned aside to see him, pausing in their attacks.
He could see the tendril clearly in front of him, and he reached out to grasp it—
It was as if he was looking at the world from a great height, like a huge mountaintop. The world was a long oval, extending from fields of ice in the north to steamy jungle in the south; it was ringed around with ridges of mountains rising from the sea. Far to the north and west was a great waterfall, taller than any he had ever seen; there was another far to the north and east, dropping off the edge of the world.
Sir William, and other whites, talked of a land from which they had come, across the eastern ocean. But it was not there: beyond the mountains in the sea there was nothing, only blackness. The world came to an end, and there was no more.
“He is stirring.”
Joseph opened his eyes to see Skenadoa sitting next to him, smoking a long clay pipe. Sir William Johnson was beside him, now bending down. The sky was deep blue above; Joseph was lying in a rope hammock.
“I—” he began, and coughed; he lifted his right hand to his mouth and found it covered in a bandage.
“I’ll fetch you some water,” Johnson said, and moved out of Joseph’s field of vision, then returned with a gourd. He helped Joseph to sit up and drink from it, but the world was full of blue spots and he fell back to lie flat.
“What happened?”
“I could ask you the same, young Joseph,” Skenadoa said, taking the pipe out, scowling at it, and tapping it against his boot. “You ran under the Flying Head and made some medicine. There was a bright flash and it floated away. When we reached you, your hands were burned and you had gone to sleep.”
“I saw something. I saw . . . ”
“What did you see?” Johnson said.
“I think I saw the whole world, Sir William. I don’t know how that could be. But I could not see the land of your people, of the white people. The mountains are the edge of the world. There is nothing beyond.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You may not be meant to understand, Warraghiyagey,” Skenadoa said, using Sir William’s Iroquois name—Chief Big Business, the doer of great things. “But if there is no more land of the whites, then things have changed for all of us.”
“It might have been just a vision,” Sir William answered.
“I trust this one’s sight,” Skenadoa said. “But we will have much to consider. It is well that we are at peace—for now.”
Chapter 11
They sound more like demands
Barbados
It took five days against adverse winds and with inferior charts for Namur to make its way to Bridget
own, the capital of His Majesty’s crown colony of Barbados. The tiny island was one of the richest bits of real estate in the British Empire. Its economy was based almost entirely on the production of sugar, for which there was an endless demand, and its location—south of most of the Leeward Islands and eastward of all of them—made it the first stopping-place for ships bound from Africa.
Except that Africa was no longer reachable, as it lay beyond what had been named the Place of Bone.
Most ships approaching Bridgetown along the southwestern coast of the island came from the north and west, using the highlands on the island’s north side as a means of navigation, or from the north and east, making the middle passage from the slave coasts. Namur, however, came upon Barbados from the south. If they had not located it, the next landfall would be more than a hundred miles further—a strain on the ship’s stores, unforeseen when it set sail for its original destination in the Mediterranean.
Bridgetown was a neat little town, showing evidence of the wealth of its inhabitants. Namur was unopposed and unchallenged as it entered the harbor. There were two large, armed merchantmen visible at dock—both in excess of three hundred tons, Boscawen guessed, as he surveyed the scene through his spyglass.
“The war hasn’t made too many stops here, I’d wager,” he said, lowering the glass and turning to Pascal. “I’ll have to go ashore and speak with the governor regarding victualing. You’ll prepare a list of what’s lacking so that I can present it to him.”
“Very good, My Lord. I don’t know if the purser will have enough funds, however.”
“The victualer will take a note of hand, then. I’ll not have Namur under provisioned; given what we’ve seen, it might be some time before we see England again.”
“If we ever do,” Pascal said.
“That, sir, is a conjecture you will keep to yourself. The men have seen . . . ” a great deal, he added to himself. “The men have been through an ordeal, but they will not want to be told that they will never go home.”
“It will have to be discussed sometime, My Lord.”
“Yes.” Boscawen tilted his head slightly; his expression was stony. “But not at this time. Do you understand, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
“Good.” Boscawen walked toward the main deck. “Have my barge prepared, along with an escort. I’ll go ashore at once.”
“Forgive me, my Lord, but that is out of the question.”
Charles Pinfold, governor of the colony of Barbados, was a portly man of middle age—a placeman, Boscawen thought: the sort of bland political appointee who had found a comfortable place as a result of some powerful patron. He didn’t know to whom Pinfold might be answerable—and it might no longer matter.
“You will not provide me what Namur requires?”
“If you need to refill your water-casks, by all means. But provisions—I have a strict and particular allocation, my Lord. Our contractor provides us only what we require, and no more.”
“Only what you pay for.”
“Just so.”
“I will not eat into your profits, Pinfold. I am prepared to pay for the victualing—”
“I am certain you are willing to offer me a promissory, Admiral. But that will not be sufficient for those who arrange the supplying of other ships here in the Caribbean . . . which leads me to ask, if I might be so bold: why are you here at all? I did not think that Namur was assigned to this squadron. I had thought that you were based in home waters, or in the Maritimes . . . ”
“There was a change in plans.”
“And are you in command here, my Lord? Have you been assigned command in this theater?”
“Whatever position our king has elected to assign me, Governor, let me assure you in terms that brook no disagreement or contradiction that I outrank you, sir, and that I expect compliance with my requests.”
Pinfold didn’t respond for several moments; he had been sitting at his ease while Boscawen stood at parade rest, his hat tucked under his arm. The governor stood and walked to a side-table; he removed the stopper from a cut-glass decanter and poured a small amount of liquid into a matching glass. He didn’t offer a drink to Boscawen.
“They sound more like demands,” Pinfold said, and swirled the drink in his glass. “And I am not accustomed to responding to demands, Admiral. I might even be inclined to say that I find such things offensive.” Boscawen opened his mouth to respond, but Pinfold held his hand up. “And I find it so even if it comes from the son of the Viscount of Falmouth and a Member of Parliament.
“Our provisioning and supplies are designed to account for the requirements of the squadron based here and elsewhere in the Leeward Islands. It is calculated based on the number of ships, the number of days at sea, and so forth. I am sure that you are familiar with the method and with the precision with which His Majesty’s contractor, Mr. Biggin, must determine our needs—down to the last ha’penny. It leaves no room—”
“I am extremely familiar with the—”
“It leaves no room for the addition of another ship, particularly one with the tonnage of Namur.” Pinfold tossed off the drink. “So . . . requests or demands, as they may be, will have no impact.”
“You are refusing me,” Boscawen said.
“By all means refill your water-casks, Admiral. But otherwise . . . yes, that is what I am saying.”
Pinfold set his glass carefully down. His face darkened. “If you elect to take what you are not given, My Lord, you should expect that there will be a letter directly sent to Rear-Admiral Cotes, and one to Mr. Biggin’s agent in Jamaica, and one to the Victualing Board in London—”
“You may do as you like with regards to Thomas Cotes and—this contractor, Biggin?—but as for the Victualing Board, I wish you luck, sir. I do not think there will be any ships sailing for London.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Something about the way in which Pinfold asked the question struck Boscawen as odd. The man stood there, his drink within reach and yet left untouched, his attitude just as defiant. But the absurd idea that there would be no ships leaving Barbados for Europe did not seem to be coming as a surprise.
The man knew something. Boscawen was an excellent judge of the intentions and motivations of his fellow man—it was an integral part of command. He was no mind-reader, but he could tell when something was being held back.
“Why don’t you tell me what you are not telling me, Governor.”
The governor of Barbados held his gaze for another few seconds, then looked away.
“There are limits to what I can provide, Admiral . . . but if you will consent to solving a problem for me, I may be able to assist you.”
“Problem? What sort of problem?”
Pinfold sat down behind his wooden desk—in a rather undignified, unmilitary way, to Boscawen’s eye. He picked up a little bell and rang it. After a moment, a young clerk opened the door; some unspoken communication passed between them and the door closed.
Pinfold gestured to a seat; Boscawen considered the idea of continuing to stand, to hold the weather-gauge in the room, but wasn’t sure how long he might be forced to wait. He took the offered seat, placing his hat in his lap.
“I would inquire, but I assume that all of this will be made clear in due course.”
“Just so. May I offer you refreshment?”
“The sun has passed the yard-arm somewhere, Governor. But it certainly has not done so here.”
The governor shrugged and drank from his glass. It seemed to have a small salutary effect, as he sat a little straighter—unless that was in response to Boscawen’s own upright posture.
Within a matter of a few minutes a knock came at the door. “Come,” Pinfold said, and the clerk appeared once more, ushering a middle-aged man and a young woman into the office. The man held—clutched, really—a small wooden box in his hands.
Pinfold and Boscawen both rose at the lady’s appearance, and Boscawen offered her his chair, wh
ich she took with a silent acknowledgement of the courtesy.
“Admiral Boscawen, may I have the honor of presenting Monsieur Charles Messier, and his companion Mademoiselle Catherine LaGèndiere. Monsieur Messier is an astronomer and has . . . recently come here to Barbados.”
“I see,” Boscawen said, though he did not see at all. “Are the gentleman and lady your prisoners?”
“In a strict sense, yes,” Pinfold said. “But I would not characterize them thus. They have been my guests for the past several days.”
“We were shipwrecked here,” Messier said, in slightly accented English. “After we were hurled across the ocean.” He looked down at the box and then at Boscawen.
“I’m not sure, sir,” Boscawen said to Pinfold, “exactly what this has to do with me.”
“We have been waiting for you,” Messier said before Pinfold could answer.
“For me?”
The young woman looked up at Messier, then directly at Boscawen. “I am a great admirer of your lady wife,” she said. “And I have been eager to meet you in person.”
Boscawen answered with a slight bow. “I am honored, dear lady, to make your acquaintance. But I fail to understand why.”
“If I may,” Messier said. Pinfold nodded and moved a stack of parchments from the least-crowded part of his desk. Messier placed the box on the desk and unlatched the top; he lowered the two sides so that they lay flat, revealing a curious instrument of glass and wood. It was rather like an hourglass, braced at each corner by a brass fitting to hold it in place, with a finely marked measuring gauge at the front. The oblong glass formation in the middle held a dull gray liquid—quicksilver, Boscawen supposed—that seemed to undulate up and down.
“It is because of this instrument, Admiral,” Messier said. “It has led us to you.”
