Council of Fire

by Eric Flint

  “We shall try,” Boscawen said. “Turn us about to follow.”

  The other ship might have been able to outrun them but seemed uninterested in making it a chase; it put on no extra sail as Namur approached, but rather changed its point of sail so that the two ships were on the same heading, a few dozen yards apart. There was a cheer from the main deck when Namur broke out into sunlight. It was the first blue sky they’d seen in several days.

  “Welcome aboard His Majesty’s ship Namur, Captain Fayerweather,” Boscawen said. “Your name is quite apt.”

  “Well, sir,” the man replied. “It’s a nom de guerre, of course. Real name is Toombs. Charles Evan Toombs, of Salem. My honor to meet you, sir.”

  Boscawen tilted his head. “I see.” He gestured to a seat in the cabin. Pascal remained standing in the doorway.

  Fayerweather was almost the perfect image of a prosperous sailing-man; his hair was cropped fairly short and clubbed into a queue, his clothes were plain and well-worn but of decent quality, and he had donned a dark-blue coat and a beaver hat, holding it in the crook of his arm in deference to the station of the man who now entertained him.

  “My lads started calling me Charlie Fayerweather some years ago, Admiral, because where I sailed the weather was usually fine. Of course, that’s the sort of thing that can get you burned as a witch back in my hometown.”

  “Still? I thought that practice was long since abandoned.”

  “I’ve not been back to find out.” He smiled, showing a fine set of teeth—too perfect, perhaps not his original set: curious, given the expense of such a thing. “I mostly ply the routes down here, carrying this and that, and making a decent living.”

  “And always under fair skies.”

  “Aye, most times. I know most of His Majesty’s vessels in these waters, Admiral, and I confess I’ve never seen you here; but I do know your name.”

  “I am gratified,” Boscawen said. “We only just arrived.”

  “From Europe.”

  “That’s right.”

  Fayerweather sat back in his chair. “Well, now, sir, that’s interesting; because I had heard that we’d not be seeing much traffic from the old country anytime soon.”

  “Why would that be?”

  “Things have changed, Admiral Boscawen. There’s been some sort of working, I’m certain of it.” He lowered his voice. “I saw when I came aboard that you have a blackbird in your crew. You’d be best served to get him off your ship as soon as possible, if you value your safety.”

  “A . . . ‘blackbird’?”

  Pascal cleared his throat. “I think he means Gustavus, My Lord.”

  “A black man,” Boscawen said.

  “I’ll not have them on my ship. The blacks have a secret cult,” Fayerweather said quietly. “Particularly on Saint-Domingue up north. The cult has a lot of names, but the most common one is vodou . . . They want to kill all the slaveholders and have a special hatred for whites. They called on their demons and spirits, and—something happened. They all know it. They can feel it in their souls.”

  “Our Gustavus is a Christian,” Boscawen said. “And as far as I know he has not been in contact with the slaves in Saint-Domingue.”

  “They all know,” Fayerweather hissed. “This isn’t something benign like my little knack—though that’s become much more reliable since the change. This is much, much bigger, Admiral. You’ll see. Put that blackbird in a little boat if you must but put him off your ship.”

  “I don’t take kindly to being given orders, Captain,” Boscawen said angrily. “And I don’t believe in vast plots involving people who never met each other and are involved just because of their race.”

  “I didn’t issue you an order, sir. Just a piece of friendly advice, one crown’s subject to another. But I can see I’m not wanted here, so I’ll take my leave—unless you’re looking to detain me.”

  Boscawen waited for long enough to see the man’s smirk begin to disappear, as if he suspected that he’d gone a bit too far with a Royal Navy officer; then said, “No. Get off my ship.”

  “I would have offered to give you good sailing toward Jamaica,” Fayerweather said. “But I can see you can take care of yourself.” He stood and picked up his hat; the cabin was too low for him to put it on. He turned and found Pascal in the doorway.

  “Pardon me, sir,” he said. Pascal hesitated, and then stepped out of his way. He exchanged a look with the admiral.

  “Let it go, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll see him off our deck, if I may be excused.”

  Boscawen nodded. “And send Gustavus to me.”

  “Admiral—”

  “Attend to your duties, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

  I’m not going to throw him overboard, Boscawen thought. I just want to ask him a few questions.

  His thoughts went to Frances again, wondering what she would make of any of this. At home, there would begin to be word of this . . . sundering, he supposed it might be termed; on the other side of the barrier they would wonder what had happened to the Americas.

  Unless there is nothing on the other side of the barrier.

  He tried to grapple with the idea that they weren’t cut off from Europe, but that Europe had somehow ceased to exist. Was there a difference? Frances would know—the abstract was much more her province than his. He would rather deal with wind and tide than symbol and idea. And something—something physical, he assumed—had brought about the sundering of the New World from the Old. Perhaps it was the comet, or perhaps it was something else. But he was damned if he was going to believe that a group of black slaves pulled down the sky and broke the earth.

  “Admiral, sir?”

  Gustavus was at the door of the cabin, silhouetted against the bright sunny day outside; but not far beyond Boscawen could see the storm-clouds that surrounded Fayerweather’s island of good sailing.

  “Come in, boy. Come in and sit down.”

  The young man came in and sat tentatively at the edge of a chair. “Sir.”

  “Tell me, Gustavus. What do you know of vodou?”

  “Begging the admiral’s pardon—”

  “It’s all right, Gustavus. You can talk to me without fear. I am not angry with you.”

  “It is not that, my Lord. It’s just . . . vodou is a white man’s term. It comes from Bon Dieu, the French words for God. It is not what it is truly called.”

  “Pray enlighten me.”

  “In Barbados and in Virginia, Admiral, the black people do not call their religion by the white man’s word. They call it by the name obeah. It is from a word used among my people—my father’s people, where I came from—for the man who made the talking charms and cured the people of their illnesses. That is the word that the slaves use for their practices, though only among themselves.”

  “Apparently Captain Fayerweather does not know that word, Gustavus.”

  “That man is not a good man, Admiral. I know I can be beaten for speaking ill of a white man, but he is a diabelero, a carrier of evil. I can smell it on him, and I am no trained obeah-man.”

  “He is very afraid of blacks. He told me to throw you overboard—” Gustavus started back in fear, and Boscawen reached forward and patted him on the knee. “No, no, boy. You must not be afraid. I told him to go back to his own ship, though I had some thoughts about more drastic things. Something worse.”

  “He is a bad man, Admiral.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know. I smelled it too.” Boscawen smiled and laid a finger beside his nose. “He told me that the blacks, particularly the ones on Saint-Domingue, made the change in the world.”

  “They are very powerful, sir, but I do not think that even the greatest of the obeah-men of Saint-Domingue could do . . . what we saw.” Gustavus closed his eyes for a moment, as if remembering the event.

  “I did not tell him what we saw. As far as I know, only we and the people at the Place of Bone know how the ocean was torn apart by . . . ”

  By whatever d
id this, Boscawen thought. By whatever sundered the world.

  After a brief silence, Gustavus said, “then you will not throw me into the sea.”

  “No. Of course not. But I require you to tell me whatever you can about this obeah, and what it can do. There was a time not so long ago that I would not have believed a single word of it; but I think that time has passed.”

  Chapter 14

  Hates men, hates the light

  Québec

  They had been streaming into the low town for a few days: traders, couriers de bois, even missionaries, finding their way from Upper Canada and the wild lands of the Far Indians, seeking the safety of Québec.

  The rivers and lakes had become dangerous. It didn’t make much sense to Montcalm, but after the event that had drawn him onto the Heights of Abraham—the strange confusion that had drawn him back to the battle at Piacenza a dozen years earlier—he was not sure what made sense.

  A few weeks after that incident, he received a message from François de Lévis, requesting his presence in the low town. It was a chilly, overcast day; there had been a cold rain the night before, leading to the sort of damp that creeps into the bones—the sort that makes you feel old, he thought as he made his way down from the promontory.

  Lévis was at the wharf with a native that he did not know. The dock was strewn with some sort of wreckage, and the two men were examining it closely. When Montcalm approached, Lévis stood and saluted. The Indian remained crouched, holding a long, jagged sliver of what might have once been the keel of a bateau, a flat-bottomed boat common on the St. Lawrence. He looked up at Montcalm with some emotion that was difficult to read but seemed mildly hostile.

  “Monsieur,” Lévis said. “This is Red Vest. He is a Seneca—a warrior and guide, well-known among his people.”

  The native offered a slight nod, but his expression did not change.

  “What is all this?”

  “A bateau—or what was once a bateau, at least. It floated downstream this morning. Something attacked it.”

  “Something or someone? It looks as if it has been torn apart.”

  “Red Vest has a possible explanation,” Lévis said, gesturing to the native. “He thinks that it was attacked by a . . . ”

  “Maneto,” the native said. It was the first word he had spoken, and it came in a deep, resonant voice that carried along the dock; several other people stopped and looked at him as he stood upright, still holding the jagged piece of wood in his hands.

  “What, or who, is Maneto?”

  “What,” the man answered. “Maneto is a snake, a great serpent that lives at the bottom of the lake. Some call it Kichimanetowa. It waits for boat to pass over and then—” He snapped the wood fragment in two and tossed the pieces to the dock. “Hates men, hates the light.”

  Montcalm looked from Lévis to Red Vest. “Why have we never heard of this before? We have traveled across many lakes and rivers here without being attacked.”

  “Servant of Onontio knows the answer to this,” Red Vest said, folding his arms in front of him. “Maneto sleeps for many years, but now has woken up. Maneto hates all men but has most hate for white men.”

  “How can it tell?”

  “The smell,” Red Vest said. He turned his head and spat. “Maneto can smell white flesh.”

  “You will show courtesy to the Marquis,” Lévis said, taking a step toward Red Vest. “What do you mean, the smell?”

  “Whites have no medicine,” Red Vest answered. “Red men have medicine, and Maneto is careful with them. Among my people, when we fish from lake we always give one back to Maneto so he is satisfied, so he sleeps. But white men fish and take every one.

  “But there is more. The wind has changed, and Maneto feels the change. He knows that white men have taken all the fish, and he is angry and hungry.” Red Vest gestured toward the remains of the boat scattered on the dock. “White men should stay off the rivers.”

  “That’s not practical,” Montcalm said. “Tell me, Red Vest, why don’t the red men—or the white men—just kill all the Maneto?”

  “Kill Maneto?” Red Vest spat again. “They are at the bottom of the lake—”

  “Not when they come up and attack.”

  “Their hides are as tough as old trees, and they have great horns and teeth, Marquis,” the Indian said. He gave the title an angry intonation. “They are hard to kill, and even if you could, another would grow in their place. Maneto only fear one thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Ciinkwia,” he said. “The spirits of thunder and storm. If they choose, they take the forms of men and stride across land and water and put the Maneto to sleep.”

  “That’s what he told me, Monsieur,” Lévis said. “The Miami shamans are calling on the Ciinkwia to come and put down the Maneto. Meanwhile . . . ” he gestured toward the scattered remains of the bateau.

  “Please give Red Vest his reward, and then attend me,” Montcalm said to Lévis, and turned away from the Indian without another word.

  By the time Lévis caught up with Montcalm, he had walked into the lower town. Most of the recent arrivals did not trouble the marquis as he passed; they had their own concerns.

  “Tell me about Red Vest.”

  “He is as he seems, Monsieur,” Lévis said. “A trader and guide. He thinks very little—” A group of roughly-dressed traders stepped around Montcalm with scarce courtesy. “He thinks very little of whites.”

  “And these are the savages we consider to be our friends,” Montcalm said. “What do our enemies say about us?”

  “They do not stop to converse, Monsieur,” Lévis said. “They use other means to communicate.”

  “Then why am I inclined to believe that this wise, white-hating trader and guide is not spouting nonsense about man-eating snakes and thunder spirits that walk on water? I think our Far Indians may have gone to the warpath, François, and driven our people from the lakes and rivers, and the Miamis and our other friends among the natives may be too weak, or too afraid, to do anything about it.”

  “So you do not believe his story,” Lévis said.

  Montcalm took Lévis by the elbow and led him out of the street to an alley overhung by the eaves of a small warehouse. “I do not completely discount it,” he said, lowering his voice. “There are strange things afoot. But I am not inclined to give credence to rumors that will frighten large numbers of people.”

  “That seems to have already happened.” Lévis gestured to the nearby street. “Many of these people were travelers or settlers some distance from Québec. They are afraid of something, Monsieur, and I don’t think it’s just Far Indians.”

  “I grant that. But I will not feed the fears of the habitants, François.”

  “Then what do you propose to do, Monsieur?”

  “I need you to pick a few dozen men—brave men, François, not just time-servers. They should be good marksmen, and if possible, they should be tolerant of the savages. Find me a priest who will be willing to accompany them. We are going to travel upriver and see just what there is to this Maneto story.

  “And if they exist, for some reason, we are going to kill one and bring it home and plant His Christian Majesty’s flag in the middle of its ugly, scaly back. That should show the people—and the savages as well—what sort of power the Onontio possesses.”

  Chapter 15

  People become frightened, Monsieur

  New France

  A twelve-gun sloop was hardly a man-o’-war, but it was significantly more impressive than a bateau. Loaded with two dozen soldiers and a few Indian guides, Soleil looked solid and safe. Montcalm expressed his confidence that he was equipped for a Maneto—or anything else that might come his way.

  In his private thoughts, with the shore slipping away and Québec’s promontory shrinking in the distance, he was far less assured.

  Above Québec, the Saint-Laurent meandered west toward the settlement of Trois-Rivières, beyond which it widened into Lac Saint-Pier
re. According to Red Vest—who, after some convincing, agreed to board the ship and act as a guide—there had been no sightings of Manetos along the river, just in the larger, more placid bodies of water; if there was to be a sighting of the creature that had frightened so many, he expected it to be there. If there were no monsters to be found, Soleil would continue another ninety or so miles upstream to Montréal, where the falls would block their further passage.

  “It will be spring soon, Monsieur.”

  “Père Récher, you are a stubborn optimist,” Montcalm answered, turning away from the view upstream to face the younger man. Jean-Félix Récher, parish priest of Notre-Dame in Québec, had been a last-minute addition to the expedition, pressed on Montcalm by Bishop Dubreil de Pontbriand. He wasn’t sure what Récher had been instructed to do, but it would have been impolitic to refuse Pontbriand—and besides, he considered the elderly bishop a friend, who shared his disgust for the corrupt intendant.

  “God provides.”

  “Yes, He does. But sometimes Man must make his own provision.”

  “I’m sure Monsieur l’Êveque would take issue with that statement, but I shall let it pass.” Récher folded his hands in front of him and smiled. “He is a Jesuit, of course, and I am not—they feel it is their duty to argue about everything.”

  “What has His Grace said about the lake monsters?”

  “He doesn’t believe in them, obviously,” Récher said. “Do you, Monsieur?”

  “I saw what they did to the bateau on the dock.”

  “You saw a bateau on the dock, and you heard tales of monsters. A savage drew a line between the evidence and the stated cause, but you did not witness the latter.”

  “But I gather that a fair number of habitants did. Am I to disbelieve all of their stories?”

  “People become frightened, Monsieur. Especially simple people, especially when they face the perils of winter, of war, and of savages living right nearby. My lord bishop asked me . . . well, told me—” he smiled again. “. . . to accompany your expedition to lay the rumor of monsters to rest, and to assure the habitants that they do not exist.”