“Aye, take a good long look, lad. She’s the Queen of Ships, she is. Every time Essex puts on her show, I fall for her all o’er again.” He winked at me. “I reckon that’s her way of keepin’ her crew. Sure ain’t her master’s sweet temper.”
Essex’s show was over soon enough, her sails being furled as we entered the port—but it had served to draw a crowd to the quay to see her in. She stood off at anchor, the small cargo for this port o’ call going off in a lighter; a return cargo arriving the same way. The passengers went ashore—the crew would have their turn later—and I watched with interest as Black Charley conducted his private business with a local merchant. Before they had shaken hands, the merchant had made it worth Charley’s while to land some Indian goods here on the return trip.
Our Captain was smiling contentedly, no doubt counting his earnings, when Mr. Reardon put in an anxious appearance.
“I’ve just heard the most confounded news, sir,” he told the Captain. “The French have taken the Warren Hastings.”
oOo
Charley was miserable. And he was avoiding me. In two seconds I had gone from amusing companion to unwelcome Sibyl. I rededicated myself to my project (the reason I was here, after all) and used the Warren Hastings affair as a study in historical veracity.
History, in case you hadn’t noticed, is rather like the old schoolroom game of Telephone. An event takes place and all witnesses concoct their version of it with or without comparing notes. They then disperse to disseminate the information to one or more others who go on to retell the tale to their own select group of listeners. Only eventually—unless one of the original witnesses thought, “Gosh, I’d better grab a piece of slate and scratch this down for posterity”—the tale is set to bark, slab or paper and passed down further via copious copyings from one written source to another. There may even be a plethora of originals.
Take the fall of the Roman Empire for example. Most twentieth and twenty-first century histories making reference to that series of events tend to lift material from Gibbon, who, unless he possessed a time machine of his own, was not among the eyewitnesses. Until QuestLabs began dabbling with the Temporal Spectrum, Gibbon was our eye on the Roman Empire, yet a mere link in the great Telephone Tree of Time. No offense to that illustrious gentleman, but, as in a game of Telephone, things inevitably get lost (or at least amended) in the translation.
The text book version of the Warren Hastings capture was pretty detailed and made a great sea story. A forty-four gun British East Indiaman with full complement goes up against a French frigate. The frigate is seriously outgunned. Somehow the frigate in question, Piémontaise, according to history, blows the rigging off the bigger ship, then tows her to port at seven-and-a-half knots under three single-reefed topsails, foresail and mizzen staysail. One helluva frigate.
What history fails to mention is that the Piémontaise was not alone. She was accompanied by a ship-of-the-line—a battle wagon named Bonaparte—who handled most of the actual fighting. The Piémontaise then struggled to port at about three knots, flying everything but the master’s bedsheets and damn near springing her main mast in the process. Well, at least according to our Canary Island contacts.
On the social scene, since I was denied Charley’s company, I took up with the MacCormacs. Exposed to him more often, I found I liked Dr. Mac. We had a lot in common. Not interests exactly—I mean, after all, we did have what amounted to a monumental generation gap between us—but we shared attitudes about things. And I have to admit seeing him with Mary, I had to forgive him for being married to her. (As if it could make any possible difference to me.)
“Doesn’t it bother you,” I asked him one day as we plied the waters off Africa, “the way men react to your wife? I mean, she’s such a striking woman, a fellow is hard put not to court her almost without meaning to.”
“Aye, well,” he said, smiling ruefully, “it’s just like that, you see. There’s not much either of us can do about it but adjust. It’s not as if it’s anything she does. It’s just who she is. She’s as true as can be. I’ve no lack of faith that she loves me as much as I love her. But the men, now . . .” He chuckled and made a nervous gesture. “Sometimes I look in Captain Dunbar’s eyes and I swear I . . . I can almost hear him condemning me for daring to be married to her. Makes me feel downright unworthy and well . . .” He ran his finger around the inside of his shirt collar. “. . . a little uncomfortable. That’s a powerful man, that,” he added.
It was true, I realized as I watched Black Charley watch Mary MacCormac, that if she were my wife, I’d find the look in Charley’s eye more than a little discomfiting. Oh, not when he looked at her, of course. If ever a woman was worthy of that worshipful gaze, it was Mary Mac. But when the Captain’s eyes fell on her poor husband, even I took a chill. There was jealousy in that look, and soul-rending sorrow, and what I hoped to God was not murder. Charley Dunbar was a man who, though master of his own ship and, he’d have said, his own fate, was to be denied something he had begun to want very much indeed. And I, Sibyl, bearer of that bad news, was now the object of his taciturn ire.
I tried reasoning with him. Usually during his stints at the wheel when he couldn’t escape me. “Charley,” I’d say, and he’d glare at me out of the tail of his eye. “Captain Dunbar, then—if Mary MacCormac’s your standard of female excellence then surely this woman you’re to wed will be just as excellent. Maybe even more so. Just think of it. To win you she’d have to outshine the Doctor’s wife, wouldn’t she?”
If he ever considered that argument at all, I never saw a sign of it. He’d just stand there, silent, craggy, inflexible, while I sweated and stared at his profile.
Then something happened that changed all that. I had no idea what it was. I only knew that just as we were approaching the Cape of Good Hope, Charley called me to his cabin for breakfast and behaved as if nothing had ever come between us.
“Tell me, Arthur, lad,” he said over coffee. “Have you any more prognostications for me?”
I looked at him squarely, then. That was when I saw the gleam of—God knows what—in his eye. “W-what sort of prognostications, sir?”
“So, I’m to marry a woman named Maureen, not Mary, eh? Maureen Llewellyn. You’re certain of that, are you?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”
He nodded and sighed greatly. “I can no longer claim not to believe you, boy. You foretold the Hastings matter with complete clarity. You have the Sight, no doubt about it. I must trust what you say. In what year will I marry?”
“Well, sir, that’s debatable. I mean, uh, I can’t really see that very clearly.” Actually, not only was the year of his marriage a matter of dispute, but there was even some doubt that he actually married at all. There has always been some question about the legitimacy of the branch of the family tree for which Charley is responsible. However, that wasn’t something I could tell Charley.
“What do you see?” he prodded.
I picked at a crumb on my plate, then looked up with this Saint-having-a-revelation look on my face. “Britain will win the war!” I exclaimed.
He waved that aside. “A foregone conclusion—”
“In 1814, the war will end . . . or at least, it will seem to end. But not before Napoleon takes Vienna and Berlin.”
He stared at me. “The devil—! Are you serious?”
I had distracted him. Relieved, I nodded vigorously. “This year, Napoleon will take Vienna; next year he will take Berlin. But Lord Admiral Nelson will rout the French in a sea battle at Trafalgar. The forces of a British-led Coalition will take Paris in the last days of March 1814 and Napoleon . . .” I wrinkled my brow. “He’ll be exiled to—to an island. But, beware!” I warned dramatically. “Napoleon is clever. Out of sight is not out of power.”
Charley was nodding thoughtfully. “Wise words, boy. Now, about my future . . .”
I nearly groaned. The stubborn so-and-so. “Three children. A grand home in the country. Horses. You’ve alw
ays fancied fine driving stock.”
He sat back in his chair, beaming. “Aye,” he said. “I have, at that.”
oOo
We put into Cape Town to offload some metals, farm implements and foodstuffs and take on ivory. One of our families left us there and the crew was permitted a brief shore leave. The MacCormacs invited me to go with them to see what sights there were and to visit what Dr. Mac called “native physicians.” A less broadminded soul would have called them “witch doctors.”
We traveled by carriage to a place of mud huts and naked children and there met a colorful gentleman our interpreter introduced as “King Isaac.” From him, Dr. Mac got a sampling of native cures, while Mary carefully transcribed the directions for their use into a notebook.
We spent the better part of the morning in that pursuit before returning to Cape Town in the afternoon. We were crossing the road to the wharfs when the wild clatter of horse hooves and wagon frame caught my ear. I saw the thing out of the corner of my eye—a huge freight wagon, bearing down on us from uphill to our right.
Mary was already on the raised planking of the dock, waiting for us and watching the ships riding at anchor in the harbor; Dr. Mac was behind me in the road. Mary was in no danger, but Doctor and I faced imminent doom. In the split second I glanced at the rig, the driver gave the reins a last savage jerk and dove over-sides. The team veered toward the center of the road, putting Ian MacCormac obliviously in their path. I spun back, grabbed his lapels and tugged. We both sprawled in the African dust, the freight wagon rumbling harmlessly by at our feet.
Belatedly, Mary screamed. Her first concern when she joined us in the middle of the road, was for her husband’s safety. His was for the safety of his native cures. Mine was for the vanished driver of the murderous rig.
I wasn’t certain if the man was an unwilling participant in an accident or a willing participant in something far more sinister. From where I stood, his last tug at the reins looked like a deliberate effort to aim the rig right at Ian. And from where I stood, I could see only one person who truly wanted Ian MacCormac dead.
oOo
“And you were unable to locate the driver?” First Mate Reardon’s brows all but disappeared in the furrows of his expansive forehead.
I shook my head, glancing at Captain Charley’s impassive face. “I found the rig, but it was loaded with empty crates. No two were from the same vessel.”
“So, you’ve no idea who might have arranged this accident,” said Charley, frowning very slightly. “If, indeed, it was arranged.”
“Is it common for people to be run down in the streets of Cape Town by anonymous freight wagons whose drivers disappear after the fact?” I gasped for air.
Charley shrugged. “These things occur, although I suppose I could investigate.”
Right. Putting the rat in charge of the cheese.
“We’re leaving port tonight,” said Reardon. “The would-be murderer—”
“Is probably aboard this ship,” I finished testily. “The only reason I can think anyone would want to kill Ian is to get to Mary. And the only people who know Mary are aboard Essex.”
I ignored Reardon’s dark expression and glared at Charley. The way he was acting, you’d hardly think he cared that he’d nearly caused another human being to be flattened by that wagon. That a relative of mine—my own very, very great grandfather, in fact—could do such a thing-
The Very, Very Great grasped my arm urgently. “My dear boy, surely you’re not thinking that someone aboard this vessel would cause Dr. Mac harm. Why it’d be suicidal to be at sea without a doctor. I’m sure it was something to do with those visits he made today.” He screwed up his eyes expressively and put his finger alongside his nose. “The Hoodoo, you know.”
“A c-curse?” I stammered. “You’re suggesting Ian MacCormac is suffering from black magic?”
“There was that other time,” said Reardon quietly. “That was well before he’d met any witch-doctors.”
“What?” asked Charley. “You can’t mean that block falling from the gaff! Why that was a simple accident! A fluke of the storm. Dr. Mac was no man’s target that day.” He turned then, as if to dismiss the whole affair and strolled away ’cross deck, humming.
I glanced back at Reardon and saw that he was turning something over and over in his fingers. A closer look revealed it to be my disclite. I blanched, looking consumingly guilty or petrified or both.
“Do you wish to tell me anything, Mr. Dunbar?” he asked me solemnly.
My imagination saw the gleam of Calvinist fervor in his eyes.
“If you expect me to confess to witchcraft, sir, I will not do it. As God is my witness, I am no witch.”
Reardon quirked a brow. “I never supposed you were.”
“You didn’t?”
“Sir, we are civilized men. I believe we can abandon this talk of witches. This”—he held up the disc—“has nothing to do with witchcraft. Mechanics, perhaps. Am I right?”
“Yes, but I told you as much.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded. “Your uncle the inventor.” He smiled and pocketed the light while I drooled hungrily after it. “When you are ready, Arthur,” he said and left me.
oOo
I watched Charley carefully after that—watched him from as close to Ian MacCormac as I could get, firmly convinced that he was the target of Black Charley’s jealousy. All my fault, too. I’d been such a convincing Oracle that Charley now apparently saw no option but to take Fate into his own hands and throttle it. If Fate would not give him Mary MacCormac, he’d simply take her.
In the week that followed the Cape Town incident, I saved Ian MacCormac from a falling crate (left mysteriously balanced on the roof of a deckhouse), a flying capstan pole, and a loose cannon. By the end of the week, Ian was thoroughly spooked and I was ready to throw him and Mary into the TeGrEn and whisk them back to London.
“It’s quite obvious,” I told Charley one morning, “that someone wants Ian dead.”
He glanced at me obliquely, spearing a sausage with his knife. “Ian, now, is it? Are you developing a fondness for our ill-fated doctor? That might not be wise.”
“I’d like to keep him alive. And so would you if really cared for Mary. She loves him, you know. If he dies, she’ll be devastated.”
“For a time. But with the loving attentions of close and caring friends, I’m sure she will survive—even prosper.” He grinned at me wickedly, then said, “Dr. Mac seems to have drawn a guardian angel of his own. That’s unfortunate. I’d hate to see one of the Almighty’s agents sent back to Him prematurely.”
I blanched. “I’m no angel,” I said. “I’m not anything you’d understand, but neither am I a helpless medical student.”
“Ah! You lied about that, did you? Reardon thought as much. And you’re now claiming powers beyond clairvoyance, is that it? You hurl lightning bolts or some such?”
“Let’s just say I have resources you can’t even begin to imagine.” I rose and left the cabin then, hoping I’d at least given him something to think about.
oOo
The storm struck without warning when we were two days out of Mauritius. It wasn’t much of a storm—a lot of noise and bright lightning for the most part—but to Ian it was the Apocalypse. A sense of horrible foreboding seemed to have taken him, though all the while his wife tried nobly to cheer him up.
When that failed, she donned trousers, shirt and coat and proposed to take his place among the seasick passengers. He protested the clothing almost as much as he did the precaution, but she and I outvoted him and convinced him to stay in their cabin with me as guardian whatever.
He made a last weak protest as she left, his black bag in hand, looking very dashing in his pants and coat. “Dear girl, whatever will Lord and Lady Branden think of that get up?”
“Why should I care? My petticoats and dresses are dangerous in heavy weather as I know only too well. I’ll not be such a fool for fashion as to die for it.” And sh
e left, green eyes fierce.
Ian was silent for a long while, staring miserably at the gyrations of the lantern that hung above their cabin table. “Ah, Arthur,” he said at last, “I’ve become such a hopeless coward, letting that dear girl take my duties over like that. But I swear I’ve this certainty that I’ll not survive the night. Someone or Something wants me dead and I’ve no clue as to how I can fight it. The worst of it is—dammit—the worst of it is that I’ve dragged poor Maureen along to witness my doom.”
“Ian, nothing is—” I stopped and gaped at him, heart turning to stone. I’d misheard him. I must have. “Maureen?” I croaked.
He made a dismissive gesture. “Her given name. Mary is a pet name her father gave her that has stuck like glue. I prefer Maureen, myself. She’s so much more a Maureen, don’t you think?”
I licked my suddenly Saharan lips. “Ian, may I ask a frightfully inane question?”
He shrugged, not caring, I’m sure, if I stood on my head and whistled the Marseillaise.
“Was your wife’s maiden name Llewellyn, by any chance?”
He nodded.
“And her father was Llewellyn, Lord Eachan?”
He nodded again, then waited patiently for me to come back from the Twilight Zone. Maureen Llewellyn. Here. Now. On this ship. Charley Dunbar wasn’t trying to fight destiny, he was just trying to speed it up a little.
“Dammit, Charley,” I muttered, “why do you have to be in such a hurry?”
“Pardon?” said Ian.
“Nothing,” I assured him. “Say some prayers for both of us. I’ve got to think.”
What did I do now? If Charley and Mary-Maureen were fated, should I just stand aside and let events take Charley’s natural course? Was Ian MacCormac supposed to die or had my presence created a situation in which he had to die? Had I saved him already from a fate he was supposed to have earned or . . . what?
All the Colors of Time Page 12
