by Rod Duncan
Rolling out from under the furs, she sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her own face, as if needing to feel the undamaged skin. Had the doors not been barred, she would have tried to steal away to the stables. Elias was the closest thing she had to a confidant. She wanted to tell him what she’d seen. As if speaking it out loud might make the memory more bearable.
The windows of the bedchamber were narrow and deep as arrow slits. But they were glazed. The glass might be broken, she supposed, if the need came to shoot out of them. There was little enough moonlight, but when she got her head close and looked down, she could just see the escarpment below the cliff, ghostly white. Painting the side of the mountain had been an elegant trick. It united the fortress and the hill on which it stood. The eye saw the two as one, as if the whole thing was a single immense structure.
There would be a way out of the bedchamber, she thought. A secret way. Men like Jago never go into a room without thinking of how they might escape. A trapdoor, perhaps. She walked across the chamber, hitting her heels onto the flagstones with each step, then back to the opposite wall, taking a different line. But every stone she trod was solid.
Somewhere out there, Elias would be waiting. But she wouldn’t reach him that night.
Chapter 30
Starvation has a more perfect aim than any marksman. Since two rats can breed a nation, wars have come to turn on the workings of a spring-loaded trap, and a fortress is only as good as its storehouse.
Elias watched as three dogs fought over a bucket of offal. It had been emptied out of a window, slopping down to steam on the cobbles, the bloody juices trickling away towards an open drain. Two small mongrels got there first, but a large white hound had come to drive them away, growling through its teeth, saliva dripping.
It was the morning after their arrival in Jago’s fortress. There’d been no food for him in that time. And no drink, but for the water in the stable-yard trough. He’d selected a good-sized stick from the woodpile behind the kitchen and was considering the best way of using it. The white hound looked mean. A dog’s bite will fester, even a scratch. But one good strike might send it away.
A boy came running around the corner of the building. “No-Thumbs! You’re to go to the storehouse.”
Elias sighed. But there would be other tables. Other feasts.
One of the storehouse doors swung inwards to his knock. Just enough for him to side-step through. The mixture of scents inside set his heart accelerating like an engine. At first he couldn’t pin down what he was smelling. There was dust and dryness, for sure, and the sourness of curing salts. Hams must be hanging somewhere within. It could have been hunger driving his body’s reaction. There was hemp and pine resin and gunpowder and tanned hides. And some other odour he couldn’t name but which his body craved.
The barrels stood between the doors and the first line of shelving. One of them had been opened, its contents spread out on a canvas sheet. He might have thought them to be unfired bricks, had he not seen such things before. Row after row of them. Enough glycer-fortis to keep him alive into old age.
Without thinking, he lurched towards the precious cargo. But a hand grabbed his arm, hauling him back. Logan stepped in front of him. The man’s face was even grimmer than usual.
“Stand!”
Elias did, looking around properly for the first time. Firehand was there, of course. And Jago, though the Patron stood back. Not far enough to live if it exploded. Not nearly far enough for that.
“You said you’ve worked with it before?” Jago asked.
“Yes, Patron.”
“My men are sick. Yet they’ve not swallowed even a crumb. You knew this would happen?”
Elias nodded. “It works through the skin.”
“You sicken without it?”
“Yes, Patron.”
“If I put you to work unpacking it, you’d suffer no harm?”
Elias dared not answer. It was the thing he wished for above all. Every day he handled it would be another day of life without dipping into his own meagre supply. And who would notice if he were to gouge a few extra pieces under his fingernails?
“Will this kill them?”
Elias shook his head.
“How long before they need it as you need it?”
The old thermometer man in the far Yukon had said it took months. Burying the memory deep, Elias said, “I don’t know.”
Jago advanced to the edge of the sheet and knelt. He angled his head, peering at the blocks from different angles. He wrinkled his nose.
“If I put a flame to it?”
“It will burn.”
“And if I drop it?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“But a blow from a hammer…”
“It would explode. I know how to handle it. I’ve done it before. I can unpack the barrels. I can do whatever’s needed and your men won’t sicken.”
Jago pulled off his gloves, finger by finger. They were fine leather. Calfskin, perhaps. Logan’s hands were a similar size. “Put these on,” he said. “And bring one of the bricks.”
Logan’s face had been sickly before. But now his skin was the colour of tallow. Sweat glistened on his forehead. It wasn’t the nausea, Elias thought. It was the knowledge that if he tripped on a cobblestone, it might be his death. He’d in any case be feeling dizzy. That came after the headaches had set in, and the weak stomach.
Carrying his burden in front of his chest, two-handed, he stepped out from the shadow of the walls, wobbling slightly as they began the descent towards the valley floor.
Elias slowed, allowing a gap to open up between himself and the explosive brick. At twenty feet, he might still be killed, should it detonate. Thirty foot would be enough, he thought. But Firehand, walking just behind, gave him a shove between the shoulders, forcing him to speed up. The Patron was away at the front, striding out into his lands with the gait of an immortal.
Once over the river, they followed a track away from the road across marshy ground scattered with bog cotton, then up over a rise and down again. It took two more ridges before they lost sight of the white painted fortress walls.
Logan knelt in a cleft between two rocks and placed the brick. At a distance of forty paces it seemed a tiny thing. Elias kept himself just behind Jago and Firehand.
The other gatherer staggered back to join them. The Patron handed him a pistol. All he had to do was pull the hammer and fire. There would be no shame in missing such a small target. But Logan was shaking so wildly it seemed he might be in danger of shooting himself.
When his hand dropped at last, Jago took back the gun. That had been the point, Elias supposed. Let someone else fail first. Then if Jago’s own aim turned out to be faulty there’d be no loss of face.
The Patron levelled the gun, breathed out slow, fired. The bang of the pistol caught Elias first. Then, with no time that he could have measured in between, a white flash lit the rocks. He felt the thump of it in his chest. A rain of dirt and pebbles landed in front of them.
Jago was first to advance to the place where the brick had lain. The turf had been stripped away. The crater was smaller than he’d expected, but the large rocks to either side had gone. Tongues of white smoke clung to the ground, clearing as he watched. Jago raised a fist and shook it at the sky, grinning and laughing like a madman.
There were two forms of the explosive. The first and most dangerous was the greasy liquid they’d mixed in the factory. Too hot and it would detonate, or too roughly stirred or frozen and thawed. A store of it had gone up once during a storm. It wasn’t struck by lightning. The sound of the thunder had done it, or so they thought. He didn’t know how they’d discovered the trick of mixing it with powdered rock to make this other form.
The rock they’d used came from the Oregon Territory, arriving at the camp in wagons. It was pale and light in weight, powdering easily when they pounded it, raising clouds of choking dust. To this they added other chemicals and finally the greasy explosive liquid, drop by drop, until they
could mould it into bricks which they called “inert glycer-fortis”. Inert indeed. It must have been a joke.
What might twenty full barrels do, Elias wondered. Easy enough to destroy a fortress or make a hole in the earth. But gather the right people around it, or the wrong people, and it would tip the whole world out of balance.
The Patron asked if the bricks could be squeezed and shaped like clay. Elias told him no. Not safely. So the thing itself had to be built to leave room for the bricks as they were. The joiner and his lads were never told the purpose of their work. And every bit of it was done in the storehouse, away from the gaze of spies.
At last the bricks could be packed within the frame they’d made. But by then the joiner had been sent away. The only ones to see it done were Firehand, Logan, Jago and Elias. Packed around the bricks – the most devilish part – were thousands upon thousands of musket balls.
When it was finished, when all the explosives had been placed and sealed in and the last covering board screwed down, Logan and Firehand went on their knees before their Patron. He placed a hand on each forehead.
Their bodies must have grown used to the glycer-fortis by then. They’d been handling it for twelve days. Jago hadn’t spoken of his plans in all that time, so far as Elias knew. But the thing they’d made was its own explanation. Their master would be the king of Newfoundland. And they were the first to know his true station.
“You’ve been faithful to your oaths,” he said. “I’m well pleased with you.”
Elias watched from the shadows, as he’d watched the entire time, speaking only when asked for guidance.
Jago lifted his hands but the men remained on their knees. Firehand lowered his forehead to the dirt. Logan was staring at his oath-holder, his mouth slack in awe, as if he could see the crown already.
“What about my faithless dog?”
Elias stepped out of the shadows and knelt. There was no hand on his forehead, of course. He hadn’t expected it. Instead, Jago stepped around him, stopping just behind.
“Some dogs can be trained,” the Patron said. “Let them off the leash and they’ll come back. But a chained dog can still be useful. That’s what you are, No-Thumbs. A chained dog that once belonged to another man. If your great uncle watches me stamping on your fingers, will he feel the pain?”
“No, Patron,” Elias said. The back of his neck was itching. He thought he could feel Jago’s breath on it, though that must have been imagination.
“Show me that precious jar of yours.”
Elias pulled it from his pocket and held it out. The ball of glycer-fortis rolled within. Stepping around to the front of him again, Jago took it and held it up to the lamplight.
“I’ve watched men die from belly wounds,” he said. “From hanging, from burning, severed arteries, gangrene. Each way is different. But I never watched a man die for want of poison. I’d like to see it.”
“But I can help you.”
“And so you shall,” Jago said, tossing back the jar. “And so you shall.”
Chapter 31
There’d been little chance for Elizabeth to wash on the journey to Jago’s fortress. On the first morning after their arrival, three maids came to take her dirty clothes. She didn’t object. In exchange they gave her a short dressing robe made of yellow linen. Thus attired, with legs bare below the knee, she confined herself to the private apartment.
Food was brought for her: roast chicken and bread cut from the upper crust of a loaf. There was wine also, though she’d have preferred water. Or better still, tea. She hadn’t seen tea in all her months on Newfoundland. Banishing an unexpected pang of homesickness, she got on with the job of eating.
When the maids returned that afternoon to clean the rooms, she asked when her clothes would be ready. This made them giggle, as if she’d have no need of such things. As if she hadn’t realised the nature of her job.
“Bring my things!” she said, positioning herself in the doorway, hands on hips. When they tried to push past, she caught one of them by the arm, turning the wrist back on itself until she yelped.
“My clothes!” she said again.
There was no more laughter after that. No more knowing glances at her expense. But she felt angry that they’d made her temper break. Violence was the grease that turned the wheels of the fortress. It was a language they all understood, but not one she wanted to learn.
The maids returned before the evening meal carrying heaps of dresses of different sizes, which they laid out on the bed, and stockings, bloomers, chemise and corsets, which were too stiffly ribbed to be practical. She turned to ask for her own things, but the maids had already gone.
All the dresses were heavy with embroidery and of a style that might have been fashionable in London some thirty years before. She chose the least objectionable from among them: a cerise cotton, embroidered with floral designs in greens and darker reds. It was an immodest thing, cut low at the front to draw the eye to the wearer’s breasts. She hated it. But the other dresses were heavier and had wider skirts, which would give her no chance if the need came to run.
Jago seemed to approve. On returning that evening, he showed his teeth in a smile, then grabbed her wrist and dragged her out to the hall. There followed an hour of the men staring at her as she sat meekly by his feet. He held court, dispensing judgement on all manner of small matters: the repair of rotten woodwork, a dispute between fishermen over the ownership of a net, the number of rats caught over previous weeks.
That night Jago bolted the doors of his private chamber, as he’d done the day before. She stripped to chemise and bloomers, then slipped under the furs.
“How long till we leave for the Reckoning?” she asked.
“As long as it takes.”
The manic focus she’d glimpsed in him before had taken on a steely edge. She lay silent for a moment, weighing the risks of pressing him with another question.
“I’d like to explore the fortress tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I’m… curious.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to be.”
The days that followed saw no more oath business. She was glad of that. The oath-wright had departed on his way to the Reckoning, so such matters would have to wait. It was the only improvement. Whenever she ventured into the hall, men still stared at her body. And when she tried to go out into the ward beyond, the guards barred her way. Time dragged slow.
Jago left early every morning. There was a window in the map room through which she could watch him striding across to the storehouse. On the third day she glimpsed Elias following him in. And again on the fifth.
At such times as the outer rooms were empty, she took the chance to search on hands and knees, testing again each of the exposed flagstones. When she was certain that none of them concealed a trapdoor, she turned her attention to the walls of the bedchamber. Some of the furniture she couldn’t move without making noise. If there was a hidden door, it had to be below or behind one of those.
Each evening, Jago returned, tired as if he’d been labouring. His hands and fingernails were always clean, but she caught the smell of sawdust from his clothes. She did try to question him once more, pushing though she knew the danger. But his focus had turned inwards. Some all-consuming puzzle had possession of his mind.
She desperately wanted to talk to Elias. Whatever was happening in the storehouse, he must know. But all she saw of him were glimpses, and he never looked up towards her window.
The morning of the twelfth day dawned as each of the days before. But watching Jago stride away across the cobbles, she saw a change. His gait was easier yet more purposeful, as if a way forward had been revealed to him in the night. For almost two weeks, helplessness had gnawed at her. And now she could feel time running out. Something was about to happen.
The great doors of the storehouse closed. Jago and his oath-bound men were within. And Elias, most likely. Behind her the maids were carrying away the dishes from breakfast. Her breat
h fogged the glass.
She might not get another chance.
Stepping down from the window alcove, she slipped back into the bedchamber. Leaning her weight against the door, she eased it closed. At the end it made a low boom, surely loud enough to turn heads outside. But she had the iron bolts slid closed before anyone could react. For the first time since leaving the Salt Ray Inn, she was truly alone.
The bed frame grated over the floor as she heaved it away from the wall. One of the maids was calling from the other side of the door, her voice muffled by the thickness of metal. Ignoring it, Elizabeth got down on her knees and thumped the flagstones that had been hidden by the bed. The flanks of the frame went down to the floor all around. But behind the head there was a narrow gap.
She stood and began to undo her buttons. They were knocking on the door now. Quiet but urgent. Extracting herself from the dress, Elizabeth cast it aside and dropped down low. She had to lie full length to worm into the dark void beneath the bed. One by one she knocked on the flagstones underneath. All were solid.
By the time she emerged, spitting dust, the knocking on the door had become heavier. Men’s fists, she thought, as she heaved the bed back against the wall. The guards must have been called. But not yet the Patron. They would hesitate before disturbing his work.
There were two more things to move, a cabinet of drawers containing some of Jago’s clothing and a locked wooden chest. She might only have the time for one of them. Testing its weight, she pulled on the side of the cabinet, shifting it an inch. But when she tried the chest, it wouldn’t budge. Built of oak and banded metal, she’d expected it to be heavy. But surely not too heavy to move. She braced herself against the wall and pushed again. The joints in the chest groaned but it moved not a fraction over the floor.
That was wrong. She found herself smiling. It had to be the answer.
The guards were shouting outside. Angry voices. She grabbed one of the other dresses and held it to her chest, covering the dust smears over the front of the chemise and corset.
