by David Walton
A flash of red hair flew under her horse, distracting her. She looked around to see what it was, and felt something heavy land on the horse behind her. She tried to turn, but this time, on the horse, she couldn't move quickly enough. She screamed as she felt something pierce her back, but at the contact, something clicked in her mind, like a carriage and harness coupling together. There was no pain, only a muddled sense of unreality, as if she were falling asleep.
Her perspective shifted. . . .
She could see her own body, lying on the ground, apparently fallen from the horse. Blanca leaned over it, calling her name. She stood back from the scene, frightened, ready to bolt at any sudden move. She felt another mind, confused and terrified, intersecting her own.
IT was all wrong. The girl child had given him food, thus making him an offer of kinship. It was vulgar without the dance or the sun or the quicksilver rite, but he was so desperate to understand this strange world that he had accepted her offer anyway. She had pulled away at first, as was common with the young on the first attempt. When she came to the boat, he tried again, thinking she would lead him home. Instead, she acted confused and afraid, even though she had made the first offer.
He had thought she might help him, but now she lay on the ground like a fallen leaf and didn't move. She wasn't dead— he could sense her mind flitting through his own— but with no picture sayings, only words in a strange tongue. She didn't speak to him, almost as if she didn't realize they were kin at all.
This was not how it was meant to be. He was supposed to bond with the leaders of the hairless tribe, not a frightened girl. He was here to forge an alliance between their people, to gain their support against his tribe's enemies and to lay a foundation for a profitable trade relationship. But the men he had come with on the ship were all dead.
Everything was so foreign and strange here. The sun was so distant he could barely feel its power. Staying invisible exhausted him, but he dared not reveal his presence before he had a better sense of the goals and desires of the hairless ones around him.
He needed to connect, to communicate, but now he was linked to this girl child, with no way to break the bond.
What if she didn't get up? What if she died?
PARRIS and Joan found Catherine lying in the dirt surrounded by sailors and stevedores. Parris scattered them with a shout and knelt beside her. She was still breathing. Some fool had thrown seawater on her to rouse her, soaking the front of her dress. Her head bled from a gash, but it didn't look serious. What worried him was that she wasn't conscious.
He scanned the wharf. "There— that inn. We need to get her inside."
Lifting her carefully, he carried her across the street into a run- down stone tavern striped with mud from ancient floods. He stumbled up the stairs, Joan on his heels. Once Catherine was stretched out on a bed, he examined her again. The wound on her head didn't seem bad enough to have knocked her out, but he knew there could be unseen damage.
"Go get a cloth and fresh water."
Joan glared, but obeyed. Catherine was chilled from the water and the wind, and her hands were like ice. He needed to get her out of this wet dress and under some blankets to keep her warm. He felt her forehead. No fever, thank goodness. He rolled her onto her stomach so he could unlace her dress.
Once the laces were loose enough, he pulled the two sides of cloth aside. In the center of her back was a large, circular welt, surrounded by a ring that looked like the marks leeches made on patients when he bled them. The welt glowed faintly, a clean color like sunlight, fresh as the dawn peeping through a closed curtain. He couldn't think what weapon or object might have made such a mark. But he recognized the glow.
Joan opened the door and came in with a basin and cloth. "What is that?"
"Help me." Together they pulled her dress off and wrapped her in the bed's wool blanket, rough but warm. Parris took the cloth from the basin, squeezed it out, and rubbed it gently across her face, washing away the dirt and salt.
"Stephen, what happened to her back?"
"I don't know."
A knock at the door startled them. Joan opened it to reveal Sinclair, with Catherine's maidservant, Blanche, by his side. Joan objected at first to allowing Sinclair to see Catherine's naked back, but Parris insisted, arguing that her life could depend on it.
Parris studied his face for any sign of recognition. "What does it remind you of?"
"You're referring to this." Sinclair unwrapped his turban.
Joan gasped. The glow had grown stronger since the last time Parris had seen it, or perhaps it was just the poor light in the room. Parris walked around him, studying the pattern and considering the differences between it and what he saw on Catherine's back. The glow was the same, but Catherine's marking was more like a puncture wound combined with a suction mark, whereas Sinclair's markings looked like they had grown out of his skin. He remembered Catherine's drawing of the tamarin. Had it attacked her again, more successfully this time? Did this wound come from the spine on its tail?
"Tell us what you know, both of you," Parris said.
Blanche told how Catherine had screamed and fallen from her horse, but she had seen nothing to explain it. She said she knew about the tamarin, but hadn't seen it herself.
Sinclair described how he had distilled the water found on the Western Star into an elixir, and how at first, when he drank it, it had seemed to do nothing. Every night he had distilled it still further, trying to produce its purest form, and drank it to no obvious effect. Until the skin of his head had begun to glow.
"You drank it with no idea what it would do to you? What if it had been poison?"
Sinclair shrugged. "Chelsey said that on Horizon it healed all injuries and diseases."
"This isn't Horizon."
"Would you prefer I had found a gullible child to test it on first?"
Catherine whimpered and turned over in the bed, but didn't wake up or respond to Joan's soft entreaties.
The old panic fluttered in Parris's chest like a caged bird fighting to break free. It had been the same as with Peter. He didn't know what was wrong with her, so he didn't know how to help her. What if he tried the wrong thing? What if he gave her something that killed her? One thing was sure: this was no ordinary illness. It had something to do with Horizon.
Blanche brought Catherine's bags, and Parris rummaged through them, looking for the parchment drawing she had shown him before. He found it, smoothed it out, and showed it to Sinclair. "I think this is what happened to her. She was attacked by this creature."
Joan looked over his shoulder at the sketch and her eyes grew wide. "This thing is real?"
It's one of the menagerie that Lord Chelsey captured and brought back to London. It must have followed Sinclair to our house."
"What are you going to do?" Joan asked. "How will you wake her up?"
"I don't know."
Sinclair consulted a pocket watch. "The ship must sail soon, before the crowds attract too much attention. We've escaped the queen's notice so far, but . . ."
"We'll have to take her along," Parris said.
Joan leaped to her feet. "What?"
"I must go on the ship. What ever is wrong with Catherine, it's connected to Horizon. Perhaps a venom from this tamarin creature, perhaps something even more peculiar. But no doctor in England will know what to do. We have to understand what's happened to her by understanding Horizon. She must come on the ship."
"No! No, you will not take her away from me. She'll wake up again in time."
"You don't know that."
"Please, Stephen. I bargained for her safety. She's all I care about. Don't do this to me."
Parris turned to Blanche. "You planned to board with Catherine, didn't you? Will you come and help me look after her?"
Blanche curtsied. "My lord, I would like nothing better."
"She is not going!" Joan said.
Parris shook her head. "There's no other choice. I'll bring her back to you, I promise."
"You are such a fool, Stephen Parris." She stood and backed toward the door. "You won't win this time. I won't let you."
"What are you going to do?"
She reached the door. "The same as you do. What I must." They heard her footsteps running down the stairs.
"Joan!" Parris looked at Sinclair. "She'll tell the queen."
Sinclair indicated Catherine's prone form. "Then bring your daughter, and let's go. There's no time to waste."
Chapter Ten
THE wharf thronged with people, pushing and shouting and trampling the boards. At the gangplank of the Western Star, private soldiers hired by Sinclair held them back with matchlocks and drawn swords while the ship's provost examined papers and checked passengers' names off his list.
Parris carried Catherine in his arms, followed by Blanche and three stevedores hauling their baggage. Sinclair led the way ahead of them, forging a path.
"Why are all these people here?" Parris shouted.
"They want to board the ship," Sinclair shouted back.
"But who are they?"
He shrugged. "Protestants."
At the gangplank, they found Bishop Marcheford arguing with Maasha Kaatra. "Will you please tell your servant to give me the passenger manifest?" Marcheford said. "I have last minute changes to make, important men in danger for their lives. We can not leave them behind."
"Maasha Kaatra is in charge of boarding," Sinclair said. "No one gets on or off this ship without his permission. If you want to stay on the list yourself, I suggest you treat him more civilly."
Marcheford gaped. His son, Matthew, who had been standing behind him, noticed Catherine's limp form in Parris's arms.
He rushed forward, a worried look on his face. "What's wrong with her? Is she sick?"
Parris had no time to explain, but he let Matthew help him carry her up the shifting gangplank onto the deck. He was surprised at how much the ship swayed, even anchored here in the river. Probably nothing com pared to ocean swells, but it was disconcerting to walk on such an unsteady platform.
When they reached the cabin, both Matthew and Blanche left, Matthew to rejoin his father, and Blanca to find a place for herself in the hold, where most of the passengers and future colonists would sleep. Parris's cabin was barely large enough to fit his luggage, but it was the quarters for a commissioned officer, and thus one of the best accommodations on the ship. It was meant for one man, with room for a small bunk and his sea chest, and perhaps a small writing desk. Parris lay Catherine on the bunk. He would hang a hammock for himself. The room was small, but it was private, and that was more than most could expect.
By the time his things were arranged, Blanche had returned. He left Catherine with her and returned to the main deck. The crowd on the wharf had grown, which made him nervous. For one thing, a mob would attract attention, and attention from the crown was the last thing they wanted. For another, there were far more people here than could possibly have passes to board, though many of them doubtless had strong reasons to leave England. They would have to be turned away.
Sinclair had hired an army officer named Oswyn Tate to be military adviser and commander to the expedition. A dozen men under Tate's command, wearing metal breastplates and helmets, guarded the gangplank. Tate himself stood at the fore, his oxlike build and bristling red beard lending added intimidation. So far, this measure had been sufficient to hold back the crowd, but Parris worried that twelve men wouldn't be enough if things turned ugly. Desperate people did desperate things.
He found Sinclair at the rail. On his left stood William Dryden, an imposing, muscular man who was the newly hired captain of the Western Star. Dryden had been a lucky find: a ten- year Royal Navy veteran with experience as the captain on two ships of war. He wore an embroidered royal blue coat with epaulets on the sleeves over white breeches and stockings and black shoes, along with a blue captain's hat. He peered down at Sinclair's dusty turban as if it off ended him.
"Here they come," Sinclair said.
Parris followed his gaze and saw three of the queen's soldiers, clad in mail from neck to toe, pushing their way through the crowd. Sinclair strode down the gangplank and met them at the bottom. One of the soldiers handed papers to Sinclair, who gestured at the ship and seemed angry. They argued for several minutes, but their words were lost in the noise.
One of the soldiers took Sinclair by the arm. Sinclair punched him in the neck, knocking him into the others, and ran back up the gangplank, throwing the papers into the water. The soldiers tried to follow, but Tate's men blocked their way.
Captain Dryden met Sinclair at the top and grabbed his arm. "What are you doing? I'll not be a party to treason."
"I'm paying you to take us to Horizon," Sinclair said.
"What did those papers say?"
"It doesn't matter. We have a royal sanction for this voyage."
"The devil take you, liar. Those were the queen's soldiers you just assaulted. I'm throwing you off my ship."
"Come, now, Captain. You're a Protestant, in a ship full of wanted Protestant men trying to leave England. Do you really want to explain that to the queen? Your days will be as numbered as the rest."
The captain's face reddened and his grip tightened.
"On the other hand, if you sail with us as you agreed, you will return home the richest man in Christendom and a national hero."
"So you say. Maybe I won't return at all."
"We've been through this, Captain. And there's no time."
There were screams from the crowd and the clatter of hooves on stones. Two dozen more of the queen's soldiers trotted onto the wharf on horse back, forcing men and women to jump clear or be trampled.
"Cast off !" bellowed Dryden. "Raise the anchor!"
The bosun stalked aft, echoing Dryden's order. Four apprentice seamen labored at the capstan to hoist the anchor off the bottom, and sailors cut the lines that held the ship to the shore. Men ran to and fro in frenzied activity, hauling on ropes and shouting to each other. The sails fluttered and filled with air.
On the wharf, the cavalry drew up into formation and raised matchlocks to their shoulders. Before Parris could think, the air around him whistled, and he heard the roar of the report and saw smoke explode from the guns. He was so shocked they had actually fired on the ship that he just stood there until someone grabbed his arm and dragged him down to the deck.
A groan from behind caught his attention. Captain Dryden lay on the deck clutching his chest, his fingers wet with blood. Parris crawled over. The wound looked bad, and blood bubbled from Dryden's mouth. Parris tore off his own cloak and stuffed a folded portion of it into the wound, pressing it down as tightly as he could.
An explosion rocked the ship, sending a fountain of water into the air just in front of them. The wharf was farther away now, the gap between them widening, but the queen's soldiers now commanded one of the defensive cannons along the water. With them stood a gaudily dressed man with a peacock- feather hat and a dark giant with coils of black hair, both of them pointing at the ship and shouting. Francis Vaughan and the Spaniard, Diego de Tavera.
Slowly, the ship pulled farther away down the river. Too slowly. The gunners poured powder and rammed the next ball deep inside. The cannon swiveled and erupted in smoke and fire. This time the ball struck just short of the mizzenmast, smashing the rail and blowing a hole in the quarterdeck. A sailor screamed as he plummeted from the rigging into the water. Ropes swung loose, and a crossbeam tore away, toppling through yards of canvas to crash onto the deck in a shower of splintering wood.
The ship was in uproar, but the sails were full of air, and the ship picked up speed, finally leaving the wharf and the soldiers and the terrible cannon behind.
"Take him to the infirmary!" Parris shouted to two sailors who were trying to lift Dryden. He wasn't sure where the infirmary was, but that was where he would find the things he needed to treat wounds. As far as he knew, he was the only physic on board. The injured would be his resp
onsibility.
Parris ran across the deck to the nearest propped trapdoor and climbed down a ladder into the hold. It was dark, smelled of salt and urine, and was unbearably hot. The cramped area was strung with hammocks, sometimes two or three on top of each other, and Parris realized this was the deck where most of the sailors slept. In fact, some were just climbing bleary- eyed out of their bunks, probably those on the night shift, woken by the noise and chaos. The oak planking creaked and sweated moisture. He could hear skitterings and gnawings from what could only be rats.
