Wall, Stone, Craft

by Walter Jon Williams

  He was an exile now, and the only people whom he could expect to associate with him were other exiles.

  Like the exiles aboard Ariel.

  Perhaps, Mary thought, he was only now realizing it. Poor George.

  She actually felt sorry for him.

  The castle of Chillon fell astern, like a grand symbol of George’s hopes, a world of possibility not realized.

  “Beg pardon, my lord,” she said, “but where do you intend to go?”

  George frowned. “France, perhaps,” he said. “The comtesse has... some friends... in France. England, if France won’t suit, but we won’t be able to stay there long. America, if necessary.”

  “Can the Prince Regent intervene on your behalf?”

  George’s smile was grim. “If he wishes. But he’s subject to strange fits of morality, particularly if the sins in question remind him of his own. Prinny will not wish to be reminded of Mrs. Fitzherbert and Lady Hertford. He does wish to look upright in the eyes of the nation. And he has no loyalty to his friends, none at all.” He gave a poised, slow-motion shrug. “Perhaps he will help, if the fit is on him. But I think not.” He reached inside his greatcoat, patted an inside pocket. “Do you think I can light a cigar in this wind? If so, I hope it will not discomfort you, Mrs. Shelley.”

  He managed a spark in his strike-a-light, puffed madly till the tinder caught, then ignited his cigar and turned to Bysshe. “I found your poems, Mr. Omnibus. Your Queen Mab and Alastor. The latter of which I liked better, though I liked both well enough.”

  Bysshe looked at him in surprise. Wind whistled through the shrouds. “How did you find Mab? There were only seventy copies, and I’m certain I can account for each one.”

  George seemed pleased with himself. “There are few doors closed to me.” Darkness clouded his face. “Or rather, were.” With a sigh.

  He wiped spray from his ear with the back of his hand.

  “I’m surprised that you liked Mab at all,” Bysshe said quickly, “as its ideas are so contrary to your own.”

  “You expressed them well enough. As a verse treatise of Mr. Godwin’s political thought, I thought it done as soundly as such a thing can be done. And I think you can have it published properly now— it’s hardly a threat to public order, Godwin’s thought being so out of fashion even among radicals.”

  He drew deliberately on his cigar, then waved it. The wind tore the cigar smoke from his mouth in little wisps. “Alastor, though better poetry, seemed in contrast to have little thought behind it. I never understood what that fellow was doing on the boat— was it a metaphor for life? I kept waiting for something to happen.”

  Mary bristled at George’s condescension. What are you doing on this little boat? she wanted to ask.

  Bysshe, however, looked apologetic. “I’m writing better things now.”

  “He’s writing wonderful things now,” Mary said. “An ode to Mont Blanc. An essay on Christianity. A hymn to intellectual beauty.”

  George gave her an amused look. “Mrs. Shelley’s tone implies that, to me, intellectual beauty is entirely a stranger, but she misunderstands my point. I found it remarkable that the same pen could produce both Queen Mab and Alastor, and have no doubt that so various a talent will produce very good work in the poetry line— provided,” nodding to Bysshe, “that Mr. Shelley continues in it, and doesn’t take up engineering again, or chemistry.” He grinned. “Or become a sea captain.”

  “He is and remains a poet,” Mary said firmly. She used a corner of her shawl to wipe spray from her cheek.

  “Who else do you like, my lord?” Bysshe asked.

  “Poets, you mean? Scott, above all. Shakespeare, who is sound on political matters as well as having a magnificent... shall I call it a stride? Burns, the great poet of my country. And our Laureate.”

  “Mr. Southey was kind to me when we met,” Bysshe said. “And Mrs. Southey made wonderful tea-cakes. But I wish I admired his work more.” He looked up. “What do you think of Milton? The Maie and I read him constantly.”

  George shrugged. “Dour Puritan fellow. I’m surprised you can stand him at all.”

  “His verse is glorious. And he wasn’t a Puritan, but an Independent, like Cromwell— his philosophy was quite unorthodox. He believed, for example, in plural marriage.”

  George’s eyes glittered. “Did he now.”

  “Ay. And his Satan is a magnificent creation, far more interesting than any of his angels or his simpering pedantic Christ. That long, raging fall from grace, into darkness visible.”

  George’s brows knit. Perhaps he was contemplating his own long fall from the Heaven of polite society. His eyes turned to Mary.

  “And how is the originator of Mr. Shelley’s political thought? How does your father, Mrs. Shelley?”

  “He is working on a novel. An important work.”

  “I am pleased to hear it. Does he progress?”

  Mary was going to answer simply “Very well,” but Bysshe’s answer came first. “Plagued by lack of money,” he said. “We will be going to England to succor him after this, ah, errand is completed.”

  “Your generosity does you credit,” George said, and then resentment entered his eyes and his lip curled. “Of course, you will be able to better afford it, now.”

  Bysshe’s answer was mild. “Mr. Godwin lives partly with our support, but he will not speak to us since I eloped with his daughter. You will not acknowledge Alba, but at least you’ve been... persuaded... to do well by her.”

  George preferred not to rise to this, settled instead for clarification.

  “You support a man who won’t acknowledge you?”

  “It is not my father-in-law I support, but rather the author of Political Justice.”

  “A nice discernment,” George observed. “Perhaps over-nice.”

  “One does what goodness one can. And one hopes people will respond.” Looking at George, who smiled cynically around his cigar.

  “Your charity speaks well for you. But perhaps Mr. Godwin would have greater cause to finish his book if poverty were not being made so convenient for him.”

  Mary felt herself flushing red. But Bysshe’s reply again was mild.

  “It isn’t that simple. Mr. Godwin has dependents, and the public that once celebrated his thought has, alas, forgotten him. His novel may retrieve matters. But a fine thing such as this work cannot be rushed— not if it is to have the impact it deserves.”

  “I will bow to your expertise in matters of literary production. But still... to support someone who will not even speak to you— that is charity indeed. And it does not speak well for Mr. Godwin’s gratitude.”

  “My father is a great man!” Mary knew she was speaking hotly, and she bit back on her anger. “But he judges by a... a very high standard of morality. He will accept support from a sincere admirer, but he has not yet understood the depth of sentiment between Bysshe and myself, and believes that Bysshe has done my reputation harm— not,” flaring again, “that I would care if he had.”

  Ariel thudded into a wave trough, and George winced at the impact.

  He adjusted his seat on the rail and nodded. “Mr. Godwin will accept money from an admirer, but not letters from an in-law. And Mr. Shelley will support the author of Political Justice, but not his in-laws.”

  “And you,” Mary said, “will support a blackmailer, but not a daughter.”

  George’s eyes turned to stone. Mary realized she had gone too far for this small boat and close company.

  “Gentlemen, it’s cold,” she announced. “I will withdraw.”

  She made her way carefully into the cuddy. The tall comtesse was disposed uncomfortably, on wet cushions, by the hatch, the overhead planking brushing the top of her bonnet. Her gaze was mild, but her lip was haughty. There was a careful three inches between her and Claire, who was nursing Alba and, clearly enough, a grudge.

  Mary walked past them to the peak, sat carefully on a wet cushion near Claire. Their knees collided every time
Ariel fell down a wave.

  The cuddy smelled of wet stuffing and stale water. There was still water sluicing about on the bottom.

  Mary looked at Claire’s baby and felt sadness like an ache in her breast.

  Claire regarded her resentfully. “The French bitch hates us,” she whispered urgently. “Look at her expression.”

  Mary wished Claire had kept her voice down. Mary leaned out to look at the comtesse, managed a smile. “Vous parlez anglais?” she asked.

  “Non. Je regrette. Parles-tu français?” The comtesse had a peculiar accent. As, with a name like Laufenburg, one might expect.

  Pleasant of her, though, to use the intimate tu. “Je comprends un peu.” Claire’s French was much better than Mary’s, but Claire clearly had no interest in conversation.

  The comtesse looked at the nursing baby. A shadow flitted across her face. “My own child,” in French, “I was forced to leave behind.”

  “I’m sorry.” For a moment Mary hated the comtesse for having a child to leave, that and for the abandonment itself.

  No. Bysshe, she remembered, had left his own children. It did not make one unnatural. Sometimes there were circumstances.

  Speech languished after this unpromising beginning. Mary leaned her head against the planking and tried to sleep, sadly aware of the cold seep of water up her skirts. The boat’s movement was too violent to be restful, but she composed herself deliberately for sleep. Images floated through her mind: the great crumbling keep of Chillon, standing above the surging gray water like the setting of one of “Monk” Lewis’s novels; a gray cat eating a blushing rose; a figure, massive and threatening, somehow both George and her father Godwin, flinging back the bed-curtains to reveal, in the bright light of morning, the comtesse Laufenburg’s placid blonde face with its outthrust, Habsburg lip.

  Habsburg. Mary sat up with a cry and banged her skull on the deckhead.

  She cast a wild look at Claire and the comtesse, saw them both drowsing, Alba asleep in Claire’s lap. The boat was rolling madly in a freshening breeze: there were ominous, threatening little shrieks of wind in the rigging. The cuddy stank badly.

  Mary made her way out of the cuddy, clinging to the sides of the hatch as the boat sought to pitch her out. Bysshe was holding grimly to the tiller with one big hand, controlling the sheet with the other while spray soaked his coat; George and Pásmány were hanging to the shrouds to keep from sliding down the tilted deck.

  Astern was Lausanne, north of the lake, and the Cornettes to the south; and Mont Billiat, looming over the valley of the Dranse to the south, was right abeam: they were smack in the middle of the lake, with the vaudaire wind funneling down the valley, stronger than ever with the mountain boundary out of the way.

  Mary seized the rail, hauled herself up the tilting deck toward George. “I know your secret,” she said. “I know who your woman is.”

  George’s face ran with spray; his auburn hair was plastered to the back of his neck. He fixed her with eyes colder than the glaciers of Mont Blanc. “Indeed,” he said.

  “Marie-Louise of the house of Habsburg.” Hot anger pulsed through her, burned against the cold spindrift on her face. “Former Empress of the French!”

  Restlessly, George turned his eyes away. “Indeed,” he said again.

  Mary seized a shroud and dragged herself to the rail next to him.

  Bysshe watched in shock as Mary shouted into the wind. “Her husband abroad! Abroad, forsooth— all the way to St. Helena! Forced to leave her child behind, because her father would never let Napoleon’s son out of his control for an instant. Even a Habsburg lip— my God!”

  “Very clever, Miss Godwin. But I believe you have divined my sentiments on the subject of clever women.” George gazed ahead, toward Geneva. “Now you see why I wish to be away.”

  “I see only vanity!” Mary raged. “Colossal vanity! You can’t stop fighting Napoleon even now! Even when the battlefield is only a bed!”

  George glared at her. “Is it my damned fault that Napoleon could never keep his women?”

  “It’s your damned fault that you keep her!”

  George opened his mouth to spit out a reply and then the vaudaire, like a giant hand, took Ariel’s mast in its grasp and slammed the frail boat over. Bysshe cried out and hauled the tiller to his chest and let the mainsheet go, all far too late. The deck pitched out from under Mary’s heels and she clung to the shrouds for dear life.

  Pásmány shouted in Hungarian. There was a roar as the sail hit the water. The lake foamed over the lee rail and the wind tore Mary’s breath away. There were screams from the cuddy as water poured into the little cabin.

  “Halyards and topping lift!” Bysshe gasped. He was clinging to the weather rail: a breaker exploded in his face and he gasped for air.

  “Let ’em go!”

  If the sail filled with water all was lost. Mary let go of the shroud and palmed her way across the vertical deck. Freezing lakewater clutched at her ankles. Harriet Shelley shrieked her triumph in Mary’s ears like the wind. Mary lurched forward to the mast, flung the halyard and topping lift off their cleats. The sail sagged free, empty of everything but the water that poured onto its canvas surface, turning it into a giant weight that would drag the boat over.

  Too late.

  “Save the ladies, George!” Bysshe called. His face was dead-white but his voice was calm. “I can’t swim!”

  Water boiled up Mary’s skirts. She could feel the dead weight dragging her down as she clutched at George’s leg and hauled herself up the deck. She screamed as her unborn child protested, a gouging pain deep in her belly.

  George raged wildly. “Damn it, Shelley, what can I do?” He had a leg over one of the shrouds; the other was Mary’s support. The wind had taken his hat and his cloak rattled around him like wind-filled canvas.

  “Cut the mast free!”

  George turned to Mary. “My sword! Get it from the cabin!”

  Mary looked down and into the terrified black eyes of Claire, half-out of the cuddy. She held a wailing Alba in her arms. “Take the baby!” she shrieked.

  “Give me a sword!” Mary said. A wave broke over the boat, soaking them all in icy rain. Mary thought of Harriet smiling, her hair trailing like seaweed.

  “Save my baby!”

  “The sword! Byron’s sword! Give it!” Mary clung to George’s leg with one hand and thrust the crying babe away with the other.

  “I hate you!” Claire shrieked, but she turned and fumbled for George’s sword. She held it up out of the hatch, and Mary took the cut steel hilt in her hand and drew it rasping from the scabbard. She held it blindly above her head and felt George’s firm hand close over hers and take the sabre away. The pain in her belly was like a knife. Through the boat and her spine she felt the thudding blows as George hacked at the shrouds, and then there was a rending as the mast splintered and Ariel, relieved of its top-hamper, swung suddenly upright.

  Half the lake seemed to splash into the boat as it came off its beam-ends. George pitched over backwards as Ariel righted itself, but Mary clung to his leg and kept him from going into the lake while he dragged himself to safety over the rail.

  Another wave crashed over them. Mary clutched at her belly and moaned. The pain was ebbing. The boat pirouetted on the lake as the wind took it, and then Ariel jerked to a halt. The wreckage of the mast was acting as a sea-anchor, moderating the wave action, keeping the boat stable. Alba’s screams floated high above Ariel’s remains.

  Wood floats, Mary remembered dully. And Ariel was wood, no matter how much water slopped about in her bottom.

  Shelley staggered to his feet, shin-deep in lake water. “By God, George,” he gasped. “You’ve saved us.”

  “By God,” George answered “so I have.” Mary looked up from the deck to see George with the devil’s light in his eyes, his color high and his sabre in his hand. So, she reckoned, he must have seemed to Napoleon at Genappe. George bent and peered into the cuddy.

  “
Are the ladies all right?”

  “Je suis bien, merci.” From the Austrian princess.

  “Damn you to hell, George!” Claire cried. George only grinned.

  “I see we are well,” he said.

  And then Mary felt the warm blood running down the insides of her legs, and knew that George was wrong.

  *

  Mary lay on a bed in the farmhouse sipping warm brandy.

  Reddening cloths were packed between her legs. The hemorrhage had not stopped, though at least there was no pain. Mary could feel the child moving within her, as if struggling in its terror. Over the click of knitting needles, she could hear the voices of the men in the kitchen, and smell George’s cigar.

  The large farm, sitting below its pastures that stretched up the Noirmont, was owned by a white-mustached old man named Fleury, a man who seemed incapable of surprise or confusion even when armed men arrived at his doorstep, carrying between them a bleeding woman and a sack filled with gold. He turned Mary over to his wife, hitched up his trousers, put his hat on, and went to St. Prex to find a doctor.

  Madame Fleury, a large woman unflappable as her husband, tended Mary and made her drink a brandy toddy while she sat by Mary and did her knitting.

  When Fleury returned, his news wasn’t good. The local surgeon had gone up the road to set the bones of some workmen caught in an avalanche— perhaps there would be amputations— but he would return as soon as he could. The road west to Geneva was still blocked by the slide; the road east to Lausanne had been cleared. George seemed thoughtful at the news. His voice echoed in from the kitchen. “Perhaps the chase will simply go past,” he said in English.

  “What sort of pursuit do you anticipate?” Bysshe asked. “Surely you don’t expect the Austrian Emperor to send his troops into Switzerland.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” George said. “And it may not be the Emperor’s own people after us— it might be Neipperg, acting on his own.”