Bettina, as usual, was attentive enough to observe the shadow pass over her daughter’s features. “What is it, Serafina?”
“Nothing, Mama. I’m fine.” Oh, how she hated lying to her mother.
“You look flushed. Are you feverish?” She laid a hand upon her daughter’s forehead. “You seem all right.”
Serafina resisted the urge to tell her mother not to treat her like a child. Which of course was part of the problem. Night after night, Serafina had mentally argued through a dispute that in truth would never happen. Just one look at her mother’s face was enough to convince her that Luca would never be accepted in this house.
Yet not even her love for her parents, or her parents’ love for her, could turn Serafina away from her course. Or from the future this course held.
“You heard us quarreling, I suppose.” Bettina Gavi seated herself on the cushioned window bench beside her daughter. “You know why Gabriella treats you as she does. Her fiancé has a roving eye. He watches you like a hawk whenever you cross his vision.”
Serafina was well aware of the impact her beauty had on young men. “But Gabriella has treated me badly since I was a baby.”
“Because you, my darling daughter, have always shone as though the mountain light were captured in your face.” Serafina’s mother had a northerner’s complexion, fine as stone-milled flour, and every emotion shone clear for all to see. “When you were still an infant I carried you into the market, and people would be drawn to you as if I offered them free honeycombs. You smiled, and grown men cried out with astonishment and delight. Nothing made your sister angrier than hearing people discuss your beauty.”
“You have never spoken to me about Gabriella before.”
“And I hope never to speak of it again. There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on the weaknesses of kin. Even so, it is true. She envied you from your birth.” Bettina hesitated, then added almost in spite of herself, “It used to break my heart to see how cruel she was to you.”
The bells of Saint Mark’s Cathedral struck the hour before sunset, when the afternoon light angled tightly above the church and shadows over the canal waters were strongest. Serafina started. She had become so involved in her mother’s words she had entirely forgotten the time.
“What is the matter, my daughter?”
“It is nothing, Mama.” The repeated lie tore at her. She was a good daughter. She had never before knowingly gone against her parents’ wishes. Though her heart fluttered tight in her chest, she managed to keep her voice steady. “I’m fine.”
Bettina took on a girlish tone. “Come, let us buy ices from the vendor and stroll across the square and cherish all that is good in this world.”
Serafina felt her heart tugged mightily by her mother’s invitation. But the day was set upon another course. One to which Serafina would hold.
“Thank you, Mama. But I really would like to be alone with my thoughts just now.” She picked up her embroidery and pretended to concentrate upon the design. But her mind was far, far removed from her family’s home and the safety it offered.
Serafina watched her mother cross the room and depart without looking back. The sound of the door clicking shut seemed to drive a nail into her heart. Never had she felt so ashamed. So guilty.
Or so excited.
Truth be told, Serafina loved the evening promenade more than almost anything in her water-circled city. Here in Venice time was a guest, the locals liked to say, and not a ruler. Walking the streets at evening, it was possible to believe this was indeed true.
In these final hours of the Venetian day, the ancient palaces of colored stone seemed as delicate as Murano glass. Pillars looked translucent, too fragile to hold up the imposing façades. Normally Serafina would be begging her mother to come outside with her. But this was the hour when her mother was usually the busiest, supervising the evening meal and readying the house for Alessandro Gavi’s return. For Serafina to have refused her mother’s invitation was very strange indeed.
Serafina gripped her hands in her lap and wished the arguments raging in her mind and heart would end. She stared at the canal beyond her balcony and recalled another time of conflicting emotions. The summer she had turned eight, she had gone into the kitchen in the quiet hour after lunch, when even the servants were slumbering through the worst of the summer heat. Her mother had been seated at the kitchen table with a faraway look to her eyes. Tears had streamed down Bettina’s face. They had caught the light streaming through the kitchen window, making her pale complexion shimmer.
“Mama?”
Her mother started and breathed a long shaky breath. She spoke not to her daughter but to herself. “God heard me after all.”
“What is the matter, Mama?”
“Nothing, now.” She opened her arms. “Come here, my child. Let me look at you.”
Serafina did as her mother requested. But as she climbed up into her mother’s lap, seeing the tears up close caused her to cry as well. “I’m frightened.”
“Shah, my dearest one. Calm yourself.” Her mother held Serafina in one arm and with the other hand wiped away her tears. She smiled, or tried to. “There, you see? All better.”
But Serafina felt pierced by the sorrow that still stained her mother’s features. “You’re so sad, Mama.”
“Yes. It happens sometimes. But it will soon pass.”
“But why, Mama?”
“A woman’s foolishness, nothing more.” Yet saying these words caused fresh tears to course down her cheeks. “I am just being weak. And silly. You mustn’t pay me any mind.”
But Serafina had been infected by a sorrow far deeper than anything she had ever felt before. Her mother held her for a time, stroking her hair. Serafina wept and would not be consoled. Finally her mother said, “I will tell you a secret, but you must promise not to speak about it to anyone.”
She sniffed and smiled. “I love secrets.”
“Don’t I just know it. You must promise, mind.”
“I won’t tell anyone. Not even Papa.”
“Especially Papa!” Her mother gave a small laugh. “Very well. I was crying because I missed my home.”
“But this is your home.”
“I mean the home of my childhood. I was missing the hills.”
“The place where Grandma and Grandpa live?”
“Just so. Where I lived when I was your age.” She turned her face back to the sunlight. “The light is purer there, or so people claim. The summer heat is always spiced with wind blowing across the eternal ice. The water tastes different, as does the bread, the cheese. It is said the mountain folk have hearts and wills carved from their mountain stone.”
Serafina listened as much to the dreamy nature of her mother’s voice as the words. “That’s no secret, Mama. Grandpa tells us this every time we go to visit them. He says I have a mountain woman’s will. And when I tell him I can’t because I’m still a child, he just laughs.”
Again her mother seemed to draw herself back from a far distance. “You are far too perceptive for a child your age.”
“I want to know the secret.”
“Very well, and I shall tell you, my golden-haired beauty.” She stroked Serafina’s face, yet it looked as if her vision was once more drawn to what Serafina could not see. “When I was seventeen, I fell in love with a man.”
“With Papa?”
“No, my child. With another. A shepherd. A mountain man.”
“But you love Papa.”
“Yes. With all my heart. But I was a foolish young girl then. To have wed this other man would have been a terrible mistake.”
“So why were you crying?”
“Because, my darling child—” a tremor ran through her mother’s frame—“this date was to have been our wedding day. And because I still have a bit of the foolishness in me, I thought of him. For the first time in so many years I cannot even count them, I thought of him.”
“Do you miss him very much?”
�
��I can scarcely remember how he looked. And what does that matter?” She wiped away tears that deepened her voice. “He would be married now, and old. Perhaps even . . . No, I shall not dwell upon that.”
Her mother turned her solemn gaze toward Serafina. “I sat here and I prayed for God to remind me why I am here and how blessed I am to be in this place and this home. And then in you come, with your dancing spirit and your angel’s hair. My darling child, I was brought to this place so that I might love your father. And have you, heart of my heart. And be a part of this wonderful world.”
Being eight years old and shunned by her older sister, Serafina found a certain satisfaction in how her mother did not include her sisters in this moment. “I won’t tell anybody our secret, Mama. I promise.”
Serafina’s attention was drawn back to sunset’s soft veil drawn over the water and the palaces. She sat very still and listened with all her might. Suddenly her intent was rewarded with a quiet whisper of sound.
She had not yet heard the front door close, signaling that her mother had departed. So she did not do what she wanted, which was to fly to the balcony railing and lean over and watch this new visitor do the utterly impossible. The side of the house fronting the canal was now veiled in shade, while all about it glowed the fiercely setting sun. Unless one was looking very carefully, it would have been impossible to notice a person scaling the smooth wall. Unless one was a young girl on the cusp of womanhood, who knew the visitor came to steal away her heart.
Chapter 2
That particular Monday morning was hot even for Trinidad in July. The early hours were better for trade, and by sunrise Port of Spain’s streets were already bustling. John Falconer wore the dark woolen broadcloth expected of a tradesman doing business with the governor’s officials. In the rising heat the suit weighed heavy on his frame. But this was a minor irritation against the fact that his best mate had gone missing. John Falconer feared the man had been captured and questioned. If so, Falconer’s own hours drained as fast as sand in a broken hourglass.
He checked his pocket watch. He was not due at the governor’s customs house for another hour. Falconer waited upon the cathedral’s front steps, hoping against hope that his friend might appear. Falconer ran the largest chandlery, or ship’s merchant, on the neighboring island of Grenada. Some considered Falconer’s the finest establishment of its kind in the West Indies. Local planters bought from him as well, and conversed as they did their business and drank his coffee. Which suited Falconer just fine. He was not interested in profit. He was after information. He had been a very rich man at one time. The money had brought him nothing save a reason to come crashing to his knees.
Trinidad was both a new island and very old. The explorer Christopher Columbus had landed near where Falconer now stood on July 31, 1498. Columbus had found the island teeming with natives. The next Europeans did not arrive until some fifty years later. Finally in 1783 the Spanish king opened the island to colonization. By that time native wars between the Amerindians and the Caribs, and diseases brought by the occasional ship, had reduced the island’s population to less than a thousand. French colonists flocked to the island, such that by the time the British conquered Trinidad in 1797, the population had increased to almost thirty thousand. Eleven thousand of these were French, a thousand were Spanish, and the rest were African slaves.
The capital’s main square held a large old cathedral, one that had traded denominations and names as the island had passed from one colonial power to the next. Now that the island was English, the church was Anglican, though the bell towers were built in the Spanish style and the altar frescos were French. The capital of Trinidad was built in a sheltered valley, with steep hills behind and the Caribbean’s finest port stretching out ahead. From his position on the church stairs, Falconer could look out over the city’s central square to the ships nestled comfortably at anchor. He searched the streets and shadows until he spotted a pair of the governor’s soldiers eyeing him with suspicion. John Falconer was not a man who could go unnoticed for long. He slowly moved away.
Then a childish voice pierced the morning’s heat. “Look, Mama!” The young boy tugged on his mother’s hand. “A pirate!”
“Shush, James. Don’t point.”
“But he is! See the scar? I wonder why the soldiers don’t arrest him!”
The mother blushed scarlet as she pulled her boy away. “Forgive him, sir. He means no harm.”
“None taken, ma’am.” Falconer doffed his hat politely and smiled at the boy. Many had told Falconer that his scar rendered any smile futile. Despite a curious nature, the young boy shied away.
Falconer knew what the mother saw. He was tall and broad about the shoulder. His legs were like ship’s timbers and his hands remained half curled, ready for drawing sword or pike or whatever weapon was at the ready. His seaman’s skin was blasted by salt and burned by sun. There was no sword upon his belt nor knife in his boot. But he had worn both for so long people seemed to sense the possibility. Or perhaps it was the air of danger that no amount of prayer or gentleman’s attire could dispel.
Falconer felt the soldiers’ gaze upon him. He could think of no better way to show he posed no threat than squatting before the boy and saying in his mildest voice, “I’m not a pirate, lad. But I’ve faced them, sure enough.”
The boy’s eyes rounded and he stiffened against his mother’s attempts to draw him on. Finally his mother relented, and the boy said, “You fought Captain Blackbeard?”
Falconer had to laugh, for he had been raised on the very same tale. “You’re off by a century and more, lad. I may be old, but not that ancient. No, my pirates were off the Horn of Africa. You know where that is?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s six weeks’ sail into the sunrise.” He pointed out over the harbor. “Head south by east until you escape the storms off the Cape of Good Hope by racing into the southern ice flows.”
“But the cold lies to our north, sir.”
“Aye, that’s true enough, lad. But if you go very far south you hit Antarctica. The waters there are as rough and as cold as any on earth. Around the Cape and north again, into the Mozambique Channel and the trade winds. Islands there are big as countries. With smaller ones abounding—so many they aren’t even named. The pirates lie waiting there for the trade ships. Venetian and Spanish merchants travel west from the Spice Islands, bearing gold and pepper and teas, their holds so full they wallow fat and slow in the water.”
“Come, James,” the mother tried again. “We mustn’t take up the gentleman’s time.”
“Oh, sir!” The boy heard nothing save what Falconer had to offer. “Were the pirates so very fierce?”
“Aye, that they were. Mussulmen came out of the sun when it was westering and we were weary from another day watching and waiting. They use low-lying vessels that are hard to spy, with lateen rigs. You know a lateen sail?”
“Forgive me, sir.” Since speaking to her son had no impact, she addressed herself to Falconer directly. “We really must be away.”
He rose to his feet and doffed his hat a second time. “Of course, ma’am.”
“Bid the nice gentleman farewell, James.”
The boy could not help but ask a final question. “Is that where you gained your scar?”
“James, really. That is not proper.”
“No offense, ma’am.” But the woman was not listening. The boy must have sensed his mother would not be stalled further, and he allowed himself to be pulled forward. But not before he straightened to attention and shot Falconer a worthy salute.
Falconer smiled and touched his forelock with one finger. This caused the lad to beam like the sun and go skipping away. Falconer watched them depart, his heart pierced by the absence of anything so fine as a future and a son.
When he turned back, the soldiers had sauntered on their way, certain he was not a threat. For once, Falconer wished it was the truth.
The church’s interior was cool in the
manner of a cave and smelled of incense from the morning service. Two priests Falconer did not know moved about the nave, shifting a load of books. Falconer sat in a pew and placed his hat on the seat beside him. He made the sign of the cross and bent forward, gripping the back of the pew in front of him.
It was only in such places that he studied himself, for John Falconer was a man of action. Like most men who lived by deed and not word, he was not given to dwelling much on his own internal state. But these old churches, musty from the centuries of psalms and prayers, affected him deeply. He looked at his own hands and saw the calluses caused by grasping sail and tiller and sword. He imagined his leathery skin stained by the blood of others. No matter how often he assured himself that the blessed Savior had died for men such as him, Falconer remained inwardly wounded by all the errors of a violent and gutted past.
He closed his eyes and prayed in his customary terse manner. His words came with difficulty because he felt so humbled by a God who welcomed him, even him. As always, Falconer first apologized. If only he had come to know God sooner. If only he had been a better man. If only . . .
He then prayed for his mission. And his few friends. The ones bonded to him by shared cause and passion and faith.
As though in response, Falconer sensed someone approaching. He might now be a changed man, one who sought eternal truth, but his senses remained honed by a life of battle and adventure. This man who approached knew Falconer and his ability to sense danger. He gave a seaman’s whistle, a quick note sent aloft in fog or between mates in the fury of closehand battle. Enough to tell friend from foe.
Falconer remained as he was, head bowed over the pew ahead, as the man settled into the seat beside him.
Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive Page 2
