by Sara Donati
Around them the sailors were spreading more sail in response to Stoker’s shouted commands.
“Ye see,” said Robbie. “She’s no’ the kind tae give in.”
As if she had heard them talking about her, the kerchiefed head swiveled and the old lady fixed Elizabeth with a stare. The mass of jewels and coins hung around her neck sparkled in the sunlight.
With a reluctant glance at Nathaniel, Elizabeth left the men to go forward.
“There you are,” said Granny Stoker. “I thought you and me had some trading to do.”
Elizabeth was keenly aware of the captain standing there. He seemed to be watching the sails of the Osiris on the horizon, but she knew that he was listening. She answered, “I would like to talk to you about that toothbrush”—and saw him snort to himself in disgust.
Annie’s cane came flashing out to poke him in the ribs, so that he jumped and turned on her, wild-eyed.
“Sweet bleedin’ Jesus, Granny! And what was that for?”
“Gawping. Connor needs talking to and there you stand, sniffin’ about a skirt.”
Stoker scowled. “And why would I be botherin’ wit’ the likes of her? Don’t grouse, old woman. I’ll leave youse to your bloody hen party.” And he leaped, with dexterity born of practice, out of the reach of the cane.
“You just see to your own business, boyo,” called Anne Stoker, waving it after him. “And let us see to ours.”
Elizabeth said, “You remind me of someone I know. She enjoys goading the people she loves best, too.”
“Oh, so you think you’ve seen through me right to my soft heart, eh?” The old lady thumped her chest with a knotty fist. “Let me tell you, dearie, that if I ever had one it ran down long ago. Now, there’s a story or two you’ve to tell me, is there not?”
“Tell me first about the ship that’s following us,” said Elizabeth.
The old lady narrowed an eye. “What is it you want to know?”
“I assume she can outgun us, but can she outrun us? She can’t be more than a few miles off at this point.”
“She’s trying her damnedest, but it ain’t time to break out the powder yet.” The old lady’s gaze wandered along the deck to where Nathaniel stood with Hawkeye, examining a carronade. “That must be your man, there.” She pointed with her chin, a faint smile turning up one corner of her mouth. “No trouble on the eyes, that one. You get on well?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “We get on very well.”
“Does he raise a hand to you when you’re surly?”
Elizabeth fairly jumped with indignation, but she managed to keep her tone in check. “If I were surly, he would not.”
This earned her a burst of those incongruous dimples. “Looks the lively type, he does. The kind to keep a woman warm at night. Long of bone, big hands, muscled hard. Reminds me of a sweetheart I had once, in Monterey Bay. Soon as we docked he’d come striding up the gangplank bellowing so’s the whole world could hear him: ‘Anne Bonney! Take a hard look at the floorboards, lass, for ye’ll be seein’ naught but the ceiling ower ma bed for a guid while!’ Aye, those were grand days. He was a Scot, like that man of yours.”
“Nathaniel is American born and raised.”
The old woman shrugged. “He ain’t red-skinned, is he? His folks come from somewhere else, and he’s a Scot if I ever saw one. The full-grown kind, up to trouble and with a keen eye for women. Now, about that man of yours, tell me this—”
Elizabeth held her breath.
“—has he taught you how to use a gun?”
It took some effort to bite back her smile, but Elizabeth managed to nod. “Yes. A musket and a rifle, as well.”
“And have you ever shot a man?”
She slipped in that question so easily, as if it meant nothing more than idle talk of lovers long gone. Elizabeth looked out over the water. “I don’t think the Osiris will attack.”
A hoarse laugh. “Don’t you, now? But that’s not what I asked.”
With a sigh, Elizabeth said: “I didn’t shoot Jack Lingo, if that’s what you’re wondering about. Did you think you could get the story out of me so cheaply?” But she felt her color rising, and she knew that this fact did not escape Anne Stoker.
“There’s more than one story, then. How you dealt with that bastard Lingo. And who it was you shot.”
Elizabeth said, “For the first story at least I’ll need that toothbrush, among other things. You said something of a hairbrush and a comb.”
The old lady fumbled in her shirt and pulled out her pipe. “Did I?”
“Yes, I am sure you did,” said Elizabeth firmly. “And I should think some soap, as well. If there is any to be had on board.”
The soft white hair on Anne Stoker’s chin was working up and down furiously as she sucked at her cold pipe, but her eyes never left Elizabeth.
“Is Jack Lingo worth all that?”
“You’ll have to hear the story and decide for yourself,” said Elizabeth.
From overhead came a cry as loud and harsh as any gull’s. “Frigate on the starboard bow! Flying French colors!”
The old lady’s head came around with a jerk. “Oh now, there’s some good luck!”
Stoker shouted up into the rigging: “Can you make her out, Tommy?”
“Aye, Capting! I believe that’s the Avignon.”
“Has she seen us?”
“That she has! And she’s running out her guns!”
“Guns?” asked Elizabeth, more mystified than frightened. “But France is not at war with the United States. We are flying American colors.”
“Not for us, Boots,” said Nathaniel, coming up behind her. “She’ll have her eye on the Osiris. Ain’t that so?” This question was directed to Granny Stoker.
“Oh, aye,” agreed the old lady, pulling a telescope from her pocket. “The French fleet’s been prowling the main shipping lanes ever since the Tory blockade shut ’em out of their home ports. That frigate will be in a foul mood. The Osiris will suit her just fine about now.”
In a few blasts of Connor’s whistle the other half of the crew had been called up from their berths, and all hands fell into a routine as practiced as a quadrille at a country ball.
“Helm’s a-lee!” boomed Stoker from the forecastle.
“Look at the grin on him,” said Nathaniel. “You’d think he was going to take the prize himself.”
Robbie and Hawkeye came up the deck, dodging sailors until they stood in a circle around Granny Stoker, whose sling chair was rocking hard with the motion of the ship. She pointed her cane at Robbie. “You, Scotsman! Hold me steady!”
When he had caught up the sling, she fixed her glass on the horizon. And then: “Aye, there she is! God’s bones, ain’t she a pretty sight!”
“Mainsail haul!” bellowed Stoker. “Cheerly now, boys!”
The Jackdaw began to tack toward the Avignon, the beat of the waves on the bow picking up in time with Elizabeth’s heartbeat. Nathaniel must have felt it, for he slipped an arm around her waist, as firm and steady an anchor as she could ask for on a deck pitched like a houseroof.
“We’re headed for that frigate like a cat with a mad dog on her tail,” said Hawkeye, looking hard.
“Aye,” agreed Granny Stoker. “No better place to run than into the arms of a Frenchman when you’ve got a great fat East Indiaman tweakin’ your arse.”
And indeed it seemed as if the Jackdaw were of no interest at all to the Avignon. She swept forward at an angle that could be read without quadrant or compass: a confrontation with the Osiris seemed certain, and quick, unless the East Indiaman could change course immediately.
Elizabeth turned to Nathaniel. “But surely the Osiris will run?”
A warning shot echoed over the sea, and with it Elizabeth’s stomach rose to her throat.
“Too late,” breathed Nathaniel. “They’re in for it now.”
One of the crew was calling down from the rigging again.
“Capting! The ’Siris is
signaling! Hold a minute!”
Elizabeth crossed her arms across her chest and bowed her head, waiting.
“What is it, Tommy?” shouted Stoker.
“It’s one of them bible signals, sir! Hold a minute!”
“A bible signal!” Granny Stoker’s disgust was plain. “Bloody hell. Plain English ain’t good enough for them.”
“Here it is, Capting! Revelation, chapter three, verse eleven, it says.”
Hawkeye and Nathaniel turned to Elizabeth together.
“I don’t have the whole bible memorized, you know,” she said with considerable irritation.
“Dinna fash yersel’, lass,” said Robbie. He raised his voice so that Stoker could hear him. “‘Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.’ ”
There was a whoop of dry laughter from Anne Stoker. “Now, that’s rich. The Osiris warning us away from the Frenchman when every one of her own men is saying his prayers this very minute. Poor sods.”
Elizabeth blanched and Hawkeye put his hand on her shoulder. “The frigate ain’t about to sink the Osiris.”
“Sink a merchantman?” Granny Stoker’s kerchiefed head bobbed as she laughed. “She may be French and waspish, but she ain’t mad. Sink a prize like that! D’you hear those warning shots? If she wanted to sink the ’Siris she’d yaw and let heave wit’ her broadside.”
“The Osiris is well armed,” Elizabeth said hoarsely.
The old lady fixed her with a stare. “Mark my words—they’ll rake each other bloody but in the end the Avignon will board her in the smoke.”
“Then may God have mercy,” whispered Elizabeth.
Granny Stoker’s head swung away suddenly, the beetle-black eyes darting from the sails to her grandson. “Mac!” The thin high voice rose and cracked like a whip. “She’s falling off too fast!”
Stoker jumped, the black hair lashing around his shoulders.
“’Vast bracing!” he bellowed, running down the deck, passing close enough to spray them with his sweat. “Goddamn it! Helm’s a-lee! Move sharp, now!”
There were a few minutes of tense silence as the Jackdaw’s speed picked up again, and then Granny Stoker turned back to Elizabeth.
“Still a Tory at heart, eh? Don’t suit you to see the Frenchies with the upper hand. Damn the toothbrush, dearie—do you care to put a hundred pound on your countrymen?”
“I need not be English to regret the loss of life,” snapped Elizabeth. The deck pitched, and her stomach rose again like a fist in her throat. She pulled suddenly away from Nathaniel and pushed past Hawkeye and Robbie to lurch toward the rail. Bracing herself with both hands, she leaned forward to get the full force of the spray in her face, wanting the sting of it and the cold. She heard Nathaniel behind her, but louder still was the memory of old Tim Card, and his talk of privateers.
“Most is just merchants, missus. Interested in the profit, is all. What ain’t profitable goes over the side.”
Before her eyes the Avignon was headed for a rare prize, but all Elizabeth could see was the Isis. What would a French privateer make of a cargo of three children? All they had between them and whatever might come was Curiosity. Elizabeth’s stomach turned and heaved.
“Steady on, Boots.” Nathaniel’s hands were cool, bracing her neck and forehead while she retched and retched, until she brought up only bile. When she could breathe again, she pressed her face against his chest, and said aloud those words that came to her unbidden:
What though the sea be calm? Trust to the shore;
Ships have been drown’d, where late they danced before.
• • •
Before them the Osiris was in mortal danger, and the same could be true of the Isis. Now, or tomorrow, or the day after.
The frigate took that moment to fire another shot, stealing whatever calm words Nathaniel might have been thinking to offer.
17
Hannah slept badly, rising up from ragged dreams again and again to listen for a scratching at the door that might mean word of an approaching ship, or Mr. MacKay come to save them from his Christian hell. She woke for good at dawn, cocooned in a shift damp with sweat and the scent of her own fear. She woke overwhelmed and undone with wanting her grandmother’s voice, her father’s smile, the pine tree with the crooked top that stood outside her window at Lake in the Clouds. Hannah woke and wished she hadn’t. She feared what the day would bring, and what it might not.
She rose quietly so as not to disturb the babies, dragged her spotted calico dress over her head and stumbled out into the other cabin.
Curiosity had fallen asleep at the workbench, her lap full of sewing and her breath rattling faintly with the last of the cold in her chest. Her head wrap had come undone and a thick braid fell to her shoulder, the colors of tarnished silver and rich loam. In his own cabin the Hakim was singing his prayers again. The ship rolled gently, a bird with clipped wings pinned to this patch of water between familiar worlds and strange ones.
With a small murmuring, Curiosity woke and rubbed at an eye with one knuckle. Then she looked at Hannah and closed her eyes again. “Squirrel,” she said, smiling. “Ain’t you a pretty sight to wake to. Do you think you could fetch me some of that spruce beer? Then we better see to those babies, I hear them stirring now.”
Hannah might have cried in her frustration and disappointment. Instead she said, “I thought there would be word of the Osiris.”
Curiosity held out a long hand, and curled her fingers upward. “Nothing yet.”
“I think we should go with Miss Somerville,” Hannah blurted out. “I think we should get away from this ship.”
Curiosity gave her a sharp look, and then pulled her closer to smooth a hand over her hair. “I know, child. I surely do. And maybe we will. But we got to wait and see. But you hold tight, now. You’ll need all your wits about you soon enough.”
But she could not hold tight; at every creak of the boards she jumped, and when Charlie came with tea and goat’s milk she could barely speak a civil word. His shy smile cut her because she could find none in herself to return to him. Things leaped out of her hands to roll across the floor and escape into dark corners; she slipped and knocked her hip on the writing desk, upsetting papers and quills. Curiosity saw how it was with her and let her be.
The Hakim came to share his breakfast of bread and fruit and cheese with them and he watched her just as quietly, until Lily began to fuss in Hannah’s arms.
“Permit me,” he said gently. “It is so seldom I have the chance to hold such a small child. May I feed her?”
Hannah flushed in embarrassment and clutched Lily tighter to her. The baby squeaked, the round blue eyes widening in surprise and distress. Then she thumped a small fist on Hannah’s cheekbone and the tears did come in a hot rush. She handed the baby to the Hakim and dashed them away furiously with the back of her hand.
Without looking up from Daniel, Curiosity said, “Don’ you want to try on these things? The sewin’s all done save the beadwork. Finished the moccasins, too.”
That brought Hannah up short. Curiosity must have sewn all night while she slept, unaware. Hannah hid her face in the bundle and went into the privacy of the little sleeping cabin, and in a few minutes she came back, more slowly and feeling very ashamed of herself.
“That’s better,” said Curiosity with a smile. “You look like our Squirrel again.”
It was all she could do to keep from wailing, and so Hannah nodded, fingering the fringe on her sleeve. The soft doeskin whispered as she bent over to touch her cheek to Curiosity’s.
“Go on up on deck,” said the older woman gently, patting her back. “Get some fresh air.”
“No,” Hannah said firmly. “No.”
Curiosity cocked her head in surprise. “You don’ like it up on deck in the fresh air?”
“Let me stay here,” Hannah said, near tears again.
The Hakim said, “Has something frightened you on deck?”
She
met his gaze. “No,” she said, and did not know why she lied. “Nothing. Sir, I am grateful for your kindness.” It was less than she wanted to say, and he seemed to see this.
“And if I should ask you to join me? I am going to tend to the ti-nain trees, and I would enjoy your company.”
Hannah hesitated, feeling Curiosity’s gaze on her, and the Hakim waiting.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I will go with you on deck.”
He smiled. “Very kind of you, Miss Hannah. I am reminded of something a good man once said to me. ‘ ’Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave.’”
“Now that’s the right advice for Squirrel,” said Curiosity with a grin. “Bound and determined to save us and the world all at once. Did that come from your holy book?”
The Hakim shook his head. “No. It was written by a surgeon I knew once. He was only an average poet, but a good doctor and a wise man.”
“From India, then,” said Hannah.
“From Scotland,” said the Hakim. “Does that surprise you? It should not. Our prophet teaches that we should seek knowledge wherever it might be.”
Curiosity snorted. “I suppose that’s why you took up with Pickering, eh?”
It was a personal question that Hannah would not have dared ask, but the Hakim seemed not to mind the question or the criticism of his captain.
He inclined his head. “I wish I could claim that my reasons were so simple and so noble, but it was something else.”
They waited while he murmured encouraging words to Lily, who took gruel from his spoon without ever removing her eyes from his face. When he raised his head, there was a smile there that turned him into a younger man, a little embarrassed perhaps at the confession he was about to make to them.
“Have you ever heard of a microscope, Miss Hannah?”
“My stepmother told me about it,” she said. “A thing made of metal and glass, she said, that helps the eye see more clearly.”
Curiosity sniffed. “Spectacles, you mean.”
“No.” Hannah shook her head. “Not worn on the face. An instrument, you look into it. Is that right?”
The Hakim wiped Lily’s cheek with the flat of his thumb. “Yes. The lens of the microscope is a wondrous thing. It is the key to learning what we do not yet understand about illness.”
