Drums of Autumn (85 page)

“I swear I will not take him from you. I need to see, though.”

“What will ye swear on?”

He groped his memory for a suitable Celtic oath, then gave up and said what was in his mind.

“On my own woman’s life,” he said, “and on the heads of my unborn sons.”

He could feel doubt, and then a small easing of the tension in her; the round knee pressed against his leg moved slightly as she relaxed. There was a stealthy rustling in the chains nearby. Real rats this time.

“I canna leave him here alone while I steal food.” He saw the faint tilt of her head toward the noise. “They’ll eat him alive; they’ve bitten me in my sleep already, the filthy vermin.”

He reached out his hands, conscious all the time of the sounds from the deck above. It wasn’t likely that anyone would come down here, but how long before he was missed above?

She still hesitated, but at last reached a finger toward her breast, and freed the child’s mouth with a tiny
pop!
It made a small sound of protest, and wriggled slightly as he took it.

He hadn’t held babies very often; the feel of the dirty little bundle was startling—inert but lively, soft yet firm.

“Mind his head!”

“I’ve got it.” Cradling the warm round skull in one careful palm, he duck-walked backward a step or two, bringing the child’s face into dim light.

The cheeks were splotched with reddish pustules, topped with white—they looked for all the world like pox to Roger, and he felt a tremor of revulsion in the palms of his hands. Immunity or not, it took courage to touch contagion and not flinch.

He squinted at the child, then carefully undid its wrappings, ignoring the mother’s hissed protest. He slid a hand under its dress, feeling first the soggy clout that hung between its chubby legs, and then the smooth, silky skin of chest and stomach.

The child didn’t really seem so sick; his eyes were clear, not gummy. And while the tiny boy seemed feverish, it wasn’t the searing heat he had felt the night before. The baby whined and squirmed, true, but he kicked with a fretful strength in the tiny limbs, not the weak spasms of a dying child.

The very young go quickly,
Claire had said.
You have no notion how fast disease moves, when there’s nothing to fight it with
. He had some notion, after last night.

“All right,” he whispered at last. “I think you’re maybe right.” He felt, rather than saw, the easing of her arm—she had held her dagger ready.

He gingerly handed back the child, with a mingled sense of relief and reluctance. And the terrifying realization of the responsibility he had accepted.

Morag was cooing to the boy, cuddling him against her breast as she hastily rewrapped him.

“Sweet Jemmy, aye, that’s a good laddie. Hush, bittie, hush now, it’ll be all right, Mammy’s here for ye.”

“How long?” Roger whispered, laying a hand on her arm. “How long will the rash last, if it’s milk rash?”

“Maybe four days, maybe five,” she whispered back. “But it’s no but maybe twa more, and the rash will be different—less. Anyone can see then that it’s not the pox. I can come out, then.”

Two days. If it was pox, the child would be dead in two days. But if not—he might just manage. And so might she.

“Can you keep awake that long? The rats—”

“Aye, I can,” she said fiercely. “I can do what I must. Will ye help me, then?”

He drew a deep breath, ignoring the stench.

“Aye, I will.” He stood up, and gave her his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it, and stood too. She was small, she barely reached his shoulder, and her hand in his was the size of a child’s—in the shadows, she looked like a young girl cradling her doll.

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

He caught the gleam of her eyes, surprised, and then the flash of teeth.

“Yesterday I was two-and-twenty,” she said dryly. “Today, I’m maybe a hundred.”

The small damp hand pulled free of his, and she melted back into the darkness.

39

A GAMBLING MAN

T
he fog gathered through the night. By dawn the ship rode in a cloud so thick that the sea below could not be seen from the rail, and only the susurrus of the hull’s passage indicated that the
Gloriana
still floated on water, not air.

There was no sun, and little wind; the sails hung limp, shuddering now and then with a passing air. Oppressed by the dimness, men walked the decks like ghosts, appearing out of the murk with a suddenness that startled one another.

This obscurity served Roger well; he was able to pass almost unseen through the ship, and slip unobserved into the hold, the small store of food he had kept back from his own meals concealed in his shirt.

The fog had gotten into the hold as well; clammy white tendrils touched his face, drifting out between the looming water casks, and hovered near his feet. It was darker than ever here below, gone from dusty-gold dimness to the black-brown of cold, wet wood.

The child was asleep; Roger saw no more than the curve of its cheek, still spattered with red pustules. They looked angry and inflamed. Morag saw his look of doubt and said nothing, but took his hand in her own and pressed it to the baby’s neck.

The tiny pulse went bump-bump-bump under his finger, and the soft creased skin was warm but damp. Reassured, he smiled at Morag, and she gave him back a tiny glimmer.

A month in steerage had left her thin and grimy; the last two days had stamped her face with permanent lines of fear. Her hair straggled lank around her face, caked with grease and thick with lice. Her eyes were bruised with tiredness, and she smelled of feces and urine, sour milk and stale sweat. Her lips were tight and pale as the rest of her face. Roger took her very gently by the shoulders, bent, and kissed her mouth.

At the top of the ladder, he looked back. She was still standing there looking up at him, the child in her arms.

The deck was quiet save for the murmur of helmsman and bosun, invisible at the wheel. Roger eased the hatch cover back in place, his heart beginning to slow again, the touch of her still warming his hands. Two days. Maybe three. Perhaps they would make it; Roger at least was convinced she was right, the child did not have pox.

There should be no occasion for anyone to go into the hold soon—a fresh water-cask had been brought up only the day before. He could contrive to feed her—if only she could stay awake long enough…the sharp
ting
of the ship’s bell pierced the fog, a reminder of time that no longer seemed to exist, its passage unmarked by any change of light or dark.

It was as Roger crossed toward the stern that he heard it; a sudden loud
whoosh
in the mist off the rail, very near at hand. The next instant, the ship trembled slightly underfoot, her boards brushed by something huge.

“Whale!” came a cry from aloft. He could see two men near the main-mast, dimly outlined in the fog. At the cry, they froze, and he realized that he, too, was standing rigid, listening.

There was another
whoosh
nearby, another farther off. The crew of the
Gloriana
stood silent, each man charting in his head the great exhalations, marking an invisible map on which the ship drifted through moving shoals, mountains of silent, intelligent flesh.

How big were they? Roger wondered. Big enough to damage the ship? He strained his eyes, vainly trying to see anything at all through the fog.

It came again, a thump hard enough to jar the rail under his hands, followed by a long, grating rasp that shuddered through the boards. There were muffled cries of fear from below; to those in the steerage, it would be right next to them, no more than the planks of the hull between them and rupture—a sudden smash and the frightful inrush of the sea. Three-inch oak planks seemed no more substantial than tissue paper against the great beasts that floated nearby, breathing unseen in the fog.

“Barnacles,” said a soft Irish voice from the mist behind him. Despite himself, Roger jumped, and a low chuckle materialized into Bonnet’s shadowed bulk. The Captain held a cheroot between his teeth, a spill from the galley fire illumining the lines and planes of his face, dissolute in red light. The rasping shudder came again through the boards.

“They scratch themselves to rid their skins of parasites,” Bonnet said casually. “We are no more to them than a floating stone.” He drew heavily to start the flame, blew fragrant smoke, and tossed the burning paper overboard. It vanished in the mist like a falling star.

Roger let out a breath only slightly less noisy than the whales’. How close had Bonnet been? Had the Captain seen him coming out of the hold?

“They will not damage the ship, then?” he said, matching the Captain’s casual tone.

Bonnet smoked for a moment in silence, concentrating on the draw of his cigar. Without the illumination of the open flame, he was once more a shadow, marked only by the glowing coal of the tip.

“Who knows?” he said at last, small spurts of smoke puffing out between his teeth as he spoke. “Any one of the beasts might sink us, should he have a mind in him for mischief. I saw a ship once—or what was left of it—battered to pieces by an angry whale. Three feet of board, and a bit of spar left floating—sunk with all hands, two hundred souls.”

“You don’t seem troubled by the possibility.”

There was a long sound of exhalation, a faint echo of the whales’ sighing, as Bonnet blew smoke between pursed lips.

“ ’Twould be a waste of strength to worry myself. A wise man leaves those things beyond his power to the gods—and prays that Danu will be with him.” The edge of the Captain’s hat turned toward him. “Ye’ll know of Danu, will ye, MacKenzie?”

“Danu?” Roger said stupidly, and then the penny dropped, an old chant coming back to him from the mists of childhood—something Mrs. Graham had taught him to say. “Come to me, Danu, change my luck. Make me bold. Give me wealth—and love to hold.”

There was an amused grunt behind the coal.

“Ah, and you not even an Irishman. But sure I knew you from the first for a man of learning, MacKenzie.”

“I know Danu the Luck-Giver,” Roger said, hoping against hope that that particular Celtic goddess was both a good sailor and on his side. He took a step backward, meaning to go, but a hand descended on his wrist, holding tight.

“A man of learning,” Bonnet repeated softly, all levity gone from his voice, “but no wisdom. And are you a praying man at all, MacKenzie?”

He tensed, but felt the force of Bonnet’s grip and did not pull away. Strength gathered in his limbs, his body knowing before he did that the fight had come.

“I said a wise man does not trouble himself with things beyond his power—but on this ship, MacKenzie, everything is in my power.” The grip on his wrist tightened. “And everyone.”

Roger jerked his wrist sideways, breaking the grip. He stood alone, knowing there was neither help nor escape. There was no world beyond the ship, and within it, Bonnet was right—all were in the Captain’s power. If he died, it would not help Morag—but that choice was made already.

“Why?” said Bonnet, sounding only mildly interested. “The woman’s no looker, sure. And a man of such learning, too; would you risk my ship and my venture, then, only for the sake of a warm body?”

“No risk.” The words came out hoarse, forced through a tight throat.
Come at me,
he thought, and his hands curled at his sides.
Come at me, and give me a chance to take you with me
. “The child doesn’t have pox—a harmless rash.”

“You will forgive my putting my ignorant opinion above your own, Mr. MacKenzie, but I am Captain here.” The voice was still soft, but the venom was clear.

“It is a child, for God’s sake!”

“It is—and of no value.”

“No value to you, perhaps!”

There was a moment’s silence, broken only by a distant
whoosh
in the empty white.

“And what value to you?” the voice asked, implacable. “Why?”

For the sake of a warm body
. Yes, for that. For the touch of humanity, the memory of tenderness, for the feeling of life stubborn in the face of death.

“For pity,” he said. “She is poor; there was no one to help her.”

The rich perfume of tobacco reached him, narcotic, enchanting. He breathed it in, taking strength from it.

Bonnet moved, and he moved, too, settling himself in preparation. But there was no blow forthcoming; the shadow dug in a pocket, held out a ghostly hand in which he caught a magpie glitter from the diffuse lantern light—coins and bits of rubbish and what might have been a jewel’s quick gleam. Then the Captain plucked out a silver shilling, and thrust the rest back into his pocket.

“Ah, pity,” he said. “And did yez say you were a gambling man at all, MacKenzie?”

He held out the shilling, dropped it. Roger caught it, only by reflex.

“For the suckling’s life, then,” Bonnet said, and the tone of light amusement was back. “A gentleman’s wager, shall we call it? Heads it lives, and tails it dies.”

The coin was warm and solid in his palm, an alien thing in this world of drifting chill. His hands were slick with sweat, and yet his mind had gone cold and sharp, focused to an ice pick’s point.

Heads he lives, and tails he dies,
he thought quite calmly, and did not mean the child below. He marked throat and crotch on the other man; grip and lunge, a blow and heave—the rail was no more than a foot away, the empty realm of the whales beyond.

There was no room beyond his calculations for any sense of fear. He saw the coin spin up as though it were thrown by another hand, then fall to the deck. His muscles bunched themselves, slowly.

“It seems Danu is with ye the night, sir.” Bonnet’s soft Irish voice seemed to come to him from a great way off, as the Captain bent and picked up the coin.

Realization was only beginning to bloom in his chest, when the Captain gripped his shoulder, turning him down the deck.

“You’ll walk with me awhile, MacKenzie.”

Something had happened to his knees; he felt as though he would sink down with every step, and yet somehow stayed upright, keeping pace with the shadow. The ship was silent, the deck under his feet a mile away; but the sea beyond was a live thing, breathing. He felt the breath in his own lungs rise and fall with the shifting deck, and felt as though there were no boundaries to his body. It might have been wood under his feet, or water, for all he could feel.

It was some time before he made sense of Bonnet’s words, and realized, with a vague sense of amazement, that the man seemed to be recounting the story of his life, in a quiet, matter-of-fact sort of way.

Orphaned in Sligo at an early age, he had learned quickly to fend for himself, he said, working as a cabin boy aboard trading ships. But one winter, with ships scarce, he had found work ashore in Inverness, digging the foundation for a grand house that was building near the town.

“I was just seventeen,” he said. “The youngest of the crew of workmen. I could not say why it was they hated me. Mayhap it was my manner, for that was rough enough—or jealousy for my size and strength; they were an unchancy, whey-faced lot. Or maybe that the lasses smiled on me. Or maybe ’twas only that I was a stranger.

“Still, I knew well enough I was unpopular with them—little did I know quite
how
unpopular, though, until the day the cellar was finished and the foundation ready to be laid.”

Bonnet paused to draw on his cigar, lest it go out. He let out puffs of smoke from the corners of his mouth, white wisps that curled past his head into the greater white of the fog.

“The trenches were dug,” he went on, the cigar clenched between his teeth, “and the walls started; the great block of the cornerstone standin’ ready. I had gone to my supper, and was just walkin’ back to the place where I slept, when to my surprise I was caught up by a pair of the lads with whom I worked.

“They’d a bottle; they sat down on a wall and urged me to drink with them. I should’ve known better, for they were friendly, which they’d never been before. But I did drink, and drink again, and in no time at all I was reelin’ drunk, for I’d no head for liquor, havin’ never the money to buy strong drink. I was well fuddled by the time ’twas full dark, and scarcely thought to pull away when they took me by the arms and hastened me down the lane. Then they seized me, tossed me over a half-built wall, and to my surprise, I found myself lyin’ in the damp dirt of the cellar I’d helped dig.

“All of them were there, the workmen. Another man was with them, too; one o’ them had a lantern, and when he held it up, I could see the man was Daft Joey. Daft Joey was a beggarman that lived beneath the bridge—he had nay teeth, and he ate rotten fish and floating dung from the river, and he stank worse than a blackbirder’s hold.

“I was so dazed with the whisky and the fall that I lay where I was, only half hearin’ them as they talked—or argued, rather, for the chief o’ the gang was angry that the two had brought me. The daftie would do, he said; a mercy to him, at that. But them that brought me said no, better me. Someone might miss the beggarman, they said. Then someone laughed and said aye, and they would not have to pay me my last week’s wages, and ’twas then I began to know they meant to kill me.

“They’d talked before, while we worked. A sacrifice, they said, for the foundation, lest the earth tremble and the walls collapse. But I had not listened—and if I had, would not have guessed that they meant any more than to chop the head off a cockerel and bury it, as was usual.”

He had not looked at Roger through this recital, his eyes instead fixed on the mist, as though the events he described were happening again, somewhere just beyond the white curtain of fog.

Roger’s clothing hung on him, clinging, wringing wet with mist and cold sweat. His stomach clenched, and the cesspool smell of the steerage might have been the stink of Daft Joey in the cellar.

“So they palavered for a bit,” Bonnet went on, “and the beggarman began to make noise, for he wanted more drink. And at last the chief said it was not worth so much talk, he would throw for the choice. Then he took a coin from his pocket and he said to me, laughin’, ‘Will ye take heads or tails, then, man?’