Sparhawk's Angel

"I
t's a hopeless case, Mr. Cole," the surgeon was saying sadly. "Quite, quite hopeless. Three nights and three days, sir, and look at him. Scarcely a mark on the man beyond this poppycock scratch to the cranium, yet already he's slipped beyond our reach."

Cautiously Nick dared to open one eye, and then the other. Dr. Barker's broad back in the worn blue coat was unmistakable as he turned away to fold his spectacles, and beyond the surgeon stood the
Liberty
's lieutenant, Gideon Cole, with his hands folded and his face as solemn as if he were already staring into an open grave. If Nick's head hadn't ached so badly, he would have laughed out loud, for solemnity from Gideon was as rare as piety from a brothelkeeper. Did Gideon really believe he'd cock up his toes so easily?

Nick shifted slightly in the bunk, intending to reassure his friend, then stopped and frowned. The bunk wasn't his. The mattress was newer and softer than the old wool-stuffed one he'd bought years ago when he'd first outfitted the
Liberty
, and there were two—no,
three—
plump pillows beneath his head, each in pressed linen cases that certainly had no place aboard any sloop of his.

Uneasily he forced himself to focus on the cabin around him. There was his own battered, familiar sea chest, and the spindle-back armchair with the black paint worn off the front rail from his boots. That was his spyglass on its high-front shelf, his logbook and his sextant in the leather case, his favorite gray coat hanging from the peg on the back of the cabin door, and there was certainly no mistaking either Gideon or Barker. But as for the rest of it—the sweeping windows across the stern, the massive wooden desk with the stars carved into the front, the polished brass lanterns swinging in their gimbals, this bunk—none of it belonged to the
Liberty
, and none of it was his.

He closed his eyes again, trying to remember how he'd come here. They'd been surprised in the night fog by an English frigate or privateer twice their size. There'd been no place to run, and they'd been forced to fight or surrender outright. And Nick, of course, had fought.

But then things grew muddled. They'd been losing, badly, and the sloop was sinking, and he and Jemmy Roberts's crew had tried to fire one last shot when the gun had misfired, and finally that infernal woman with the wings, the angel, had hauled him up into the clouds and promised him all manner of claptrap before dumping him back to earth to wake in some stranger's bunk.

He'd been dead, or mighty close to it. And now, somehow, he wasn't.

He could just make out his reflection in the glass of a small framed map of the Mediterranean bolted to the bulkhead beside the bunk. He looked like hell, true enough, but that wasn't particularly out of the ordinary. His thick black hair stuck out at crazy angles from the bandage, and the heavy brows that came together over the bridge of his nose seemed even more inclined to scowl than usual. Someone had washed the gunpowder and grime away from his face since the battle, but his green eyes were ringed with red and his jaw was unshaven and bristling with those three lost days' worth of dark whiskers. More the face of a pirate than one to set the maidens swooning, but then the only difference between him and, say, Blackbeard was the scrap of paper from the Continental Congress that promised he'd fight and plunder for the good of his country and not just his own pocket.

Gingerly he reached up to touch the bandage around his forehead. At least that much was real. He hadn't imagined that. But hadn't he thought the same thing when he'd been up there in the clouds?

"Captain Sparhawk!" Dr. Barker rushed to his side, his jowls quivering with alarm and surprise. "Please, sir, you must not disturb yourself when your situation is so delicate!"

"There's not a blasted thing about me that's delicate, Barker," growled Nick, his voice gravelly from disuse. "You know that as well as I."

Gideon came to stand beside the surgeon, his face returned to its customarily sly expression. His hair was as thick and red as a fox's brush, and the quizzical sharpness of his features, too, gave him a vulpine air. He'd grown up with Nick in Newport, even as a boy willing to play the small, quick fox to the larger, more menacing wolf that was Nick.

"What Barker means, Nick," he said cheerfully, "is that he'd just about given you up for dead. Ready to toss you over the side to the fish, he was."

"Certainly not!" declared Barker indignantly. "I was properly concerned by the gravity of your condition!"

Nick grunted, unconvinced. He'd given himself up for dead. Why shouldn't the surgeon feel that way, too? "Then you'll get me a drink, Barker, and be quick about it."

"Water, sir, that is all," ordered Barker as he went to pour from the pewter pitcher on the table. "No spirits, though perhaps I'll permit a thin broth later if there's no fever."

Glaring at the surgeon, Nick bit back a groan as he pushed himself higher on the pillows and took the tankard. Even that tiny effort made his head throb like the devil, but he refused to give Barker any more reason to fuss over him. What he needed now were answers.

"So where the hell are we, Gid?" he demanded. "Where's the
Liberty
?"

"In Charles Town by now, God willing." Without waiting for permission, Gideon pulled one of the chairs close beside the bunk and sat, leaning forward eagerly with his hands on his knees. Though he'd signed on as Nick's lieutenant, the two men had been friends too long to stand on ceremony. "And us—ahh, we're aboard as fine a little privateering brig as you'd ever fancy."

Nick scowled. "The truth now, Gid. I'm in no humor for fancies, mine or yours. Last I recall we were on our way down."

"Aye, and that's the beauty of it, Nick! We were going fast, like you say, and you and Jemmy's boys fired that last ball, and those hen-wit Britishers up and struck!"

"Struck?" Nick stared in disbelief. "You mean we
captured
her?"

Gideon grinned with delight. "Her captain was killed early on, and the feather brains left in the crew hadn't a clue what to do next, so they struck. Gave it up, just like that. 'Twas a rare sight to watch their faces when the sun come up, and they could see how sorry the poor
Liberty
was."

"Struck," repeated Nick again, stunned by this twist of fortune. "What was the cost to us?"

Gideon's grin vanished. "Twelve of our people killed outright," he said soberly, "four more dead since, another ten in their hammocks, may God keep them all."

"Amen," said Nick softly. Though every man who signed on to a privateer knew the odds, as captain he still hated grim accountings like these, and mourned the men he'd lost. Yet this time Gideon's tally seemed somehow worse. Why, he wondered, had these men died while he'd been spared? Why hadn't they, too, been sent back by that silly Vauxhall angel?

"If it's a comfort," said Gideon, "the Britishers fared worse. Lost their captain and their two lieutenants and the gunner's mate and a dozen others besides. I sent the rest as prisoners in the
Liberty
to Charles Town, and then shifted us over here. I figured you'd want it that way."

Nick nodded. How could he want it otherwise? Switching vessels like this in the middle of a cruise wasn't covered by either his commission or his Articles of Agreement and he'd have the devil of a time sorting it out through the prize court, but he'd be a fool to let a chance to improve his lot like this slip through his fingers.

Swiftly he glanced around the cabin with new appreciation. So it all really did belong to him now. Three years of wartime scarcity and blockades had put luxury on this scale beyond the reach of any American privateer, and his excitement grew when he remembered how heavily the brig was armed, long guns that now would fire at his command, beneath an American flag instead of English. Lord, what he'd be able to accomplish for the cause with a ship like this!

"She's only six months out of a shipyard in Portsmouth, Nick," continued Gideon, gloating. "Twenty guns, all of 'em new. Don't think she took even one prize under that fool of a captain. But I expect that'll change now that you're master of the fair
Angel Lily
."

"
Angel Lily
?" repeated Nick uneasily, his pleasure in his good fortune thumping to a halt. "That's her name?"

Gideon shrugged. "Queer sort of name for a privateer, I know, but that's what the brig was christened, and that's what she'll stay, unless you wish to risk ill luck and change it."

"I'd warrant
Angel Lily
is most appropriate," intoned Barker with pious conviction, spreading his fingers wide across his waistcoat. "Considering it's a veritable miracle that the captain's alive to enjoy his victory, the celestial name seems altogether proper."

Proper or not, Nick didn't like it. An angel named Lily, a dream more real than reality, a miracle bringing him back from the dead—no, it was far too much coincidence for comfort. Though he wasn't as superstitious as many sailors, Nick still didn't like things he couldn't explain, and this all made so little sense that he was ashamed to confide it even to Gideon.

Instead he threw back the coverlet and swung his legs over the side of the bunk. His head still throbbed as if a thunderstorm had settled into his skull, but what was that beside his sanity?

"Enough of your nattering," he said as he reached for his breeches and Barker blustered with disapproval. "If I'm captain of this angel of a ship, then it's high time I met her properly."

He spent the rest of the afternoon with Gideon at his side, inspecting every inch of the brig from the depths of her hold to the tallest tip of her foretop. He critically sighted one of the new guns with the gunner, and he grinned like a boy on Christmas morning when he saw the cache of other weaponry the English had stowed below. He congratulated the crew members who'd come over from the
Liberty
on their victory and tossed back a dram of rum with them between decks, and he welcomed the handful of Englishmen who'd decided to cast their lots with the Americans rather than sit out the war in a South Carolina prison. He drove himself mercilessly, intent on learning everything about his new command and determined to banish the ill-gotten memories of angels and miracles.

He nearly succeeded. Almost, but not quite. As the sun was dropping low to the horizon, Nick ordered one of the boats lowered so he could be rowed around the brig to see how she sat in the water. At Gideon's suggestion he'd brought along one of the English turncoats to answer any questions. The man's name was Hobb, and he took the first oar so he faced Nick sitting in the sternsheets. A fisherman from Guernsey Island, Hobb had hoped a turn at privateering would improve his station enough to marry, and because he was new at it, he'd none of the careful reticence of the more experienced hands around officers. He needed no prompting from Nick to begin a monologue of all that was right—and wrong—about the brig and her former master.

"Th' ol' cap'n didn't know what-for th' jewel he had," said Hobb sorrowfully as he pulled at the oar. "Master Everard, he be th' owner, he spared nothing on 'count of
her
."

"
'Her' being the brig?" asked Nick absently, suspecting that he'd drifted off while the man had droned on about the wickedness of the dead captain.

"Nay, sir,
her
bein' Miss Lily, o' course!" Hobb smiled, pleased that his new captain was listening after all. "Miss Lily Everard, Sir Edmund Everard's first daughter, th' one what he named this brig for, sir, an' th' one that died so tragical. She be there now, sir, if you only but look."

Hobb cocked his head toward the
Angel Lily
's bowsprit, and even before Nick turned to look, he knew what he'd see. Part of him had known ever since he'd learned the brig's name. With a sigh he pushed back the brim of his hat and forced himself to look at the
Angel Lily
's figurehead.

The carving was life-size, a beautiful young woman gazing out to sea with the hint of a smile on her painted lips. Her auburn hair was piled high on her head, one wooden curl artfully tossed across her shoulder, and her white gown swirled against her body as if blown by the same wind that filled the brig's sails. Behind her her wings were raised and spread against the bow, each white feather neatly carved, and over her head hung a halo bright with the same gold leaf that trimmed the hem of her gown. Apparently Miss Lily Everard had inspired the wood-carver to the limits of his craft, for Nick had never seen another figurehead more real, and as he stared at it he could almost hear the merry laughter rippling from her lips.

It wasn't until the boat had finished circling the brig and Nick had climbed back on board that he realized he was damp with sweat and that his heart was pounding with something perilously close to fear. Alone at last in his cabin, he sank into his chair with his head cradled in his trembling hands.

Of course there must be an explanation. There had to be. Even if he'd been unconscious, he still could have wakened enough to glimpse the figurehead when they'd brought him aboard. He could have overheard Gideon or Barker talking about the brig, maybe one of the Englishmen, maybe even Hobb himself, discussing Edmund Everard's tribute to his daughter Lily.

"Well, then, do you approve of my namesake, Captain Sparhawk?" asked the woman's voice behind him. "You've certainly been more thorough in your perusal than Captain Fotherill ever was. Whatever your conclusions are, you may be sure that
I
approve of
you."

This time Nick didn't turn toward the voice, nor did he answer. He closed his eyes, willing himself to be calm. It was his imagination, that was all. He was giddy now from exhaustion and the head wound, but in the morning, once he'd rested and—

"You don't believe in me, do you?" The edge of irritation in her words was clear. "You've only to look my way, you know, and trust your eyes to tell you the truth."

But Nick kept his eyes resolutely shut. "I don't believe in you because you're not real. You're no more than the rum I drank this forenoon, come back to addle my wits."