The Hunger (15 page)

Or perhaps, as Stephan suggested so long ago, the only refuge was Mirso Monastery.

Her path was winding down. Nothing would stop the darkness, whatever caused it. The only lights in the night were the glowing spires of Mirso. She would take the Vow and spend her days in chanting, renouncing the pain of the world forever in return for peace.

But what if peace was another word for numb? Was dull paralysis the only choice? She closed her eyes and prayed, to whom she did not know. She did not pray for redemption, only for escape from the memories that seemed to be driving her to Mirso Monastery.

She must get through tomorrow. She would buy a house for Symington’s sister. After tomorrow, she would think what to do.

The Hole was a dank blackness no more than six feet square with six inches of tarry and foul salt water floating in it. He had been there without food or water he could drink for days—he wasn’t sure how many. The builders had sealed the room with sheet metal to keep out the rats, just to prevent the occupant getting his own supply of fresh meat. John was naked, freezing, and bloody with twenty strokes of the lash. It could have been worse. Rose was so anxious to get on with general punishment and so sure the Hole would kill John, he didn’t take time for the number he might have ordered. John wondered how sailors
stood the ever-present threat of flogging. He had heard that fifty and a hundred were not unusual in a flogging captain’s ship.

Time dragged. He was in pain. He wasn’t hungry anymore, but thirst ate at him. His shoulder ached. It had been only three weeks since he was wounded in Calais. Did he have enough strength to outlast Rose? Maybe Rose had forgotten him. Maybe he would rot in here forever. And what of Faraday? He had heard no guard called by that name. No guard had given him any sign. Perhaps Faraday could not have stopped the lashing, but he might have seen that John got some water. John wouldn’t let himself think that there was no Faraday, or that, if there was, he had decided not to help John. That would mean it was him alone against Rose and the hulk. Could he just stand up and say, “I’m really British and I work for the government” if things got too bad? His English was flawless. But so was his French. Would anyone believe him? Would anyone exert themselves to send for Barlow? He couldn’t imagine Rose doing either.

It didn’t matter. If he stood up and shouted he was British, the mission was a failure. Barlow’s best chance to find who was at the center of the French network would be gone. John couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t. He would hang on.

Such thoughts circled in his brain until he fell into half-sleep. Then dreams came to him whether he would or no. Dreams had never been his friends. He had dreamed of Cecily or Angela, his fights with his father, returning from the Continent to see Langley Court in disrepair. He sometimes dreamed of being discovered as an agent, giving up all his country’s secrets at the mere threat of torture. But this time his dreams were different.

No, this time it was Beatrix Lisse who haunted him, or saved him. He felt a strange connection to her in the long dark hours in the Hole. He dreamed of the tryst they
never kept, riding with her at night, neck and neck, their steeds powerful between their thighs, the scenery flashing past. And she was laughing in that full throaty contralto she had. She was so vital! Sometimes he dreamed of holding her in his arms inside a huge, darkened cathedral. And she would look up at him. Tears would glisten on her dark lashes. Her eyes would go hot with desire. The air would be filled with that elusive cinnamon scent she wore. He would lead her to a pew. Her ripe body yielded to him, and he was strong and alive.

Always, when he came to himself in the pitch-black, sodden wet, he realized how foolish he was. He knew these dreams were born of fever. Yet the drive to life ever-present in those dreams leaked over into his dark hell, and gave him strength.

“I told you not to give in to generosity,” Reynard admonished without rancor. He helped John lie upon a thin straw pallet. He propped John on one elbow. The gun deck might be dim in the late afternoon light, but John blinked against it, unused to any light at all. “Didn’t I, Dupré?”

“You did.” Dupré wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Pelting Rose with all that tar . . .”

John closed his eyes. He was stiff from the lashing, though they said it had been more than a week. His lips were cracked, his mouth like wool. “You started it, Reynard . . .” he croaked.

“You should never have tried to cover my actions,” Reynard muttered as he helped John gulp water from a tin cup. “Slow now, brother. You’re weak as a kitten. We thought you were dead.” He touched John’s shoulder where the Calais bullet had left a pink circle of new skin, and surveyed the other scars. There were many of them, twelve years of service writ upon his body.

Dupré loomed over him. “For a merchant, you have seen a fair amount of action.”

John was too dull to match wits with him. “I told you how it is with me,” he murmured.

“And singing ‘The Marseillaise’; that was certainly stupid of you.” Dupré shook his head.

A reedy voice came from behind Dupré. “I been a-saving of some salve, if the gentleman could use it.” A sallow young man ducked his head and pulled his forelock in the naval salute.

“Thank you,” John whispered.

Reynard nodded at the sailor and took the salve.” ‘The Marseillaise’
was
stupid,” he agreed. “But its spirit might have kept some of us alive through what happened next.”

“What did Rose do?” John asked, his throat raw, as he watched the sailor retreat.

Reynard and Dupré’ together turned him upon his belly. “Kept us all on deck, standing like sardines.” Rough hands scraped the salve across his back. John bit his lip to keep from crying out. “He put a pump and a fire hose in the launch, rowed round the hulk and shot freezing water full on us for the rest of the day and most of the night.” Reynard’s voice dropped ominously. “Some got sick, like Dupré here. We lost six men in the days since.”

“I’ll be all right,” Dupré said irritably. But he couldn’t help but cough again, and the cough was wet. “A passing influenza, nothing more.”

John saw the look in Reynard’s eyes and knew he feared worse.

“You’re not so spry yourself,” Reynard told John. “The dirty water in that damn hole has got into your welts. You’re burning up.”

“Excuse please,” a soft voice said, deprecating.

John craned around. The cuts on his back shrieked. A diffident middle-aged man who looked like he would be more at home in a bakery than as a prisoner of war held out a wooden bowl to Reynard. “We pooled some meat
we got from the Portsmouth thieves today. And we traded with a sailor for some grog. Thought as how it might set you up prettier.”

John managed a crooked smile. “I expect I could use prettying. I have nothing to give you for it. They took all my money.”

“Oh, no, sir.” the man said, horrified. “You mustn’t think we wanted payment.”

“Thank you,” John said, touched that they would share their little. “Thank the others.”

Reynard took the bowl. The man bobbed and backed away. Reynard turned to John.

“Rose relented?” John croaked.

Reynard gently touched his lips with the gooey salve. “If you mean did he let the traders back on the ship, yes. He ain’t going to cut off his nose to spite his face,” Reynard said. “And Garneray has got his supplies and set up a new trade.”

“Does Rose collect from us, or from the traders?” John asked. Suddenly that was crucial.

“He likes to make us pay him direct.”

“Excellent,” John sighed.

Reynard cupped a hand around John’s neck and lifted his head while he held first more water and then a cup of grog that was composed of almost undiluted rum to his cracked lips. “Down the hatch. Gulp it now.” Then he sat back and pulled a thin blanket up over John’s naked body. “Just lie easy here, and rest. We’ll save your meat for later.”

John felt a lassitude come over him, like he was swimming in warm water. The grog was powerful on a stomach so empty. “Out of curiosity, is there a guard named Faraday on the ship?”

“Not that I know of,” Reynard said, puzzled.

“I thought not,” John murmured as the grog overtook
him. He closed his eyes. An image of Beatrix floated before him, smiling, full of life. There would be no help. John had to believe escape was possible. He would get what Dupré knew and make it out of this hell. And to do that, he would hang on to that image of Beatrix . . .

Nine

When John woke he heard a wet cough in the darkness. “Dupré?” he whispered.

“How did you know?” the man said wryly as his coughing fit subsided.

John dragged himself up on his elbows, feeling the scrape of the blanket against his wounded flesh. “God, I need to take a piss.”

“That’s good news. It means your innards are working. The bucket’s in the corner.” Dupré pointed away to John’s right in the dark. “Can you make it?”

“I’d better, or I’ll wet myself right here.” He crawled over and between bodies, relieved himself on his knees with a sigh he could not suppress, and made his way laboriously back to his place. Dupré pressed upon him the bowl of meat he had saved. John knew he must eat. He scooped the faintly rancid-smelling stuff into his mouth, hardly chewing.

“Slowly, my friend, or you will bring it up again.”

John deliberately put the bowl down and took a breath. Now, when Dupré thought John had a cause for it, was the time to show some vulnerability and earn Dupré’s
confidence in return. Let him not betray himself when his brain was so fuddled. “Dupré,” he whispered. “I have to get off this damned hulk before they kill me. I have information that can help our cause.”

“What information?” Dupré hissed.

John smiled in the dark. “Ahh, now that does not seem wise, much as I sense we have in common. Suffice it to say I think it might put the nail in the coffin of these British brutes. It has to do with some ships I’ve contracted to move troops, and where. I’m only afraid of giving the information to some bureaucrat and never having it reach the person who could act upon it.”

“Then you have no choice but to tell me. You see, I know who should get the message.”

It would not do to seem too eager. “And of course it would not be wise of you to tell me.” He could feel Dupré smile. “We are at a stand, unless we escape together, each with our piece of knowledge.” John waited for his adversary to assess the situation.

“We will present the puzzle pieces for our emperor’s triumph.” The cough came again. A hand found his in the darkness. It was even hotter than his own. They shook on the agreement.

“Let us devise the details, then,” John whispered.
And I had better work quickly
, he thought.
Lest one or both of us meet our maker before we can put the smell of tar behind us
.

The enforced gaiety of her nights had been banished. Beatrix had canceled all her evenings. The Prince Regent sent daily notes importuning her to attend some event or other. A lengthy missive in his own hand was waiting for her when she rose this evening, saying he had been cupped of twenty ounces and the doctors feared for his rapid pulse, all for the love of her. She knew Mrs. Fitzherbert, that soft dumpling of a woman, had succumbed to
just such tactics. She had heard that bets at White’s were two to one against Beatrix holding out. Those bettors would be poorer for their insolence. What did she care for the likes of Prinny?

What did she care for anything? She tossed the prince’s letter into the fire. The memories had been unremitting. It was if they were trying to tell her secrets she couldn’t hear, even though they had taken to shouting. She did not look into her mirror anymore. Her eyes were haggard. She needed to feed. The Companion itched at her, whispering “The blood is the life,” but she did not allow the young men who left her posies to come up, and she couldn’t think about disappearing into Whitechapel to look for her blood. It all seemed too much.

Was he back in London? She had no way of knowing.

Symington had not come back. He sent a note saying his sister was too ill to travel at the moment, but he had hopes of starting in another week. She was alone. She was so tired of it all. Perhaps she was tired enough to sleep. Was it day? She didn’t know. The heavy drapes might be holding back the sun or just the night life of London. She lay down on the rumpled bed. She had not let in any of the servants to change the bedding in days. Her eyes closed.

It didn’t matter if Langley was back in London. It would be the same as with Stephan . . .

CASTLE SINCAI, TRANSYLVANIAN ALPS
, 1105

Beatrix dismounted lightly from her horse in the stable yard of the castle. Two grooms hurried forward, flickering lamps held high, to walk and groom her mare
.

“Apollonia,” she crooned, patting the sweaty neck. “You shall have extra oats tonight for being such a courageous girl.” It was not every horse who would brave the forest at night, but she and the mare had a special bond
.
The animal trusted Beatrix to keep her safe. Beatrix chortled at the thought that a wolf might dare attack them. Its temerity would be short-lived. Beatrix was more fierce a creature than any wolf. She had felt wolves tonight, in the darkness of the trees where no moon could penetrate. But the wolves felt her, too, and slunk away. She was mistress of the night, and both Apollonia and the wolves knew it
.

She wound her way from the back door up through the kitchens to Stephan’s quarters. She glowed inside. It was not just the exhilaration of her nightly ride, taken at ten like clockwork and lasting for an hour or even two. It was not her Companion, who surged within her from a recent feed. Beatrix was drunk on love. The last six months had been heaven. They had hunted together, the three of them. She had learned to savor the thrill of it, yet to deny herself the last drop. Always, as she fed, she thought of Stephan and let her loins boil, no matter who actually bared his neck to her. Stephen said they were just food, but for her, the feeding was tied with her dawning sexuality. Asharti said she felt it, too
.