Unbound (60 page)

Tamas stared at Seske for several moments, disbelieving. He didn't want a stipend, or Seske's thanks. He didn't give a damn about any bloody medal. He wanted a commission—a commission he earned killing two Gurlish Privileged and taking the fort almost single-handedly. From the self-satisfied expression on Seske's face, the general thought Tamas should be
thanking
him for not giving him a promotion. Tamas could practically hear what Seske was thinking:
this is for your own good, you common upstart
.

"I said you were dismissed, Sergeant."

"Thank you, sir," Tamas managed to grunt, throwing up a half-hearted salute. Seske didn't seem to notice.

He stumbled down the stairs, barely able to hold himself up, and stopped to rest in the main floor guardhouse of the tower. He leaned his head against the cool stone. Was this all that awaited him in his career? Did his superiors have any respect for the risk of an infantryman? Or was bravery just a word meant to spur him into the face of the grapeshot for the glory of others?

"Sergeant."

Tamas looked up to find Captain Pereg had joined him in the guard room. He felt a spike of anger go through him even as he struggled to raise his arm in a salute.

"No, don't," Pereg said, his forehead creased. "I came here to apologize. Seske told me he wasn't going to give a promotion for this, and I can see from your face you've just had that discussion." He grimaced. "I know it's a disappointment and, though it's not much of a consolation, I've written a letter of commendation to go in your file in Adopest. I'll be sure a copy gets to someone other than General Seske."

"Thank you, sir," Tamas said.

"No, thank you. I wanted you to know that I'll be turning down my promotion under the objection that you didn't get one."

"That's unnecessary, sir," Tamas said.

"It's the least I could do. At least one officer in the Adran army should show appreciation for what you've done."

Tamas thanked Pereg once more and walked back into the heat of the desert sun. He paused, catching his breath, and looked down at his ragged hands. A cane may be a good idea, at least until Seske granted him access to a Privileged healer. He scowled, then looked up, aware of a sudden silence.

Every soldier working on the repairs to the fort had stopped. They stood, looking toward him, squinting in the sunlight. One of them raised their hand in a salute. Slowly, the others joined him, until over a hundred infantrymen were saluting him in silence.

Tamas wiped a tear out of his eye and stood up straight and returned the salute. He'd done this for a promotion, yes, he reminded himself. But he'd also done it for something more important—to save lives that would otherwise have been thrown away. And these infantry, these good men and women saluting him, knew.

And they'd remember.

Kristen Britain

The beacon on Schooner Head swept beams of light through the crisp autumn night as I strolled along the Shore Road with my husband, Mr. Grindle. Flecks of gold glinted across the black bay, and the bell buoy by Heddybemps Rock clanged in the roll of ocean swells. It is said that during a squall, the spirits of mariners lost on Heddybemps can be heard keening in the wind.

Over the years, that jagged rock has exacted a price from those who depend on the ocean for their livelihood. Hardworking fishermen and brave shipmasters can win a fortune by plying the waves, but there is always the sacrifice.

I shivered and clasped my cloak tightly about my shoulders. Such thoughts of men lost are mournful, and tonight's gathering was a happy one, a gathering for a survivor of Heddybemps Rock. Indeed, we were finally to meet this mysterious gentleman for the first time though he had crashed upon our shores a month ago. A foreigner he was, Dr. Hutchinson had said.

"Who tends the lighthouse, I wonder," my husband mused, "if Isaiah Fernald is at Dr. Hutchinson's?" Mr. Grindle's investments in many ships caused him earnest concern for the operations of all lighthouses.

"Tilda, I expect, or one of the girls."

Mr. Grindle frowned. "It's not right," he said, "leaving such an important task to the girls."

I pressed my lips together, and we strode on in silence, leaves scratching across the road in a breeze. Mr. Grindle believes the woman's sphere centers solely around the home, hearth, and family, and more than once he has railed against those women in Boston and New York who seek the elective franchise.

Others joined us along the rutted road, either in pairs or singly. Light spilled out of the doctor's house in bronze puddles. I took one more breath of the chill salt air before stepping into the confines of the Hutchinson home and handing my cloak over to their hired woman.

The house was bright and had a festive feel to it. Many of the good citizens of Schooner Harbor occupied the formal parlor where a blaze crackled in the fireplace. A giddiness pervaded the conversation, my friends and neighbors filled with expectancy.

"Mrs. Grindle, I am glad you're here!"

Lydia Pendleton had recovered recently from an accident in a Lowell textile mill. A surge in the flow of water that powered the turbines sped the carding machine she tended out of control and ruined her hand forever. She swathed it in linen and a mitten so none could see it.

Though her parents were simple fisher folk, she had earned enough in the mills to purchase fine city clothes, and she'd become worldly and educated there, though, since the war, the mills now attracted immigrants rather than Yankee country girls to operate the machines.

"You look well, Lydia."

"I'm excited." Her large brown eyes were bright and comely. She'd earned a dowry, but none would have her for her crippled hand. "We're finally going to meet Isaiah Fernald's strange sailor."

Isaiah Fernald stood by the fireplace in his Sunday best: a coarse wool coat and trousers. His long gray side-whiskers swayed as he regaled the men with a story he'd told hundreds of times before, his shadow large against the wall.

"That night I couldn't see my hand before my face in that fog . . ."

"When do you suppose we'll meet Mr. Island?" Lydia asked me, too eager to listen to Isaiah's story again.

"Soon, dear."

"I hear he'll travel the lyceum circuit and speak of his journeys."

I had heard this too and feared that Mr. Island's sensational story would distract the populace from those who spoke on behalf of women's rights and the freedmen.

"I seen his ship all aglow, close on Heddybemps . . ." Isaiah paused his narrative to light his pipe. Smoke drifted in a cloud over the assembled.

Lydia touched my sleeve. "Why, look, there's Tilda and the girls. Who's tending the light?"

The girls, ten and eight, peeked into the parlor, then darted away, giggling. Mrs. Fernald hovered near the doorway, smoothing her faded skirts. She watched the festivities with a shy smile but declined to join in.

Mr. Grindle noticed as well and fairly echoed Lydia. "Isaiah, who watches the light?"

Isaiah sucked on his pipe, eyes twinkling above his ruddy cheeks. "Why, the light watches itself," he said mysteriously. "Thanks be to Mr. Island."

Murmuring broke out in the parlor among the men, but before discussion could grow too loud, Dr. Hutchinson burst upon the gathering, his expression jovial. "Gentlemen, gentlemen. And ladies. Do not question our poor keeper. Isaiah is true to his word. The light keeps itself thanks to a clever mechanism devised by Mr. Island. But come, ladies and gentlemen, please be seated."

Skirts swished as ladies found plush parlor chairs to sit on. Isaiah took up his confident pose by the fireplace again and cleared his throat.

"When I seen the vessel near the Rock, I told Tilda, you mind the light now. And I sent the girls to fetch the doctor. I pushed the dory down the ways. The sea was like to grab and pull it under. It filled with rain and ocean, but I rowed. I thought, this is the night I pass the Gates of Heaven, this is the night of Judgment. But I guess
He
wouldn't have me." Isaiah laughed.

"Then I seen the light shine off the hull of the vessel. I rowed alongside it and tapped it with my oar. It rang hollow. Wasn't wood, nor steel, but I'd no time to think it peculiar. I just thought of the poor bastards trapped inside."

Gasps passed through the room at his coarse language, and Miss Agatha Richardson, a spinster of seventy years, fanned herself with a handkerchief.

"Isaiah," the doctor said. "Remember, you are in fair company tonight."

The mantel clock ticked loudly while Isaiah regarded the doctor with annoyance. He puffed on his pipe and turned back to his audience. "Just when I was wondering how to help, a hatch opened and Mr. Island stuck his head out. As luck would have it, he was the only soul aboard. I hauled him into the dory, and just in time, for the ship sank straight away. I took him to my house. The doctor awaited us there. When we got Mr. Island inside, we knew he was from away."

"Thank you, Isaiah," the doctor said before the lighthouse keeper could go on. "I shall resume the story now."

Isaiah allowed the doctor a baleful glance before surrendering his coveted position at the polished oak mantel. The doctor assumed his place and hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.

"Mr. Island is an interesting specimen as you will see. He grasps little English, but is learning as fast as I can instruct him. He is a mariner from far away, an island of some sort, we gather, which we have never heard of before. We endowed him with his unusual name." Here the doctor smiled. "Upon sighting Sheep Island from the light tower and learning the word 'island,' he grew excitable and could not stop saying the word. Thus, his surname. 'Joseph' is after my own grandfather, for he, too, was a mariner.

"Mr. Island and I will travel the lyceum circuit starting next month. I am sure the country will want to meet him. May I present, without further ado, Joseph Island."

A hunched figure shuffled into the parlor. He wore a black suit, a gold watch and fob glistening in the firelight. At first his features were shadowed but became visible in the lamplight. Several ladies cried out and hid their eyes, and even the gentlemen were taken aback. All averted their gaze, all except Lydia, who paid rapt attention to his every movement.

Joseph Island looked manlike enough, but his skin was flaccid and wrinkled like a dead porpoise that has washed ashore. His blunt nose fell beneath wide eyes, black liquid pools that reflected the lamplight. There were small openings along his jawline that may have been ears, but they resembled nothing with which I was acquainted. His hands, when I examined them more closely, had only three stubby fingers each.

Though most had shrunk back upon viewing his deformities, we remained politely restrained. The doctor sensed our duress and did the only sensible thing he could do: he served tea. Some might have desired stronger spirits, but the doctor was, after all, a temperance man.

Mr. Island gazed at the floor, blinking slowly, as though deliberately. His stubby fingers played with the watch fob. Once I saw him take the watch out and listen to its steady ticking rhythm as a babe might listen to his mother's heart. It seemed to comfort him. I detected a reticence on his part, or perhaps more accurately, a sadness. That is until the hired woman, Margarite, carried the tea service in on a silver tray.

"Tea!" Mr. Island grinned. "Two sugarz, pleeze."

My neighbors and I looked on in amazement at his outburst. Margarite smiled tolerantly as she dropped two teaspoons of sugar into a teacup, evidently familiar with this peculiar guest.

Isaiah guffawed and patted him on the shoulder. "Never saw such a bugger for tea."

After that, the tension in the parlor eased and gay chatter filled the room. Mr. Island watched and listened from his chair.

Through it all, Lydia scrutinized him. When he gazed in her direction, balancing the saucer on the tips of his three fingers, he smiled again. I saw a dimple form on the edge of Lydia's mouth. But then Mr. Island's grip on his teacup slipped and hot tea soaked his front. He gazed mournfully at his knees. The parlor stilled as he moaned. It was the loneliest sound I have ever heard, and my heart ached for him.

Lydia wasted no time in coming to his aid. She took a handkerchief from one of the gentlemen and blotted his coat. She held her mittened hand before him. "See," she said, "I have trouble holding my teacup, too. I have to do it all with one hand. I can understand your difficulty."

Lydia kept speaking in reassuring tones as she blotted. Mr. Island looked from her hand to his, and back again. "Difficultee," he said. "Yez. Difficultee, teacup."

"Yes," Lydia replied. "Difficulty. Teacup." Then a wondrous thing happened and the two laughed together as if bonded by an understanding that made the rest of us outsiders.

The occasion came for Mr. Island to tell us his story. He shuffled to the mantel and the room hushed.

"From across ocean I come. Great ocean." The gilt-framed mirror over the mantel reflected the back of his head. Thin sandy hair wisped around his crown. "My land. Iz called Evanonway."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Miss Richardson mouth the name of his land as if to etch it into her mind.