Bone Rattler (7 page)

The woman squeezed tightly, and he kept speaking, forgetting for a moment the doom that was closing around him, telling of the ancient stone house they had lived in, of sailing with his grandfather, even how once his grandfather had stripped naked and leapt on the back of a passing fin whale, leaving Duncan alone in the open skiff as the old man roared with laughter and sang a Gaelic traveling ballad to the great leviathan, which had stayed on the surface, an odd contentment in its huge black eye. Eventually, realizing he had not confided so much to a woman in years, Duncan quieted, their grip continuing in the silent dark. Her fingers were the only warm thing he had felt for days.

Suddenly there was a creak of wood and Flora snatched her hand away. Someone was approaching through the outer door, carrying a lantern. Duncan retreated, crouching in the corner of his cell. A moment later a key turned in the lock of his door; the entrance flew open and two men appeared, their faces obscured in shadow.

“The captain’s compliments,” one announced with a guffaw.

As the man leaned into the cell, Duncan recoiled in terror. The captain had struck his bargain, and had sent for his prize. He twisted and rolled, evading the man’s reach for a moment before the man landed a kick in his belly that left Duncan doubled up on the floor. Short, vicious blows reached Duncan, kicks to his legs and back, and the sailor laughed as Duncan kept up his vain, frantic resistance, trying to avoid his boot. They were going to render him unconscious, and he would not revive until he hit the water tied inside a shroud.

Suddenly the man was pulled away by his companion, who carried a length of heavy, knotted rope with which he began beating Duncan. But after the first blow Duncan felt nothing, only heard the sound of the strikes. He thought he had gone numb, then realized the man was striking the walls and floor on either side of
Duncan, while loudly cursing him. After a minute the man stopped, dropped something near Duncan’s head, muttered quick words, then stepped away. The first man reappeared with a bucket and emptied its frigid seawater onto Duncan, then with a cruel laugh slammed the door shut, snapping its heavy lock closed. Duncan stood, shaking off the water, forgetting his pain as he crawled to the hatch to look after them. Had the captain lost his negotiation?

He held up the object left by the second man. It was a dried, pressed flower. A thistle. Suddenly the rushed, whispered words echoed clearly in his mind.
Redeat, Clan McCallum.
Lister, he slowly realized, had used the visit of the captain’s bully as a cover. The stubborn old Scot was not going to let Duncan turn his back on his past. Lister had beaten the planks for demons and presented the traditional token. Despite the blood dripping from his reopened wound, a bitter grin tugged at Duncan’s mouth. The ceremony for installation of the last McCallum clan chief had just been completed.

 

 

Two piles of tiny bones, a buckle, an eye, a claw, a feather, a heart on salt. At first the objects from the compass room drifted in and out of Duncan’s consciousness, then he focused on them, until in his mind’s eye he had their placement by the compass fixed. Next, like the orderly bits of facts from his medical lectures, he assembled in his mind all he knew about Evering’s last few days. Adam must have confided in Evering, must have entrusted the professor with the strange amulet he wore around his neck. But why had he saved the stone for Duncan, why had he chosen Duncan for his legacy and not Evering? Why, he kept asking himself, would Adam say,
They know who you are,
as if there were something the leaders of the Company knew about him that Duncan himself was blind to? Why had Evering died so soon after Adam, and why so soon after that had the angel on the spar sought her own death? He lifted the stone bear for the hundredth time and pressed it to his forehead in frustration.

He slept, plagued by a recurring dream of a beautiful woman
suspended in the water beside him, her fingers ending in long black claws, pointing at him the way his father did from the gibbet of his nightmares. When he awoke, two large sea biscuits had appeared on his cell floor, apparently dropped through the hatch. For several minutes he tried to extract the worms from them in the dark, then gave up and ate them intact, as many of the sailors preferred. He spoke through the hatch again, calling to the madwoman, extending his arm to blindly search for her fingers in the shadows. Flora was there, for he heard her cry out several times, as though from nightmares, but she no longer sang her songs, no longer offered her soft, desperate touch.

Sleeping again, he was awakened by the sound of his door shutting, and by dim light once more reflecting through the little hatch. A stack of folded clothes had been left inside his cell door. In the corridor, the door to the outside was open, and Duncan could see that the table held a paper and two large candle lanterns.

He dressed slowly, watching the empty table. The clothes were plain and sturdy, though not cheaply made—the austere dress of a servant to a great house. As Duncan slid on the buckled shoes, his door groaned open, and he looked out to see Lieutenant Woolford retreating toward the table, where he took a seat as Reverend Arnold stepped from the shadows, closed the door to the cell corridor behind Duncan, and settled beside the officer. A stool across from the two men awaited Duncan.

“It was not a human heart,” Duncan ventured as he lowered himself onto the stool.

Woolford frowned. “The cook eventually revived and explained that it was from a pig he had butchered the night before,” the officer confirmed in a brittle tone, stroking his square jaw as he studied Duncan. The scarlet uniform coat the officer usually wore was oddly lacking in brocade or any other adornment of rank. Never had Duncan seen Woolford wear over his chest the small brass gorget that was so treasured by other army officers. Indeed, despite the aristocratic bearing that betrayed Woolford’s origins, there was a restless, feral quality about him that Duncan had never before seen in a man in uniform.

“The ship weathered the storm,” Duncan offered.

“That particular storm, McCallum,” Woolford snapped, “is one
you
still have to weather. Evering died, precious time was lost fighting the weather because you failed to assure the crew with the truth, then you cut the brace for the mast just as it was needed. Most of us thought ourselves dead.”

“Half the furnishings in the captain’s cabin,” a more patient voice observed, “were heaved overboard by those trying to placate the sea demons. We have obligated the Ramsey Company to bear the expense of replacement and the repairs,” Arnold explained with a sigh. “We have given our covenant you will cause no more harm.”

“I am as powerless in the prisoner hold as I am in here,” Duncan offered in a low tone, with a troubled glance toward the corridor of mildewed cells.

“You have proven otherwise,” Woolford shot back. “If you saw the fire in the captain’s eye when your name is mentioned, you would be grateful to be locked down here.” The officer coolly studied Duncan. “He has reminded us that under our own rules you are owed forty lashes for escaping.”

The complaint that leapt to Duncan’s lips died with the officer’s last words. The still-healing flesh of his back crawled at the mention of the whip.

“The captain considers you our most dangerous criminal,” Arnold interjected in a chastising voice. “But,” he added in a softer tone, “we remain aware that while you perhaps endangered every soul on board you undoubtedly saved one life.”

Duncan’s gaze drifted to the papers in front of Arnold. The clergyman’s elbow rested on the corner of the paper, a wide parchment curved at the ends. Beside it were quills, a pewter pot of ink, and a black lump of cloth.

Arnold leaned backward, letting the silence take hold as he might from the pulpit before making a profound point. “The Company has suffered a terrible blow,” he declared. The Reverend, Duncan realized, was not wearing his stiff black waistcoat, but a stylish
brown frockcoat and shirt with lace cuffs—the attire of a successful merchant. “Our Aristotle has been called to a higher temple.”

“Professor Evering will be missed,” Duncan ventured, not understanding what Arnold expected of him. He found himself watching the ladder, the skin on his back still crawling. A keeper would come soon, and the flogging they intended would leave him scarred for life—if he survived it. If the captain took the whip, Duncan would never leave the mast alive.

“But Providence has provided.”

Duncan realized Arnold was staring at him, that the words were aimed at him. “Providence?”

“I personally selected every member of the Company,” Arnold reminded him. Duncan had not understood why the stranger with the clerical collar had stood beside the judge’s bench, not until the judge had declared his sentence commuted to transportation, then had turned and shaken Arnold’s hand. “You had a European education. Before your lapse of morals, you were about to commence an honorable profession.”

“That life is gone,” Duncan said in a near-whisper, glancing at Woolford as he reminded himself of Frasier’s discovery that Arnold had not been alone in selecting the men of the Company. “I am a convict now.”

Arnold pushed the lanterns to the side of the parchment so its full text was uncovered. “The essential role of the Ramsey Company,” he said with gravity, gesturing to the document, “is reshaping the destinies of men.”

Duncan gazed at him uncertainly, then began to read.
On the ship
Anna Rose,
out of Glasgow,
it began. Printed on the first line, with large ornate letters, was his own name. He read the text, then looked up in confusion. It was an indenture, a document commuting his sentence of hard labor to seven years as indentured servant. There was a line for his signature beside that of Arnold, who had signed as agent for Lord Ramsey.

“There is no dishonor in such servitude. Many free men have
signed such papers to win passage to the New World,” Arnold observed.

Duncan was beginning to remember his leap over the rail. This was how it had felt when the black waters had closed around him. “I have already won passage,” he murmured, keeping his gaze on the table, watching as Arnold’s hand clenched into a fist. Confusion still nagged him, even fear, but these emotions were overshadowed by his bitter resentment of the two men before him.

“We must replace Evering as tutor to his lordship’s children,” the vicar continued. “The king can be merciful. You were convicted for shielding an old highwayman. But your trial record mentioned he was an ailing relative. Perhaps you were simply honoring your duty to an aged family member without full knowledge of the circumstances,” Arnold added in a tentative tone, as if he had been authorized not only to rewrite Duncan’s sentence but the very record of his trial. “Sign, and the lieutenant will witness.” The vicar pushed the lump of black cloth toward Duncan. It was a cap, Duncan saw, one of the black-and-grey caps worn by scholars at colleges, probably the one Evering had worn at formal Company gatherings.

Duncan suddenly recalled that young Frasier, fresh from schooling, was sometimes used by Arnold as a secretary. Frasier had known about the parchment when he had claimed that Duncan was being favored, though Duncan still could not entirely fathom the favors being suggested. “You are offering me freedom?”

“Of a kind, once off the ship. Freedom to serve Lord Ramsey in a more meaningful capacity. It is within my power to sign for the Ramsey family. You will remain a member of the Company, bound by the terms of your transportation. You will offer lessons to the men of the Company each seventh day, after services.”

“You cause me to wonder, Reverend,” Duncan said, with studied confusion in his voice. “Do you speak for God, or the king, or Lord Ramsey?”

“A man in your position,” Woolford interjected icily, “should not consider the distinction meaningful.”

Arnold folded his hands together in front of him and leaned forward, as if grateful for the opportunity to explain. “The Ramsey family has graciously appointed Arnolds to the local rectory in Kent for nearly three centuries. It is a small flock, dependent on the Ramsey estates. My elder brother tends to the spiritual needs of the tenants who remain there. I minister to the needs of the Ramsey family elsewhere, in as many ways as I am able. I am vicar of Edentown, new home of the Ramsey Company. I have the honor of also serving as a proctor to Lord Ramsey, and am empowered to conduct business in his name. Men of vision recognize that the hand of God is never confined to spiritual matters.”

Duncan’s confusion mounted. “The patron resides in the New World?” He met Woolford’s stare. The officer was studying Duncan intensely, running his finger along a long scar on his own neck, the most recent of several that marked his neck and jaw. Though not far from Duncan’s own age, Woolford had the hard, weary look of a man much older, and the cool eyes of a predator. The officer had caused Adam’s death, Lister had insisted, by telling him they were bound for Lord Ramsey’s town in the New York colony.

“In addition to his estates in England,” Arnold continued, “Lord Ramsey owns a great house in the city of New York as well as lands in the west of the colony. He enjoys the vigor of life in America, knows he can better serve the interests of his cousin the king in the colonies. But he desires his children to be instructed by someone versed in the curricula of Europe.”

Duncan searched Arnold’s narrow, impassive face. The vicar’s words were impossible. Surely he had misunderstood.

“Instructed for seven years,” Arnold added with a thin smile. He lifted a quill and handed it to Duncan.

“A tutor?” Duncan asked in disbelief. “To an English lord’s children?”

Arnold clenched his jaw, then pointed a long, bony finger toward the corridor behind Duncan. “Alternatively, you may have been an active participant in your uncle’s traitorous acts and an
active saboteur on this ship. Deserving of the most severe punishments, like those in these cells, bound for Jamaica.” Arnold stood and pushed open the door to the cell corridor, then planted himself at the entrance. “Have you any notion what these wretched creatures face? What
you
may face should you not lift that goose feather?” he demanded, raising his voice as if wanting to be certain those in the cells heard. “Years of labor on the sugar plantations, if you are unlucky enough to survive so long. Insects so thick they are sucked into your lungs with every breath. Serpents. Yellow jack. Malaria. Hurricanes. Half don’t live past their second year. Buried in a shallow grave without a marker, your bones mixed with all the other slaves who die.” The soft-spoken Anglican priest had his own unique form of fire and brimstone.