Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (12 page)

“Looks like this is it,” I said, hugging Romulus and nuzzling Ernie. We hunkered down, all tensed-up and waiting, while the ground shook with our imminent destruction.

But the crush never came. At the last moment the mooing mass turned aside and headed north. I opened one disbelieving eye to see what had saved us.

Seagulls. Dozens of screeching seagulls.
Could this night get any stranger? I oughta write a book.

The flock of birds darted into the faces of the drovers and the lead cows, beaks slashing at their eyes. Some of the gulls tore the whips out of the men’s’ fingers. Others fluttered their wings at the animals nearest us, forcing them to turn away in panic. It looked like the birds knew just how to herd cattle. While the rest of the flock chased the men east till they were out of sight, their leader dipped a wing and glided over to us. It landed on the railing of the stairs we’d never managed to get to. This bird sure stood out from the other gulls, mostly because it wasn’t a gull at all.

Nope… a large scarlet and blue parrot.

Perched with a proud air, it cocked its crested head at us, opened its hooked white beak, and said in a salty feminine voice, “Ahoy, Ernie!”

“Hey, Roberta!” my mousie friend said with a wave. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Had a bit of a headwind or I’d have been here sooner. Like tryin’ to tack against a gale.”

Ernie grinned and looked at me. “Told yer.”

I frowned. “Told me what?” I still worked at absorbing this new development. Talking parrots I’d seen, but never one that spoke in full sentences and sounded like Captain Kidd.

“That Pitcairn’d show. Well, his lady, at least.”

My eyebrows went up. “His lady? It’s a parrot.”

That parrot gave me a sour look. I now noticed that it---she---wore round gold-rimmed spectacles. “Who’s the rude shrimp?”

Romulus chuckled. “This be the Stone Warden.”

“This kid? She has Morphageus? Well, waddya know! We’re doomed! Abandon ship.”

“Hey!” I said, hands on hips.

Ernie jumped in. “Lady Roberta, dread pirate of the seas, meet Verity Sauveur, dread slayer of Bullies.”

“That ain’t sayin’ much. Any fool with a mirror can do---”

“And she just fought Venoma to a standstill.”

Roberta shook her head so hard that her glasses almost flew off. “Well, shiver me timbers!” she crowed, thrusting out a wing to me. “Put ‘er there!”

I reached over and shook her feathery ‘fingers’. “Pleased to meetcha, ma’am.”

“Ma’am!” Her eyes widened, making her look like a snapping turtle. You have thought I’d called her a dirty name. “Let’s have none o’ that. You just call this old bird Roberta, or Bert, or Bob in a pinch. First Mate o’ the
Penelope’s Kiss
I am.”

Romulus snorted. “Pitcairn’s first mate, you means.”

“I better be his only mate, or I’ll have his guts fer garters.”

I tried to imagine a fierce pirate with a tough-talking parrot for a girlfriend. It gave ‘henpecked’ a whole new slant. “Well, Roberta, thank you kindly for comin’ to our rescue. Don’t know what we would’ve done otherwise.”

“Think nothin’ of it, shipmate. Aloysius would’ve come himself, but the Yankee blockade’s tighter than a virgin’s knees. Even worse now, on account o’ McClellan’s so-called offensive. Cap’n’s got the
Kiss
stowed down the coast, close by Cape Charles. It’d take a keen eye to spy her. We towed her up an inlet, far enough so’s the Navy won’t spot her easy. Then he sent me to find you. Good thing, too, seems like.”

The seagull flock wheeled around from the cattle herd and floated just over our heads, making a horrible racket. Now I could tell that what I’d taken for typical seabird squawks was actually some of the rudest language I’d ever heard outside of an Army camp. To make it worse, they had women’s voices. I started to wish that the Stone hadn’t made me able to understand animals.

“Have to pardon these ladies,” said Roberta, “but they spend too much time around sailors. A shame, really. Most of ‘em was hatched in the better sort o’ nests.”

“Oh, I’ve heard worse,” I fibbed. “Can’t complain after the service y’all did us.”

One of the gulls fluttered down next to the parrot. Her wingtips and the ring around her yellow bill were a rich black. “Our pleasure,” she growled. “The Merchantry’s been no friend to our kind.” She turned her beak to Roberta. “Bert, the drovers are runnin’ so hard they may not stop till mornin’. I spoke to the head cow and she said she was sorry and that if she’d know’d that these folks was our pals she’d have charged the other way.”

“Right kind o’ her,” said Roberta.

“I told her so. If things’ve calmed down here, I’ll take the girls back out to the bay. Fish’re runnin’ about now.”

Roberta turned her head in all directions. “Seems safe enough. Merchantry may send somebody else, but we plan to get movin’, so p’raps they’ll miss us. Thank ye kindly, Mabel.”

With more profane screeches the gulls flapped away to the river, then turned to follow it south and east toward Chesapeake Bay. They’d fly right over the two great armies which were about to duke it out near Richmond. When they did, the amount of civilized discourse in that region would drop in the worst way. Imagining the comments Mabel and her friends would make as they looked at how humans settled their disputes brought a smile to my face. I hadn’t done much grinning that evening.

“Bert’s right,” Romulus said. “Merchantry’ll keep the pressure on. More folks comin’ fo’ sho’.”

Ernie agreed. “True enough. The blighters want Verity to come to them, that’s why they snatched young Edward. But they won’t want to depend solely on that. We can expect their blasted agents to try to capture her, just to make sure.”

“Then let’s get movin’. If the
Kiss
is at Cape Charles, we got’s a long way to go, most of it through Confed’rate territory.”

I could see that the prospect of crossing the river and traveling through slave-holding Virginia didn’t set well with Romulus. He’d only been free for two months. What colored man would want to willingly enter Rebel land, no matter how vital the mission? Heck, I didn’t relish the thought myself.

“Do we have to go through Virginia?” I asked, hoping that a better plan would present itself. “We wanted to put the river between us and the Bullies, right? Since that didn’t happen and we already fought ‘em off, why go into more danger than we have to?” Even as I said it I knew what the answer would be.
Because Eddie needs us.

“Don’t we wish there was a better way,” Ernie said, hopping into my hand. I raised him up so we could talk face-to-face. “But the Merchantry’s base is in London, so it’s to Europa that we have to get, ducky. To the Scepter’d Isle. That’s where the Proprietor will be, and where they’ll take Eddie.”

Romulus sighed. “And the only way we can get there is on Roberta’s boat.”

“Ship,” she squawked, correcting him.

“Ship, then. Merchantry has mos’ other ships under they control.”

“So you’re tellin’ me,” I said in a glum tone, “that our one choice is to cross over two hundred miles of Confederate territory, hunted by both Rebels and the Honourable Merchantry, with no money, no horses, no map, no friends, and pretty near no food. We have to find our way between two huge modern armies that’re about to fight the biggest battle in the history of Northern America, then cross Chesapeake Bay through a naval blockade. Once we do that, we get on a pirate ship, run the blockade again, hopin’ we don’t get sunk by the Merchantry’s private navy, and sneak into the Scept’red Isle, which is protected by more magick than you can shake a stick at. Then we have to somehow find Eddie, probably in some horrible dungeon guarded by ogres and trolls, and steal our way back out the way we came, all without bein’ witched, shot, stabbed, or drooled on by Venoma.”

Ernie smiled, I think. “That’s why you’re the bleedin’ Stone-Warden.” He turned to Romulus and Roberta and winked. “Mind like a steel trap, she has.”

“I just hope’s we don’t end up in a steel trap our own selves,” said Romulus.

Roberta flapped her scarlet wings. “I say we all shut our traps and get outta here. Brace for action, clear the decks, and run up the bloody flag.”

I sighed. “This is it, then. We’re off for Virginia.”

And here’s hopin’ Eddie’s still in one piece…and that he’s still human.

10/ Honourable Merchantry

A chaos spell.

Every country in a different time, Irlann filled with literary characters, Scandia hip-deep in fairies and dragons and trolls. Total lunacy.

Before we took a step toward Virginia the argument started. I wanted to go home first, to check in with Ma and make sure she was okay. The others considered that a real bad idea.

“They be waitin’ fo you,” said Romulus, shaking his big bald noggin. “Comp’ny knows where you live. Ain’t worth the risk.”

Ernie agreed. “You’ll be strollin’ right into an ambush, missy. Bullies right and left, I’d imagine. Better if we just head for the bloomin’ river right now.”

I sighed and looked at Roberta.
Might as well give everybody a vote.

The parrot peered through her shiny spectacles at me like a snippy schoolmarm. “Never sail into a blind cove. You’ll take a broadside sure as shootin’. Riggin’ gone and rudder blown away.”

Just as I opened my mouth to give my opinion on the matter, a fourth voice interrupted the thought I’d formed. “Since you’re takin’ a poll, kiddo,” Jasper volunteered, “I think that they’re all of ‘em right. Even the silly mouse.”

I swallowed a giggle. Ernie couldn’t hear Jasper. “So there it is. Four votes to one against swingin’ by home. Just leave my poor ma to her fate. She could be turned into a cockroach and hidin’ under our kitchen stove, but we just ignore that and move on.”

After a pause, I got a chorus of, “Yeah, that’s about how we see it.”

“Besides,” Ernie added, “I happen to know that all the bugs in your kitchen work for the Equity.”

“That cat’s a dif’rent matter, though,” Romulus growled.

“Do you speak of the pathetic one-eared creature which imagined itself immune from chastisement?”

The giant Marshal’s eyes widened. “One-eared? I got’s new respect for you, Master Ernie.”

Ernie bowed. “I accept your merited acclaim. Don’t worry about the traitorous feline. By now he’s shoppin’ for stickin’ plaster.”

“So,” said Roberta, flexing her wings. “Are we off?”

“We are,” I announced, stepping out with a bold stride.

Fifteen minutes later we were passing as close by St. Bart’s as we dared, heading east.
It’s good to be Stone-Warden.

Jasper whined. “Did I misunderstand how the votin’ thing works?”

“No,” I whispered, keeping my extra-sharp eyes peeled for Bullies. “You just misunderstood that we actually held a vote.”

“Oh, so this is like when the President has a Cabinet meeting and then ignores all of their sage advice and worldly wisdom?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“What’s that make me, then? Secretary of Shut-Up-You’re-Just-the-Magick-Sword?”

I snorted. “And Ernie’s Boastmaster-General.”

Gliding back from her scouting trip, Roberta circled over me and said, “Clear sailin’. No sign of Bullies or anythin’ else,” before landing on Romulus’ outstretched arm.

That sounded good to me. And the Stone felt toast warm against my skin. But if Horace and his cronies, maybe with reinforcements this time, lurked about St. Bart’s, we might not know it till they were on us. Romulus had handled them that afternoon, and Jasper could scatter them like chaff in the wind, but I preferred to get home with no trouble at all. We were all tired, me especially. Tired people made mistakes, and that we couldn’t afford.

St. Bart’s sat on our left, looking like a bulldog ready to charge. No Bullies dropped from its trees, but just the memory of that sight proved enough to make me grit my teeth and grip the handle of Morphageus. I scanned the soot-stained old building, alert for anything odd.
And what might that be? What counts as ‘odd’ now? Witches on broomsticks? A troop of Headless Horsemen? Countless cobras spittin’ lightnin’ bolts?
All I noticed was a single candle in a top-floor window. Nobody could be seen in its light.

“Ernie,” I said to my tiny friend, who rode atop my haversack like a sultan on an elephant. “What gives with this place?”

“What gives? It’s Honourable Merchantry headquarters for Washington City, that’s what gives.”

“Yeah? Why a school? Why not some government building? Heck, why not the Capitol, come to that?”

“The Merchantry works behind the scenes as much as they can. They have a real and legitimate presence in London as the Honourable Merchantry of Esteemed Gentlemen. That’s the tradin’ company they founded way back in Good Queen Bess’s time.”

My eyes widened. “They’ve been around that long?”

“Oh, dear me, yes. But then it was just a shippin’ business, for the spices. Nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon. Worth more than gold. All of the Merchantry men got rich as Croesus. Had their own navy and army and courts, to enforce their private law on the islands. Paid off members of Parliament and the Crown to keep things that way. Long as the money flowed and they kept their political meddlin’ to just trading matters, no one complained.”

“But?” In asked, sensing I might be getting some of the answers I’d been looking for all night.

“But about fifty years ago, things stopped goin’ their way. Some of ‘em backed Bonaparte, for a start. Hedgin’ their bets, they called it. That ruffled some feathers in Whitehall when it got out, I can tell yer. Heads rolled. Some things money can’t cover up. Spice trade wasn’t the gold mine it had been before, neither. Plants themselves were bein’ cultivated all over the world, from stolen seeds and whatnot, in places the Merchantry couldn’t always control. The Proprietor and his Council saw that their ships alone weren’t gonna keep the company in power.”

“So what did they do?”

“Started usin’ that money o’ theirs to buy influence. Very subtle, they was. And patient. Helped their kind o’ man to get himself elected here and there, to smooth their way with the law and with governments. Bought all the right companies in every country to help ‘em control its commerce. Did most of it through third parties so most folks didn’t know what they had their hand in. That’s still how they work, for the most part. The magick came later.”