Cinnamon and Gunpowder (24 page)

“Asher—” I had intended some eloquent explanation of my motives and circumstances, but the words did not come. “I’m sorry,” I said, and held out the wooden trencher.

It was a long quiet moment, and when I was nearly ready to hurl the crêpes over the rail myself, Asher took one from the tray and had a bite before passing it to the man next to him. The tray made its way around the deck, as if I had apologized to them all, and I was finally able to take a long deep breath.

I had made to leave when Asher called after me: “Wedge!”

I turned to face him.

“How did the ship burn?” he asked.

“Like hell itself,” I said.

“And the corpse?”

“Froze my blood.”

Asher made room for me to sit beside him and continued his story to the delight of the others, who occasionally looked to me for confirmation. When he had finished, they insisted that he tell it again as the sun set.

I found myself lying on the deck, talking to a clean-shaven Italian they call Chicken. He’d been brought aboard years ago to tend to the hens and small Oriental pigs that once inhabited crates on the deck. “After the men slipped on manure during a chase,” the man opined, “Mabbot ordered a great feast, and I’ve been scrubbing decks with the rest ever since.”

There is a game the men play here. On clear nights the stars are close enough to tickle one’s nose, and the men take entertainment lying on their backs making light bets on the number and direction of falling stars. Gambling is forbidden by their contracts, so the men bet not money but only trivial things, calling them gifts. In this way trinkets circulate among them: etchings of brothel girls, withered nubs of sausage, perfumes, mostly tobacco. I have found that I have a knack for the game, though I have nothing to bet and so cannot technically win. Still, men, in their goodwill, have rewarded me for my luck, and in this way I have acquired a jar of salted olives and, to my delight, half a small bottle of olive oil that Chicken drinks as a tonic.

It is not a bad thing to be among men looking at the stars and laughing. Without faces, or scars, or clothes, a voice fits right in, finding its course across the sky with the others.

13

LA COLETTE

In which justice catches up with us

Friday, or perhaps Saturday, early October

I am lucky, they keep telling me, to be alive. Much has happened and none of it kind. I am not the man I was. My mind is still beset by fog and wind, but I can recall the events of September 10 clearly enough.

It began with a balloon.

We had passed through the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra just a day prior, and I thought I felt those island gates closing behind us.

A sharp wind had scraped the sky free of clouds and brought a quiet that I had learned to associate with coming thunder. Mabbot and Mr. Apples stood on the quarterdeck peering at the sky with what he called a “big an’ close” but the civilized world calls a telescope. To my eye the thing in the sky was just a speck, but through the lens, which they eventually granted me, I saw what looked like an Oriental paper lantern hung on the vault of heaven.

“Laroche’s smoke balloon,” Mabbot said.

“I’ve seen them only in illustrations,” I said. “It looks so small.”

“They can see the whole world from up there,” she said. “They can spot the lump in your pants. You’ll see a flicker, a twinkle … See there? The man in the balloon uses a mirror to communicate with Laroche. Giving our location and direction. Well, Mr. Apples, you were right again,
La Colette
is here. Now, where can we hide?”

“His corvette is near twice our speed and her guns have better range—”

“I know that,” growled Mabbot. “I asked where you think we should
go
. Bangka?”

“Never make it.”

“What about the black corals of Nasik?”

“Yesterday that might’ve give us the edge,” he said. “I doubt Laroche’s maps have them clear as we do. But ’twould mean going full about. If Laroche is astern, he’ll run us down—”

“There is nothing else near. He’ll catch us at open sea otherwise. At least the weather gauge will be ours.”

“The sun will be his, and besides, a Frenchman knows how to fight from the lee.”

They stood in silence. The wind tossed Mabbot’s hair, and chill bumps rose on her arms. She said, “We have little choice.”

Mabbot returned to her cabin while Mr. Apples hailed the helm. The deck banked sharply, and then pitched as we came about. The crew scampered to trim the yards, sheet to royal, and the masts groaned like timber in a bonfire. The watch below, feeling our change of course, began to gather upon the deck. Word of the balloon had spread. A few of the men had their own telescopes, and these were passed around. There was a jarring acceleration as the
Rose
began to gallop, and I felt I could feel her appetite, her oak and canvas curves turning the air itself into speed.

Suddenly there was nowhere I could stand without being buffeted by the furious preparations for battle. Noise and calamity, which only afterward did I begin to comprehend. Laroche’s ship,
La Colette
, had been spotted, directly between us and the shelter of the reefs. Bells rang out. Every man was running. One sailor stood with a speaking trumpet to his mouth, shouting, “Laroche’s ship! Do not gaze at the ship! Do not look!”

A clangor of gongs and hails and always the refrain “Do not look!” When I peered to catch a glimpse of the distant ship, Mr. Apples clapped me so hard on the neck that my knees buckled.

“Don’t. If you value your sight,” he said. He was wearing the smoked-glass goggles, which I had thought merely a souvenir. I shuddered to think what kind of trauma could cause such reverence in these fearless men. It was apparent that they had suffered considerably the last time they encountered Laroche.

Mabbot had reappeared, this time in her green coat and red boots. She wore suede gloves, and her wrists were hidden by frills of lace. Judging by her dress, she confused battle for a ball. She was shouting, “Bring us alongside! Chains on the yards! Douse the sheets with alum!”

One powder monkey running past me with his precious cask moaned, “’Tis hardly noon and no clouds. He’ll sink us sure this time.”

Another sailor took up the trumpet and shouted, “
La Colette
! Buckets at the ready!”

It was all I could do not to be trampled by the river of men brandishing muskets and locking the free cannon in place.

Then a thing happened that I would not believe had I not witnessed it myself. When
La Colette
was only half a mile away, I saw, with a corner of my vision, a light bloom from the ship like a second sun rising in the southwest. Resisting the urge to examine this wonder, I averted my gaze only to feel a sudden blistering heat upon my neck and back, as if someone had thrown boiling water upon me. Utilizing my native cowardice, I dropped in an instant to the deck and scrambled behind a rope barrel. From there I saw, with fright, a spot of light so bright I was sure an angel of the Lord was traveling about the deck of our ship. This lozenge of white heat, perhaps a foot in diameter, moved from the bow to the quarterdeck in the blink of an eye, darkening the wood where it went. When it hit men, they cried out and dropped, but some of them, trapped as they were in the shrouds or high upon the forecastle with no shelter, could not evade it, and I watched as their clothes smoked and their hair burst into flames. They were illuminated as with the glow of divine grace, yet they screamed in their agony and were horribly burned.

This thing I have witnessed with my own eyes. A terrible weapon.

The light flew about the ship with abandon, maiming as it went, before fixing upon the base of the mizzenmast. In a few seconds, the wood there was aflame. Men appeared with buckets to douse it, and, at great expense to themselves, wrapped the mast with layers of wet felt blankets that smoked and steamed and smelled of hell but didn’t burn. These men kept the mast wet and continued to douse other fires with their buckets. The odor of burned skin, alum, and cooking wool made me want to retch.

My back stung, but I felt I had escaped a very bad burn. Only at that odd moment did the happy thought rise in me that I was near rescue. I hunkered in my hiding spot behind the barrel and prayed with all of my being.

Mr. Apples had positioned himself near the cannon on the main deck and looked toward our attackers, serving as eyes for those loading the barrels. In addition to his protective smoked-glass goggles, Mr. Apples wore long leather blacksmith sleeves. Those manning the cannon crouched and scrambled like crabs, eyes shut tight. They took their aim from his shouting, but waited until we were in range to fire. Joshua was there with them, his back turned to danger, his smoldering match ready.

Then I saw, in great detail, as if time had slowed, the planks of the starboard main deck leap up like leaves in a wind and scatter as a cannonball blew through and erased half of a longboat on its way to the sea. My prayers were on my lips. Another ball missed us by feet and lifted the water in a white bloom that drenched me where I squatted. Only then did I hear the distant retorts.

Our sailors ran in circles, doubling lines and packing guns. Another iron comet tore through the forecastle like the finger of God.

Young Finn ran before me, one of the unnatural couple whom Mabbot called “doves.” As I watched, he made the mistake of letting himself look toward
La Colette
. It was the briefest slip, spurred, no doubt by the irresistible need to gauge the nearness of danger, but, like Lot’s wife, he got no reprieve. The light passed over his face just briefly. A frightful calm stilled his features for a vanishing moment just before he fell to his knees clutching his ruined eyes. I could not hear him screaming over the deafening noise of the hull groaning as Mabbot pushed her ship at top speed toward our attackers.

The bark of Laroche’s guns grew louder by the heartbeat.

Here, all of my life’s ambitions had been reduced to one very short-term goal: survive the attack long enough to be rescued. But, as the searing light moved to the mizzen, I reasoned that rescue would be impossible if our ship sank first.

When the mainmast began to smoke and flame licked the canvas, I found myself picking up a bucket that had been dropped by a man in agony. I joined the train of sailors rushing to quench the fires that leaped up about us.

Mabbot stood upon the quarterdeck, wearing her own smoked-glass goggles and looking out toward our attackers. Feng and Bai stood with her, their backs to the light. Mabbot’s voice carried even over the percussions of hell: “Speed! Speed sou’west! Prepare guns! Prepare our gifts!”

I cannot say how much time elapsed as I ran to and fro with my bucket. Long enough to see many more burned. Long enough to feel the air about me sucked away by a cannonball and to witness a man broken in half like rotten tinder. I admit that my legs quivered and I was moved to abandon my efforts and hide, but the air was so charged with shot, smoke, and that swift light that I felt it safer to keep moving.

Mr. Apples’s battery had begun to fire, and each retort shook the planks beneath my feet. I could no longer distinguish between the enemy’s guns and our own.

The light had grown larger and, it seemed, weaker, no longer eliciting screams as it struck men. Indeed it passed over me again, and I dropped but was not burned. It was losing its power as we closed the distance. Our captain had a plan.

“South! South! Toward the channels.”

Then we were upon Laroche’s long-waisted ship. There it was, not thirty yards away, a salamander insignia upon her flag. The corvette was menacing with canted masts, two gun decks, and brass fittings so highly polished that they cast a rose glow on the rigging and sails. To call the ship experimental would be generous—it had been built to Laroche’s own maniacal specifications. The entire hull was copper green, and the head was armored with iron plating to protect against the Twa Corbies; the rivets there made the ship itself look like a weapon.

Their deck was the same hurricane of shouting and frenzy as ours. Men on each ship took cover and exchanged rifle shots. I crouched behind my barrel again, using my water bucket as a helmet, and peeked out now and then to see how close we had come. Only when it was near enough would I take my leap to freedom.

Making our reckless flight to the south, we were wrong to the sea, and the waves lifted the starboard side of our ship such that, at intervals, even the ocean completely disappeared from view, replaced by an endless sky, then the same rail would dip almost to touch the water, and men hiding behind barrels and cannon were exposed to shot from above.

Mr. Apples, his ox-yoke shoulders swinging wide, hurled a basket onto the deck of Laroche’s ship, where it broke open; dark clumps scattered like quicksilver. I saw that the contents were alive, and I recognized then the scuttle of his pet scorpions. At the time I thought it a ridiculous attack, but as I write this, I understand that it was not a weapon of battle as much as of vengeance and the sowing of fright. The creatures sped for the cover of shadow and small places;
La Colette
would be haunted for weeks by venomous beasts hiding in the murky nooks and crevices that ships are comprised of. They would never be accounted for entirely—and periodically a sailor, pulling on his boots or reaching for a coil of rope, would be stung. Men would feel the caress of scampering legs in their sleep. Captain Laroche might well have to find a whole new crew due to the superstitious nature of sailors, who would no doubt call the ship cursed.

But these thoughts were not in my head at the time. I had become a simple animal, pinned where I was with fear. Meanwhile our ship continued to be ripped apart, now less by cannon than by rifle shot. I didn’t know a ship could be so thoroughly ventilated and yet float.

14

ETIQUETTE FOR CLOSE COMBAT

In which I lose much

When our vessels were five yards close and the waves rocked
La Colette
such that her deck was made plain to me, I saw, with clarity, the marvelous contraption that had so burned the
Flying Rose
. A dozen large mirrors were positioned at distances upon the deck, and some on rigs were suspended out over the water. These swung upon swivels to reflect sunlight to the center, where a great moon of silver sat, concave and polished to a high sheen. This collecting dish was positioned behind several large lenses that, in turn, rolled upon tracks and could be adjusted to focus the terrible beam.