Dawn on a Distant Shore (41 page)

"Mainsail
haul!" bellowed Stoker. "Cheerly now, boys!"

The
Jackdaw
began to tack toward the
Avignon
, the beat of the waves on the bow picking
up in time with Elizabeth's heartbeat. Nathaniel must have felt it, for he
slipped an arm around her waist, as firm and steady an anchor as she could ask
for on a deck pitched like a houseroof.

"We're headed for
that frigate like a cat with a mad dog on her tail," said Hawkeye, looking
hard.

"Aye,"
agreed Granny Stoker. "No better place to run than into the arms of a Frenchman
when you've got a great fat East Indiaman tweakin' your arse."

And indeed it seemed
as if the
Jackdaw
were of no interest at all to the
Avignon
. She swept
forward at an angle that could be read without quadrant or compass: a
confrontation with the
Osiris
seemed certain, and quick, unless the East
Indiaman could change course immediately.

Elizabeth turned to
Nathaniel. "But surely the
Osiris
will run?"

A warning shot echoed
over the sea, and with it Elizabeth's stomach rose to her throat.

"Too late,"
breathed Nathaniel. "They're in for it now."

One of the crew was
calling down from the rigging again.

"Capting! The
'Siris
is signaling! Hold a minute!"

Elizabeth crossed her
arms across her chest and bowed her head, waiting.

"What is it,
Tommy?" shouted Stoker.

"It's one of them
bible signals, sir! Hold a minute!"

"A bible
signal!" Granny Stoker's disgust was plain. "Bloody hell. Plain English
ain't good enough for them."

"Here it is,
Capting! Revelation, chapter three, verse eleven, it says."

Hawkeye and Nathaniel
turned to Elizabeth together.

"I don't have the
whole bible memorized, you know," she said with considerable irritation.

"Dinna fash
yersel', lass," said Robbie. He raised his voice so that Stoker could hear
him. ""Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that
no man take thy crown.""

There was a whoop of
dry laughter from Anne Stoker. "Now, that's rich. The
Osiris
warning
us
away from the Frenchman when every one of her own men is
saying his prayers this very minute. Poor sods."

Elizabeth blanched and
Hawkeye put his hand on her shoulder. "The frigate ain't about to sink the
Osiris
."

"Sink a
merchantman?" Granny Stoker's kerchiefed head bobbed as she laughed.
"She may be French and waspish, but she ain't mad. Sink a prize like that!
D'you hear those warning shots? If she wanted to sink the
'Siris
she'd
yaw and let heave wit' her broadside."

"The
Osiris
is well armed," Elizabeth said hoarsely.

The old lady fixed her
with a stare. "Mark my words--they'll rake each other bloody but in the end
the
Avignon
will board her in the smoke."

"Then may God
have mercy," whispered Elizabeth.

Granny Stoker's head
swung away suddenly, the beetle-black eyes darting from the sails to her
grandson. "Mac!" The thin high voice rose and cracked like a whip.
"She's falling off too fast!"

Stoker jumped, the
black hair lashing around his shoulders.

"'Vast
bracing!" he bellowed, running down the deck, passing close enough to
spray them with his sweat. "Goddamn it! Helm's a-lee! Move sharp,
now!"

There were a few
minutes of tense silence as the
Jackdaw
's speed picked up again, and
then Granny Stoker turned back to Elizabeth.

"Still a Tory at
heart, eh? Don't suit you to see the Frenchies with the upper hand. Damn the
toothbrush, dearie--do you care to put a hundred pound on your
countrymen?"

"I need not be
English to regret the loss of life," snapped Elizabeth. The deck pitched,
and her stomach rose again like a fist in her throat. She pulled suddenly away
from Nathaniel and pushed past Hawkeye and Robbie to lurch toward the rail.
Bracing herself with both hands, she leaned forward to get the full force of
the spray in her face, wanting the sting of it and the cold. She heard
Nathaniel behind her, but louder still was the memory of old Tim Card, and his
talk of privateers.

"
Most is just
merchants, missus. Interested in the profit, is all. What ain't profitable goes
over the side."

Before her eyes the
Avignon
was headed for a rare prize, but all Elizabeth could see was the
Isis
.
What would a French privateer make of a cargo of three children? All they had
between them and whatever might come was Curiosity. Elizabeth's stomach turned
and heaved.

"Steady on,
Boots." Nathaniel's hands were cool, bracing her neck and forehead while
she retched and retched, until she brought up only bile. When she could breathe
again, she pressed her face against his chest, and said aloud those words that came
to her unbidden:

What though the sea be
calm? Trust to the shore; Ships have been drown'd, where late they danced before.

Before them the
Osiris
was in mortal danger, and the same could be true of the
Isis
. Now, or tomorrow,
or the day after.

The frigate took that moment
to fire another shot, stealing whatever calm words Nathaniel might have been
thinking to offer.

Hannah slept badly,
rising up from ragged dreams again and again to listen for a scratching at the door
that might mean word of an approaching ship, or Mr. MacKay come to save them
from his Christian hell. She woke for good at dawn, cocooned in a shift damp
with sweat and the scent of her own fear. She woke overwhelmed and undone with
wanting her grandmother's voice, her father's smile, the pine tree with the
crooked top that stood outside her window at Lake in the Clouds. Hannah woke
and wished she hadn't. She feared what the day would bring, and what it might not.

She rose quietly so as
not to disturb the babies, dragged her spotted calico dress over her head and
stumbled out into the other cabin.

Curiosity had fallen
asleep at the workbench, her lap full of sewing and her breath rattling faintly
with the last of the cold in her chest. Her head wrap had come undone and a
thick braid fell to her shoulder, the colors of tarnished silver and rich loam.
In his own cabin the Hakim was singing his prayers again. The ship rolled gently,
a bird with clipped wings pinned to this patch of water between familiar worlds
and strange ones.

With a small
murmuring, Curiosity woke and rubbed at an eye with one knuckle. Then she looked
at Hannah and closed her eyes again. "Squirrel," she said, smiling.
"Ain't you a pretty sight to wake to. Do you think you could fetch me some
of that spruce beer? Then we better see to those babies, I hear them stirring now."

Hannah might have
cried in her frustration and disappointment. Instead she said, "I thought
there would be word of the
Osiris
."

Curiosity held out a
long hand, and curled her fingers upward. "Nothing yet."

"I think we
should go with Miss Somerville," Hannah blurted out. "I think we
should get away from this ship."

Curiosity gave her a
sharp look, and then pulled her closer to smooth a hand over her hair. "I
know, child. I surely do. And maybe we will. But we got to wait and see. But
you hold tight, now. You'll need all your wits about you soon enough."

But she could not hold
tight; at every creak of the boards she jumped, and when Charlie came with tea and
goat's milk she could barely speak a civil word. His shy smile cut her because
she could find none in herself to return to him. Things leaped out of her hands
to roll across the floor and escape into dark corners; she slipped and knocked
her hip on the writing desk, upsetting papers and quills. Curiosity saw how it
was with her and let her be.

The Hakim came to
share his breakfast of bread and fruit and cheese with them and he watched her
just as quietly, until Lily began to fuss in Hannah's arms.

"Permit me,"
he said gently. "It is so seldom I have the chance to hold such a small
child. May I feed her?"

Hannah flushed in
embarrassment and clutched Lily tighter to her. The baby squeaked, the round blue
eyes widening in surprise and distress. Then she thumped a small fist on
Hannah's cheekbone and the tears did come in a hot rush. She handed the baby to
the Hakim and dashed them away furiously with the back of her hand.

Without looking up
from Daniel, Curiosity said, "Don' you want to try on these things? The sewin's
all done save the beadwork. Finished the moccasins, too."

That brought Hannah up
short. Curiosity must have sewn all night while she slept, unaware. Hannah hid
her face in the bundle and went into the privacy of the little sleeping cabin,
and in a few minutes she came back, more slowly and feeling very ashamed of
herself.

"That's
better," said Curiosity with a smile. "You look like our Squirrel
again."

It was all she could
do to keep from wailing, and so Hannah nodded, fingering the fringe on her sleeve.
The soft doeskin whispered as she bent over to touch her cheek to Curiosity's.

"Go on up on
deck," said the older woman gently, patting her back. "Get some fresh
air."

"No," Hannah
said firmly. "No."

Curiosity cocked her
head in surprise. "You don' like it up on deck in the fresh air?"

"Let me stay
here," Hannah said, near tears again.

The Hakim said,
"Has something frightened you on deck?"

She met his gaze.
"No," she said, and did not know why she lied. "Nothing. Sir, I
am grateful for your kindness." It was less than she wanted to say, and he
seemed to see this.

"And if I should
ask you to join me? I am going to tend to the ti-nain trees, and I would enjoy your
company."

Hannah hesitated,
feeling Curiosity's gaze on her, and the Hakim waiting.

"Yes," she
said finally. "I will go with you on deck."

He smiled. "Very
kind of you, Miss Hannah. I am reminded of something a good man once said to
me. "'Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave.""

"Now that's the
right advice for Squirrel," said Curiosity with a grin. "Bound and
determined to save us and the world all at once. Did that come from your holy
book?"

The Hakim shook his
head. "No. It was written by a surgeon I knew once. He was only an average
poet, but a good doctor and a wise man."

"From India,
then," said Hannah.

"From
Scotland," said the Hakim. "Does that surprise you? It should not.
Our prophet teaches that we should seek knowledge wherever it might be."

Curiosity snorted.
"I suppose that's why you took up with Pickering, eh?"

It was a personal
question that Hannah would not have dared ask, but the Hakim seemed not to mind
the question or the criticism of his captain.

He inclined his head.
"I wish I could claim that my reasons were so simple and so noble, but it
was something else."

They waited while he
murmured encouraging words to Lily, who took gruel from his spoon without ever
removing her eyes from his face. When he raised his head, there was a smile
there that turned him into a younger man, a little embarrassed perhaps at the
confession he was about to make to them.

"Have you ever
heard of a microscope, Miss Hannah?"

"My stepmother
told me about it," she said. "A thing made of metal and glass, she
said, that helps the eye see more clearly."

Curiosity sniffed.
"Spectacles, you mean."

"No." Hannah
shook her head. "Not worn on the face. An instrument, you look into it. Is
that right?"

The Hakim wiped Lily's
cheek with the flat of his thumb. "Yes. The lens of the microscope is a
wondrous thing. It is the key to learning what we do not yet understand about
illness."

"So you come all
the way from India to get yourself one of these machines." Curiosity
lifted Daniel to smell his bottom, and then wrinkled her nose.

"That is how my
association with Captain Pickering began, fifteen years ago," he said. "The
best instruments were to be had in Europe, you see. I would be happy to show
you the microscope itself, if you like. I have some specimens that might interest
you."

Taken by surprise,
Hannah had a hard time controlling her expression. It was a generous offer, and
one she thought the Hakim would not make to many. But Hannah thought too of the
Osiris
, perhaps within sight now, and of Giselle Somerville. They might
be gone from this ship in just a few hours; she hoped that they would be, if it
would mean she would never see Mr. MacKay again. But the microscope was a sore
temptation.

Curiosity cleared her
throat. "First the child needs some sun," she said. "Then
there's time for your microscope machine."