Falconer's Quest (2 page)

The entire Brune family raced about the muddy front yard. Falconer stepped off the front porch and tilted his head to the sky. He felt a hand slip into his and looked down at Matt. The boy’s hair was matted to his forehead and turned so pale it looked silver. Falconer felt his face stretch in unaccustomed lines, the action so foreign it took him a long moment to even recognize it as a smile. The rain had washed away the impossible distance, and Ada appeared once again to Falconer in the clear eyes, in the upturned face, in the rain that poured in pewter rivulets over his head. Ada was still there. She had not completely left him.

Falconer swept the boy into his arms. Matt’s own arms came up and around Falconer’s neck. The two stood in the rain without speaking. The boy’s cheek rested upon Falconer’s beard as they watched the Brune family dance and laugh and frolic in the wet joy and the new hope.

Two weeks later a stranger arrived, asking about Falconer. The Salem community counted Falconer as one of their own. None would give up information about a fellow Moravian without first making sure the attention was welcome. These were, after all, evil times.

Some time earlier, the North Carolina capital had moved from the coastal community of New Bern to Raleigh. The stated purpose was to extend the government’s reach further inland. Even so, much of the state had fallen into administrative chaos. Brigands ruled many of the smaller Carolina roads. The Moravians were called enemies by the newly elected state administration, which disliked how the Salem community took in escaped slaves and formed a vital link in the Underground Railroad. And Falconer had done more than most to further this work. All the proceeds from his share in a Carolina gold mine had gone to purchasing slaves and spiriting them away. A plantation he had acquired in Virginia became yet another stop on the Freedom Train line northward. No, this was not a time to be open with an outsider—not until they had taken his measure.

When word finally came to Falconer that a welldressed stranger was asking for him, he saddled his horse and rode into Salem town to his own inn. As he approached it, he saw the man, who turned out to be no stranger, seated on the very same bench Falconer had used for his own morning devotions when he and Ada ran the establishment.

“Hello, Reginald,” he called as soon as he recognized his visitor.

The owner of Langston’s Emporium, along with any number of other business ventures, squinted against the morning sun.

“Falconer?” The man closed the Bible in his lap and stood.

Falconer slipped from the saddle and roped the horse to the railing. Reginald Langston lost his footing as he stepped off the front stoop, his eyes round as he approached the taller man. “Is that really you?” he asked, his voice sounding shocked.

“Have I changed so much?”

“Have you…Don’t you see yourself in the mirror?”

“The Brunes don’t own a looking glass.”

Reginald stepped in close enough to grip Falconer’s wrist. His fingers did not come close to connecting. “As I live and breathe. It is indeed you.”

Falconer accepted the other man’s handshake, realizing he was not the only one that had changed. Reginald Langston had always been ready with a smile and a laugh, large in girth and trusting in nature. Instead of the dark broadcloth suits preferred by most Washington men of stature, Reginald wore doeskin trousers tucked into boots of fine English leather, a soft brown traveling coat, and a waistcoat with gold buttons. But not even these fine clothes could mask the weariness and the worry in his gaze, or his features sagging with far more than the months since their last meeting. Falconer took note of the two armed men who shadowed Reginald, far enough away not to intrude, yet there and ready just the same.

Reginald took a step back and said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Ada. I only heard over breakfast.”

Falconer directed a nod toward the packed earth. “I am sorry I did not write.”

Reginald waved that away. “How long has it been?”

“She left us in February.”

“How are you, my man?”

Falconer looked up. “Coping. Sometimes more than that.”

“And the boy?”

“He’s just gone ten. A strong, fine lad. He no doubt has kept me as sound as you find me.”

“Might I pay my respects to your wife?”

“Of course.”

Reginald ordered his men to stay behind. The two obviously were not pleased, but did as they were told. The day was harvest fair, a faint hint of breeze out of the north, not cool so much as comfortable. The village was empty of men and many women, as almost everyone used the good weather to bring in the crops. Even so, Falconer felt unseen eyes upon them as they proceeded through the village’s heart.

At the gravesite Reginald said a silent prayer. Then, “She was an extraordinarily fine woman.”

Falconer nodded and pointed at the weather-beaten cross beside her own. “I had her put to rest beside her first husband. I felt it was important for our boy.”

“You amaze me,” Reginald said quietly. “Can we sit here for a moment?”

The bench they selected was the same one where Ada had spent long, lonely days, staring at the cemetery and her first husband’s grave, before meeting Falconer. Ada had brought him here twice. The first visit had been upon the day of his return from jail, where he had been incarcerated for buying, then freeing, a group of slaves. She had told him of her own lonely struggle and the multitude of hours she had sat and yearned for what her heart could not even name. The second time was the evening before they were to wed. They had sat in this very spot for almost an hour. Then she had risen and smiled and embraced him. Falconer’s heart lurched as he remembered her arms around his neck, his whispered words in her ear. He sighed and almost imperceptibly shook his head.

When Reginald finally spoke, it appeared to Falconer as a response to an unspoken question. “Were it not for my own dire need, I would not dream of asking anything of you now. One look is enough to know of your woes, my dear friend. But ask I must.”

“Is it something to do with…with Serafina?” Falconer found it uncommon strange that he now had to search to recall the name of a woman whom he had dearly loved, though never claimed as his own.

“My dear friend, not at all. Perish the thought. No, the lovely lady is fairly trembling with joy. She and her husband both. Though I must say the two of them are more than upset with your lack of communication.”

“I’m sorry, but I could not bring myself to answer her letters.”

“And now I see the reason why. She will be very sad to learn the reason for your silence.” Reginald fumbled with a button to his waistcoat. “She should be delivering their first child any day now.”

“Please tell them I wish them every joy.” Falconer waited a moment, and when Reginald did not speak, he pressed gently, “So it is not Serafina.”

“No. It is myself. And my dear wife, Lillian. We are at our wit’s end, I tell you. Our wit’s end.” Reginald Langston became agitated, and he rose and began pacing before the bench. “Lillian had a son by her first marriage. You knew she was widowed, of course.”

“Yes.” Falconer remembered Reginald’s wife had previously been married to an earl, rather a scoundrel of English society who had squandered his money on ill-fated ventures.

“Byron was to succeed to his late father’s titles, but Lillian had sold them,” Reginald went on. “She was penniless and heavily in debt and had no choice. Byron, however, failed to understand either the need or the deed. He was always a difficult son, impetuous and rather a snob. Very much like his late father, so Lillian tells me. The boy ran through his inheritance in a few short years. Also Lillian had left him quite a nice London town house, which he mortgaged. Without telling his mother, I hasten to add. And he spent all that as well.”

“Gambling?” Falconer wondered. Another wayward son of wealthy parents.

Reginald clearly was reluctant to speak ill of the lad. “Does it matter?”

“I really cannot say until I know the problem.”

“Then, yes. Gambling and vile women, by all accounts. He loved the trappings of power and accepted none of the responsibilities. He went before the magistrates once too often. A duel over a married woman, though married to neither of the men dueling, as it happened. Lillian begged for my help, which of course I gave. Our London partner, as you know, is Samuel Aldridge, a former diplomatic agent and a man of considerable influence. And of course you know Gareth and Erica Powers. Through their intervention, we managed to have the lad released. On one condition. Byron was to leave his past, his ways, and his London life behind. Samuel arranged for him to take a position of assistant manager at a new trading outpost.”

Falconer realized he was already caught in the hunt. Not by the story. But by Reginald’s need. For this was what Falconer knew he could never refuse. He could not say no to a friend. Falconer asked, “Where?”

“Marseilles. Do you know it?”

“The harbor. The port. I’ve not been further inland than the seaman’s market fronting the quayside.” He could smell the place now.

“Never been there myself. But our office is on the main avenue leading up from the port.” Reginald had not stopped his pacing before Falconer’s bench. “Byron arrived as scheduled. He worked there for six months. That is, he came in occasionally, mostly to collect his wages.”

“He kept to his past ways,” Falconer surmised. When Reginald continued to pace in silence, Falconer picked up the story for him. “He did no work. He lived for the night and dark deeds. He again got into debt.”

Reginald stopped pacing and stared at the nearest gravestone.

Falconer said quietly, “He owed money to the wrong man.”

“So we have been informed,” Reginald agreed, his voice low.

“Is Byron alive?”

“We were desperately afraid that he was not. We heard conflicting rumors. He had taken up with vile merchants, he had been found in an alley—nothing that could be confirmed even by our own agents.”

Falconer waited for a time, then asked more softly still, “What have you learned?”

“A letter arrived from Samuel. He was approached by a missionary’s wife, that is, his widow. She appeared in London. Traveling from Algiers. She claims to have seen Byron. Not merely seen him. Been shown him, like…like a prize heifer.”

“Or a slave.”

Reginald stared at him, his gaze hollow. “According to this woman, he had been sold to a North African brigand by the name of Ali Saleem.” Though Falconer’s intake of breath was very soft, Reginald caught it nonetheless. “You know him?”

“The name. Every seaman who traverses the southern Mediterranean has heard of Ali Saleem. He is the last of the Barbary pirates.”

“So I have been informed. This Ali Saleem let the poor woman go, even arranged transport back to civilization, upon receipt of her oath to pass on this information. The brigand has offered to release Byron for gold. Quite a large amount of gold.”

Falconer rose to his feet. “I must speak with my son.”

Reginald’s face was grim with old woes. “I will not have you doing this out of any sense of indebtedness. You owe me nothing. No matter what we might have said in the past. We are friends. I release you from any promise you might have made to me. Do you hear what I am saying?”

Falconer gripped the other man’s arm. He turned Reginald around and guided him through the cemetery gates. “You are a friend, Reginald.”

The man said miserably, “I wish I had not come.” Falconer’s squeeze on his arm was the only answer.

Falconer left Reginald at the inn’s front entrance and rode his horse back out to the farm. Keeping his horse to an easy pace, he lifted his hat to a pair of women returning from the fields, his thoughts all the while racing far and wide. He tried to rein in the blood surging through his veins. He tried to pray.

But all the while, his mind turned over and again to a single reality.

Though they were six days’ hard ride inland, his nostrils were filled with the scent of the sea.

Chapter 2

The Moravian elders had interacted with Falconer on a fairly regular basis, but this night was different, according to Sarah Brune. She insisted upon Falconer dressing in a clean, starched shirt and fresh trousers. The shirt’s buttons were cloth and the trousers scarcely met Falconer’s ankles, but with a new black long coat, also of homespun, his appearance matched the serious nature of his meeting.

He had asked to talk with the elders at their weekly meeting in the community hall, one door down from the church. His earth-stained and battle-scarred hands fiddled with his wide-brimmed dark hat as he waited, feeling like a schoolboy called to the headmaster’s office. The hall was not full, nor was it empty. Any member of the community could attend, and many did, especially during the winter months, when work was light and the evening hours long. But this was September harvest, and most folk were far too busy to take part in the regular event. Even so, with Falconer being one of them now, with the inn an important element in the community, and with news of the stranger’s visit having traveled quickly, most families sent a grandmother or an older gentleman whose limbs no longer could work the fields. One person per clan, to pass along the news and speak for kinfolk if required. It was the Moravian way.

The community’s normal business was done, and the elders were in a good frame of mind with news of a bumper harvest and barns packed to overflowing in spite of those weeks of drought. The prayers were mostly of praise and thanksgiving, the discussions easy, the arguments absent. No village woman was brought up for the sin of gossip, no wayward youth had required punishment, nor was there news of further dissent with the powers that be in Raleigh.

But as soon as Falconer arose to recount his conversation with Reginald, the elders’ demeanor turned serious, if not dour. He recounted the Langstons’ problem with their son, the personal debts and their outcome. He did not embellish. He answered the questions as best he could.

He waited.

The chief elder was none other than Paul Grobbe, one of the first men Falconer had met upon his arrival in Salem a couple of years before with a band of exhausted former slaves. “What of the inn, Brother John?” he now asked.