Leopard in Exile (32 page)

Little as she wished to do so, Meriel knew she must wait for night to come again before venturing into the

open air to investigate possible means of escape. She crept back from the entrance to the passage and

sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, trying not to think of what she must do next.

Eventually she dozed, only to wake again as if she had been called. She gazed uncertainly toward the

river, and her attention was caught by movement at the water's edge. She stared for a moment, doubting

and fearing what she saw.

"Sarah…?"

Sarah heard the hoarse whisper of her name just as she was about to turn back into the city in search of a

hiding place. She stood, silent, and then it came again. She hurried forward, to where she had last seen

the green spark.

Meriel crawled out from beneath the riverbank, muddy and signaling her frantically. Heedless of

scratches, Sarah thrust her way through the scrim of bushes and found herself in a sort of den cut into the

island's shore. The two young woman hugged each other tightly.

"I thought you must be lost—"

"I looked for you, but you were gone—"

"I was sure you were dead, but I hoped—"

Their stories were exchanged in hasty whispers. Meriel told Sarah about Shining Spear's death, and First

Sword's intention to execute the foreign captives.

"Then I hope Meets-The-Dawn and the Sahoya got away safely," Sarah said somberly.

It was absurd—the two of them alone in the wilderness, in hiding from natives who would almost

certainly execute them if they discovered their hiding place—but Sarah felt a surge of sudden optimism. If

they escaped the Numakiki, they would be among friends all the way back to Baltimore.

"Tonight we will find some way to cross the river. And then we can go home. Wessex is sure to be in

Baltimore by now, and I'm sure he can—"

"No, Sarah," Meriel said softly. "I must go to Nouvelle-Orléans. I told you that."

"Leaving aside 'how,' " Sarah said tartly, "can you not tell me
why
? It is hundreds of miles to

Nouvelle-Orléans. There will be wolves, pirates—even if we escape the Numakiki—and—"

"I must go," Meriel said unhappily. "I must take this to Nouvelle-Orléans."

She drew a bundle Sarah had not noticed before onto her lap, and folded back a corner so tenderly that

Sarah would not have been surprised to see a child nestled there. Instead, it was the most fabulous cup

she had ever seen, its stem a golden jeweled falcon and its bowl carved of jade, or emerald…

"My goodness," she said inadequately. "And you have to take that to Nouvelle-Orléans? We'll be lucky

not to be robbed before we've gone ten feet."

"Will you help me, Sarah?" Meriel begged.

"I suppose I must," Sarah said helplessly. If the cup was the source of the green fire that had led her to

Meriel, it must be magic, and Sarah had learned to treat magic with serious respect. "For now that I

come to consider it, going to Nouvelle-Orléans and being shot as a spy will be far more comfortable than

returning to Baltimore and explaining to Wessex just what it is I have been doing here and why I did not

wait for him to arrive before I did it Though I must say, if you brought that with you, you have had the

luck of the fiend to get this far."

Fiendish or otherwise, their luck held good. In the twilight of a long and uncomfortable day, Sarah and

Meriel crept down to the water's edge. The river had calmed somewhat, and they must try to swim

across, despite the residual turbulence. There was no choice. The current would carry them miles

downstream, but if they were lucky, it would not drown them before they could reach the far side. They

could not chance trying to steal a raft or a canoe, even if there were any left. It was this, or go to

surrender themselves to First Sword. And they must go now, while there was still enough light by which

to choose their landing.

At least we both can swim
, Sarah thought hopefully.
And at least the Numakiki have other things to

worry about at the moment. If we're lucky, they may even think we're dead
.

"Come on," Meriel whispered. Moving in a a crouch, still clutching the blanket-wrapped cup, she

pressed through the trees and scurried down to the water. Sarah could see her lips moving in silent

prayer.

Then, as Meriel reached the water and began to wade out, Sarah stared in amazement. What she could

only describe as ripples of calm began to spread outward from Meriel. Silence descended as the rushing

of the river, its sound almost unheard through long familiarity, dimmed and then hushed entirely. It was a

miracle—there was no other word for it.

Sarah scrambled out of the cave after her friend, astonishment and curiosity making her reckless. As far

as she could see in either direction, upriver and down, the river was as smooth and quiet as an English

millpond.

The Numakiki saw it too, for there were shouts from the remains of the wall, and Sarah heard a thrown

stone plash into the river. The sound galvanized her, and she waded quickly into the water after Meriel.

The shouts from behind them grew louder, and soon someone would swim out after them. Sarah had

seen no bows among her captors, but a well-thrown spear would be just as deadly.

Sarah was a strong swimmer, and unencumbered, and the river's stillness was no illusion—aside from its

temperature, cold even now, this was no more hazardous than taking the waters at Bath. At intervals she

reached down with her toes, and after what seemed an eternity, felt them brush the river bottom.

"Take my hand!" Meriel gasped. Though she was not a strong swimmer, she had hung back from the

shore, obviously waiting for Sarah. "Take my hand! We must walk from the river together, or I know not

what will happen!"

Sarah glanced behind her. The gap in the palisades was filled with torches, and just rounding the end of

the island, she saw the sharklike shape of a canoe, followed quickly by a second one. They would reach

them in scant minutes. She grabbed Meriel's arm and dragged her toward the land.

In the shallows, Meriel stumbled and fell to her knees. The cup fell from her hands to the bank, and she

cried out.

As if in echo of her cry, there was a loud booming sound, followed by a roar that was like no sound

Sarah had ever heard before. In an instant, the river became a foaming mass of white, shining ghostlike in

the gloaming. It was as if the fury deferred in their crossing had been added to the river's normal flow,

and the result was a maelstrom that swept the canoes downriver faster than a horse could gallop,

tumbling them through the sudden rapids like driftwood.

"Dear God," Sarah whispered, stunned and staring.

Meriel pulled herself to her feet and picked up the cup again. Cradling it in one arm, she wrung out the

sodden blanket as best she could and wrapped her treasure again.

"Come," she said, and Sarah could hear that her voice was thick with tears. "I do not think they will

follow us now."

Life on the Mississippi

(Nouvelle-Orléans, October 1807)

E
xcept for one brief portage to reach the Ohio River, the entire journey into Louisianne had been

accomplished via Robert Fulton's peculiar invention, and with all the speed that Illya Koscuisko had

promised. It had been a covert passage by no stretch of the imagination, for both the Mississippi and the

Ohio were heavily trafficked rivers, even in these days of French embargo, and the
Royal Henry
was the

target of catcalls and profane questions from the flatboatmen at her every sighting. Fortunately, she was

also armed, with fore and aft guns, and between that and a superior turn of speed was able to show her

heels to the several bands of river pirates they encountered.

Though the crew of eight which tended to the
Royal Henry's
needs were all employed by the White

Tower, they undoubtedly believed that their master was some such veiling organization as the Royal

Society for the Advancement of Scientific Thought or the Wanderer's Club. In any event, they did not

treat Wessex as though he were under a cloud of any sort, and in other circumstances, Wessex might

have used such inattention as the foundation of an escape attempt, but in this case he was honest enough

to admit that Koscuisko had been correct. Sarah was no longer in Baltimore, and from what little he had

learned, Wessex might as well seek her in Nouvelle-Orléans as anywhere else.

At least, so, long as he was not called upon to murder the Due d'Charenton. He had not raised his

doubts upon the subject of the political assassination with Koscuisko again, but it was much in his

thoughts. To kill a man—especially an important, well-protected diabolist such as d'Charenton—(who, in

Wessex's private opinion, had badly needed killing for many years) was a matter that called for careful

planning and a delicacy of approach in addition to the necessary Royal blood. Nothing in Wessex's

hypothetical notions of how to proceed with such a matter included the concept of arriving on the spot in

a highly-conspicuous, fabulously unique, exquisitely noisy steam-driven riverboat.

Gossip about this strange river chimera preceded them, and by the time they reached the Upper Delta it

had become routine for
Royal Henry
to encounter curious onlookers standing along the levees that gave

the Louisianne plantations their slim protection against Old Man Mississippi's recurrent floods. The

landscape they passed through had become one of live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. Beyond

the trees was the ghost-haunted bayou country, where reptiles larger than a man—and less natural

things—waited to prey upon the unwary.

"I hope you are not anticipating a clandestine entry into the Port?" Wessex asked his partner one

afternoon. It was unreasonable to think that d'Charenton would not be as well informed as the citizenry

along the river and be awaiting the steamboat's arrival with interest. They were now only a few days at

most from the city.

"Oh, the
Royal Henry
will go to ground and vanish before we reach the city," Koscuisko answered airily.

"The captain and his men can have her in pieces in half a day—"

"If she does not explode first," Wessex reminded him, for the steam engine was a volatile thing whose

boiler had threatened them with instant annihilation a number of times already.

"—one way or another," Koscuisko amended with a smile. "From our last anchorage it is but a few hours

to a plantation house that I know of, whose master, if not precisely a Free Acadian, is no lover of

Imperial France."

"And what the devil," Wessex demanded waspishly, "is a Free Acadian?"

"You haven't paid attention to your briefing book," his companion chided reprovingly. "The Free Acadian

Liberation Front is the organization that wants Louisianne to be independent of Imperial rule. Their notion

for government is a sort of Parliament, with a Prime Minister but no King. The Sons of the Sun, on the

other hand, demand a King and no Parliament, though they're equally against Napoleon. The Creole

Freedom Party wishes to return Louisianne to the flag of Spain and throw out the French
and
the

Acadians, which is only a thought awkward since Spain has declared for Napoleon and has a Bonaparte

bottom on her throne. The Franco-Albion Alliance wishes to see Louisianne become a part of New

Albion while retaining its autonomy, and I assure you I have no more idea than they do how this marriage

of ice and fire is to be accomplished."

Wessex raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"There are, of course, other factions, such as Monsieur Lafitte's notion that
he
shall rule the Gulf as a sort

of anarcho-pirate kingdom, and Mr. Burr's notion that he and Mr. Jackson shall divide it between them.

To these last, His Majesty is particularly opposed, of course, but as for the rest—" here Koscuisko

shrugged, in flamboyant detachment, "—I suppose one revolution is as good as another, when one

comes right down to it."

"No revolution is better than any," Wessex said somberly. "A revolution is a bloody thing, demanding

payment in thousands of lives."

"Would you have France control the Gulf?" Koscuisko asked bluntly.

"She won't control it for long, if d'Charenton is up to his usual starts, whether England does anything or

not," Wessex pointed out reasonably. "So I don't see why it is our business to interfere."

"Because France is a slave nation, and England is not," Koscuisko answered, "and that alone will mean

war in the end, unless someone heads it off. And if—as has been true in the past—d'Charenton can call

upon powerful occult allies, who is to say that he might not hold Louisianne in defiance of all reasonable

expectations?"

"Because," Wessex said patiently, "the Due d'Charenton would drive the Devil himself to drink on short

acquaintance. He will unite every faction in Louisianne against him, if he has not done so already."

"And if he has in his possession the true King of France?" Koscuisko asked quietly.

Wessex was once more puzzled as to how much Koscuisko actually knew of the matter that had brought

Wessex to the New World—not Sarah's disappearance, but Louis and Mend's. There was no safe way

to find out, and so the Duke turned away and silently watched the river.