Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (34 page)

How could the
Indians not feel kinship for everything on the earth after being rocks, grass,
otters, hawks?
 
"What have you been
in your past lives?"

He thought a moment.
 
"A stag.
 
A vein of copper.
 
A
hickory tree.
 
A brook."

She smiled
again.
 
"Is this your first time as
a human?"

"No.
 
I've been a man before.
 
I've been a woman, too."

"You held
Lila's baby just like a midwife would."

"And what
have
you
been in your past lives?"

She'd never
given the idea of multiple lifetimes much consideration, and yet from the way
Mathias explained it, it sat far better with her than the Christians'
dogma.
 
Heaven had always sounded boring
and pointless to her.
 
"After
what's happened the last eleven days, surely I must have been a man."

He
laughed.
 
"Indeed, a mighty
warrior.
 
A general who led armies to
multiple victories."
 
He yawned
again.

"Perhaps
you were my wife or mistress in that lifetime."
 
They both tittered before subsiding into comfortable
quietude.
 
She contemplated the spirit
lake a moment longer.
 
"The lake
must be changing with all that knowledge every spirit returns to it."

"Mmm.
 
Evolving."

"Where is
it evolving?"

"Toward
the unity of all things, the Great Understanding."
 
He yawned a third time.

She squeezed
his hand.
 
"Come back to our
cabin."

"Ah, if
only I could be certain the seasickness wouldn't return and spoil it for
us.
 
The last thing I want is to be
interrupted again.
 
Let us see how I
feel in the morning."

She kissed his
brow, disappointed, and nodded.
 
"How much we both need rest.
 
I'm so weary my hands shake."

"Go rest,
then."
 
He kissed her hand.
 
"Good night."

Chapter Twenty-Six

THURSDAY
MORNING, SOPHIE awakened with sunlight bobbing on her face, the smells of
coffee and tar in her nostrils, and her bed swaying.
 
When she recognized the creaking and straining noises as those of
blocks and sheets, she realized she'd spent the night in her cabin on the
Gloria
Maria
.

And she'd spent
it there alone.
 
Disappointment tugged
at her at the sight of the second hammock swaying empty.
 
After disentangling her feet from the
blanket, she rolled from her hammock and used the chamber pot.
 
Then she slipped on her shoes and followed
her nose in search of coffee.

A haze rising
from the east dimmed sunlight on deck.
 
She squinted outward and wrinkled her nose.
 
Gone were merry waves with foam dancing upon their crests,
replaced by swells six feet in height, giving the ocean a swollen, feverish
appearance.
 
Clumps of seaweed the color
of liver rode the swells, hair torn from the head of Tethys the titan.
 
The
Gloria Maria
compensated for
crests and troughs, her rhythm pronounced.

A trip fore
rewarded her with the sight of a sloop's white sails not five miles ahead.
 
Mathias rose from where he'd crouched beside
a coil of rope.
 
"David must have
won at cards."

"Good
morning to you, too."
 
She hugged
him, her body meeting his with a smooth and humid fit.

The proximity
of a sailor in rigging nearby restrained their kiss to a peck, but Mathias slid
his arm about her waist and whispered against her neck, "I believe my
sickness is cured."

"Without a
drop of brandy.
 
Amazing."
 
They chuckled.

Scuffing his
boots, Arriaga joined them, spyglass in hand.
 
He smelled of port and cheroots and looked as though he'd had no more
than three hours sleep.
 
No telling how
much money he'd lost to David.
 
Sophie
gestured toward the sloop.
 
"The
Annabelle
?"

"Too soon
to tell,
senhora
."

"How soon
will we overtake her?"

A brief lift of
his shoulders communicated ambiguity.
 
"She can sail closer to the wind, but the captain might find
himself in the Bahamas before he outran us.
 
If a passenger paid him to reach a destination such as Havana quickly,
he would maintain his course and not sail to windward."

Arriaga had the
field figured out.
 
Le Comte André
Dusseau, seeing his sloop being overtaken, might assume them pirates.
 
"Has she any guns,
capitão
?"

"A small
swivel gun."
 
A voracious smile
enveloped his face.
 
"The outcome
of the day also depends on the strategy of that frigate, now but six miles
behind us.
 
Paolo on the main mast
identified her colors as Continental.
 
She has thirty-eight guns and is in pursuit of
us
."
 
His smile grew knife-sharp.
 
"And there is the ship-of-the-line a
few miles behind the frigate."

"Gods,"
Mathias muttered.

Arriaga gauged
their reactions.
 
"Shall we wager
the warship is the
Zealot
, and she set sail with those two British
officers aboard?
 
Ah, I am certain we
shall know soon, for she, like the sloop, is running as quickly as
possible."

He circled them
once, evaluating.
 
"Such an
interesting voyage.
 
Here we are chasing
a fishing sloop.
 
We are, in turn, being
chased by both a Continental frigate and a warship.

"
Senhora
,
your brother Daniel — if Daniel is his name, if he is your brother — plays one
and thirty as if he were born to gambling.
 
You,
senhor
, are an Indian, and I wager you are also an
artisan.
 
Your French uncle — if he is
your uncle — has ties all the way back to Montcalm.
 
And you,
senhora
—"
 
Arriaga appraised her from head to toe, intrigued, his dark eyes
alert.
 
"You speak with the
authority and confidence of one who has operated a business."

She met his
stare, uncomfortable as it made her, and the captain sniffed.
 
"I do not expect you to explain
yourselves.
 
However, you may consider
giving me your true names.
 
No doubt you
have noticed the change in the seas today."
 
He gestured eastward.
 
"And observe the sky."

Mares' tails of
cirrus streamed from the haze in the east, heralds reaching westward.
 
Puzzled, Sophie looked at Arriaga.
 
"I'm not a sailor.
 
What does all that mean?"

"It means,
senhora
, that you had best pray for the wind to continue from the east,
for if it shifts about to the northeast, by tonight, the captain of each ship
will have far more to concern him than pursuit."
 
He pivoted and strode astern.

***

While adjusting
to the roll of a larger swell, Sophie balanced the tray between her hip and one
hand and reached for the door handle just as Mathias opened the cabin door from
within.
 
Blotting his face with a towel,
he stepped aside to let her in, then shut the door.
 
The stool squawked when he pulled it out.
 
"Ah, food.
 
My salvation."
 
After
tossing the towel on his hammock, he reached for the tray.
 
"Have you eaten?"

"Yes.
 
Go ahead.
 
It's all for you."

She sat on the
floor, and neither spoke while she cleaned her teeth and he gobbled
breakfast.
 
He gestured with a chunk of
bread.
 
"You've been aft to look
for the other two ships?"

"Yes.
 
I can see the frigate and her colors
clearly."

He swallowed
the bread.
 
"What business can a
Continental frigate have with us?"
 
Naked of moccasins, he wiggled his toes.

"I've been
thinking about that.
 
Suppose MacVie
managed to inform rebel leaders that their emerald couriers were being menaced
by redcoats and Loyalists, in addition to El Serpiente."

Mathias grunted
agreement.
 
"So the Continentals
were positioned to lend support to the rebel mission after it headed to
Havana.
 
We're a threat, and the
frigate's captain means to intercept us."

"Yes.
 
I hope the sloop doesn't fire upon us.
 
The frigate captain would receive the wrong
impression."

The blacksmith
swigged wine and pointed to the flask.
 
"Excellent.
 
I see how
Arriaga stays in business.
 
And what of
the ship-of-the-line?"

"Spotting
her requires a spyglass.
 
Were you too
ill yesterday morning to spot that anchored warship?"

"I saw
her.
 
Is the same ship following
us?"

"She
appears to be the same one, yes, the
Zealot
."

"With Hunt
and his hellhound aboard."
 
Mathias
crammed more bread in his mouth and swallowed.

"I thought
he'd give us up."

"Come
now.
 
Did you really think so?"

They studied
each other.
 
She remembered David's
words to her about Edward, more than a week before: ...
he's in love with
you, Sophie...He may be a mediocre soldier, but he possesses great tenacity and
determination
...
 
With a shiver, she
also recalled Fairfax's words: ...
he's so obsessed that he could chase you
across three hundred miles
...

If three
hundred miles on land were nothing to Edward Hunt, the ocean wouldn't stop him,
either.
 
She licked her lips, salty with
sea spray.
 
"I
hoped
he'd
give us up.
 
But I suppose not, with an
alliance between Continentals and Spaniards at stake."

"And the
woman he loves, too."

"I don't
love him.
 
Surely he must realize
that."

"He wants
you."

"You've
wanted me for eighteen years, but did you follow me like a dog all that
time?
 
That sort of obsession is
unnatural."

"Different
men, different courtship styles."

"
Courtship
?
 
Is that what you call our relationship all
these years?
 
Had we not been thrown
together in this adventure, I'd have gone to my grave without an inkling of
your affections."

He
scowled.
 
"Not so.
 
I'd have said something —"

"
When
?"

"Why do
women always want to know
when
?"

She stared at
him, dismayed.
 
"After everything
that's happened between us for a week and a half, you're still afraid Major
Hunt's going to purchase my affections, aren't you?"

"The
thought does cross my mind, yes."

"You
concluded that since he's chasing me, I must be destined to break your heart
again?
 
I don't believe it.
 
I've drawn close to you, and you're so
accustomed to orbiting me from afar that you're spoiling for a quarrel to save
face.
 
That's how it works for you, isn't
it?
 
That's unnatural, too."

His expression
as mobile as marble, he corked the wine flask and set the tray down.
 
"Pardon me.
 
My sickness might be returning."
 
Looking not the slightest bit seasick, he yanked on his moccasins
and stood.

She pressed her
lips together, her heart climbing into her throat and hurting.
 
"And that's your answer.
 
You don't talk about it.
 
You just walk away."
 
He yanked open the door.
 
She rose and found her balance.
 
"With such a strategy, how did you ever
manage to negotiate anything for the Creek?"

The slamming
door made her wince and brought tears to her eyes that she dashed away.
 
Edward was in her face.
 
Mathias was out at arms' length.
 
Damned if she understood men.
 
She straightened and squared her
shoulders.
 
Who needed any of it?

***

With a
freshening east wind and the skies lowering through morning, José extinguished
the galley fire and served a cold midday meal.
 
Up on deck, Sophie and her companions watched Fate gather momentum:
sloop, brig, frigate, and warship converging.
 
Meanwhile, Mathias moved in and curtailed Sophie's conversation with Arriaga
about Mediterranean cultures when he overheard the captain say, "In
ancient Crete, women did not cover their bosoms.
 
It is the truth."
 
So
much for playing aloof.
 
Arriaga's
attentions to her made Mathias nervous.