Pinion (9 page)

Did the landforms pass beneath? Did the seas flow from one side to the other? The air did not, except for the bit at the top. She could not see that weather in the Northern Earth could have a connection to weather in the Southern Earth.

It was as if a draughtsman had prepared a chart, then slashed a great line across the middle. God could not possibly have been mistaken when He had created the world six thousand years earlier. His plan must mean something she had not yet managed to discern.

That the system of the world
could
be discerned was never a doubt to Paolina. That she was the one to discern it was no more of a question. The how of the thing was a challenge, meat to the gnawing teeth of her mind.

As for the why, who could comprehend the mind of God? Such priests as she had known did not encourage any trust to be placed in them. Ming’s people clearly had a different view altogether of the arrangements of Heaven and Earth, though Ming was difficult to draw forth on the matter.

The Southern Earth, with its absence of any evidence of man, at least as seen from these rocky, difficult heights, did make her doubt whether Adam had in fact been the true purpose of Creation, or just another animal in the Garden.

A heretic thought encroached: What would the world be if some great cat, or an ambling bear, had taken the Forbidden Fruit?

Up close the priest appeared even more uncomfortable than from a distance. He was not so fat as Childress had first thought, but rather wore vestments billowing about him as if he had once been grossly overweight and somehow since managed to forget the existence of tailors. The skin of his face hung down his neck like the jowls of a bulldog, testament to what he had lost. He was burnt red by the sun, his thinning hair orange to match, but even through it all there was a gentle humor in his pale eyes.

The priest’s mule was as wretched as he. The man pulled his mount to a halt, then asked in English, “Who is this come calling?” His soft voice contained a trace of some European accent Childress could not place.

“My clothes belie my path in life, Father,” Childress answered in measured tones. She pulled the spirit of the Mask Poinsard around her, shedding
the dead woman’s duchess-arrogance but keeping close grip on the confidence, the power, the purpose.

“No one would doubt that, Mistress . . . ?”

The question hung in the air as if the fate of nations depended on her answering it. Which in a sense was true. “You may call me Mask.” Her right hand flickered in a birdlike gesture.

His eyes widened in recognition, but he returned no signal, instead saying, “I am Father Francis, of the Archdiocese of Goa. Please allow me to tender my apologies for our poor welcome, but we were not expecting an invasion of the fleet of Erehwon, peopled by charming villainesses such as yourself.”

“I charm no one.” Childress admitted some of the talking-to-students tartness back into her voice. “I merely speak of what I see before me.”

“A far too uncommon failing,” observed Father Francis.

“What I see before me seems to be a man who has been gravely ill.”

The priest nodded, a frown easing onto his sun-drenched face.

Childress continued. “One not sympathetic to the flight of the white bird. A follower of the Silent Order, perhaps.”

She did not mean to twit the man, but there was little point in failing to declare themselves openly at the outset. Not here, not now, where guile counted for little and clarity weighed much in the balance.

Father Francis shifted in the saddle. The mule snuffled mournfully. “Though you and your ship full of vile miscreants see things differently, I say a pox on both your houses. God left us His word and His world. There is no need for further interference from spiritual parvenus.”

“I am a librarian, Father.” She smiled at him. “I have spent my life among priests at their training. I am quite sick of interference from spiritual parvenus myself.”

“Oh, my poor child.” Though his words were heavy-hearted, the smile had returned to the priest’s face. “Did yon vessel of wrath liberate you from such bondage?”

His words brought old regrets to mind. She took hold of those emotions before continuing. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I am here today seeking aid and counsel.”

“You’ve certainly come to the wrong place, then.” He nodded at
Five Lucky Winds
. “If your crew is not set to storm the beaches in a body, perhaps you would take a morning tea with me?”

“I would be delighted.” Childress turned and gave the agreed-upon signal for her personal safety, then favored the priest with another smile. “Lead onward, Father.”

Childress sat in a wicker chair on a tiled porch, a small rattan table between her and Father Francis. An Indian boy had laid out the tea service, along with slices of fruits she didn’t recognize, glistening wedges of pastel flesh. The ceiling was high above them, and in another place might have hosted a fan. Here they were merely hot.

A cathedral loomed close behind this rectory, its location implied but not explicit from where she sat. No other priests had been visible on her walk upward with Father Francis, but then there were few other people of any calling here. The porch was large but empty, innocent of furniture except for their little setting. An errant breeze carried the scent of distant jungle, and a spice she could not name.

Goa Velha was a pleasant place. She wondered where everyone had gone.

Her host fussed with a pitcher of musky cream that she had already declined. After he had adjusted the color of his tea to his liking, he tipped in a bit of grainy brown sugar. That was followed by a bright smile directed at Childress. She could see the handsome young man he had once been in the gleam of his eyes and the lines of his face beneath the sagging envelope of skin.

“The Portuguese moved the capital to Panjim after the plague of 1843,” Father Francis said. “Your map must be very old.”

Not just a priest, but a thinking man, Childress realized. Even though he was probably an adversary, she found herself delighted. “It was not my map,” she offered, to see what else he might reveal in the vacancies of that truth.

“Next I suppose you will tell me your face did not launch a thousand of those underwater ships, either.” His expression over the rim of his cup was downright mischievous.

“I should hardly think so.” She met him smile for smile. “All faces are masks. All Masks have faces.”

“Mmm.” He set his cup down, speared a slice of dewy pink fruit with a tiny silver fork. “What does a good Anglican heretic such as yourself want in my poor parish? You come armed with a warship, and fly a flag of fictional intent, unless there has been some new empire aborning whose cries have not reached my ears.”

“I come armed with nothing but my wits. That is not my warship down in the harbor.” Even as she said the words, Childress realized they were the closest thing to a lie.
Five Lucky Winds
did fly
her
flag, and they sailed
the course she had suggested. Their future in all likelihood hung on her ability to play the part of Mask that she had assumed so reluctantly on first being taken violently aboard that vessel.

“What do your wits tell you?”

“That my map is old.”

They both laughed. The priest let silence stretch a while, content to invite Childress to fill it.

Being the supplicant, she did. “We search for a neutral port; seeking fuel, food and fresh water. Access to a foundry or a machine shop would not go amiss, though our troubles there are not too serious.”
Yet
. There would never again be a warehouse full of parts and ship mechanics awaiting
Five Lucky Winds
, as in the ship’s former home port of Tainan.

“We come directly to the heart of your matter,” the priest replied. “Few harbors here in the western Indian Ocean would admit a vessel such as yours. You have chosen well, poor map or no.” Another sip of tea. “I am certain the children of God in my parish will be pleased to sell you melons and dried fish and bushels of whatever they have in surplus.”

Childress heard the slap of sandals outside as some unseen listener raced away with the good tidings. “Thank you, Father. That is most welcome news.”

“Mmm. As for fuel and machinery, unless you can burn palm oil and repair your ship with wooden batons, I am afraid we will not do you much good here.”

Something unsaid hung at the edge of his voice. Something she would have to be clever enough to ask.

Some willing treason he cannot simply volunteer
, she thought.

“We will deal fairly with the folk of your parish,” Childress said slowly, bargaining by the syllable. “I respect the delicate nature of your position.” A shot into the darkness of this man’s purpose.

Another long, slow sip of tea as his eyes hardened. “I should imagine someone bereft of the protection of any crown might well comprehend such things.”

Crown
. This place was a sovereign neverland, if she understood the political arrangements. Childress tried to think like Admiral Shang, like William of Ghent, like all those persons of high purpose and obscure intent she had encountered along this journey. “Loyalties can be stripped away in the passages of power.”

Father Francis’ weight shifted. “What does your banner signify?”

“That there is one world under the gears of God,” she said softly. Her own words surprised her.

“One world, many flags. You know our history here?”

Childress nodded. “Under Portuguese rule for quite some time, though you are no Lusitanian. Now the British Empire holds sway through its client monarch in Lisbon, yes?”

“Yes. For most people there is no change. They follow an ox through a paddy, or pull golden perch from the river. The colors of the flag are little more than another flower blooming on a narrow wooden stalk. But for some there is grave difference. . . .” He ran a fingertip around the rim of his cup. “I am here because I am dying.”

“I had thought you to be a much bigger man not so long ago, Father.”

“To be sure. Soon I will take my leave of you, to deposit even more of myself in a stinking hole. I am not so healthy as I look.” He grinned, but quiet despair loomed behind the crooked, brown-stained teeth. “I hold a secret, librarian-who-is-a-Mask. In other times I would have wished a bloody plague on you and the Silent Ones both, but these are my last days. You come asking; I will give you my gift.”

She felt balanced between potential and horror. “I should thank you for your legacy.”

“Perhaps.” He ate another slice of fruit, slowly chewing as a trickle of palest green ran down the stubble of his chin. Then: “There is a fort up the coast. I will give you a chart. Pirates once ranged there, not so long ago, for the same reason you have come—Goa is a place with little law and less care than most. Those bandit sailors are departed, impressed aboard Her Imperial Majesty’s ships or returned to their fields and farms, but some of what you need may yet be found.”

“Pirates?” She almost laughed, but this man was serious as the disease that ate him from within. “Surely their treasures are defended; surely the British keep watch to see who comes looking for more.”

“Surely enough, but with Chinese submarines cruising these waters, who has time to watch an old cave cluttered with rusting parts and leaking fuel barrels?” He reached into his vestments and pulled out a long, beaded rosary from which hung not a cross but a key. “You will need this.”

“Will you come?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Even the ride down to your ship was almost too much for me.”

“Why do this at all?”

“Word came.” His voice was growing threadbare. “You were to be stopped. The birds said this; the Silent Ones said this. But the Royal Navy is not rumbling. Anyone who can stir the hidden powers of the world while leaving the lions at the gate asleep is a truly worthy troublemaker.”

She took the key, and a little leather map he handed her. She stepped around the wicker table and kissed his sweating forehead. “I have no blessing to bestow,” Childress said, “but my thanks are yours.”

“One world, under the gears of God.” The imp was back in his eyes for a moment. “Make it so?”

“We shall try.”

As Childress walked down the steps of the rectory, Father Francis called after her. “I used to be a priest, you know. In truth.”