Easton's Gold (7 page)

Gabrielle turns toward him and takes a step closer. “Have you quite decided then not to come along on the voyage?” she asks. She does not look directly into his eyes; it's as though she is afraid his expression will confirm her fear.

“I have decided nothing,” he says. “I have not been given any information from which I can decide.”

She glances into his eyes now, then she looks away, struggling it seems. Fleet watches her face—her high, rounded cheeks and her dark lips, the eyes in constant movement even when fixed upon a point—and wishes she would be as vulnerable and open to him but for some cause other than Easton. He feels he is gazing from a distance upon the ideal of devotion, and he wants to trap the moment like a specimen in one of his jars.

“I know why he wants to go to Newfoundland,” she says at last. “He wants to try and find his son.” A chaise wheel grates on the cobbles nearby, and they both take a step sideways. “A half-caste, he said. He tortures himself with the past, imagining he has committed the most terrible of crimes.”

Fleet stares at the gravel beneath his feet. He had not expected this. He can sense that her eyes are upon him, darting around his face. He knows the kind of assurance Gabrielle wants from him, but he is torn between the wish to comfort and some darker, ill-defined urge. The latter wins.

“How do you know he hasn't?” Fleet asks quietly. “How do you know he hasn't committed the most terrible of crimes?”

He watches her face break into a smile. “I had thought you a better judge of character, Mr. Fleet,” she replies with some passion. “I know him. I know his fears and his dreams. He's incapable of cruelty.”

Fleet bows his head, glances down the street—a chaise driver is lashing his horse mercilessly—then looks back at her. “He was a pirate though, that much is common knowledge in the neighbourhood.”

“He sailed without the King's seal, but so did many in those days. I believe he was a monarch of the seas, dispensing true justice and mercy to those in need.” Gabrielle's eyes sparkle now in happy defiance. Fleet smiles weakly in response. “Please, Mr. Fleet,” she continues, encouraged. “If you cannot dissuade him then please join us just for the voyage, just to keep him well.” She comes a little closer and her twitching fingers come into contact with his tunic. “There are so many ships there, you can buy passage back and still have a handsome profit for your trouble.” She withdraws her hands quickly and blushes a little.

Fleet sighs. “Your devotion to the Marquis is a powerful argument,” he says, “and I fear it will wear me down eventually. Let me see to my own business first, and then I will send my answer.”

He takes a step back and gives her a low bow. When he looks up, he sees her face fill with worry. “Gabrielle,” he adds gently, “I promise the state of your master's health will remain my highest priority.”

He holds her gaze until he sees relief sweep across her features. She gives him a long smile then turns and begins to make her way back to the house.

__________

“F
IVE PRIVATE CABINS, MY LORD
? It is not possible.”

I have become increasingly accustomed in old age to the patronizing tone and the superior smile I now encounter in Captain Henley. He is quite certain I am losing my reason, and his pale blue eyes convey some sympathy as he shifts on the little chair in front of my desk.

And yet he is here. If he had no interest at all in me or my proposition, he would have sent a letter in reply to my own note. He suspects there is some opportunity for him, and I am picking up clues every second as to what he wants. Though seated, his manner is alert. He has to stop himself from glancing around when he hears footsteps in the hall. His fingers are restive upon his lap. I noticed he had much curiosity in Gabrielle when she showed him into my room, then he lost interest in his surroundings just as quickly when she bowed at me and left.

He may patronize me as much as he likes, but I can turn the pages of his mind at will. He has come in the hope he will catch sight of some well-dowered daughter, either for himself—he is only forty or so, and some sea captains are late to marry—or perhaps for a son.

I return his smile and get ready to use this to my advantage. I give myself five minutes to turn this boat one hundred and eighty degrees.

“I am disappointed, Captain. I have three servants: one man and two women. I treat them with dignity and divide the sexes. Then there is myself; my apothecary, who is doing me a great favour in joining me; and a young girl, Gabrielle—I believe you noticed her when you entered—who I plan to make my ward.”

Henley hesitates, turns and looks through the open door behind him.

“The dark, pretty one. I'm sure I saw you exchange glances.”

Henley adjusts his collar, which seems to have become tighter all of a sudden. “I thought she was your servant,” he says.

“That's just her fancy, Captain. She likes to dress like the others and go around the house doing odd jobs. It's time she married, of course, but I want it to be a man more like myself than those merchants, lawyers, and government men I see around me. Too many Londoners prefer dry land. She was born for the life of the sea.”

I laugh, and Henley politely joins in. But for him there is an edge to it, I can tell. His eyes are glistening.

“Still, my lord,” he says repositioning himself, “five cabins.” He is condescending no more, I notice. Rather, he is deadly serious. “I am commissioned to bring livestock and sundry supplies to the various fishing colonies, as well as wines and spirits to the new landlords of the plantations. Since you are proposing to purchase some of our supplies and bring them with you, I must procure more and find room to store them too. It's simple science, sir. There is too much to fit.”

I lean back and sigh.

“I can see you are an honest and honourable man,” I say. “And I understand your position better than you imagine. Many times we captains are forced against our natures to be creative with supplies and numbers, to drop so many pounds from these sacks or those barrels, to count twenty when we have eighteen.”

Henley's pale eyes are working their way through the problem.

Ninety degree turn; ninety more and we're there
.

“It isn't safe to play games anymore,” Henley says, crossing his legs, his fingers covering his mouth. “Some London merchants will board a ship and check supplies the night before they sail.”

“Then we go a day early.”

Henley gazes at the floor, scratching his ear and pondering.

“Gabrielle!” I call. Captain Henley stiffens and takes his hand from his ear.

I know Gabrielle is not far away. In a few moments I hear the swish-swish of her dress. She appears in the doorway and enters. Henley gazes at me, a little intimidated. He shifts sideways in his chair then stands.

Gabrielle backs off a little as he turns to her.

“Gabrielle,” I say calmly, “this is Captain Henley. He will be taking us to Newfoundland in four days.

Captain Henley bows rather stiffly. Gabrielle's eyes dart from Henley's to mine then back again.

“Would Captain Henley like me to fetch him something?” she asks softly.

I laugh and slap the desk. Henley laughs as I hoped he would, but Gabrielle just looks confused.

“Only yourself, my dear,” I say at last. “Only your company when you can spare it.”

T
he lantern's halo skims the laurel bush. Fleet scans the green flesh, leaf by leaf.

It's almost too soon, he thinks. Four days, the reply said. That's three by sunrise.

Fleet crouches, peering below the lowest branch. The light catches something, and he pulls the sack closer to the bush. He reaches in below the foliage, his fingers skimming the moist grass. Gasping, his face close to the earth, he feels for the shell, secures it under his fingernails then carefully lifts the creature from the bark. He puts the snail into the sack and hears the gentle tap of shell against shell. He will need dozens more before the night is over. It will be difficult as there has been no rain for days.

The thought of Newfoundland makes Fleet breathless. It will be his first return, and the full-circle pattern sends shivers through him. He wonders if those turbulent shores will smell only of blood or whether happier memories will flood upon him too. It was the last place he experienced true joy, yet it's also the land of his deadliest recollections. He feels like a mortal recalled to the haven of the gods, where everything—joy, hope, love, despair—is felt on a Promethean scale.

He thinks of the settlement he once knew, the rickety planks set up against the rush of winter, the stone walls nestled more stoically into the side of a hill. Despite the cold, the storms, and the toil, he remembers laughter as fresh as the virgin north wind.

A breeze rises, bobbing the laurel leaves and causing his lantern flame to flicker; a momentary panic sweeps through him.
Do I have the courage to go through with it
? Everything he is will be swept away forever. No more “Fleet the apothecary.” No more London. The truth of his past will annihilate it all. And what will he be left with?

Fleet's heart beats faster.
I will go. I will go, but perhaps I will return here later
. He knows it is a foolish compromise, that there is no point if he does not commit himself. Going to Newfoundland with Easton and remaining “Fleet the apothecary” who can return to London without revealing himself is a betrayal of himself and his parents.

He remembers being held high between the shoulders of the two men from the ship as they marched side by side back up the hill toward his burning house. He can feel again the vice-like grip of their hands and the sudden wrenching of his hair from behind as he tried to look away. “There's your father!” one said as they came to a halt. His voice was neither loud nor angry, merely impatient at the boy's struggling and eager to get on. “Stop calling for him. He was no good to us. But you and your mother are.” Though his vision became filled with tears, he could see that the body lying face up was no longer his father. The eyes were open but no more alive than the pebbles around him.

The child knew for certain that the strange numbness he felt now was his new reality. He knew that the scene around him—punctured bodies; burning houses; a neighbour's girl, young Elizabeth, staring out through a doorway now, destined to starve—would stay with him always. Commonplace things—cool pond water lapping against his skin; the warm breeze of August; laughter as he and his friends learned steps to a dance—would never again bring the same intensity of feeling. The house of his senses was burning along with the village; he was entering a place of darkness.

Fleet remembers the chains that bound his mother's wrists, how blood mingled with sweat when she struggled, and how one day, months after their capture, he met the desolate stare of her eye—a look so near death it was a premonition. She had given up on everything and would eat and drink no more.

Fleet reaches for another snail, pulls it from a leaf and drops it into his sack. The shells clink against each other again, and he feels a tremor beneath his feet. He knows this comes not from the earth but from himself. He has become too comfortable with Fleet the apothecary; he must get ready for the great change.

__________

I
T IS NOT YET DAWN AND
Gabrielle still cannot sleep. She watches the strip of moonlight on the plaster ceiling and imagines the sway of a hull and the creaking of timbers. Philippa snores loudly as, no doubt, she will upon the ship.

Travelling again so soon makes little sense. It isn't just the voyage that worries her, or even her master's health anymore. The Marquis's words have teased away a scab she thought long healed. “Only your company when you can spare it,” he had said. Why should the captain want her company? Why should she feel obliged to give it?

There was a hint of mockery in the situation, something out of place in the Marquis's treatment of her. She turns onto her side and closes her eyes. She imagines stones whistling past her ears and grazing the back of her legs, and she remembers running up the chalky path from the village to the château. Gabrielle was very thin then and a fine runner. The taunting gang did not follow her all the way, and when she turned up in the cobbled courtyard, breathless and bloodied, Françoise, the Marquis's housekeeper, swooped upon her with an intensity Gabrielle at first mistook for sternness. Françoise, as short as a child but as strong as a bull, had just returned from picking mushrooms; she grabbed Gabrielle's forearm like it was a chicken's neck and hauled her inside the château, shouting orders to the servants on the way. Jacques was there, younger and less certain of himself in those days. Maria and Philippa were scrubbing clothes by a large tub.

She ordered Jacques out of the kitchen and yelled at Maria and Philippa to go to the pumps and fetch buckets of water. Then she set about washing Gabrielle with more vigour than she had ever been washed before.

“I must get you ready to show to the Marquis,” said Françoise, breathless from scrubbing. Despite the housekeeper's odd frowns and tutting noises, Gabrielle began to realize she was not being punished. “We must know what to do with you,” she said. “What is your name?”

Gabrielle gave her the name by which her mother called her.

“No, no, no, that will not do. We must think of something else for you.” Suddenly, a brightness came into the housekeeper's small, green eyes, and her walnut cheeks stretched into a smile. “I will call you Gabrielle, for Gabriel was an angel and so are you.”

Gabrielle feels tears welling at the memory. She turns quickly in her bed again, as though to ward them away. Carrying the name Françoise gave her makes her feel proud, and she has held to it more fiercely since the housekeeper died last year. But she finds the threat of imminent change unsettling, and she is afraid the disruption might shake loose all her armour, including her assumed name. When the Marquis spoke to her so strangely in front of the captain, it was as though for an instant he had ceased to be her protector. It was as though he had joined that gang chasing her up the hill.