Authors: J. Jay Kamp
“Then send Manby next time.”
“I will not, Sir! I’ll send you, and should you return once more without eggs or fish, I shall have you dragged to the gratings to be flogged! As a member of my crew, you will work, my lord, not gather stones.”
Vancouver glowered triumphantly at Paul, but as he savored Paul’s embittered submission, Ravenna dared to lift her voice. “I can get you fish,” she said.
Paul elbowed her in the ribs. She ignored him and approached the captain anyway. “If it would help,” she said carefully, “we can take the cutter right now and go to a place on the mainland where I used to dive for lingcod and flounder. There might be rock fish, too, and halibut—”
“Might be?” Vancouver frowned. “Would that be similar to ‘there
might
be deer on that island, Captain’? Is this how your plot was fashioned, Killiney? Is this where your assurances, your promises of game and venison were born? From her unreliable and questionable foresight? Answer me, Sir! Did she contrive this episode?”
“She didn’t, no,” Paul said angrily, but Vancouver had shifted his attention to Ravenna.
“And I suppose you sullied no canvas with paint?” Vancouver stepped closer, trying to intimidate her with the tyranny of his tone. “Had you the slightest intention of fulfilling my orders? Or was this island expedition merely a holiday?”
The ferocity of his expression made Ravenna’s insides curl. She fought off the urge to swear. Just barely. “No, I—”
“Then show me the drawings!”
“You can’t see them, they’re—”
“I
can’t
see them? I’ve given you my leave to illegally participate in this voyage on the grounds you contribute your artistic abilities and now I
can’t
see the drawings?”
“You don’t understand, they’ve been—”
“No, it’s you without the capacity for understanding. I would see those sketches.
Now!”
There seemed no choice but for Ravenna to comply. So with the entire ship’s complement watching, she unfolded the tent’s fabric and reluctantly handed over the watercolor pictures. Vancouver swiped them up. He marched across the deck, shouted an order for Mr. Laithwood and Mr. Manning to hold a sail between them as he unrolled the sketches beneath the canvas.
Ravenna looked at Paul, held her breath. They both knew what would greet his eyes from the top of that stack of coastal drawings—a portrait of Paul that had definitely not been commissioned by the Royal Navy.
In seconds the furious roar of the captain rose above the noise of the downpour. “I did not risk my career for the benefit of your copulation!
I did not, Sir!”
“Look,” Paul said, raising his hands, “it’s only a bleedin’ picture, and I’d—”
“
Vancouver
Island,
prescient
insight…Now at last the truth becomes plain: You’ve lied unconscionably, my lord, and I tell you, I will listen no more! Private Millward! Come forward!”
One of the red-coated marines appeared.
“Put this woman below and under guard! I’ll not have her promiscuity loose upon my ship! Private Bonchin, Sir!”
Another marine pushed through the crowd.
“You’ll relieve Mr. Millward at eight bells, and then Private Glasspole will stand the midwatch! She’ll have no sustenance for two days, do you hear? She’ll be made to suffer as we do in the consequence of her lies, and she’ll see no one, utter no prophecies and distract no man from his work, so long as she remains aboard His Majesty’s ship!”
Bill Bonchin and Thomas Millward, both men notorious for rough behavior, nodded as they approached Ravenna with enthusiasm. John Glasspole had arms the size of Paul’s waist, and as he neared, he ordered Paul to step aside and give Ravenna up or suffer a beating.
Paul didn’t budge. His only move was to put his arm securely around her, and that arm tensed as his feet shuffled behind hers for better footing. “If she goes, I go as well,” Paul growled.
“If that’s how ye like it,” Private Glasspole answered, and grinning at Paul, the marine began to slip out of his scarlet jacket. “Don’t think our cap’n would mind one whit if me fist takes a likin’ to your ugly nose.”
As Paul let go to roll up his sleeves, frantically Ravenna searched the men’s faces. The shouting had reached a level near mutiny. The sailors pressed in, choosing sides between Paul and Private Glasspole while beyond, above the din, she could hear James railing, “Does she look like a seaman to you? She’s a
woman
, Vancouver. Can’t you see this is madness?”
“I’ve sense enough to have you flogged the very same if you don’t stand aside, Sir, and leave me alone.”
“But you’re irrational. You’ve taken ill at the expense of your judgment and I won’t tolerate harm coming to my—”
“
I have not taken ill!
Do you tempt me, Wolvesfield? Then stand aside! Sergeant Flynn, Sir! There will be order on this ship, or you will all be spreadeagled at the gratings, do you hear?”
With this threat, Sergeant Flynn reined in Private Glasspole’s first swing at Paul with an obligatory shout. The other two marines promptly fell in beside the private, and together they surrounded Paul, against his fists and will. As they started to drag him away, Mr. Whidbey demanded all hands to assemble near the stern while above the pandemonium, Vancouver issued his resonant commands with an eager and righteous vengeance. “Take Killiney aft, Private Millward! And Mr. Barnes, collect your drum! For his defiance, we shall have two lashes for my lord before Lady Elizabeth is confined to quarters and then we shall ask what punishment befits liars, confessing his deception of captain and crew or two more?”
“
No!”
Ravenna cried, pushing Private Millward as hard as she could. “We didn’t lie to you! Paul’s done nothing to deserve this, he’s—”
“Sergeant Flynn!” Vancouver yelled. The sergeant approached her, his face tensed as he reached out to grab her.
“No,” she pleaded, “I’ll prove we didn’t lie to you, just give me the chance to—”
The sergeant’s fingers closed around her collar, but with all the strength she could muster, she pulled away. The linen tore as she twisted and fought in the sergeant’s grasp until somehow, before he’d found another hold, she escaped. She rushed across the deck, seeing the blur of men yammering in encouragement, seeing Paul out of the corner of her eye as she made for Vancouver near the quarterdeck rail with all she had in her, shouting, “Let him go,
please
, leave him alone and I’ll tell you the future!”
Vancouver’s small frame bent with rage. “Your future is worthless!”
“Please, I’m not lying, I can help you,” she said, and drawing nearer to the captain, unhindered by the sailors or the remaining marines, she begged him, tried to bribe him. “I can tell you where to find the Northwest Passage. I know what’s around Point Wilson in Admiralty Inlet, in Puget Sound,
please
just give me a chart and I’ll show you.”
“Sergeant Flynn, do you defy my command?”
But Ravenna had reached Vancouver’s side now. “This voyage is killing you,” she told him urgently. “We all know you’re sick, we all saw it in the Sandwich Islands, even your officers will tell you that! You’re tired all the time, you work too hard and you don’t eat, we’ve all seen the—”
“
Sergeant Flynn!”
He contorted with the force of his shout; the marine came running, and still Ravenna didn’t back down.
“You’ll be dead in less than ten years, is that what you want?
That’s
the future, and you’re dragging everyone down with you! You’re getting worse all the time, and if you have Paul beaten, it’ll only prove—”
“
I am not insane!
”
Vancouver turned fiercely toward the marines. “Will you truss up Killiney and get on with it?
Get on with it!
I’d see him bleed before nightfall.”
But every man had heard Ravenna’s words. And every man stared at Vancouver, knowing in their own minds from what they’d witnessed, from rumor and speculation, that what she’d said was true. She stepped nearer to Vancouver, knowing the sea of faces was to her advantage, that he had to listen now. “Please don’t have Paul beaten,” she whispered. “I’ll do my best to keep you healthy and we’ll follow your orders, I swear we will.”
And trying to reassure him, she laid her hand bravely upon his arm.
In an instant, she felt herself shoved backwards. The force of it, only meant to push her away, was still hard enough to send her over the railing where the cutter still rode at the main chains; the men had abandoned it in favor of brawling and now, in the fall, her head met the bow.
She felt pain, then icy salt water. She felt the weight of her clothes dragging her down, and then she felt no more.
* * *
When she came to, pandemonium surrounded her. The boatswain was shouting at the top of his lungs; sailors were chattering, paying no attention to the boatswain’s demands; Vancouver was arguing violently with James, whose deep-timbred tone rose above the seamen’s voices in a string of raging, brutal threats.
Through it all, she heard a soft Irish accent counting in a litany of desperation while a fist pumped hard into her sternum. “…Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen. Breathe—”
She felt the frantic pressure of Paul’s lips against hers, the sudden force of his breath pushed into her, and reflexively she sucked it in. Her fingers scratched for purchase on the deck. In a fit of coughing, trying to inhale, she choked on the water in her lungs, and when she opened her eyes, Paul’s counting stopped.
Where he knelt over her, his lips, stained dark with cold, were near to hers. His hair was slicked back, and the lines in his haggard, frightened face were running with rain, with salt water when he stroked her forehead thoughtlessly and calmed her into a settled breathing.
She tried to sit up, but Paul didn’t let her. He curled his arm around her back. Lifting her quickly, he handed her into James’s embrace, and she was swung around, dripping, carried toward the companionway even as Paul staggered off with fists clenched.
Disoriented as she was, she twisted in James’s grip. She tried to see Paul’s face among the sailors, catch a glimpse of him approaching Vancouver, but she saw nothing but the ship closing over her head, heard nothing but Sarah’s urgent whisper, “In the cabin, Jem. We’re gettin’ her out o’ those wet clothes first.”
“I’ll kill him,” James growled.
“You won’t,” Sarah told him, and with the maid’s hands firmly clasping her arms, Ravenna was lowered to the floor of her cabin and hastily undressed.
She felt them tugging at her. Still, they seemed far away, so insensible she was at that moment. Above her on deck, she heard the scuffling of sailors’ feet and the occasional thump of something hitting the planks. Fearing the worst, she called out Paul’s name, but her own voice seemed a distant sound. James and Sarah ignored her completely in the midst of their panic, and as her consciousness darkened and strengthened again, she wondered if she’d called out at all.
Once Sarah had freed her of sopping clothes, the maid pulled a chemise over her head before helping James to wrap her up snugly. In her dazed condition, Ravenna found it difficult to focus her eyes; when James noticed this, he took her hand. “Love, I need you to try and stay alert,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “Just keep your eyes open ’til I come back, all right?”
Yes
, she wanted to say,
go to Paul, bring Paul
, but her thoughts quickly muddled when James told Sarah to hurry and light the galley stove.
As the two of them left, she tried not to shake so fiercely, tried to concentrate as James had asked her to do. The sound of the commotion on deck had gained momentum, and now as she listened, the trouble came closer and louder above her head with the pounding of bare feet and officers’ boots. Shouting—no, cheering—resounded through the planking until she thought she heard the thunderous timbre of Vancouver’s voice.
Paul
, she thought, but as she sucked in his name on an anxious breath, there cut through the din a thickened, crumpling thud of a noise. The ship’s lumber shook. Then, but for the ordinary creaks of sailors’ walking, all fell quiet and she heard nothing more.
When James returned and bent over her, he took her blanket and all to the galley. He didn’t say anything, but she knew what had happened. She could see every swing of Paul’s fist, every vindictive glare he’d given Vancouver, all of it in James’s expression.
Still, before the galley fire, in the cramped space there between kegs and barrels, her thoughts drifted. The air began to warm. James held her close. As he stroked her shoulders with absentminded affection, she clung to him, soothed by the depth of his voice. Something about England he was talking about, Wolvesfield and the smell of a summer garden in the rain, his mare Magazan whom he’d brought from Spain and now bitterly missed…
“Do you miss your home in the future, Ravenna? Will you not miss me, once you’ve gone back?”
Drowsy now, finally stilled of shivering, she looked up into his wide-set eyes. “Paul doesn’t want to go back,” she said.
He frowned, regarded her carefully. “So you’ll stay here with me? Even if he finds the potion?”
When she nodded, he gazed at her for a long moment. His hand strayed from her shoulder, slipped down her back in a trail of warmth. Without even thinking, she snuggled closer.
“Good,” he said finally. Cradling her head, he pulled her tight beneath his chin.
Somewhere above decks a drum beat a slow roll.
* * *
Ravenna woke up in her bed. The rain had stopped, replaced by the orange glow of sunset which poured into the room from the gunport beside her. That glow hurt her eyes, her aching head, but still she sat up weakly and waited for sleep to clear away.
How many hours had she lain there? Eight? Ten? Visions of Paul’s face set in a dangerous scowl loomed in her memory, but as she began to sort the heaviness of dreams from reality, abruptly she realized she wasn’t alone.
Paul was slumped before the door.
His shirt had been ripped down over his shoulders. With his burly chest heaving, he gazed at her listlessly, and Ravenna felt a stab of pain: all the fight had been taken from Paul’s eyes. He was covered with blood,
his
blood, drawn in the name of Vancouver’s madness, for when he struggled to move toward her, clenching his teeth with the force of his effort, she saw the deep crimson bands cutting the length of his freckled back.