Harbor for the Nightingale

by Kathleen Baldwin

  As much as I miss my grandmother, she would not have me return to her as a traitor.

  But before I can answer, Lady Daneska interrupts, and I cannot help but notice she stands far too close to Sera. “Yes! How dare you speak against—”

  “Silence!” Napoleon swings out his arm, cutting her off, yet his gaze never leaves me. His other hand rests atop his sword. “Do you not comprehend the generosity of our offer?” Again, his words are duplicitous.

  A second chance for me to repent.

  Someone else might assume he refers only to his offer to Prince George, but he also alludes to his offer Lady Daneska brought to me. I clutch my arm where she sliced it open that night.

  That twinge of pain reminds I was once a Maharajah’s granddaughter. More importantly, I am my grandmother’s child. I may sing like a nightingale, but she taught me to put a voice to the storm, to speak with the force of the mighty Tawi river.

  I no longer fear this man.

  Sound rises from deep within me, flowing with the strength of rushing waters, yet as steady and immoveable as the boulders that stand amidst the river. When I speak, the power does not come from me alone. The storm carries a force far beyond my own strength.

  “If only,” I say to him. “If only it were truly peace you desired. Search your heart, Your Imperial Majesty. You have bravely challenged the greatest armies of our time. Again, and again, without flinching, you have ridden your warhorse straight into battle. But I ask you, do you have the courage to look inside yourself? Do you dare?”

  His hand slides from his sword. His mouth opens in a drawn breath, and his constant whirring stills for a moment. His eyes seem to lose focus as he glimpses what lies within.

  His uneasiness is faint at first, but rises steadily, reminding me of the enormous desert horns in India, whose low guttural warnings echo across the dunes.

  He pauses too long. I must put a voice to the truth he is afraid to acknowledge. Words flow from my mouth like a mournful wind that bends trees. “What stares back at you is a burning desire for power.”

  “No!” Napoleon shakes his head slightly as if trying to clear it of my thrall. “Power, yes. But the power to do good. The power to save the world.”

  “The power to control the world is not the same as saving it,” I say this with a gentleness meant to soothe. “Only God can save the world.”

  Running footfalls hammer the silence between us. Ghost swings over the forecastle railing, a growling seething presence. He lands on the main deck beside Napoleon. “Don’t listen to this pointless drivel. If there’s a God, he abandoned mankind long ago.” He aims his pistol straight at my heart. “And you were warned.”

  Lord Kinsworth’s sword glints in the lamplight as he quietly draws it and edges toward our attacker.

  Other men, Ghost’s rats, emerge from the shadows. Sailors clad in black surround us with their knives drawn. Lord Harston immediately raises his sword to protect the Prince Regent. Even Prince George pulls his weapon from its sheath.

  Kinsworth lunges to strike at Ghost’s gun arm. Ghost is too quick. He steps aside, pummeling Ben with a powerful backhand to the jaw that sends him staggering to the deck.

  “Ben!” I surge forward, but Ghost blocks the path between Kinsworth and me.

  Lady Daneska shrieks, “Shoot her!” Her knife glints in the lamplight as she reaches out to grab Sera by the hair—attempting to make good her threat to kill my friend because I disobeyed. Thank heaven, Sera dodges.

  “Wait!” Napoleon signals Ghost with a raised hand and squints at me speculatively. My hold on him has vanished. Already, his mind is spinning, assessing the situation, swinging into battle. “She might yet prove useful.”

  But Ghost ignores his Emperor and cocks the hammer back. “No. She defied me.”

  Napoleon turns a stern glare on Ghost. “Non! I said to wait. That is an order.”

  Order or not, Ghost stretches out his arm and raises the barrel to my face. I feel inexplicably calm, until—

  “Maya!” Lord Kinsworth clambers up from where he fell. Blood oozes from his gashed lip as he charges at Ghost. He is so intent on me he doesn’t notice the sailor sneaking up behind him with a raised cutlass.

  “Behind you!” I yell.

  Ben wheels around, dodging the slashing blade by mere inches.

  That same instant, Tess leaps over the forecastle and crashes into me. The two of us skid across the planking away from the gun’s muzzle.

  Any second, I expect to hear a gunshot. Instead, Ghost snarls at Tess, “You!” Towering over us, heaving with unspent anger, he brandishes his yet unfired pistol. “I should’ve killed you long ago.”

  From this angle, amber lamplight catches on the scars twisting up his neck, distorting this side of his cheek—scars from the burns we caused him at Calais. He aims the flintlock at Tess, who is scrambling up from having saved me.

  “No! Not her! Stop!” Lady Daneska leaves off struggling with Sera and dashes toward us. “Not Tess!”

  The gun goes off—an earsplitting blast. A burst of scorching light. I still lie sprawled across the deck. A gray cloud of smoke fills the air above me, but not before I see both Lady Daneska and Tess crumple to the ground.

  No, no, no! It was supposed to be me.

  Kinsworth yells my name. Except I can’t see him. There’s too much smoke. He must think I’m the one who got shot. “I’m not hurt,” I call out.

  His answer is a bark of pain, followed by the horror of steel clanging against steel. It has to be Ghost attacking him. Ghost—his vicious blade swinging at Kinsworth. My innocent Kinsworth, who is accustomed to charming trouble away, not battling it to the death.

  The scuffling and thumps of their sword fight, the unbearable yelps, and curses, tear at my heart. I grope for a weapon, a rope, a stick of wood, anything I might use to help him. Every blow means slashed flesh. Ben’s flesh. Bone nicked. Blood spilt.

  Please, God, not his bone. Nor his blood.

  Let him be fast. Let his sword strike true. And may his eyes see better in this gloom than mine. It feels as if I am blind and trapped in hell. Then, a familiar sound reaches my ears.

  Kinsworth!

  It is him. Still fighting. I would know that sound anywhere, his rumbly bear-like violoncello, except the bow is racing across the strings with such rapid intensity no one could jig that fast.

  Warrior fast.

  Ben.

  I breathe in his name and hang onto his wild racing thread of sound.

  He is battling to save us, and I must do the same. “Tess? Tess, where are you?” I whisper and scramble over the decking toward where I thought they fell.

  Someone moans a few feet away from me.

  “Tess!” I scramble to her. There’s a red smear covering her arm, as she wriggles out from underneath Daneska. “Are you—” I start to ask if she is hurt, but stop. Even in this dismal light, I can see the blood pouring from a wound in Lady Daneska’s side, a dark stain spreading on her pale silk gown.

  At the sound of my gasp, Tess turns and sees the awful truth. “What? Dani? No, it can’t be.”

  Tess lifts Lady Daneska’s shoulders and cradles her, hastily bunching Daneska’s skirt and pressing the silk wad against the wound. Despite her efforts to staunch the bleeding, Tess’s fingers quickly turn crimson. In the darkness of this night, blood turns the color of death.

  Holding our dying enemy as if she were a long-lost friend, Tess utters a low moan. But it is her inner cry of anguish, the one rising from her heart rather than her lips, that tears at my soul. Keening low and soft, Tess begins rocking Daneska.

  Lady Daneska groans. Her eyelids flutter for a moment, then open wide as if we have startled her from some night terror. “Am I dead?”

  “Wounded,” I answer as calmly as possible. “But alive.”

  For the moment.

  As if hearing my unspoken words, she closes her eyes tight. When she opens them again, all the fight in her flies away like a bird on the wing. She kn
ows she is dying.

  Tess grips Lady Daneska tighter as if by sheer will she can make her once dear friend remain in this mortal realm. “What were you thinking?” Tess scolds, biting her bottom lip before spitting out her frustration. “Why, Dani? Why?”

  “Hmm . . .” Daneska says drowsily and almost seems to laugh. “Funny, isn’t it?” Except her mirth is cut short by a wince of pain. “I warned you not to care for anyone. You see?” She tries to smile except she can’t, it hurts too much. Her back arches and her lips twist in a deathly grimace. Her normally silky voice grinds into gravel. “Love costs too much.”

  “Do something.” Tess glances over her shoulder at me, her soul screaming with grief, her eyes swimming in tears she would never let fall. Not Tess. “She’s suffering. Can’t you see? Make it stop. Make it so she can’t feel the pain.”

  I am not magic.

  Pain has its own song. I know this now. I hear it. One might think pain is a scream or a moan, but no. Those are merely our responses to the monster. Here on this ship, surrounded by a thousand noises, waves battering the hull, the clatter of swords hammering against one another, Ben fighting, other men scuffling and shouting, I hear the unmistakable crackle of pain, unseen flames licking at Daneska’s side. Pain is an insatiable beast, smacking its hungry lips, hissing with heat, an ever-burning fire ready to devour.

  How can I quiet so ravenous a creature?

  I kneel closer to her.

  And listen.

  How is it, that despite the gnashing of pain’s teeth, Daneska’s soul hums more tranquilly than it ever has? She weakly raises her hand toward Tess’s cheek but lets it drop as if the effort is beyond her. “Do not fret me dying,” she says, trying to smile, her eyes fixed on Tess. “This is nothing you haven’t felt a hundred times, eh, Tessika?”

  Tess leans over Daneska, their foreheads touching as if in silent communion. A second later, she pulls back and turns to me. “Maya! Do something. Please”

  Her plea reaches into my heart and awakens an idea, a possibility. What if I sing to quiet the vulturous thing that seeks to devour Daneska?

  A lullaby for pain beasts.

  And so, I begin to hum. Then I find words.

  “Come out from the shadows.” The melody is calibrated to soothe and calm, each note is intended to entice pain to rest. “Come out and walk with me awhile. The grass is soft and deep. Come out and walk with me awhile. The water is clear and sweet. Come out and walk with me awhile.”

  Tess seems to understand. She has always had a gift for calming wild animals. Valiantly choking back tears, she harmonizes her voice with mine. Our song embraces Daneska, and her shoulders unstiffen. She no longer gasps for breath as desperately.

  But as we sing, a faint noise in the distance prickles my senses. It is a steady rhythmic beat, completely out-of-place amid the horrific chaos aboard our ship. I know this sound—a paddlewheel churning across the waves like a buttermilk press. Alarm buckles my throat and chokes off my song.

  That sound is Alexander Sinclair’s steam-powered boat, not the new warship the Navy is building. It can only be the smaller prototype we helped him construct, the Mary Isabella, a small craft equipped with a powerful ballista. A weapon I helped them devise, a huge spring-loaded bow like the ones I’d seen in India mounted on war elephants. Except this ballista is armed with spears bearing Greek firebombs.

  Deadly firebombs.

  What’s more, Captain Grey cannot possibly know we are aboard this ship. The moment he or his crew sees Napoleon’s flag, his coat of arms, they will fire on us. We will be bombarded with an explosive blaze of oil and pitch—nearly impossible to extinguish.

  “Daneska! Answer me.” Ghost cuts through our song, shouting for her. “Where the hell are you?” He splits the smoky air and stands before us, a pillar of blackness, with blood smeared across his hands and arms.

  Kinsworth’s?

  Who else’s could it be? My stomach drops away as if I am falling from a dizzying height. Time seems to slow, and all I can hear is an unearthly wail ripping silently through me. “Not Kinsworth’s. Not his. Please,” I murmur, and suddenly I feel as if I might lose the contents of my stomach.

  Naanii’s words call to me. Focus on one sound. And so, I press a hand against my roiling belly and quiet my mind. There he is, my beautiful violoncello, distant but still there. Still moving strong.

  That’s when I realize Ghost is reloading his gun and yelling at us, “Get away from her! What have you done? You pack of miserable—” An eerie whistling sound interrupts him.

  The first spear from Mr. Sinclair’s ballista strikes the deck with an ominous thwunk. A blaze explodes midship, casting its terrifying light across all of us. Cries of “Fire!” ricochet across the ship—stern to bow. Every shout quivering with a sailor’s worst fear. The ringing of steel fades as Ghost’s men run to save themselves from drowning at sea or burning to death.

  Not Ghost.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” His face contorts into an eerie semblance of grief, but an instant later becomes a hideous mask of anger. He grabs Tess by the hair. “Isn’t she?”

  Tess snaps at him, using the same tone she would with one of her wolf dogs if they were misbehaving. “She will die if you don’t let go.”

  He releases her with a jerk and steps back, waving his gun at me. “This is your fault.”

  “No.” Sera stands behind us, her small pistol drawn. I hadn’t realized she was there, watching over us. “You shot her. Daneska is wounded because of your recklessness. No one else is to blame.”

  “And yet . . .” He shifts his aim to her. “All of you will pay.”

  “Not them.” I rise to my knees. To someone else, I might look like the penitent saint kneeling before him, begging for forgiveness. But it is the lioness in me rising to protect those she loves. “I ruined your plans. I’m the one you’re angry at. It’s me, you hate.”

  I say this, but I know better. Ghost is consumed by anger. It has rotted his soul until all that howls from inside him is a chomping unquenchable darkness.

  He almost smiles. Hollow drums thudding and off-key horns—it makes him happy that by killing Sera, he will hurt me.

  No, you will not.

  The resolve hardens inside me, a huge immovable stone. Solid. Ancient. A rock from which the lioness pounces.

  “Lucien!” His given name burst out of my lungs in a mighty roar. Naanii taught me that to command a thing, you must call it by its true name. And so, I did. “Lucien!” It claws through the air, leaping, like a giant panther, tearing him apart with its teeth.

  Ghost staggers backward, his eyes wide with terror as I rise and stride toward him.

  I do not know what demon haunts him, but it knows this man’s name. Arm upraised, warding me off, Ghost snarls like a whipped cur.

  I blink, seeing the truth, listening to the whimpering inside him—not the yelping of dog. A whipped boy, a small child beaten. Lucien. “Lucien, put down the gun,” I warn more gently.

  He cowers, filling with hate again. A shield for the wounded boy. He holds onto the pistol, his hand shaking as if he still sees a specter.

  His gun goes off. Flames burst from the muzzle. The bullet whizzes past me. The blast is a thunderclap that shakes the deck enveloping us in more suffocating smoke.

  Sera’s pistol fires with a sharp bang.

  Ghost grunts. Growls Then curses. Her bullet must have hit him.

  His shot must’ve hit Sera, causing her to pull the trigger. “Sera! Sera!” I frantically search for her, choking, fanning away smoke.

  “I’m here,” she whispers, crouching on the deck near me. “Are you all right?”

  “Me?” I grab her, feverishly searching for blood. “It’s you he shot—”

  She shakes her head. “No, I thought he killed you.”

  We turn back in time to see Ghost bolt up and stomp toward us. Through the haze, I spot Lord Kinsworth headed in our direction—still alive!

  “Imbécile!” Napoleon
bellows at Ghost. He stands a few feet beyond our left flank, clutching his arm, blood spreading over his shirt sleeve like spilt wine. “What have you done?”

  All of us turn in the Emperor’s direction.

  Ghost swats away a cloud of smoke and blinks in confusion at his Emperor. Ghost seems to be favoring one side. Sera’s bullet must’ve struck him, but to a man of his size, that small slug would be but a scratch.

  He stares. A stunned half-second passes before comprehension blares across his features, and he realizes it had to have been his bullet that wounded the Emperor of Le Grand Empire.

  Ghost bellows, not in an apology, but in a growl of fury at having blundered.

  Another spear whizzes past us and bursts into flame near the quarter deck.

  “Arrêtez ces feux! Get those fires under control!” Napoleon shouts in French. He does not let a little thing like Ghost putting a bullet in his arm unnerve him. His chest juts out commandingly. “Allez! Allez! Do it now! Or I swear by all that is holy I will kill you myself! I refuse to die at sea.”

  The furious battle pace of Ghost’s war drum falters. Frustration rumbles through him, and his fingers twitch as if they are already tightening around my neck. Grinding his teeth, his eyes narrow at me until they become thin hateful slits bearing the unmistakable promise of revenge. And yet, the whipped boy in him yields and turns to do his master’s bidding.

  Napoleon peers eastward through a spyglass, where dawn is bleeding, too, a scarlet ribbon along the horizon. He must have spotted Alexander’s steamship heading for us. Alarm whistles briefly across his features, but just as quickly his inner blades recommence their whirring. “Weigh anchors. Ready the cannons.” His voice becomes a bugle, calling his men to action. Any pretense of meekness has disappeared. “Bosun—cut and run! Full sails. Captain, take us into the wind. Now!”

  His orders rebound across the ship. Sailors race to fulfill his commands, their feet thudding so hard the whole ship thunders. His men scurry up into the shrouds like a pack of spiders racing up their web. In a blink, the first sail is cut loose, unrolling with a snap and flapping in the wind.