The Lost Kingdom

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “Father!” I called.

  He rushed up beside me, and we pressed forward until we reached the spot where Phineas had gone down. It was the blunt edge of a fog-choked ravine.

  “Phineas!” my father called down, a whisper-shout. “Andrew!”

  “We’re here,” Phineas called from somewhere below.

  “I’m sorry,” Andrew said. “I couldn’t see the ravine in the fog.”

  “Are either of you injured?” my father asked.

  “Yes, but not badly,” Phineas said.

  “Good.” My father looked to the left and right. “Billy and I will find a way down. You two continue on to the ship.”

  “Are you sure, John?” Phineas asked.

  “Yes. Go, Phineas.” My father marched up and down the ravine’s edge, neck craning outward, studying the terrain. He stopped at one point and tapped his foot. “I think this is a good place. Are you ready, son?”

  I took a deep breath before stepping over the side. The ground fell away, steep and slippery, thick with undergrowth. I scrabbled down through it sideways, right foot first, my left hand gripping branches and roots.

  “Easy now,” my father said ahead of me. “Take it slowly.”

  I tested each placement of my foot before putting my weight on it, and then I waited until the last second to release my grip on whatever anchor I had before grasping for the next.

  “I don’t remember the ravine being so deep,” I said.

  “We crossed it farther east,” he said. “But we should almost be to the bottom.”

  I stretched my foot downward, felt a rock beneath my boot, and trusted it. But it teetered and shifted. I lost my balance and fell, dropping past my father.

  “Billy!”

  “Help!” I yelled, sliding and toppling down the hill.

  Branches whipped me, rocks bruised me. I managed to get my feet under me, but had too much momentum and fell forward on my face, smacking hard, getting a mouthful of dirt and leaves. But my body had stopped. I heard the gurgle of the stream and looked up. I had reached the bottom.

  “Billy!” my father shouted.

  “I’m down here!” I shouted back.

  “Wait there,” he said. “I’m coming.”

  I spat, rinsed my mouth with the stream water, but still chewed grit. The noise of my father’s descent filled the ravine. A few moments later, he stumbled into view and rushed to me.

  “Are you hurt?” He looked me over, feeling my arms, my shoulders.

  “I don’t think so.”

  And then we heard the bear-wolf roar. I could not tell where it came from, but the beast sounded close, somewhere above us.

  “We must run,” my father said. “Follow me closely.”

  He charged up the other side of the ravine, which wasn’t as steep. We made the climb with our hands as much as our feet, and the muscles in my legs burned hot before we’d reached the top. As soon as we hit level ground, another deafening wave of thunder broke over our heads. We set off in the direction of the river, and within a few paces, the rain started.

  I didn’t feel it at first, but I heard it pattering against the leaves all around me. And then the first cold drops found my cheek and my neck. The rain had also begun to thin the fog, and we could see farther in front of us as we careened through the trees.

  Before long, we broke from the woods onto the shore and into the open. Downriver, the de Terzi waited for us, a ghost-ship rising up through the falling mist.

  A gunshot cracked the air, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.

  “Andrew,” my father said.

  We hurtled down the riverbank, slipping in the mud. We had almost reached the ship when I spotted something bobbing in the water against a piece of driftwood. I veered a little and snatched it up. It was a glass bottle. What was a bottle doing here?

  “Are you with me?” my father asked.

  “Yes, Father.”

  We skidded up to the rope ladder and made our ascent. I struggled, trying to hold on to the bottle, exhausted from the climb up the ravine and our sprint to safety. Phineas and Andrew waited at the top, both of them scratched and battered. My father followed behind me, and from the deck, we all looked out over the woodland, rain-soaked, listening.

  Jane came up next to me, the wet curls of her hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks. “Where is Mr. Godfrey?”

  I nodded toward the forest. “And the bear-wolf’s out there, too.”

  “The bear-wolf?” Mr. Faries said.

  “Be ready to fly, William,” my father said.

  The storm continued to gather, and the rain fell in earnest, hammering the copper spheres above us and slicking the deck wood. Every so often, we heard the bear-wolf roar, each time from a slightly different location. It was still on the move. Still hunting.

  “Francis!” my father shouted through both cupped hands.

  The forest remained still.

  “What’s that, Billy?” Phineas asked. He looked at the bottle still tucked in my arm.

  “Oh.” I had forgotten about it. “I found it in the water.”

  “May I see it?” he asked.

  I was about to hand it to him when I heard a shout from the trees.

  “I’m here!” Mr. Godfrey called. “I’m coming!”

  “Francis, hurry!” my father yelled.

  A moment later, Mr. Godfrey shuffled from the trees. He lurched toward the rope ladder, shaking his head. “I don’t think I can climb it!”

  “Take hold,” Andrew shouted. “We’ll pull you up!”

  Mr. Godfrey locked a knee and an elbow around the rungs of the ladder, and Phineas and Andrew heaved him up. My father helped pull him over the rail, and he fell to the deck gasping and clutching his chest, his eyes closed.

  The de Terzi shifted beneath my feet and rose, Mr. Faries at the helm, until we pressed up through the rain into the low-lying clouds, leaving the mist on the ground for the mist in the air. Water droplets seemed to permeate the air we breathed.

  “Are you all right, Francis?” my father asked, kneeling down beside him.

  “Yes.” Mr. Godfrey wheezed. “Yes, I’m … I just need a moment.”

  Somewhere below us, the bear-wolf roared again, sounding more distant.

  My father looked up at me. He gestured to the bottle. “Is that what you picked up from the river?”

  “Yes.” I handed it to him.

  He rotated it in his hand. “It’s corked. And there’s something inside it.” He bit down on the cork with his back teeth and pulled it out with a hollow squeak. Then he tipped the bottle into his hand, and something long and thin as a reed slipped out.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  My father set the bottle on the deck and gently examined the reed. “It’s a piece of rolled paper.” He worked it open, stared at it, and jumped to his feet. “Andrew, give me your rifle.”

  “What?” Andrew clutched his gun. “Why, Mr. Bartram?”

  My father took a step toward him. “I think you know why.” Then he reached out and took hold of the rifle. “Let go.”

  Andrew swallowed and released the weapon. My father passed it to Phineas. “Keep hold of that. The rest of you listen to me.” He held up the slip of paper. “I have been proven right. We were wrong to bring this half-breed onto our ship.”

  “What are you saying, John?” Mr. Kinnersley asked.

  “I’m saying that this man is a spy for the French.”

  Andrew’s face paled. He shook his head. “I’m not, sir! I —”

  My father cut him off. “You deny that you intended for us to land here so you could leave this sign behind?” He read from the paper. “Captain Marin. We are following the Ohio River south and will keep to it until we reach the meeting of the Mississippi, at which junction we will turn west and travel overland.”

  Several of the Society members gasped. So did I. Someone on the ship had left that bottle for the French to find. But was it Andrew? Why would he do such a thing?

&nb
sp; “Dear me,” whispered Mr. Kinnersley.

  “I will delay us if I am able,” my father continued. “But you must make haste.” He crumpled the letter in his fist and shook it at Andrew. “Is this why you wanted us to land here? To delay us?”

  Andrew stood up taller, defiant. “No, sir. I did not write that.”

  “You lie,” my father said.

  “What shall we do with him?” Mr. Kinnersley asked.

  “I say we drop him over the side,” Phineas said. “Or set him back down on the ground to face the bear-wolf.”

  My father looked down at his fist. “It is true that I don’t see how he can remain on this ship.”

  No. That wasn’t right or just. “Father,” I said. “He saved your life.”

  “Be quiet, Billy,” my father said. “Stay out of matters that do not concern you. In fact, I want you and Jane to go below.”

  “But, Father —” I started.

  “Now!” His shout drove me a step backward.

  I turned to Jane, and she motioned for me to come with her. So I followed her, boiling inside, down the hatch onto the Science Deck, where I kicked one of the chairs. It clattered across the floor with a satisfying violence, and I was about to kick another one, but Jane stopped me.

  “Are you a child?” she asked.

  I folded my arms. “No.”

  “Then stop this fit and retrieve that chair.”

  I didn’t stop to think about her order. I simply followed it, replacing the chair at its work station.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now, why are you so cross?”

  “Because!” I couldn’t believe she was even asking me that question. “It’s because …” Only I didn’t know the answer. Why was I angry?

  “Do you think Andrew is innocent?” she asked.

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted him to be innocent. But when I thought about it, I had to admit I didn’t know if he was or not. I’d spent only a single watch with him the previous night, and I barely knew him. But I knew the other members of the Society would never have done such a thing. And it had been Andrew’s idea to land in this place.

  “My father was right about him,” I said. And as I said it I realized that was the reason I was angry. I had wanted my father to be wrong.

  “That isn’t certain,” Jane said. “In my opinion, nothing has been proven. I still believe Andrew may be innocent.”

  “How?” I asked. “Who else could it be?”

  Heavy footsteps on the stairs announced my father, who came down onto the Science Deck with slumped shoulders. “I cannot bring myself to do what needs to be done,” he said. “You were right, Billy. I owe him my life. But until I decide on the next course of action, Andrew is to be tied to the mainmast. I want you both to avoid him. Do not converse with him. Do not even glance in his direction. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. So did Jane.

  “Good.” He sighed. “I suggest you stay below where it’s dry. We don’t want either of you catching a chill.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bartram,” Jane said.

  “Yes, Father.”

  He trudged back up to the weather deck, and Jane and I looked at each other. When he closed the hatch, the room dimmed. I sat there in the gloom, feeling relieved but still angry. Outside, thunder pounded the hull and reverberated throughout the ship. The deck moved beneath our feet.

  “I think we’re under way,” Jane said.

  I simply grunted.

  “What did you see down there?” she asked. “Did you find the wall?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did it seem to you?”

  “Mr. Godfrey thinks it might be Welsh.”

  “So Andrew was right?”

  I looked at her, her green eyes the color of a raindrop resting on a leaf. “He was right,” I said. But what did that mean? Had he simply been trying to delay us, why not land us anywhere along the river? Why choose a spot with an ancient fortress? Did that mean he was innocent, trying to further the expedition? Or was he simply trying to convince us of his allegiance?

  “What did it look like?” Jane asked.

  I thought about how to describe it and gave up. “I’ll draw it for you,” I said.

  The storm abated a short while later, and strong winds buffeted the ship. It took more hands on deck to keep the sails trimmed, so I did what I could to help, shivering in my damp clothes. I worked alongside Phineas, his blond hair blown across his face.

  “Sharp eyes,” he said. “Spotting that bottle in the river.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Good thing you found it. Hopefully we’ve caught and dealt with Andrew before he was able to do any real damage.”

  “Hopefully,” I said. “Was that one of your bottles?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I looked over at Andrew, seated on the deck, tied to the mast with his hands behind his back. His head hung forward, the brass pendants and coils in his ears dangling toward his lap. He looked as defeated as a person could.

  Phineas shook his head. “He must have taken it while we were out gathering samples of mineral water from the springs. I should have noticed its absence, but I didn’t.”

  While the wind brought extra work, it also propelled us at a faster clip. Toward evening, having put many miles between us and the fog-bound wall, my father called a meeting of the crew. He gathered us below, away from where Andrew could hear us.

  “In spite of Andrew’s betrayal,” my father said. “The recent excursion did give me hope that we may yet find Madoc’s people. The wall was obviously built by the Welsh.”

  “What provides you with such certainty?” Mr. Godfrey asked.

  “The method of construction,” my father said. “It was far too advanced to be of savage origin.”

  “Your argument is based upon a false premise, John,” Mr. Godfrey said. “The Indians are quite capable of that and more.”

  Mr. Kinnersley spoke up. “Francis, are you saying the wall is unconnected with Madoc?”

  “No,” Mr. Godfrey said. “I believe it is directly connected to Madoc. But I arrived at that conclusion by way of different evidence.”

  “What evidence?” my father asked.

  “An inscription,” Mr. Godfrey said. He then sat back, a slight smirk on his face as we all waited for him to continue. “You may remember, I followed the wall in a different direction, and I found the one thing that all walls must have.”

  Phineas rolled his eyes. “And what is that, pray tell?”

  “A gate,” Mr. Godfrey said. “And above that gate I found an inscription, of which I made a charcoal rubbing.” He smirked again and pulled a rumpled piece of paper from inside his coat. He unfolded it and smoothed it over his knee before passing it to my father. “My Welsh is not perfect,” he said. “But I believe the inscription could be translated as ‘Aberffraw built anew in Unity and Justice.’” He paused. “Aberffraw being the seat of the Kingdom of Gwynedd in Wales. Madoc’s father’s kingdom, in fact.”

  The rumors were true. We weren’t searching for a fiction, but something tangible. Something I had touched.

  “It exists,” Phineas said. “The Kingdom of Madoc exists.”

  “Or existed,” my father said, studying the rubbing. “I agree with Mr. Godfrey’s translation. But we must not forget that the wall we found, and the settlement it may have once enclosed, are long since abandoned. We must consider the possibility that Madoc’s people are vanished.”

  “But, John,” Mr. Faries said quietly. “The reports we’ve heard from the traders are recent and place Madoc’s people farther west, beyond the Mississippi. Perhaps this wall you found simply belongs to an earlier, abandoned settlement.”

  My father folded up the piece of paper. “That is also a possibility.” He handed Mr. Godfrey’s rubbing to me. “Billy, will you make a drawing of these markings?”

  I accepted it from him. “Yes, sir.”

  “Gentlemen,” my father said. “We will continue in our purpose and pursue Madoc we
stward in the hopes that, as you say, William, what we found today was simply an older settlement. Are we agreed?”

  “Agreed,” came a dissonant chorus.

  “There is another matter.” My father rubbed both his thighs. “Andrew’s betrayal has forced a decision. We have no way of knowing whether he has already left similar traces and messages behind us for Marin. It may therefore be prudent to change our course.”

  “In what way?” Phineas asked.

  My father unrolled a map across one of the desks. “I propose we leave the river and strike west, traveling overland. We will eventually reach the Mississippi, at which time we can follow it south to its confluence with the Ohio. We’ll have to wait and do it here.” He jabbed a finger at a point on the map farther down the river. “That way, we’ll avoid the French at Kaskaskia and Saint Louis, though we may have to contend with voyageurs traveling the river. We will arrive at the intended location, but by a different path. It may not stop Marin, but at the very least he will find no more sign of us along the Ohio. If Providence smiles upon us, he may even believe he has lost us and give up the chase.” My father looked around at the assembly. “Are we agreed?”

  This time, the chorus came staggered. “Agreed.”

  “Excellent,” my father said. “On the morrow, we turn west.” He grinned. “I confess that today’s discovery has left me feeling emboldened in our quest.”

  It had done the same for me. We had found evidence of Madoc. His people were out there, somewhere. But the crumbling wall had also left me unsettled. Why had the place been abandoned?

  The distant sounds of battle echoed in my ears.

  I drew the markings from Mr. Godfrey’s rubbing, just as my father had asked. By the time I finished with that, it was evening. With supper, we ate the last of the peaches. The fresh bread was gone as well, which meant that from now on we’d be eating preserved food rations.

  My father allotted the watches, assigning me the middle watch with Mr. Godfrey. I kept my groan inside.

  “I’ll take the middle watch for Billy,” Phineas said. “If he would prefer, he can take my place at the first watch.”