by S. E. Grove
“What about Sophia?”
“The pirates came to Boston Harbor on June nineteenth and left word that they would depart immediately for Seville, but I have heard nothing else. Miles wishes to sail at once for the Papal States.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait for them?”
“I cannot make up my mind,” Shadrack said, passing a hand over his forehead. “I am sick with worry, but I do not see how Miles can reach Seville before Calixta and Burr . . .”
“I think we should wait,” Mrs. Clay said quietly.
“And I have decided that I will sail at once,” Miles said, having recovered himself sufficiently to deliver this verdict.
“As you see,” Shadrack told Theo with a wry smile, “we cannot make up our minds collectively, either.”
The sharp trill of a whistle rang through the stone corridor, and the group turned as one to watch the approach of several prison guards. Theo’s cell near the end lay farthest from where the head guard stood, whistling once more before beginning his announcement.
“Prisoners of Ward One, come to attention.” He paused, and from behind the fifty barred doors of Ward 1 came a dull scuffling and clanging and a few complaints—a few more rude retorts—before the guard cut in again. “You have been called to serve your nation. By order of Prime Minister Gordon Broadgirdle, you will be taken from this place of incarceration and trained for combat in Camp Monecan. Any prisoner unfit for combat duty will be reassigned by the Minister of War. Prisoners, place your hands through the bars so that they are clearly visible. We will be coming through to lead you from your cells.”
The end of the guard’s announcement was met with such a din of protest from the prisoners that Theo could hardly hear his friends’ good-byes. The inmates shouted and rattled the bars and taunted the guards, who placidly walked from cell to cell, placing handcuffs on the outstretched arms of willing prisoners and, where necessary, wielding their batons to ensure compliance. “Good-bye, Theo,” Shadrack said, embracing him through the bars. “We will get you out of this mess.”
Theo nodded. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll be all right. Find the Weatherers. And find Sophia.”
Shadrack nodded and turned away, his face distraught.
Reaching through the bars, Miles wrapped Theo in a bear hug and said in his ear: “It’s kind of you to put on a good show for us, Theo. You’ve got more nerve than any man I know. I admire you, my friend.” He pounded Theo roughly on the back and then pulled away, wiping his eyes hastily with his fist.
The guards were making faster progress through the corridor than Theo had expected. They were halfway down, though the noise was only growing greater. “Good-bye, my dear boy,” Mrs. Clay said tearfully. As she embraced Theo, her sobs became uncontrollable. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re being so brave, but I just can’t—” She pulled him closer. “Please be careful.”
Nettie, who had veered sharply from tears to outrage, hugged him and then shook his hand firmly. “Thank you for coming to see me,” Theo said with a crooked smile, “even though I sort of lied to you about who I am.”
“I’ve not forgiven you yet,” Nettie replied primly. “You’ll have to come back soon and make it up to me.”
Theo took her arm. “You’re going to stay on the case, aren’t you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Of course,” she whispered.
“Then you should know something about Broadgirdle. You heard what I said in his office.”
“I heard everything. I remember.”
“His real name is Wilkie Graves. Might help.”
Nettie’s eyes narrowed. “You really should have told me earlier,” she hissed.
Theo smiled. “Be careful. He’s much worse than he looks.”
He crouched down to say good-bye to Winnie, but the boy seemed unwilling to come any closer. He stood a few feet away, watching the guards and the raging inmates with evident horror. “Hey, Winnie,” Theo called. He reached out for the boy’s hand. “Come over here. Say good-bye to me properly.”
Winnie reluctantly came closer. “I don’t want to say good-bye.”
“I know. But hey, look on the bright side. Good thing it’s me and not you they’re sending off. Wouldn’t want to see you out there in the Indian Territories with a pistol!”
Winnie shook his head. He looked at Theo sullenly, and suddenly the tears spilled from his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he said, gulping over the tears. “I should have gotten there sooner. I should have broken in myself. I don’t know why I didn’t. It was so stupid. Stupid. I’m so sorry, Theo.”
Theo felt a painful tug in his throat. Winnie wiped a dirty hand across his eyes with frustration and grief. Theo saw, with sudden illumination, how like him the little boy was—not only because he lived by his wits and took care of himself, but also because having to take care of himself had convinced him that he was older in the world than he really was. He was so certain that the evils around him were his to avert, his to live with if he could not avert them. Winnie could not fathom that those evils would exist, whole and terrible in their consequences, even if he did not.
And to think I was younger than he is now. I could do nothing. I could no more have stopped Graves’s slaving than Winnie could stop this war. Theo felt a pulse of heartbreak for the torment it had caused his younger self to take such a burden, then a wave of compassion for the boy he had been, the boy who stood before him now. If only someone could have told him then what he now saw so clearly: You are blameless. Forgive yourself.
“Look,” Theo insisted, pulling Winnie toward him by the hand. He drew him in so that no one else could hear. “This is not your fault. I would have landed here one way or another. You understand?” Winnie nodded, but did not look up. “Winnie, look at me.” Reluctantly, he did. “Even if you only did good things every day, every moment of your life, bad things would still happen.”
“The good is not enough,” Winnie said sadly.
“It is enough. That’s what I’m saying. It is enough. The doing is what matters.” He squeezed Winnie’s hand. “Okay?”
Winnie sniffed. “Okay.”
“I want you to look after everyone for me. Mrs. Clay is a mess. And Shadrack and Miles are going to argue about what to do until nothing gets done. You’re going to have to give them the advice I would if I were here. Talk some sense to them. Can you do that?” Winnie looked back at the ground. Then he gave a short nod. “Right, then.” Theo hugged the boy and released him. “Get out of here.” He gave him a wink. “Stay out of trouble.”
The guards, nearing the dark end of the corridor, had finally caught sight of the visitors. “You can’t be here,” one of them snapped. “There were to be no visitors after eight-hour.”
“We are just leaving,” Shadrack said. Putting his arm around the inconsolable Mrs. Clay, he began walking down the corridor, followed by the others.
Theo watched them go. They made a sad little procession, weaving their way through the shouting, jibing prisoners, all the way to the entrance of Ward 1. Theo sighed. He felt a spasm of sadness as Winnie turned in the doorway to wave. Theo swallowed hard and put his hands through the bars. “Theodore Constantine Thackary?” the guard barked.
“Yes.”
“You are hereby conscripted to the Armed Forces of New Occident. Your sentence of two months’ imprisonment will be considered served when your unit’s deployment has ended or, if this be sooner than two months, when your term of incarceration has ended.” He turned to the guard beside him. “Manacles.” The cuffs closed on Theo’s wrists, and the guards made ready to open the cell doors.
Epilogue:
The Offered Sail
—1892, July 15: 12-Hour 00—
SEVILLE: Calle Abades, Libreria del Sabio. The bookstore named for Alfonso “The Wise” specializes in detailed maps of the Papal States. You w
ill not find many useful travel maps for other Ages, but you will find guide maps aplenty for local journeys and pilgrimages.
—From Neville Chipping’s Map Vendors in Every (Known) Age
SEVILLE HAD CHANGED. The first few days after the plague had passed, no one could believe it. They considered that the brief respite was only that: a pause in the dreadful progress. But after a week, people began to hope that perhaps, after so many decades, the contagion had finally turned and fled. The hope became relief, which became elation.
From one week to the next, Seville transformed from a shuttered and desolate city to a buoyant, living one; from a clump of dry soil to a tendril of green growth. Doors were unbolted, merchants opened their stores, horses clattered through the streets, children once more played together, and the houses of worship rang with the sound of music.
Most people did not know what had caused the plague to end. But Sophia, as she rode alongside Goldenrod and Errol, with Seneca gliding high above them, knew for certain, and she felt a rush of unexpected happiness thinking of the part she had played. She had to remind herself that she had taken a great risk and expended all her strength in doing so. It was too easy, now, as she rode with her friends, to forget the long journey through the Dark Age and the terror of communing with a Clime.
The time spent in Ausentinia had allowed for recovery. Sophia recovered, albeit slowly, and Ausentinia recovered gradually from its long isolation, and the Papal States recovered yet more gradually from the enduring effects of the plague. When the first traveler to Ausentinia arrived, following the path through the Dark Age and seeking a map for what he had lost, the city celebrated.
During her days in Ausentinia, Sophia spoke frequently to Alba about her journey, and she told her of Minna’s phantom. “What I don’t understand is where the apparition came from. I was afraid of it at first, but then I became certain that it somehow came from here—from Ausentinia. But how could such a thing be?”
Alba thought for a moment. “You are right that she came from Ausentinia. Let me ask you this: if you had arrived here seeking something you had lost, what would that thing be?”
“My mother and father,” Sophia answered without hesitation.
“And if Errol had arrived seeking something he had lost, what would it be?”
Sophia paused. “His brother.”
Alba nodded. “You would have sought maps to find these people. The maps guiding you to them, in truth, already exist. They have always existed. They are waiting here for you as they have always waited. But while Ausentinia lay trapped in the Dark Age, no one could approach the city. The guiding impulse that writes the maps of Ausentinia had to reach you, somehow—somehow find and guide you.”
Sophia reflected in silence.
“You might say,” Alba added, “that the apparition is the map brought to life—the physical presence of the guide that will, someday, lead you to your mother and father.”
“So they’re not dead?” Sophia whispered.
“They are absent,” Alba replied gently. “Not departed.”
“Then does that mean—does it mean that bringing me to Ausentinia was part of my finding them?”
Alba smiled. “Yes. You will not see the figure any longer, for you will have the map now to guide you. The map that will lead you to Minna and Bronson. I have been waiting for the right moment.” She paused, reaching into the folds of her cloak. “Here it is.” She gave Sophia a scroll of paper tied with white string. “And here is the map you will one day pass along to another,” she added, handing her a small leather purse fastened with blue string. “Your map will let you know when the moment is right.”
Sophia took the scroll and the purse. She looked at the scroll but did not touch the white string. Her hand was trembling.
“I know it has been a long wait, Sophia,” Alba said quietly. “I will let you read the map in peace.”
• • •
SOPHIA PATTED THE purse and the map where they sat in the pocket of her skirt. The purse, curiously, held not a scroll of any kind but a bundle of red stones that Goldenrod said were garnets. The map was similarly mystifying. Most of what was written upon it she did not understand. But the beginning was familiar, and it gave her a clear path to follow:
Missing but not lost, absent but not gone, unseen but not unheard. Find us while we still draw breath.
Leave my last words in the Castle of Verity; they will reach you by another route. When you return to the City of Privation, the man who keeps time by two clocks and follows a third will wait for you. Take the offered sail, and do not regret those you leave behind, for the falconer and the hand that blooms will go with you. Though the route may be long, they will lead you to the ones who weather time. A pair of pistols and a sword will prove fair company.
For now, she was simply happy to know that the path before her lay alongside Goldenrod and Errol. She had no wish to part from them. Errol had received his own map, one as inscrutable as Sophia’s, though he believed implicitly that his brother lay at the end of it.
But not all routes led in the same direction. Rosemary, having found what she had sought for so long, took her mother’s bones to hallowed ground. She had ridden with them as far as Seville and there said her farewells.
As they neared the port, Sophia’s heart soared. The sight of so many ships, their tall masts cluttering the harbor, filled her with excitement. Soon, very soon, she would be home.
“I say we find something to eat before we seek our vessel,” Errol said, dismounting. “My Faierie here might subsist on sun and air and water, but you and I need something heartier, Sophia.” He rested his hand on Goldenrod’s gloved arm and gave her a brief smile.
“What about bread with raisins in it?” Sophia asked, allowing Errol to help her down from the saddle. “Remember the street where you found me? There’s someone there I want to thank.”
“Very well. Bread with raisins it is.” He paused. “Can I be of service?” he asked, rather stiffly.
Sophia turned to look at the man who stood nearby, looking keenly at the trio. He was tall, with skin bronzed almost to brown, and his broad grin flashed a row of even, white teeth.
“It is I who wish to be of service.”
“Richard,” Goldenrod said comfortably. She gave a warm smile as she extended her gloved hand. “It is very good to see you. I had word that you had arrived, and I understood at long last my very unusual Atlantic voyage.”
“You are impossible to surprise,” the tall man said, bowing slightly. He spoke English with a broad accent that pulled his mouth into a smile. “But I am very glad to see you, too, safe and sound. And you,” he said, turning to Sophia, “must be Sophia Tims.”
Sophia nodded, surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Very pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, shaking her hand. “My name is Captain Richard Wren. I was given your description. I have been anchored in the port of Seville for some time, waiting for your arrival.” As if by habit, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a watch, examining it through an amber-tinted monocle. “Fifteen days and seven hours, to be exact.” He flashed his brilliant smile and returned the watch to his pocket.
Sophia noticed, with sudden awareness, that he had two pocket-watch chains. “Captain Wren?” she asked, her pulse quickening. The name was familiar: Cabeza de Cabra had recorded it in his map, in his memory of watching Minna and Bronson as they prepared to cross the bridge into Ausentinia. “Who gave you my description?”
“My associate in Boston, who, I believe,” he said with a hint of vexation, “instructed you to meet me here at the port of Seville.”
His reply recalled her to what seemed a remote past. “Remorse?”
“The very same. It seems there have been some unexpected mishaps and detours, but at least you are here now.”
Sophia was astonished. “I—How—” She sho
ok her head. “I am confused.”
Wren gave a hearty laugh. “All will be explained, I promise. Perhaps this will help—I have here the document you have been seeking.” Captain Wren handed Sophia a packet of folded papers. “It is a copy I made of a diary in Granada, and I brought it with me for our meeting to demonstrate my good intentions. And, as you shall see, it is in small part about me.” He said this abashedly, as if he had taken a great liberty by appearing in the pages of the diary.
Sophia took the packet of papers and stared at the cover sheet. It read:
Personal Diary of Wilhelmina Tims.
From the original found at the Granada Depository.
Copied on June 25, 1892, by Richard Wren.
Sophia’s eyes opened wide. She looked up at the captain. “The diary! She wrote about you?”
Captain Wren nodded. “Your mother and father sailed with me in 1881. Not long after, they sent a message asking for my help. For several reasons, I could not come to their aid. I am arriving now, many years later, hoping I am not too late to be of some assistance.”
Sophia stared at the pages in silence, hardly believing she finally held her mother’s words in her hands. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at Captain Wren. “Thank you.”
The captain bowed, beaming with satisfaction. “You are very welcome.” Turning to Errol, he gave another small bow. “And I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting . . . ?”
“Errol Forsyth, of York,” Errol said, shaking hands with the captain. He had at first watched the man with suspicion; this had gradually faded, giving way to a cautious curiosity. “I am pleased to know someone who offered aid to Sophia’s parents, Captain Wren.”
“Please call me Richard. I am very glad to make your acquaintance. And if I could,” he said, gesturing toward the harbor, “I would recommend that we negotiate for passage with one of these ships. We are heading west to find the author of that document, are we not?” He smiled at Sophia.