The Halifax Connection

by Marie Jakober

  “Ah, ouí, I do see your point. But if you cannot govern it—”

  “We’ll govern it,” Erryn said quietly. “We’re a very resourceful people here in Canada.”

  St. Denis smiled. “Ah yes, I suppose you are. You have to be. So it is this war, then, that worries you? That is the other thing I wish to ask about. Everywhere I have been, men talk about this war, and none of them say the same thing. I should like to hear what all of you have to say—”

  “Perhaps later, sir,” Erryn interrupted softly. “Not at table. It is … it is a contentious subject, sir.”

  “Ah, yes, forgive me. The curiosity of the traveller, you understand.”

  “Of course. Now I have a question for you. You found the manner of boarding our steamer somewhat … uncivilized, I believe—”

  “I meant no offence.”

  “None was taken. I merely wanted to ask if you ever boarded a steamer at Toronto?”

  A ripple of chuckles went up and down the table—chuckles of amusement, yes, Erryn thought, but also of relief. Many others besides himself preferred to leave the Yankees and Confederates a long, long distance from this table.

  “No, I have not,” the Frenchman said. “And now you are going to tell me it is even worse than here, yes?”

  “Oh, much worse. The steamers come all the way from Windsor, most of them, through Lake Erie and the Welland Canal. What with fog and bad weather, they’re often late—two hours, four, even six.”

  “You have experienced that, have you, Mr. Shaw?” Madame asked wryly.

  “Oh, yes.”

  So had several other people, who rushed to tell the Frenchman what departure day was like for those who travelled east from Toronto. Since the time was so completely unpredictable, people simply went on about their business until they heard the approaching whistle. Passengers hunkered down in local bars and tea rooms; those who lived near the waterfront remained in their homes. Shipping agents served their customers and tended their accounts. At the first distant signal, everyone stampeded for the wharf.

  The first time, Erryn had had no notion what to expect. In a matter of minutes he had found himself engulfed in chaos, carried by a tumultuous river of humans, animals, packages, and every kind of vehicle invented since the Stone Age, all of them fighting their way toward the jetty—except for those who had obviously lost something, a hat, a portmanteau, a child, perhaps, and were shoving frantically in the opposite direction. The noise rose to the level of a battlefield. Parents shouted after uncontrollable children, porters yelled for passageway, babies wailed, hack drivers cursed their teams, even the dogs in the streets beyond set up a royal howling. He never quite understood, then or afterwards, how everyone and everything was got on board with no one trampled into pudding or shoved off the quay and drowned in Lake Ontario.

  “The last time,” he told them, “I got a barrel rolled into my shins, without so much as a beg your pardon, and a gust of wind blew my hat some forty heads away. I actually got it back, after. A kind soul took it on board and gave it to the steward to be claimed. But there I was lamenting my vanished hat and battered shins when I felt someone tugging on my hand. It was a lad of five or so, obviously lost and not the least bit frightened. ‘Please, sir,’ he said, ‘you’re really tall, sir. Can you see my mother?’ I told him even if I could it wouldn’t help, since I didn’t know her, so I hoisted him up on my shoulders to look for himself. I was turning this way and that way for him when I heard a most outraged, panic-stricken wail behind me: ‘You there! What the devil are you doing with my baby? Let him go this instant!’

  “I knew if I put the lad down he’d soon be as lost as before. I couldn’t get to his mother because the crowd was shoving me in the opposite direction. Of course, he was delighted when he saw her, and made a great commotion waving and shouting. But all she saw, I suppose, was her poor darling screaming ‘Mama!’ as he was carried off by a great shaggy troll, who’d sell him to Barbary pirates or possibly eat him alive. So, of course, she started shouting for the police.”

  Erryn finished with a wry gesture and a smile. “It was not my finest hour as a good Samaritan.”

  “But you were a good Samaritan nonetheless,” Madame said. “I trust the lady forgave you, once the truth was known?”

  “Oh, handsomely,” he said. “What was left of me.”

  Everyone laughed, which delighted him. But the best was Sylvie’s lingering smile after the laughter finished, the frank admiration in her eyes. He felt that fortune was riding on his shoulders tonight, that tonight was one of those times, which came to a man once or twice in a lifetime, when he could do absolutely nothing wrong.

  The concert was a triumph. The lads from McGill were talented and fun-loving, and they had a fine repertoire. They sang sea shanties and old ballads, tender love songs and heart-tugging, melancholy laments. Several songs Erryn suggested himself, which Sylvie had identified as Madame Louise’s favourites. One of them happened to be a favourite of his own, and he had learned to play it on the flute some years before—an eerie, dark tale he had first heard at Eton, which had haunted him ever since.

  I am a man upon the land,

  I am a silkie on the sea …

  The silkie came to land and found his love, but his story ended—as such stories most always did—with the poor were-creature doomed.

  And ye shall marry a gunner good

  And a right fine gunner I’m sure he’ll be

  And the very first shot that e’er he shoots

  Will kill both my young son and me.

  The chorus faded out, the flute lingering briefly, like a memory, or a shadow disappearing into water. When Erryn looked up, everything was absolutely still—for a moment, a long, wonderful moment before they applauded to rattle the chandelier.

  So it went for most of an hour. Yet when it was done, when all the thank yous had been said and the compliments paid, when the performers shook each other’s hands for the last time and the pianist and the lads from McGill were gone to their berths and he was left to himself, he felt both restless and ever so slightly sad.

  By then the saloon was empty, the great bound bible standing alone on the marble table, the stern windows black against the night. A steward came unobtrusively to darken the candelabra, leaving only two small gimballed lamps. It felt much like the Grafton Street Theatre after a good performance, when everyone was gone—the same satisfying memories of music and applause, the same sudden, unnatural silence.

  In that silence he could hear, for the first time, the voices of the passengers in steerage: many voices, the sort of muffled babel one would hear from outside a crowded pub. They had no beds and plenty of liquor. Many would be awake half the night.

  He went outside, finding two of them in the passageway by the wheel, smoking and talking quietly in German. But no one was on the rear deck, and for that he was grateful; he wanted no one’s company except Sylvie’s. A sharp wind was blowing off the river and there was nary a star to be seen. They would hit fog before morning, he thought, fog and rain, perhaps even snow. He looked back immediately at the sound of steps, hoping it might be her. But no, it was just another male passenger, wandering to the rail to have a smoke.

  He sighed and turned again to face the wind. The euphoria of the concert had mostly gone, leaving him quiet and reflective. Now, even as he hungered for Sylvie Bowen and lingered over every favourite memory of their time together, he knew that his mind was still divided. A wary, self-protective part of it warned him the whole matter was getting out of hand. He was growing besotted, and if he kept on in this fashion he would finish as a proper romantic fool, of the sort he had met once or twice in London, running about feather-brained and making decisions with their cocks. Another part of him wondered why he could not love a woman from the mills, why such a woman should be, by definition, an unsuitable companion for a man with an Eton education and packs of relatives in wigs. It also reminded him that he was put together like a scarecrow and had but seventy pounds a
year with which to entice such women as might be considered more suitable. And finally, with a hard, blunt kick, it reminded him that he was lonely—bone-deep lonely and weary to death of it … whereupon the sensible part of him observed, most sensibly, that if mating were at all reliable as a cure for loneliness, the whole damn planet would be happily and permanently coupled. It was nothing but lust he was feeling, and why not? Any man with some fire in his veins would catch his breath at that hair, at those small, pert breasts in their little cage of cotton. Any man might find her on his mind and in his dreams, living in the bloody colonies and alone for so long. He wanted to take her to bed, that was all.

  Of course I want to take her to bed. I’d have to be stone dead and six days buried not to want it. But it’s not all I want.

  You don’t know what you want.

  And there was the truth of it. He did not know, not yet—and he knew he might never have a chance to find out. Halifax was a small city; it would be hard to keep his links to the Grey Tories out of Sylvie Bowen’s sight even if she had no links to them herself. But with Madame Louise being cousin to the Ortons, it was likely to prove impossible. She would discover him cozied up to everything she hated and despised, and walk away. And that would be best for both of them, no doubt. She was still young, and this was the colonies, after all. Even with a scarred face she had a fair chance of finding some happiness with a decent man … whereupon the damn fool in him leapt straight back up again: Yes, and why the devil can’t that man be me?

  “Mr. Shaw.”

  He turned sharply, irritably, yanked from his thoughts by a drawling voice, a sudden, faint scent of cheap cigar. The man was standing about four feet away, wrapped in a mackinaw with the hood up, both hands stuffed in his pockets.

  Several facts collided in Erryn Shaw’s brain in a single instant. As a rule, men did not get this close to him without being noticed, not even when he was being dreamily concupiscent. This man had worked at catching him off guard, coming out for an innocent smoke and then, despite his heavy boots, padding across the timbers as softly as a cat. There was too little light for Erryn to discern his face, yet there was about him a vague, maddening familiarity.

  The final fact, the one that truly frightened him, was recognizing the stranger’s voice—not its personal identity, for he had never heard it before, but its origins, its tactical identity: the voice was Southern, and cold, so cold it felt like an ice pick levelled at his heart.

  Christ, he’s come to kill me …

  He actually considered yelling, “Help! Murder!” at the top of his lungs and bolting for the pilothouse. Then common sense returned, albeit shakily. One could hardly go into this line of work and then run shrieking from every stranger who stepped out of the shadows for a chat. Such chats were, after all, central to the business. Nonetheless he was painfully aware of how loud the paddlewheel slapped against the water, how nothing moved inside the grand saloon, how most everyone was probably asleep.

  “I know who you are, Mr. Shaw.”

  This did not reassure him one bit. He shifted to face the man, poised and steady. I’ve got length on him, anyway.

  “Then you have the advantage, sir,” he said with just the right mix of politeness, curiosity, and hauteur.

  “You’re the bastard who sold my brother to the Yankees.”

  Even as the man spoke, he struck. Erryn never saw the knife, only the swift, dagger-like thrust of an arm. He dodged sideways, very fast, but not quite fast enough. The blade seared across his ribs and tore into his side. There was a rough thud as the deck railing slammed against his back. The whole world spun. He would have fallen to his knees but for the man’s bulk pinning him, the blade still driven to its hilt.

  “You’re caught now, ain’t you … little robin redbreast?”

  God almighty. It was Brownie. Brownie in the slouch hat. And he must be Brad Taylor’s brother, the crazy one, the one who hated all the Brits …

  “You thought you was so damn smart, didn’t you, Mr. Shaw? You thought nobody’d ever cotton on to you. Sneaking out at night in all them funny clothes, as if any damn fool couldn’t see how tall you was. My brother had you figured from the start, said you was too perfect by half, and yet you was always around when things went to pieces. Just like now.”

  You’re going to die, Erryn Shaw. In a few seconds it will all be over … The thought was unbearable. To die now, with half his life unlived? To die like this—alone and unarmed, like an idiot child gone playing with cobras, caught flat out by a bloody Southern maniac who sneaked up on him in the dark?

  You thought you was so damn smart, didn’t you, Mr. Shaw?

  He gulped with pain as Zeb Taylor pulled the knife free to strike again. He reached instinctively, missing the man’s wrist but deflecting the blow. He had no vanity left; he sucked in his breath and shouted, “Ho! Guard! Help!” with all the voice he had. It seemed no more than a harsh, unimpressive croak.

  Taylor cursed at him. “Not much stomach for a fight, have you, you little Brit bastard?”

  His second try captured Taylor’s knife hand. He held on desperately as the man’s left hammered at his face and belly—a hand like human steel, fast and brutal. He tried to parry the blows, but too much of his strength and attention was focused on the weapon. At this rate he was going to be battered senseless, and then it would be over anyway: Taylor could stab him at his leisure, cut his head off if he wanted to, toss him in the river, and go back to his bed. Erryn’s brief, half-formed intention to somehow disarm the man went out like a snuffed candle. All he cared about now was survival, any way that he could manage it.

  He had one chance, he thought. Maybe one. He brought his knee hard into Taylor’s groin. It was a clumsy, glancing blow, but enough to hurt, enough to make his attacker falter for a moment. In that moment he grabbed Taylor’s left wrist and shoved forward as hard as he could, pushing them both away from the railing. Erryn had always been powerful—thin and oddly proportioned, but powerful, and his great reach served him well now. He swung Taylor around as they grappled, and then bent, reaching fast between the man’s legs to lift him bodily. It was like trying to hoist a small horse. He almost buckled, gulping for air and for courage. Taylor was an ordinary man, not fat at all; how was it possible he could be so heavy?

  You have to do it, Shaw, somehow you just have to … !

  Taylor’s free hand came at him like a club, more vicious than before. Erryn straightened, clinging to every scrap of will he possessed. Bone smashed into his face, his throat, his side. He tasted blood, but he kept going—heaved, shoved, heaved again, almost losing Taylor’s knife hand, almost losing his balance, dimly aware of a growing agony in his side, of the strength draining out of him with every heartbeat, of the hard knowledge that he would once again be a killer. All the while, with a terrible clarity, he was aware only of distances: the few inches between his throat and the knife, the few feet between them both and the railing. Taylor’s curses came at him in gulps, snarling and bitter. For the first time Erryn sensed fear in the man, and it heartened him. They hit the rail hard. For a moment they were poised, almost motionless, like dancers. Erryn slammed him backward, bracing for one last mortal heave, and hearing, even as he did so, the sudden, sharp crack of splintering wood.

  All his life he had prided himself on his quickness, but his enemy was quicker now, and equally desperate. The knife clattered harmlessly on the deck as Taylor’s arms whipped around him, panicked arms made of iron, the man’s weight tipping him, folding him like soft taffy as the railing gave way. Erryn had a fragment of time to understand, and another to protest, silently and pointlessly, that it was a mistake, it was not what he intended—!

  Then they struck, and the river took them down together.

  CHAPTER 14

  Not Death but Love

  “Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But, there, The silver answer rang,—“Not Death, but Love.”

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  IT HAD BEE
N a glorious evening in the saloon, the sort of evening Sylvie Bowen used to dream about when she was a very young girl, when such evenings seemed barely possible even as a dream. The singing had been as fine as any she had ever heard, even in church. And there was Erryn Shaw’s flute, an enchanting thing made—or so it seemed—of wild birds and wind and running water. (“How beautifully he plays,” Madame whispered to her in a quiet moment. “We must be sure to thank him for it.”) Best of all there was Erryn himself, to watch and admire to her heart’s content, as elegant as ever, and here, in the sorcery of the music, looking lean and serpentine and powerful.

  He made it all seem easy, winning Madame’s approval, talking gracefully with her when she came to thank him, complimenting her, making her laugh. As if he had a gift for winning things, Sylvie thought, not just good manners or charm but a kind of magic. As if maybe, centuries and centuries before, one of his ancestors had bedded down in the woods with the elfkind and he had just a tiny, tiny whisper of the blood.

  The hard part of the evening came afterwards. It seemed forever before Sylvie was able to get away. After such glorious entertainment no one wanted to sleep, not even Madame. Several of the women remained behind in the grand saloon for a considerable time, enjoying the company of the men. They came back laughing and chattering just when most of the others were ready to turn in.

  Any other time Sylvie would not have minded. Indeed, she would have enjoyed seeing Madame Louise so animated, and listened with great interest to the conversations of her betters. It was, after all, one of the few real pleasures in the life of a servant.

  There was, for example, a Mrs. Wallis, travelling to Quebec to visit her sister. She thought the singing very fine and the flute exceptional, but she did not approve of making songs about creatures such as silkies.