“No, I do not want it!” Holmes protested. His voice choking. He began to mount. “I never wish to see it again.”
“Nonsense,” Douglas stated. “You must have a weapon, and this is as good as any.”
“And I tell you I do not want it!” Holmes insisted.
“Now you are giving in to histrionics,” Douglas declared with an upraised eyebrow. “You are not unacquainted with death—what has possessed you?”
Holmes glanced over his shoulder at the corpse. Crumpled at the base of the tree, it was no longer staring at him.
“I have never killed a man before,” he confessed.
“I see,” Douglas replied quietly.
“I do not want the knife,” Holmes insisted again, and Douglas nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “But do try and recall that you used it to save my life.”
Holmes hesitated a moment longer.
Then he took the knife and placed it back in its sheath.
* * *
Later that night, a despondent Holmes sat at the long table in the Chinese section. This time, the dumplings and liquor did nothing to quench the emptiness in his belly. Not even a good cigar—Douglas had managed to pick up a handful of Fundadores from one of the Chinese traders—could ease the ache he felt.
And for once, it had nothing to do with Georgiana.
Douglas was right, of course. The deed had had to be done. And he had seen death—plenty of it—not only working for Dr. Bell, but simply by way of being a Londoner.
Of course, though one could argue that England was a civilized country, there had been public hangings for most of Holmes’s life—they hadn’t been banned until he was nigh on twenty years of age. And there were poor unfortunates who occasionally dropped dead in the streets from cold, or hunger, or disease.
Yet he had never been the cause of another human being’s demise.
I am barely out of adolescence, Holmes reminded himself in what sounded suspiciously like Douglas’s voice. And have lived a rather sheltered existence.
“Holmes?” he heard Douglas say, speaking beside him. “What do you think?”
“Of what?” Holmes asked.
Douglas and Huan had been sitting to his right and discussing what their next steps might be. Huan had departed without a sound, but Holmes had begun to grow accustomed to members of the Harmonious Fists appearing and disappearing with uncanny speed, even if it meant a rather wanton disregard of protocol.
“Should we investigate the islands in question?” Douglas began, though without much conviction. “After all, we know where they are located.”
“You mean go there?” Holmes said, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The two of us, in our present condition, against what is undoubtedly an army?”
“Might I remind you,” Douglas parried, “that the Harmonious Fists are ready and willing to fight on our account? In all, they comprise more than three hundred fighting men. And there are the Merikens…”
“The Americans?” he repeated, puzzled.
Behind him, a woman’s soft voice corrected him, one he knew all too well:
“Not the Americans, my love,” she said. “Merikens.”
Holmes turned around.
Huan and Little Huan were holding Georgiana between them. Or rather, they were holding her upright, for she looked so frail that she could barely stand on her feet. Her rosy color was gone. Her lips were cracked and dry, but she tried to smile as she met his shocked gaze.
“Merikens,” she repeated in a voice that was a wisp of what it had once been. “Colonial Marines. I thought for certain you’d have heard of them.
“Then again,” she added, “I suppose no one can know everything. Not even you, my dearest.”
35
IN THOSE FIRST FEW SECONDS THAT HE STOOD BEFORE HER, Holmes conjured up his entire lifetime yet to come. The three children he’d always dreamed they’d have. Their small but lovely terraced home in Pimlico, and if all went well, St. John’s Wood. The Christmases and Easters and birthdays they would celebrate as a family. The flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked grandchildren he’d someday bounce upon his knee.
All of it blown to smithereens in the span of a heartbeat.
How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our fair minds, he thought, although he could not recall, at the moment, who had written those words.
Austen, perhaps? Or Dickens?
One thing was certain. Georgiana, that slight and delicate thing, had always disturbed the equanimity of his mind. And this day was no exception. But, God’s bones, how frail she looked—how weak! Her skin was the color of… what? Even ivory seemed too dark an assignation, and snow too robust, too cheery, parchment too yellow.
She is of the palest gray, he realized. The color of tombstone. But on the heels of that thought came another.
Do not pity her.
She deserved no pity, he knew that—not so much as a solitary glance her way. And yet, he could not help but look at her—though he sincerely hoped that this look did not appear so bare and wounded as it felt to him from the inside.
Thank heavens I am no longer mad with grief. That had been excised by the deaths of innocents and miscreants alike, by the many mishaps he and Douglas had endured at her hands. What he felt at the moment was more akin to a dull pain, as if he’d been hit unflaggingly in the same spot for so long that it no longer felt a part of him.
Then, surprisingly, he began to move toward her.
No, Holmes! he thought fiercely to himself.
How, then, was he within inches of her, gazing into her eyes as if he were some poor, hapless serpent that she had charmed? Those eyes were still so lovely—fathomless, guileless.
“Search her!” he heard Douglas say behind him. “If you do not, I shall.”
He was about to protest, but one glance back dissuaded him. Douglas’s expression communicated, in no uncertain terms, that his dear, kind, and closest friend was easily capable of killing her with his own two hands. And so while Huan and his son held her upright, he did as he was instructed. He gently patted her down.
“She is not armed,” he mumbled to Douglas. Then he asked Huan, “Where did you find her?”
“She found us,” Huan responded. “She begged us to bring her to you.”
Little Huan confirmed his father’s words with a solemn nod.
Georgiana raised her hand and placed it lightly upon Holmes’s arm, as she had the last time he had seen her. And as usual, he felt that absurd desire to please her. Then he noticed the jumbie bracelet on her right wrist.
Half its beads were gone.
“Where are the rest of them, Georgiana?”
“I begged you not to follow me,” she whispered.
“You could not have used more than two on me,” he insisted. “Where are the rest?”
She said nothing.
“Georgiana!” Holmes shouted at her. “Where are the rest?”
“I ate them,” she said. “Two days ago.”
He did not recall crying out, but he must have, because there was a movement like a fluttering of birds around him. The Harmonious Fists were there, hovering, assuming their fighting stance, in case there should be trouble.
And then he was shaking her.
“What did you do?” he screamed, as though somehow it could be undone by force of will.
Once again, it was Douglas who intervened.
“It’s no good, Holmes,” he said. “She is dying. You can do nothing for her… not now.”
As Douglas stepped away, Holmes stared at her.
“But why?” he asked in a wavering voice. “Why any of this?”
She looked up at Huan, who was still holding her.
“Might I perchance… sit down?” she said as agreeably as if she were requesting a cup of tea.
* * *
Huan and Little Huan escorted her to a bench in front of a flowering poui tree. Georgiana sat slowly, like someone who had aged fifty years in a few weeks.
Then she grasped the sides of the bench as though determination alone would keep her upright.
Father and son moved some distance away, where they could watch the goings-on without eavesdropping. Douglas planted himself closer by, his arms crossed tightly at his chest, his expression furious.
As for Holmes, he found himself squatting on one knee before her, like a man about to propose, though he could not say how he got there.
“You came to me to unburden yourself,” he said gently. “I pray you do so now.”
She stared down at him, and nodded
“I… was recruited years ago,” she began softly, “before I ever left Port of Spain. My father was an… early investor.”
A coughing fit assailed her, but she struggled on.
“You saw our plantation,” she said. “Everything my family had worked so hard for—gone. They assured us that nothing so demeaning would ever again happen to another hard-working family. And it was to be indenture, not slavery. My own ancestors were indentured, as you know, and… if we kept workers a mere five years and… and if we gave them something for their trouble—”
“Something for their trouble?” Douglas interrupted. “What, their liberty for a loaf of bread?”
She turned and looked at Douglas. “And what of me?” she said. “Am I to do nothing while former slaves are given more rights in England than I as a woman will ever hope to achieve? The right to vote, Mycroft!” she added piteously, turning back to him. “How long have I been dreaming of that?”
“It is an unfair world,” Douglas interjected coldly.
“Douglas, please…” Holmes muttered. But he had questions of his own.
“Why bring the boy with you?”
“The boy.” Georgiana sighed. “He was my special project. A budding poet. I gave him a small writing desk. When I announced to my charges that I was leaving, he followed me—and stowed aboard.”
“And when you realized that I, too, was aboard, you used him.”
“Yes,” she said. “We used anything and everything to dissuade you. I cannot even tell you where he is now. Ran off, I believe,” she added vaguely, sounding a bit like her addled mother.
Holmes flinched, wishing with all his heart that Duffer had run off.
“And what of the other children?” he asked. “The ones massacred along the shore, Georgiana. How did you justify that?”
“I didn’t know about the children!” she cried, suddenly agitated. “I thought the talk of phantoms was just to frighten them, to keep people from the water.”
“Why the water?”
“Because of… of the effluence,” she said vaguely, as if she did not quite understand it herself. “The effluence that would occur once we began to dig—it all had to be settled, you see, before we made it public.”
She reached for Holmes’s hand. When she found it, he could feel hers trembling.
“It was all moving forward as planned, or so I thought,” she continued. “Then, back in London, when you said the children were dying, I… well, I could not fathom it. Who would do such a thing? I had to see for myself.”
“And when you arrived, what did you find?” he asked her as equitably as he could manage.
“At first, everything appeared as it should,” she said. “But then…” She looked away. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I felt as if I had entered a nightmare. But I… I pretended to go along, do you see? Then, the moment I could get away, I went to find the letters, and while the fire was being set, I stowed them in the chute. I knew you’d be smart enough to find them, my darling, and put an end to this!”
She was gripped by another fit of coughing so violent that it seemed as if it would rend her in two. Holmes pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and proffered it. She accepted it, and thanked him.
“Georgiana,” he asked. “Did you ever love me?”
She managed a smile.
“How like a man,” she said in a wisp of a voice, “to turn the conversation back to himself.”
“Did you ever love me?” he asked again, searching her face.
She stared back at him and sighed.
“But how can I know… such things, Mycroft? When one is raised to view men as commodities—this one provides an income, that one a title—how could I step outside my own sex and class to know what I felt?”
“So you chose me because of the position I held,” Holmes declared bitterly. “And what of McGuire?” he asked, though it felt as if it were tearing him in two. “Are you in love with him?”
Georgiana laughed softly and shook her head.
“I was married… to a cause. For four long years. Did I love him?” She shrugged. “Until women are granted lives independent from those we marry, most of us are as free to choose a mate as a dog in a kennel is free to choose its master.”
Still he peered at her intently.
She shrank away from his gaze.
“Do not look at me that way, dearest,” she said softly. “I cannot bear it.”
“Where are they now, Georgiana?” Douglas interrupted. “Your compatriots?”
Georgiana seemed as if she could not utter one more word. But Douglas was insistent.
“I… I heard that some slaves were taken to First Island in the Bocas del Dragón,” she told him. “But I don’t know why…”
“The Dragon’s Mouths?” he translated. “And which is First Island?”
She gave him the coordinates, reciting them from memory.
“There are guards there,” she added. “Mercenaries, forty or so…”
“What sorts of weapons do they possess?” Douglas continued, moving toward her as he spoke.
“I…” She tried to speak but could not, then began to rise. Her eyes looked dilated. She stared at Holmes as if she were seeing a ghost.
“Dearest,” she cried out. “Guard your heart!”
And with that, she drew one more ragged breath and sank back against the poui tree. Her face relaxed. Her expression became almost peaceful.
She was gone.
* * *
Holmes dropped down on both knees and might have remained there for eternity, were it not for a strong black hand that yanked him up gruffly by the collar.
“No!” Douglas said. “I will not allow you to mourn her, and so disdain the lives she has already ruined.”
“I cannot simply leave her!” Holmes protested.
Huan came up alongside him.
“We will see to her,” he offered. “We will give her a decent burial, for your sake, for we are fond of you and have no wish to see you suffer.”
Holmes nodded his thanks. Then he studied her face for one last time. He heard the tune in his head—the one Sherlock had hummed to tease him, the one he himself had hummed as they were heading to the plantation.
La donna è mobile, qual piuma al vento…
Woman is as changeable as a feather in the wind.
Lighthearted, easy to love…
Whether in tears or laughter, she deceives.
Always miserable is he who trusts her…
He reached out and pressed her eyelids closed. Douglas put an arm around him, and Holmes allowed his friend to lead him away.
He did not look back, even once.
36
THAT NIGHT, HOLMES AND DOUGLAS SECURED THE AID OF THE Sacred Order of the Harmonious Fists. And when Holmes made it clear that it was a foray into the unknown, and insisted that the fighters be at least eighteen years of age, there were still three hundred who volunteered.
“Since we do not even know what we are seeking or what we shall find,” Holmes opined, “we must approach this as a scouting expedition, and not an invasion. Though I am grateful for your support, Huan, and that of your men, we must rely on the element of surprise.
“Our group should be small.”
“I agree in principle,” Douglas said, “but allow me to play devil’s advocate. With an invasion, we would have numbers on our side. And while subterfuge has its
advantages, we leave ourselves open to ambush, most likely with no survivors.”
“True,” Holmes acknowledged, “but the result would be the deaths of a dozen men, and not of hundreds.”
As the war council continued, Douglas and Holmes lit the last two cigars that Douglas had purchased, and Huan put a match to his long clay pipe.
“A great wrong must be righted,” Huan said, exhaling a cloud of white smoke. “Whether a dozen or hundreds, my men will do as they must. But one thing is sure,” he added. “If we should die on that island, three hundred will go there, and they will avenge our deaths.” He punctuated this last with another cloud of white smoke, and his cheerful grin.
“Well,” Holmes declared, “I sincerely hope that won’t be necessary.”
* * *
The next morning, just before light, Huan and Little Huan drove Holmes and Douglas to the seven Company Villages of the Merikens. Following behind were two more carts and mules, each carrying five members of the Harmonious Fists.
It was to be another all-day journey, possibly into the night, but the inland road wasn’t quite so eroded by wind and water as the coastal route had been. Thus they made very good time.
As they headed toward Moruga at the south-central stretch of the island, Holmes and Douglas took turns telling Little Huan the exploits of the Merikens. For the younger natives in the north, their daring feats were largely unknown.
At first Little Huan listened with half an ear, and then with more and more interest as the tale unfolded of an all-but-forgotten skirmish between Great Britain and a handful of American states. In 1812, when Britain invaded the Atlantic coast of North America for what would be a brief but bloody conflict, the Crown promised freedom to any American slave who’d join her ranks.
At the risk of their lives, thousands left their shackles behind and escaped to the British lines. Many were routed off to the Royal Navy or the West India regiments, but eight hundred or so remained to do battle on American soil. They renamed themselves the Corps of Colonial Marines, and fought valiantly alongside the British, bearing arms against their former masters.
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