by Eris Adderly
“No.” She shook her head. “Thank you.”
While the seamstress wrapped up her purchase, Mrs Hadley attempted to engage her in social niceties. It felt so very odd after the weeks at sea among rough company.
“Where are you staying, Mrs Collingwood? You must come visit with me and Mr Hadley—we’re only just up the street.”
Hannah truly didn’t know how she might be polite and still evade such an invitation for the time being. Not without having to struggle through some sort of lie or other explanation for why she, herself, had no idea how long she would be here, nor where she would stay. Or go. She settled for something light.
“I came to visit my uncle. I’ve only just arrived, Mrs Hadley, but I’m sure if I stay for any length of time I’ll seek you out.” She tried to put a smile behind her words, not wanting to upset the woman.
“Here we are.” The dressmaker placed the packaged garments on the counter, and Hannah took them up, clutching them to her side with one arm. She wanted to be out of this shop so she could find somewhere to change clothes and think.
“Mrs Hadley, it was a pleasure to see you again.” She nodded at the younger woman. “Mrs Atwood. Good evening to you both.”
She pulled open the door to the street, turning to her right to regard the captain leaning there. Behind her she heard the inevitable whisperings start.
“… blood on her dress?”
“… size of that purse … think there was blood on it, too!”
“Did you see … Captain?”
“… way she spoke to him?”
“… only Blackburn I’ve ever heard of is …”
“… bloody pirate ship!”
Hannah sighed. She would not be able to remain in Boston.
* * * *
Blackburn levered himself away from the wall, expectant, but his questions would have to wait once more. Her uncle approached from the direction of his brewery, raising a hand to bid them wait.
“Uncle?” Her brows drew together. “What happened with … I mean, did you take care of the … the …” She gestured, unable to simply yell out “the body” right on the street.
“Don’t worry, Niece,” he said. “We’ve stowed that ‘baggage’ away for now. It’ll need to be moved from where it is, but that can be done later.”
She still didn’t understand why he’d come to join her and the captain on the corner, but he answered her question before she needed to ask.
“I need to return to your ship, Blackburn”—her uncle turned to the captain—“You still have my effects.”
So, she thought, they’d made it quite far before the captain changed his mind. He’d barrelled into the brewery’s back room in a way that said he’d been expecting trouble. Perhaps he’d known about Graves? Was that why he’d returned, because he knew her to be in danger?
“I’ll leave you with coin,” the captain said, reaching for his own purse, “you can replace them with better.”
“No.” Her uncle shook his head. “I need that book your man took from me. I can’t replace what’s in there.”
“You carried a book, Uncle?”
“I did. If Kettle or I leave the brewery for any length of time, the one who remains takes the book.” He looked to the captain again, explaining, “It contains our methods, our recipes. The most important part of our business is in there. I need it back.”
“And you didn’t make copies?” Hannah was surprised.
“Please, Niece,” her uncle said, with a roll of his eyes, “Don’t set me off talking about Mr Kettle’s ‘peculiarities.’ No, we have no copies.”
“Very well, Symes.” The captain replaced his purse. “Have you somewhere for your niece to dress before we—”
Something further down King Avenue distracted the captain, and Hannah turned with her uncle to see what had caught the man’s eye. There was a man trotting in their direction. Blackburn squinted at him, the blanket of twilight now making it harder for them all to see.
“Is that …Winters?”
The guess proved correct, and the sailor she’d seen aboard The Devil’s Luck didn’t stumble to a stop until he was right in front of them.
“Are you the only one we’re sending to run all over this city, Winters?” the captain asked the man in mild jest as the younger man caught his breath.
“I’m the one who knew where to find you, Captain,” the winded sailor said, taking in great gulps of air between words. “Mr Till has been injured.”
The captain’s whole posture tightened in an instant and the smirk he’d been forming fell clean from his face.
“How badly, Mr Winters? What happened?” His voice was strung taut like a bow. Hannah felt herself tensing as well, bracing for some news she expected she wouldn’t want to hear.
“I didn’t see him myself, Sir, but Mr George sent me to call you back. I think it must be serious enough, for him to have me come find you, Captain.”
Serious.
She shared an intense look with the captain.
Benjamin.
“Mr George said you went after the surgeon, Captain?” the deckhand said, looking from Hannah to Blackburn. “Did you find him?”
“We found him, Winters, but he won’t be going back to the ship.”
It hit Hannah then that the sailor wasn’t asking about Graves out of idle curiosity. He thought the quartermaster might need the surgeon. Her heart leapt in her chest.
The captain—Edmund, she thought, a sliver of emotion widening within her—had pressed her for answers. Would she or would she not return with him to the ship? And she’d put him off twice in her need to consider in peace. There was still no time, and she rode the edge of uncertainty yet as to where she stood in her heart.
But there was a need now, and she could decide the rest later. There would be no choice to make at all if half of her reason for returning ceased to be.
“We go to the ship,” Hannah said, startling the three men.
They all turned to stare at her, but she was already setting a brisk pace down the darkening avenue.
She’d taken one man’s life today, and with her own hand. Could she save another the same way? What was the point of study if one never used the knowledge for anything?
The men were catching up to her, but Hannah’s mind had leapt ahead to the ship. Help Benjamin, then worry about the rest.
The captain had chosen her over his plans for her uncle, run to her side when he knew she was in danger, and more than once. Now they both ran for the quartermaster: Edmund for his closest friend, and Hannah for one of two men who drove her to madness.
There were a great many bruises in place to mar this whole affair, but there was also possibility. If they could only get there in time, and the damage was not too great. Hannah quickened her steps.
* * * *
“Where is Mr Till?” Hannah demanded of the first sailor she saw as she boarded The Devil’s Luck.
The deckhand, whose name she didn’t know, gawked at her bold tone, but answered when he saw the captain following on her heels.
“I believe Mr George has taken him to lie in his cabin, Ma’am.” The man’s eyes darted from her to the captain, and then to her uncle who came wheezing onto the deck a moment later. He might do well for his age, but today had involved too much running for the man by far. Winters was the last to board, but the younger sailor wasn’t winded in the least.
“Right,” she said, and turned on her heel to move off without waiting for any of the men. They would follow.
Her strides brought her to the forecastle and, entering from the main deck, she found the familiar door to Benjamin’s cabin and flung it open.
Ellis George was pressing a blood-soaked rag to the left side of the quartermaster’s chest. Someone had relieved Till of his shirt and he shone with the sweat of a person in great physical distress.
“Mr George, what happened?” She descended on the pair of them just as she heard others piling into the room behind her.
“That bloody surgeon?” Edmund swore from behind her, shouldering his way in to have a look at his friend. “How is he involved in this as well?” From the sound of his voice, Hannah thought the captain might want Graves brought back to life so he could kill him a second time.
George tried to elaborate and Hannah became impatient. “I don’t think he was the direct cause, Captain. Mr Till went ashore to procure a few things for the ship and—”
“I saw Graves.” Till coughed, drawing everyone’s attention. His eyes had been closed and she wasn’t sure how aware he’d been, especially with George being the first to speak.
“I’d just come out of a shop.” The quartermaster ground the words out through a clenched jaw, still not opening his eyes. “Saw him across the street. Couldn’t believe it … how he got out of the brig …” His speech fractured under the pain of his injury. She needed to see it, but Till kept talking.
“Watched him turn … into an alley … went to follow …” The carpenter adjusted the rag and Till growled a curse at him before continuing. “Came ‘round the corner blind … someone … pushing a cart … didn’t see them … didn’t see me … cart was full … long planks … ran straight into … must have been a nail …”
A nail? That doesn’t sound good.
Hannah’s patience had reached its limit. Accounts could wait.
“Enough talk. Show me.” She gestured to Mr George that he should remove the rag and let her see the wound.
He drew back the sodden cloth and Hannah grunted at the sight. She heard a few hissing sounds from the other men crowding in for a look over her shoulder, including the captain, who had wedged in at her side. Again, she was surprised at her own reaction. She didn’t blanche or feel the pain when she looked at the injured man in front of her, but saw only another problem to be solved.
A messy, deep gash several inches long ran from his underarm down across the flat muscle on the left side of his chest. The bleeding wasn’t as bad now as she could tell it had been, judging from the state of the rag, but she knew the man had lost a fair amount already.
Before, it had been texts. Drawings, theory pored over out of morbid curiosity. Here would be practise on a live person. Who knew she would ever have a need to use such knowledge? As a woman? But use it she would. There was no other choice.
“The surgeon should have left tools in his cabin, Mr George.” He won’t be needing them now. “Bring them to me, along with water if we have any. Beer or ale if we don’t.”
“Yer a surgeon now, as well, are ye?” Some sceptical voice back near the open door put in. Heads nodded and grumbles of agreement rippled around the room. Hannah was in no mood for argument.
“Shall we wait until some other ship’s surgeon can be fetched?” she said, batting her lashes in a false simper, disdain dripping from her words. “I’ve had my nose in more medical texts than anyone else aboard this vessel, I assure you.”
“Let her be, men,” Till croaked, and Hannah let out her breath in relief. This was not the time to let the man bleed while a crew of cutthroats stood around and debated medical qualifications.
The carpenter came away from the narrow bunk where Benjamin lay, handing off the bloody rag to Hannah, and nodded an ‘aye’ before moving off to fetch the tools. Interesting how he accepted her order without waiting for confirmation from the captain.
“Someone cut Mr Till’s shirt into strips for me, a handspan wide each. It’s ruined either way.” She tugged the torn shirt the rest of the way out from under the quartermaster and held it out behind her. Someone took it; she didn’t see who.
There was a very narrow strip of available space on the bunk, and Hannah managed to perch half of her backside on it, along with the upper portion of one leg as she leaned over Till’s body, her other foot supporting her weight on the floor. She laid the back of her hand over his forehead and found him not to be unnecessarily hot. This was good.
Of course he’d needed to return to the ship. No one who looked like him, shaven head and tattoos, could expect to find help from a respectable medical person in the city. Her mouth pulled up in distaste on one side at the notion. She wondered how he’d made it the whole way without incident, bleeding as he must have been, and likely disoriented.
One of Till’s own blood-smeared hands landed limp at the side of her thigh. It was well enough she hadn’t changed into her new clothing. So much blood today.
“Hannah.” His voice was a quiet rasp as he avoided moving his chest too much. “I didn’t think … to see you again.”
“Nor did I, old friend.” The captain stood close and leaned over her shoulder now, one hand bracing himself against cabinets overhanging the bunk. “There may be some light in this disaster, yet.”
Hannah twisted her head up at him and shot a look that said, Not now, just as Ellis George was pushing his way back into the room with the surgeon’s bag of tools and a pitcher. She smelled no alcohol, and assumed they’d found water somewhere.
“Sorry, Benjamin, your bunk is too small.” Hannah took the bag from the carpenter and laid it across Till’s thighs for lack of free space. George was going to have to hold on to the pitcher: there was nowhere to set it.
The tools were clean and sharp, well maintained, though she grimaced at what other horrors the surgeon might have got up to with them. She found what she was looking for and brought it out, moving the bag to the floor.
George held out the pitcher and she dipped the rag, staining the water inside pink right away. With a careful efficiency, Hannah went about wiping most of the spilt blood away from the wound so she might better see what there was to deal with. Till winced at the touch and she went more gently about it.
The line of torn flesh was a proper mess. Not the clean line of a swipe from a blade, but a jagged ripping of skin and some of the underlying muscle. Till said he thought there had been a nail. If that was the case, it had punctured his flesh and then been dragged along before he got free of it.
There were a few wild tatters of skin hanging loose from the upper edge of the gash, and Hannah trimmed them neatly away with a set of very sharp, tiny shears, allowing the quartermaster to growl and clench his fists as he needed. A couple of the gawking sailors who couldn’t stand the sight of wounds and blood had left, but she was fast discovering the work was no more to her than the cutting of meat at a table, albeit with more wailing and gnashing of teeth. There didn’t appear to be any pieces of whatever wood he’d run into inside the wound, and she found herself ready for stitching.
“Hold still,” she warned her charge as she threaded the needle.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Niece?” Her uncle chimed in from behind where the captain was already hovering, his tone incredulous. Hannah made a noise of irritation in her throat. What she didn’t need at this moment was an audience pressing in.
“Everyone out!” she barked at the standing occupants of the room. Several pairs of eyes stared back at her, surprised by her outburst. “The captain can stay. I’m sorry Uncle, Mr George—I need quiet. I need to concentrate.”
A low murmur went up from the sailors crowding the doorway as they shuffled their way back to their duties aboard the ship. Her uncle stood, glancing about the quartermaster’s modest cabin in uncertainty.
“Mr George, find Mr Symes here somewhere to wait where he’ll be out of the crew’s way, but comfortable.” The captain saw the worry on the older man’s face and spoke to it. “Use my quarters if you must.”
“Aye, Sir.” George nodded and moved toward the door, leaving the water pitcher on the floor near the wall.
Her uncle, seeming to accept this alternative, if with heavy reluctance, gave her a last look that told her to be careful, before following the carpenter out the door and shutting it behind him.
“Captain, i
f you please,” Hannah said, moving her elbows outward from where she sat. Now that there was more room in the cabin, she wanted him to give her space to work without looming over her shoulder.
He took her meaning and moved to lean against the opposite wall, arms folded over his chest. It appeared he would stare at her as she dealt with Till, regardless.
“Are you ready, Benjamin?” Her voice and hands were steady.
“I’ve had needles in me before,” he said, indicating the dark designs twisting over his arms and chest. “Be about it, Hannah. I’d much rather it was you than Graves.” He managed a tightly controlled laugh.
“I killed him, you know,” she said, the words a quiet aside as she readied herself to work. “Graves.”
Benjamin managed to goggle at this, even in his drained state. “Hannah …” Her name came in a sort of disbelieving awe. The tiniest of smiles curled the corner of her mouth.
“She did, Benjamin,” Edmund said from his side of the cabin. “Filled his neck with a blade and walked off with his purse.” She could hear the grin in his voice, but now was not the time for all this.
She set to her task.
Stitching together the sides of the wound proved a challenge, but not so great a one as couldn’t be handled. As she remembered from the very un-bloody and un-breathing texts in her father’s library, Hannah started at the closest end of the wound and brought the needle through in a holding stitch before piercing the adjacent side. Then on through to the other side with the needle, and back again. She continued then in the same manner, working away from herself, back and forth across the gash, trying to ignore Till’s occasional grunts and noises of pain. The man was right, he’d dealt with needles before; he would have to do it now.
She kept her stitches as close to the edges of the wound as she could without going so close that they might be torn out with his normal movements. When her needle came to the far end of the now sealed gash, she tied off the end of the thread and nipped it with the shears. Assessing her work, she found it neat and the quartermaster looked far less ghastly than he had before. It would leave a nasty scar, no doubt, but provided there was no infection, he would live.