Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive

by T. Davis Bunn

  Serafina sighed away the freezing fear. To her left Carla’s breath hissed out, releasing her own terror.

  One of the footmen emerged from Serafina’s parents’ bedroom, staggering under the weight of a rolled carpet on his shoulder. He saw nothing but the next step ahead of him as he moved carefully for the stairs.

  Without thinking, Serafina slipped past Carla and moved in behind the footman. She pretended to hold up the rear of the rug and matched his tread down the central stairs. She heard the man’s huffing breath and gasped along with him, her entire body trembling. She glanced through the railing and saw the front hall was empty. The house was filled with sounds of banging and scraping but no alarm.

  She was able to take nothing with her. The footmen who helped on cleaning days carried nothing of their own.

  When the footman turned the corner at the base of the stairway, Serafina slipped through the front doors.

  She stopped there, blinking in the light. She had not been out of her chamber in three weeks and three days. The midday light, at the height of a Venetian summer, was piercing. Serafina knew she could not stay where she was. She stumbled down the front stairs, nearly falling at the bottom.

  “Here now, lad.” Strong hands kept her aloft. “Pay attention where you lay your feet.”

  Serafina caught herself just in the moment of opening her mouth to thank the unseen man. She stepped away from his grasp and moved into the shadows. She angled her hat to hide her face further. She moved along the wall, not even certain in which direction she was headed. For the moment, anywhere would do so long as it was away.

  Away. What an unearthly strange word to use with such abandon. Away from home and family and Venice. Away from all that she cherished. Away from the only life she knew. Serafina’s eyes adjusted to the outside brilliance as she realized she was moving into Saint Mark’s Square. She increased her speed. Luca!

  She was midway across the square when she was jostled by a berobed merchant, and her hat tumbled down. She recognized the man as a friend of her father’s. “Watch where you’re going there!”

  Serafina knelt upon the cobblestones and fitted the hat back down tightly. She made her voice as gruff as possible. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry won’t do it! You young ruffians don’t own the square, you know!”

  She remained crouched and still until the footsteps moved away. Slowly she rose back to her feet and began walking forward. She held herself to a steady pace and kept her eyes downcast, as footmen running errands often did. At her feet the pigeons strutted and cooed. The sunlight beat upon her shoulders. Around her rose the noise and bustle of Saint Mark’s Square at midday. The minstrels sang their way from café to restaurant, and the waiters bustled at their tasks. The chatter was light and constant. Away!

  She took the lane that led from the square to the Grand Canal and crossed the Rialto Bridge. Shaped in a series of long stairs, it was a broad footbridge of stone so old it dated back to Venice’s earliest days. A gondolier swept under the bridge as she passed over, dipping his long pole into the water in time to his soft melody. That was why they sang, her mother claimed, to time the strokes of their poling and keep them in the proper cadence.

  The sudden memory halted her at the crest of the footbridge. What good would such knowledge do her, wherever she was to roam? Venice was unique in all the world. She knew its heart, she knew its alleys, she knew the bridges and the canals and the people. Would she ever find another place that called to her so, that she would call back to as home?

  Serafina shook herself back to the present. She realized that her gaze was fastened upon her family’s villa along the canal. But this was her home no more. After twenty-four days of captivity, she was free. Her heart tugged fiercely at her, for ahead of her lay Luca and a future that she had already claimed as her own. Away!

  She arrived at the closest street to the mainland market square. It was the perfect place for such a rendezvous. The stallholders squalled a constant barrage of sound. The patrons quarreled in the good-natured Venetian way, demanding the best product and then arguing for the lowest price. Servants shoveled refuse to the waiting garbage vessel. Fully laden barges docked and were swiftly unloaded. Chickens and pheasants squawked from their cages while children cried. The air was filled with noise and heat and odors.

  She started to enter the square’s one fine restaurant. But a passing waiter scowled a warning. Serafina realized that dressed as a footman, she was not welcome. As upon the bridge, the wrenching realization weakened her resolve. What was she doing? Instantly the answer came in the form of the name she dare not shout aloud. Luca! She stepped beneath the corner of the restaurant’s awning and searched the passing faces. He had to be here!

  Then she spied them.

  Venice’s merchant guild had its own troop of guards. The medieval tradition had passed out of favor in most other Italian cities. Venice stubbornly clung to the old ways, even though true authority was now held by the Austrian Crown. The small cadre of private guards was known by the color of their vests and the shape of their hats. She knew them, many by name, because they accompanied her father during official ceremonies or when he was greeting visiting royalty. But they were not here to fulfill some ceremonial duty. They purposefully entered the square and scouted carefully about.

  Serafina ducked around the corner. Could they be searching for her? How was that possible? Even if the alarm had already been raised, how could they have deduced so quickly that she was . . .

  Carla, of course! Serafina pressed a fist to her mouth. Luca could not have read the letter himself. He could only manage a few words, and these in a halting fashion. He would have had someone read the letter to him. It had been Carla. What if she had sounded the alarm herself, planned the betrayal from the beginning? Serafina risked another quick glance into the square. The guards were spreading out, moving slowly among the stalls. They inspected each face, male and female, with cautious scrutiny.

  She pressed herself tight against the wall. Where is Luca? Of all times for him to tarry! Or had that poisonous Carla lied to him about their rendezvous? Frantically Serafina sought a better place to hide. Yet if she hid, how would he ever find her, if indeed he was looking?

  But the guards were drawing near, and the closest one was turning into the last line of stalls. Only a dozen or so people stood between them. Heart in her mouth, Serafina risked another glance into the square. Luca was nowhere to be seen.

  Then a figure turned her way. A man in robes of office. She knew those robes. And the face beneath them. Serafina slammed herself back onto the wall. But not fast enough. Her father had seen her.

  “There!”

  She sprang from the wall and leaped down the alley. But her way was blocked by a trundling vegetable cart. It filled the lane from one wall to the next, driving a flock of protesting people ahead of it. Serafina pressed into a doorway with half a dozen others and watched the high muddy wheel pass before her face.

  “Don’t let her get away!”

  The guards berated the drover, urging him to move the cart faster, to turn the donkey aside, to do anything so long as he got out of their way. Her father’s voice rose again above the tumult. “She’s in the doorway! I see her! A golden ducat for the one who halts the woman dressed as a man!”

  The donkey brayed as a guard leaped onto its back and clambered up on top of the cart. Serafina scrambled around the cart’s rear corner. But she was not fast enough. A strong grip clutched at her vest. She shrieked and struggled so hard the buttons popped. She wriggled free from the vest, but in so doing she lost her balance. Arms windmilling, she stumbled backward.

  And fell headlong into the canal.

  She came up gasping and spitting water rank with refuse from the market.

  “Luca!”

  Serafina attempted to swim away, only to be halted by an iron grip about her neck.

  “Luca!” she screamed again.

  Hands dragged her bodily from the water. “I ha
ve her! The gold is mine!”

  “Get this cart out of my way! Hold her fast!”

  “Luca!” Her breath was constricted by the man’s grip. Still she managed to shriek so loudly the words tore at her throat. “Save me!”

  But Luca did not appear. Only two more muscular guards, who added their own strength to the hands already imprisoning her. Serafina fought with all her might.

  “Luca!”

  Chapter 8

  Falconer awoke the hour before dawn, plucked from sleep long before he was ready. Perhaps he had always lived with the nightmare for company, as the curate had suggested. Perhaps it was only now that he was strong enough to understand it for what it was. So Falconer began his morning as he did all dawns when the nightmare’s aftertaste still lingered. He prayed for strength to shoulder his burdens once more and to do the will of the One he sought desperately to serve.

  The dawn was free of humidity and heat. Falconer shivered as he dressed, not so much from being cold as simply from the contrast. He walked into the kitchen and lit the fire, set a kettle on to boil, then stepped into the courtyard behind the emporium. He breathed deeply of the remarkably cool air. He stayed where he was until the kettle began to sing. He made himself a pot of sailor’s tea, which required a heaping fistful of leaves. The brew he poured through the sieve and into his mug was as black as tar. To this he added a double spoonful of molasses from a clay jar set beside the stove. He walked to the doorway and stood on the top step, looking out over the courtyard.

  As the light strengthened, he noted a pair of perfect magnolias against the building’s shadows. Mockingbirds trilled such a variety of melodies it was hard to follow the pattern. The jays were awake now, and the crows. Falconer could see that the coffee shop, through which he had passed the previous day, had a carefully tended garden surrounding its two bowed windows. A tall hedge of some flowering shrub blocked the patrons’ view of the outbuildings set in the remainder of the courtyard. There was an open-sided shed for packing freight and building crates. Another with slits for windows served as a miniature drying barn. Falconer could smell the old scent of roasted coffee in the still air. It was an altogether agreeable space, filled with the fragrances of fresh-sawn wood and hard work.

  A voice from behind startled Falconer from his reverie. “I would imagine the view must be rather confining after your sea-bound vistas.”

  Falconer shook his head at this family’s ability to approach him unawares. “I have been landlocked for several years now, though rarely this far from the sea.”

  Gareth Powers eased himself into a seat by the stove. “Doing what, might I ask?”

  “Running a ship chandlery.”

  “Ah.” He shifted closer to the flames, clearly finding the dawn’s chill not to his liking. “Was this work part of your mission?”

  “In a sense. A merchant hears all manner of news, often earlier than others.” Falconer drained his mug. “I am in your debt, sir, for granting me berth here.”

  “You will repay your debt if you would serve me a draught of whatever you are drinking.”

  “It is but sailor’s tea.”

  “It smells like an elixir, this time of day.”

  “That would be the sulfur in the molasses. Sailors search out whatever sweet they can find for the day’s first mug.”

  “Well do I know it.”

  Falconer bent to his task of preparing another mug. “You were navy?”

  “Infantry.”

  “American?”

  “British.” Gareth nodded his thanks when the mug was handed over, took a great sip, and sighed contentedly. “My daughter is very taken with you, I must say.”

  “And I with her.” Falconer settled into a chair across the table from Gareth. “She has the most remarkable . . .” He stopped, unable to select from the list that sprang to his mind. Smile, heart, gaze, intelligence, spirit.

  “Indeed.” Gareth started to say something, then turned to look out the open door. He finally settled on, “Do you ever feel as though God is not guiding the vessel of life with a sincere hand?”

  For Falconer, the words distilled the moment down to some hidden essence. “Were I not afraid of blasphemy, sir, I would wonder it very much.”

  “I set off on a journey from England that was meant to last just nine weeks. Reginald Langston, the master of both this house and the emporium, is also owner of four ships. The one at anchor is especially swift. We had problems with our American enterprise. Not the emporium. My wife and I are pamphleteers, working mostly from Britain. But earlier we lived in Georgetown and started a press here in America. The man we had left in charge here passed on, and I needed to find a replacement. I thought I would bring my family, but there was a crisis in Britain.”

  “Your daughter mentioned as much. She said your wife was required to stay behind.” Falconer’s chair creaked as he leaned back, affecting a relaxed air that he did not feel. He watched Gareth pause to sip and examine the daylight spreading beyond the doorway. He knew the man was not merely relating his journey. There was a deeper message here. He found Hannah’s image there in his mind once more. He recalled the young girl’s smile. It was a remarkable sensation, to feel such trust for virtual strangers. Especially now, when his life was filled with the threat of mortal danger to life and mission.

  “We arrived in April and I went about my work,” Gareth Powers continued. “Then we both became ill. First my daughter, then me. Consumption, the doctor called it. Or the croup. Or any number of other names. As though identifying it might speed the healing process.”

  “Stronger men than I have been lost to that foul malady.”

  “I was desperately ill and made sicker still with worry over my beloved Hannah.” Gareth set down his mug so as not to slosh the liquid as he coughed. The act doubled him over. He gradually straightened, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief drawn from the pocket of his robe. The words came hoarser now. “Three months and nineteen days we have been here now. Word has no doubt reached England of the storm that passed to the east of us. I am certain my wife believes we were lost at sea. I fear for her well-being, sir. I fear for my family.”

  “You want to return.”

  “I must return. There is my wife, and there is my work.” Gareth stopped then and sat with his face directed at the rising sun.

  Falconer rose from his seat, picked up Gareth’s mug from the table, and made them both another tea. When he was reseated, he said, “You need someone to be strong for you.”

  “And my daughter.”

  “And strong for Hannah. Of course.”

  Gareth lifted his mug, then looked straight at Falconer and said, “What I need to know, sir, is whether I can trust you to be our rock.”

  Falconer considered several replies. Finally he said, “May I ask you one thing, sir?”

  “Anything you like. Whether or not I can answer is another matter.”

  Falconer liked that response. There was a great sincerity to this man, a remarkable openness for one who clearly knew the importance of confidences. “Do you know a man by the name of William Wilberforce?”

  Gareth’s face creased, as though stricken by some deep internal sorrow. “Why do you ask?”

  “Your daughter mentioned him.” Falconer chose his words carefully. “It has to do with my mission, sir. Of this I am charged to maintain strictest secrecy. Not for myself. For the sake of others.”

  The pain in Gareth’s features only deepened. “Then I fear you must prepare yourself for a great shock.”

  The sense of defeat that had lingered on the horizon throughout his futile voyage north intensified. Falconer nodded.

  “William is desperately ill. He has been ill so often, it is hard to discern whether this is not just one more bad spell. But before I left, he appeared to be going blind. One further reason I am so desperate to return. The longer we remain, the less likelihood I have of seeing my friend alive again.” Gareth reached over and gripped Falconer’s arm. “I repeat what I sa
id before. What I must know, sir, is can I trust you?”

  Falconer studied the man’s intensity. Here, he realized, was someone he wished to know better. “Sir, I give you my word as the Lord’s servant. I shall serve you and your daughter to the utmost of my ability.”

  “I must warn you,” Gareth said. “There are those who may seek to do me harm.”

  “As they do me,” he responded calmly. “A foul wind blows across the face of our earth, sir. For those who do God’s bidding, danger is but a part of the day’s burden.”

  “You are not afraid?”

  “Almost constantly, sir. But not of being in harm’s way.” Falconer had never before spoken of his internal struggles. “I fear failing my Lord. I do not deserve His gift of salvation. I never will. He reached into the world’s darkest depths to save me. I am ashamed of so much I have seen and done, sir. Mortally ashamed. All I can do now is seek to do one thing right. Just this one small thing.”

  Gareth released Falconer’s arm and used his handkerchief to wipe his face. “I see my daughter was right.”

  “Sir?”

  He needed both hands to push himself up from his chair. He nodded his thanks when Falconer rose and took his arm. Gareth said, “We shall begin preparing for our departure this very day.”

  Chapter 9

  The day after they brought her home, Serafina awoke to discover the devastating chill had reached from her heart into her bones.

  A guard was now stationed outside her door. She saw him glance inside every time the door was open. Sometimes it was a footman, sometimes a maid, occasionally someone she did not recognize. Serafina never saw Carla again. It hardly mattered. Her parents visited her several times that day, and the next. They raged with her at first, then simply ordered her to talk. But what was there to say? Every time she spoke Luca’s name, they flew into a new fury. And there was nothing else Serafina wished to say.

  She stopped eating. Food held no interest. Her body felt disconnected. The hours came and went in slatted patterns of sunlight across her floor. The gloom brightened and then dispelled. The second day of her fever, Serafina heard a musical patter upon the balcony. At first she thought it was Luca’s step. But then she realized that it was just a summer storm. The sky could cry for her as she gave in to what she hoped would be her final illness.