“Go with God, John Falconer.”
The kitten did not much appreciate its new leash, silken or not. In fact, it cried loud enough to be heard over the rattling clamor of a carriage making its way through crowded streets. But no one paid it much mind. Hannah watched idly from her corner of the carriage as the little animal struggled to push the noose back over its ears. But clearly the farewells had wearied the child, for soon enough she appeared to drift away.
Gareth Powers slumped beside her in the other corner and winced over the worst of the bumps. Reginald Langston accompanied them, observing his brother-in-law with silent alarm. Several times he started to speak, yet restrained himself until they passed through the scarred stone gates marking the harbor entrance. The carriage slowed there, joining a long line of coaches and supply wagons moving toward the quays.
Gareth opened his eyes then and glanced out the side window. “Finally,” he murmured. “Thank the dear Lord above. Finally.”
Reginald could hold himself back no longer. “Brother, are you certain—”
Gareth stayed him with an upraised hand. “Don’t. I beg you. I can’t spare the energy for further argument.”
Reginald sighed and shook his head.
Gareth turned from his inspection of the schooner. “If staying in bed was the answer, don’t you think I would be healed by now?”
“I do worry about you, Gareth, you know.”
“And I am forever grateful for your kind support.” Gareth turned back to the three masts thrust into an overcast sky. He said to himself and the approaching storm, “I long for my dear wife with a hunger that clenches my very soul.”
“I miss Mama too,” Hannah said softly. “Awfully much.”
“I did not realize you were awake, my sweet child.”
“I’m so very tired of sleeping.” She smiled. “Does that sound silly?”
“Quite the opposite. I could not have said it better myself.”
Reginald turned to Falconer and asked, “What say you to this voyage and their state of health?”
“I would rather not speak to it, sir.”
“And why not, pray tell? Come, my man. I value your opinion.”
“I try to have none,” Falconer replied simply. “I am too constrained by my own desires and needs. Any outlook I offer would be marked. If they say go, I am ready. But I do not wish to say more, for the words could well be an untruth fueled by my own strong need.”
Reginald nodded slowly. “The more you speak, sir, the more I urge you to return and accept my offer.”
Gareth turned his head from the window to ask, “What offer is that, pray tell?”
“I shall let Falconer tell you when he is ready.”
The carriage moved farther into the harbor’s tumult and halted. The driver leaped down, approached the side window, and said to Reginald, “Looks like this is as close as we can come, sir. The wagons at quayside are packed up tight as eels in jelly.”
“Can you walk from here?” Reginald asked his brother-in-law.
“If I must.”
But Falconer said, “Stay as you are.”
Both Reginald and Gareth noted the change in his tone. “What is it?”
Falconer did not reply. Instead, he opened the carriage door and stepped lightly onto the high carriage wheel. Carefully he surveyed the crowd.
“Falconer?”
“A moment.” There was nothing to be seen. Nothing, that is, that he could identify. But he smelled trouble. It was a knack born upon long experience, a hunter’s ability to read signs and follow his intuition. There were moments like now when he could not say what troubled him. But danger’s foul odor drifted in the rising wind.
There. To his right, where the crowds were thickest, a man with a battered tricorn hat. He was using a wagon wheel as a ladder and was scouting the perimeter—as Falconer himself was doing. Watching for them. Falconer was sure of it.
There again. Another man, similarly dressed in dusty hat and road-worn cloak, though the day was stifling hot. This one stood upon a lamppost’s base and craned over the throngs. As he did so, his cloak blew back, revealing a musket.
Falconer slipped back inside the carriage. “Go shipboard,” he told Reginald. “Walk with the driver. Find two strong and trusted seamen. No officers. Men who know their way around a fight.”
“What is it?” Gareth demanded.
Falconer stayed him with an upraised hand. To Reginald he continued, “I want you to remain shipboard. Let the driver lead them here. Do you travel armed?”
Reginald’s eyes had widened. “Don’t be absurd! We’re in the harbor of our nation’s capital!”
The driver was obviously of a different view. He said through the carriage door, “I always carry a pistol, sir.”
Falconer reached under his seat and came up with his sheathed sword. “Keep it at the ready.”
Reginald started to object. “But—”
Falconer shifted slightly to look directly into his face. It was a habit he had learned when commanding a vessel. All he needed was to reveal a trace of the intensity, a hint of the experience behind his words. Whatever Reginald saw there in his face was enough to silence the man, as swift as a hand to his mouth. “Hurry,” Falconer said.
Reginald clambered down from the coach. He cast a final glance back at Falconer.
“Best we do as the man says, Mr. Reginald, sir,” the driver urged.
Reginald hastened with the driver toward the quayside. Falconer watched until they were lost in the press of men and wagons and animals. He checked carefully from both windows, then turned back to the two remaining passengers. Gareth was observing him with full alertness now, showing the steady calm of one who had been under fire before.
Hannah, however, had scrunched up tight against the seat’s opposite end. Falconer sat next to her, checked carefully out the window, then took one of her little hands in his. “Do you recall our conversation this morning?”
Slowly she nodded.
“I want you to do exactly as I say, and without either hesitation or fear.” He spoke with a calm cadence, gently pressing his words through the child’s evident alarm. “I will protect you. You must remember that at all times.”
“Can I be a little bit afraid?”
“Of course. Everyone feels some fear.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I . . .” Falconer checked himself at the sound of shrill piping. He knew the sound very well. The bosun’s roar was loud enough to dim the harbor’s racket. “Master coming aboard!”
Not long now. Falconer returned his attention to the young girl. “Everyone is afraid at times, of something. The key is to use the fear.”
“H-how?”
He glanced across the carriage. “Your father knows.”
Gareth met Falconer’s eye before replying, “What does not destroy you makes you stronger.”
“Like this ailment?” Her voice was tiny but clear.
“Just so.” He coughed softly. “When you are afraid, let honesty help you identify the true reason. Use the energy to heighten your senses. Use the peak of your abilities to forge ahead. Don’t freeze, don’t panic. That’s the key.”
“I see I am right,” Falconer told Gareth, “to address the child as I would an adult.”
“In many respects she is an adult already,” Gareth confirmed. “Her body has merely not caught up with her mind and her spirit.”
The girl’s next question was cut off by the arrival of two sailors. One was a muscled brute with the eyes of a heartless fighter. The other was smaller and more cautious, standing a half pace back and scouting constantly. The muscled man knuckled his forehead and said to Falconer, “Captain ordered us to help you board, sir.”
“Your name, sailor?”
“Connor, sir. This here’s MacAughley.”
“I’m Falconer.” He opened the door but did not step down. Instead, he fished in his pocket and drew out two gold half sovereigns. “I believe in paying well. Ther
e’s half a crown for the each of you when we arrive on board. Good Georgie gold. Now then. You’ve both seen some close-quarters work?”
“Aye, sir.” The muscled sailor seemed to find grim humor in such a conversation with a man dressed in landlubber’s clothes. “That we have.”
“Here’s how I want to play this. Connor, you’re to give the gentleman here a hand. His name is Powers. He’s been tested by the croup. Don’t let him tell you he’s strong enough to make it on his own. I aim for us to move at boarding speed. Is that clear?”
“Aye, sir. Clear enough.”
“What about me, sir?” MacAughley asked.
“I want you to drift away. See who might be after doing us harm. If you can, capture them. But above all don’t let them injure either of these here.” He turned to the two passengers. “Ready?”
“Yes.” Gareth replied for them both while Hannah gave a careful nod.
Falconer motioned Gareth forward. As Gareth descended to the cobblestones, Falconer unsheathed his sword. He despised how the sight of steel drew blanched fright from the child. “Remember what I said,” he told Hannah. “I will not let anyone harm you or your father. Do you trust me?”
She responded with a shiver of a nod. Her eyes did not leave the naked blade.
Falconer stuffed the scabbard into his belt. He gripped the sword’s hilt with his right hand, then scooped up the child with his left. “One hand tight to my neck, now. Hold your knees high as you can when I run. And keep a firm grip on the kitten.”
As he slipped through the doorway, a splinter of wood was blasted from the doorframe above his head. He heard gunfire and smelled the sudden cloud of sulfur. The attacker was very close indeed.
Screams arose from the surrounding crowd. People milled and shoved in every direction, uncertain from which quarter the danger arose. Falconer tumbled to the ground, his body crouched over the child. Hannah did exactly as ordered, gripping him tightly with one arm and both legs. He rose swiftly, the child clinging to him like a well-trained whelp.
“Together now! Boarding speed!”
Two more shots rang through the sudden stillness. They sounded like the cough of a great hoarse beast, one against whom Falconer had fought far too often.
The market erupted into panic-stricken bedlam. Connor scooped up Gareth Powers with one arm and with his other swept out a long, curved blade.
“Give them a shout and let them know we’re on the attack!” Falconer ordered.
With Gareth between them, Falconer and Connor gave a furious roar and surged forward. They waved the blades over their heads as they ran. Animals and people shied away in startled panic, shrieking in unison and parting before them. All but one man, who shoved his way forward against the surge and tried to take aim with a long-barreled musket.
But Falconer did not seek to evade, as expected. Instead he ducked and raced straight at the shooter, roaring all the louder. Before the attacker could adjust his aim, Falconer drove his blade up sharp against the barrel. It slid the length of metal with a shrill screech. Falconer used the handguard to punch the rifle straight upward. The man’s shot hit nothing but cloud. Falconer’s charge was relentless. He used the pommel to sweep the musket out of the man’s grasp, then clouted the man’s forehead. The attacker blinked once and went down. All the while Hannah clung to him, making nary a sound.
Falconer stumbled over the man’s legs and might have fallen had Gareth not reached over and kept him upright. Together the four of them pounded along the quayside and up the gangplank and into the safety of the ship.
As Falconer deposited the child into the arms of a wide-eyed officer, he said, “Please tell me you are all right.”
“I’m fine.” She held to a breathless calm. “You told me I would be, and I am.”
“What a fine, brave girl you are.”
“I’m not. I’m sick and I’m scared and I’m little.” She hugged her kitten under her chin.
“You are brave and more. You make me proud to call you friend.” In a sudden impulse he reached forward and kissed her forehead.
Falconer turned to Gareth. “All right, sir?”
“Thanks to you.”
Falconer started to tell him it was not that way at all. That in truth he had brought danger upon all their heads. But Reginald chose that moment to thrust his way forward, followed by a burly man wearing a captain’s pips upon his shoulders.
“What on earth was that all about?” the captain demanded.
“I aim to determine just that,” Falconer told him. “In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you could please send men for our cases.” He turned to Connor. “Let’s go find your mate.”
“Aye, sir.”
Together they hurried back down the ramp. All their shipmates were crowded along the foredeck and ship’s railings. They pushed their way through the throng, back to where MacAughley stood over a man seated upon the cobblestones. “There was two others that I saw,” MacAughley reported, “but soon as they spotted me, they scarpered.”
“This one will do.” Falconer crouched down.
The attacker was holding his forehead where Falconer had clouted him. Falconer scraped the steel of his blade across the cobblestones between them. It was enough to bring the attacker to full alert. “Listen carefully. You just heard the man. Your mates have disappeared. You’re all alone. You have two choices. I hope you’re hearing me, because we don’t have time for lies or repetition. How many choices do you have?”
The man glanced about, seeking refuge.
Falconer raised his sword, as though making to clout him once more. “Answer me!”
“Two!” The man shied away, or tried to, but Connor was holding him on one side now and MacAughley on the other. “Two choices!”
“That’s better. The first choice is to have these two seamen hustle you on board. We’re headed east on the tide, but I suppose you know that.”
“You can’t! I got rights, I do!”
“Rights.” Falconer scraped the sword’s blade a second time, scarring the stones. “Of course you have rights. You have the right to a trial at sea, before a captain’s tribunal. You have the right to be found guilty of attacking innocent passengers. You have the right to hang from the yardarms until dead.”
“No! I didn’t—”
“Then your body will be sewed into a sailcloth sack with a cannon shot for company. And you’ll be dropped overboard, to sink and sink and finally rest upon the black ocean floor.”
The man was sweating mightily. He started to protest, but suddenly a flicker of recognition sparked in his eyes. “You-you’re him!”
“What’s that?”
“Him! The man they’s hunting. The murderer from Trinidad!”
Falconer rocked back on his heels, dumbfounded.
Connor noted Falconer’s concern. “All right, sir?”
Falconer forced his mind to work. The man’s response was genuine enough, he was certain of that. Which could only mean one thing. Falconer had not been the target. If he had been, they would have known whom to go for.
Which meant they were after Gareth.
Falconer moved in close. The man tried to flinch away. “You knew to go after the man with me. That much is clear. Did you even know his name?” When the man hesitated, Falconer thumped him with his open hand, but not hard. “Speak!”
“Powers, they said. A pamphleteer.”
“Here’s your second choice, then. Answer my questions, and swiftly now. Give me what I need and we’ll set you free.”
Connor protested, “Sir!”
The attacker glanced at the muscled sailor holding him by his shoulders, then turned back to Falconer. “Straight up, you’ll let me go?”
“Give me what I seek,” Falconer repeated. “Who sent you?”
“Don’t have a clue. Honest, they didn’t tell me nothing but go after the pamphleteer Powers.”
“How did you know who that was?”
“Been sitting outside the Emporium for
weeks, I have.” The man’s eyes gleamed now with frantic hope. His words tumbled out. “The man’s been seen walkin’ a time or two. But he’s always been in a crowd. And he’s never been out for very long. So we heard ’bout the ship’s sailing and we knew it was time. Now or never, that’s what they told me.”
“Who told you that?”
“Them who hired me. The two that got away.”
“Describe them.”
“Mates, in a matter of speaking. Know them from the taverns around these parts. Done a bit of this and that.”
“They must have told you who it was that hired you.”
“A banker. That’s all I know.”
Falconer was rocked back a second time. “What did you say?”
“A banker, I know that for a fact.” The words pressed out faster still. “Somebody who wants Powers dead and gone. Wants it bad enough to pay us good silver for the job well done.”
“I’ll give you well done,” Connor roared, cuffing the man.
“Hold there,” Falconer ordered. He said to the attacker, “Describe the banker.”
“Couldn’t do that. Never seen him, have I.”
“They must have told you something.”
“A narrow man, they said that much. A British gent. Older.” The man turned to whining. “I done what you said. That’s all I know, I swear. I was just hired to do a proper job on the man.”
Falconer rose to his feet, ignoring the multitude clustered about him. Half answers and mysteries pressed in from every side. “Let him go.”
“But sir, the captain . . .”
“Release him. I’ll speak with your captain.”
As soon as Connor’s hands unclenched, the man wasted no time. He leaped through the throng and disappeared.
In the distance the bosun’s whistle piped the men aloft. “Let’s be off,” Falconer said, “else our ship won’t make the tide.”
Chapter 11
Serafina’s vessel slowly entered Portsmouth harbor. The wind was strong against them, and the port’s entryway was lined with ships from every corner of the globe. There was no clearance for the harbormaster to safely maneuver them under sail. So the ship’s two longboats were lowered and joined by another from the port. The oarsmen heaved so hard their groans could be heard from the foredeck. Serafina was there, accompanied by Danny, the young midshipman. The wind whistled through the rigging and clutched at Serafina’s hair, tearing locks free from her head scarf.
Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive Page 11