Hannah reached out a hand to grasp his paw. It was as cold as ice.
Thomas roared in pain.
His paw was melting in her hand, growing smaller by the minute. Cold water dripped from her fingers. Water poured off his fur, and he shrank visibly before her.
‘What have you done?’ he cried again.
His voice, which had become just a whisper, faded out altogether. Hannah’s hand closed in on itself as the last piece of him melted, leaving her with just a puddle.
ten
When Scatterheart awoke the next morning, the castle had gone, and she was lying on a little green patch, in the midst of a dark, gloomy forest. By her side was the same bundle of rags she had brought with her from home. Scatterheart sighed, and began the long journey back to her father’s house.
***
Hannah drifted in and out of consciousness. The doctor came from time to time, putting the silver spoon in her mouth and making her swallow the tasteless, slippery liquid. After his visits, Hannah was often violently ill, then slept for many hours.
When she awoke, her limbs were sluggish and heavy, her vision was blurry, and her hearing weak. She was visited by many people: Long Meg, her father, and once, a petite, frail woman who Hannah thought must be her mother.
But Thomas didn’t come again, no matter how many times Hannah called out for him. She longed to see him. But he didn’t come. He had gone away to exile. Where had he gone? Somewhere. East of the sun, west of the moon. Hannah wondered how to get there, and if she could follow him.
Hannah scratched feverishly at her arms and legs, which were covered in a hot red rash. Someone grasped her fingers.
‘Enough,’ said Long Meg. ‘You’ll rip your skin clean off.’
Hannah held her hand out in front of her. Her fingers were bloody.
‘Why am I here, Meg?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t I already have my trial?’
Long Meg lifted a brown bottle to Hannah’s lips. ‘We is waitin’ for a ship,’ she said. ‘Now drink.’
Hannah drank, and the gin burned. Everything went blurry again for a time. Then, Tabby was standing over her.
‘Bourd not with Bawty, fear lest he bite ye,’ she said, and cackled to herself. She looked at Hannah with her glittering dark eyes. Hannah stared back. They were like a bird’s eyes. As she watched, Tabby hunched over further, and her nose grew long and pointed. She sprouted black, glossy feathers and hopped up and down. She cackled again, and spread her wings, launching herself into the air and hovering above Hannah, before beating her wings, once, twice, and soaring out of the tiny cell window.
Hannah felt for a moment as if she were flying too, grasped in Tabby’s yellow claws, soaring and wheeling above the streets of London. Then, without warning, Tabby let go, and Hannah was falling, plummeting, spinning down into darkness.
She woke to pain. A jolting pain, as if she were being tossed about like a cork in the ocean. Hannah opened her eyes, and the pain doubled. White, searing light cut into her head. She cried out and closed her eyes. Was she blind? She struggled to sit up, feeling dizzy and sick. She fell back down again.
‘Easy, y’ladyship,’ said Long Meg’s voice.
Cold air was rushing by, and Hannah could smell smoke, and cooking food. They were outside. She opened her eyes a crack, and saw wooden slats in front of her. Between them, she could make out buildings moving past at a steady pace. The regular clopping of horse hooves drummed in her ears. She was in a wagon. But going where?
The wagon jolted sharply, and Hannah screwed her eyes shut in pain. The horses snorted and, in the distance, she thought she could hear something roar. She opened her eyes again with a snap. Was it a bear?
Through the gap in the wooden slats, Hannah could see a wide brown stretch of river. The ice had all melted, and the Thames was rushing past with its usual brown fury.
Great ships lay anchored in lines on the water, bow to stern. They seemed to crumble before Hannah’s eyes, their swollen wood bulging and warping, covered all over in patches and strange platforms and lean-to’s. Rows of dirty grey linen were strung out between the broken-off stumps of the masts, and empty eyes peered out through tiny gaps in the rotting wood. A corroded figurehead clung to the front of one of the hulks, a giant woman whose once proud and beautiful face had all but been eaten away by mould and decay.
The wagon rumbled on. For a moment, Hannah saw a blur of white struggling in the rushing brown water of the river. It was the white bear, fighting with the plaster lion that had attacked her in the courtroom. They were swept downstream, clawing and biting one another. Hannah struggled, trying to raise herself onto her elbows.
The next thing she knew, the wagon was stopping.
‘We’re here,’ said Long Meg.
Hannah clutched at the rail of the cart, hauling herself into a sitting position. ‘What happened? Did the bear escape?’
‘Shh,’ said Meg, sharply. ‘The surgeon’s coming.’
Hannah began to tremble. Everything went dark around the edges, and there was a furious ringing in her ears. She sank down onto her back again. Her breathing was shallow and her chest ached.
‘What about this one?’ said a man’s voice, cold and silky. An icy hand felt her forehead. Hannah could feel the prick of long fingernails. ‘She isn’t fit for a sea voyage. She has gaol fever. I doubt she will live out the week.’
Hannah opened her eyes and saw the face of Death. The face was long and pale and elegant, but seemed to be crumbling away at the edges. The nose was sunken and grey. White pustules sprouted from the corners of the eyes, and along the cheekbones. Death opened his mouth, and Hannah saw glistening black saliva.
‘Send her back to the gaol,’ he said.
Hannah groped for Long Meg’s hand. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let me die.’
Long Meg squeezed her fingers. ‘It ain’t gaol fever, mister,’ she said loudly. ‘She’s just got her monthly visitor, if you catch my meanin’, sir. It always takes her this bad, but you know they says as that’s a good sign. She’s like to bear many children, sir. She’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’
There was a pause. Hannah gasped for air.
‘Fine,’ said Death. ‘Lieutenant Belforte! Kindly escort this lady to her cabin.’
A blanket was thrown over Hannah, and she was lifted in strong arms. She breathed in the smell of lavender.
‘Mr Behr,’ she murmured. ‘You’re alive. You came to rescue me.’
She leaned her head against his firm chest. The arms tightened around her. ‘Hush now,’ said a man’s voice. ‘I’ll look after you.’
Hannah stirred. It wasn’t Mr Behr. But she felt so safe in his arms that it didn’t matter. The man carried her for some distance. The sweet scent of lavender was overcome by the smell of rotting fish. Hannah heard the crying of gulls, and a low, gentle roar that rocked her to sleep.
PART II: The White Bear
eleven
Scatterheart walked day after day, until she came to a high cliff. An old woman made of sawdust sat nearby, playing with a copper acorn. Scatterheart asked her how to find her father’s house.
***
Hannah sat bolt upright, banging her head, and looked around wildly.
‘Calm down,’ said Long Meg, yawning. ‘It’s sparrow’s fart early.’
It was dim and dingy. Weak light trickled in through a sort of hatch in the ceiling. It took Hannah a moment to realise that they were in a long, wooden room with low ceilings and exposed beams. She was surrounded by women sleeping in bunks that ran along both sides of the long room, leaving a narrow passageway between. At the other end of the room a pool of brighter light illuminated a steep flight of stairs with a rope rail. The women were sleeping on straw mattresses, with rough hemp blankets and no pillows. They were all wearing identical dresses of grey serge. Hannah looked down to find that she was wearing the shapeless grey dress as well. She realised that she had on no stockings or underclothes and blushed. Long Meg also wore the grey
dress, but she still had on Hannah’s pelisse, buttoned over the top of it. It looked faded and dirty, and the fur trimming was matted and worn.
‘Am I in hell?’ Hannah asked. She had to raise her voice to be heard over a dull, constant roaring noise that seemed to be coming from all around them.
Long Meg laughed. Like the gaol, the room smelled of urine and vomit. But there were other smells. Damp wood, fish and salt. Hannah wrinkled her nose, then the whole world tilted on its side, and she fell over back onto the bed. The ground below her pitched and rolled. Hannah’s stomach lurched, and she was filled with a terrible dread.
‘I need to go home,’ she said, clambering to her feet.
‘Bit late for that,’ said Long Meg.
Hannah cracked her head on the low beams above. Crouched over, with one hand on the ceiling to steady herself, She crawled over the sleeping women, towards the white light at the bottom of the stairs.
At the top of the stairs were long rows of hammocks, swinging from side to side. Some were occupied by sleeping bodies, but most were vacant, tied up neatly into a bundle. To her left, Hannah could see six closed doors. A thick, round post rose from below, where she had come from, and pushed through the wooden ceiling out of sight, like the tall trunk of a tree. Another flight of stairs led upwards after it. Hannah gripped the rail again and climbed.
It was much brighter on this level. To her left were the same six doors, and to her right was … a blinding whiteness. She walked into the brightness and looked up, her mouth falling open.
She was on a ship.
She was standing on a wooden deck that was open to the air, yet with other open levels above it.
The ship was huge. Men ran back and forth, swarming up the masts and securing ropes. Incomprehensible commands were shouted by men in uniform, standing above her on a higher deck, and a shrill whistle cried out orders.
Hannah squinted. Ropes hung everywhere, over everything, stretching up to the top of the tallest mast and crossing and winding like the most tangled and complicated of spider webs. Hannah’s hair rose up around her in the wind, and with the wind the damp fishy smell became fresher. It was strong, but not unpleasant.
‘No,’ whispered Hannah. ‘This is a mistake.’
‘Hey!’ cried one of the sailors. ‘You’re not supposed to be up here yet. Bracegirdle hasn’t rung the bell for breakfast.’
He grabbed Hannah around the waist with thick, burly arms, but she wriggled free and ran across the timber deck to the side, where round holes studded the ship’s hull. The ship rolled on the swell, and Hannah fell down onto her hands and knees, tasting salty spray on her lips.
She clutched the railing and hauled herself up. Her despair had vanished, to be replaced by a strange kind of wonder, mingled with fear. She looked out at the ocean, open-mouthed.
‘You’re awake, then,’ said a voice.
A man in an officer’s uniform and straw hat stood beside her. Hannah thought he must be older than Thomas, but younger than her father. He had dark brown hair that curled around his ears and was tied in a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck, secured with a black velvet ribbon. His eyes were a startling blue, fringed with long dark lashes. His skin was pale, his lips full and red.
He smiled at Hannah, and she blushed and looked back out at the ocean. Hannah felt a flutter inside her stomach. Then she remembered that she was a convict, and felt rather sick. Why was he even talking to her?
‘Not what you were expecting?’ he said.
‘It’s blue.’
The young man laughed. ‘What did you expect? Red? Purple?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I didn’t expect it to be so…’ she trailed off. She had always imagined it would be grey, like Thomas Behr’s eyes.
‘So blue? Haven’t you ever seen the sea before?’ The sea was actually the colour of the young officer’s eyes. She blinked. They were very blue.
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘Never.’
‘But surely you’ve seen pictures.’
‘Of course,’ said Hannah. ‘But I thought – I thought that it was just artists … In some paintings the Thames is blue.’
The officer chuckled. ‘So what do you think?’
Hannah stared out at the vast expanse of water. ‘It’s terrifying,’ she said at last. ‘And beautiful. And the sky is so…’
‘Blue?’ suggested the man.
Hannah nodded. ‘Very blue,’ she agreed.
‘I’m James,’ he said. ‘James Belforte, lieutenant.’
‘Hannah,’ said Hannah. ‘Hannah Cheshire, convict-by-mistake.’
He tipped his hat politely, his eyes warm. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Cheshire.’ He leaned in towards her. ‘Now tell me Hannah Cheshire, what on earth is a young lady of Quality like you doing in such terrible company?’
Hannah sighed with relief. ‘My father…’ she said, then shook her head. ‘It all went wrong.’
Hannah felt tears prick her eyes.
The lieutenant smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you stay safe.’
Hannah blushed again and turned her face upwards, letting the sun’s warmth soak into her skin. The breeze was crisp and clean, and smelt fresh and salty. Hannah breathed deeply, her earlier panic forgotten. She felt more alive than she had done in many weeks. She turned to the lieutenant.
‘I’m hungry,’ she said, with some surprise.
He grinned. ‘Breakfast is in half an hour. Welcome aboard the Derby Ram.’
‘Well if it ain’t her ladyship, come to eat her vittles with us mongrels,’ said Long Meg, grinning at Hannah as she made her way into the crowded mess on the upper deck.
The women pushed and shoved to get to the front of the line, where a burly man stood sweating over a black iron hearth containing an enormous copper kettle. Two younger men were dishing out lumps of stewed meat in broth. Hannah lingered at the back of the crowd, but Long Meg grabbed her elbow and dragged her into the fray.
‘Comin’ through then, shift yer bob,’ she shouted, pushing the other women, who bristled and hissed back at her.
‘So many people,’ murmured Hannah.
Long Meg looked at her over her shoulder. ‘This is only half,’ she said, shoving viciously at another woman. ‘There be two hunnerd an’ four of us girls in here, with only a handful of sailors to keep us warm at night. And we’s all as hungry as dogs.’
At the front one of the men handed her a square wooden pannikin and slopped a ladleful of indescribable liquid into it. She looked at him, wide-eyed.
‘And don’ forget, sir, one for me poor friend Hannah, who is confined to her bed with a dreadful malady.’
The man eyed Meg suspiciously, and his eyes flicked to Hannah. Meg shook her head. ‘Oh, no, sir. I sees what you is thinkin’. But this here is–’ she barely paused. ‘Mary. Me new friend Mary.’ She winked at Hannah.
‘Mary,’ said the man, looking Hannah up and down. She felt uncomfortably hot. ‘Ain’t you a pretty one, then.’
The man filled another square pannikin and handed it to Long Meg. Another was pushed into Hannah’s hands with a suggestive look. ‘Feel free to come back for seconds,’ he said.
‘Well, Mary,’ said Long Meg, grinning. ‘Let’s bugger off, then, so we can eat our breakfast in peace.’
Long Meg led her across the upper deck to the stairs. She balanced the two pannikins, one on top of the other, and scampered down the steps like a monkey.
‘How long was I asleep?’ asked Hannah, looking around the lower deck before following Meg down the next flight of stairs.
‘Four days, more or less,’ said Meg.
Hannah blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the women’s quarters.
‘Are there no windows?’ asked Hannah.
Meg didn’t look back as she made her way down the aisle to their beds. ‘This is the orlop deck. We is below the ocean, down here.’
Hannah imagined the water pressing in on them on all sides, and shive
red. They sat down. Meg carefully set down one of her wooden pannikins, and placed the other on her lap. She felt about on the shelf above their heads, and fished out two spoons. Hannah saw four straight lines scratched into the wood above Long Meg’s bed.
‘Thank you, Meg,’ said Hannah.
Meg raised her eyebrows. ‘For what?’ She handed Hannah a spoon.
‘For getting my food for me. When I was sick.’
Long Meg looked away. ‘Don’t mention it.’
Hannah frowned. ‘You did get me my food, didn’t you? That’s what you said to the man with the ladle. That you’d been getting my food.’
Long Meg looked down at her pannikin. ‘More or less,’ she said, and started eating. Then she put down her spoon and dug in her mattress. ‘Here,’ she said shortly, holding out a ragged grey square.
It was Thomas Behr’s handkerchief. Hannah’s fingers closed around it.
‘Thought you might want it,’ said Meg, picking up her spoon again.
Hannah thought for a moment that she might cry. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tucking the handkerchief away.
‘What happened to Black Jack?’ Hannah asked.
Meg shrugged. ‘Hanged, I spect,’ she said, her mouth full.
‘Aren’t you upset?’
‘Upset, no. Hungry, yes. Shut your bone-box.’
Hannah examined the contents of her pannikin. The liquid was thin and watery, and she couldn’t tell what sort of meat was floating in it. She looked at Long Meg.
‘Is – is there anything else?’ she asked timidly.
Long Meg rolled her eyes, but said nothing, slurping busily.
Hannah sniffed the meat, then dipped her spoon into the broth and raised it to her lips, taking a cautious sip. She spat it out immediately.
‘I can’t eat this!’ she said. ‘It’s disgusting!’
Meg finished the first pannikin, and started on the second.
Hannah watched her. Her stomach growled. She sighed, pinched her nose with one hand, and held the spoon up to her mouth again with the other.
The ship lurched to one side, and the hot liquid splashed out of the pannikin and down Hannah’s front. The lump of meat went tumbling onto the floor. She heard a high-pitched giggle and turned around. A single brown eye peered at her from a nearby bunk.
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