Salamander

by Thomas Wharton

– We’re nearing Southend-on-Sea, she said quietly. Snow would like to see you.

  As she followed Lucy Teach up the hatchway stairs Pica felt a shudder pass through the ship and heard the sound of the boilers firing up. It occurred to her now that Snow and her crew had been sailing without help from the Bee’s steam-driven winches and pulleys.

  Pica found Snow on the quarterdeck, unpacking the chest that contained the fireworks Djinn had bought in Canton. Picking up one of the compositor’s bamboo rockets, Pica turned it over in her hands and thought of Djinn. During their travels, his belief that everything would end in sadness had always comforted her. She had only needed to look at his boyish face to know that he was wrong. Now she was alone, with no one to tell her what the future would be.

  She was about to ask Snow what the fireworks were for, when she heard the rumble of rolling barrels and looked up to see Lucy Teach and the other women hauling the ink casks up from below. They stood the casks in a circle around the mainmast and roped them together. All at once Pica knew what they had planned. She turned to Snow, who was busy at the helm console, lowering the longboat over the side.

  – You’re going to burn the ship.

  Snow smiled and shook her head.

  – You are a slow learner, little girl.

  – What about the Abbé?

  – Oh, I am hoping he will be there for this, too.

  The women stowed blankets, rations, tinder, and a lantern between the thwarts of the longboat, and at Pica’s request, Ludwig the automaton was also placed aboard. At least he could be saved, she thought, from what was to come. When the women had finished provisioning the boat they stood about the quarterdeck, tensed and expectant, gazing into the fog that drifted across the bows.

  – If there’s anything else you’d like to save, Snow whispered, you’d best be ready to fetch it.

  Pica held her breath and stood with the rest of the crew, listening and looking out into grey obscurity. At first they heard only the creaking of the Acheron’s towers of canvas, the thud of her bows against the waves, and then finally out of the wet mist the great hull materialized like a white wall sliding across their path. An instant later there was a flash, and a booming like thunder. A volley of spinning chain shot screamed through the air, buffeting the Bee’s hull and tearing through her ropework fore and aft. Shattered tackle rained onto the gangways as the Bee staggered through smoke across the Acheron’s mountainous wake.

  On Snow’s lead they had all dropped to the planks, awaiting a second volley that did not come. Snow scrambled to her feet to see the Acheron in a long starboard turn that took her back out of sight into the fog.

  – He’s lamed us, she said, working furiously at the helm. Now he’ll circle, closing in, then try to board us.

  She turned and pointed at Pica.

  – You get in the longboat. We’ll fire the ship and join you.

  – There’s something I need, Pica said. In the press room. Before Snow could reply she ducked into the hatchway and hurried down the stairs. She glanced at the chase of gooseflesh type on the work table. The metal had not yet solidified, and there was no more time to wait.

  The book was not on the work table where she had left it. As she stood staring at the place where it had been, wondering if someone had taken it, she heard a panel slide open in the bulkhead behind her. Even before she turned, she knew who would be standing before her.

  – You and your mother have been parted again, the Abbé said.

  He stood with her father’s book in his hands, his face so haggard and drained of colour she was not certain at first if it was really him.

  – I sincerely hope you will not have to wait so long this time for a reunion, he said.

  Pica felt tears sting her eyes, forced herself to speak.

  – Why won’t you leave us alone?

  He lurched forward into the light from the overhead hatch, laid a hand on the frame of the press. As he moved she saw the dark sheen of blood on the black folds of his cassock.

  – There is something of your mother’s fire in you, he nodded. It is a pity we have not been travelling companions all these years. In time I might have moulded you into something more than a pale shadow of her. But to the matter at hand. If you’ll kindly recall, I am here because of the agreement we made.

  – My father is dead.

  – Yes, I know. That is unfortunate. But you are still here, his apprentice. Your freedom, I believe, was part of the transaction.

  The Abbé gazed at the dark green leatherbound volume.

  – I must admit I did not expect to find this, a finished creation. A wonder, isn’t it? Your father, rest to his soul, surpassed even my grandest imaginings. The marvellous binding, the ink. And the paper. The luminous, gossamer subtlety of its weave. I have never seen such paper …

  – You can have the press, she said, staring at the book. The ink and the paper. And then …

  The Abbé looked up at her and smiled.

  – And then will I go away? He turned the book in his hand. Perhaps, but I must know how this was accomplished. Where it came from. And as your father is sadly no longer with us, I will have to rely on you for answers. When this business with the Acheron and Captain Snow is finished, I would be most pleased if you would accompany me home to Quebec, where we can study these matters without the world interrupting us.

  – You were taking my mother there, Pica said. Why didn’t you?

  – You desire answers, too, of course. Very well. During the storm I was seized by the apoplexy that has plagued me since childhood. For seven months I lay like a graven image, unable even to tell my servants to remove the clock from my room. Seven months. Eighteen million one hundred and forty-four thousand seconds. By the time I recovered, her trail was lost. You may not believe it, but I did intend the two of you should meet again.

  He stepped closer, clutching the book more tightly to his breast.

  – You have what you wanted, she said, looking away. When the Abbé did not reply she turned back and saw that he was clinging to the press, his head bowed, his breath coming in gasps.

  – That first volley was only meant to cripple you, he whispered, slowly raising his head. Unluckily it appears to have done worse damage to me. The Commander is certain of his prize, you see, so he is taking his time, savouring every moment. His oracular nose has sniffed victory in the air, as surely as, he has informed me, my native land will soon belong to King George. Help me now, and perhaps he can be persuaded to let the women Uve. At least long enough for there to be some hope of a miracle, like the one that saved you from the Commander the last time, off Alexandria.

  There was a shout from up on deck. Amphitrite Snow calling her name. Time was running out. Either the Bee would go up in flames, or they would be taken and she would become the property of the Abbé.

  – There, she said, stabbing a finger at the chase. That’s where you can find out everything.

  Grimacing, the Abbé hauled himself upright. He staggered to the work table, leaned against it and bent close to the blank forme of type.

  – What is this … ?

  He flicked a finger at the smooth, mirror-like surface. Wavelets rippled inward to the centre and outward again, like water in a basin that has been roughly set down. As the waves subsided letters began to leap up and vanish instantaneously, as if an invisible shower of rain were pattering against the metal from below.

  – So this is what the ingenious Samuel Kirshner gave you.

  – The formes appeared, she said, one after another, and my father printed them.

  The Abbé looked up at her, his thin features seeming to sharpen as understanding dawned.

  – You found your own well of stories, as indeed I should have guessed you would. When I visited you at the Ospedale, I felt that we were somehow akin.

  He rolled up the sleeve of his cassock, hesitated a moment, then thrust his arm into the liquid metal. He withdrew it slowly, intently studying his hand, his fingers, as if amazed that th
ey had returned intact. Suddenly he bent forward, his face contorting with pain.

  – You will doubtless take comfort, he gasped, to learn that I may not live to return home. Do you know, mademoiselle, my only regret would be to have spent so little time with your father’s creation. And with you.

  – I have been to a place, she said slowly, where you can read forever. Where nothing changes, except what you want to change.

  The Abbé’s brows knit together. He studied her for a long time and then gazed down at the rippling pool of metal.

  – You went, he whispered, into the type.

  In the cold light Pica saw beads of sweat gleaming on the Abbé’s forehead. His bloodless face seemed to age as she watched, his gaunt form sagging in his cassock as if he were struggling under a tremendous weight. Slowly he sank down into the chair at the work table.

  – It’s as if time doesn’t exist, she went on, for anyone except you. Nothing else moves. You have the whole world to yourself.

  – Of course, he finally said, his hands sliding along the sides of the chase. Of course. Without time the world bends itself to the shape of one’s desire.

  – My father told me about you, she said. About the library where you hid as a boy. In the well, the whole world is that library.

  The Abbé continued to stare into the shifting metal, as if he had not heard her, or was oblivious now to everything but his own thoughts. From without came the crack of the warship’s guns opening up in clockwork succession and a moment later Pica was tossed to the planks as a violent shudder rocked the Bee. Dazed, she picked herself up and saw that the Abbé, who had fallen against the work table, had his eyes raised to the oily black smoke now pouring through the overhead hatch. His hands found the edges of the table, gripped it like someone about to be swept away by a torrent.

  – The Commander, he said, is not a patient man. It would seem he has forgotten about me.

  She saw that the book had slipped from his grasp and slid across the table, closer to her. Before she could move, his shaking hands found it again.

  – I’ve waited too long.

  He rose, seemingly possessed again of strength and will, pulled the chair out from the work table, and set one foot on the seat.

  Pica took a step towards him.

  – The book wasn’t part of our bargain, she said, her voice trembling.

  He seemed to hesitate a moment and then turned to her and slipped the book into the pocket of his cassock. In his eyes for an instant flashed the familiar knife-gleam of cold wit.

  – I pray you will forgive a last bon mot, he said, but either way, it would seem that I am out of time.

  Laboriously he hauled himself up onto the chair, oblivious to Pica now as she backed towards the hatchway, then lunged up the stairs. Halfway she stopped and stood still, listening. In a brief flaw of stillness she heard the tick of the ship’s timbers, the slap of the waves. From the press room, a sound she had never heard before. Like water furiously boiling.

  She turned and hurried back down the stairs. The Abbé was gone. A column of raised letters was sinking into the seething matrix in the chase, glowing white-hot so that the heated air in the press room rippled like water.

  She leaned over the chase and read the words vanishing into the metal.

  As she read, the type disappeared completely and then suddenly rose again, even more agitated, with some sorts almost leaping from the matrix. She wondered if it had been a message meant for her. How long had he been in the well? A moment of her time could be countless centuries for him.

  The words she had just read were broken now into a seethe of letters that she tried to make sense of, until she realized that the type was being pushed outward by something within, forming an image in relief. A face, distorted by the torment of the metal, rising and then sinking away again so quickly that she wondered if she had really seen it.

  She lifted the chase gently from the table, not knowing for certain what she intended. Perhaps he had been trying to get out, and the metal was too hot, or he had gotten lost on the way, as she had, in the place where there was only darkness.

  The metal was darkening now, waves of heat rising into her face as she carried the chase towards the stairs. She was about to set foot on the first step when the Acheron fired again. The ship reeled from the blow and she was thrown backward, the iron frame wrenched from her hands. As she fell she saw the chase wheel end over end through space and strike a crossbeam. The pieces of type burst forth, showering onto the planks with a crash like falling water. Even as the scattered sorts came to rest, lifeless and inert, the sound of their fall seemed to carry on, diminishing slowly, blending in with the slap of waves against the hull. As if whatever living force was bound within the metal had trickled away through the seams of the ship to mingle with the ocean.

  She climbed to her feet and stood for a moment, dazed. The sound of cannonfire, of the wounded ship’s groans, receded into distant murmurs and she seemed to be alone in the world, utterly alone, as if it was not the Abbé but she who had descended again into the well. What was he now? A shoal of broken-up type. Hastily, she crouched amid the spill of letters, plucked a single sort from the planks and raced up the hatchway.

  On deck, a few of the wooden casks had been broached so that the gangways were now awash in black ink. Off their port quarter, the Acheron was ranging up again out of the mist.

  – At last, Amphitrite Snow said, hauling Pica by the arm across the deck, and then suddenly stopping to look at her. What happened to you?

  – I … I couldn’t get the book.

  – Never mind. Your father wouldn’t have wanted you to lose your life over it.

  The Acheron had still a wide seaway to cross, but from her forward guns another impatient volley boomed out and exploded into spray just off the Bee’s stern. Snow helped Pica climb down into the longboat, then clambered back up over the heaving side, disappeared for a moment and then handed down Djinn’s kite, folded up and bound with its string.

  – If you don’t reach land on your own, send this up on fire and pray someone sees it.

  Pica caught the kite, set it beside her, and stared up at Snow.

  – You’re not coming.

  – You’ve read all the books, Snow called down to her. Don’t you know how stories like mine have to end?

  The longboat dropped with a drumroll of sliding chains, struck the waves and rode the surge of the Bee’s wash. Then the chains were released, a swell caught the longboat, and the ship’s hull slid away from her like an opening door.

  The candles have long since guttered out. Beyond the shattered walls a fine rain is just drawing off. It will be sweeping away eastward now, the colonel thinks, hurrying across the sodden, abandoned fields. As he should have been, hours ago. A sullen lassitude comes over him at the thought of climbing back on his horse and riding to another day of pointless bombardment, of the same haggard faces around the map table, of endless inconclusive debate over what to do about the English.

  He takes another sip of the tea she brewed to warm them. It has gone cold.

  And then? he asks, unable to resist, his voice hoarse from long silence. Despite what Captain Snow said, I doubt that was the end.

  The young woman had risen now and then during the telling, to light a candle or simply to stretch limbs chilled with long sitting. Now, with a charred stick of wood she is stirring the coals in the brazier that has kept off the sharp edge of the night wind.

  It isn’t the end, she says. But it is a good place to stop, for now.

  Bougainville eases back in his chair. His horse, which he had tied up for the night just inside the entrance, whinnies impatiently and knocks a hoof against a fallen board. A suggestion he chooses to ignore.

  May I attempt an ending, then? After all, this is a book I would very much like to read, too. The longboat, I imagine, drifted away The girl saw the smoke of the first unseen flames darkening the Bee‘s sails as she came at the Acheron. Then all at once the little sh
ip was blazing, flames hurtling to the skies. She watched helplessly, straining for any sight of figures leaping over the side.

  The young woman leaves off tending the fire and sits down across from the colonel.

  The smoke blinded her, she says, nodding and closing her eyes. The girl shouted for Snow but got no answer. Then there was a great roar, and suddenly through the fog and smoke she saw the Acheron‘s hull burning Bursting apart. Shards of her aft timbers spinning in slow, winking arcs, falling into the sea.

  She huddled in the boat with the automaton for a day, drifting on the waves. When evening came she was still alone on the water, so she sent the kite up on fire. That night she was found and rescued by La Constance, a naval transport out of Calais. Bound for Quebec with men and supplies.

  The young woman opens her eyes.

  The girl arrived here four years ago, just before the war began. With nothing. Knowing no one. She was taken to the convent first, to be looked after by the nuns, but that did not go well.

  She disliked their cloistered life, no doubt.

  On the contrary. She wanted to stay with them, at least for a while. She liked them. Their life. They were more worried about an early frost ruining their beans and cabbages than about the threat of invasion. But they did not know what to make of her.

  I am not surprised.

  For a time she lived in the streets, but then the snow started to fall. Finally she found the Abbé’s house, deserted, and camped there like a gypsy for the winter.

  I don’t know the place, the colonel says. Is it near the town?

  Not far. When the war began, soldiers came to live there. She had to leave, again. When she first appeared on the bookseller’s doorstep he didn’t want to hire a girl, but she convinced him she could keep track of things better than he had. She fixed up the broken old press he kept under a sheet in the back room.

  She looks down at the heap of wooden fragments on the floor, and the colonel realizes what she was doing when he first entered the shop. Trying to assemble the pieces of a puzzle.

  You became a printer, he says.