Fortunate Son

by David Marlett

  “M’lord” asked Captain Bailyn, “what do ye wish?”

  Richard sneered at Higgins. “This papist knows.”

  “Do I?” Higgins half-asked.

  “You bloody well do,” Richard growled. “You’ll give the boy a dog’s death.”

  Higgins shook his head. “James is no boy. And I am not yar lackey. Not yar hireling. Ol’ Bailyn here may still polish yar apples, but not I.”

  “Don’t be cocksure with me!” shouted Richard, jumping to his feet, the newspaper scrunched in his fist. “We have an accord.” He moved around the table, advancing on Higgins.

  Higgins stepped back. “T’was many years ago. I fail to remember—”

  “Live up your end,” Richard spewed, “or I’ll cut your liver out and feed it to my dogs!”

  Higgins stopped his retreat. “I made no bargain.”

  Richard’s face suddenly eased. He picked at his teeth with a fingernail. Though the Earl’s wealth might have assisted his fine features to appear young—the French crèmes, Italian soaps, the absence of weathering and hardship, the perpetual strolls through the park of paramours—the effect was outweighed by the alcohol, the thick tobacco, black deception, veiled losses, the cabalistic angers, all of which oozed to the surface in occasional spots and crevassed wrinkles, a pallor of strain and distrust assembling to make his forty-six years appear ten years greater. In repose his face fell into lines of haughty calculations. His eyes, his brow, his angular features all clinched, as if in a constant state of peering through sewer fog. He turned to Bailyn. “Captain, do remind the fool of his bargain.”

  Bailyn huffed. “If the boy surfaced, you, Scotty goat shagger, were t’ kill him. If ye hadn’t sworn such I’d have slit his throat years ago. Then yers for sure.”

  “Mongrels, caitiffs, both of ya.” Higgins muttered, shaking his head. He walked to the window where the wind cooled his flushed neck and forehead. There was nothing to do but assent to these demons. Perhaps an opportunity would avail itself at a later time, another place. But not now. He should leave, go, think, get out of this foul, dispiriting house, away from these vile men. And did he remember that bargain? Certainly. Of course. How could any man forget the miserable moment he sells his soul? He was Richard’s hireling years ago under a similar threat: serve or get a highwayman’s hanging. Then came that other accord, that enduring pact that now returned with James Annesley himself, both seeking retribution. He promised to kill James if James set foot in England or Ireland again—an event apparently soon to occur. A fait accompli. He made his bargain to save the boy, and now he must kill the boy to honor his bargain. A devil’s contract to be sure. After years of peace, away from Richard, now this: a London newspaper accounts James’s pending return, Higgins is summoned from Glasgow, evil angels are stirred in the land. A bargain with the devil never dies. Like a sinister star, it never fades, never disappears; yet it can only be seen in the dark. It clinches your soul. An apostate’s curse lifted on pain of death; the only vehicle to true transcendence. To keep the covenant, someone must be sacrificed. But who? James? Richard? Himself? He knew. There was but one answer. He gave a profound sigh, then turned to Richard. “I’ll get James for ya. But when all’s done, I’ll owe ya no more. Our bindings will be undone. What’s more I make a new accord with ya, much like the other. If I see you again, or this ugly lap dog of yars,” he said, pointing at Bailyn, “I’ll murder ya both.”

  “Good lord, man, stop!” Richard sneered. “You’re frightening me.” He flashed an arched smirk.

  “As well I should. Even bunglers have sense enough to fear a man with nothing to lose.”

  “Take yer leave,” Bailyn barked.

  Richard spoke as Higgins moved for the door. “Find him in Bristol, Higgs. Take care of the matter there. And know this: I will have eyes on you.”

  Higgins knowingly nodded at Bailyn, then left.

  Bailyn gave a small cough.

  Through the open drawing room door, Richard watched his butler usher Higgins across the marbled foyer and heard the massive front door close. Then he moved to the window to see two groomsmen bringing Higgins’ horse. “Follow him to Bristol,” Richard muttered, glancing at Bailyn. “Once he kills the bastard boy—or by Christ, even if he doesn’t….” He took a weighty breath and looked out of the window again. Higgins was spurring his mount to a gallop, kicking up the dead leaves, disappearing beyond the grey garden walls.

  Bailyn coughed again, this time with grimace and phlegm.

  “See to it,” Richard continued. “Neither of them may leave Bristol alive.”

  “T’will be my pleasure,” Bailyn said slowly, emphasizing each word.

  Richard moved to the giant chimneypiece and leaned on it, stirring the fire with an iron. “You must not get me associated with it. Be discrete. There must be no suspect in this matter but Higgs. Do not be seen. Certainly do not be caught. If you are, I will not help you. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, m’lord,” replied Bailyn, rising to his feet.

  Turning to warm his backside, Richard once again read the newspaper, then closed his eyes. When he began to speak it was in a guttural whisper, a growl that resonated distant fear. “Now he will be widely known,” he said. “Kill him before he finds those cur dogs allying against me. Quickly. And before they find him.” He wadded the paper and watched it burn.

  *

  The sea was calm at dusk and the brisk air smelled almost sweet to James. Ireland and England were somewhere beyond that darkening cobalt horizon. Not far. About six days away. They would be home. Some of them. At least to England. He filled his lungs with the crisp air, then breathed it out again. They would be sailing so close to southern Ireland he might see it, perhaps smell it. The smells of County Wexford. Waterford. New Ross. Even Dunmain. A matter of miles from the southern coast, yet leagues off shore. He wished to think he missed the smell of Dunmain, or even its sound, or the look of its stone fences, something, But he barely knew the place. Could only remember the green and yellow dampness, mud, the cold stables, and the dread he felt when he left it for Dublin at the age of eight. It didn’t matter. Least not for now. The Falmouth was not to port at Waterford—they were bound on to Bristol. Seán would go from there to Ireland, Waterford and New Ross; and hopefully James would be there too within a month or so. But for now, it was Bristol. Last he had been in Bristol, he was locked in the hold of the Courtmain. Fourteen years ago. His young body aching from the blows. Awaking to find his mother’s chest gone.

  He was nervous about arriving. He wondered at what awaited him. Probably nothing. Probably this was all a waste—the horrible journey, the bloodshed, the ocean of death that he had traversed these four months. And now, for what end? What could he hope to accomplish in Ireland? Richard would not simply remove himself from the peerage, from the Dublin properties, from the Dunmain estate. Why would he? James knew that sooner or later he would have to reveal himself, to declare himself the rightful Earl, to pronounce his arrival and stake his claim. But to what avail? For what result? To be ridiculed as a madman? To be tossed on his ear? To be killed? He had rolled this over and over in his head, circling the problem, mulling it, mouthing it in whispers against the air. It was a milling wheel driven round and round in his brain. Only nothing came. No clarity. No solutions. No visions of a golden path. Nothing but deep groves worn into his grinding table, etched by the endless circling of answerless questions.

  At least he was alive. And so was Seán. They had survived. After the worst four months of his life, first in the Spanish West Indies and now on the open Atlantic, he no longer pondered the coincidence of Seán’s presence in Yorktown, or the wonder of their reunion at the Swan. Instead, the only marvel was that they had both survived at all. That they were there, standing, breathing, above the water. As usual, when the memory of the dead overcame him, he let his mind drift into Laura’s arms. If only she were there. Missing her was a hollow, painful joy. A known place that was private in it
s agony, its memories, its dark corners and warm despair. He took a deep breath and held it. Slowly releasing it, he let his eyes lose focus, transporting himself to a vertiginous state, far away, coming to rest near her, beside her, sitting in the loft window, the sun setting before them. Laura smiled at him, taking his hand. He could feel the warmth of her touch. He could see her tears, hear her dulcet voice.

  “I wonder what ye’re dreamin’ of, Lieutenant,” said Seán, stepping onto the foc’s’le of the H.M.S. Falmouth. He walked along the rail, then leaned on it beside James. “Laura, no doubt.”

  “Aye,” replied James. He was nonplussed by interruptions. And he knew Laura was the same. One thing certain in the monotony of the sea, there would always be other times, other moments. A continuum of silence as far as the ocean’s width. Moments where he and Laura would meet. And talk. Later, as he did every night after darkness fell, he would return to this same place, the ship’s quadrant in hand, and chart their position. Laura would be there too. He could wait.

  “Let me figure,” Seán continued. “Tonight is it the barn or the day ye met? Or is it the Greensleeves? Barn, I reckon ‘tis.”

  James bleakly grinned. “Ye’re a soothsayer now, are ye?”

  “I just know ye. ‘Tis what I’d be thinking of. Hell, ‘tis what I do think of. Lived these months with her in my mind. Sorry to offend ye, my friend, but she’s in love with me. We figured ‘twas time we told ye.” He saw James’s faraway stare. “Oh alright, don’t be so chapfallen, she’s in love with you too. God knows why.”

  Now James chuckled lightly. “Spare me yer affair with m’ wife.”

  “Now Jemmy, don’t assume I have no chance. She’s not yer wife yet.”

  James winced, his eyes and mind racing back to the horizon. “She is to me,” he whispered. “She is to me.” Silence overtook them as they studied the softly churning green waves, the ship lifting and lowering them through their thoughts.

  “Mind if I see her again?” Seán asked kindly.

  James pulled a strip of sailcloth from his waistcoat and at its end was a small brass locket. He popped it open and showed the image to Seán. With months of water damage and exposure to salt air a thousand times, the picture barely resembled Laura at all.

  “Aging quickly, that one. Bit wrinkled,” smirked Seán. “Mind ye, I’ll still take her from ye if she gives ye trouble.”

  “’Tis enough,” James replied, snapping it closed. This dialogue about Laura was old, a routine they had danced countless times. Now it was over, their smiles faded, silence overtaking them yet again. They could remain for hours in quietness, beside each other, observing nothing but the undulating ocean, the barren horizon, broken only by the occasional dolphin or jumping fish. “Shame she’s not here,” James offered under his breath.

  “Ach, ye wouldn’t have wanted her in the Indies. Not Cartagena.”

  “Certainly not,” James snapped.

  “M’God,” muttered Seán, miles away, “How dire ‘twas.”

  James nodded. “Horrible.”

  Not long after he and Seán had transferred to the Falmouth in Jamaica, the entire fleet of 124 ships, including the Falmouth, was ordered by Admiral Vernon to sail to the northern crest of South America. There they were to bombard the city of Cartagena, seize the port, and destroy the Spanish fleet. The campaign was a dismal failure as rampant malaria and other tropical diseases beset the entire fleet. Of the 24,000 seamen, only 7,000 survived. And of the 5,000 army infantry, only 1,000 would ever return home. James and Seán were extraordinarily lucky to have been on such a senior ship as the Falmouth, and thus not directly engaged in the feverish battle. Instead she became a hospital ship to be held at anchor off La Boquilla, three miles up the coast. Well within earshot of the relentless barrage of cannon fire. Within sight of the burning city and ships. During those two months more burials were serviced off the deck of the Falmouth than Seán had witnessed during his previous nine years in the Royal Navy. More death than James could have ever imagined seeing in a lifetime. The Falmouth was a fetid, cursed ship of death, loved only by the sharks for its leaking blood and daily service of fresh carrion.

  James and Seán, along with Tobias Smollett, a fellow seaman who had risen the ranks with Seán, became surgeon’s mates. Due to James’s rank, he had been afforded the opportunity to remain on deck, but there was nothing to do there except stand, pace, feel awkward and useless, while listening to the mordant shrieks from below. His skill in sea-charting came back to him with some practice, but was of little use while anchored for weeks on end. So the three of them labored together, often side-by-side, through each agonizing, blood-soaked day. Their initial shock was eventually numbed by the sheer magnitude of the suffering and death around them, and they found themselves spending hours talking and laughing together, drinking gallons of grog and telling stories, running through endless fencing drills, anything to pass the days, the minutes. Anything to forget the limbs they had sawed, hacked off that day, the blood they had mopped, the tissue they had sewn, the eyes they had closed. Sleep was an elusive luxury dispensed in two or three hour stints. Meanwhile the dying kept coming, a relentless, lame march. The few that survived vomited and defecated with a stench that even the nose scarves and burning brimstone could not abate. Many of the surgeon’s mates pleaded to go to fight. Their wish granted, most soon returned to die where they began. But James and Seán, and Tobias, remained. Not out of fear of being killed in battle, as the risk of catching disease was immeasurably greater aboard the Falmouth. They stayed out of a blunt allegiance to the dying. Guilelessly relishing the “rooks,” those rare patients, one out of fifty, mostly amputees, who not only cheated death, they recovered sufficiently to give faith that they might live to see England again. While anchored off Cartagena, it was the rooks that kept the Falmouth afloat, supporting a withering optimism, maintaining any semblance of promise, of purpose, of merciful hope.

  Finally, six weeks ago, the battle waning, the death toll climaxing, supplies depleted beyond repair, the Falmouth was ordered home. She was to set course for Bristol, her berth. She pulled anchor with 507 crammed aboard: 186 seamen, surgeons and surgeon’s mates, and 321 rooks. But once to sea, disaster struck: a rage of bilious fevers and malaria, bloody dysentery and typhus, ran rampant, especially through the rooks. Now the Falmouth was approaching England with only a 223 aboard. Only 53 were rooks, and of those at least eleven would never see the shore.

  “When I get to New Ross, I’ll listen about. Hear the gossip of Dunmain. See if Bailyn’s on the hunt,” said Seán. “Still thinking he’ll be there? Hunting ye in Ireland?”

  “In England, most likely. If he’s still alive. Richard will send him, or someone else. Once he learns of my arrival.”

  “Aye, most likely,” Seán said. “I reckon ye’ll have a month.”

  “Perhaps,” said James.

  Seán smiled broadly. “I can’t wait to tell Da ol’ Seámus is alive. He’d set fire to Dunmain House if he thought it’d help.”

  “So he would,” agreed James, chuckling, imagining the rancorous, scrappy, gentle Irishman. “Pray he leaves it be. I may want to live there someday.”

  Seán’s eyebrows peaked.

  James saw it. “If he allows me that privilege, of course. After all, as ye’ve said, ‘tis on Kennedy land.”

  “Aye, Lord Anglesea, so it is. Or was.”

  “So it shall be again,” James said, clasping Seán’s arm. He lowered his voice. “Do tell Fynn how anxious I am to see him.”

  “Ye can count on it.”

  “I’ve missed him. More than he may ever know. Faith be. ‘Twill be grand to see him.”

  Seán feigned hurt. “I dare say ye missed my Da more than ye missed me.”

  “Miss ye?” James smiled. “I was glad t’ be rid of ye!”

  Seán punched James’s shoulder lightly. “My arse! I was the one hiding ye in Dublin, doing all the damn work, taking all the bloody risks on account�
��”

  “Ye didn’t take all the risks, now did ye?”

  Seán hesitated, then sniffed. “Nay, ye’re right. I didn’t. Indeed, I wish I’d—”

  “Ah, Seán, I’m only ribbing ye. Let’s not revisit it. ‘Tis the past.”

  Seán stood motionless for a moment before he spoke. “Aye. ‘Tis. For now. But once ye get to shore, ye’ll be back in it. Back in the thick of it. Yer past will come searching for ye. Hunt ye down like hounds on a wee fox.”

  “Jaysus, Seán! Why don’t ye just throw me over! Ye sure know how to cheer a fellow.”

  “Nah, I was just saying—”

  “I know what ye were saying,” James bristled. “And ye’re probably right. But there’s nothing to be done. Least not out here. As they say, whatever will be, will be.”

  *

  That same evening the falling sun was scalding the Salisbury Crags, the red sandstone ridges on Edinburgh’s eastern flank. And further west, across that valley, it was setting afire the parapets of the Scottish castle itself. Daniel Mackercher stood near the Nor Loch, at the foot of the castle and smiled, watching the amber glow move toward Arthur’s Seat, a knoll past the Crags. Soon that knoll too was burning. His city, his beautiful Edinburgh, was being warmed by the embers of the fading day, red and orange sparkling off Nor Loch’s glazy surface, igniting the streets and buildings, the trees, the cool air. Even the Union Jacks were flashing orange. (He still flew a St. Andrew’s Cross at his Highland home.) He believed it the finest city on earth. Just as it should be. Just as it had always been.

  He had lived in Edinburgh, in some form or fashion, for forty-one of his forty-eight years—walking these streets first in broken orphan shoes, then regimental boots, now polished buckle brogues. It had always been his. Thus it was to Edinburgh that he returned after Joan’s murder in 1728. And there in Edinburgh his acidic detestment for Richard Annesley grew blacker, year by year, punctuated on each anniversary of her death when he would drink heavily, grandly reaffirming his Dublin vows to commit the ultimate revenge. And it did little for his opinion of all things nobly British—English lords smelled of Richard’s ilk, that pungent culpa, those sons of whores.