“We were wondering,” Arabella said brightly, “if you could recommend any leisure activities on the planet Venus.” She rose and stood at Khema’s shoulder, gesturing to Lady Corey. “Lady Corey will be accompanying me there as chaperone.” She took a small step forward, deliberately approaching Khema slightly closer than Martian etiquette permitted.
Unconsciously Khema edged away from her, taking a step toward Lady Corey. The hard carapace of her foot thudded heavily on the carpet. “I have never visited that planet myself.” Again Arabella eased forward, forcing Khema still closer to Lady Corey. “But my cousin Sutkheth has traveled there several times, and she speaks very highly of the water gardens of Munungulawala and the hot baths at Gonuwamanaga.” Another step. “And, of course, Venusian cuisine is renowned throughout the solar system.” By now Khema loomed directly above Lady Corey, the spines of her pectoral plates practically pricking the great lady’s cheeks.
“Do tell us more of that cuisine,” Arabella said.
Khema turned slightly toward Arabella, her eye-stalks rising in an expression of uncertainty. “It may be … a bit beyond the English palate.”
Arabella returned Khema’s expression with a significant lift of her eyebrows and a gesture in Lady Corey’s direction. “Please do. I am certain it will make a great impression.”
Khema considered this for a moment, then pulled her eye-stalks back slightly—a subtle Martian gesture of understanding and acknowledgement, which Arabella knew well—then leaned over Lady Corey and began to describe the finest delicacies of Venusian cookery with great enthusiasm and many details, smacking her mandibles with relish as she described its tentacular and blubbery delights.
But Lady Corey’s reaction to this recitation was not at all what Arabella had anticipated. She seemed undeterred, in fact enthusiastic, and her expression, rather than showing disquiet at Khema’s proximity, was one of interest and delight. The great lady and Khema were soon comparing Venusian to Martian vintages and spices, even discussing famous Martian chefs de cuisine of their acquaintance.
“You must understand,” Lady Corey explained to Arabella’s astonished expression, “that I came to Mars as a very young girl, back in George the Second’s day. In those days there was very little in the way of proper English cookery to be had; we all dined à la Martien, as we said, at nearly every meal. Not like to-day, when any family of any standing whatsoever employs an entire kitchen staff imported from London, and even the servants dine on beef and onions. However”—here she leaned in over her tea and scones and confided in a low voice—“I must confess that I still relish a nice sukuresh gonash. It reminds me of my younger days.”
“How fascinating,” Arabella replied, quite taken aback.
“This has been a delightful conversation,” Michael put in then, “but I am certain that Khema has other duties to attend to.” At this, Khema curtseyed and departed.
Once Khema had gone, Lady Corey turned to Michael. “If you will, my dear sir, I would like a private word with your sister.” She favored him with a demure smile. “If I am to serve as her chaperone, we must be permitted a few … female confidences.”
“By all means,” Michael replied, and with as deep and respectful a bow as could be managed with a crutch, he too took his leave.
As soon as the door had closed behind him, Lady Corey’s expression hardened. “Do not think,” she said to Arabella in a low intense voice, “that I do not comprehend your precise intent in calling your itkhalya into this room.”
“I am certain I do not—”
“Do not be coy with me,” Lady Corey interrupted, straightening, and Arabella found her mouth shutting as though moved by clockwork. “Your intention was to intimidate me, and I must confess that for a time I was nearly intimidated.” She closed her eyes. “Though it has been nearly a year, the memories of my dear Lord Corey’s death are still painful.” She seemed to draw herself together then, and when her eyes reopened they were hard and gray and sharp as best Martian steel. “But I have lived among Martians all my life, and seen many a rebellion and uprising before last year—they were quite common when Cornwallis, rest his soul, was Governor-General—and it will take more than an akhmok to bullyrag me.”
“I … I beg your pardon, Lady Corey,” Arabella stammered, completely nonplussed.
Lady Corey’s mien softened then, and she patted the sofa beside herself. Almost against her will, Arabella shifted to the indicated spot. “I am well aware, my dear Miss Ashby, of your reputation for independence and temerity. It has served you in good stead so far, and you have achieved much. It could even be said that I, and many other members of our household, owe you our lives. But if you are indeed to marry—and I would counsel you to give the matter much greater consideration than you have as yet demonstrated—you must enter into society. This requires an entirely different set of capabilities from those you have hitherto displayed.”
“I thank you for your counsel,” Arabella replied, attempting to regain control of the conversation, “but my immediate concern is to attain my fiancé’s release from Napoleon’s custody, and for this task I am certain that independence and temerity are the very qualities which are required.”
“Indeed,” the great lady replied noncommittally, her eyes hooded. “However, a genteel lady never forgets the social graces, no matter the circumstances”—she flicked her fan sharply to emphasize each word—“and in this area I fear your deportment is sadly lacking.”
“I fail to see how the ‘social graces’ can bring about my fiancé’s freedom.”
“Poor behavior reflects ill upon one’s family and upon one’s station in life. Without family and station, one lacks influence. And without influence, little of consequence can be accomplished.” She leaned forward, her expression firm. “You lack judgment, and have been suffered to govern yourself by whim rather than by any rational consideration of right or consequence. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
The two women’s eyes locked for a long, contentious moment, which was broken by Lady Corey drawing a breath and reaching for her tea-cup. “In any case,” she said, “propriety demands that you be chaperoned, and so a chaperone you must have. And in that capacity, as your brother has requested, I will happily serve. Though you sometimes strike me as incapable of improvement, I feel honor-bound to make the attempt.”
A sharp retort rose to Arabella’s lips, but she held it back. She would accept Lady Corey as chaperone, she decided, in order to mollify her brother. And she would escape her strictures as soon as she could, as she had done with her mother. This was a game she could win.
“I look forward to sharing your company,” Arabella said mildly, and raised her own tea-cup in salute.
“As do I.” Lady Corey sipped her tea. “You require looking after, my dear, and I believe I am just the one to do it … and give you a proper education in the womanly arts into the bargain.”
Suddenly Arabella wondered if she herself had just been maneuvered into an unfavorable position.
4
TOUCHSTONE
Arabella leaned from the window of Lady Corey’s coach, eager for a glimpse of Fox’s ship Touchstone.
Lady Corey had, to Arabella’s surprise, packed quickly, and had appeared with her coach at Woodthrush Woods promptly the next morning to take Arabella and her baggage to the ship. After a tearful and somewhat awkward farewell to Michael, they had collected Fox at his club and proceeded thence to the harbor.
“She is as sweet a flyer as any I have ever sailed,” Fox was saying as the coach clattered along. “Clean of line, swift, and weatherly. You will surely love her as much as I.”
The harbor came into view then, a vast expanse of flat red sand crowded with hulls, sails, envelopes, and masts. Most of them were stolid cargo vessels, but one was a lean and sturdy clipper with an aggressively raked mainmast. “Is that she?” Lady Corey inquired, pointing.
“Ah … no.” Fox pointed. “That is she.”
Arabella’s first
reaction was disappointment, for Touchstone seemed very small and rather shabby by comparison with her memories of Diana—a ship which was, she reminded herself, a Mars Company clipper of the first water, an “aristocrat of the air.” This Touchstone was a fighting vessel, she thought, a bantam rooster of a ship, small and light and no doubt designed to outmaneuver and outgun her larger, heavier prey. She was built to fight and win, not to look good.
Still, despite these attempts to reassure herself, even from this distance she could not fail to notice the tarnish on her copper bottom, the worn and patched condition of her sails, the rather slovenly state of her standing rigging. When she was an airman aboard Diana, even though a lowly waister, she would have earned—nay, deserved!—her captain’s scorn for such a sorry job of belaying.
“She seems a … sprightly ship,” Arabella said to Fox. “How many guns has she?”
He gave her an appraising glance at that. “A very perceptive question, Miss Ashby. Eight eight-pounders on the gun deck, and a pair of three-pound stern-chasers on the quarterdeck.”
Arabella nodded approvingly. “Diana has but three four-pounders, and to the best of my knowledge no stern-chasers at all.”
“Of course she does,” Fox replied with only a slight hint of condescension. “She is a mere cargo vessel, while Touchstone is a ship of war.” Arabella bristled at this dismissal of Diana, but said nothing. “And the number of guns must, for reasons of aerial equilibrium, correspond with the number of masts. Your Diana is, I gather, a three-master?”
“She is.” Arabella herself had seated the starboard and larboard masts in their keelson-plates on the lower hull during the swaying-out ceremony upon departing Earth’s planetary atmosphere.
“Whereas my Touchstone has four masts, for speed and maneuverability, with a matched pair of guns for each.” He pointed to the ship’s bow, where eight gun-ports were indeed ranged evenly in pairs about the central bowsprit: above, below, starboard, and larboard, presumably corresponding with the roots of the mainmast and the three lower masts—not currently fitted, as the ship was grounded—within her hull. Her figurehead, Arabella noted, was a hunchbacked fool in diamond-patterned motley. “She throws a weight of metal equivalent to one of His Majesty’s second-rates, and I’d match my crew’s speed of fire against even a first-rate!”
This news caused Arabella to reconsider her opinion of Fox’s ship. She had served as a powder-monkey aboard Diana, and the sound of her three four-pounders firing had been like the pounding of the knocker on the gates of Hades; she could not imagine the sound of eight guns each firing an eight-pound ball at the same time. Furthermore, Diana had very nearly been defeated by a four-masted privateer not unlike Touchstone, and that one had carried just four guns.
Even so, she still felt that Touchstone was inferior to Diana in every other way, and Fox’s dismissal of her fiancé’s command as a “mere cargo vessel” rankled.
* * *
Touchstone stood away from the other vessels on the sand of the harbor, and plainly had stood so for some time, as her crew had erected tents on the sand beside her hull. A thread of smoke rose from the nearest such. As they drew closer, Fox leaned out the carriage window and called “Touchstone! Ahoy, Touchstone!”
In response to Fox’s call, several men came rushing out from the tents, hallooing and waving their arms. “Ahoy the coach!” came one cry, and “Captain! Captain Fox!” another. Fox grinned like a fiend and waved his hat.
Fox opened the door and leapt from the coach even before it stopped. His men immediately crowded around him, grinning and calling out “What news!” and “Where away?” and such.
But one man hung back from the crowd, grinning as widely as any but quietly waiting his turn rather than pressing forward with the rest … and it was that patient, forbearing attitude as much as the darkness of his face and breadth of his shoulders that made Arabella recognize him. “Mills!” she called, ignoring the footman’s proffered hand as she jumped down from the coach. “Mills, can that truly be you?”
Mills seemed puzzled at first, but as Arabella rushed toward him his face lit with recognition. “Ashby!” he cried, and upon meeting he crushed Arabella’s hand in his, pumping it up and down in a manly greeting more suited to old messmates than a common airman greeting a gentle lady. For old messmates they were, or had been when she had posed as Arthur Ashby, and together they had endured storm, strife, battle, and mutiny.
“Sir!” came Lady Corey’s voice from behind Arabella, as she stepped down from the coach. “Leave off this improper behavior at once!”
“Oh no, Lady Corey!” Arabella cried, stepping back from the abashed and quite concerned Mills. “The impropriety is entirely mine. Mil … Mister Mills and I served together aboard Diana, and I was overcome by the surprise of encountering him here.” She cleared her throat and introduced Mills and Lady Corey to each other.
Mills, to his credit, made a very presentable leg. “I am very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said, which was, she thought, about as many words as she had ever heard him string together in one sentence. Though she thought Mills quite intelligent, his native language was some West African one, and in English he was quite taciturn.
Lady Corey accepted his greeting with the slightest possible nod and an extremely dubious expression.
“How did you come to be here?” Arabella asked Mills. “I had thought you still aboard Diana. Which—have you heard?—was captured by the French at Venus.”
“I heard,” he said, his expression going grim. He shook his head, then continued. “Just before we sailed, Gowse”—he pointed to where Gowse was being introduced by Fox to Touchstone’s crew—“told me Fox was taking on crew. And look at me now!” He beamed and swept his hand down the long, muscular length of himself. “Captain of the mizzen-top!”
“I give you great joy of it!” cried Arabella, though she held herself back from shaking his hand. “I cannot fault you for accepting such a promotion.” Aboard Diana, she and Mills had been waisters, lowest of the crew; to become a topman, never mind the captain of a top, was a considerable step, and such a rapid rise was indicative of considerable ability.
“Aye,” Mills acknowledged, though again his face clouded. Clearly he was thinking of his shipmates aboard Diana.
“You would only have been captured with the rest,” she assured him.
“Prior familiarity or no, Miss Ashby,” Lady Corey sniffed, “this conversation has already gone on entirely too long for propriety. In any case, I believe Mr. Fox is requesting everyone’s presence.” She held out an imperious elbow. “Come along, child.”
Arabella rankled at Lady Corey’s none-too-polite request. But Mills, seeing her draw breath for a harsh retort, met her eyes and gave a very slight shake of his head.
For a moment Arabella glared back at him. Then, seeing the value of his silent counsel, she relented. “Very well. Let us see what Mr. Fox has to say.”
* * *
The three of them walked over to where Fox, standing atop a barrel and surrounded by his men, was beckoning. “This is Miss Ashby,” he said, indicating Arabella as she approached, “who rescued me from that mountebank Burke and his fraudulent, cogged games of so-called chance.” At that the men all applauded Arabella, which she acknowledged modestly. “And it is to return that favor”—here his mien turned serious—“that we will be taking on a new commission.”
The men all grew quiet, some glancing nervously at Arabella.
“Now, boys, we will not be leaving off privateering. That is a living far too profitable to give up so easily!” A few men chuckled at that; others grinned and poked each other in the shoulder. “But we will be fishing in new waters, where the fish run bigger … much bigger.” He bent down upon his barrel, bringing his face almost to the level of his men’s heads, and spoke low, just loud enough to be heard. The men leaned in attentively. “Aye, some are sharks indeed, whose bite is fierce. But I owe this young lady my fortune—indeed, my very life!—and for her I
will risk shark-bite or worse. And the bounty on a shark,” he said, raising his body and his voice a bit, “is much greater than on the minnows we have been catching here!”
The tension in the scene was palpable. “Where away, Cap’n?” cried one of the men.
Fox leapt to his feet atop the barrel, pointing to the sky. “To Venus, lads!”
Pandemonium ensued. Most of the men, caught up by Fox’s enthusiasm, cheered and huzzahed. Others muttered darkly, looking skeptically at each other. Mills could be counted among the skeptics, but his level gaze was directed solely at Arabella.
“Isn’t Bonaparte at Venus?” called one of the skeptics.
“Precisely!” Fox cried, pointing to the man. “And it is he who is the greatest shark of all! Who among you desires the Great Ogre’s destruction?”
“Me!” they all chorused, save an educated few who called out “I!”
“As do I, lads! In this I take second place to no man! And so I intend to take the fight to Venus—to Bonaparte himself!—and destroy him personally, or at the very least as many Frenchmen as I may!”
Though this statement rallied the men, it raised consternation in Arabella’s heart; she sought rapid transportation to Venus, not engagement with the French. But she could not fault Fox’s enthusiasm, and his leadership abilities were plainly very impressive; not only would he be happy to carry her thence, but she was now confident that he and his crew could pick their way through the French defenses and deliver her to the planet’s surface.
“Three cheers for the captain!” came a cry from the back of the crowd, and Arabella joined in with the rest of the men in a full-throated “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”
* * *
Just after dawn the next morning, Arabella stood at Touchstone’s quarterdeck rail, looking up at the ship’s single large balloon envelope. The balloon, which swelled like a great white skurosh-melon, strained at its shrouds as it filled with hot air from the port’s mighty launch-furnaces.
Arabella and the Battle of Venus Page 4