by A. C. Cobble
Shaking her head, the woman went back to producing ales and punches, but in minutes, she returned again. “Look, girl, if you’re trying to find a man, there are easier ways to do it. You want me to point someone out for ya?”
“I’m not looking for a man,” replied Sam.
“A woman?” asked the barkeep, leaning on the counter.
“I’m looking for someone who can help me with a problem,” said Sam. “A very specific problem.”
“We all got problems here, girl.”
“Madam Winrod,” replied Sam. “You know her?”
The barkeep stood back up. “I do.”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
“I’m not sure she’ll see you, girl. Her business is with the natives. Maybe a few girls that get brought in by someone and need help, but… she don’t deal with folks like you, girl.”
Sam’s fingers dipped into her pouch and she laid two pounds sterling on the counter, covering it with her hand so that only the barkeep could see it.
“That’s for her?” asked the woman.
“That’s for you,” responded Sam.
The barkeep shifted nervously.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble for her,” pleaded Sam. “I just want to talk to her. I’ll make it worth her while. Believe me. I think she’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
“If she wanted coin, she could get it,” mumbled the barkeep, eyeing the coins.
“Like I said, they’re not for her,” replied Sam. “These are for you. I’m not planning to give Madam Winrod a single shilling.”
The barkeep frowned.
“Perhaps you can pass a message to her for me,” suggested Sam. “Then she can decide for herself if she wants to meet with me.”
“I’m not sure she can read,” muttered the barkeep. “Neither can I, to be honest.”
“If she’s close, you could just tell her,” remarked Sam. “If I don’t have to spend too much time looking, it might be worth a bit more to me. How long would it take you to earn four pounds sterling selling punch and ale?”
The woman’s eyes flicked from the coins on the counter to behind Sam’s shoulder.
Sam turned and smiled. She stood, leaving the coins there. “Appreciate your help.”
“Frozen hell,” grumbled the barkeep.
Sam slipped amongst the crowd, moving between tables and drunken patrons to a spot in the corner. A matronly woman sat there, her dark face craggy from years and the sun, her hair bleached as white as bone. In front of her, a nervous-looking woman was scooping up a small burlap pouch.
Sam waited and then took the nervous woman’s place when she stood to leave.
“Can I help you with something, girl?” asked the older woman. “Saw you sitting at the bar there, but it’s not often someone such as you seeks me out. There are proper apothecaries and physicians for your kind, girl. Head on back to Archtan Town, and I’ve no doubt they’ll get you sorted.”
Sam laid her hand on the table, turning it over and pulling back the sleeve of her shirt, exposing the beginnings of a line of dark, twisted script. It led from her wrist to back underneath her shirt.
“What’s that, girl?” the old woman inquired, looking up to meet Sam’s eyes. A toothless smile was locked on her lips, but Sam saw the tremor in her eyes.
“You know what this is,” answered Sam. “Can we speak somewhere quiet? Your home, perhaps?”
“It’s a tattoo,” responded the woman. “If you’re wanting another, I can direct you to a good artist. The sailors around here love—”
“An artist who can do one like this?” pressed Sam, leaning forward.
The woman swallowed, and Sam smiled at her.
“Very well,” mumbled the crone. “Illona won’t mind if we head to the back. It’s private there, behind the tavern.”
“I think your home would be better,” responded Sam.
“I don’t bring people to my home.”
“Bring me,” insisted Sam.
“Girl, I’m a simple—”
“Your home,” demanded Sam.
For a long moment, the old woman sat, studying Sam’s face, her clothing, everything but the exposed tattoo on her wrist. Finally, she requested, “Show me your other arm.”
A confident smile on her lips, Sam did.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” said the old woman, standing.
“I didn’t expect it to be in the village,” replied Sam, rising as well and following the woman into the dark night.
Madam Winrod’s home, more of a shack considered Sam, was buried a thousand yards into the jungle. It sat on stilts, hanging over a black pool which was formed from a thin stream that trickled down out of the hills above. Thick foliage surrounded them, blocking the light from the village and much from the stars in the sky. No wind made it through the dense canopy, but Sam could hear the rush of the waves on the shore and the constant shriek of monkeys as they clambered through the trees around them.
“So much for peace and quiet,” remarked Sam.
“Quiet isn’t necessary for peace,” replied Madam Winrod. She looked over her shoulder, one foot on the doorstep of her shack, one on the sandy path. “Though, I don’t have either tonight.”
Sam inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“Welcome to my home,” said the crone, and she opened the door and led Sam inside.
She began lighting candles that were placed around the corners of the room.
Sam stopped her before she got to the fifth one. “That’s enough.”
Holding a smoldering stick in her hands, Madam Winrod shrugged and moved to sit on her bed, pointing toward a rickety chair beside a table. “I don’t invite guests here, so I’m afraid my seating options are limited. Most are happy to conduct our business back at Illona’s tavern. The drinks are better there.”
Sam peered at the objects on the table, not sitting down.
“What can I do for you?” asked Madam Winrod. “A potion to prevent a pregnancy or to end one? An elixir to make your man fall hard for you or forget the other woman? A tonic for your troubled—”
“The monkeys,” interrupted Sam, “you sacrifice them? What do you compel their spirits to do when you summon them? It is certainly not to achieve great wealth or fame.”
“No, girl, it is not,” said Madam Winrod slowly. “Who are you?”
“I’m a seeker of knowledge, like yourself,” said Sam, standing from the chair and removing her vest. “A seeker — and sometimes — a destroyer.”
“You mean to kill me?” asked the crone.
“Do you only sacrifice primates, or is there more?” questioned Sam. “What of the people in the village.”
Madam Winrod sneered at her. “The people know who I am and they welcome me. Do not seek to make this something other than it is. If you mean to kill me, save the discussion and do it.”
“I walked behind you the entire way here,” reminded Sam. “I could have stabbed you at any time and rolled your body into the jungle. No one would have been the wiser. I have a boat waiting at the dock, and I’d be back in Archtan Town by morning. Who here would report you missing? Who would ask for an inquiry?”
“No one,” agreed Madam Winrod, flashing her gums as she smiled. “If not to kill me…”
Sam unlaced her shirt slowly, her eyes moving restlessly around the room. “What do you know of dark magic being conducted in the governor’s mansion?”
The old woman blinked at her.
Sam turned from the table and held the woman’s gaze. “I came to talk, but if you do not want to…”
“There are worse fates that getting myself killed, girl,” replied Madam Winrod. “You’ve shown enough of your hand that I’m certain you understand that. Death is not an end. It is just a change, a period of time, until life begins anew. I have friends on the other side. Death does not scare me.”
“But the question does?” asked Sam.
“My place is here, in this jungle. It is not in t
he governor’s mansion amongst those people. You are correct. I do not seek wealth, power, or fame. Others, though, perhaps they do.”
“I need details,” insisted Sam.
“Those are not my secrets to share.”
Sam rolled up her sleeves, revealing long, sinuous lines of tattooed script flowing from both of her wrists, up past her elbows, and underneath of her shirt. She tugged at her collar, pulling the laces apart, revealing the upper slopes of her breasts, but more importantly for Madam Winrod, the script following the line of her collarbone, leaving only a hand-width space between the two tattoos.
“Can you read this?” asked Sam, eyeing the crone. “No, of course you cannot, but you know what it means, correct?”
Madam Winrod nodded and stood.
Sam traced a finger along her collarbone, across the dense, archaic characters tattooed there. The black ink was the width of a finger, drawn in a tight, compact row, sharp letters permanently etched into her skin. Letters that had no breaks, formed no words. Some letters that would have been familiar to any educated child in Enhover and some that were not. Letters that writhed underneath Sam’s finger as she moved it across her skin.
With each inch she moved her finger, Madam Winrod’s face tightened, and by the time Sam reached her shoulder, the crone was sweating. The old woman’s visage was twisted in a grimace of agony. Sam stopped and dropped her hand, tugging her shirt back over her shoulders but leaving her sleeves rolled up.
The old woman’s eyes fell from Sam’s face to the hilts of her kris daggers.
“We both know how this ends. Why should I tell you anything?” snapped the woman.
“Are you any more comfortable with what is happening in the governor’s mansion than I am?” questioned Sam, pushing down the sickening churn in her stomach at the certainty of the old woman’s statement. “You have no fear for yourself, but what about the others in this community? You care for them. I can tell. Why else would you spend your evenings trading your blood and sweat for a few shillings and cocoa husks? Help them by helping me.”
“You’re here in the colony alone?” asked Madam Winrod. “Your kind likes it that way, don’t they? You should have brought more. You’re not capable of dealing with… with what you ask about.”
“Am I not?” asked Sam. “Tell me then. What is happening here?”
“Ca-Mi-He,” said the woman, sitting back down on her bed.
Sam gasped and stumbled back, falling against the old woman’s work table.
The crone smiled grimly. “It is not direct contact, yet, or you would know it. It’s… I felt a reach and then an acknowledgement. Something here, in this world, was touched by that spirit.”
“Touched by the spirit… Was it tainted?”
“Tainted? Some may say blessed,” mumbled the old woman.
“I was in the governor’s mansion,” challenged Sam. “I felt nothing.”
“Not in the mansion,” agreed the old woman. “Fifty leagues south of here, there is an island…”
“The corsairs?” guessed Sam.
“They do not perform the rites,” said the old woman. “Someone else does that. They provide the location. They provide the souls.”
“The captives from the captured vessels,” said Sam, a frown creasing her brow. “They are all dead?”
“If not yet, they will be,” replied the old woman. “You are right. I care for the people here, and it sickens me that… It sickens me. I don’t have the strength to do anything about it, girl, and neither do you. There are two hundred men on that island. Cannon, swords, fists, and teeth. They’d fight you to the end, girl, but you won’t even get close. That little boat you arrived on? They have good, brass cannon. You’d be sunk before you got within five hundred yards of shore. If you did make it to shore, you think those daggers will stop that much muscle and steel? I don’t know what they teach you in the Church, but certainly you’re smart enough to see that for yourself. If you think to approach the military on this isle, well, they could have acted already if they wanted to. Why do you think they have not? Your word is not enough to overcome that of the person behind this.”
“I won’t be taking the boat,” remarked Sam. “Shot and sword. What else? What other protections do they have? If Ca-Mi-He… Tell me what you know. If I die, you will lose no sleep, will you? If I succeed, it will benefit your people.”
“Ca-Mi-He has provided no protection for the island,” answered the woman slowly. “He gave his blessing and withdrew. The corsairs are puppets, like you. They do not command the spirits.”
“Who does?” pressed Sam.
“I will not tell you that,” replied the crone.
“Why not?” Sam let a hand fall to a kris and gripped the hilt, staring into the old woman’s eyes.
“I do not fear death because I have friends on the other side,” declared the woman. “Friends that owe me favors. Friendships that were difficult to make and would be easy to lose. I will not tell you the name of the sorceress, girl. Do not waste either of our time trying to make me.”
“Sorceress?” asked Sam.
The woman only tilted her head. “She’s not on the atoll anymore. She and the blessed object departed these seas weeks ago. That is all I will share. Go ahead, girl, do what you will do.”
Two hours later, Sam strode down the dark path, lit from behind by growing flames. The wood of the shack, damp from the humidity and rain in the jungle, boiled smoke as the heat of the fire cooked the moisture away. Chemicals and preparations cracked and exploded as the heat touched them, and toxic fumes whirled into the air, carried high by the hot, rising smoke. Any creature that came close in the next half hour and breathed the noxious mixture wouldn’t survive the night. Sam hoped the wind didn’t carry the haze toward the village, but at a distance the people should survive if it did. She hadn’t had a choice. The place had to be destroyed. Below the burning home, floating face down in the water, a deep gash across her withered neck, Madam Winrod had already journeyed to the other side.
Sam paused, standing in the center of the sandy path, then lunched to the edge and gagged, virulent bile spilling from her mouth. The sorcerous material had sickened her, she worried for a moment, but as she continued to heave, she realized it had not. The material had not, but the task had. Madam Winrod was no simple medicine woman, she killed to gain power. Her death was necessary, the only way to stop her. Thotham had taught Sam that. She knew it deep within her soul. But he hadn’t taught her what the woman’s blood would feel like, pouring from her cleaved neck, leaking over Sam’s hand.
She waited until the swirl in her guts stilled, then wiped her mouth clean, and started back toward the village. She walked into the tavern and sat on the same stool she’d occupied earlier.
“Still with us?” asked the barkeep.
“A jug of that punch to go,” requested Sam, her voice rasping from a tight throat.
“Where are you going tonight?” questioned the woman, stooping to collect the requested jug.
“Where do people sleep in this place? Strangers?”
The woman frowned.
“There are some friends I need to collect,” explained Sam. “I need them to sail a boat.”
“Tonight?” asked the barkeep. “The shore along Archtan Atoll is gentle, but the currents are not. I don’t think any experienced sailor would—”
“They’ll be rather drunk,” replied Sam, tapping the side of the jug, “and I’ll keep them that way. And don’t tell me it is dangerous, I know that. It doesn’t matter. We cannot delay.”
“Tomoes’ Inn,” said the barkeep. “They’ll be at Tomoes’. It’s three buildings down. They’ll either be gambling at the tables or upstairs with the girls.”
“Thank you,” said Sam. She flipped another pound sterling into the counter and added, “Tomorrow, you will learn why I came here. It is not your fault. If not you, another would have led me there.”
“My fault,” asked the barkeep, her eyes turning to the em
pty table where Madam Winrod had sat.
Sam gathered the earthenware jug of punch and left without another word.
The Cartographer VIII
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmured.
“As am I,” responded Isisandra Dalyrimple. “My father is distraught, and I do not believe he will leave his rooms today. Is there anything I can do to assist you while are you here, Duke Wellesley?”
“On behalf of Crown and Company, I came to offer condolences and to offer the support of both organizations to you family with anything you need.”
“My mother’s body,” said the girl, brushing her straight black hair behind a delicate ear. “We’d like to give her a proper burial, one suitable for a woman of her station. Will that be possible?”
“Yes, of course,” responded Oliver, shifting uncomfortably on the short couch. “The countess is being preserved as best our physicians are able. A proper burial when you return to Enhover can be arranged. Or, if you prefer, we could transport her… here or wherever you think is best.”
“No, no,” objected Isisandra. “A proper ceremony then a burial in Derbycross where her family is from, that is best.”
“I will inform the physicians when I return,” assured Oliver.
“Before the burial, may I see her?”
He swallowed. “Ah, I’m afraid after so much time… Ah, I’m not sure what the condition of the body will be, then.”
“You saw her?” asked Isisandra.
“I did,” confirmed Oliver, suppressing a wince. He ran a hand over his hair, checking that the knot was secure in the back. He wished he was doing anything other than discussing the body of the girl’s dead mother with her. Aside from the grim awkwardness of the conversation, he couldn’t help but recall the governor’s reaction. The difference was distinct.
“In Harwick?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“What happened to her, Duke Wellesley?”
He raised his hand and then forced it down, gripping his knee. “She was murdered, as I hope your father told you. It was… I will not lie to you, Isisandra. It was an unpleasant scene. A man was found responsible, though.”