Ghost Fire

by Wilbur Smith

  He dropped the knife. The look Constance gave him almost split his heart in two.

  “I promised I would always protect you,” he said.

  Corbeil jerked his head. “Enough. It is almost dusk, and we have far to go. Do not try to follow us. You can be sure I will see you coming.”

  Every muscle in Theo’s body ached from his ordeals, but he did not feel it. He was numb. He tried to catch Constance’s eye, to beg her forgiveness for his decision, but she would not look at him.

  “Adieu,” said Corbeil, his tone jeering.

  Theo didn’t answer. Tears ran down his face. He doubled over in a paroxysm of grief, clutching his boot, then straightened.

  “Connie!” he called.

  This time, she heard the urgency in his voice. She looked back.

  “A last souvenir to remember me by.”

  He tossed her the object he had pulled from his boot—it was the knife he had carved for Gilyard. Her wrists were unbound, and it was a perfectly weighted throw. She caught it hilt first.

  She did not hesitate. Before Corbeil could react, she drove the blade into his belly.

  He screamed. But Constance hadn’t finished. With all her strength, she dragged the knife up through Corbeil’s flesh, widening the cut beyond hope of healing. His guts slithered from the gaping wound. He dropped his sword and clutched his stomach, trying to hold in his intestines.

  Constance pulled out the knife and stepped back, defiance and rage distorting her face. “No man will own me.”

  She raised her leg and lashed out, planting her foot into his chest. He staggered backward toward the cliff edge.

  “You whore!” he cried. He teetered on the precipice, flinging out his arms to keep his balance.

  With the last desperate lunge of a dying man his fingers managed to close around Constance’s dress. He fell back, pulling her after him. Caught off balance, she dropped the knife. There was nothing to grab on to. His weight and momentum were irresistible. She felt herself going over.

  Strong arms closed around her waist from behind. For a moment she was suspended, hanging between the two men who had hold of her. Corbeil’s face snarled up at her, dangling over thin air, while Theo roared with pain as his broken wrist took the full strain of Constance’s and Corbeil’s weight. They were all about to go over the cliff.

  With a tear of fabric, Constance’s thin dress ripped. A fistful of cloth came away in Corbeil’s hand. His face turned to horror. He flailed with his other arm, but he was falling too fast. All he clutched was air.

  He tumbled and somersaulted as he bounced off the cliff face, his dying scream echoing over the forest. Then there was silence.

  Theo pulled Constance from the edge and hugged her to him. He felt her heart beating through his chest. He stroked her golden hair.

  Far below, on the jagged rocks at the foot of the cliff, a turkey vulture swooped down to peck at Corbeil’s broken body.

  •••

  The patrons of the Red Lion Tavern in Albany were in a merry mood that September evening. The harvest had been gathered, the weather had been as fair as anyone could remember, and the heat of summer had not yet given way to the chill of winter.

  But those were not the only reasons why the men and women drank so freely. The threat that had stalked the frontier since the first settlers arrived had been lifted. Word had come on that day of a great victory. Far to the north, an army under General Wolfe had stormed the Heights of Abraham and routed the French from Québec. All Canada now belonged to Britain. Meanwhile, news traveled from India that General Clive had recaptured Calcutta and broken the Indian Army in battle at a place called Plassey. The nawab, Siraj-ud-daula, had fled on a camel. Later, he had been captured and executed.

  The men in the tavern passed around the newspapers, eagerly reading articles aloud.

  “Clive defeated sixty thousand Indians for the loss of twenty-two men.”

  “Wolfe lost fifty-eight.”

  “It says here that General Clive would not have won his campaign without the heroic efforts of Major Gerard Courtney.” A militia lieutenant with elaborate sideburns peered over the top of the paper at Theo. “A relation of yours?”

  Theo grimaced. “Never heard of him.”

  “Better watch out. Soon he’ll be more famous than you.”

  The men around the table laughed. Reports of Theo’s exploits at the battle of Fort Royal had traveled extensively. With half of the French army slaughtered in the explosion, the public had needed a hero to make the victory seem real. Theo could not enter a tavern without every man offering to stand him a drink.

  “Perhaps General Wolfe will get all the attention,” he said hopefully.

  “I doubt that. It says he died in the battle.”

  A momentary quiet came over the table.

  “But so did the French general. And the governor, de Bercheny, has fled to Paris with his mistress.”

  The men cheered, their spirits restored. No one noticed that Theo did not join in, though Abigail gave him a keen look.

  Later, he excused himself from the company and walked to the river. He stared at the fast-flowing current. Some of those drops of water would have begun their journey in the mountain pass above Fort Royal. They would flow down the river all the way into the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe one day they would wash up on the white beach under the walls of Madras or mingle with the brown Hooghly as it met the Bay of Bengal.

  Who can say where the tides will take us? he thought.

  He heard a rustle of skirts. Abigail came and sat beside him, Caleb asleep in her arms. She passed the child to Theo. “He is getting too heavy for me,” she said. “And I will soon have my arms full with the next one.”

  She had told him the news when he returned from the campaign. The new baby was growing even faster than the first: she had already let out her dresses twice. Theo was convinced it would be a girl this time.

  Abigail slipped off her shoes and stockings and let her feet dangle in the water, as she had that night at Shaw’s Pond so many moons ago. She took Theo’s hand.

  “Were you thinking about Constance?”

  “No,” Theo protested. It was a lie. Every day for the past two months, he had revisited those last moments on the clifftop, holding Constance to him, reunited at last, as happy as he had ever been. For a fleeting moment, he felt his family was whole again, that his father’s and mother’s spirits were with them, embracing them all. His childhood had come alive to him in the most vivid, overwhelming way, and then the vision dispersed, like a mist clearing, and he had returned to the cold, hard present.

  When he had made sure Constance was safe and away from the cliff’s edge, he had relaxed his grip. “We had best get back.”

  Constance had pulled away from him. “Back where?”

  “To my men—and then to Albany. You will live with us—with me and Abigail and Caleb. We will be a family again.”

  “And what will I do?” She spoke with a bitterness Theo had never heard in her before. “Marry a farmer? Live as some frontier wife, sweeping pig dung off the mud floor?”

  Theo stared at her, almost speechless. “Where else can you go?”

  “I want to return to Paris. It’s where I left my heart and soul. I will live as a countess and dance, wear fine gowns, visit the Opéra and be received at Versailles.” She gave a joyless laugh, the most chilling of all the terrible things Theo had heard that day. “Living in a wilderness playing at soldiers and Indians may be your life, Theo. It is not mine.”

  “But you would not be safe. Men will exploit you, use you, discard you when they have had their fill of your beauty and charm. It is the way of the world. I will look after you, cherish you and make sure no harm comes to you. You are too easily hurt, my dear sister. Please, Constance, I beg you.”

  There were tears in Constance’s eyes. “I know you mean well, my little brother, but I want to be free, to sing like a bird, to love myself and not always be in thrall to another person’s idea of who
I am, how I must conduct myself, to behave like a lady or a wife or, God forbid, a miserable spinster, bitter at the choices I never made, the roads I never traveled, shriveled by lovelessness, ugly stares, loneliness.”

  She touched his cheek. “You are my brother and I love you. But if I had to live here with you, in this godforsaken wilderness, I would come to hate you as much as I ever hated Corbeil.”

  They had talked until Theo was close to tears. But Constance would not yield, and Theo was too weak to compel her. Eventually, Moses had agreed to take her with a band of Abenaki as far as the French mission village at St. Francis. From there, she could find an escort to Québec and Bercheny, thence to Paris.

  She embraced him and held him as if she would never let him go. She was sobbing, and Theo knew deep in his heart that he could never protect her from the hurt that would inevitably come her way. The sun was setting; her lips were cold. She started to shiver.

  “Adieu,” she said. “I do not think we will meet again. Although,” she added, “who can say where the tides will take us?”

  The last Theo saw of her was as a dim shadow, descending the eastern flank of the mountain toward the oncoming night.

  •••

  On the banks of the Hudson, Caleb stirred in Theo’s arms. Theo stroked the boy’s hair, and murmured in his ear until he settled again. The child was warm against him.

  Abigail watched him closely. “With the French gone, I worry life here will be a little quiet for your tastes.”

  Theo thought of all he had witnessed, the savagery of the frontier, and the lengths to which men would go to destroy their fellows.

  “Perhaps,” he said. Already he had heard men in the tavern complaining that the government in London was taxing the colonies too heavily to pay for the war they had won. As long as there were riches in the world, and women and guns, men would find things to fight over.

  At least Mgeso would be at peace. Theo had not had his dream since the battle at Fort Royal. She was avenged. Deep in the swamps, her ghost fire would have turned to smoke and blown away in the wind.

  Abigail misread his thoughts. “We do not have to stay. I had never left Bethel until I met you, but now I would follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  “And the children?”

  “They have your blood in them—and I must share at least a little of my brother Nathan’s. I am sure they will grow up to be great adventurers.”

  “They will,” Theo agreed. “You and I will see to that.”

  “So should I be packing my bags for England? Or India? Or Africa or China?”

  Theo shook his head and kissed her forehead. He drew her in close to him, so that all his family—Abigail, Caleb and the unborn child—were wrapped tight in his arms.

  He could feel a natural harmony emanate from within him, as if he’d reached the end of an arduous journey. His life had been in danger more times than he could count, and no doubt there would be further battles to test his resolve, betrayals to endure, hostilities to overcome. But now he was at home, and at peace, with his family.

  “We do not need to go anywhere. This is where I belong now.”

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Authors

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  Fort St. George, Madras, India

  Chandernagore, India

  Readers’ Club