Chapter 19:
TIME APART
Great Saltee. One month later
Queen Isabella had taken to walking the Wall every morning at sunrise. She believed that it gave her subjects heart to see her there. Before too many sunrises, she could call to everyone she saw by name.
Conor often joined his queen on her morning strolls, and on the morning before his planned departure to study for a science degree at Glasgow University, they met below what had been Bonvilain’s tower.
Isabella stood with her elbows on the parapet, watching a cluster of fishing boats half a mile offshore, the small crafts bobbing in the choppy channel currents.
‘They will never find him, you know,’ said Conor. ‘Bonvilain’s mail vest has taken him straight to the bottom. He is food for the crabs now.’
Isabella nodded. ‘Without a body, he becomes the bogeyman. They say he has been seen in Paris, and Dublin. I read in the London Times that Bonvilain survives as a killer for hire in Whitechapel.’
They were both silent for a minute, convincing themselves that they had actually seen Hugo Bonvilain die.
‘What will you do with this place?’ Conor asked finally, slapping the tower wall.
‘A diamond market, I think,’ replied Isabella. ‘It seems ludicrous that the diamonds are here, and yet we trade in London.’
‘You’re making big changes.’
‘There are many things to be changed. Little Saltee, for one. Did you know that only fourteen of the prisoners are from the Saltee Islands? The majority of the other poor souls are from Ireland or Great Britain. Well, no more. I will shut the prison down and contract the mining to a professional firm.’
Conor glanced at the S branded into his hand.
Little Saltee will always be with me. It has marked my body and mind.
‘What will happen to the prisoners?’ he asked.
‘Every case will be reviewed by a judge. I suspect most have served their sentences and more besides. Reparations will have to be made.’
‘I would be grateful if you could look kindly on a certain Otto Malarkey. He is not as fearsome as he seems.’
‘Of course, Sir Conor.’
‘You will make a fine queen.’
‘My father was the scientist; I am a businesswoman. You can be my royal scientist… on your return.’
‘Mother told you?’
Isabella took his arm, and they promenaded along the Wall. ‘Catherine told me about Glasgow. I am supposed to talk you out of it.’
‘And how would you do that?’
‘I could always have you hanged.’
Conor smiled. ‘Like the old days. Sometimes I wish the old days were here still.’
Isabella stopped at one of her favourite spots on the Wall. A dip facing the mainland where centuries ago masons had built a lovers’ seat. From this vantage point, at various times during the morning, it was possible to view morning sun illuminating the church tower’s stained-glass window. As the sun moved, it seemed as though the Saint Christopher figure in the window moved a little too.
Isabella sat on the stone seat, pulling Conor down beside her.
‘I miss the old days too. But it’s not too late for us is it, Conor?’
‘I hope that it is not,’ replied Conor.
‘Then I shall wait,’ said Isabella. And her playful side surfaced. ‘Shall you fly home to see me, Sir Airman?’
‘I am merely a sir. Is that not too common for a queen?’
‘That is easily fixed. With one prick of my hat pin, you can become a prince.’
‘Hat pin? Is that legal?’
‘It doesn’t have to be a hat pin, so long as there is blood and you are in great pain.’
Conor took her hand in his. ‘I think now that I shall be in great pain until I return.’
‘Then study hard, earn your paper, and come home quickly. Your queen needs you. I need you.’
And they kissed for the first time, with the stained-glass sun painting rainbows on their faces and the hubbub of morning trade rising from the square below.
All the goodbyes had been said. He had kissed his mother and dangled his little brother upside down. All that was left was to leave.
Conor strolled down to the port on a sunny morning, keeping one eye on the barrow boy bobbing down the hill with his luggage. The sea was calm and a small passenger steamship chugged on its ropes in the outside dock.
A small crowd had gathered on the deck and Conor smiled when he saw the attraction. Linus Wynter was treating the passengers to an impromptu rendition of an aria from The Soldier’s Return.
He stopped singing when he heard Conor’s footsteps on the planks.
‘It’s about time you showed up, boy. I had to sing just to stop the captain casting off.’
‘Any excuse, Linus,’ said Conor, flipping the barrow boy a shilling. ‘You have secured the laboratory?’
‘Our tower is in good hands. Uncle has moved in with a couple of his dullards as he calls them.’
‘How does Uncle smell?’
‘Not so good. All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.’
Conor leaped across a yard of sea on to the steamship.
‘Do you think Scotland is ready for your genius?’
Linus smiled broadly, adjusting his tinted eyeglasses, which Conor had fashioned for him. ‘The Scots are famous for their appreciation of music. Robert Burns was a poet of the people, like myself. Glasgow will take me to its bosom, I feel sure of it. In six months we will be the toast of the city.’
‘You can see into the future now, old friend?’
Linus searched the air until his hand found Conor’s shoulder. ‘Other men look up and down, left and right,’ he said. ‘But men like us are different. We are visionaries.’