44
FORCES OF NATURE
“I,” said Jamie, “am a fool.” He spoke broodingly, watching Fergus and Marsali, who were absorbed in close conversation by the rail on the opposite side of the ship.
“What makes you think so?” I asked, though I had a reasonably good idea. The fact that all four of the married persons aboard were living in unwilling celibacy had given rise to a certain air of suppressed amusement among the members of the crew, whose celibacy was involuntary.
“I have spent twenty years longing to have ye in my bed,” he said, verifying my assumption, “and within a month of having ye back again, I’ve arranged matters so that I canna even kiss ye without sneakin’ behind a hatch cover, and even then, half the time I look round to find Fergus looking cross-eyed down his nose at me, the little bastard! And no one to blame for it but my own foolishness. What did I think I was doing?” he demanded rhetorically, glaring at the pair across the way, who were nuzzling each other with open affection.
“Well, Marsali is only fifteen,” I said mildly. “I expect you thought you were being fatherly—or stepfatherly.”
“Aye, I did.” He looked down at me with a grudging smile. “The reward for my tender concern being that I canna even touch my own wife!”
“Oh, you can touch me,” I said. I took one of his hands, caressing the palm gently with my thumb. “You just can’t engage in acts of unbridled carnality.”
We had had a few abortive attempts along those lines, all frustrated by either the inopportune arrival of a crew member or the sheer uncongeniality of any nook aboard the Artemis sufficiently secluded as to be private. One late-night foray into the after hold had ended abruptly when a large rat had leapt from a stack of hides onto Jamie’s bare shoulder, sending me into hysterics and depriving Jamie abruptly of any desire to continue what he was doing.
He glanced down at our linked hands, where my thumb continued to make secret love to his palm, and narrowed his eyes at me, but let me continue. He closed his fingers gently round my hand, his own thumb feather-light on my pulse. The simple fact was that we couldn’t keep our hands off each other—no more than Fergus and Marsali could—despite the fact that we knew very well such behavior would lead only to greater frustration.
“Aye, well, in my own defense, I meant well,” he said ruefully, smiling down into my eyes.
“Well, you know what they say about good intentions.”
“What do they say?” His thumb was stroking gently up and down my wrist, sending small fluttering sensations through the pit of my stomach. I thought it must be true what Mr. Willoughby said, about sensations on one part of the body affecting another.
“They pave the road to Hell.” I gave his hand a squeeze, and tried to take mine away, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Mmphm.” His eyes were on Fergus, who was teasing Marsali with an albatross’s feather, holding her by one arm and tickling her beneath the chin as she struggled ineffectually to get away.
“Verra true,” he said. “I meant to make sure the lass had a chance to think what she was about before the matter was too late for mending. The end result of my interference being that I lie awake half the night trying not to think about you, and listening to Fergus lust across the cabin, and come up in the morning to find the crew all grinning in their beards whenever they see me.” He aimed a vicious glare at Maitland, who was passing by. The beardless cabin boy looked startled, and edged carefully away, glancing nervously back over his shoulder.
“How do you hear someone lust?” I asked, fascinated.
He glanced down at me, looking mildly flustered.
“Oh! Well…it’s only…”
He paused for a moment, then rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was beginning to redden in the sharp breeze.
“Have ye any idea what men in a prison do, Sassenach, having no women for a verra long time?”
“I could guess,” I said, thinking that perhaps I didn’t really want to hear, firsthand. He hadn’t spoken to me before about his time in Ardsmuir.
“I imagine ye could,” he said dryly. “And ye’d be right, too. There’s the three choices; use each other, go a bit mad, or deal with the matter by yourself, aye?”
He turned to look out to sea, and bent his head slightly to look down at me, a slight smile visible on his lips. “D’ye think me mad, Sassenach?”
“Not most of the time,” I replied honestly, turning round beside him. He laughed and shook his head ruefully.
“No, I dinna seem able to manage it. I now and then wished I could go mad”—he said thoughtfully “—it seemed a great deal easier than having always to think what to do next—but it doesna seem to come natural to me. Nor does buggery,” he added, with a wry twist of his mouth.
“No, I shouldn’t think so.” Men who might in the ordinary way recoil in horror from the thought of using another man could still bring themselves to the act, out of desperate need. Not Jamie. Knowing what I did of his experiences at the hands of Jack Randall, I suspected that he very likely would have gone mad before seeking such resort himself.
He shrugged slightly, and stood silent, looking out to sea. Then he glanced down at his hands, spread before him, clutching the rail.
“I fought them—the soldiers who took me. I’d promised Jenny I wouldn’t—she thought they’d hurt me—but when the time came, I couldna seem to help it.” He shrugged again, and slowly opened and closed his right hand. It was his crippled hand, the third finger marked by a thick scar that ran the length of the first two joints, the fourth finger’s second joint fused into stiffness, so that the finger stuck out awkwardly, even when he made a fist.
“I broke this again then, against a dragoon’s jaw,” he said ruefully, waggling the finger slightly. “That was the third time; the second was at Culloden. I didna mind it much. But they put me in chains, and I minded that a great deal.”
“I’d think you would.” It was hard—not difficult, but surprisingly painful—to think of that lithe, powerful body subdued by metal, bound and humbled.
“There’s nay privacy in prison,” he said. “I minded that more than the fetters, I think. Day and night, always in sight of someone, wi’ no guard for your thoughts but to feign sleep. As for the other…” He snorted briefly, and shoved the loose hair back behind his ear. “Well, ye wait for the light to go, for the only modesty there is, is darkness.”
The cells were not large, and the men lay close together for warmth in the night. With no modesty save darkness, and no privacy save silence, it was impossible to remain unaware of the accommodation each man made to his own needs.
“I was in irons for more than a year, Sassenach,” he said. He lifted his arms, spread them eighteen inches apart, and stopped abruptly, as though reaching some invisible limit. “I could move that far—and nay more,” he said, staring at his immobile hands. “And I couldna move my hands at all without the chain makin’ a sound.”
Torn between shame and need, he would wait in the dark, breathing in the stale and brutish scent of the surrounding men, listening to the murmurous breath of his companions, until the stealthy sounds nearby told him that the telltale clinking of his irons would be ignored.
“If there’s one thing I ken verra well, Sassenach,” he said quietly, with a brief glance at Fergus, “it’s the sound of a man makin’ love to a woman who’s not there.”
He shrugged and jerked his hands suddenly, spreading them wide on the rail, bursting his invisible chains. He looked down at me then with a half-smile, and I saw the dark memories at the back of his eyes, under the mocking humor.
I saw too the terrible need there, the desire strong enough to have endured loneliness and degradation, squalor and separation.
We stood quite still, looking at each other, oblivious of the deck traffic passing by. He knew better than any man how to hide his thoughts, but he wasn’t hiding them from me.
The hunger in him went bone-deep, and my own bones seemed to dissolve in recognition of it. His hand was an inch from mine, resting on the wooden rail, long-fingered and powerful.…If I touched him, I thought suddenly, he would turn and take me, here, on the deck boards.
As though hearing my thought, he took my hand suddenly, pressing it tight against the hard muscle of his thigh.
“How many times have we lain together, since ye came back to me?” he whispered. “Once, twice, in the brothel. Three times in the heather. And then at Lallybroch, again in Paris.” His fingers tapped lightly against my wrist, one after the other, in time with my pulse.
“Each time, I left your bed as hungry as ever I came to it. It takes no more to ready me now than the scent of your hair brushing past my face, or the feel of your thigh against mine when we sit to eat. And to see ye stand on deck, wi’ the wind pressing your gown tight to your body…”
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly as he looked at me. I could see the pulse beat strong in the hollow of his throat, his skin flushed with wind and desire.
“There are moments, Sassenach, when for one copper penny, I’d have ye on the spot, back against the mast and your skirts about your waist, and devil take the bloody crew!”
My fingers convulsed against his palm, and he tightened his grasp, nodding pleasantly in response to the greeting of the gunner, coming past on his way toward the quarter-gallery.
The bell for the Captain’s dinner sounded beneath my feet, a sweet metallic vibration that traveled up through the soles of my feet and melted the marrow of my bones. Fergus and Marsali left their play and went below, and the crew began preparations for the changing of the watch, but we stayed standing by the rail, fixed in each other’s eyes, burning.
“The Captain’s compliments, Mr. Fraser, and will you be joining him for dinner?” It was Maitland, the cabin boy, keeping a cautious distance as he relayed this message.
Jamie took a deep breath, and pulled his eyes away from mine.
“Aye, Mr. Maitland, we’ll be there directly.” He took another breath, settled his coat on his shoulders, and offered me his arm.
“Shall we go below, Sassenach?”
“Just a minute.” I drew my hand out of my pocket, having found what I was looking for. I took his hand and pressed the object into his palm.
He stared down at the image of King George III in his hand, then up at me.
“On account,” I said. “Let’s go and eat.”
* * *
The next day found us on deck again; though the air was still chilly, the cold was far preferable to the stuffiness of the cabins. We took our usual path, down one side of the ship and up the other, but then Jamie stopped, pausing to lean against the rail as he told me some anecdote about the printing business.
A few feet away, Mr. Willoughby sat cross-legged in the protection of the mainmast, a small cake of wet black ink by the toe of his slipper and a large sheet of white paper on the deck before him. The tip of his brush touched the paper lightly as a butterfly, leaving surprising strong shapes behind.
As I watched, fascinated, he began again at the top of the page. He worked rapidly, with a sureness of stroke that was like watching a dancer or a fencer, sure of his ground.
One of the deckhands passed dangerously close to the edge of the paper, almost—but not quite—placing a large dirty foot on the snowy white. A few moments later, another man did the same thing, though there was plenty of room to pass by. Then the first man came back, this time careless enough to kick over the small cake of black ink as he passed.
“Tck!” the seaman exclaimed in annoyance. He scuffed at the black splotch on the otherwise immaculate deck. “Filthy heathen! Look ’ere, wot he’s done!”
The second man, returning from his brief errand, paused in interest. “On the clean deck? Captain Raines won’t be pleased, will he?” He nodded at Mr. Willoughby, mock-jovial. “Best hurry and lick it up, little fella, before the Captain comes.”
“Aye, that’ll do; lick it up. Quick, now!” The first man moved a step nearer the seated figure, his shadow falling on the page like a blot. Mr. Willoughby’s lips tightened just a shade, but he didn’t look up. He completed the second column, righted the ink cake and dipped his brush without taking his eyes from the page, and began a third column, hand moving steadily.
“I said,” began the first seaman, loudly, but stopped in surprise as a large white handkerchief fluttered down on the deck in front of him, covering the inkblot.
“Your pardon, gentlemen,” said Jamie. “I seem to have dropped something.” With a cordial nod to the seamen, he bent down and swept up the handkerchief, leaving nothing but a faint smear on the decking. The seamen glanced at each other, uncertain, then at Jamie. One man caught sight of the blue eyes over the blandly smiling mouth, and blanched visibly. He turned hastily away, tugging at his mate’s arm.
“Norratall, sir,” he mumbled. “C’mon, Joe, we’re wanted aft.”
Jamie didn’t look either at the departing seamen or at Mr. Willoughby, but came toward me, tucking his handkerchief back in his sleeve.
“A verra pleasant day, is it not, Sassenach?” he said. He threw back his head, inhaling deeply. “Refreshing air, aye?”
“More so for some than for others, I expect,” I said, amused. The air at this particular spot on deck smelled rather strongly of the alum-tanned hides in the hold below.
“That was kind of you,” I said as he leaned back against the rail next to me. “Do you think I should offer Mr. Willoughby the use of my cabin to write?”
Jamie snorted briefly. “No. I’ve told him he can use my cabin, or the table in the mess between meals, but he’d rather be here—stubborn wee fool that he is.”
“Well, I suppose the light’s better,” I said dubiously, eyeing the small hunched figure, crouched doggedly against the mast. As I watched, a gust of wind lifted the edge of the paper; Mr. Willoughby pinned it at once, holding it still with one hand while continuing his short, sure brushstrokes with the other. “It doesn’t look comfortable, though.”
“It’s not.” Jamie ran his fingers through his hair in mild exasperation. “He does it on purpose, to provoke the crew.”
“Well, if that’s what he’s after, he’s doing a good job,” I observed. “What on earth for, though?”
Jamie leaned back against the rail beside me, and snorted once more.
“Aye, well, that’s complicated. Ever met a Chinaman before, have ye?”
“A few, but I suspect they’re a bit different in my time,” I said dryly. “They tend not to wear pigtails and silk pajamas, for one thing, nor do they have obsessions about ladies’ feet—or if they did, they didn’t tell me about it,” I added, to be fair.
Jamie laughed and moved a few inches closer, so that his hand on the rail brushed mine.
“Well, it’s to do wi’ the feet,” he said. “Or that’s the start of it, anyway. See, Josie, who’s one of the whores at Madame Jeanne’s, told Gordon about it, and of course he’s told everyone now.”
“What on earth is it about the feet?” I demanded, curiosity becoming overwhelming. “What does he do to them?”
Jamie coughed, and a faint flush rose in his cheeks. “Well, it’s a bit…”
“You couldn’t possibly tell me anything that would shock me,” I assured him. “I have seen quite a lot of things in my life, you know—and a good many of them with you, come to that.”
“I suppose ye have, at that,” he said, grinning. “Aye, well, it’s no so much what he does, but—well, in China, the highborn ladies have their feet bound.”
“I’ve heard of that,” I said, wondering what all the fuss was about. “It’s supposed to make their feet small and graceful.”
Jamie snorted again. “Graceful, aye? D’ye know how it’s done?” And proceeded to tell me.
“They take a tiny lassie—nay more than a year old, aye?—and turn under the toes of her feet until they touch her heel, then tie bandages about the foot to hold it so.”
“Ouch!” I said involuntarily.
“Yes, indeed,” he said dryly. “Her nanny will take the bandages off now and then to clean the foot, but puts them back directly. After some time, her wee toes rot and fall off. And by the time she’s grown, the poor lassie’s little more at the end of her legs than a crumple of bones and skin, smaller than the size o’ my fist.” His closed fist knocked softly against the wood of the rail in illustration. “But she’s considered verra beautiful, then,” he ended. “Graceful, as ye say.”
“That’s perfectly disgusting!” I said. “But what has that got to do with—” I glanced at Mr. Willoughby, but he gave no sign of hearing us; the wind was blowing from him toward us, carrying our words out to sea.
“Say this was a lassie’s foot, Sassenach,” he said, stretching his right hand out flat before him. “Curl the toes under to touch the heel, and what have ye in the middle?” He curled his fingers loosely into a fist in illustration.
“What?” I said, bewildered. Jamie extended the middle finger of his left hand, and thrust it abruptly through the center of his fist in an unmistakably graphic gesture.
“A hole,” he said succinctly.
“You’re kidding! That’s why they do it?”
His forehead furrowed slightly, then relaxed. “Oh, am I jesting? By no means, Sassenach. He says”—he nodded delicately at Mr. Willoughby—“that it’s a most remarkable sensation. To a man.”
“Why, that perverted little beast!”
Jamie laughed at my indignation.
“Aye, well, that’s about what the crew thinks, too. Of course, he canna get quite the same effect wi’ a European woman, but I gather he…tries, now and then.”
I began to understand the general feeling of hostility toward the little Chinese. Even a short acquaintance with the crew of the Artemis had taught me that seamen on the whole tended to be gallant creatures, with a strong romantic streak where women were concerned—no doubt because they did without female company for a good part of the year.
“Hm,” I said, with a glance of suspicion at Mr. Willoughby. “Well, that explains them, all right, but what about him?”
“That’s what’s a wee bit complicated.” Jamie’s mouth curled upward in a wry smile. “See, to Mr. Yi Tien Cho, late of the Heavenly Kingdom of China, we’re the barbarians.”
“Is that so?” I glanced up at Brodie Cooper, coming down the ratlines above, the filthy, calloused soles of his feet all that was visible from below. I rather thought both sides had a point. “Even you?”
“Oh, aye. I’m a filthy, bad-smelling gwao-fe—that means a foreign devil, ye ken—wi’ the stink of a weasel—I think that’s what huang-shu-lang means—and a face like a gargoyle,” he finished cheerfully.
“He told you all that?” It seemed an odd recompense for saving someone’s life. Jamie glanced down at me, cocking one eyebrow.
“Have ye noticed, maybe, that verra small men will say anything to ye, when they’ve drink taken?” he asked. “I think brandy makes them forget their size; they think they’re great hairy brutes, and swagger something fierce.”
He nodded at Mr. Willoughby, industriously painting. “He’s a bit more circumspect when he’s sober, but it doesna change what he thinks. It fair galls him, aye? Especially knowing that if it wasna for me, someone would likely knock him on the head or put him through the window into the sea some quiet night.”
He spoke with simple matter-of-factness, but I hadn’t missed the sideways looks directed at us by the passing seamen, and had already realized just why Jamie was passing time in idle conversation by the rail with me. If anyone had been in doubt about Mr. Willoughby’s being under Jamie’s protection, they would be rapidly disabused of the notion.
“So you saved his life, gave him work, and keep him out of trouble, and he insults you and thinks you’re an ignorant barbarian,” I said dryly. “Sweet little fellow.”
“Aye, well.” The wind had shifted slightly, blowing a lock of Jamie’s hair free across his face. He thumbed it back behind his ear and leaned farther toward me, our shoulders nearly touching. “Let him say what he likes; I’m the only one who understands him.”
“Really?” I laid a hand over Jamie’s where it rested on the rail.
“Well, maybe not to say understand him,” he admitted. He looked down at the deck between his feet. “But I do remember,” he said softly, “what it’s like to have nothing but your pride—and a friend.”
I remembered what Innes had said, and wondered whether it was the one-armed man who had been his friend in time of need. I knew what he meant; I had had Joe Abernathy, and knew what a difference it made.
“Yes, I had a friend at the hospital…” I began, but was interrupted by loud exclamations of disgust emanating from under my feet.
“Damn! Blazing Hades! That filth-eating son of a pig-fart!”
I looked down, startled, then realized, from the muffled Irish oaths proceeding from below, that we were standing directly over the galley. The shouting was loud enough to attract attention from the hands forward, and a small group of sailors gathered with us, watching in fascination as the cook’s black-kerchiefed head poked out of the hatchway, glaring ferociously at the crowd.
“Burry-arsed swabs!” he shouted. “What’re ye lookin’ at? Two of yer idle barsteds tumble arse down here and toss this muck over the side! D’ye mean me to be climbin’ ladders all day, and me with half a leg?” The head disappeared abruptly, and with a good-natured shrug, Picard motioned to one of the younger sailors to come along below.
Shortly there was a confusion of voices and a bumping of some large object down below, and a terrible smell assaulted my nostrils.
“Jesus Christ on a piece of toast!” I snatched a handkerchief from my pocket and clapped it to my nose; this wasn’t the first smell I had encountered afloat, and I usually kept a linen square soaked in wintergreen in my pocket, as a precaution. “What’s that?”
“By the smell of it, dead horse. A verra old horse, at that, and a long time dead.” Jamie’s long, thin nose looked a trifle pinched around the nostrils, and all around, sailors were gagging, holding their noses, and generally commenting unfavorably on the smell.
Maitland and Grosman, faces averted from their burden, but slightly green nonetheless, manhandled a large cask through the hatchway and onto the deck. The top had been split, and I caught a brief glimpse of a yellowish-white mass in the opening, glistening faintly in the sun. It seemed to be moving. Maggots, in profusion.
“Eew!” The exclamation was jerked from me involuntarily. The two sailors said nothing, their lips being pressed tightly together, but both of them looked as though they agreed with me. Together, they manhandled the cask to the rail and heaved it up and over.
Such of the crew as were not otherwise employed gathered at the rail to watch the cask bobbing in the wake, and be entertained by Murphy’s outspokenly blasphemous opinion of the ship’s chandler who had sold it to him. Manzetti, a small Italian seaman with a thick russet pigtail, was standing by the rail, loading a musket.
“Shark,” he explained with a gleam of teeth beneath his mustache, seeing me watching him. “Very good to eat.”
“Ar,” said Sturgis approvingly.
Such of the crew as were not presently occupied gathered at the stern, watching. There were sharks, I knew; Maitland had pointed out to me two dark, flexible shapes hovering in the shadow of the hull the evening before, keeping pace with the ship with no apparent effort save a small and steady oscillation of sickled tails.
“There!” A shout went up from several throats as the cask jerked suddenly in the water. A pause, and Manzetti fixed his aim carefully in the vicinity of the floating cask. Another jerk, as though something had bumped it violently, and another.
The water was a muddy gray, but clear enough for me to catch a glimpse of something moving under the surface, fast. Another jerk, the cask heeled to one side, and suddenly the sharp edge of a fin creased the surface of the water, and a gray back showed briefly, tiny waves purling off it.
The musket discharged next to me with a small roar and a cloud of black-powder smoke that left my eyes stinging. There was a universal shout from the observers, and when the watering of my eyes subsided, I could see a small brownish stain spreading round the cask.
“Did he hit the shark, or the horsemeat?” I asked Jamie, in a low-voiced aside.
“The cask,” he said with a smile. “Still, it’s fine shooting.”
Several more shots went wild, while the cask began to dance an agitated jig, the frenzied sharks striking it repeatedly. Bits of white and brown flew from the broken cask, and a large circle of grease, rotten blood, and debris spread round the shark’s feast. As though by magic, seabirds began to appear, one and two at a time, diving for tidbits.
“No good,” said Manzetti at last, lowering the musket and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Too far.” He was sweating and stained from neck to hairline with black powder; the wiping left a streak of white across his eyes, like a raccoon’s mask.
“I could relish a slab of shark,” said the Captain’s voice near my ear. I turned to see him peering thoughtfully over the rail at the scene of carnage. “Perhaps we might lower a boat, Mr. Picard.”
The bosun turned with an obliging roar, and the Artemis hauled her wind, coming round in a small circle to draw near the remains of the floating cask. A small boat was launched, containing Manzetti, with musket, and three seamen armed with gaffs and rope.
By the time they reached the spot, there was nothing left of the cask but a few shattered bits of wood. There was still plenty of activity, though; the water roiled with the sharks’ thrashing beneath the surface, and the scene was nearly obscured by a raucous cloud of seabirds. As I watched, I saw a pointed snout rise suddenly from the water, mouth open, seize one of the birds and disappear beneath the waves, all in the flick of an eyelash.
“Did you see that?” I said, awed. I was aware, in a general way, that sharks were well-equipped with teeth, but this practical demonstration was more striking than any number of National Geographic photographs.
“Why, Grandmother dear, what big teeth ye have!” said Jamie, sounding suitably impressed.
“Oh, they do indeed,” said a genial voice nearby. I glanced aside to find Murphy grinning at my elbow, broad face shining with a savage glee. “Little good it will do the buggers, with a ball blown clean through their f*cking brains!” He pounded a hamlike fist on the rail, and shouted, “Get me one of them jagged buggers, Manzetti! There’s a bottle o’ cookin’ brandy waitin’ if ye do!”
“Is it a personal matter to ye, Mr. Murphy?” Jamie asked politely. “Or professional concern?”
“Both, Mr. Fraser, both,” the cook replied, watching the hunt with a fierce attention. He kicked his wooden leg against the side, with a hollow clunk. “They’ve had a taste o’ me,” he said with grim relish, “but I’ve tasted a good many more o’ them!”
The boat was barely visible through the flapping screen of birds, and their screams made it hard to hear anything other than Murphy’s war cries.
“Shark steak with mustard!” Murphy was bellowing, eyes mere slits in an ecstasy of revenge. “Stewed liver wi’ piccalilli! I’ll make soup o’ yer fins, and jelly yer eyeballs in sherry wine, ye wicked barsted!”
I saw Manzetti, kneeling in the bows, take aim with his musket, and the puff of black smoke as he fired. And then I saw Mr. Willoughby.
I hadn’t seen him jump from the rail; no one had, with all eyes fixed on the hunt. But there he was, some distance away from the melee surrounding the boat, his shaven head glistening like a fishing float as he wrestled in the water with an enormous bird, its wings churning the water like an eggbeater.
Alerted by my cry, Jamie tore his eyes from the hunt, goggled for an instant, and before I could move or speak, was perched on the rail himself.
My shout of horror coincided with a surprised roar from Murphy, but Jamie was gone, too, lancing into the water near the Chinaman with barely a splash.
There were shouts and cries from the deck—and a shrill screech from Marsali—as everyone realized what had happened. Jamie’s wet red head emerged next to Mr. Willoughby, and in seconds, he had an arm tight about the Chinaman’s throat. Mr. Willoughby clung tightly to the bird, and I wasn’t sure, just for the moment, whether Jamie intended rescue or throttling, but then he kicked strongly, and began to tow the struggling mass of bird and man back toward the ship.
Triumphant shouts from the boat, and a spreading circle of deep red in the water. There was a tremendous thrashing as one shark was gaffed and hauled behind the small boat by a rope about its tail. Then everything was confusion, as the men in the boat noticed what else was going on in the water nearby.
Lines were thrown over one side and then the other, and crewmen rushed back and forth in high excitement, undecided whether to help with rescue or shark, but at last Jamie and his burdens were hauled in to starboard, and dumped dripping on the deck, while the captured shark—several large bites taken out of its body by its hungry companions—was drawn in, still feebly snapping, to port.
“Je…sus…Christ,” Jamie said, chest heaving. He lay flat on the deck, gasping like a landed fish.
“Are you all right?” I knelt beside him, and wiped the water off his face with the hem of my skirt. He gave me a lopsided smile and nodded, still gasping.
“Jesus,” he said at last, sitting up. He shook his head and sneezed. “I thought I was eaten, sure. Those fools in the boat started toward us, and there were sharks all round them, under the water, bitin’ at the gaffed one.” He tenderly massaged his calves. “It’s nay doubt oversensitive of me, Sassenach, but I’ve always dreaded the thought of losing a leg. It seems almost worse than bein’ killed outright.”
“I’d as soon you didn’t do either,” I said dryly. He was beginning to shiver; I pulled off my shawl and wrapped it around his shoulders, then looked about for Mr. Willoughby.
The little Chinese, still clinging stubbornly to his prize, a young pelican nearly as big as he was, ignored both Jamie and the considerable abuse flung in his direction. He squelched below, dripping, protected from physical castigation by the clacking bill of his captive, which discouraged anyone from getting too close to him.
A nasty chunking sound and a crow of triumph from the other side of the deck announced Murphy’s use of an ax to dispatch his erstwhile nemesis. The seamen clustered round the corpse, knives drawn, to get pieces of the skin. Further enthusiastic chopping, and Murphy came strolling past, beaming, a choice section of tail under his arm, the huge yellow liver hanging from one hand in a bag of netting, and the bloody ax slung over his shoulder.
“Not drowned, are ye?” he said, ruffling Jamie’s damp hair with his spare hand. “I can’t see why ye’d bother wi’ the little bugger, myself, but I’ll say ’twas bravely done. I’ll brew ye up a fine broth from the tail, to keep off the chill,” he promised, and stumped off, planning menus aloud.
“Why did he do it?” I asked. “Mr. Willoughby, I mean.”
Jamie shook his head and blew his nose on his shirttail.
“Damned if I know. He wanted the bird, I expect, but I couldna say why. To eat, maybe?”
Murphy overheard this and swung round at the head of the galley ladder, frowning.
“Ye can’t eat pelicans,” he said, shaking his head in disapproval. “Fishy-tasting, no matter how ye cook ’em. And God knows what one’s doing out here anyway; they’re shorebirds, pelicans. Blown out by a storm I suppose. Awkward buggers.” His bald head disappeared into his realm, murmuring happily of dried parsley and cayenne.
Jamie laughed and stood up.
“Aye, well, perhaps it’s only he wants the feathers to make quills of. Come along below, Sassenach. Ye can help me dry my back.”
He had spoken jokingly, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, his face went blank. He glanced quickly to port, where the crew was arguing and jostling over the remains of the shark, while Fergus and Marsali cautiously examined the severed head, lying gape-jawed on the deck. Then his eyes met mine, with a perfect understanding.
Thirty seconds later, we were below in his cabin. Cold drops from his wet hair rained over my shoulders and slid down my bosom, but his mouth was hot and urgent. The hard curves of his back glowed warm through the soaked fabric of the shirt that stuck to them.
“Ifrinn!” he said breathlessly, breaking loose long enough to yank at his breeches. “Christ, they’re stuck to me! I canna get them off!”
Snorting with laughter, he jerked at the laces, but the water had soaked them into a hopeless knot.
“A knife!” I said. “Where’s a knife?” Snorting myself at the sight of him, struggling frantically to get his drenched shirttail out of his breeches, I began to rummage through the drawers of the desk, tossing out bits of paper, bottle of ink, a snuffbox—everything but a knife. The closest thing was an ivory letter opener, made in the shape of a hand with a pointing finger.
I seized upon this and grasped him by the waistband, trying to saw at the tangled laces.
He yelped in alarm and backed away.
“Christ, be careful wi’ that, Sassenach! It’s no going to do ye any good to get my breeks off, and ye geld me in the process!”
Half-crazed with lust as we were, that seemed funny enough to double us both up laughing.
“Here!” Rummaging in the chaos of his berth, he snatched up his dirk and brandished it triumphantly. An instant later, the laces were severed and the sopping breeks lay puddled on the floor.
He seized me, picked me up bodily, and laid me on the desk, heedless of crumpled papers and scattered quills. Tossing my skirts up past my waist, he grabbed my hips and half-lay on me, his hard thighs forcing my legs apart.
It was like grasping a salamander; a blaze of heat in a chilly shroud. I gasped as the tail of his sopping shirt touched my bare belly, then gasped again as I heard footsteps in the passage.
“Stop!” I hissed in his ear. “Someone’s coming!”
“Too late,” he said, with breathless certainty. “I must have ye, or die.”
He took me, with one quick, ruthless thrust, and I bit his shoulder hard, tasting salt and wet linen, but he made no sound. Two strokes, three, and I had my legs locked tight around his buttocks, my cry muffled in his shirt, not caring either who else might be coming.
He had me, quickly and thoroughly, and thrust himself home, and home, and home again, with a deep sound of triumph in his throat, shuddering and shaking in my arms.
Two minutes later, the cabin door swung open. Innes looked slowly round the wreckage of the room. His soft brown gaze traveled from the ravaged desk to me, sitting damp and disheveled, but respectably clothed, upon the berth, and rested at last on Jamie, who sat collapsed on a stool, still clad in his wet shirt, chest heaving and the deep red color fading slowly from his face.
Innes’s nostrils flared delicately, but he said nothing. He walked into the cabin, nodding at me, and bent to reach under Fergus’s berth, whence he pulled out a bottle of brandywine.
“For the Chinee,” he said to me. “So as he mightn’t take a chill.” He turned toward the door and paused, squinting thoughtfully at Jamie.
“Ye might should have Mr. Murphy make ye some broth on that same account, Mac Dubh. They do say as ’tis dangerous to get chilled after hard work, aye? Ye dinna want to take the ague.” There was a faint twinkle in the mournful brown depths.
Jamie brushed back the salty tangle of his hair, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“Aye, well, and if it should come to that, Innes, at least I shall die a happy man.”
* * *
We found out the next day what Mr. Willoughby wanted the pelican for. I found him on the afterdeck, the bird perched on a sail-chest beside him, its wings bound tight to its body by means of strips of cloth. It glared at me with round yellow eyes, and clacked its bill in warning.
Mr. Willoughby was pulling in a line, on the end of which was a small, wriggling purple squid. Detaching this, he held it up in front of the pelican and said something in Chinese. The bird regarded him with deep suspicion, but didn’t move. Quickly, he seized the upper bill in his hand, pulled it up, and tossed the squid into the bird’s pouch. The pelican, looking surprised, gulped convulsively and swallowed it.
“Hao-liao,” Mr. Willoughby said approvingly, stroking the bird’s head. He saw me watching, and beckoned me to come closer. Keeping a cautious eye on the wicked bill, I did so.
“Ping An,” he said, indicating the pelican. “Peaceful one.” The bird erected a small crest of white feathers, for all the world as though it were pricking up its ears at its name, and I laughed.
“Really? What are you going to do with him?”
“I teach him hunt for me,” the little Chinese said matter-of-factly. “You watch.”
I did. After several more squid and a couple of small fish had been caught and fed to the pelican, Mr. Willoughby removed another strip of soft cloth from the recesses of his costume, and wrapped this snugly round the bird’s neck.
“Not want choke,” he explained. “Not swallow fish.” He then tied a length of light line tightly to this collar, motioned to me to stand back, and with a swift jerk, released the bindings that held the bird’s wings.
Surprised at the sudden freedom, the pelican waddled back and forth on the locker, flapped its huge bony wings once or twice, and then shot into the sky in an explosion of feathers.
A pelican on the ground is a comical thing, all awkward angles, splayed feet, and gawky bill. A soaring pelican, circling over water, is a thing of wonder, graceful and primitive, startling as a pterodactyl among the sleeker forms of gulls and petrels.
Ping An, the peaceful one, soared to the limit of his line, struggled to go higher, then, as though resigned, began to circle. Mr. Willoughby, eyes squinted nearly shut against the sun, spun slowly round and round on the deck below, playing the pelican like a kite. All the hands in the rigging and on deck nearby stopped what they were doing to watch in fascination.
Sudden as a bolt from a crossbow, the pelican folded its wings and dived, cleaving the water with scarcely a splash. As it popped to the surface, looking mildly surprised, Mr. Willoughby began to tow it in. Aboard once more, the pelican was persuaded with some difficulty to give up its catch, but at last suffered its captor to reach cautiously into the leathery subgular pouch and extract a fine, fat sea bream.
Mr. Willoughby smiled pleasantly at a gawking Picard, took out a small knife, and slit the still-living fish down the back. Pinioning the bird in one wiry arm, he loosened the collar with his other hand, and offered it a flapping piece of bream, which Ping An eagerly snatched from his fingers and gulped.
“His,” Mr. Willoughby explained, wiping blood and scales carelessly on the leg of his trousers. “Mine,” nodding toward the half-fish still sitting on the locker, now motionless.
Within a week, the pelican was entirely tame, able to fly free, collared, but without the tethering line, returning to his master to regurgitate a pouchful of shining fish at his feet. When not fishing, Ping An either took up a position on the crosstrees, much to the displeasure of the crewmen responsible for swabbing the deck beneath, or followed Mr. Willoughby around the deck, waddling absurdly from side to side, eight-foot wings half-spread for balance.
The crew, both impressed by the fishing and wary of Ping An’s great snapping bill, steered clear of Mr. Willoughby, who made his words each day beside the mast, weather permitting, secure under the benign yellow eye of his new friend.
I paused one day to watch Mr. Willoughby at his work, staying out of sight behind the shelter of the mast. He sat for a moment, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face, contemplating the finished page. I couldn’t read the characters, of course, but the shape of the whole thing was somehow very pleasing to look at.
Then he glanced quickly around, as though checking to see that no one was coming, picked up the brush, and with great care, added a final character, in the upper left corner of the page. Without asking, I knew it was his signature.
He sighed then, and lifted his face to look out over the rail. Not inscrutable, by any means, his expression was filled with a dreaming delight, and I knew that whatever he saw, it was neither the ship, nor the heaving ocean beyond.
At last, he sighed again and shook his head, as though to himself. He laid hands on the paper, and quickly, gently, folded it, once, and twice, and again. Then rising to his feet, he went to the rail, extended his hands over the water, and let the folded white shape fall.
It tumbled toward the water. Then the wind caught it and whirled it upward, a bit of white receding in the distance, looking much like the gulls and terns who squawked behind the ship in search of scraps.
Mr. Willoughby didn’t stay to watch it, but turned away from the rail and went below, the dream still stamped on his small, round face.