Deadweather and Sunrise (6 page)

His eyes widened, and he had trouble keeping his words untangled. “Nah—course, it’s—weren’t—didn’t intend…”

Pembroke broke into a wide smile, sweeping away the tension with a pleasant wave of his hand.

“Not at all! It’s an understandable mistake. After all, it’s not exactly a plum appointment up there. But these Natives are quite grateful for the opportunity. And you’ve got to hand it to them, they’ve got some pluck, leaving the primitive comforts of their tribe to come here in search of a more civilized life. We do our best to give them that, along with honest pay for honest work… But it’s a very sage point you make about the ugly fruit.” Pembroke nodded solemnly. “I’ll see to it that it’s raised with the proper authority.”

“Be much obliged,” said Dad, practically sighing with relief.

“Not at all. My pleasure!”

There was a moment of silence that was just starting to feel awkward when Pembroke leaned in toward Dad with a twinkle in his eye and a little thrill in his voice.

“Know what I’d like to get your take on as a businessman? This tourism initiative. Think we’re on to something?”

Dad sat back, tapping his front teeth with a fingernail and trying to look thoughtful, even though I was pretty sure he had no idea what tourism was. “S’pose I’d need a bit more information.”

“Here’s the general idea: for years, every Rovian silver trader who’s dropped anchor here has gone batty for the place. Which I completely understand—I mean, Rovia, it’s the Motherland,
much to be admired and all that—but do you realize what the climate’s like back there? Abysmal! Cold, wet, the sun never shines—there’s something to be said for the argument that we wouldn’t have overseas colonies in the first place if men of ambition hadn’t been desperate for some half-decent weather.

“And Sunrise, well, it’s… paradise. So a few of us got to thinking—maybe the island’s an asset in itself. Can’t exactly bottle it and sell it… but what if… given the average Rovian merchant’s got more money than places to spend it… I mean, how many half shares in Wartshire cattle farms can a man buy, really…? So what if… we could sell the experience of being here? Not permanently, ’cause that’d cause no end of problems. But temporarily?”

Pembroke paused. My father slowly nodded, doing a decent job of looking thoughtful.

“So we pooled our resources, commissioned the
Earthly Pleasure
—which we built from the timbers up as sort of a floating estate, pleasant to live in as a Pinceford castle—and sold tickets for a four-month journey here and back. Advertised it as a ‘Grand Tour of Sunrise.’ Which is how we took to calling it ‘tourism.’”

I glanced at Percy. His cheek bulged with the wiggling outline of his tongue as it searched his mouth for unchewed bits of jelly bread. If he’d been paying enough attention to know he’d just been proven ignorant, he didn’t show it.

“And they went for it?” asked Dad.

“Like lemmings! Booked to capacity, four hundred passengers. And among them, some VERY influential names. I daresay this will raise our stature at court. Which, frankly, is more than a little overdue—for all the silver this island’s put in the royal coffers, one
might expect King Frederick to show a bit more appreciation of us… Still, I think that’ll be put right once the ship returns, especially since this bunch are so over the moon—apart from some minor gripes about sunburn. A few of them even swear they’ll be back next season! And we’ve practically sold out a second voyage already.”

“How much ye chargin’ a head?”

“Six thousand.”

Dad was aghast. “Madness!”

“Exactly. So what do you think? Have we got a winner?”

Dad was quiet for a moment, puzzling something out. “Just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“What ’appens when the pirates get wind? Boatload o’ rich Rovians is a fat prize.”

Pembroke smiled. “Let’s just say we’ve taken an excess of precaution in that department.”

Dad shrugged. “Hats off, then. Sounds like a winner.”

“You think so? So glad to hear it! Means a great deal to me to get the approval of a such a keen business mind as your own.”

Dad pressed his lips together, making an odd kind of grimace. It took me a second to realize he was trying not to smile.

Pembroke started to reach for the plate of jelly bread, only to find it stripped bare. I was about to blurt out that I hadn’t eaten any myself when he gave our end of the table a faintly amused look and turned back to Dad.

“Of course, to really make it pay, we need to get whole families on board—that way, instead of one ticket per customer, we sell
five or six. Speaking as a family man—if you lived in Rovia, would you take your own children on such a voyage?”

Dad looked down the table, like he was surprised we were still there. Venus sat up straight, wiping jelly from her lip and trying to look sweet. Adonis smirked in his usual pleased-with-himself way.

“Some of ’em,” Dad said.

Pembroke took the comment as a joke. “There’s another thing I admire you for. Must be a real challenge, being a single father.”

Dad nodded. “Yeh. Hard goin’. Wife’s gone thirteen years to the day.”

I looked down at my hands. Pembroke’s voice went soft.

“I’m so sorry. How did she—?”

A knock at the door interrupted the question. Archibald the lawyer entered.

“Arch! Pleasant surprise. Have you met Hoke Masterson?”

Archibald nodded. “He’s a client. Actually.” He turned to Dad. “Sorry to interrupt…”

“Yeh, yeh.” Dad lumbered to his feet. He and Archibald disappeared into the hallway. A moment later, Dad came back alone.

“You use Archibald? Excellent choice. I do a bit of business with him myself.”

“Yeh. He’s not bad.” Dad turned to us. “Well, children, looks like we’ll be here till mornin’.”

After we all chirped with excitement, Pembroke asked, “Do you have accommodation on the island?”

“Reckoned we’d board at the Peacock.”

Pembroke looked almost offended. “Why, I wouldn’t hear of such a thing! You absolutely MUST stay the night in my home.”

DAD TRIED A FEW mild protests, all of which Pembroke waved off. Then he murmured some instructions to the waiter, and by the time we stepped out onto the Peacock’s crowded front porch, a large coach stood waiting for us, with four of the whitest horses I’d ever seen harnessed to it.

The uniformed driver opened the coach door, and Pembroke beckoned for us to climb in. As we walked over to it, I felt the bystanders staring at us, and for a second, I had the odd feeling of being in a fairy tale, like some poor scut-work orphan girl who’d been plucked from the crowd and turned into a princess. The feeling went away in a hurry when I put my foot on the coach step and remembered that Adonis had climbed in before me. I jerked my head down and to the side as I entered, but I didn’t have to worry—he was too busy gawking at the velvet inner walls to bother slugging me.

Pembroke sat in the coach with us, quietly enjoying the sight of us gaping at everything like awestruck monkeys. The ride was so smooth it was almost eerie—we glided down Heavenly Road with hardly a bump, and when we reached the bottom and turned up the unpaved shore road, I could barely feel the difference in grade.

After we passed the beach, the road quickly turned steep as it followed the rising cliff toward South Point. In maybe twenty trips to Sunrise, we’d only come this far once, on a balmy Savior’s Day when Dad took us on a two-mile hike to see the view from the point. Two-thirds of the way there, we’d passed a wide road snaking up into the wooded hills, fronted by a gate, a sentry box,
and a pair of garrison soldiers who stood frozen in place, staring straight ahead as we passed. Back then, I’d had fun fantasizing about the secrets they were protecting behind that gate—the top three being a castle of gold, a prison for magic elves with a taste for violent crime, and the world’s largest jelly bread loaf—and I could feel my blood stir up when we turned off the main road and the sentries opened the gate to admit us.

The road turned even steeper, the woods on either side thick with trees. Occasionally, a road branched off, and as we passed one of them, I caught a glimpse of what looked like the corner of a building a quarter mile distant at the top of a hill.

A mile farther, we turned up a side road into a thick woods. The road wound sharply before the woods suddenly gave way to a massive, perfectly groomed lawn. It sloped upward for several hundred yards before it flattened onto a hilltop crowned by a gleaming yellow mansion that, had it been a little smaller, could’ve passed for the golden castle in my fantasy.

When we reached the drive in front of the massive columned doors, a woman appeared. She was tall, blond, and clad in a blue dress so elegant that at first I figured she must be headed to a ball, or maybe a wedding. She came out to greet us, trailed by a handful of servants.

“Welcome back, darling!” She kissed Pembroke on the lips before turning to us with a big smile. “And you must be the Mastersons!”

“Indeed they are.” Pembroke led her by the arm to my father, and she held out a slender hand to him. “Hoke Masterson, my wife, Edith.”

“Pleased to meet ye.” Dad took her hand but didn’t know what to do with it. He started to lift it up like he was going to kiss the back of it, but then must have lost faith in the idea, because he quickly dropped it with a pained look.

“The pleasure is mine! And these are…?”

“Oh. Yeh. This is Adonis. Me oldest.” I think Adonis probably tried to smile, but he only managed to smirk.

“Venus, me daughter.” Venus gave a flouncing sort of curtsy.

“Percy, the children’s tutor.” Percy bowed as far as his belly would let him.

“And, aah, that’s Egbert.” Dad muttered, his voice trailing off. I did my best to bow, although I’m not sure it looked like a bow so much as a chicken pecking at feed.

None of us had much practice with manners. But Edith Pembroke smiled at us like we were the royal family. “We’re so thrilled to have you! I do apologize, but the messenger Roger sent to tell us of your visit only just arrived, so your rooms aren’t quite ready. Perhaps in the meantime we could enjoy a drink on the veranda? Our daughter Millicent’s just finishing her lessons. She might like to show the children around.”

She turned to the house and called out, “Millicent!” in an almost musical tone.

Nobody answered. Mrs. Pembroke called out again. “Milli-cent?!” It was still musical, but this time there was an edge of threat to it.

“Coming, Mother…,” came a voice from inside, every bit as musical, but in a way that seemed to be making fun of Mrs. Pembroke.

Then she stepped into the sunlight, and I went weak all over.

Millicent Pembroke had a thick mane of honey-gold hair and long, sleek limbs that swung, careless but smooth, as she walked toward us. There was something dangerous about the way she moved—it reminded me of certain pirates back on Deadweather, the ones who called the shots, who had a wicked smile that said it was all great fun for them and might be for you too, so long as you didn’t cross them, and if you did, what happened next would be quick and brutal.

The rest of her didn’t remind me of a pirate at all. Other than Venus, I’d practically never seen a girl near my own age, and the few I had laid eyes on—in or around the shops on Heavenly Road—looked prim, and curt, and no fun at all. Millicent was dressed like them, in a blue-and-white checked dress, but somehow it hung differently on her, like her wearing it had turned the dress into something not at all prim, and a little wild.

Seeing us, she cocked her head with an amused smile. “Oh, hel-lo. I’m Millicent. Do you play croquet?”

My brain had suddenly gone thick and slow, and I was still sorting out the words of her question when Adonis blurted out, “Yeh! Definitely.”

“All the time,” chirped Venus.

“I’m mad for it. Let’s have a go!” She turned and loped across the lawn toward the side of the house. My brother and sister ran after her, and I followed like I was in a trance.

MILLICENT LED US to the backyard, where a croquet game was set up—or what I guessed was one. I’d never so much as seen a
croquet ball, let alone wickets and mallets and posts, and I’d only heard of the game from a book I’d read,
Quimby Goes to College
.

I was sure Venus and Adonis were even more ignorant than I was. But they both pretended to know exactly what they were doing, copying Millicent as she picked up a mallet and ball from a rack.

“Girls against boys. No swearing when you lose. That’s the wrong mallet.”

“Nah, it ain’t.” Adonis stuck his chest out like he was running the game.

“Yes, it is. That or the ball—they’ve got to match. Look, here—” She snatched Adonis’s ball from his hands and replaced it with another before he could complain. Then she handed mallets and color-matched balls to Venus and me.

She put her ball in front of the stake and whacked it through a pair of wickets.

“Bonus!” She hit the ball two more times, sending it through another wicket, then hit it a fourth time before turning to Adonis. “You’re next.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Adonis put his ball near where she’d started and cracked it hard, hitting it around the wickets and most of the way to her ball.