Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 08] - Sanguinet's Crown (19 page)

The kitten was Charity's one link with her happy life in
Sussex. More than that, she became the means of providing an unexpected
champion. Charity was permitted to take a stroll around the decks,
morning and afternoon. It was evident that her captors were afraid she
might try to kill herself by jumping overboard, and always a guard
accompanied her on these excursions. On the first morning after their
sailing, the guard was the surly Clem, who spoke not a word, but looked
as though he had rather be eating ground glass than spending his time
in such fashion. That afternoon she had a new companion; a sturdily
built youth of rather unprepossessing appearance in that he had no
eyebrows and his hair was a flaming red that did not seem to match his
rather sallow skin and hard dark eyes. Charity was struck by the notion
that she had seen him somewhere before and under different
circumstances. He seemed a little less hostile than Clem, but when she
questioned him, he shrugged and refused to answer. She was mildly
surprised that when they returned he had the courtesy to help her over
the step of her cabin door, but when she thanked him he only muttered a
gruff, "Ain't no need," and stamped away.

Little Patches had been provided with a box of earth for her
personal use and seemed to adapt quite easily to her new surroundings.
Next morning, Charity tied a ribbon around the kitten's neck and took
her along when she was allowed to walk out. Once again, the red-haired
youth was her escort. His eyes lit up when he saw the kitten, and he
begged, rather gruffly, to be allowed to hold her. Charity withdrew
that privilege, and the youth sulked and said, "Much I care, lady." But
she knew that he watched the kitten constantly, and when Little Patches
took exception to her leash and went into a mighty acrobatic feat,
trying to climb up it, the boy laughed hilariously.

On her next excursion, Charity allowed herself to be persuaded
into letting him take charge of her pet. The boy was overjoyed, and
Charity's walk was considerably extended so that he could play with the
kitten. By cautious questioning, Charity learned that his name was
Lion, and that he haled from London, where he had been employed by a
"gentry cove." They began to exchange comments on the kitten's antics,
and soon a tenuous friendship had sprung up between them. Charity made
not the slightest attempt to enlist his aid, however. The time for that
was not yet. But when he showed her into her cabin late in the
afternoon, she said with a wistful smile, "Thank you, Lion."

"Here's your tiger, ma'am," he said, grinning as he thrust
Little Patches at her.

The kitten decided his strong hand was a mortal foe, and
pedalled furiously at his arm with her tiny back legs.

"Oh no!" exclaimed Charity. "Do not let her hurt you!"

He ruffled Little Patches' head playfully. "Never you mind,
Mrs. Leith. She wouldn't hurt me, would you, fleabait?"

Charity murmured, "Lion—if… if anything happens to me, I want
you to have her.''

Stark horror came into his face. Without a word, he backed
away, then hurried off. But after that, she caught him watching her
from time to time, a troubled expression on his face, and once, when a
member of the crew uttered a crude remark as they passed, Lion turned
on the man in a fury, snarling that he'd best mind his mouth. A tiny
flicker of hope lightened Charity's heavy heart.

It was from Lion that she eventually learned their
destination. Two days after they sailed, her straining eyes had
glimpsed another coastline, but the following morning it was out of
sight. They were becalmed and progress was minimal, but even so
France's coast should have been visible and Charity murmured a
puzzled,"Why ever is it taking so long? Surely we should have been off
Brittany long ago?"

"Brittany?" scoffed the boy with the lofty authority of youth.
"Cor, ma'am, we ain't heading south. I'd a' thought even a landlubber'd
know we was heading nor'west."

"Oh dear," she said innocently, "I know so little of such
things. Can you read the stars and navigate, Lion?"

He declared that he was not so bad at such stuff, and
regarding him with patent admiration, she sighed, "So we are bound for
Ireland. You see, I
do
know something of what
lies to the northwest."

He laughed and fell into her small trap. "Not no more it
don't, Mrs. Leith. We left Ireland off our stern yesterday, so we did."

"Oh, Lion, never say we are to sail all the way to the
Americas?"

His eyes kindling, he exclaimed, "Cor, but I'd like that I
would! But we'd need a sight more food an' stuff than we got on this
old tub!" He glanced around the deck and leaned a little closer. "I
dunno as I'm s'posed to tell."

"I won't breathe a word—I swear it."

Lion made a show of playing with Little Patches and murmured,
"The Hebrew-didies, ma'am. That's where we're bound fer. And you know
what? That there Frenchy's put a lot of lettuce in them four ugly old
islands. But if
I
was rich as Golden Ball and
could go anywhere what I'd like, I'd stick them Hebrew-didies right up
at the top o' my list of places what I never want to see again!"

At this point they were approaching a little knot of sailors
busily engaged with ropes and tackle, and the boy said no more. The
information he had imparted, however, appalled Charity. Returning to
her cabin she sat on her bunk, plunged into despair. The Hebrides? What
on earth had possessed Claude to choose so remote and inaccessible a
location? But of course that was precisely why he
had
chosen it. She thought achingly of her loved ones, so far away. Even
dear Tristram could have no possible inkling that Sanguinet was
ensconced in such an unlikely spot. "I shall never see you again, my
darlings," she whispered, in an agony of grief. "I shall not see you,
or my dear England, ever again…" And she wept until she was exhausted
and fell into a deep sleep.

The following night, she was disturbed several times by the
violent plunges of the vessel. Lion had told her that afternoon that
the glass was falling, and at dark the sky had been gloomy and
overcast. At dawn she awoke to the sound of a crash, and starting up in
fright, she saw that the cabin was tilting at an impossible angle. From
outside came shouts, the howling of a mighty wind, the creaking of
protesting timbers, and the snapping of sail. Staggering to the
porthole, she peered out. The morning sky was a boil of dark, angry
clouds that, even as she watched, began to be blotted out by sheeting
rain, and the sea that had been so deceptively quiet yesterday had
become rank upon rank of mountainous waves. It took all her strength to
return to her bunk. She huddled there, alone and terrified as the storm
raged on, wondering if this was to be the final chapter of her uneven
life, and if Claude was to be cheated of his revenge after all.

Hour after hour crept past, and still the stately ship climbed
the soaring waves, hung breathlessly at the peak, then dropped
sickeningly into the next deep trough. The rending crash of a snapping
mast sent Charity to her knees beside the bunk, fearing that this was
the end indeed, but despite the chaos that raged beyond her small
cabin, they contrived to remain afloat.

She was sitting braced in a corner of the heaving floor, a
blanket wrapped around her and Little Patches trembling in her lap,
when the door flew open and Lion swayed in the aperture, then came in
with a rush, fighting to keep a tray of crockery from tumbling.

"Hey, here's a proper turn-up, eh, missus?" he cried cheerily.
"So you ain't sick! Good fer you. Most of the other passengers is so
green as grass, and a lot o' the crew as well. I brung some tea and
cakes, but you'll have to go careful or you'll get it over you, 'stead
of in. And here's some fish fer you, fleabait!"

He plunked the tray on the floor, then stayed to help Charity
enjoy the small meal. His efforts to tempt Little Patches with the fish
failed; the kitten refused to eat, although she did lap at a little
dish of milk.

"Shall we be blown miles off our course, do you think?"
Charity asked hopefully.

"Should've landed hours back," Lion said rather indistinctly,
his mouth full of currant cake. "Captain says we can't put in to the
Channel in this weather. Have to stand off, he says, and from the look
of the glass," he added importantly, "it'll be several days."

He was right. Although the fury of the storm abated somewhat,
the seas ran too high for the Captain to dare take his ship into
harbour. And the rain was so heavy and so constant that, peer as she
would, Charity could catch no glimpse of the island whereon Claude
Sanguinet was no doubt waiting impatiently.

For three days they rode out the weather, while the Captain
raged, the crew grumbled, the cook swore, and even Charity, dreading
the next phase of her captivity, began to long for this waiting to end.
Her friendship with Lion deepened during this time. Despite his lack of
education, the boy had a quick intelligence and a mind hungry for
knowledge. He had taught himself to read and write, and when Charity
exclaimed over these accomplishments he was rather pathetically
grateful and told her shyly that it was his dream to become a
physician. "Much chance I got," he added, reddening in anticipation of
ridicule. Inwardly astounded, she would not dream of belittling his
hopes and said all she might to encourage him, writing down the titles
of several books for him to read and urging that he work hard at
improving his vocabulary. Instead of thanking her, he stared in silence
at the list she handed him. When he did look up, his eyes held abject
misery, and he left her without another word.

That night, Charity awoke to a sense of strangeness. It was
quiet. The room was no longer heaving erratically. She lay in her bunk
listening to the officers shouting orders, to the creaking of winches
and the flapping of sail, and very soon the motion of the ship changed.
They were under way again. She slipped from her blankets and ran to the
port, but it was too dark to see anything, and she went back to bed,
falling at last into a troubled sleep.

Ella brought her breakfast next morning. The woman looked
drawn and wan, but vindictiveness glistened in her dark eyes as she
demanded that Mrs. Leith get up at once. The motion of the great ship
had gentled to a lazy rocking and Charity's apprehensive enquiries were
met by the grim confirmation that they were tied up to the dock, that
Monseigneur was waiting, and that Mrs. Leith better look sharp.

The moment of truth had come. Involuntarily, Charity shrank.
The immediate satisfaction in Ella's eyes stiffened her spine. Whatever
else, she was an English lady. Her bones might be jelly and her heart
thumping a tattoo, but no one must see those weaknesses. She told Ella
her services were not required, waited until the sour-faced woman went
grumbling off, and then ran to the port.

Had she not known this was an island, she would have thought
them docked along the Thames, or the Clyde, or some such great inland
waterway. Certainly not at a small island, for peer as she would, she
could see only land. Directly before her eyes was a scene of frenzied
activity. Cranes were swinging loads of bales and barrels onto the
dock, and brawny labourers swarmed like industrious ants around the
small mountains of supplies thus created, swiftly transferring the
goods into waiting wagons and wains. Sailors, their meagre belongings
carried in rolls over their shoulders, struggled down the gangplank,
vying for space with the passengers Charity had glimpsed from time to
time on the lower deck. A motley lot she had thought them, but she
noticed now that they were uniformly tall, sturdily built, and
aggressive, shoving the sailors aside as they disembarked, quick to
raise voice or fist against any who impeded their progress. Once on
land they milled about uncertainly, but a tall individual, soberly clad
in black, relayed orders through an aide and soon the new arrivals were
lined up neatly enough. Charity watched the dark figure of authority
with sombre dread. He turned and glanced up at the ship, and she spun
away from the porthole and pressed against the side, a cold
perspiration bathing her whitening features.

So
Gerard
was here! Gerard, Claude's
icily remorseless lieutenant who had lusted after Rachel when she
arrived at Dinan as Claude's affianced bride, and who had never
forgiven her for the rebuff she'd handed him. Gerard who had suffered a
broken jaw when Tristram and Devenish had battled with such invincible
courage to get them all safely away from that nightmarish chateau… She
closed her eyes, sick and shaking with fear for what was to come.

Because she was so terribly afraid, she took great care with
her toilette, for Claude must not fancy her so disheartened she had
given up all hope. She was sitting on the bunk when the knock came, and
she nerved herself to meet Gerard's soulless black eyes. She had seldom
been more relieved than when Lion's bright head came around the door,
and she could not restrain an involuntary cry of relief.

The boy came quickly inside and closed the door behind him. To
her surprise, he ignored Little Patches, who frisked about his boots,
marched straight to her side, took her hands, and drew her to her feet.

"I 'spect you know what I am," he said in a low, hurried
fashion. "I ain't never been nothin' but gallows bait. Never had no mum
or dad. I was a foundling—a love child." His lip curled. He muttered
bitterly, "Some kind of love! I was sold to a sweep when I was five—a
sight of love I got from him, I can tell yer! So I hopped the
twig—runned orf, and got slammed in a flash house. More love—cor! They
put me on the padding lay—and the dubbing lay! Thieving, ma'am.
Pickpocket. And I was flogged if I did and whipped if I didn't. No one
never give me nothing but a stripe or a box aside the ears. Then I
tried ter prig orf a gentry cove, and he caught me. Broke me arm, but
then he see I was just a nipper. He took me to a'pothecary, and when I
was better, he let me work fer him."