For maybe half a second the only reaction was shock and the only noise the wet sound of lifeblood leaving the thug. Then with a roar of anger and defiance the second thug took his knee off my neck and leapt at the drunkard.
I"d allowed myself to believe that the drunkenness was an act, and that he was in fact an expert swordsman pretending to be drunk. But no, I realized, as he stood there, swaying from side to side and trying to focus on the advancing henchman. Though he might well have been an expert swordsman, he was certainly drunk. Enraged, the second thug charged him, wielding his sword. It wasn"t pretty; even though he was in his cups, my savior seemed to dodge him easily, striking backhand with my short sword, catching the thug on the arm and eliciting a scream of pain.
From above me I heard, "Ha!" and looked up in time to see the Middle Man shake the reins. For him the battle was over and he didn"t want to leave empty-handed. As the carriage lurched toward the entrance, with its pa.s.senger door swinging, I sprang to my feet and sprinted after it, reaching inside just as we came to the narrow entrance.
I had one chance. One moment. "Grab my hand," I screamed and thank G.o.d she was more decisive than she had been before. With desperate, frightened eyes, her cry a guttural shout, she lunged across the seats and grabbed my outstretched hand. I flung myself backward and dragged her out of the carriage door just as it skittered through the yard entrance and was gone, clacking away along the cobbles of the dockside. From my left came a shout. It was the remaining thug. I saw his mouth drop open in the shock of abandonment.
The drunken swordsman made him pay for his moment of outrage. He ran him through where he stood and my sword tasted blood for the second time tonight.
Mr. Weatherall had once made me promise never to name my sword. Now, as I watched the henchman slide off the blood-dripping blade and crumple dead to the dirt, I understood why.
ii "Thank you, monsieur," I called into the silence that descended over the yard in the wake of the battle.
The drunken swordsman looked at me. He had long hair tied back, high cheekbones and faraway eyes.
"May we know your name, monsieur?" I called across the yard.
We might have been meeting at a civilized social function but for the two bodies sprawled on the dirt-that and the fact that he held a sword stained red with blood. He moved as though to hand my sword back to me, realized it needed cleaning, looked for somewhere to wipe it, then, finding nothing, settled for the body of the nearest thug. When that was done he raised a finger, said, "Excuse me," turned and vomited against the wall of the Antlers.
The blond girl and I looked at one another. That finger was still held up as the drunkard coughed up the last of his vomit, spat out a final mouthful then turned and gathered himself before sweeping off an imaginary hat, making an exaggerated bow and introducing himself. "My name is Captain Byron Jackson. At your service."
"Captain?"
"Yes-as I was trying to tell you in the tavern before you so rudely shoved me away."
I bristled. "I did no such thing. You were very rude. You pushed into me. You were drunk."
"Correction, I am drunk. And maybe also rude. However, there"s no disguising the fact that though drunk and rude, I was also trying to help you. Or the very least keep you from the grasp of these reprobates."
"Well, you didn"t manage that."
"Yes, I did," he said, offended, then seemed to think. "Eventually, I did. And on that note, we had better leave before these bodies are discovered by the soldiers. You desire pa.s.sage to Dover, is that right?"
He saw me hesitate and waved an arm at the two bodies. "Surely I"ve proved my suitability as an escort. I promise you, mademoiselle, that despite appearances to the contrary, my drunkenness and perhaps a certain uncouth manner, I fly with the angels. Just that my wings are a little singed is all."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You don"t have to trust me." He shrugged. "No skin off my nose who you trust. Go back in there, and you can get the packet."
"The packet?" I repeated, irritated. "What is this packet?"
"The packet is any ship carrying mail or freight to Dover. Virtually every man in there is a packetman, and they"ll be in the process of drinking up because the tides and winds are ripe for a crossing tonight. So by all means go back in there, flash your coin and you can secure yourself pa.s.sage. Who knows? You might even get lucky and find yourself in the company of other fine lady travelers such as yourself." He pulled a face. "You might not, of course . . ."
"And what"s in it for you if I come with you?"
He scratched the back of his neck, looking amused. "A lonely merchant would be very glad of the company for the crossing."
"As long as the lonely merchant didn"t get any ideas."
"Such as?"
"Such as the ways in which he might pa.s.s the time."
He gave a hurt look. "I can a.s.sure you the thought never crossed my mind."
"And you, of course would never consider telling an untruth?"
"Absolutely not."
"Such as claiming to be a merchant when you are in fact a smuggler."
He threw up his hands. "Oh, that"s just dandy. She"s never heard of the packet and thinks you can sail straight to London, but makes me for a smuggler."
"So you are a smuggler?"
"Look, do you want pa.s.sage or not?"
I thought about that for a moment or so.
"Yes," I said, and stepped forward to retrieve my sword.
"Tell me, what is the inscription near the hilt?" he asked, handing it over. "I would of course read it myself but for the fact that I"m drunk."
"Are you sure it"s not that you cannot read?" I said teasingly.
"Oh, woe. Truly my lady has been fooled by my rough manners. What can I do to convince her that I really am a gentleman?"
"Well, you could try behaving like one," I said.
I took the proffered sword and with it held loosely in my palm I read the inscription on the hilt-"May the father of understanding guide you. Love, Mother"-and then before he could say anything, I brought the point of the sword to his neck and pressed it into the flesh of his throat.
"And on her life if you do anything to harm me, then I will run you through," I snarled.
He tensed, held out his arms, looked along the blade at me with eyes that were laughing a little too much for my liking. "I promise, mademoiselle. Tempting though it would be to touch a creature quite so exquisite as yourself, I shall be sure to keep my hands to myself. And anyway," he said, looking over my shoulder, "what about your friend?"
"My name is Helene," she said, as she came forward. Her voice trembled. "I am indebted to the mademoiselle for my life. I belong to her now."
"What?"
I dropped the sword and turned to face her. "No you aren"t. No you don"t. You must find your people."
"I have no people. I am yours, mademoiselle," she said, and I had never seen a face so earnest.
"I think that settles that," said Byron Jackson from behind me. I looked from him then back to her, lost for words.
And with that I had acquired a lady"s maid and a captain.
iii Byron Jackson, it turned out, was indeed a smuggler. An Englishman posing as a Frenchman, he piled his small ship, the Granny Smith, with tea, sugar and whatever else was taxed heavily by his government, sailed it to along England"s east coast, then by means he would only describe as "magic" smuggled it past the customs houses.
Helene, meanwhile, was a peasant girl who had watched both her mother and father die, and so traveled to Calais in the hope of finding her last remaining living relative, her uncle Jean. She hoped to find a new life with him; instead, he sold her to the Middle Man. And, of course, the Middle Man would want his money back and Uncle Jean would have spent the money within a day or so of receiving it, so there would be trouble involving Helene if she stayed. So I let her be indebted to me, and we made a fellowship of three as we set off from Calais earlier.
And now I can hear the sounds of supper being laid. Our gracious host, the captain of the Granny Smith, has promised us a hearty repast. He has enough food, he says, for the whole of the two-day crossing.
8 FEBRUARY 1788.
i "If she"s to be your lady"s maid, she needs to learn some manners," Byron Jackson had remarked at dinner last night.
Which, when you considered that he drank constantly from his flask of wine, ate with his mouth open and his elbows propped on the table, was a statement burdened with a staggering degree of hypocrisy.
I looked at Helene. She"d torn off a piece of crust, dipped it in her soup and was about to shove the whole dripping hunk into her mouth, but had stopped and was now regarding us from under her hair, as though we were talking in a strange, foreign language.
"She"s fine as she is," I said, mentally thumbing my nose at Madame Levene, my father, the Crows and every servant in our house at Versailles, all of whom would have been repulsed by my new friend"s table manners.
"She might be fine for having her supper on board a smuggling vessel," said Byron cheerfully, "but she won"t be fine when you"re trying to pa.s.s her off as your lady"s maid in London during this "secret a.s.signation" of yours."
I shot him an irritated look. "It"s not a secret a.s.signation."
He grinned. "You could have fooled me. Either way, you"re going to need to teach her how to behave in public. For a start she needs to begin addressing you as mademoiselle. She needs to know the basics of etiquette and decorum."
"Yes, all right, thank you, Byron," I said primly. "I don"t need you to tell me about table manners. I shall teach her myself."
"As you please, mademoiselle," he said, and grinned. He did that a lot. Both the sarcastically referring to me as "mademoiselle" and the grinning.
When supper was over, Byron took his flask of wine and some animal skins above deck and left us to prepare for bed. I wondered what he was doing up there, what he was thinking.
We sailed through the next day. Byron tethered the wheel with rope and he and I sparred, my neglected sword fighting skills beginning to return as I danced across the boards and our steel met. I could tell he was impressed. He laughed and smiled and gave me encouragement. A more handsome sparring partner than Mr. Weatherall, though perhaps a little less disciplined.
That night we ate again. Helene retired to her berth in the cramped conditions we called our cabin belowdecks while Byron left to man the wheel. Only this time, I reached for an animal skin of my own.
"Have you ever used your sword in anger before?" he said when I joined him on the upper deck. He sat steering with his feet and drinking from his leather flask of wine.
"By anger you mean . . ."
"Well, let"s start with, have you ever killed anyone?"
"No."
"I"d be the first, eh, if I tried to touch you without your permission?"
"Exactly."
"Well, I shall just have to make sure that I have your permission, then, shan"t I?"
I felt myself go warm despite the chill on the deck.
"Okay. So have you ever crossed swords with an opponent?"
The moon-dappled sea sucked at the hull but otherwise the night was almost totally still, like we were the only two people left alive.
"Of course."
"An opponent who meant you harm?"
"No," I admitted.
"Fair enough. Have you drawn your sword in order to protect yourself?"
"Indeed I have."
"How many times?"
"Once."
"And that was the one time, was it? Back there in the tavern?"
I pursed my lips. "Yes."
"Didn"t go so well for you, did it?"
"No."
"And why was that, do you think?"
"I know why it was, thank you," I said primly. "I don"t need telling by the likes of you."
"Go on, humor me."
"Because I hesitated."
He nodded thoughtfully, swigged from his flask, then handed it to me. I gulped down a mouthful, feeling the alcohol spread warmly through my body. I wasn"t stupid. I knew that the first step to gaining a lady"s permission to get into her bed was to get her drunk. But it was cold and he was agreeable company, if a little frustrating and . . . Oh, and nothing. I just drank.
"I hesitated."
"That"s right. What should you have done?"
"Look, I don"t need . . ."
"Don"t you? But you were almost carried away back there. You know what they would have done to you after taking you from that yard. You wouldn"t be above deck sipping wine with the captain. You"d have spent the voyage belowdecks, on your back, amusing the crew. Every member of the crew. And when you arrived at Dover, broken, mentally and physically, they would have sold you like cattle. Both of you. You and Helene. All of that but for my presence in the tavern. And you still don"t think I have a right to tell you where you went wrong?"
"I went wrong going in the tavern in the b.l.o.o.d.y first place," I said.
He arched an eyebrow. "Been to England before, have you?" he asked.
"No, but it was an Englishman who taught me my sword skills."
He chortled. "And what he"d tell you if he were here is that your hesitancy almost cost you your life. A short sword is not a warning weapon. It is a doing weapon. If you draw it, use it. Don"t just wave it around." He lowered his eyes, took a long thoughtful draught from his leather flask and pa.s.sed it back to me. "There are plenty of reasons to kill a man: duty, honor, vengeance. All of them might give you pause for thought. And a reason for guilty reflection afterward. But self-protection or protection of another, killing in the name of protection, that is one reason you should never have to worry about."
ii The following day Helene and I bid good-bye to Byron Jackson on the beach at Dover. He had much work to do, he said, in order to bypa.s.s the customs houses, so Helene and I would have to manage alone. He accepted the coins I gave him with a gracious bow and we went on our way.