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The sailor holds his hat in his hand. "Begging your pardon, my Lord. I'm Bos'un Tallow. The First Mate says you wanted to ask me some questions about the last ship to come this way. I was on 'er."
"Ah," says Lucas, holding his cabin door wider. "Excellent. Do come in, Bos'un Tallow. Could I offer you some grog? Or some shag?"
"No, sir. I couldn't." He steps in, and stands at ease. He seems well spoken for an ordinary sailor.
Lucas waits till the sailor has settled himself to his satisfaction and then says, "Perhaps you could take me through the voyage ... from when you first sighted land. Was there any wreckage out at sea? Or was it all along the shoreline? And what is the shoreline like?"
"We were about a week out of Amber, on a northward bearing, attempting to find the Paresh or the ship we'd sent after them, sir. We sighted a small island to the east, about as far towards the horizon as we could see and still be in sight of the shore. It was a small, rocky place, rather like Cabra, but without the lighthouse. There was wreckage that looked like our missing ship, but older, as if it had been there longer than we'd've expected. We did a quick look, but after we determined that the island was deserted, we continued on our way. Another week out and we were sure we'd left the Seas of Amber or were about to, and we turned back."
The sailor continues to stand at ease inside the door.
Lucas nods. "And did you come to any conclusions about what might have caused the wreck? A storm? Dangerous rocks? Or something else?"
"Unclear, my Lord. Possibly fog. The ship looked to have broken up hard. We couldn't figure why there were no survivors and no bones, unless they were picked up by another ship."
It's not foggy this evening, just very dark.
Lucas frowns slightly. "Were you close enough to gain any idea of how the tides run in that part of the coast?"
"We came up on it in clear daylight, just a small wind. The beach is narrow and the harbor is deep, indicating a stac formation. It's possible that they hit an underwater stac that wasn't visible. It's one of the reasons that we run slowly in these waters. This is not an established route, my Lord."
Lucas nods again. "But, the passage taken slowly, would you say this would be a good harbour to anchor in while we commence our explorations? Or should we stay off-shore in your opinion, and take a small boat in?"
Tallow looks up at the ceiling for a moment, obviously thinking. "Well, your lordship will know what will best suit his purposes, but you could take the long boat and a half-dozen sailors, so you had some help searching the island, or you could take the gig, and have the boat readied to bring you what you need if something is there. The closer we get, the quicker we could respond to your lordship's needs. But if there were a storm or pirates, we might be trapped if we're in close.
"I don't know, my Lord. There's good for each case. If we get there tonight, I'd say we should wait until daylight."
"Agreed," says Lucas easily. "And we'll wait till morning when we can see the lie of the land and the set of the sea before we reach a decision. And, of course, I must ascertain Lady Solange's views upon the matter.
"Thank you for your help, Tallow. Is there anything else about your previous voyage it might be of interest for me to know? Strange schools of leaping fish as you sailed away? Dolphins who accompanied the ship? A cabin boy who swore he heard a siren sing?"
"Did I hear my name mentioned?" Solange asks, appearing next to Tallow in the doorway. She smiles and nods at the sailor to put him at ease, then slides her gaze inside to look in question at Lucas.
The sailor nods respectfully in reply. He seems very professional.
"Land Ho!" comes the almost predictable shout from the topmast. The ship begins to heave to.
Solange looks upward to ascertain the direction the sailor in the topmast is indicating, then turns her gaze in that direction, looking for the land sighted.
"We were debating," says Lucas, "whether we should take a long boat into the bay and have the ship anchor offshore to await us. Or whether we should bring the ship within the bay itself.
"Considering how dark the night is, unless our lookout has discerned lights on the shore, there's a possibility that that we might find ourselves so close in as to make all such discussions academic."
The boatswain asks for permission to leave to attend to his duties.
Lucas dismisses him with thanks for his information.
There are no lights, but the man saw whitewater and then the island. It came looming out of nowhere and he called out, hoping to be safe rather than sorry.
The ship is In Irons some distance off shore. The officer of the watch has come looking for Lucas and Solange, wanting to know what they would like. The captain has been informed, they are told.
Solange turns to Lucas. "Wait until daylight and take a longboat in? One of us can stay on the ship so the other can trump back if anything is needed."
"That would be prudent," agrees Lucas. "All right. Do you want to keep your bel ami here with you, or should I take him ashore with me?"
"Up to him," she replies.
"How very accommodating of you," murmurs Lucas, seemingly fascinated by the act of removing a scrap of lint from his sleeve.
She smiles congenially at him. "I can be very accommodating...depending on the person."
Lucas returns her smile - the lizard lurking beneath a sunny rock. "Ah. Provocation. If my life were not shortly to depend on your good offices ..."
Her smile widens and she laughs. "Why let that stop you? You know damn well I can be bloody angry at you and I'd still save your sorry hide if needed. That whole honor thing."
An officer comes in and passes along word that the Captain would like to confer with their highnesses on deck, if it is convenient.
Solange nods. She doesn't mind.
"Certainly," says Lucas. "Lead on."
The Officer takes them topside. Captain Phaeton is on deck, with a spyglass. "Your highnesses. We are at anchor off the island where we think the wreck is located. We could send a boat tonight, but there aren't any signs of life, and we don't know these waters. What are your orders?" He doesn't seem to be looking directly at either of them.
"We'll wait till morning," says Lucas with a glance at Solange for confirmation.
She nods.
Ladies first with the spyglass if she wants. He'll have a look afterwards.
Solange declines and gestures to Lucas to go ahead. "I'll see it in the morning when there's more light."
"Thanks," says Lucas.
He takes the spyglas and looks through it at the shoreline. He's looking primarily for lights (and if so, their position, arrangement, intensity etc), or any glimpses he can get of landforms, unless it's really pitchdark, without stars, moons or whatever.
Lucas can't make out much. He sees breakers and a low, rocky island. It's big enough to have grass and a central hill, but it looks like it's been worn pretty low over the years. There are lots of birds nesting on it.
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The sun lightens the eastern sky and the captain requests their presence at breakfast to provide him with orders. This time Kyril is there as well.
"My Lords? How shall we proceed? By the time we finish, it should be light enough to send a boat."
"Lord Lucas will be taking a boat in," Solange answers. "I'll stay onboard in case he needs to trump back suddenly." She glances at Lucas as she sips her coffee, leaving further details to him.
Lucas nods his agreement and adds, "I'd like to take eight armed men with me. Kyril - are you joining me? Or staying here with my cousin?"
It's a sunny and pleasant spring morning. Just a cool breeze and a red tinge to the sky. A bit hazy, perhaps. The lookouts can't see Amber's coast behind you.
Kyril smiles. "Do you need a doctor ashore? Or would it be better to use your tricks to send patients back to me? I think I'd be of better use here. Unless you really want me as a surveyman, which I've done but am not good at."
"I'm trusting we won't need a doctor ashore," says Lucas. "And if things do go wrong, it's good to know you'll be standing by. Just try not to get distracted by indulging in ... ah ... deep discussions of country matters with my cousin here. Or shallow discussions of country matters either."
Solange rolls her eyes and finishes her coffee.
"And whatever you do, don't decide to pass the time by playing a few hands of cards. It might be rummy to you, but it could be a matter of life and death to us."
The Captain says "The long boat will hold a score of men, so you can bring back any survivors your find. I'll get you eight sailors, unless there's someone you want specific."
"Thank you, Captain," says Lucas. "Best make sure that none of the party are wearing anything too conspicuous, like brightly coloured shirts. We'll probably be spotted if there are eyes to see as we make our way ashore, but once we're beached, we don't need to be blatant. I'll take Tallow if I may - and you think he's up to it. Otherwise, I'll leave the decision of men to you - you know their capabilities best."
Once the Captain has left to organise the sailors and the boat, Lucas pauses for a brief word with Kyril and Solange.
"My cousin will warn you to avoid genuine modesty for as long as you care to rub shoulders with the likes of our family," he says to Kyril. "You might want to avoid false modesty too ... I've rather cornered the market in that." He is adjusting a dagger in his boot as he speaks. "You'll learn that we guard the secrets of our ineptitudes only a little more jealously than we guard the secrets of our achievements ... wheresoever they may lie."
Kyril opens his mouth as if to answer, and then closes it.
Lucas straightens, and seems as relaxed and urbane as he might if he were setting out for a stroll from the Castle to the Red Mill and Silken's waiting arms.
"Red sky in the morning - sailor's warning," he says. "Or so my Nurse always used to say. Only in French, of course. Still, I think the general tenor of the message is clear enough. We shall just have to see if the storms will prove physical, metaphysical or personal ... "
A bow to Kyril, an air-blown kiss to Solange, and then he is striding away to find the long boat and his sailors.
Solange gives Kyril a look that is half amusement and half apology for her cousin. She follows him out onto deck to see him off.
"You'll be fine, you know," she tells Lucas. "If you run into trouble you'll call me and I'll pull you back. Piece of cake."
"Bien sur," says Lucas (with all the proper accents). "I am probably in for a thoroughly boring morning on the shore. The most exciting thing I shall find will be one of Caine's cuff-links and I'll discover he thoroughly checked out the site six months ago."
Solange laughs.
Then he hesitates before going on, "But if something ... untoward should happen ... oh, I know Mama will take care of my children and my wife. But you, too, will watch out for them, yes?"
"Certainly, Lucas..." She pauses, looking at him strangely. She breaks into a smile, but the strange look remains in her eyes. "This'll be a piece of cake. Really."
Lucas nods, and then leans forward to deliver a chaste, cousinly kiss to either cheek (if she permits). Then he pauses, and smiles wickedly.
"Ah," he said with teasing regret, "to go into danger without the touch of a woman's sweet lips on mine ... for good luck, you know."
"You'll survive."
He smiles. In the classic phrase, he'll score it as an incomplete forward pass.
The long boat is ready, hanging on davits, and Tallow is standing beside it, on the rail. "May I help you aboard, My Lord?" Six sailors are already sitting in the boat, waiting. and another half-dozen stand ready to lower the long boat. Of the port side the island looks green, cool, and inviting.
Lucas, though, without being in the least discourteous, climbs into the long boat unaided and takes his place in the bow, looking towards the island with interest as the boat is (presumably) lowered, and begins to make its way to the shore.
Tallow gets the men in order and the ship pulls smartly towards the small island. It does look like a tricky approach, and Lucas isn't sure why the island is even here. There's not a chain of islands or even shallows.
Arriving on the beach, Tallow and his men will bring the boat ashore, allowing Lucas to disembark above the waterline. The island consists of a low central hill covered with green vegetation all ringed by a sandy beach. There is plenty of flotsam on the shore, but no jetsam to speak of until Tallow leads Lucas around a bend to a cove with a wrecked ship in it. It's sunk to the main deck in an otherwise protected cove and is lying at a 45 degree angle.
"That wasn't here," says Tallow.
"No?" says Lucas, his dark eyebrows lifting slightly. "Then you brought me here to show me something else?"
"Little bits of wreckage, which are not here."
While he waits for Tallow to answer, he studies the ship, endeavouring to assess how long ago the wreck occurred, whether there are any signs that it's been salvaged, any survivors ... or anything else of interest.
Lucas' best guess is decades ago. The sails and lines are beyond tatters and the boards are sun-bleached. The only indication of survivors is that there are davits for a ship's boat but no boat.
"Do you know the vessel?" he asks - wondering if he does himself.
"No, but I've seen the type. She's from the Circle. Maybe Asirian." He goes to the water's edge, and looks for a nameplate.
The men are muttering.
Lucas listens to their mutters. What are they saying?
That they aren't getting paid enough to go to Asir Island.
Well, they're not going to Asir Island yet (that's where the ship was coming from, yes?), and something can doubtless be arranged by way of bonuses if Lucas and Solange decide a visit is necessary.
"I wonder, myself, whether time runs oddly here," he says. "A strange thought, I grant ... Well. No matter. Let's onward and explore the ship."
He directs two of the men to keep watch, two to explore the perimeter of the vessel and the other four to board it with him - his intention being to head for the bridge and then the Captain's cabin, keeping Tallow with him (after all, one needs someone to be the target of the "You will observe, Watson, ... " type of remarks that Lucas may find himself prone to in these exigencies), while the other three explore the rest of the vessel, as far as they can.
The deck is at an angle, but not too steep to go aboard. "Cotton, fetch me a line and grapnel from the boat." Shortly, that man is back with the equipment. Tallow throws it to the deck and it catches. It's now possible to climb aboard.
Lucas does so with the lithe ease of one who has shinned up many a jutting balcony to reach the lady of his choice (descents were, of course, often more hasty).
Tallow implements Lucas' orders. "Birch, foredeck. Cross and Cotton, belowdecks. No swimming." The men grin. "You two are on watch, and you'll look about the ship's perimeter and see what you can see."
The men depart to their duties and Tallow follows Lucas to the Bridge. Nothing obvious there, although they may have lost their rudder before they ran aground. [How much time/effort does Lucas exert here?]
[About the time and effort he would normally devote to assessing the set of the sleeve in a new jacket from a tailor who he has his doubts about. Does this expenditure of effort yield any more discoveries?]
[Not much more. There's a map case. It's empty.]
Below is the Captain's cabin. It definitely looks as if survivors took valuables from here. Or looters.
Once more, Lucas subjects the Captain's cabin to a thorough scrutiny. Ship's papers - a log - anything like that will be of great interest. Lucas will look for signs of whether they were survivors (who might grab things of purely sentimental interest) as opposed to looters - who would want the valuables. A survivor would grab the small sketch of his love in its silver frame, while a looter might tear the picture out and leave it while taking the frame - that sort of thing.
This search has all the meticulousness of studying the set of a jacket collar from a tailor that Lucas is definitely considering terminating his contract with. Possibly with extreme prejudice. When Lucas wants to be dressed to kill, he does not use the term lightly.
The cabin has been rather carefully gone over, by survivors most likely, as personal goods are gone, but a silver inkwell was left behind.
Lucas picks it up, examines it for crests or decorations, and then hands it to Tallow.
It's decorated with non-representational art. Well executed geometric figures, but no writing or other discernable people, places, or things.
"Keep it," he says briefly.
Tallow nods, "Aye."
The two crewmen who went below come to the rear deck. The cargo is either flooded or dead: the ship had a number of horses below. Now it has equine skeletons in knee-deep water. Lower decks are totally submerged, but it looks to them like the ship's been here for a long time.
"Interesting," says Lucas thoughtfully. "That does argue a fairly catacylsmic grounding if they had time enough to grab things from here, but not to rescue the horses ... "
"That's what I thought!..." says Cotton. As Tallow looks at him, he belated adds, "my Lord."
Lucas looks thoughtfully at Cotton - and then smiles suddenly. There can be use in sharp young men who sometimes forget the social norms when their wits are engaged.
Crewman Birch comes back as well. "The ship definitely stopped at Asir Island, my Lord. That's what's in the food supplies in the galley. And Oboe says he's found something on the shore."
"Let's go then," says Lucas, and leads them all towards Oboe - but he does say to Birch, "This food - how fresh was it, that you were able to recognise its provenance? And how much was there - enough from the voyage from Aesir to here, but how much further were they planning to travel, do you think? And why, I wonder, did they not take it with them?"
"Marked containers, my Lord, and they may have taken some, but the ship is outfitted for a long journey. The galley is like the rest of the ship. It's all gone to decay and time." He shifts uneasily.
Lucas gives a nod of approbabtion for the observation.
Tallow reaches the rail. "Mister Oboe, what have you found?"
From the shore a voice replies."Burial pit, sir, but it's been dug into. The bones look gnawed."
"Human?" Lucas asks, and then turns to Tallow. "Make sure the men stay in pairs."
Tallow nods to the assembled men.
With that he climbs down from the ship and walks across to Oboe, perhaps reflecting en route on something he must have considered several times on the voyage: how variously this crew are named.
When he reaches the pit he looks with the detached and interested gaze of a Victorian anthropologist collecting for the Pitt Rivers Museum to see if the bones are indeed human, how many corpses were buried there, how long ago they died, how recently they were uncovered, what manner of creature uncovered and ate them, and whether, if the consumers were human, there was a ritualistic element to the consumption, or if it was the result of hunger. Other elements such as how deeply they were buried and the state of the ground around the pit do not escape his attention.
At the same time, he makes sure he is ready for attack. Carrion feeders do sometimes like the taste of fresh meat too.
What Lucas can discover easily is that the bones are human, and were buried in separate graves above the high-tide mark. Something with claws, like a badger but bigger, dug them up. There are overturned markers, but the words on them have faded.
Lucas picks up several and carefully re-inserts them in the ground. This is not solely a gesture of piety - he is also examining the markers to see if any bear signs or symbols he associates with the Paresh.
No, nothing obvious. If there were, they've faded, too.
It seems to have been decades since they were buried. The bones are bleached white and the clothes have all rotted away.
Tallow looks at the claw marks and the teeth marks. "If I had to escape in a longboat, I would cut my horse's throat in his stall rather than leave him to something that could do that."
"Hmm," says Lucas. "We don't know that these came from the ship, you know. I'd say, from the appearance, that they died sometime before the shipwreck. Unless ... "
Cotton and Birch come running over a dune and stop within shouting range. "Mr. Tallow! The Fairwind is gone!" Tallow and Oboe start running to where the two sailors are standing.
"Stay here," says Lucas to the rest (there should be another four, yes?). "Whistle or shout if you see anything unusual - and that includes our suddenly vanishing from sight."
Then he follows Tallow and Oboe, moving swiftly, but not breaking into a run. He also glances back at the men left behind as he nears the dune itself.
The sky is overcast, and the men stand back to back. Turning back towards where the ship should be, there is nothing but choppy water. Lucas feels a breeze from the seaward side, and sees rain on the horizon. Tallow and Oboe turn to look at him.
"Presumably they shifted their position to avoid being driven onto the rocks during the storm," says Lucas calmly. "My opinion would be that we should wait the storm out here on the island. We'll secure the longboat - then we'll find shelter. That central hill - there could well be shallow caves there with fresh water."
The men rapidly secure the boat, covering it and carrying it perhaps further up the beach than is strictly necessary. They all take pains to arm themselves with cutlasses or belaying pins, perhaps in reaction to the disturbed graves.
Lucas, of course, has his sword and a dagger besides. But he'll be companionable and take a blunt instrument too.
There are, as Lucas expected, caves leading into the hill. The most likely looking one seems to have had rocks moved to disguise or protect the opening at some point. There aren't any signs of recent occupancy. There also aren't signs of wildlife in the immediate area, other than a few birds.
The rain continues to stall off the shore, but the air is heavy with moisture.
Lucas gives a few quiet directions for the defensive positions within the cave and at its perimeter. What is already there by way of rocks, he instructs them to make use of for protection if necessary. He also checks the interior of the cave carefully with Oboe. No sense in defending the front if they're more likely to be attacked from the rear, after all.
There's a pile of bones in it, but old enough that there's no odor of carrion. They've definitely been gnawed.
When all is as well secured as they can make it, he orders an issue of grog, to hearten the men before the storm hits. If the storm does hit, of course.
The storm hits strong and hard and it's easy to see why something would have been in this cave. It's possible to stay mostly dry.
One of the men complains about being brushed by a snake, but his fellows suggest that it's a grog-snake.
Once they seem settled, Lucas moves to a more secluded section of the cave and lights a cigarette. Then he flips open the hidden compartment of the cigarette case and draws out his trump sketch of Solange.
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LX: The Soul of a Trump | Index | LXII: Storm on the Island
