Cinnamon and Gunpowder (42 page)

Friday, November 19

The ship rolled and lurched as if swung on a pendulum. Mabbot’s bed is nailed to the floor, and I had taken a prayerful position clutching one of its posts as the stuffed chair and the dining table slipped from their notches and became lambs hopping about the cabin. I reached to keep Mabbot from slipping out of the bed and felt, with alarm, that her breathing was very light.

I had no idea what to do. I shook her, but she did not rouse.

“Mabbot,” I said, and again louder, “Mabbot!” But she was limp as a rag.

I put my lips to her ear and shouted, “Hannah!”

“Mmm?”

“Where are you off to? You mustn’t leave us without a captain. Can you hear me? Hannah, I would not have you die.”

“Wedge,” she groaned, “you daisy.”

“Only hold on. Who will give Pendleton hell?”

“I’ve cheated death a dozen times. Now he is come with an army.”

“Pendleton will be victorious, vindicated—”

“You’re trying to inflame me. Let me sleep, Wedge, I’m so cold.”

Her teeth clattered like horses’ hooves. I used rugs and ripped the tiger pelts from the door to lay over her, yet she shook as if buried in snow.

Then I got into the bed with her.

I took off my shirt to offer my warm skin and held her there trembling against my chest as our vessel spun in the darkness.

I must have slept too, for when the waves had calmed, she woke me with a soft laugh. Her hair was wet around her ears, but her face was clean and open. She was through the fever.

“Hello, Mr. Wedgwood.” She laughed again, her arm encircling my waist.

“Forgive the presumption,” I mumbled. “It was to keep you warm.”

“Oh yes, my chills,” she mocked me.

I rushed to rise from the bed, but she held my arm and said, “But I’m still a little cold.”

“I didn’t think you’d make it. Apparently, bullets can’t kill you,” I said.

“God favors the beautiful,” she answered, and then slept.

Mabbot’s jibes filled me with hope. She needed only this little help, this one spoonful of soup at a time. I stayed and held her, the soft tufts of her shorn hair against my chin. She slept and I lay awake, in wonder and, for the first time in years, happy. I was deep in unknown waters, but I was home. Mabbot had fought her way into me, and she was stronger than I. Now that she was in, there was nothing for me to do but love her.

When she woke again, I went to fetch water. She drank an entire carafe. When I went to fetch more, I found a full pitcher waiting just outside the door—Mr. Apples had seen us together.

Saturday, November 20

I spent the night holding her while she slept.

In the morning Mabbot noticed Kerfuffle first. As she said, nothing on the ship is hidden from her, for she seemed to sense the rabbit was gone. The heavy chair lay on its side against the bookshelf, and by the angle of the rabbit’s leg underneath, it was clear the animal had been crushed.

Mabbot groaned. “Is she not breathing?”

I righted the chair and replaced the heavy logs that had fallen during the storm. The beast was still, already stiffening as I lifted it.

“A windfall for your pot,” Mabbot said, turning her back to me as she pulled the covers tightly around her.

“You’re joking.”

“Do you imagine that I don’t know where meat comes from?”

It was the most lucid I had seen her in days. I would have balked if not for the glare she gave me over her shoulder, which was a taste of the old Mabbot.

Knowing she needed proper nourishment, and as there was no other fresh meat, I dressed and went to the galley, holding Kerfuffle under my arm.

I thought I would take pleasure in skinning that watchful rabbit, but now that it was still, it engendered in me a tenderness for all fragile flesh. I sharpened a knife until it shone, then skinned and cleaned the rabbit, trying to make each cut a gesture of respect. Loath to waste any part of the animal, I set brains and hide aside for tanning.

As I progressed deeper into the body, I felt a mystery revealing itself to me and began to pray, not with words but with simple cooking, a prayer not for the soul of the rabbit exactly but for the generous blending of its life with Mabbot’s. She had fed and loved it, and now its flesh would become hers and mine, and in this way I understood that all beings lived only to feed one another as even the lion lies down for the worm. In the striations of the rabbit’s muscle, I saw eons of breath and death.

This was God’s grace, without which all bodies would fall to ash. I had been cooking my entire life and had never understood the sanctity of my duties. For all of my kitchen philosophies were nothing compared to the truth that now opened me to the bone: that I was, myself, food.

This inspiration sent me looking for Asher, to join me in the galley. He had given up trying to emulate Bai’s stoic mourning and succumbed to rum and wailing. I talked at him and fed him spoonfuls as I cooked. It is meager comfort, but it is the only kindness I have to offer and, over time, it is a good cure for many ills.

The bowl of rabbit broth I carried to Mabbot’s cabin was a forgiveness and a plea for forgiveness, an acknowledgment that this blood is shared universally. With this meal I surrendered to the mystery of my days and vowed never to look askance at love of any kind, nor to defy it. For the world is a far more expansive and mystifying place than can be said.

Sunday, November 21

A ship makes its way on ruin and repair. Despite Mr. Apples’s handling, the
Rose
lost the fore topsail in the storm and cordage was generally fouled throughout the ship. All watches were on deck bracing and knotting, painting and sealing.

I feel though that the most important mending was happening in Mabbot’s chambers. She was sitting up in bed and not quite herself, for she was being so gentle. “How could I have known when I took you aboard how much I would come to rely on our little meals, on your grumbling? In stubbornness you’re almost a match for me,” she said. “And now you’ve seduced me back to this world with your sips and nibbles.”

I spent the night feeding her, massaging and kissing the constellations of freckles that decorate her warm back. She shared her returning strength.

Here, propriety censors me.

I may say, though, that I am happy. Once baked, the bread cannot return to flour.

24

GOLD FOR CORNMEAL

In which I discover the saboteur

Monday, November 22

Today Mabbot retook control of her ship. But not before she summoned Mr. Apples to her cabin. She was sitting in her stuffed chair smoking her ivory pipe while I was at the table, reading her copy of
The Inferno
, one of the few books she had saved.

When Mr. Apples arrived, Mabbot announced without preamble: “We’ve got to go back. We’re going to blow the Pendleton warehouses to hell.”

I was dumbfounded, but it was impossible to surprise Mr. Apples; he had already considered the idea. “Won’t work—it’s the Pearl River, packed arse to nuts with navy ships. And, may I say, Captain, that you still look about as healthy as a frog in a pickle barrel.”

“Braga says the entrance to the caves is a few miles north of the mouth of the river,” said Mabbot. “We’ll dash in and be back out before they know we’re there. Leighton primed and loaded it; we need only strike the fuse.”

“There are ships of the line patrolling the entire coast,” said Mr. Apples. “We may get in, but we’ll never get out. Besides, there’s not a shilling to be had in it.”

“The Pendleton Company is a blight. Everything they touch rots from the inside.”

I was used to hearing fire in her voice when she spoke about them, but now I heard only sadness. She was not commanding; she was pleading for Mr. Apples to understand.

“They ruined my son. Turned him into another baron wheedling for his cut of the profits. Fighting the Pendleton Company is the only good I do, Mr. Apples. It is the only good I’ve ever done.”

Mr. Apples rubbed the back of his head as he considered it. “With the officers and records gone, with the warehouses wrecked, it could ruin their monopoly for a time. The jackals will come pick over the remains,” he admitted. “Smugglers, the Fox’s scattered army, hell, even the Portuguese will try to set up shop. Might even be enough to force the opium issue into the papers. Hard to say what China would do.”

“If China did anything at all, it would be an improvement,” Mabbot said. “It could take Pendleton years to recover. How can we not try?”

“Captain, I know when you’ve fixed on a plan there’s not a thing that will keep you from it. And you know where I stand, I’ll never leave this deck. But we ain’t the only ones on this ship. The boys have a right to know what we’re sailing into.”

“Do you think they’ll do it?”

“They don’t want to lose their silver again. Laroche haunts their dreams. Now Feng’s gone and the men are sweaty … I can’t say.”

“Call for all hands, Mr. Apples,” she said. “I’ll ask them.”

When the giant left, Mabbot rose from the chair with a groan.

“A terrible idea,” I said. “Not that you’ve asked me.”

I was ready for a fight, but her sad smile disarmed me. Her face was completely open, and I could see the ancient fatigue in her eyes as clearly as the strength behind it. She was donning the yoke of her life, as I had begged her to.

“Leighton’s heart was upside down,” Mabbot said as she tugged at her boots. “But maybe he was right about me setting my sights too low. What is genius but audacity?” She sighed when she looked at herself in the mirror. “Damn it, Wedge, you’re a hell of a barber.”

When every man had assembled on the tween deck, Mabbot stood above them on the poop. “I hope you’ll excuse my absence,” she shouted as she took off her hat and revealed her wound. “I’ve had a bit of a headache!” They laughed harder than the joke warranted, perhaps; the men were much relieved to see their queen alive.

When they had quieted, Mabbot’s face had become somber. “There is not a man here who is conscripted, bound, or blackmailed. You have each chosen your place aboard this ship, free and brave. You have bled on this deck and you have danced on it. The sea is full of ships wealthier, ships faster, ships stouter than our
Rose
, yet you have each, for your own reason, stayed on. Think on that reason now. For we have dangerous waters ahead. An opportunity has arisen to strike at the heart of the company and we shan’t have it again. But I must have you with me.

“History is a pageant of war machines plowing the earth to a powder, and the cruelest yet is the Pendleton Trading Company. There is a reason why China will not let them beyond the shores of the Pearl River. There is a reason why the colonists in the New World sank their tea in the harbor rather than drink a single cup of Pendleton’s brew. I need not tell you of the millions Pendleton has starved and murdered. I need not tell you how she mills slaves into poppy and poppy into sable-lined gloves for the mistresses of fat men.

“Now, there is nothing wrong with silver, and we have our shares below ready to be spent. I propose to you now that we spend them in Brazil. Brazil is full of dancing women, pinga rum, and chocolate. But not before we finish our work here. Lucky is the man who can right a wrong, and such a wrong this is. I question not your bravery, nor your skill. I ask only for your vote, for if you say ‘nay,’ we will turn today and head immediately for the New World. But if you give me ‘aye,’ we shall make a mark here that history shall not forget and sail on to Brazil with our sails full of victory. Now, who says to me ‘nay’?”

The ship was silent.

“Who ‘aye’?”

The ship exploded with cheers.

“I expected no less, you cougars, you falcons. Come round and jibe north as the wind wants us to, Mr. Apples, toward the Pearl River! Bosun! Paint the hull with something drab and cover the gilt with sacks. We’ll have to go in mufti. Strike the colors and raise a blue flag. We are now a whaling ship.”

Mabbot leaped into the crowd of men, slapping them on the back and pushing them toward their stations. “Aloft, men! Why are your hands empty, don’t you hear the gong? We’ve an appointment with the Pendleton Company!”