Dawn on a Distant Shore (38 page)

Nathaniel could see the
full strength of it now in Elizabeth's face as she paced the deck, her arms
wound around herself. Once before he had seen her this close to broken, but
that battle had left the kind of bruises that healed. This time there would be no
healing for either of them until they had the children and Curiosity back.

The
Jackdaw
was
only eighteen feet at the beam; Nathaniel could almost reach out and touch his wife
as she paced by. But she looked to the horizon for comfort, and seemed not to
take note of him at all. Since she had come on board and spilled out the whole
story of what had passed she had barely spoken a word.

"It ain't her
fault," said Hawkeye when she had passed them once again. "You need
to make her understand that."

"If there's
anyone tae blame, it must be me," said Robbie hoarsely. "I was a fool
tae trust Moncrieff. I tried tae tell her so, but she wouldna listen."

Nathaniel said,
"It'll take more than words to set her right."

Hawkeye grunted, for
it was the simple truth. But Robbie's troubled expression settled on Nathaniel.

"Aye, but words
are a start, lad. Dinna let her grieve alone." He put a hand on Nathaniel's
shoulder, but it was the weight of the word, the idea of grieving, that brought
him to his feet.

He scanned the length
of the ship, from the forecastle where Stoker was deep in conversation with his
first mate, to the bow.

"She's gone
below," said Hawkeye, his unease showing clear. He had been raised among strong-minded
women and had had another one to wife. His daughter-in-law was made in the same
mold, and he liked and admired her; it wouldn't occur to him to forbid
Elizabeth to go anywhere. But Stoker's crew was a rough lot--Americans and Irishmen,
and a handful of the kind who claim no home and want none. Nathaniel saw the
worry in his father's face, and thought his own expression probably gave away
just as much. He went after her.

At the bottom of the
companionway Nathaniel stopped to clear his head of the sound of the sea. What
he heard took him by surprise: an old woman's voice, and Elizabeth's quiet
tones in reply. Alone for a moment on a ship where there would be precious
little privacy, too tall to stand in the cramped space, Nathaniel crouched down
to listen. His head ached, and he was tired, and he wondered if he would ever
be able to sleep again. Even in sleep he could not escape the fact that his
children had been taken from him without a struggle, and by a man he had given
his trust.
I regret the necessity of such a drastic step, but your
father-in-law denied me every other more reasonable alternative.
That
single sentence echoed in his head, carved deep in the very bones of his skull.
If this ship should go down now and kill him outright Nathaniel knew that he
would walk the sea floor to get to them. And to Angus Moncrieff, who would be
taught the meaning of reason, and regret.

The sound of throaty
laughter from the cabin startled him out of his daydream. Elizabeth's voice
again, in reply. He thought of joining them, but then he had spent much of his
life in the company of women and he knew the sound of a conversation where men were
not welcome. And the truth was, he had little comfort to offer.

He went back up on
deck to ask again after their speed and to find some work to do. For the moment
hard labor was the only thing that would keep him sane.

She was old, so old
that time had reversed its path: the hair under the tightly knotted kerchief was
baby-fine and only two teeth were left in the wide, thin-lipped mouth. These
were on the right side, and served as the anchor for a pipe that wobbled and
waved over a sunken breast covered with a mass of chains and baubles. But there
was nothing childlike about the woman's mind, and she squinted at Elizabeth
from a fog of tobacco smoke with a bright and inquisitive expression, plucking her
pipe from her mouth to point at a tea chest.

"Sit!"

Elizabeth hesitated,
but the pipe tapped smartly on the arm of the chair and she seemed to have little
choice but to comply.

"I had no
intention of disturbing you," she said, resting very uncomfortably on the
edge of the chest, and trying not to stare around herself at the crowded cabin,
nor to inhale too deeply the mingled smells of stale tobacco, rank clothing,
and fish oil. "I was just looking for a quiet spot."

The old woman let out
a hoot of laughter. "Cor, a quiet spot on the
Jackdaw
. Now,
there's
a pretty notion."

The reedy, wobbling
voice was London with an overlay of Ireland and other places Elizabeth could
not quite put a name to. Here was a mystery that would have intrigued at any
other time, but Elizabeth was so tired she could not focus on the most obvious things.
Nor could she quite bring herself to do what she wanted to do, which was to
give in to her low spirits and simply walk away.

"Please permit me
to introduce myself--"

"I know who you
are," said the old woman. "Saw you when you come with that bloody
great Indian to talk to Mac, though I expect you didn't see me. Annie is my
name, but most call me Granny Stoker. Mac is the youngest son of me youngest
son."

"Ah," said
Elizabeth. "I recall that he mentioned you the first time I spoke to
him."

"Eh? And what did
he say?"

"He did not say
that you sail with him. I'm glad not to be the only woman on board, but I am
somewhat surprised to find you here."

The old lady's mouth
worked around the stem of the pipe. "Don't be. Women been on the water since
the first raft was pushed off, even if some don't like to admit it. Now me, I
don't go on land unless I'm dragged. First shipped out when I was just fifteen.
That was seventy-seven years ago. I'll wager you've heard of me. I went by Anne
Bonney back then, when I ran with Calico Jack."

Elizabeth thought it
might be bad policy to admit she had not heard either name, but to her relief,
the old woman's attention had already shifted. She fumbled for a cane at her
knee and with it she poked at Elizabeth's skirts.

"You need
breeches," she said, in the unapologetic tones of the very old when they
had made a personal decision for someone younger. "Skirts tie you down on
board. In breeks you'd move freer, and fight better when the time comes. But I
expect you'll tell me it isn't your way. You're that type."

Elizabeth found
herself bristling. "I'm not sure what type you mean, but the fact is, I
have worn leggings. All of last summer I wore them, when I was--" She hesitated.
"On the New-York frontier."

The brown eyes snapped
at her under a creased brow. "So I hear tell. Jack Lingo was a tough one,
weren't he?"

Elizabeth rubbed her
forehead. "I suppose your grandson told you."

"I keep my ears
open," said Annie Stoker. "And my eyes."

Wearily, Elizabeth
said, "And what do you see?"

The knotty hands
gripped the arms of the chair as the old woman leaned forward, her beads and
chains making a soft clinking sound. "I see a woman et up with anger, and
no place to go with it. You won't weep, not in front of me. Maybe not in front
of anybody. That Scot don't know what kind of trouble he's called down on his
head with you. Took your babbies, and left you with more than one kind of pain.
I expect if I put a finger to your breast it might feel ready to burst about now."

Elizabeth composed her
expression. "It's not so bad."

The old lady had a
whoop of a laugh with very little of amusement in it. "Maybe you can make
your menfolk believe that, but you look at me again, girl, and see what you're
looking at. Ten children I've brought into this world, the first one when I was
sixteen years old. The last one was Mac's da, when I was forty-five. But when I
look at you I'm put in mind of my second. My only girl, and they took her away
from me before I could give her a name." She picked up the cane again and
pointed it at Elizabeth's bodice with two quick jabbing motions. "They
ache like two bad teeth. Ain't that so?"

Elizabeth folded her
arms across herself and tried not to flinch as her breasts, rock-hard, pulsed
and leaked in response. But the old lady had already turned away to begin
rummaging around in an open chest at the side of her chair. Her pipe worked
furiously up and down as she clawed through a jumble of fabrics: old-fashioned waistcoats
and pelisses of yellowed brocade, petticoats and skirts dangling torn flounces.

"There we
are," she said, hooking something dull brown to deposit it onto
Elizabeth's lap. "And these. Make good use of them."

There were breeches
and a loose-cut shirt. "This is very kind of you," Elizabeth said, resisting
the urge to examine them for lice in front of the old lady.

Annie Stoker waved a
hand dismissively. She pointed with her cane to another chest. "In that box
there you'll find linen for binding. You wrap your chest up tight as ever you
can stand it, that will help some. You can do it now. But if the pain gets to
be too much anyway, you have that man of yours give you some ease."

"Ease,"
Elizabeth echoed.
What right do I have to ease?
And she saw with some
distant surprise how her own tears fell to darken the rough homespun of the
breeches. Her bodice was full wet now, but she did not have the strength to
hide this from the old woman.

She said, "Why
did they take your daughter from you?"

A shrug of the bony
shoulders. "I was headed for the gallows at the time. You may not credit
it to see me now, respectable old lady that I am, but I was a terror back then,
and I near swung for it. Until Paddy Stoker got a better idea and took me away
to Ireland. We left the girl behind. I never knew what became of her." The
old woman leaned forward to grasp Elizabeth by the wrist. Her skin was dry and warm,
and her grip was unforgiving. "A bellyful of anger ain't the worst thing,
right now," she said.

The last of the evening
light shifted from the window to lay its warmth on Anne Stoker's face. Tears
were swelling in Elizabeth's throat and she blinked hard as the old woman
doubled in her vision. The blur of color around her neck glimmered and took on
sudden clarity: a blue-tinted diamond the size of a woman's thumbnail. A string
of square-cut sapphires, and a pendant of amber and worked silver. Coins of all
sizes and lands. And half hidden in the folds of the faded calico shirt another
coin, larger and heavier, on a chain of its own. A five-guinea gold piece, with
old King George in profile.

Elizabeth touched the
spot between her own breasts where that very coin had rested for almost a year,
and then her gaze traveled up the length of the chain to Anne Stoker's face.

The old lady showed
her empty red gums and two dimples carved new grooves on the lined cheeks. Then
she reached into a crewel-worked pocket tied to her waist over a pair of
leather breeches and drew out a pendant: a single pearl in a clutch of silver
petals and curling leaves. She held it up so that the pearl twisted in the
scattered light, and then she tossed it.

"Lookin' for
that, are you?"

Elizabeth caught it
with one hand. The metal was cold against her palm, but there was a warmth in
the pearl that she had first noted when Nathaniel had put the chain around her
neck as a wedding present. How it had hurt her pride to have this taken from
her. Now it seemed a very small thing, and unimportant.

She sent Anne Stoker a
sidelong glance. "I must have dropped it when I came on board at
Sorel."

"Must have."

Her innocent tone was
at odds with the satisfied expression in those bright eyes. A respectable old
lady, indeed. Knowing that she flushed, and that her high color gave away
something, Elizabeth said, "There was a panther's tooth, too."

"Was there now?
And how did you come by such a thing as that?"

"It is a very
long story."

"Aye, and what
better way to pass the time than wit' a good, long story?"

Elizabeth considered
for a moment. "I don't suppose you have a toothbrush in that trunk of yours?
And a hairbrush?"

"I might
do," said the old lady, her fingers winding through silver chains.
"Why do you ask?"

"Stories do not
come cheap," said Elizabeth.

The old woman's face
lit up. "Oooh," she said. "Intend to haggle wit' me, do
you?"

Whatever Elizabeth
might have said to Anne Stoker was interrupted by the sound of running feet on
deck and a call from the crow's nest: "Ship ahoy!" She started up
from her seat, but the old woman never moved.

"Not the one
you're looking for," she said evenly. "Not yet."

"Do you think
we'll catch the
Isis
up, then?" It was the most important question,
and Elizabeth feared the answer so much that she had not been able to ask the
men outright.

Granny Stoker laughed,
the tobacco-stained fingers threading through the lifetime's plunder hung
around her neck. "Have you watched children playin' at tag, me dear?"

Elizabeth nodded.
"I have."
Once I was a schoolteacher
, she might have said. But
it seemed so long ago, and she would not think of home. Not now.