Deluded Your Sailors (32 page)

Christ.

Slumped in the chair, knife in hand, shirt open, Captain Matt Finn snored. Gouges, slashes and nicks marked her chest. The left breast, once a pretty mound, bore additional scars around the nipple, while the right dandled, red and swollen. Freshly clotted blood, green and yellow pus, ancient white lines, newer brown scabs: an indecipherable course. The stories of Sallee Rovers, abduction to Barbary and a circumcision gone broad – Finn's flesh-dug scrimshaw gave it the lie. And Pilgrim had known it for a lie, known it a long time, yet he had not known it.

Pilgrim swatted flies from the wounds, desperate not to touch Finn. Hornets and wasps, sulky with the heat, hovered over spilled rum. Sweat and tears grimed Pilgrim's face.
Oh Christ, oh Christ, a
woman's hand on the belaying pin. Not responsible. Cannot be
responsible.

So many things I do not understand.

21) GOD-WALKERS
C
ANNARD
'
S LEDGER
.

...something to read, dim light and grey, grey, grey, from the mould on the pages to the ink in my pot, once afforded me a reverie: I stood in the Library of Alexandria, or, at least, in my Library of Alexandria. Hot sun streamed in through high windows, motes of dust and sand lightly dancing there. Books and scrolls reached to the high ceiling, books confiscated from any ship that docked in the harbour, yet there was no stink of calfskin or mould, for a single hair bound each roll of papyrus. And that ceiling was higher than a mast, higher than Canterbury, broad as Albion. Many men populated the library, scribes all, winding cloths tight about their chests, bare feet shuffling, goose quills behind their ears. They all sought ink. Yet why? Why, when already so many scrolls reached to the sky, to God: maps and history, poetry and medicine, the knowledge of hundreds of years, hundreds of men. To prove my point, I did take down a scroll to read to them, but the scribes noticed me not, shuffling on, intent. The edges crumbled, and as I tried to make out the Greek so as to read it to them, the sweat of my hands darkened the papyrus, weakened it, and the single hair binding it paled from black to white. I dropped the scroll before it should be completely undone, but it had already decayed to dust before it hit the floor and my own suddenly bare feet. I took in breath to cry out, but something tight about my chest ensured my silence, and then I recalled there might be a copy of that scroll I had just destroyed, and if not that, perhaps I could copy it out from memory. If only the letters had stayed still. Hundreds of years of knowledge, and then, fire. Seeking the chief librarian, or failing him, his daughter, the mathematician Hypatia, or, failing her, ink, I shuffled away from those shelves, trying to shake the binding hair from my fingers.

The night in 1719 upon which I tried to get Runciman drunk so he might tell me more of his business, he removed his wig, and plucked out a matted hair. He had come to my rooms, which were behind the offices of Cannard and Son, most pleased to have gotten the invitation. ‘My men, sir, the men with whom I have truck, aye,
my
men, well, few of them are in a position to invite me to their homes, and those who are, would not. Should they invite me to cross their private threshold, then I would not go, for invariably a house also shelters women and children. Both these creatures observe far more than we generally credit. But you, sir, alone as you are, your house is safe, and indeed I shall come for supper.'

I had hired a woman to cook, and the aromas of roast fowl, boiled potatoes with butter and dried fruit, now stewing, teased me the entire day as I worked the accounts. It being a winter day, the dark came quickly, and when I did need a candle to read the figures, I put the ledger aside. Finding dinner all in order and laid on the table, I dismissed the woman and waited by the fire, where I considered my earlier visitor.

Late that morning, I'd been standing in front of my father's desk, staring out the window at horses, men and women, mongers and workers, merchants and sailors, brats and fog. Sad suddenly, I dropped the curtain and stepped back from the window to lean against Father's desk, briefly my brother's, and now mine. Bills piled here, correspondence piled there; I could write until Bristol ran bare of ink and still not clew up. Father had worked long hours by candlelight, and I'd often found him asleep amongst his papers.

Then Father was standing behind me. I almost smelled him, his presence so close and large, as though he'd grown seven feet tall and might wrap me in massive arms. I dared not turn to look. We stayed like that some minutes, until the presence scattered. Outside, the noon sun broke through the low clouds.

Runciman sent me a note by a dockside brat, indicating he'd become delayed by the details of an enterprise he could not at that moment neglect. I fell asleep on the couch, letting the fire go low.

A chill arrived with Runciman, who, letting himself in, for I could keep no servants, found me dozing.

‘Cannard, Cannard, I do thank you. This smells excellent. Shall we sit to it?' Runciman ate, and Runciman drank, for I repeatedly filled his glass, being careful but to top my own, and the demolished short-legged hen between us served as the common island over which we spoke, or rather, Runciman spoke, and I listened. Tedious stuff, most of it, observations of deeds, ponderings on motives, and a short discourse on an underused section of the population, that being females. ‘Ah!' Runciman had grinned, showing long teeth. ‘That gets your attention.' He drank some more, the glassful at once, his Adam's apple jigging. ‘You see them as nothing more than warm holes, bodies to clutch in the dark. No question, they are good for that, made from the rib to comfort. But I, sir, I see more than most men, and I can see how better to put those bodies and whatever minds they house to use.

But enough of that. Will you help me, sir, to the couch, for I find that my bones have gone heavy.'

I stood up and rounded the table to give this service, but Runciman suddenly took off his wig, lifting it ceremoniously and dropping it on the table. It slid to the floor. He'd not shaved his head for some weeks, and his matted hair swooped back from the temples. From the back of this head he plucked one dark hair and laid it on the tablecloth, where it was almost lost in the shadows of fire and candlelight. Runciman's wandering eye took in my presence, but still he did not gaze on me full. ‘This,' he said, ‘is one lost agent.' He plucked another hair. ‘And this is another. This is a third. Killed, taken, deserted: I know not.' Then he picked the hairs up, struggling a bit to pinch at them with thick and drink-numbed fingers. Finally, he tucked the hairs in his waistcoat pocket.

‘I wear them, I shed them, I hide them, but each one, Cannard, each one I know, and each one I remember.'

He fell quite asleep. I tried to stir him, to guide him to the couch, but I could not shift that muscular body. I left him, first taking care to replace the wig on his head so he would not catch cold. Then I went to the couch myself to look upon the fire and think, but I fell asleep, and when I awoke in the cold before dawn, Runciman had gone.

Of my various attempts to escape Port au Mal for the apparently mythical Harbour Grace, the September 1724 run is most illustrative. The wind tugged at
Boyne
, skipper and ketch both eager to depart, but Admiral Lacey tromped through the hold, making to him a most satisfying racket with his new boots. These he called God-walkers. When I asked him why, he said that it is simply a name.

I'd gotten aboard
Boyne
that year, being tasked to follow Lacey and count empty barrels. Then I hid with the cargo, near choking on the stinks of old rope, rancid seawater and salt cod. Lacey yelled my name. Then he cursed very quietly.

‘I must keep this settlement alive, Cannard, and I will. And if to keep this settlement alive, I need to trap you here, then that is what I will do. You are too valuable. Can you not see that?'

He coaxed me next, iron under silk.

‘Now, I do understand you, John Cannard, I do, for you be a conscientious man. You finish each task I set with the persistence of a dog with a bone, and with that persistence you pay your debts.

Right now you suffer an obligation to me, and the weight of it chafes your neck like a chain. I understand that. However I also understand something greater. When Truscott and I leave for Harbour Grace today, most of the marks of order, the signposts at the crossroads, go with me. Your ship, Cannard, is gone. Your men are dead. Your strongbox rots at the bottom of the sea. You are part of Port au Mal now, and Harbour Grace has no more meaning for you. Now get your sorry arse ashore before I kick it there.'

Despot or no, he and his pleasure held my best chance for Harbour Grace. I did as he commanded.

The spring that Michael Riordan and Eamon Gate left the settlement, tearing into the woods at night – ‘Be dead in a day,' Lacey sneered – I discovered several errors in the arithmetic of merchants. At least, I thought them errors, until I totalled them.

Too many to be accidental. Lacey and I were working in the Hall that day, reviewing last year's catalogues, credits and debits. I showed Lacey how he had been cheated. All this time I considered my strongbox and Runciman's papers within. Surely I could still offer some of their content, even now, should the men tasked to await me in Harbour Grace still be there. I added and subtracted, multiplied and divided, made notes, scratched figures in the dust – we'd long run dry of ink – memorized lists, correlated in my sleep, did all I was bade, for I knew that Lacey's ketch would soon arrive, must arrive, and Lacey's ketch would carry me to Harbour Grace.

And from Harbour Grace, I might get home.

Nancy Truscott sighted
Boyne
's sail and ran to the Hall, screeching the news.

My very guts jumped with the hope. Merely a ketch, of course, smaller than my
Bonny Jane
, but mast and sail. This time I saw her myself, and soon I would touch her myself, my salvation, my transport to Harbour Grace. This wayward interruption would end.

Steps, go in steps, first accompany Lacey to Harbour Grace, then find work clerking for a merchant or at the garrison or fort until the next ship going to England took her departure.

Truscott soon joined us, luckily, as hunger had rotted us all, rendering Lacey an especial subject to giddiness. Lacey had lost a good two stone that winter, but he remained a heavy man, an alchemist's failure, his soul aspiring to gold, his bones made of lead, and a difficult burden when his knees gave way.

Eye to his glass, Lacey studied the ketch's careful passage through the narrows. Truscott remarked he thought
Boyne
looked fine, but Lacey heartily disagreed. ‘She looks like a drunken streel.

My God, she needs work. Here, Truscott, look how dull she is, her lines aren't even coiled. What has he done to her? What drooling fools has he got sailing with him this time? I'd flay him if I could find another skipper I trusted. Cannard, I shall sorely need your help over the next weeks.'

Weeks! Weeks with Lacey in Harbour Grace! Plenty of time to arrange passage, even arrange my working the passage. I may yet find the learned men, complete a shadow of my errand; do you not, sir, mean
Matthew
chapter twenty-seven, verse 6? A shipwreck, they would understand and even forgive a shipwreck, the papers' loss;
why, tis enough, Cannard, you floated along to tell the tale.

Lacey spoke again, smiling this time, rare thing, ‘Glad to see you looking so pleased. Cataloguing agrees with you. I'll be back in a fortnight or so, so make certain the ledgers are correct. I shall also need you to correlate the credits with the catches from last season and then copy them over into the new ledger, which is in my trunk. Here is the key. Now there is another complication, for I shall have to bring Truscott with me. Keep Nancy in victuals, but not one bite more than she got last year. Do you understand me, Cannard?'

I understood I would not be going to Harbour Grace.

Lacey continued, ‘Now, I'll be returning with stores for the year, and new bills and records from the Harbour Grace merchants, so be prepared for some extra figuring when I come back. Until then, tis you in charge of the stores.' More quietly he added, ‘I'm sorry, Cannard. I must leave someone at the Hall.'

‘Why then, sir, do whatever it was you did before my fortunate arrival.'

‘Tis all different now. I cannot leave Port au Mal undefended.

Bad enough I'm removing Truscott.'

‘Admiral Lacey, I might fall to my knees in despair as much as in hope. You must bring me to Harbour Grace. I have prayed for you to bring me to Harbour Grace. It is the only hope I have for England.'

‘Cannard,' he repeated, ‘truly, I am sorry. Not this year. By next season you will have worked for me enough that I will owe you passage, not only to Harbour Grace but all the way to England.

But this year I must beg you to remain. There exist masterless men, and they bring trouble. Gate and Riordan, should they come back, come to steal, come to burn – there is a pistol and shot in my trunk. Wear the key round your neck, what, do you wear one there already? Go to the Hall and start the correlations, while you still have daylight. Truscott, if you please?'