The Hunger (17 page)

Garneray’s painting of Portsmouth Harbour filled with hulks still stood on the easel, next to the port, but Garneray was hunched over a barrel. John smelled acid. Garneray had a pound note laid out and was carefully copying it in acid upon a plate of metal. Heavy rag paper was stacked on the floor.

“How goes it, my friend?” John asked. He sank onto a stool, exhausted.

Garneray grinned. “I am learning a trade, against the time I am paroled.”

John cleared his throat. “I have need of your new art, since the guards took my money.”

“I heard you and Dupré have information which must reach our government.”

John raised his brows.

“There are no secrets in a ship like this.”

“Should I be alarmed?”

“If yours was an average escape I would say yes.” He perused his metal plate. It was half a perfect likeness of a pound note off a Dorchester bank. The other half was blank. “But there is not a man aboard who would not like to poke the British in the eye. I could not answer for any of us under torture, though.”

“No man knows if he can withstand torture.” He stared at Garneray. “Will you provide?”

Garneray nodded. “You started me in my trade. Was this not in your mind then?”

“No. I thought I had enough money. I had another reason, which I will keep to myself.”

Garneray shrugged. “You may have five-pound notes now. Pound notes will take longer.”

“A hundred pounds then.”

Garneray rose, took a large dark blue glass bottle labeled “linseed oil” from his little shelf. He popped the wide cork from its mouth, slipped out a roll of five-pound notes, counted out twenty to John, and stoppered the bottle again.

John put the roll of soft in his pocket. He nodded.

“How long before you try?” Garneray asked.

“How often do the supplies come on board?”

“Twice a week.”

“Then, in a week,” he said, and slipped out through the curtain. He hoped he could stay out of the guards’ way until then. And he hoped Dupré would last that long.

All was ready. Reynard was the liaison between the prisoners and those who bought their wares. On the pretense of giving a message to Garneray’s art dealer, he arranged the whole under the very noses of the guards. It was risky. But John could think of no other way to avoid swimming for it. It would happen in four days. John thought Dupré would make it.

The portholes slapped shut for the night as the prisoners were locked below. Dupré was called up on deck to get their miserable evening meal. Reynard read by the light of a tallow candle. John sat shuffling cards, wondering why they chose Dupré. The guards knew he was ill. A dreadful premonition began to grow in John’s belly. Their heads both jerked up as Dupré stumbled down the companionway, scattering food across the prisoners.

John and Reynard rose as one, crouching under the low deck. John fought his way over bodies toward Dupré. He lay facedown, still. John turned him over. The man’s eyes bulged in surprise. A dark stain spread over his chest. Dupré craned his neck to see the wound then lay back, realization filling his eyes.

“Who did this?” John asked as he undid the man’s waistcoat.

Dupré half chuckled and shook his head. “A shadow.”

“Did any of you see?” John accused the others around him.

Murmured denials. The wound was bad. Behind him, Garneray said, “No doctor till tomorrow morning now. I’ll go up land tell the guards we need one.”

“Help me get him to his place, Reynard,” John ordered. His mission was melting away.

They did what they could. They cleaned the wound with grog and bound it. John thought a lung had been pierced. They made him as comfortable as possible. John volunteered to sit up with him. Now, in the small hours, John’s spirits sank. Dupré would no more escape than he would fly. He would not even make it to see the doctor in the morning. A candle guttered next to Duprés pallet. The other prisoners had edged away from the dying man.

Dupré looked at him from eyes too bright. His face was gray and clammy. He seemed to go in and out of his senses. Only a few moments ago he had been raving about bats and blood and immortality. Understandable in one who was about to meet his maker. Now he seemed to have gained focus, though his breathing gurgled with blood. He motioned to John.

“A few more hours,” John whispered to him, leaning close. “A doctor . . .”

“Too late,” Dupré gasped. Blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

“Not too late,” John protested without conviction. It was an act. Dupré either told him what he came to this hell to find out now, or he had done it all for nothing.

Dupré rolled his head impatiently. “Think, man! You know in your heart.”

John bowed his head. “I know.”

He did. “You must bear the burden alone.”

John closed his eyes so he would not seem desperate for
the information. Dying men were perceptive. Their illusions had been stripped from them. When he had command of himself, he opened them. Dupré grabbed his neck with one cold, sweating hand and drew him down. John turned his head and put his ear to the barely moving lips.

“Take what you know to Asharti.” Dupré gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.

John pulled away. What kind of name was that? Dupré was whispering again. John bent.

“The Comtesse de Fanueille. They will say it is Fanueille.” His voice was fading now. It was only a breath. John could not even be certain of the words. “But he is . . . her pawn. Do not trust him . . . with what you know. Asharti will . . . understand and act.”

A
woman
was the spider in the center of the web? “Where do I find this Asharti?”

“Paris or . . . Chantilly.” With his last strength, he clutched John’s arm. “Be careful. There is evil. I have seen things . . .” The eyes faded. “Fear her . . .” he whispered.

The lips stopped moving. The gasping breath stilled. John sat up. There was a small smile still hovering around lips almost blue with lack of air. Even as he looked at the bright, fevered eyes, they dulled. The hulks had claimed another prisoner.

John sucked in his breath, feeling dirty. Dupré died thinking he had achieved a final act that helped his country. John could not but admit relief that he hadn’t had to kill the man or put him into Barlow’s tender hands. But he knew if it had come to that, he would have done it. He was his country’s man. He had known that was less than noble for years and yet gone on. Now he must escape, and use the information he had wrenched from Dupré against the French. He did not feel triumphant.

He closed the eyelids over the staring pupils. “Go with God,” he murmured and stood up. He turned and found
Reynard standing behind him. How much had he heard? He peered at the bluff man’s face in the darkness, expecting duplicity, avarice, some expression of his intent.

He saw only sorrow.

“A miserable way of escape, poor sod. But at least he is away.” Reynard heaved a sigh.

John hoped he found a different way off the hulks. He had done what was required. Dupré was dead. And he had a name. Asharti.

Ten

“Symington, are you back at last?” Beatrix murmured, opening her eyes. The old man was standing over her. And he had a strange young man standing behind him.

“You have not been taking care of yourself, my lady,” Symington admonished.

She shook her head, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

Symington picked up the half-empty bottle of laudanum from her night table and pocketed it. “Well, you must pay attention now,” he said sharply, in tones remarkably unlike a servant. “Rivers here is applying for a post as a new footman, and you must interview him. Privately.” He pushed the fresh-faced young man forward.

“Sorry to come to you so informal, your ladyship, but Symington here said you wouldn’t like me wearing a cravat.”

Beatrix blinked. He wasn’t wearing a cravat. She could see the blood beating in his throat at his open collar. “What I need is more laudanum, Symington,” she threatened.

“Later perhaps,” he said calmly. “But now it is time to
do your duty.” He turned to the door, leaving the nervous applicant shifting from foot to foot. “And be careful, won’t you?”

Beatrix sighed. The old man was a termagant. She looked at the boy, for he was no more than a boy. The fog was lifting from her mind. The laudanum must have worn off. She felt her Companion rise along her veins, needing. She sighed. Symington knew she was always careful with them. She hadn’t caused one more than passing inconvenience in six hundred years. Wasn’t that what Stephan taught her?

“Come here, young man. Sit beside me and tell me your name.”

It was today. Reynard and Garneray were set to help. The whole ship might know, including Rose and his thugs. Reynard never let on that he heard John’s last exchange with Dupré. John didn’t ask. The supply barge thumped alongside. Two bargemen had twenty counterfeit pounds apiece in their pockets. The man who oversaw the quay where the cargo would be unloaded had twenty from Garneray’s art dealer, sympathetic as long as Garneray was not the one to go, and the dealer himself got another thirty. Garneray had made up another twenty in pound notes for John, since he would arrive on shore naked, without food or transport.

If he was lucky. John volunteered to get his messmates’ rations from the cookhouse on the deck with Reynard and Garneray. The bargemen began arguing with the guard who oversaw supplies. John was about to slip inside the cookhouse, when the hated voice rose behind him.

“You there! Troublemaker! Get over here.”

John’s stomach turned. He was so close! Slowly, he faced his persecutor. The other prisoners shuffled on toward the cookhouse, but heads turned.

Walden was shorter than he was. As he stepped up to
John, he had to look up. His pinched face squinted in dissatisfaction. “You been misbehaving again, ain’t you, troublemaker?” he asked, his breath reeking of grog. “I’ll bet we got to flog you.”

John kept his face impassive. Here it was, just what he had hoped to avoid. He would not survive another lashing and the Hole. The mission would fail.

“What will you do to avoid a lashing, Frenchie, eh? Say ‘please don’t lash me, sir’? Would you say that? Come on, say that.”

John gritted his teeth. Succumbing might make the brute bolder. Resisting was just what he wanted. He took a breath. “Please don’t lash me.”

“Sir.” The guard raised his truncheon. The prisoners around him muttered.

“Sir.” John ground it out.

“Good.” The brute grinned. “Good. Now, I don’t think you need them clothes. Strip.”

He was very glad Reynard had the money this time. The prisoners had stopped where they were. John took off his canvas suit. Next would come the order to the capstan. It was over. The guard walked around him. John felt a truncheon to the backs of his knees. He fell to all fours and struggled to kneel. The prisoners crowded round. The guard looked up, as surprised as John. He raised his truncheon. “Get back there!” But he was only one. John saw two others come tripping down the quarterdeck ladder in their haste. Rose came to the rail.

“What goes on there?” he shouted. “Get those men below!”

Hands pulled John to his feet. He was in the middle of the crowd of prisoners. The hated guard was outside the circle. Hands pushed John down where he couldn’t be seen, shoved him through the cookhouse door with Reynard and Garneray.

“Quick, man,” Reynard whispered. John crouched inside
an empty barrel. Reynard pressed the little pouch of forged notes into his hands.

“Bravest thing I ever saw,” Garneray said softly.

“You jest. I just stripped and begged for mercy,” John muttered.

“That’s what was brave,” Reynard whispered as he pushed John’s head down and raised his mallet to tap home the lid. “I would have clocked the bastard, and it would have been over.”

“I’ll send back for you,” he promised.

Garneray laughed. “Do not make promises you cannot keep, friend. We are wed to a devil named Rose, and like to remain so.”

“Rose will soon be gone,” John said, as the lid closed. He could hear Reynard’s bitter chuckle as the barrel rang with the thump of the hammer.

“Go with God,” Garneray said as they let themselves out to the deck. John had said the same to Dupré in what he hoped would be different circumstances. He felt for the cork and pushed it out. The bunghole would be his only source of air.

Shouts. The barrel tipped and John rolled over and over, barking his knees and elbows. The bargemen hefted it into a net. God allow that no guard noticed the ropes that sagged with too much weight for an empty barrel. A clunk in the bottom of the boat and then the rocking of the water. His barrel should be the last cargo loaded. Light streamed in through the little bunghole. More shouts. The barge pulled for shore. It was a good half hour until they thunked against the quay. His barrel was jostled, heaved up, rolled along some wooden surface, then hauled upright.

No light came through the bunghole. He waited, cramped, trying to keep his breathing shallow. He expected discovery at any moment. After all, he had disappeared on deck in the middle of a crowd of prisoners,
leaving his clothes behind. His only chance was that in Rose’s hurry to get the rebellious prisoners below, no one noticed John was not among them.

At last all around him was quiet. Now he would find out whether he was strong enough to push out the barrel top. He pulled numb legs under him, ducked his head, and put his shoulder to it. Nothing happened. His healing welts scraped against the wood and opened. He stopped, chest heaving. He tried again. A shriek of metal against wood and the barrel top popped free. He rose, gasping, and the barrel fell, taking him with it.

He was in a warehouse. Dim stacked barrels like his own rose around him. He crawled out and pushed himself to his knees, swaying.

Now, unless the transport officers were waiting outside the door, it was time to pay some rude fellow for his clothes and put some distance between himself and the horror of the hulks. If only it was not a horror of British making and if only he was not leaving newfound French friends behind in hell.