calm after a terrible storm.
She thought of Malta, her brief visit in an Indiaman, which had been on government business and bound for Naples. Sillitoe had arranged for her to be landed at Malta, even though she knew he would once have done anything to keep her from Richard, and he had made no attempt to gain any advantage either on the passage out or on the journey back to England. If anything, he had been withdrawn, perhaps at last understanding what it had cost her to leave the man she loved behind in Malta.
Forever.
She had seen him only twice since Richard’s death. He had offered his condolences, and assured her of his readiness to help in any way he could. As with the lawyer, Lafargue, he had understood immediately her concern for Adam. He had been correct in every way, and had made it his business to begin enquiries of his own.
Catherine thought she understood men, had learned much out of necessity. But after Richard, how could she survive? Where would be the point?
She recalled the exact moment when they had been reunited, at English Harbour over ten years ago. She had been married to Somervell, the King’s Inspector-General.
Dazed and yet on guard because of the unexpectedness of the meeting, and the danger she had known it would offer. Telling him he needed love, as the desert craves for rain.
Or was I speaking of myself? My own desires?
And now he is dead.
And tomorrow, another challenge. All those staring eyes. Not those of the men who had stood with him and had faced death a hundred times, or the women who had loved and welcomed them when they had returned home. Without limbs. Without sight. Without hope.
No. They would be the faces and the eyes she had seen that evening at the celebration of Wellington ’s victory. Rhodes, who had been championed as the new First Lord of the Admiralty. Richard’s wife, bowing to applause she would never earn or deserve. And the unsmiling wife of Graham Bethune. Unsmiling until the moment of insult, as if she had been a part of it. All enemies.
She had turned her back on them. Had come here, half blind with anger and humiliation. She stood up quickly and stared at the bed. And he was waiting for me.
Tomorrow, then. The bells would toll, the drums echo through the empty streets. They would be remembering her Richard, her dearest of men, but they would be looking at her. At me.
And what would they see? The woman who had inspired a hero? The woman who had endured a shipwreck, and fought the danger and misery so that they might all hope to live, when most of them had already accepted a lingering death. The woman who had loved him. Loved him.
Or would they see only a whore?
She faced the mirror again and unfastened her gown, so that it fell and was held until she released it and stood naked, the hair warm against her spine.
As the desert craves for rain.
She sat again and recovered the brush. She heard a step on the stairs, quick and light. It would be Melwyn, her maid and companion. Cornish, from St Austell, a fair girl with an elusive, elfin prettiness. She was fifteen.
She stared unwaveringly at the mirror. Fifteen. As I was when I was with child. When my world began to change. Richard had known of that; Sillitoe also knew.
She heard a tap at the door and pulled the gown up to her shoulders. Melwyn entered the room and closed the door.
“You’ve not eaten, m’ lady.” She stood her ground, quietly determined. “Tesn’t right. Cook thought…”
She stood quite still as Catherine twisted round to look at her. Then she said simply, “You’m so beautiful, m’ lady. You must take more care. Tomorrow d’ be so important, and I can’t be with you. No room for servants…”
Catherine clasped her round the shoulders and pressed her face into the fair hair. Richard’s sister had told her that Melwyn meant honey-fair in the old Cornish tongue.
“You’re no mere servant, Melwyn.” She embraced her again. “Tomorrow, then.”
The girl said, “Sir Richard will expect it.”
Catherine nodded very slowly. She had nearly given in, broken down, unable to go through with it. She lifted her chin, felt the anger giving way to pride.
She said, “He will, indeed,” and smiled at a memory the girl would never know or understand. “So let’s be about it, then!”
4. New Beginning
CAPTAIN Adam Bolitho ran lightly up the companion ladder and paused as the bright sunshine momentarily dazzled him. He glanced around the quarterdeck, fitting names to faces, noting what each man was doing.
Lieutenant Vivian Massie had the afternoon watch, and seemed surprised by his appearance on deck. Midshipman Bellairs was working with his signals party, observing each man to see if he was quick to recognise every flag, folded in its locker or not. It was hard enough with other ships in company, but alone, with no chance to regularly send and receive signals, there was always a danger that mistakes born out of boredom would be made.
Four bells had just chimed from the forecastle. He looked up at the masthead pendant, whipping out half- heartedly in a wind which barely filled the sails. He walked to the compass box. East-by-south. He could feel the eyes of the helmsmen on him, while a master’s mate made a business of examining a midshipman’s slate. All as usual. And yet…
“I heard a hail from the masthead, Mr Massie?”
“Aye, sir.” He gestured vaguely towards the starboard bow. “Driftwood.”
Adam frowned and looked at the master’s log book. Eight hundred miles since leaving Gibraltar, in just under five days. The ship was a good sailer despite these unreliable winds, conditions which might be expected in the Mediterranean.
No sight of land. They could be alone on some vast, uncharted ocean. The sun was hot but not oppressively so, and he had seen a few burns and blisters amongst the seamen.
“Who is the lookout?”
He did not turn, but guessed Massie was surprised by what seemed so trivial a question.
He did not recognise the name.
“Send Sullivan,” he said.
The master’s mate said, “He’s off watch below, sir.”
Adam stared at the chart. Unlike those in the chartroom, it was stained and well used; there was even a dark ring of something where a watch keeper had carelessly left a mug.
“Send him.” He traced the coastline with his fingers. Fifty miles or so to the south lay Algiers. Dangerous, hostile, and little known except by those unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of Algerine pirates.
He saw the seaman Sullivan hurrying to the main shrouds, his bare feet hooking over the hard ratlines. His soles were like leather, unlike some of the landsmen, who could scarcely hobble after a few hours working aloft, although even they were improving. He heard Partridge, the ship’s barrel-chested boatswain, call out something, and saw Sullivan’s brown face split into a grin.
He knew that Cristie, the master, had arrived on deck. That was not unusual. He checked his log at least twice in every watch. His entire world was the wind and the currents, the tides and the soundings; he could probably discover the exact condition of the seabed merely by arming the lead with tallow and smelling the fragment hauled up from the bottom. Without his breed of mariner a ship was blind, could fall a victim to any reef or sandbar. Charts were never enough. To men like Cristie, they never would be, either.
Adam shaded his eyes and peered up at the mainmast again.
“Deck, there!”
Adam waited, picturing Sullivan’s bright, clear eyes, like those of a much younger man peering through a mask.
“Wreckage off the starboard bow!”
