“Aye? I wonder who’s that?” Jamie spoke absently; we were no more than an hour away from arrival at Jared’s plantation on Sugar Bay, and I knew his mind was busy with plans for finding Young Ian.
“A chap named Grey,” I said, turning away from the rail. “Nice man; I met him on the ship, just briefly.”
“Grey?” Startled, Jamie looked down at me. “Not Lord John Grey, by chance?”
“Yes, that was his name? Why?” I glanced up at him, curious. He was staring at the
“Why?” He heard me when I repeated the question a second time, and glanced down at me, smiling. “Oh. It’s only that I ken Lord John; he’s a friend of mine.”
“Really?” I was no more than mildly surprised. Jamie’s friends had once included the French minister of finance and Charles Stuart, as well as Scottish beggars and French pickpockets. I supposed it was not remarkable that he should now count English aristocrats among his acquaintance, as well as Highland smugglers and Irish seacooks.
“Well, that’s luck,” I said. “Or at least I suppose it is. Where do you know Lord John from?”
“He was the Governor of Ardsmuir prison,” he replied, surprising me after all. His eyes were still fixed on the
“And he’s a
He turned and smiled at me, taking his attention at last from the English ship.
“Well, friends are where ye find them, Sassenach,” he said. He squinted toward the shore, shading his eyes with his hand. “Let us hope this Mrs. Abernathy proves to be one.”
As we rounded the tip of the headland, a lithe black figure materialized next to the rail. Now clothed in spare seaman’s clothes, with his scars hidden, Ishmael looked less like a slave and a good deal more like a pirate. Not for the first time, I wondered just how much of what he had told us was the truth.
“I be leavin’ now,” he announced abruptly.
Jamie lifted one eyebrow and glanced over the rail, into the soft blue depths.
“Dinna let me prevent ye,” he said politely. “But would ye not rather have a boat?”
Something that might have been humor flickered briefly in the black man’s eyes, but didn’t disturb the severe outlines of his face.
“You say you put me ashore where I want, I be tellin’ you ’bout those boys,” he said. He nodded toward the island, where a riotous growth of jungle spilled down the slope of a hill to meet its own green shadow in the shallow water. “That be where I want.”
Jamie looked thoughtfully from the uninhabited shore to Ishmael, and then nodded.
“I’ll have a boat lowered.” He turned to go to the cabin. “I promised ye gold as well, no?”
“Don’t be wantin’ gold, mon.” Ishmael’s tone, as well as his words, stopped Jamie in his tracks. He looked at the black man with interest, mingled with a certain reserve.
“Ye’ll have something else in mind?”
Ishmael jerked his head in a short nod. He didn’t seem outwardly nervous, but I noticed the faint gleam of sweat on his temples, despite the mild noon breeze.
“I be wantin’ that one-arm nigger.” He stared boldly at Jamie as he spoke, but there was a diffidence under the confident facade.
“Temeraire?” I blurted out in astonishment. “Why?”
Ishmael flicked a glance at me, but addressed his words to Jamie, half-bold, half-cajoling.
“He ain’t no good to you, mon; can’t be doin’ field work or ship work neither, ain’t got but one arm.”
Jamie didn’t reply directly, but stared at Ishmael for a moment. Then he turned and called for Fergus to bring up the one-armed slave.
Temeraire, brought up on deck, stood expressionless as a block of wood, barely blinking in the sun. He too had been provided with seaman’s clothes, but he lacked Ishmael’s raffish elegance in them. He looked like a stump upon which someone had spread out washing to dry.
“This man wants you to go with him, to the island there,” Jamie said to Temeraire, in slow, careful French. “Do you want to do this thing?”
Temeraire did blink at that, and a brief look of startlement widened his eyes. I supposed that no one had asked him what he wanted in many years—if ever. He glanced warily from Jamie to Ishmael and back again, but didn’t say anything.
Jamie tried again.
“You do not have to go with this man,” he assured the slave. “You may come with us, and we will take care of you. No one will hurt you. But you can go with him, if you like.”
Still the slave hesitated, eyes flicking right and left, clearly startled and disturbed by the unexpected choice. It was Ishmael who decided the matter. He said something, in a strange tongue full of liquid vowels and syllables that repeated like a drumbeat.
Temeraire let out a gasp, fell to his knees, and pressed his forehead to the deck at Ishmael’s feet. Everyone on deck stared at him, then looked at Ishmael, who stood with arms folded with a sort of wary defiance.
“He be goin’ with me,” he said.
And so it was. Picard rowed the two blacks ashore in the dinghy, and left them on the rocks at the edge of the jungle, supplied with a small bag of provisions, each equipped with a knife.
“Why there?” I wondered aloud, watching the two small figures make their way slowly up the wooded slope.
