Kite felt hollowed out. There was nothing left to do.
He had nabbed the desk and the far end of the Angleterre’s stateroom before anyone else could, which was just as well. Over the other side of the room, around a mahogany table, a group of captains and officers from other ships were in the middle of an involved-looking card game, coats slung over the back of the ornate chairs. Some of them were snugged up under velvet throws. The French captain had been living quite a nice life.
Had been; Kite had shoved him in front of a firing squad, along with all the French officers. The man had seemed to think that was unfair, and remained unpersuaded even after all the English officers pointed out that a lot worse was waiting for them in London if ever they were caught. Kite thought that was boorish of him. If you were going to dismember people outside Buckingham Palace, it was silly to go round being surprised when someone shot you.
The French sailors had been pressed firmly into English ranks.
‘Wellesley! Almond croissant?’ someone called.
His insides constricted. He had been trying to avoid Wellesley.
He put the cross of his rosary back into the candle again. It was haematite, because the wooden ones always got burned or broken.
‘Have you seen Mr Kite?’ Wellesley’s voice asked. She sounded like she was halfway through a croissant.
‘He was here, we must have put him somewhere. Oh, bugger. Fold.’
‘I’m here,’ he called past the oriental screens. Cowardly to hide. Smoke rose delicately from his arm as he pressed the cross against the tattoo. There were already two burned crosses over most of the lines already.
He hadn’t really decided to get rid of it. He had just known he had to, as soon as he sat down. Normally he couldn’t be anywhere near open flame without dissolving into shuddering moronhood, but this was different, maybe because it was to a purpose. The important fact wasn’t that he was burning off a tattoo. It was that Joe was gone, and he wasn’t coming home again.
Wellesley came through. ‘Has Clay’s cat put something in the fire again? I can smell— Jesus Christ! What if that goes bad!’
‘I burned half my face off without too much difficulty, I think I’ll be fine,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘Are you all right?’
Wellesley stared at him. ‘You’re not even drunk.’
‘No?’
‘Can you drink something please, sir,’ she said, with a mix of rage and helplessness all battened down. She reached over to pick up the rum bottle from the edge of the desk, then froze when Kite flinched right back from her. He lifted his hands a little, trying to say without having to find the words that his nerves were frayed to oakum.
‘Just the bottle,’ she said carefully.
Kite gave it to her.
‘Look, I can see this must be Mrs Castlereagh-related, and I suppose in theory that this particular moment is a … a small lull, in which you might choose to go to pieces somewhat, but could you possibly rein it back in from flaying yourself? You know, pull it down to shouting at the mids or crying in a corner?’ She sounded strained.
From beyond the screen came a collective groan as someone produced an unlikely hand. ‘I’m fine. You’d be a lot more annoyed if I were having hysterics in the corner.’
‘Should I be fetching an indigo to relieve you of duty?’ she said sharply.
‘You bring an indigo in here and I’ll throw her at you.’
‘Well, that’s not very attractive, is it.’
‘Wellesley. You mean to suggest I might be – homely?’
She gave him a patient look, but she was starting to laugh. ‘Are there bandages in the desk?’
‘Sorry?’
‘There must be.’ She came round and opened desk drawers until she found them. Kite jolted away when she tried to take his wrist. ‘You can’t leave that to the open air.’
Reluctantly, Kite let her have his arm. Wellesley got the bandage on quickly and neatly. He wished he could just be honest with her. She was one of the few people he knew who wasn’t scared of him. She was six foot two, so to her he must have seemed small and manageable. He caught her watching him sometimes on the quarterdeck in the way he would have looked at a china figurine.
‘Are there any orders yet, from the Admiralty?’ she asked as she passed the bandage around his arm.
‘No orders, hence the evening off. But apparently we’re all getting an official pat on the head for acting so promptly on their command to break the blockade,’ he said, smiling. ‘You should join that poker game. Fleece them and buy some wine.’
She ignored him. ‘That’s quite something to pull off, sir. All-out fleet-wide mutiny and then making the Admiralty pretend they ordered it.’
‘I imagine Lawrence will be by later to shoot me unofficially,’ Kite forecast. He wondered how soon you heard the hellfire snickering round your ankles after you died. Not instantly, it couldn’t be. It had taken the angels nine days to fall to Pandemonium from heaven, and Earth was halfway, so it stood to reason you got a half-week of peace and quiet en route.
‘If you could pretend to be one or two atoms worried?’ she said.
He frowned. ‘What for?’
Clay sloped in and looked cross. ‘Get rid of one, ’nother one turns up twice the bloody size.’
‘Just the way of it,’ said Wellesley, unmoved.
Clay scowled. Kite set both hands on the arms of the chair, ready to get up fast if Clay decided to go for her. ‘Watch it or I’ll sell you to the French and all.’
Kite froze. Something awful was snaking around the inside of his skull. ‘Rob.’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean, you sold Joe to the French?’
Clay gave him a cold look, sane and measured. ‘I put the code onto the machine thing and they answered.’
42
Santíssima Trinidad
, the Irish Sea, 1807
They were sailing. Joe could feel the water
