Claire Read online

  “Oui,” nodded Claire.

  “Who are these women?” asked the sailor, eyeing her greedily.

  “This is my sister, and these are our servants,” she said quietly.

  He glanced at Claudia, and noted the expensive material of their cloaks, and then barely looked at the servants. “Why are you on an American ship, eh?”

  “We have taken passage on whatever we could,” said Claire, without a flicker. “There are not many ships these days in Cherbourg.”

  Evidently the answer satisfied the sailor; he came over to her, letting his eyes run over her face, and making her thankful that she had taken the time to button her cloak up over her dress. “You have a husband, eh?”

  “Yes,” she said, without dropping her gaze, with a hard look in her cool blue eyes.

  “Perhaps he will pay well to have you in his bed again, eh?” inquired the sailor, leering at her from beneath half-closed eyes, his breath laden with garlic and spirits. He would have caught Claire’s chin in his grasp, except that suddenly there was a small, fine-honed dagger pointing straight at his outstretched hand between her face and his. Before he could react enough to draw his hand away, she had whipped the tiny dagger across his palm, making him swear in pain and draw away.

  “Give me that,” he said fiercely.

  “Non,” Claire refused, and the tiny weapon disappeared again. “It cannot kill, m’sieur,” came her hard voice, “but perhaps it will make you think before you do something foolish, eh?”

  He stared at those hard blue eyes in such a soft and pretty face. “Madame,” he said, in mocking politeness, and bowed. “I shall request the presence of you and your sister on board my ship.”

  “No, m’sieur. We go to Lisbon on this ship.”

  “Ah! My apologies! This ship is no longer going to Lisbon! The captain has— suffered a fatal illness, unfortunately, and the crew have most gladly agreed to become French. You cannot sail this ship alone, eh? Then you must come with me! I shall be happy to escort you home to your husband,” he said, smiling up at her from a safe distance as he rose from another bow, “for a small— fee. You understand?”

  “You are holding us to ransom?” uttered Claire.

  “No, never! But perhaps your husband will wish to reward me, yes, when he hears how I have brought you out of danger? For certainly if I leave you here, you should die at sea, no?”

  “Very well,” said Claire, glancing briefly at Claudia, who stood silently behind the small table between their cabin beds. “We shall go with you. But you will guarantee safe passage for all of us, m’sieur.”

  “Shall I, madame?” he asked sarcastically, laughing, and the sailors watching from the doorway snickered.

  “Of course! For I hear that Monsieur le Maréchal Junot is jealous of his officers and their relatives,” she said, with a hint of a threat.

  The mockery abated, to be replaced with a thinly veiled anger. “You shall not be harmed, Madame, unless you anger me to it; I am not a savage,” and waved his arm.

  The five of them were taken up onto the deck in the cool clear night, bright with moonlight, where they could see a little ways away the French vessel, a merchantman refitted recently as a small privateering vessel, one of many that patrolled this part of the coast to prevent English vessels from passing through Napoleon’s embargo. This sort of threat meant nothing to an armed British warship, but they preyed constantly on merchant vessels, and Claire guessed that it did not matter a great deal what registry they were. Capturing the Blue Swan, empty of cargo, must have been a disappointment, but its value had increased dramatically when women, obviously well-dressed and well-to-do women with expensive clothes and servants, had been found on board.

  Of course it would be impossible to sustain her story if the French did intend to ransom them, for Claire could not very well send notice to an Englishman to come and pay his wife off a French ship. In fact, if the Frenchmen discovered their nationality, she was quite certain they would be killed on the spot.

  Claire tried to ignore the littering of bodies, the dark pools of blood shining in the moonlight on the deck above; the rest of the crew, tied together in the cool night breeze, was huddled at the starboard rail, and there was a small boarding vessel plowing its way between the two ships toward them. Roughly bound and lowered overboard in a sail tied to the brass rail with a piece of rigging, the ladies were transported first.

  Rajat demurred not a whit, very sanely realizing that now was not the time for objections. The young man allowed himself to be let down into the small craft, and kept his head low and the scarf knotted firmly beneath his chin.

  As Rajat was untied and pushed to sit in the boarding vessel, the small craft dancing in a sudden spray of cold seawater, he saw Claire staring at him. He allowed his black eyes to meet hers for a moment, and then dropped his gaze.

  Drew’s wife was of great brilliance, and her sister of great wisdom. All was not lost. He would wait for an opportunity.

  The five prisoners were locked into a small, airless cabin for several days, crowded in with a number of heavy crates stacked along the cabin wall, and left to make the best of three rather small blankets, a bit of bread and water, and a chamberpot that was removed morning and night. Other than that, they had no contact with the outside world at all. They could be enroute to South America, for all that any of them knew; they had one small porthole next to the ceiling, which told day from night, but there was nothing to be seen through it except water, water, and more water.

  Their only news came from the boy who waited on them. He was from Lisbon, and Consuela immediately struck up a small friendship with him in her motherly, matronly fashion. Perhaps thirteen or fourteen, having been aboard this ship for two years, the young sailor had been pressed into service because of his size, which, in spite of his young age, was large, his shoulders broad. His head, however, was a little thick. Consuela, after pumping him shamelessly over his family, asking of his brothers and sisters and his grandmother and where he had lived, all to make him feel homesick, began to glean bits of information from him about their destination and their captors.

  It seemed that the privateers’ vessel had been bound for Lisbon with a load of munitions, but a day ago they had been intercepted by a French warship and told to put into a small harbor north of the city and unload there, and then put into Lisbon as a merchantman. One of the French generals, the boy was not certain which, was advancing south toward Lisbon, which was where the English were, and the general wished to have his supplies behind him as he marched into the city. Once he was there, the French fleet would lie out a ways from the harbor— presently controlled by the English— until the bastards were put down, and then Portugal would be liberated, and the French warships would carry away the prisoners, and stand guard over the harbor.

  The boy also let slip that this particular ship was one of three merchantmen bearing arms for Napoleon’s Army of Portugal; they were sailing together, this one as the flagship, and there were half-a-dozen French warships spread out behind them.

  In a whispered conference after the boy had gone, Claudia asked, “What if they decide to take us somewhere else? What shall we do?”

  “This captain will take us to Lisbon, I am certain of it,” said Claire, “because he wants the money from our ransom. And that is why we are left down here; he is keeping our presence a secret. He doesn’t want to have to share his prize money.”

  “But what if we’re caught in action and the ship is fired upon? We have no way of escape,” pointed out Claudia.

  “Once we are to Lisbon,” said Consuela, raising an eyebrow at her mistress, “you will have to decide upon the name of a husband, and he had better be rich.”

  “I have considered that,” sighed Claire. “It was not the best story; but if they had discovered we were English, we would have been killed, and worse, I am certain!” she said without explanation, because they all knew what she meant. “And I for one am glad we’ve been given another chance, no
matter how slim it is!”

  “Perhaps we should take it, then,” nodded Rajat, still in Consuela’s dress and scarf. He had been so unconcerned over their enforced lack of privacy that he had made them all feel less constrained, and Claire had come to recognize an innate gentility in him, no matter his parentage.

  “Take what?” asked Claudia. She respected Rajat’s unfailing logic, and in fact, she had become a little awed by his nonchalant power of reason.

  “The first opportunity,” he said, looking not the least comical in his scarf and black dress stuffed with Claudia’s chemise, “is always the strongest. We should accept it and make what we can of it.”

  “But we don’t want to go ashore at some tiny little town thirty or forty miles from Lisbon!” said Claire.

  “Ah! You have already considered it,” Rajat said.

  “Claire,” said Claudia, staring at Rajat, and then facing her sister squarely in the cramped space, “I think Rajat is right. The sooner we get away, the better off we shall be. If we have a chance to go ashore before we get to Lisbon, then we ought to do it. If we get within swimming distance of anywhere, I am of the opinion that we ought to at least try to escape.”

  “And walk straight into the hands of the French!” said Claire.

  “No! We shall hide out in a village somewhere until we can hire a mule, and then we shall go to Lisbon as peasants! We speak Portuguese well enough; if we find some peasant clothes, and cover our heads like the women do, and perhaps buy a donkey or somesuch, and keep to the narrow paths— ”

  “You have no idea what you are saying!” Claire interrupted.

  “No, she has a very good idea,” nodded Rajat. “If you will consider it, you will see how much better it is than to attempt to escape into a French-held city, for we shall not put into Lisbon until the French have won it; if they are defeated, then we may not be put off there at all, in spite of the temptation of ransom, and then our lives will be worthless. It will be better to be behind the French than as a target for them.”

  “But— But I want to see Varian!” burst out Claire. “And he is in Lisbon, not in some coastal village!”

  “Yes, this is true,” said Rajat, not at all surprised by her outburst. “But Drew has given me orders to protect you, and now I tell you that we shall see him soonest if you listen to me. Drew learned well the skills of advance and retreat; he defeated Balaghat, after Balaghat had killed many powerful men. And I have learned much from him. You will listen to me.”

  Claire stared at him silently, and finally Claudia said, “Yes, Rajat,” and laid her hand comfortingly on Claire’s arm, “we will listen to you.”

  chapter eleven

  Treading on the Tail of the Tiger

  The boy opened the door and pushed inside the food; the bread was moldy tonight, and the water none too clean, but it was as bad now for all the crew, since they had been underway now for a fortnight more than they had intended. The five prisoners realized that the ship was finally at anchor, and the young sailor who served them said that tomorrow after the ship was unloaded perhaps they would sail down the coast to Lisbon.

  The fighting had begun; from the fo’c’sle this afternoon as they neared land, one could see the occasional flash of a heavy gun and hear the thunder of cannon. It had ceased at dark, and the three merchant vessels bearing arms for the French had cast anchor within hailing distance of each other, about a league westward off the coast. According to the boy, the captain had taken the rowboat across the way for his supper with the French fleet commanders on board one of the other craft. Although the crew had been forbidden on pain of death to reveal the presence of the French women, the boy knew how the captain talked when he was drunk, and he rather suspected that he would brag over them at dinner until someone taunted him into producing them for inspection.

  The boy was not innocent; he knew very well what was in store for these women and the small Portuguese girl, the servant girl who always hid behind the older one’s skirts; he disliked thinking of it for her. The old Portuguese woman reminded him of his grandmother, and he did not care to think of his grandmother being in the grasp of the captain, a man of whom he had learned to be wary, drunk or sober. In fact he felt a little sorry for all of them.

  It was this pity that made him glance inside when he heard one of them moaning as he unlocked the door and set the food inside; it was the other servant woman, the one with a toothache, her head all bound up. She was in pain, he could hear it.

  “Poor thing,” he said to Consuela, who had bent over the other servant woman. “Tooth wants drawing, eh?”

  Consuela turned to him. “There is a doctor, yes? She is my niece. I don’t care to see her suffer so much.”

  “Here, let me have a look,” he said, and came inside. After all, they were just women, of whom he wasn’t particularly afraid. He bent over the servant, who was stretched out in the cramped space, and peered into her dark face, and a second later he was overcome by a blinding agony as something hard came up sharply against his groin. With a gasp of pain, he bent double, and was sent instantly unconscious by a stout clip at the base of his neck.

  Rajat caught the boy as he fell and laid him out quietly. He threw off the scarf and turban over his head, came quickly out of Consuela’s dress, and disappeared out the door, gone like a wraith, without speaking to the others.

  They had already made their plans. With a slight groan, Consuela heaved the lad over face down, and Elena began ripping up the skirt of Consuela’s discarded gown and handing off the strips. In a trice Claire had bound his wrists while Claudia bound his feet. Then Elena helped Consuela stuff a length of fabric into his mouth, and they tied it firmly at the back of his head with more strips from Consuela’s gown.

  The remainder of Consuela’s gown was twisted quickly into a length of braided cloth that they tied onto rope hidden in the corner. Last night they had ripped every piece of cloth they could find— chemises, stockings, scarves, cloaks, even their carpetbags— into inch-wide strips and had braided yards and yards of fabric, and then had taken that cord and braided it again to make it stronger. Some of it was three thicknesses, and strong enough to support even Consuela’s weight. Now the four women sat quietly, the bread and water by the door unnoticed, for they were counting the minutes until Rajat returned.

  He was back within a quarter of an hour, although it seemed like much longer; he came inside, hardly more than a shadow in his dark trousers, his dark head bare. “We have good and bad together,” he said in a low voice, dropping into a low squat and facing them. “The captain has gone, with much of the crew, but he has taken the small boat with him.”

  “No!” breathed Claire, cast down instantly.

  “I shall swim over and get it,” he said.

  “How long?” asked Claudia.

  “I do not know,” he said honestly. “It is not safe for you to stay here, if I go. If I am discovered, they will come for you without warning.”

  Claire swallowed, staring at him; this was likely to land them in a deal of trouble. She had wanted to take her chances with Lisbon, but she supposed she had better throw all her energies into this, if they were to come out of it alive. “Where shall we go?”

  “There is another cabin next to this one, and it is empty,” he offered. “At least you would have some advantage.”

  “Can’t we find somewhere to watch for you?” asked Claudia.

  “How are we to get down into the boat?” inquired Claire.

  “There is a small ladder off the port side,” he said. “You will have to climb down, or use the ropes we have made.”

  “Then we should do so now,” Claire whispered, “before they discover that we are missing.” When Rajat was silent, she continued. “We shall wait in the water at the base of the ladder and watch for you. At least if they discover we are gone, they will not be able to find us on board,” she said.

  Rajat inclined his head. “The water is not cold. Perhaps I can take the ropes we have made and secure
them to the ship in a safer place. It is a good plan.” He stood and said, “We will go one by one. I will go first, then Consuela, and Elena, and Lady Claudia, and you, Doña Belliza,” he said quietly, and gave them no room for argument. He closed and bolted the door after they had slipped out, leaving the unconscious cabin boy inside.

  The waiting was interminable; the decks lay still in the moonlight, for one of the warships had sent over a keg of rum for each of the crews, who knew that with a half dozen French gunners ranged alongside and behind them that they were in no danger. The captain had not even posted a guard, for he expected that his five women prisoners, after three days of confinement on bread and water, would have no idea of escape. Indeed, he would have laughed at the idea of these weak women attempting an escape from a vessel anchored a league off-shore from French-held territory in the middle of the night. It was absurd.

  It was indeed. As she hid in the shadows of the deckrail behind a mound of neatly folded sails and listened to the gentle slapping of the waves in the darkness, Claire liked it less and less. They did not speak; after Rajat had slipped away they waited until the watch had passed by. Then Consuela disappeared, and then Elena went over the side; after a quick kiss on her sister’s cheek, Claudia took off her slippers and stuffed them down the front of her rather sad-looking traveling gown, and she was gone, too.

  Claire waited a few more moments; the watch passed again, strolling with his lantern by his side, relaxed, with a mug of rum in his hand. She crouched down further into the shadows and watched him pause and lean against the wheel to stare out into the night, with his back to her. He did not seemed inclined to move; with a shrug she pushed her slippers into her gown as Claudia had done, and crawled along the rail, the deck hard and smooth beneath her, until she could feel the rope against her hands.