Seven Stones to Stand or Fall by Diana Gabaldon (28)

Jamaica

Early May 1762

LORD JOHN GREY DIPPED a finger gingerly into the little stone pot, withdrew it, glistening, and sniffed cautiously.

“Jesus!”

“Yes, me lord. That’s what I said.” His valet, Tom Byrd, face carefully averted, put the lid back on the pot. “Was you to rub yourself with that stuff, you’d be drawing flies in their hundreds, same as if you were summat that was dead. Long dead,” he added, and muffled the pot in a napkin for additional protection.

“Well, in justice,” Grey said dubiously, “I suppose the whale is long dead.” He looked at the far wall of his office. There were a number of flies resting along the wainscoting, as usual, fat and black as currants against the white plaster. Sure enough, a couple of them had already risen into the air, circling lazily toward the pot of whale oil. “Where did you get that stuff?”

“The owner of the Moor’s Head keeps a keg of it; he burns it in his lamps—cheaper nor even tallow candles, he says, let alone proper wax ones.”

“Ah. I daresay.” Given the usual smell of the Moor’s Head on a busy night, nobody would notice the stink of whale oil above the symphony of other reeks.

“Easier to come by on Jamaica than bear grease, I reckon,” Tom remarked, picking up the pot. “D’you want me to try it with the mint, me lord? It might help,” he added, with a dubious wrinkle of the nose.

Tom had automatically picked up the oily rag that lived on the corner of Grey’s desk and, with a dexterous flick, snapped a fat fly out of the air and into oblivion.

“Dead whale garnished with mint? That should cause my blood to be especially attractive to the more discriminating biting insects in Charles Town—to say nothing of Canada.” Jamaican flies were a nuisance but seldom carnivorous, and the sea breeze and muslin window screening kept most mosquitoes at bay. The swamps of coastal America, though…and the deep Canadian woods, his ultimate destination…

“No,” Grey said reluctantly, scratching his neck at the mere thought of Canadian deer flies. “I can’t attend Mr. Mullryne’s celebration of his new plantation house basted in whale oil. Perhaps we can get bear grease in South Carolina. Meanwhile…sweet oil, perhaps?”

Tom shook his head decidedly.

“No, me lord. Azeel says sweet oil draws spiders. They come and lick it off your skin whilst you’re asleep.”

Lord John and his valet shuddered simultaneously, recollecting last week’s experience with a banana spider—a creature with a leg span the size of a child’s hand—that had burst unexpectedly out of a ripe banana, followed by what appeared at the time to be several hundred small offspring, at a garden party given by Grey to mark his departure from the island and to welcome the Honorable Mr. Houghton Braythwaite, his successor as governor.

“I thought he’d have an apoplexy on the spot,” Grey said, lips twitching.

“Likely wishes he had.”

Grey looked at Tom, Tom at Grey, and they burst into suffocated snorts of laughter at the memory of the Honorable Mr. Braythwaite’s face on this occasion.

“Come, come,” Lord John said, getting himself under control. “This will never do. Have you—”

The rumble of a carriage coming up the gravel drive of King’s House interrupted him.

“Oh, God, is that him now?” Grey glanced guiltily round at the disarray of his office: A gaping half-packed portmanteau lolled in the corner, and the desk was strewn with scattered documents and the remnants of lunch, in no condition to be viewed by the man who would inherit it tomorrow. “Run out and distract him, will you, Tom? Take him to the receiving room and pour rum into him. I’ll come and fetch him as soon as I’ve done…something…about this.” He waved a hand at the debris, and Tom obligingly vanished.

Grey picked up the oiled rag and disposed of an unwary fly, then seized a plate scattered with bread crusts, blobs of custard, and fruit peelings and decanted this out of the window into the garden beneath. Thrusting the empty plate out of sight under the desk, he began hurriedly to gather papers into piles but was interrupted almost at once by the reappearance of Tom, looking excited.

“Me lord! It’s General Stanley!”

“Who?” Grey said blankly. His mind, occupied with the details of imminent escape, refused to deal with anything that might interfere with said escape, but “Stanley” did ring a distant, small bell.

“Might be as he’s your mother’s husband, me lord?” Tom said, with a becoming diffidence.

“Oh…that General Stanley. Why didn’t you say so?” John hastily grabbed his coat from its hook and shrugged into it, brushing crumbs off his waistcoat as he did so. “Show him in, by all means!”

John in fact liked his mother’s third husband—she having been twice widowed when she acquired the general four years before—though any military intrusion at this point was something to be regarded warily.

Wariness was, as usual, justified. The General Stanley who eventually appeared was not the bluff, jaunty, self-confident man last seen in his mother’s company. This General Stanley was hobbling with a stick, his right foot bound up in an immense bandage, and his face gray with pain, effort…and profound anxiety.

“General!” John seized him by the arm before he could fall over and guided him to the nearest chair, hastily removing a pile of maps from it. “Do sit down, please—Tom, would you…?”

“Just here, me lord.” Tom had dug Grey’s flask out of the open traveling bag with commendable promptitude and now thrust it into General Stanley’s hand.

The general accepted this without question and drank deeply.

“Dear Lord,” he said, setting the flask on his knee and breathing heavily. “I thought I shouldn’t make it from the landing.” He took another drink, somewhat more slowly, eyes closed.

“More brandy, Tom, if you please?” Grey said, watching this. Tom gave the general an assessing look, not sure whether he might die before more brandy could be fetched, but decided to bet on the general’s survival and disappeared in search of sustenance.

“God.” The general looked a good deal short of human but distinctly better than he had. He nodded thanks to John and handed back the empty flask with a trembling hand. “The doctor says I mustn’t drink wine—apparently it’s bad for the gout—but I don’t recall his mentioning brandy.”

“Good,” John said, glancing at the bandaged foot. “Did he say anything about rum?”

“Not a word.”

“Excellent. I’m down to my last bottle of French brandy, but we’ve got quite a lot of rum.”

“Bring the cask.” The general was beginning to show a tinge of color and, at this point, began to be cognizant of his surroundings. “You were packing to leave?”

“I am packing to leave, yes,” John said, the feeling of wariness developing small, prickling feet inside his stomach. “I’m meant to sail tonight, for Charles Town.”

“Thank God. I was afraid I shouldn’t make it in time.” The general breathed audibly for a moment, then gathered himself. “It’s your mother.”

“What’s my mother?” The wariness turned instantly to a flare of alarm. “What’s happened to her?”

“Nothing, yet. Or at least I sincerely hope not.” The general patted the air in a vague gesture of reassurance that failed singularly to reassure.

“Where the devil is she? And what in God’s name is she up to now?” Grey spoke with more heat than filial respect, but panic made him edgy.

“She’s in Havana,” General Stanley said. “Minding your cousin Olivia.”

This seemed like a moderately respectable thing for an elderly lady to be doing, and Grey relaxed slightly. But only slightly.

“Is she ill?” he asked.

“I hope not. She said in her last letter that there was an outbreak of some sort of ague in the city, but she herself was in good health.”

“Fine.” Tom had come back with the brandy bottle, and John poured himself a small glass. “I trust she’s enjoying the weather.” He raised an eyebrow at his stepfather, who sighed deeply and put his hands on his knees.

“I’m sure she is. The problem, my boy, is that the British Navy is on its way to lay siege to the city of Havana, and I really think it would be a good idea if your mother wasn’t in the city when they get there.”

FOR A MOMENT, John stood frozen, glass in hand, mouth open, and his brain so congested with questions that he was unable to articulate any of them. At last, he gulped the remains of his drink, coughed, and said mildly, “Oh, I see. How does my mother come to be in Havana to start with?”

The general leaned back and let out a long breath.

“It’s all the fault of that Stubbs fellow.”

“Stubbs…?” It sounded vaguely familiar, but stunned as he was, Grey couldn’t think why.

“You know, chap who married your cousin Olivia. Looks like a builder’s brick. What’s his Christian name…Matthew? No, Malcolm, that’s it. Malcolm Stubbs.”

Grey reached for the brandy bottle, but Tom was already pouring a fresh glass, which he thrust into his employer’s hand. He carefully avoided meeting Grey’s eye.

“Malcolm Stubbs.” Grey sipped brandy, to give himself time to think. “Yes, of course. I…take it that he’s quite recovered, then?” On one level, this was good news; Malcolm Stubbs had lost a foot and part of the adjoining leg to a cannonball at the Battle of Quebec, more than two years before. By good luck, Grey had fallen over him on the field and had the presence of mind to use his belt as a tourniquet, thus preventing Stubbs from bleeding to death. He vividly recalled the splintered bone protruding from the remnants of Malcolm’s shin, and the hot, wet smell of blood and shit, steaming in the cold air. He took a deeper swallow of brandy.

“Yes, quite. Got an artificial foot, gets around quite well—even rides.”

“Good for him,” Grey said, rather shortly. There were a few other things he recalled about Malcolm Stubbs. “Is he in Havana?”

The general looked surprised.

“Yes, didn’t I say? He’s a diplomat of some kind now—sent to Havana last September.”

“A diplomat,” Grey repeated. “Well, well.” Stubbs probably did diplomacy well—given his demonstrated skills at lying, deceit, and dishonor….

“He wanted his wife and children to join him in Havana, once he had a suitable establishment, so—”

“Children? He had only the one son when I last saw him.” Only the one legitimate son, he added silently.

“Two, now—Olivia gave birth to a daughter two years ago; lovely child called Charlotte.”

“How nice.” His memory of the birth of Olivia’s first child, Cromwell, was nearly as horrifyingly vivid as his memories of the Battle of Quebec, if for somewhat different reasons. Both had involved blood and shit, though. “But Mother—”

“Your mother offered to accompany Olivia, to help with the children. Olivia’s expecting again, and a long sea voyage…”

“Again?” Well, it wasn’t as though Grey didn’t know what Stubbs’s attitude toward sex was…and at least the man was doing it with his wife. John kept his temper with some difficulty, but the general didn’t notice, continuing with his explanations.

“You see, I was meant to be sailing to Savannah in the spring—now, I mean—to advise a Colonel Folliott, who’s raising a local militia to assist the governor, and your mother was going to come with me. So it seemed reasonable that she go ahead with Olivia and help her to get settled, and I would arrange for her to join me when I came.”

“Very sensible,” John said. “That’s Mother, then. And where does the British Navy come into it?”

“Admiral Holmes, me lord,” Tom said, with a faint air of reproach. “He told you last week, when you had him to dinner. He said the Duke of Albemarle was a-coming to take Martinique away from the frogs and then see to Cuba.”

“Oh. Ah.”

Grey recalled the dinner, which had featured a remarkable dish that he had realized—too late—was the innards of pickled sea urchins, mixed with bits of raw fish and sea lettuce that had been cured with orange juice. In his desire to keep his guests—all recently arrived from London, and all lamenting the dearth of roast beef and potatoes in the Indies—from sharing his realization, he had called for lavish and repeated applications of a native palm liquor. This had been very effective; by the second glass, they wouldn’t have known they were eating whale turds, should his adventurous cook have taken it into his head to serve that as a second course. Consequently, though, his own memories of the occasion were somewhat dim.

“He didn’t say Albemarle was proposing to lay siege to the place, did he?”

“No, me lord, but that must’ve been his meaning, don’t you think?”

“God knows,” said John, who knew nothing about Cuba, Havana, or the Duke of Albemarle. “Or possibly you do, sir?” He turned politely to General Stanley, who was beginning to look better, under the influence of relief and brandy. The general nodded.

“I wouldn’t,” he admitted frankly, “save that I shared Albemarle’s table aboard his flagship for six weeks. What I don’t presently know about the harbor at Havana probably isn’t worth knowing, but I take no credit for the acquisition of that knowledge.”

The general had learned of Albemarle’s expedition only the night before the fleet sailed, when a message from the War Office had reached him, ordering him aboard.

“At that point, of course, the ship would reach Cuba long before any message I could send to your mother, so I went aboard at once—this”—he glowered at his bandaged foot—“notwithstanding.”

“Quite.” John raised a hand in brief interruption and turned to his valet. “Tom,—run—and I do mean run—to Admiral Holmes’s residence and ask him to call upon me as soon as is convenient. And by convenient, I mean—”

“Right now. Yes, me lord.”

“Thank you, Tom.”

Despite the brandy, Grey’s brain had finally grasped the situation and was busy calculating what to do about it.

If the British Navy showed up in Havana Harbor and started shelling the place, it wasn’t merely physical danger threatening the Stubbs family and Lady Stanley, also known as the Dowager Duchess of Pardloe. All of them would likely become immediate hostages of Spain.

“The moment we got within sight of Martinique and joined Monckton’s forces there, I…er…requisitioned a small cutter to bring me here, as quickly as possible.”

“Requisitioned, sir?” John said, smiling at the general’s tone.

“Well, I stole it, to be perfectly frank,” the general admitted. “I don’t imagine they’d bring me to a court-martial, at my age…and I bloody don’t care if they do.” He sat upright, gray-stubbled chin outthrust and a glint in his eye. “All I care about is Benedicta.”

WHAT THE GENERAL knew about the harbor at Havana was, generally speaking, that it was one of the finest deepwater harbors in the world, capable of accommodating a hundred ships of the line, and that it was guarded on either side by a large fortress: Morro Castle to the east, and La Punta on the west.

“La Punta’s a working fortress, purely defensive; it overlooks the city, though of course one side faces the harbor. El Morro—that’s what the Spaniards call it—is a bigger place and is the administrative headquarters of Don Juan de Prado, governor of the city. It’s also where the main batteries controlling the harbor are located.”

“With luck, I won’t need to know that,” John said, pouring rum into a glass of orange juice, “but I’ll make a note of it, just in case.”

Tom returned toward the end of the general’s remarks, to report that Admiral Holmes was aware of the planned invasion but had no details concerning it, beyond the fact that Sir James Douglas, who was due to take command of the Jamaica squadron, had sent word that he wished to rendezvous with the squadron off Haiti, at the admiral’s earliest convenience.

Through all of this discussion, Lord John had been making mental notes of anything that might conceivably be useful to him—and a parallel list of things here in Jamaica that might come in handy for an impromptu expedition to an island where he didn’t speak the language. When he got up to pour more orange juice for the general, he asked Tom, in an undertone, to fetch Azeel from the kitchen.

“What did you mean, you stole the cutter?” John asked curiously, topping up the orange juice with rum.

“Well, that might be a slightly dramatic way to have put it,” the general admitted. “The cutter normally attends the Warburton, and I do believe Captain Grace, who commands her, was intending to send Lieutenant Rimes off on an errand of his own. I nipped across to Albemarle’s ship, though, and…er…preempted him.”

“I see. Why—oh.” He caught sight of Azeel, who had arrived but was waiting respectfully in the doorway to be summoned. “Do come in, my dear; I want you to meet someone.”

Azeel entered but stopped short at sight of General Stanley, the look of happy anticipation on her face turning at once to one of caution. She dropped a low curtsy to the general, modestly lowering her white-capped head.

“General, may I present Mrs. Sanchez, my housekeeper? Mrs. Sanchez, this is General Stanley, my stepfather.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise, and then blushed—a lovely sight, as the color in her dark cheeks made her look like a black rose. “Your servant, sir!”

“Your most humble, madam.” The general bowed as gallantly as possible while remaining seated. “You must forgive my not standing…” He gestured ruefully toward his bandaged foot.

She made a graceful gesture of dismissal and turned toward John.

“This is—your…” She groped for the word. “He is the next governor?”

“No, he’s not my replacement,” John said. “That’s Mr. Braythwaite; you saw him at the garden party. No, the general has come to give me some disturbing news, I’m afraid. Do you think you could fetch your husband, Mrs. Sanchez? I wish to discuss the situation with you both.”

She looked both astonished and concerned at this and studied him carefully to see if he meant it. He nodded, and she at once curtsied again and vanished, her sandal heels tapping on the tiles in agitation.

“Her husband?” General Stanley said, in some surprise.

“Yes. Rodrigo is…er…a sort of factotum.”

“I see,” said the general, who plainly didn’t. “But if this Braythwaite is already on board, so to speak, won’t he want to make his own domestic arrangements?”

“I imagine so. I, um, had had it in mind to take Azeel and Rodrigo with me to South Carolina. But they may be helpful to the present venture, if…er…if Rodrigo is sufficiently recovered.”

“Has he been ill?” Worry creased the general’s already-furrowed brow. “I hear the yellow jack comes to the West Indies at this season, but I hadn’t thought Jamaica was badly affected.”

“No, not ill, exactly. He had the misfortune to run afoul of a houngan—a sort of, um, African wizard, I believe—and was turned into a zombie.”

“A what?” The look of worry was superseded by one of astonishment.

Grey drew a deep breath and took a long swallow of his drink, the sound of Rodrigo’s own description echoing in his ears.

“Zombie are dead people, sah.”

GENERAL STANLEY WAS still blinking in astonishment at Grey’s brief description of the events that had culminated in his own appointment as military governor—Grey judiciously suppressing the facts that Azeel had commissioned an Obeah man to drive the previous governor mad and that Rodrigo had gone one step further and arranged to have the late Governor Warren killed and partially devoured—when the sound of footsteps echoed once again in the corridor. Two people this time: the clack of Azeel’s sandals but now walking slowly, to accommodate the slightly limping gait of the booted person accompanying her.

Grey stood up as they came in, Azeel hovering protectively behind Rodrigo.

The young man stopped, taking a deep breath before bowing deeply to the gentlemen.

“Your…servant. Sah,” he said to Grey, and then straightened, turned upon his axis, and repeated this process to the general, who watched him with a mixture of fascination and wariness.

Every time he saw Rodrigo, Grey’s heart was torn between regret for what the young man had once been—and a cautious joy in the fact that some of that splendid young man seemed still to be present, intact, and might yet come back further.

He was still beautiful, in a way that made Grey’s body tighten every time he saw that dark, finely carved head and the tall straight lines of his body. The lovely cat-like grace of him was gone, but he could walk again, almost normally, though one foot dragged a little.

It had taken weeks of careful nursing by Azeel—she was the only member of Grey’s household who was not terrorized by Rodrigo’s mere proximity—with help from Tom, who was afraid, too, but thought it wasn’t becoming for an Englishman to admit it.

Rodrigo had been nothing more than a shell of himself when Grey had rescued him and Tom from the maroons who had kidnapped them, and no one had expected that he would survive. Zombies didn’t. Drugged with zombie poison—Grey had little notion what was in the stuff, beyond the liver of some remarkably poisonous fish—and buried in a shallow grave, the person attacked by a houngan woke after some time to find himself apparently dead and buried.

Rising in a state of mental and physical disorientation, they numbly followed the orders of the houngan, until they died of starvation and the aftereffects of the drugs—or were killed. Zombies were (justifiably, Grey thought) viewed with horror by everyone, even by the people who had once loved them. Left without food, shelter, or kindness, they didn’t last long.

But Grey had refused to abandon Rodrigo, and so had Azeel. She had brought him slowly, slowly back to humanity—and then had married him, to the extreme horror of everyone in King’s Town.

“He’s got back most of his speech,” Grey explained to the general. “But only Spanish, that being his first language. He only remembers a few scattered words of English. We”—he smiled at Azeel, who ducked her head shyly—“hope that will improve, too, given time. But for now…he tells his wife things in Spanish, and she translates them for me.”

He explained the situation briefly to Azeel and Rodrigo—the young man could understand some English, if spoken slowly, but his wife filled in the missing bits for him.

“I would like you to go with me to Cuba,” Grey said, looking from one to the other. “Rodrigo could go where I could not go, and hear and see things I couldn’t. But…there might be some small danger, and if you choose not to go, I will give you enough money for passage to the colonies. If you do choose to come with me, I will take you from Cuba to America, and you will either remain in my employment or, if you prefer, I will find you a place there.”

Man and wife exchanged a long look, and at last Rodrigo nodded.

“We…go,” he said.

GREY HAD NEVER seen a black person turn white before. Azeel had gone the color of grimy old bones and was clutching Rodrigo’s hand as though one or both of them were about to be dragged off by slavers.

“Are you given to seasickness, Mrs. Sanchez?” he asked, making his way to them through the confusion of the docks. She swallowed heavily but shook her head, unable to take her eyes off the Otter. Rodrigo was unable to take his eyes off her and was anxiously patting her hand. He turned to Grey, fumbling for English words.

“She…scare…” He looked helplessly back and forth between his wife and his employer. Then he nodded a bit, making up his mind, then looked at Grey while pointing to Azeel. He lowered his hand, indicating something—someone?—short. Then turned to the sea and flung his arm wide, gesturing to the horizon.

“Africa,” he said, turning back to Grey and putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders. His face was solemn.

“Oh, Jesus,” Grey said to Azeel. “You were brought from Africa as a child? Is that what he means?”

“Yes,” she said, and swallowed again. “I was…very…small.”

“Your parents? Were they…” His voice died in his throat. He’d seen a slave ship only once, and that at a distance. He would remember the smell for as long as he lived. And the body that had bobbed up suddenly beside his own ship, thrown overboard by the slaver. It might have been dead kelp or a blood-bleached scrap from a whaling ship, bobbing in the waves, emaciated, sexless, scarcely human. The color of old bones.

Azeel shook her head. Not in negation but in a vain refusal to think of dreadful things.

“Africa,” she said softly. “They are dead. In Africa.”

Africa. The sound of the word prickled over Grey’s skin like a centipede, and he shook himself suddenly.

“It’s all right,” he said to her firmly. “You are free now.” At least he hoped so.

He had managed her manumission a few months before, in recognition of her services during the slave rebellion during which the late Governor Warren had been killed by zombies. Or, rather, by men under the delusion that they were zombies. Grey doubted that this distinction had been appreciated by the governor.

Grey didn’t know whether the girl had been Warren’s personal property, and he didn’t ask her. He’d taken advantage of his own doubt to tell Mr. Dawes, the governor’s erstwhile secretary, that as there was no record of her provenance, they should assume that she was technically the property of His Majesty and should thus be omitted from the list of Governor Warren’s belongings.

Mr. Dawes, an excellent secretary, had made a noise like a mildly consumptive sheep and lowered his eyes in acquiescence.

Grey had then dictated a brief letter of manumission, signed this as acting military governor of Jamaica (and thus His Majesty’s agent), and had Mr. Dawes affix the most imposing seal in his collection—Grey thought it was the seal of the department of weights and measures, but it was done in red wax and looked very impressive.

“You have your paper with you?” he asked. Azeel nodded, obedient. But her eyes, large and black, lingered fearfully on the ship.

The master of the cutter, having been apprised of their presence, now popped up on deck and came down the gangplank to meet them.

“Lord John?” he asked respectfully, bowing. “Lieutenant Geoffrey Rimes, commander. Your servant, sir!”

Lieutenant Rimes looked about seventeen, very blond and small for his age. He was, however, wearing proper uniform and looked both cheerful and capable.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Grey bowed. “I understand that you…er…obliged General Stanley by bringing him here. And that you are now willing to convey me and my party to Havana?”

Lieutenant Rimes pursed his lips in thought.

“Well, I suppose I can do that, my lord. I’m to rendezvous with the fleet here in Jamaica, but as they won’t likely arrive for another two weeks, I think I can deliver you safe to Havana, then skip back here to make my meeting.”

A small knot formed in Grey’s stomach.

“You…mean to leave us in Havana?”

“Well, yes, my lord,” he said cheerfully. “Unless you can manage your business within two days, I’ll have to. Orders, you know.” He pulled a commiserating face.

“I’m not really meant to be going to Havana, you know,” the lieutenant said, leaning forward in a confidential manner and lowering his voice. “But I hadn’t any orders to stay in Jamaica, either, if you know what I mean. As written, my orders just say I’m to rendezvous here with the fleet, after delivering the message to Admiral Holmes. As I’ve already done that…well, the navy’s always willing to oblige the army—when it suits,” he added honestly. “And I’m thinking it wouldn’t do me any harm to have a look at Havana Harbor and be able to tell Admiral Pocock about it when he gets here. The Duke of Albemarle’s in command of the expedition,” he added, seeing Grey look blank. “But Admiral Pocock’s in charge of the ships.”

“To be sure.”

Grey was thinking that Lieutenant Rimes was equally likely to rise to great heights in his service or to be court-martialed and hanged at Execution Dock, but he kept these thoughts to himself.

“Wait a moment,” he said, calling the lieutenant’s attention—momentarily distracted by the sight of Azeel Sanchez, brilliant as a macaw in a yellow skirt and sapphire-blue bodice—to himself.

“Do you mean that you intend actually to sail into Havana Harbor?”

“Oh, yes, my lord.”

Grey cast a glance at the Otter’s unmistakable British colors, lifting gently in the tropical breeze.

“You will pardon my ignorance, I hope, Lieutenant Rimes—but are we not at war with Spain just now?”

“Certainly, my lord. That’s where you come in.”

“That’s where I come in?” Grey felt a sort of cold, inexorable horror rising from the base of his spine. “In what capacity, may I ask?”

“Well, my lord, the thing is, I have to bring you into Havana Harbor; it’s the only real anchorage on that coast. I mean, there are fishing villages and the like, but was I to land you in one of those places, you’d have to make your way overland to Havana, and it might take longer than you’ve got.”

“I see…” said John, in a tone indicating quite the opposite. Mr. Rimes noticed this and smiled reassuringly.

“So, I’ll bring you in under colors—they won’t shell a cutter, I don’t think, not until they see what’s what—and deliver you as an official visitor of some sort. The general thought perhaps you might be bringing some message to the English consul there, but of course you’ll know best about that.”

“Oh, indeed.” It couldn’t be patricide, could it? he thought. Strangling a stepfather, particularly under the circumstances…

“It’s all right, me lord,” Tom put in helpfully. “I’ve brought your full-dress uniform. Just in case you might need it.”

IN THE EVENT, the officer of the battery guarding the boom chain declined to allow Mr. Rimes to pass, but neither did he offer to sink him. There were a good many curious looks directed at the cutter, but Grey’s party was allowed to come ashore. The officer’s English was on a par with Grey’s Spanish, but after a long conversation filled with vehement gesticulations, Rodrigo convinced him to provide transport into the city.

“What did you tell him?” Grey asked curiously, when at last they were allowed to pass through the battery guarding the west side of the harbor. An imposing fortress with a tall watchtower stood on a promontory in the distance, and he wondered whether this was Morro Castle or the other one.

Rodrigo shrugged and said something to Azeel, who answered.

“He didn’t understand the word ‘consul’—we don’t, either,” she added apologetically. “So Rodrigo said you have come to visit your mother, who is sick.”

Rodrigo had been following her words with great concentration and here added something else, which she translated in turn.

“He says everybody has a mother, sir.”

The address General Stanley had given was the Casa Hechevarria, in Calle Yoenis. When Grey and his fellow travelers were eventually delivered to the casa by a wagon driver whose normal cargo appeared to be untanned hides, the place proved to be a large, pleasant, yellow-plastered house with a walled garden and a beehive-like air of peaceful busyness about it. Grey could hear the murmur of voices and occasional laughter within, but none of the bees seemed inclined to answer the door.

After a wait of some five minutes had failed to produce anyone—let alone his mother or something comestible—Grey left his small, queasy party on the portico and ventured round the house. Splashing noises, sharp cries, and the reek of lye soap seemed to indicate that laundry was being done at no great distance. This impression was confirmed as he came round the corner of the house into a rear courtyard and was struck in the face by a thick cloud of hot, wet air, scented with dirty linen, woodsmoke, and fried plantains.

A number of women and children were working in the vicinity of a huge cauldron, this mounted on a sort of brick hearth with a fire beneath—this in turn being fed by two or three small, mostly naked children who were poking sticks into it. Two women were stirring the mess in the cauldron with huge wooden forks, one of them bawling at the children in Spanish with what he assumed were dire warnings against being underfoot, not getting splashed with boiling water, and keeping well clear of the soap bucket.

The courtyard itself looked like Dante’s Fifth Circle of Hell, with sullen gurglings from the cauldron and drifting wisps of steam and smoke giving the scene a sinister Stygian cast. More women were pinning up wet clothes on lines strung round the pillars supporting a sort of loggia, and still others were tending braziers and griddles in a corner, from which drifted the fragrant smells of food. Everyone was talking, all at once, in a Spanish punctuated by parrot-like shrieks of laughter. Knowing that his mother was much less likely to be interested in laundry than in food, he edged round the courtyard—totally ignored by everyone—toward the cooks.

He saw her at once; her back was turned to him, hair hanging casually down her back in a long, thick plait, and she was talking, waving her hands, to a coal-black woman who was squatting, barefooted, on the tiles of the courtyard, patting out some sort of dough onto a hot greased stone.

“That smells good,” he said, walking up beside her. “What is it?”

“Cassava bread,” she said, turning to him and raising an eyebrow. “And platanos and ropa vieja. That means ‘old clothes,’ and while the name is quite descriptive, it’s actually very good. Are you hungry? Why do I bother asking?” she added before he could answer. “Naturally you are.”

“Naturally,” he said, and was, the last vestiges of seasickness vanishing in the scents of garlic and spice. “I didn’t know you could speak Spanish, Mother.”

“Well, I don’t know about speaking, so much,” she said, thumbing a straggle of graying blond hair out of her left eye, “but I gesture fluently. What are you doing here, John?”

He glanced round the courtyard; everyone was still at their work, but every eye was fixed on him, interested.

“Do any of your…um…associates here speak English? In a non-gestural sort of way?”

“A few of them speak a little, yes, and Jacinto, the butler, is pretty fluent. They won’t understand you if you talk fast, though.”

“I can do that,” he said, lowering his voice a little. “In short, your husband sent me, and…but before I acquaint you with the situation,—I brought several people with me, servants, and—”

“Oh, did you bring Tom Byrd?” Her face blossomed into what could only be called a grin.

“Certainly. He, along with two…er…Well, I left them on the portico; I couldn’t make anyone hear me at the door.”

His mother said something in Spanish that he thought must be an indelicate expletive, as it made the black woman blink and then grin herself.

“We have a porter, but he’s rather given to drink,” his mother said apologetically, and beckoned to one of the older girls hanging laundry. “Juanita! Aquí, if you please.”

Juanita instantly abandoned her wet laundry and hastened over, dropping a perfunctory curtsy and staring at Grey in fascination.

“Señora.”

“Es mi hijo,” his mother said, pointing at him. “Amigos de el…” She twirled a forefinger, indicating circumnavigation, and pointed toward the front of the house, then jerked a thumb at a brazier over which an earthenware pot was bubbling. “Agua. Comida. Por favor?”

“I’m deeply impressed,” John said, as Juanita nodded, said something fast and indecipherable, and vanished, presumably to rescue Tom and the Sanchezes. “Is comida food, by any chance?”

“Very perceptive of you, my dear.” His mother gestured to the black lady, pointed in turn to John and herself, stabbed a finger at various pots and skewers, then nodded at a door on the far side of the courtyard and took John by the arm. “Gracias, Maricela.”

She led him into a small, rather dark salon that smelled of citronella, candle wax, and the distinctively sewer-like aroma of small children.

“I don’t suppose this is a diplomatic ambassage, is it?” she said, crossing the room to throw open a window. “I would have heard about that.”

“I am for the moment incognito,” he assured her. “And with any luck, we’ll be out of here before anyone recognizes me. How fast can you organize Olivia and the children for travel?”

She halted abruptly, hand on the windowsill, and stared at him.

“Oh,” she said. Her expression had gone in an instant from surprise to calculation. “So it’s come to that already, has it? Where’s George?”

“WHAT DO YOU mean, has it come to that already?” Grey said, startled. He stared hard at his mother. “Do you know about the”—he glanced round and lowered his voice, though no one was in sight and the laughter and chittering from the patio continued unabated—“the invasion?”

Her eyes flew open wide.

“The what?” she said loudly, then glanced hastily over her shoulder toward the open door. “When?” she said, turning back and lowering her own voice.

“Well, now, more or less,” Grey said. He got up and quietly closed the door. The racket from the patio diminished appreciably.

“General Stanley turned up on my doorstep in Jamaica a week ago, with the news that the British Navy was on its way to take Martinique and then—if all goes as planned—Cuba. He rather thought it would be a good idea for you and Olivia to leave before they get here.”

“I quite agree with him.” His mother closed her eyes and rubbed her hands hard over her face, then shook her head violently, as though dislodging bats, and opened her eyes again. “Where is he?” she asked, with some semblance of calm.

“Jamaica. He’d, um, managed to borrow a naval cutter while the navy was preparing to take Martinique and came ahead as fast as he could, in hopes of warning you in time.”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, “very good of him. But why is he in Jamaica and not here?”

“Gout.” And quite possibly a few other infirmities, but no point in worrying her. She looked sharply at him but didn’t ask further.

“Poor George,” she said, and bit her lip. “Well, then. Olivia and the children are in the country, staying with a Señora Valdez.”

“How far in the country?” Grey was making hasty calculations. Three women, two children, three men…four, with Malcolm. Ah, Malcolm…“Is Malcolm with them?”

“Oh, no. I’m not sure where he is,” she added dubiously. “He travels a good deal, and with Olivia gone, he often stays in Havana;—he has an office in La Punta—that’s the fortress on the west side of the harbor. But he does sleep here now and then.”

“Oh, does he?” Grey tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but his mother glanced at him sharply. He looked away. If she didn’t know about Malcolm’s proclivities, he wasn’t going to tell her.

“I need to talk to him as quickly as possible,” he said. “Meanwhile, we must fetch Olivia and the children back here, but without giving the impression that there’s any sort of emergency. If you’ll write a note that will accomplish that, I’ll have Rodrigo and Azeel carry it—they can help Olivia to pack up and help mind the children on the way.”

“Yes, of course.”

There was a small secretaire, rustic in design, crouched in the shadows. He hadn’t noticed it until his mother opened it and swiftly produced paper, quill, and inkwell. She uncorked the latter, found it dry, said something under her breath in Greek that sounded like a curse but probably wasn’t, and, crossing the room quickly, removed a bunch of yellow flowers from a pottery vase and poured some of the water from it into the empty well.

She shook ink powder into the well and was stirring the mixture briskly with a bedraggled quill when something occurred belatedly to Grey.

“What did you mean, Mother, when you said, ‘It’s come to that already’? Because you didn’t know about the invasion, did you?”

She glanced up at him sharply, ceasing to stir. Then she took a deep breath, like one marshaling her mental forces, visibly made a decision, and put down the quill and ink.

“No,” she said, turning to him. “George had told me such a thing was being quietly discussed—but I left England with Olivia in September. War with Spain hadn’t yet been declared, though anyone could have seen that it was coming. No,” she repeated, and looked at him intently. “I meant the slave revolt.”

John stared at his mother for the space of thirty seconds or so, then slowly sank onto a wooden pew that ran along the side of the room. He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, and opened them.

“Is there anything to drink in this establishment, Mother?”

FED, WASHED, AND fortified with Spanish brandy, Grey left Tom to see to the unpacking and made his way on foot back through the city to the harbor, where the fortress of La Punta—smaller than El Morro (what was a morro? he wondered), but still impressive—guarded the western shore.

A few people glanced at him but with no more interest than he might attract in London, and upon reaching La Punta, he was surprised at the ease with which he was not only admitted but escorted promptly to the oficina del Señor Stubbs. Granted, the Spaniards had their own notions of military readiness, but this seemed quite lax for an island at war.

The soldier accompanying him rapped on a door, said something in Spanish, and, with a brief nod, left him.

Footsteps, and the door opened.

Malcolm Stubbs looked twenty years older than he had last time Grey had seen him. He was still broad-shouldered and thick-bodied, but he seemed to have softened and fallen in on himself, like a slightly decayed melon.

“Grey!” he said, his tired face brightening. “Wherever did you spring from?”

“Zeus’s forehead, no doubt,” Grey said. “Where have you come from, for that matter?” The skirts of Stubbs’s coat were thick with red dust, and he smelled strongly of horse.

“Oh…here and there.” Malcolm beat the dust perfunctorily from his coat and subsided into his chair with a groan. “Oh, God. Stick your head out and call for a servant, will you? I need a drink and some food before I perish.”

Well, he did know the Spanish word for “beer”…Sticking his head out into the corridor as advised, he spotted two servant girls loitering by the window at the far end, evidently talking to someone in the courtyard below, their conversation accompanied by a good deal of giggling.

Interrupting this colloquy with a brief “Hoy!” he said, “Cerveza?” in a tone of polite inquiry, following this with scooping motions toward his mouth.

“Sí, señor!” one of the girls said, with a hasty bob, adding something else in a questioning voice.

“Certainly,” he said cordially. “Er…I mean, sí! Um…gracias,” he added, wondering what he had just agreed to. Both girls curtsied and vanished in a swirl of skirts, though, presumably to fetch something edible.

“What is pulpo?” he asked, returning to the office and sitting down opposite Malcolm.

“Octopus,” Malcolm replied, emerging from the folds of a linen towel with which he’d been wiping dirt from his face. “Why?”

“Just wondered. Putting aside the usual inquiries about your health—are you all right, by the way?” he interrupted himself, looking down at what used to be Malcolm’s right foot. The boot encircled a sort of cup or stirrup, made of stiff leather with wooden reinforcements on the sides. Both wood and leather were deeply stained from long use, but there was fresh bright blood on the stocking above.

“Oh, that.” Malcolm glanced down indifferently. “It’s all right. My horse broke down a few miles from the city, and I had to walk some way before I got another.” Bending down with a grunt, he unbuckled the appurtenance and took it off—an action that Grey found oddly more disconcerting than sight of the stump itself.

The flesh was deeply ridged from the boot, and when Malcolm peeled the ragged stocking off, Grey saw that a wide ring of skin about the calf had been flayed raw. Malcolm hissed a little and closed his eyes, gently rubbing the end of the stump, the flesh there showing the pale blue of fresh bruising.

“Did I ever thank you, by the way?” Malcolm asked, opening his eyes.

“For what?” Grey said blankly.

“Not letting me bleed to death on that field in Quebec,” Malcolm said dryly. “That slipped your mind, did it?”

Actually, it had. There had been a great many things happening on and off that field in Quebec, and the frantic moments of grappling to get his belt loose and jerked tight round Malcolm’s spurting leg were just fragments—though vivid ones—of a fractured space where neither time nor thought existed; he’d been actually conscious that day of nothing beyond a sense of constant thunder—of the guns, of his heart, of the hooves of the Indians’ horses, all one and pounding through his blood.

“You’re welcome,” he said politely. “As I say—putting the social courtesies to one side for the moment, I came to inform you that a rather large British fleet is on its way to invade and capture the island. Am I correct, by the way, in my assumption that the local commander does not yet realize that war has been declared?”

Malcolm blinked. He stopped massaging his leg, straightened up, and said, “Yes. When?” His face had changed in an instant, from exhaustion and pain to alertness.

“I think you may have as long as two weeks, but it might be less.” He gave Malcolm what details he had, as concisely as he could. Malcolm nodded, a line of concentration deepening between his brows.

“So I’ve come to remove you and your family,” Grey finished. “And my mother, of course.”

Malcolm glanced at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Me? You’ll take Olivia and the children, of course—I’m very much obliged to you and General Stanley. But I’m staying.”

“What? What the devil for?” John was conscious of a sudden surge of temper. “Besides a pending invasion, my mother tells me there’s a bloody slave revolt in progress!”

“Well, yes,” Malcolm said calmly. “That’s mine.”

Before Grey could sort out a coherent response to this statement, the door opened suddenly and a sweet-faced black girl with a yellow scarf round her head and an enormous battered tin tray in her hands sidled through it.

“Señores,” she said, curtsying despite the tray, and deposited it on the desk. “Cerveza, vino rústico, y un poco comida: moros y cristianos”—she unlidded one of the dishes, loosing a savory steam—“maduros”—that was fried plantains; Grey was familiar with those—“y pulpo con tomates, aceitunas, y vinagre!”

“Muchas gracias, Inocencia,” Malcolm said, in what sounded like a surprisingly good accent. “Es suficiente.” He waved a hand in dismissal, but instead of leaving, she came round the desk and knelt down, frowning at his mangled leg.

“Está bien,” Malcolm said. “No te preocupes.” He tried to turn away, but she put a hand on his knee, her face turned up to his, and said something rapid in Spanish, in a tone of scolding concern that made Grey raise his brows. It reminded him of the way Tom Byrd spoke to him when he was sick or injured—as though it were all his own fault, and he therefore ought to submit meekly to whatever frightful dose or treatment was being proposed—but there was a distinct note in the girl’s voice that Tom Byrd’s lacked entirely.

Malcolm shook his head and replied, his own manner dismissive but kindly, and laid his hand on the girl’s yellow head for a moment. It might have been merely a friendly gesture, but it wasn’t, and Grey stiffened.

The girl rose, shook her head reprovingly at Malcolm, and went out, with a hint of flirtation in the sway of her skirts. Grey watched the door close behind her, then turned back to Malcolm, who had plucked an olive out of one dish and was sucking it.

“Inocencia, my arse,” Grey said bluntly.

Malcolm’s normal complexion being brick red, he didn’t flush, but neither did he meet Grey’s eye.

“Quite the usual sort of names they give girls, the Spanish,” he said, discarding the olive pit and picking up a serving spoon. “You find young women called all kinds of things: Assumpción, Immaculata, Concepción…”

“Conception, indeed.” This was said in a tone cold enough to make Malcolm’s wide shoulders hunch a little, though he still wouldn’t look at Grey.

“They call this moros y cristianos—that means ‘moors and Christians’—the rice being Christians and the black beans Moors, d’you see?”

“Speaking of conception—and Quebec,” Grey said, ignoring the food—though it smelled remarkably good, “your son by the Indian woman…”

Malcolm did glance at him then. He looked back at his plate, finished chewing, swallowed, and nodded, not looking at Grey.

“Yes. I did make inquiries—once I was mended. They told me the child had died.”

That struck Grey in the pit of the stomach. He swallowed, tasting bile, and plucked a bit of something out of the dish of pulpo at random.

“I see. How…regrettable.”

Malcolm nodded, wordless, and helped himself liberally to the octopus.

“Was it quite recent, this news?” The shock had gone through him like an ocean breaker. He remembered vividly the day when he had taken the infant—the child’s mother having died of smallpox, he had bought the boy from his grandmother for a blanket, a pound of sugar, two golden guineas, and a small cask of rum—and carried him to the little French mission in Gareon. The boy had been warm and solid in his arms, looking up at him from round, unblinking dark eyes, as though trusting him.

“Oh. No. No, it was at least two years ago.”

“Ah.” Grey put the piece of whatever-it-was into his mouth and chewed slowly, the sense of shock fading into an immense relief—and then a growing anger.

Not a trusting man himself, he had given the priest money for the child’s needs and told him this payment would continue—but only so long as the priest sent Grey a lock of the child’s hair once a year, to prove his continued existence and presumed good health.

Malcolm Stubbs’s natural hair was sandy and tightly curled as sheep’s wool; when left to its own devices, it exploded from its owner’s head like a ruptured mattress. Consequently, Malcolm usually kept his head polled and wore a wig. He’d evidently been wearing one earlier but had taken it off and set it aside, and the inch of mad growth thus displayed strongly resembled the texture of the two small curls of dark cinnamon-colored hair that Grey had so far received from Canada, each one bound carefully with black thread and accompanied by a brief note of thanks and blessing from Father LeCarré—the latest, just before his departure for Jamaica.

The urge to bounce Malcolm’s head off the desk and shove him facedown into the pulpo was strong, but Grey mastered it, chewing the bite of octopus—very flavorful, but in texture reminiscent of an artist’s rubber—thoroughly before saying anything. He swallowed.

“Tell me about this slave revolt of yours, then.”

MALCOLM DID LOOK at him now, considering. He nodded and reached, grunting, for the limp, bloodstained stocking hanging out of his artificial foot.

“We’ll go up to the battlements,” he said. “Not many of the servants speak any English—but that doesn’t mean none of them understand it. And they do listen at doors.”

Grey blinked as they emerged from the gloom of a stone stairwell into a pure and brilliant day, a blinding sky spinning with seagulls overhead. A stiff wind was coming off the water, and Grey removed his hat, tucking it under his arm lest it be carried away.

“I come up here several times a day,” Malcolm said, raising his voice above the wind and the shrieks of the gulls. He had wisely left his own hat and wig below in his office. “To watch the ships.” He nodded toward the expanse of the huge harbor, where several very large ships were anchored, these surrounded by coveys of smaller vessels, going to and from the shore.

“They’re beautiful,” Grey said, and they were. “But they’re not doing anything, are they?” All sails were furled, all port lids closed. The ships lay at anchor, rocking slowly in the wind, masts and spars swaying stark and black against the blue of sea and sky.

“Yes,” Malcolm said dryly. “Particularly beautiful when they’re not doing anything. That’s how I know the declaration of war hasn’t yet been received; if it had, the decks would be black with men, and the sails would be reefed, not furled. And that’s why I come up here morning, noon, and night,” he added.

“Yes,” Grey said slowly, “but…if in fact de Prado—that’s the commander of the forces here?—if he doesn’t know that war is declared,—why are these ships here already? I mean, plainly they’re men of war, not merchantmen. Even I know that much.”

Malcolm laughed, though without much humor.

“Yes, the cannons rather give it away, don’t they? The Spanish have been expecting war to be declared for the last six months. General Hevia brought these ships in last November, and they’ve been lying in wait here ever since.”

“Ah.”

Malcolm gave him a raised brow.

“Ah, indeed. De Prado’s expecting a declaration any day. That’s why I sent Olivia and the children to the country. De Prado’s staff all treat me with exquisite courtesy”—his mouth twitched a little—“but I can see them measuring me for leg-irons and a cell.”

“Surely not, Malcolm,” Grey said mildly. “You’re a diplomat, not an enemy combatant. Presumably they’d either deport or detain you, but I can’t see it coming to chains.”

“Yes,” Malcolm agreed, eyes fixed again on the ships, as though he feared they might have begun to move in the last few moments. “But if they find out about the revolt—and I really don’t see how that can be avoided—I rather think that might alter their views on my claim to diplomatic immunity.”

This was said with a sort of calm detachment that impressed Grey—reluctantly, but still. He glanced round to be sure they were not overheard.

There were a lot of soldiers up here but none close to them; the gray stone of the rooftop stretched away for a hundred yards in all directions. Grey could hear, faintly, shouts between an officer at the far end of the battlement and someone in the watchtower above. There was a small group of regulars—most of them black, Grey saw—stripped to the waist and sweating despite the wind, repairing a gap in the battlement with baskets of stones—and there were guards. Four guards at each corner of the battlements, stiffly upright, muskets shouldered. The fortress of La Punta was prepared.

A detachment of twelve men marched past, two by two, under the command of a young corporal shouting the Spanish equivalent of “Hup!” as they wheeled past the stubby watchtower. The corporal saluted smartly; Malcolm bowed and turned again to the vast expanse of the harbor. It was a clear day; John could just make out the great boom chain at the harbor mouth, a thin darkness in the water, like a snake.

“It was Inocencia who told me,” Malcolm said abruptly, as the soldiers disappeared down a stairway at the far side of the rooftop. He cut his eyes at Grey, who said nothing. Malcolm turned his face back to the harbor and began to talk.

The revolt was planned among slaves from two of the large sugar plantations near Havana. The original plan, according to Inocencia—whose cousin was a servant at Hacienda Mendez but was having an affair with one of the house slaves, whose brother was one of the ringleaders of the plot—had been to band together and kill the owners of the haciendas, loot the houses, which were very rich, and then escape through the countryside to the Golfo de Xaguas, on the other side of the island.

“Thinking that the soldiers wouldn’t pursue them, being distracted by the imminent arrival of the English on this side, you see.” Malcolm appeared quite unmoved by the putative murder of the plantation owners. “It wasn’t a bad plan, if they chose their moment and waited ’til the English did arrive. There are dozens of small islands in the golfo; they might have hidden there indefinitely.”

“But you discovered this plan, and rather than mentioning it to the comandante…”

Malcolm shrugged.

“Well, we are at war with the Spanish, are we not? Or if we weren’t, it was obvious that we would be at any moment. I met with the two leaders of the revolt and, er, convinced them that there was a better way to achieve their ends.”

“Alone? I mean—you went to meet these men by yourself?”

“Of course,” Malcolm said simply. “I wouldn’t have got near them had I come mob-handed. Didn’t have a mob to hand, anyway,” he added, turning to Grey with a self-conscious grin that suddenly took years off his careworn face.

“I met Inocencia’s cousin at the edge of the Saavedra plantation, and she took me to a big tobacco shed,” he went on, the grin fading. “It was almost nightfall, so darkish inside. Lots of shadows, and I couldn’t tell how many men were there; it felt as though the whole place was moving and whispering, but likely that was just the drying leaves—they’re quite big, did you know? A plant is almost the size of a man. They hang them up, up in the rafters, and they brush against each other with this dry sort of rustle, almost like they’re tittering to themselves…put the wind up me, a bit.”

Grey tried to imagine that meeting and, surprisingly, could envision it: Malcolm, artificial foot and all, limping alone into a dark shed to convince dangerous men to forgo their own murderous plans in favor of his. In Spanish.

“You aren’t dead, so they listened to you,” Grey said slowly. “What did you offer them?”

“Freedom,” Malcolm said simply. “I mean,—the army goes about freeing slaves who enlist—why oughtn’t the navy to be similarly enlightened?”

“I’m not so sure that a sailor’s life is noticeably better than that of a slave,” Grey said dubiously. “In terms of food, they may be better off as they are.”

“I don’t mean they’re to enlist, booby,” Malcolm said. “But I’m sure I can persuade either Albemarle or Admiral Pocock that they should be freed in token of regard for their service. If they survive,” he added thoughtfully.

Grey was beginning to think that Malcolm might actually be a decent diplomat. Still…

“Since you mention service—what, exactly, are you proposing that these men do?”

“Well, my first notion was that they might creep along the shoreline after dark and detach and sink the boom chain across the harbor mouth.”

“A good notion,” Grey said, still dubious, “but—”

“The batteries. Yes, exactly. I couldn’t very well go down and ask to inspect the batteries, but…” He reached into his coat and withdrew a small brass telescope.

“Have a look,” he said, passing this to Grey. “Wave it around a bit, so it doesn’t look as though you’re spying out the batteries particularly.”

Grey took the telescope. His hands were chilled and the brass, warm from Malcolm’s body, gave him an odd frisson.

He’d seen one of the batteries close to, on the way in; the one on the opposite side of the harbor was similarly equipped: six four-pounders and two mortars.

“It’s not only that, of course,” Grey said, handing back the telescope. “It’s the—”

“Timing,” Malcolm finished. “Yes. Even if the men could swim from down shore rather than come through the battery, it would have to be done with the British fleet actually in view, or the Spaniards would have time to raise the chain again.” He shook his head regretfully. “No. What I’m thinking, though—and do say, if you have a better idea—is that we might be able to take El Morro.”

“What?” Grey glanced across the channel at the towering hulk of Morro Castle. Set on a rocky promontory, it rose considerably higher than La Punta and commanded the entire channel, most of the harbor, and a good bit of the city, as well. “How, exactly?”

Malcolm bit his lip, not in concern but concentration. He nodded at the castle.

“I’ve been inside, several times. And I can make an occasion to go again. You’ll go with me—it’s a blessing that you should have come, John,” he added, turning his head to Grey. “It makes things much easier.”

“Does it, indeed?” Grey murmured. A faint uneasiness began to stir at the base of his spine. A seagull landed on the parapet near his elbow and gave him a beady yellow look, which didn’t help.

“The governor’s down with fever, at the moment, but he might be better tomorrow. I’ll request a meeting to introduce you. While you’re engaged with de Prado—or his lieutenant, if de Prado’s still indisposed—I’ll make an excuse, slip off, and manage to take note of the floor plan, entrances and exits, all that—” He broke off suddenly. “You did say two weeks?”

“About that. But there’s no telling, is there? What if Martinique didn’t surrender easily, or there was a typhoon as they left the island? It could be a month or more.” Another thought struck him. “And then there are the volunteers from the American colonies. Lieutenant Rimes says a number of transports are meant to rendezvous with the fleet here.”

Malcolm scratched his head. The clipped bronze curls rippled in the wind like shorn autumn grass.

What? John thought, quite shocked at the poetic image his errant brain had presented him with. He didn’t even like Malcolm, let alone…

“I don’t suppose the transports would come near the harbor until they’d joined the fleet,” Malcolm pointed out. “But two weeks seems decent odds—and that’s long enough to get Olivia and your mother safely off the island.”

“Oh. Yes,” John said, relieved at this apparent return to sanity. “I had Mother send a note to bring them back to—oh, damn. You did say you’d sent them away on purpose.”

The seagull made a disapproving noise, defecated on the parapet, and launched itself into the air.

“I did, yes. I tried to persuade your mother to go with Olivia, but she insisted on staying. Said she’s writing something and wanted to be left in peace for a few days.” Malcolm turned his back on the harbor and stared contemplatively at the stones under his feet.

“Adelante!” A shout came from behind Grey; he turned at the sound of marching feet and clanking weaponry. Another detachment drilling. They clumped past, eyes fixed forward, but their corporal saluted Malcolm politely, including Grey with a brief nod and a sidelong glance.

Was it his imagination, or had the man’s eyes lingered on his face?

“The thing is…” Malcolm said, waiting ’til the soldiers had receded into the distance. “I mean…” He coughed and fell silent.

Grey waited.

“I know you don’t like me, John,” Malcolm said abruptly. “Or respect me. I don’t like myself all that much,” he added, looking away. “But—will you help me?”

“I don’t see that I have a choice,” Grey said, leaving the question of liking alone. “But for what it’s worth,” he added formally, “I do respect you.”

Malcolm’s broad face lighted at this, but before he could say anything in reply, Grey became suddenly aware of a change around them. The men repairing the wall had leapt to their feet, gesturing and pointing, shouting excitedly.

Everyone was shouting, rushing toward the battlements overlooking the harbor. Caught in the crush, the two Englishmen pushed their way forward, far enough to see the ship. A small boat, a fast Spanish cutter, coming like the wind itself, its sails white as gull’s wings, hurtling across the blue water toward them.

“Oh, Jesus,” Grey said. “It’s—is it?”

“Yes, it is. It must be.” Malcolm grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him out of the crowd of excited Spaniards. “Come. Now!”

THE STAIRWELL WAS blind dark after the dazzle above, and Grey had to drag a hand along the rough stone wall to avoid falling. He did fall, slipping on one of the age-hollowed steps near the bottom, but was luckily saved by clutching Malcolm’s sleeve.

“This way.” There was more light below, bright flashes from the narrow windows at the ends of long corridors, dim flickering of lanterns on the walls, a strong smell of whale oil. Malcolm led the way down to his office, where he said something in rapid Spanish to the secretary, who rose, looking surprised, and went out. Malcolm closed the door and locked it.

“Now what?” Grey asked. His heart was beating fast, and he felt a sense of confusion: an alertness like that of impending battle, an absurd urge to flee, the urgent need to do something…but what? The first knuckle on his right hand was bleeding; he’d scraped it when he slipped on the stairs. He put it to his mouth in reflex, tasting silver blood and stone dust.

Malcolm was breathing harder than the brisk walk merited. He braced himself with both hands on the desk, looking down at the dark wood. Finally he nodded, shook himself like a dog, and straightened up.

“It’s not as though I haven’t been thinking about it,” he said. “But I hadn’t expected you to be here.”

“Don’t let me interfere with your plans,” Grey said politely. Malcolm looked at him, startled, then laughed and seemed to settle into himself.

“Right,” he said. “Well, there’s the two things, aren’t there? The slaves, and Olivia—and your mother, of course,” he added hastily.

Grey thought he might himself have reversed those two items in order of importance, but, then, he didn’t know just how dangerous the slaves might be. He nodded.

“Do you really think they’ll arrest you?”

Malcolm lifted one heavy shoulder and let it fall.

“Yes, I do—but I don’t know how long it might take them to get round to it. After all, I’m no particular threat, so far as they know.” He went to the small window and peered out. Grey could hear shouting in the courtyard below, someone trying to create order in the midst of a rising gabble of Spanish voices.

“The thing is,” Malcolm said, turning back from the window with a frown of concentration upon his face, “they’ll know officially that war has been declared, as soon as the captain of that ship presents his letters to the governor. But do you think they know anything about the fleet?” He saw Grey’s raised eyebrow and added hastily, “I mean,—the ship bringing the declaration—if that’s truly what it is—they might have spotted the fleet or…—or heard word of it. In which case…”

Grey shook his head.

“It’s a big ocean, Malcolm,” he said. “And is there anything you’d do differently if the Spanish did know about the fleet?”

He was rather impatient with Malcolm’s orderly exegesis. His own blood was up, and he needed to be moving.

“Actually, yes. Number one being, run—both of us. If they think the British are about to be on their doorstep, the second thing the Spanish will do—after putting both forts on full alert—is round up every British citizen in Havana, very likely starting with me. If they don’t know that, we might still have a bit of time in hand.”

Grey saw that Malcolm was needing to move, too; he’d begun to walk to and fro behind his desk, glancing out of the window each time he passed it. He was limping heavily; walking clearly hurt him, but he seemed oblivious to the pain.

“The Mendez slaves will be nervous—well, they are already—but they’ll be bloody well stirred up by this news. I’ve got to go and talk to them, as quickly as possible. Reassure them, you know? If I don’t, they may very well take the declaration of war as a signal to fall upon their owners and slaughter them on the spot—which, aside from being generally deplorable in terms of humanity, would be a complete waste of their value to us.”

“Deplorable, yes.” Grey felt a qualm at the thought of the inhabitants of Haciendas Mendez and Saavedra, sitting down peaceably to their suppers tonight, with no notion that they might be murdered at any moment by the servants bringing their food. It occurred to him—as perhaps it had to Malcolm—that the slaves of those two plantations were quite possibly not the only ones on the island of Cuba who might be inclined to take advantage of a British invasion to settle scores. But there wasn’t much either Malcolm or he could do about that.

“You’d best go, then, at once. I’ll see to the women and children.”

Malcolm was rubbing a hand fiercely over his face, as though this might assist thought.

“Yes. You’ll have to get them off the island before the fleet arrives. Here, take this.” He pulled out a drawer and withdrew a small, fat leather pouch. “Spanish money—you’ll attract less attention. Cojimar—I think that’s your best bet.”

“What and where is Cojimar?” Drums. There were drums now, beating a tattoo in the courtyard, and the clatter of boots and voices as men spilled out of the recesses of the fortress. How big was the force manning El Morro?

He didn’t realize he’d spoken that last question aloud until Malcolm answered it, distracted.

“About seven hundred soldiers, maybe another three hundred supportives—oh, and the African laborers; perhaps another three hundred of them—they don’t live in the fort, though.” He met Grey’s eyes and nodded, divining his next thought. “I don’t know. They might join our men, they might not. If I had time…” He grimaced. “But I don’t. Cojimar is—oh, wait.” Turning, he seized the wig he’d taken off earlier from his desk and thrust it into Grey’s hands.

“Disguise,” he said, and smiled briefly. “You rather take the eye, John. Best if people don’t notice you on the street.” He snatched up the hat and crammed it on his own bare head, then unlocked the door and pulled it open, impatiently gesturing Grey ahead of him.

John went, asking over his shoulder, “Cojimar?”

“Fishing village.” Malcolm was looking up and down the corridor. “It’s east of Havana, maybe ten miles. If the fleet can’t get into the harbor, it’s the best anchorage for them. Small bay—oh, and a small fort, too. El Castillo de Cojimar. You’ll want to keep clear of that.”

“Yes, I’ll do that,” John said dryly. “I’ll—” He’d been going to say that he’d send Tom Byrd with any news, but the words died in his throat. Malcolm would presumably be somewhere in the countryside, tending his slaves, by the time there was any news. That, or in captivity. Or—very possibly—dead.

“Malcolm,” he said.

Malcolm turned his head sharply and saw John’s face. He stopped dead for a moment, then nodded.

“Olivia,” he said quietly. “Will you tell her—” He broke off and looked away.

“You know I will.”

He put out a hand, and Malcolm grasped it, hard enough that the bones shifted. When they let go, his skinned knuckle burned, and he saw that there was blood from it on Malcolm’s palm.

They spoke no more but went out into the corridor, walking fast.

THE WIG WOULD have been much too large, given Malcolm’s round-headed resemblance to an oversize muskmelon, but Grey’s own hair—yellow and noticeable, as Malcolm had so tactfully noted—was thick, and with it stuffed up inside the wig, the horsehair contrivance sat securely, if uncomfortably. He hoped that Malcolm didn’t suffer from lice but forgot such minor concerns as he made his way through the throngs of people in the street outside La Punta.

There was an air of curiosity in the street; people glanced at the fortress as they passed, clearly sensing some disturbance from its daily routine. But the news had not yet spread; for that matter, Grey wondered whether the news had officially reached the office of the governor—or his sickbed, as the case might be. Neither he nor Malcolm had had any doubt; only the most urgent news would have got the cutter past the boom chain with such dispatch.

The guard at the fortress’s street gate had given him no more than a casual glance before waving him through; as was the case in peacetime, there were nearly as many civilians as soldiers inside the fort, and there were plenty of fair-skinned, blue-eyed Spaniards. The cut of his suit was not in the Spanish style, but it was discreet and sober in color.

He was going to need a horse—that was the first thing. He could walk ten miles, but doing so in his court shoes would be both slow and painful—and making the round-trip of twenty miles on foot…He glanced up at the sky; it was well past noon. Granted, in this latitude, the sun wouldn’t set before eight or nine o’clock, but…

“Why the devil didn’t I ask Stubbs what the word for ‘horse’ is?” he muttered under his breath, threading his way through a district of fragrant market stalls filled with fruit—he recognized plantains, of course, and papayas, mangoes, coconuts, and pineapples, but there were odd dark-green things that he’d not seen before, with pebbly skins, and lighter-green objects that he thought might be custard apples—whatever they were, they smelled delicious. His stomach growled—despite the octopus, he was starving—but then his head snapped round as he smelled something of a distinctly different nature. Fresh manure.

IT WAS VERY LATE by the time he finally returned to Casa Hechevarria that night. A full moon sailed high overhead, and the air was thick with smoke and orange blossom and the smell of slowly roasting meat. He’d eaten in Cojimar easily enough, merely pointing at things in the tiny market square and offering what appeared to be the smaller coins in his pouch, but Cojimar was no more than a sunstruck distant memory, and he was starving again.

He slid off the rented mule, wrapped the creature’s reins over the railing in front of the house, and went to hammer on the door. His arrival had been noticed, though, and soft lantern light flooded out upon him as he came up the shallow wooden steps.

“Is that you, me lord?” Tom Byrd, bless him, stood framed in the open doorway, lantern in hand and round face creased with worry.

“What’s left of me,” Grey said. He cleared his throat, clogged with dust, spat into the flowering bush by the portico, and limped into the house. “Get someone to see to the mule, will you, Tom?”

“Right away, me lord. What’s amiss with your foot, though?” Tom fixed an accusing gaze on Grey’s right foot.

“Nothing.” Grey made his way into the sala, dimly lit by a small candle before a holy picture of some sort—there were things with wings in it, which must be angels—and sat down with a sigh of relief. “The heel of my shoe came off whilst I was helping the mule out of a rocky ditch.”

“He fell into a ditch with you, me lord?” Tom was deftly lighting more candles with a spill and now lifted this in order to examine Grey more closely. “I thought mules was meant to be sure-footed.”

“There’s nothing wrong with his feet, either,” Grey assured him, leaning back and closing his eyes for a moment. The candlelight made red patterns on the insides of his eyelids. “I’d stopped for a piss, and he took the opportunity of my inattention to walk down into said ditch, which he did without the slightest difficulty, by the way. There were some of these things growing on the bushes there that he wanted to eat.” Fumbling in his pocket, Grey produced three or four small, smooth green fruits.

“I tried to lure him out with a handful, but he was happy as he was, and eventually I was obliged to resort to force.” Said force being applied by two young black women passing by, who had laughed at Grey’s predicament but then resolved it, one of the women tugging at the reins and addressing the mule in what sounded like deeply pejorative terms while her friend prodded it sternly in the backside with a stick. Grey yawned hugely. At least he’d learned the word for mule—mula, which seemed very reasonable—along with a few other things that might come in handy.

“Is there any food, Tom?”

“Those are guavas, me lord,” Tom said, nodding at the little fruits, which Grey placed on a side table. “You make jelly from ’em, but they maybe won’t poison you if you eat ’em raw.” He’d knelt and got Grey’s shoes off in a matter of seconds, then stood and deftly plucked the battered wig off Grey’s head, viewing it with an expression of deep disapproval. “I mean, if you can’t wait while I go rouse the cook.”

“Don’t do that. It must be past midnight.” Grey dubiously prodded one of the guavas, which seemed unripe—it was hard as a golf ball.

“Never mind, me lord, there’ll be cold stuff in the larder,” Tom assured him. “Oh—” he added, stopping at the door, wig dangling from one hand, “I forgot to say as Her Grace is gone.”

“Her Gr—what? Where the devil has she gone?” Grey sat up straight, all thoughts of food, bed, and sore feet vanishing.

“A note came from a Señora Valdez late this morning, me lord, saying as how Mrs. Stubbs and her little girl was both ill with fever and asking would Her Grace please come. So she went,” he added unnecessarily, and vanished, too. “Chingado huevón!” Grey said, standing up.

“What did you say, me lord?” Tom’s voice came from somewhere down the hall.

“I don’t know. Never mind. Get the food, please, Tom. And beer, if there is any.”

A faint laugh, cut off by the muffled thump of a swinging door. He looked round the room, wanting to do something violent, but an ancient cat curled up on the back of a stuffed chair opened its great green eyes and glared at him out of the twilight, disconcerting him.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, and turned away. So, not only were Olivia and family not headed back to Havana, his mother had decamped—how long ago had she left? She couldn’t have made it to the Valdez plantation before dark; she must be somewhere on the road—and as for Rodrigo and Azeel, God knew where they were. Had they even reached Olivia’s rural hideaway yet?

He strode restlessly to and fro, the stone-tiled floor cool through his stockings. He had no idea in which direction the Valdez plantation lay; how far might it be from Cojimar?

Not that it mattered, if Olivia and her daughter were too ill to travel. A moment ago, his mind had been as exhausted as his body, empty of thought. Now he felt as though his head were filled with ants, all rushing in different directions, each with tremendous determination.

He could find a wagon. But how sick were they? He couldn’t load desperately ill people into a wagon, drive them ten, twenty, thirty miles over rocky trails, and then decant them into a boat, which might take how long to reach a safe haven….—What about food and water? The peón—that’s what someone had called him, he had no idea what it meant—with whom he’d arranged to rent a small boat had promised water;—he could buy food, but—Jesus, how many people could he get aboard? Could he leave Rodrigo and Azeel, to be rescued later? No, he’d need them to talk with the boatman, and to help, if half his passengers were prostrate and heaving, needing to be tended. What if more of the party fell ill on the way? What if the boatman succumbed to fever? What if his mother caught the fever and died at sea?

He could all too easily envision himself making landfall on some godforsaken shore of the southern colonies with a boatload of his dead or dying family and servants…

“No!” he said aloud, clenching his fists. “No, that’s bloody not going to happen.”

“What’s not going to happen?” Tom inquired, backing into the room with a small wheeled table, festooned with edibles. “There’s a lot of beer, me lord. You could bathe in it, should the fancy take you.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He closed his eyes briefly and took several deep breaths. “Thank you, Tom.”

Plainly, he couldn’t do anything tonight, and no matter what he did in the morning, he’d do it better if he had food and rest.

Hungry as he’d been half an hour before, his appetite seemed now to have deserted him. He sat down, though, and forced himself to eat. There were small patties of some kind of blood sausage, made with onions and rice, a hard cheese, the light, thin-crusted Cuban bread—he thought he’d heard someone call it a flauta, could that be right? Pickled vegetables of some kind. Beer. More beer.

Tom was hovering nearby, quiet but watchful.

“Go to bed, Tom. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s good, me lord.” Tom didn’t bother trying to look as though he believed Grey; there was a deep crease between his valet’s brows. “Is Captain Stubbs all right, me lord?”

Grey took a deep breath and another mouthful of beer.

“He was quite well when we parted this afternoon. As for tomorrow…” He hadn’t meant to tell Tom anything until tomorrow; no point in destroying his sleep and peace of mind. But from the look on his young valet’s face, it was much too late for any such kindly procrastinations.

“Sit down,” Grey said. “Or, rather, get another cup and then sit down.”

By the time he had finished explaining matters to Tom, nothing remained of his meal save crumbs.

“And Captain Stubbs means to make these slaves come into Havana and…do what?” Tom looked both horrified and curious.

“That, fortunately, is Captain Stubbs’s concern. Did my mother say anything about the state of Olivia and her daughter? How ill they might actually be?”

Tom shook his head.

“No, me lord. But from the look on her face—Her Grace’s face, I mean—the news must’ve been pretty bad. I’m sorry to say. She even left her story behind.” Tom’s face was grave in the flickering shadows. He’d lighted half a dozen thick candles, and despite muslin covering the windows, clouds of tiny insects had filtered into the room like dust, their minuscule shadows frantic on the dim white walls.

The sight made Grey itch. He’d been ignoring insects all day and sported more than a dozen mosquito bites on neck and arms. A high, mocking zeeeee! sang past his ear, and he slapped at it in futile reflex. The gesture made Tom brighten.

“Oh!” he said. “Wait a bit, me lord, I’ve got summat for you.”

He returned almost at once with a stoppered vial of blue glass, looking pleased with himself.

“Try that, me lord,” he said, handing it to his employer. Grey pulled the stopper, and a delicious, rich scent floated out.

“Coconut oil,” Tom said proudly. “The cook uses it, and she gave me some. I mixed the mint into it, for good measure, but she says the mosquitoes don’t like the oil. Flies do,” he added judiciously, “but most of them don’t bite.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Grey had shucked his coat to eat; he rolled up his shirtsleeves and anointed himself, rubbing it into every inch of exposed skin. Something occurred to him.

“What did you mean, Tom? About my mother leaving her story behind—a book of some sort?”

“Well, I don’t know as whether it might be a book,” Tom said dubiously. “It’s not one yet, but the servants say she writes some of it every day, so sooner or later…”

“She’s writing a book?”

“So Dolores said, me lord. It’s in there.” He turned and lifted his chin toward the secretaire that Grey had seen his mother use—Christ, had it been only this morning?

Consumed by curiosity, Grey got up and opened the secretaire. Sure enough, there was a small stack of written pages, neatly bound with blue tape. The page on top was a title page—evidently she did mean it to be a book. It said, simply, My Life.

“A memoir?”

Tom shrugged.

“Dunno, me lord. None of the servants can read English, so they don’t know.”

Grey was torn between amusement, curiosity, and a certain unease. To the best of his knowledge, his mother had led a rather adventurous life—and he was well aware that his knowledge of that life was limited, by unspoken mutual consent. There were a lot of things he didn’t want her to know about his own life; he could respect her secrets. Though, if she was writing them down…

He touched the manuscript lightly, then closed the lid of the secretaire. Food, beer, and the living, candlelit silence of the Casa Hechevarria had quieted both his body and his mind. He could think of a thousand possibilities, but in fact, there was only one thing he could do: ride to the Valdez plantation as fast as he could and assess the situation when he got there.

Two weeks—about—before the British fleet arrived. Two weeks minus one. God willing, that would be enough time for him to sort things out.

“What did you say, Tom?”

Tom was piling up the empty dishes on the table but stopped to answer him.

“I said, that word you said—huevón?”

“Oh. Yes, I heard it from a young lady I met on the road from Cojimar. Do you know what it means?”

“Well, I know what Juanito says it means,” Tom replied, striving for accuracy. “He says it means a chap what’s lazy because his balls are too big to stir himself.” Tom gave Grey a sidelong glance. “A lady said that to you, me lord?”

“She was speaking to the mule—or at least I hope she was speaking to the mule.” Grey stretched himself, feeling the joints of his shoulders and arms pop, inviting the caress of sleep. “Go to bed, Tom. It will be a long day tomorrow, I’m afraid.”

He paused on his way out, to look at the painting of the things with wings. They were angels, rendered crudely but with a simplicity that made them oddly moving. Four of them hovered protectively over an infant Christ, lying in his manger of straw, asleep. And where was Stubbs sleeping tonight? In a cold spring field, a dim tobacco shed?

“God bless you, Malcolm,” he whispered, and went to seek his bed.

A MODEST COUGH woke him, well after dawn, to find Tom Byrd beside his bed, holding a tray containing breakfast, a steaming cup of the local equivalent of tea, and a note from his mother.

“Her Grace met Rodrigo and Azeel late last night,” Tom informed him. “Them being on the way back posthaste to fetch her, and happen as how she stopped at the same inn where they were stopping to water their horses.”

“She—my mother—isn’t traveling by herself, surely?” At this stage of her life, he wouldn’t put it past her, but…

“Oh, no, me lord,” Tom assured him, with a slightly reproachful look. “She took Eleana and Fatima and three good lads by way of escort. Her Grace ain’t afraid of things, but she’s no ways reckless, as you might say.”

Grey detected a certain emphasis on “she’s” that he might have taken personally but chose to ignore it in favor of reading his mother’s message.

Dear John,

I trust Tom Byrd has told you that Olivia sent Word asking me to come to her at Hacienda Valdez. I met your two Servants at a Hovel somewhere on the Road, they being on their Way back with a similar but more detailed Message, this one written by the local Priest.

Padre Cespedes says that nearly everyone in the House is affected by the Illness, which he—having seen many Occurrences of Fever during his Years serving God near the Zapata Swamp—is sure is not a relapsing Fever, like the tertian Ague, but is almost certainly the Yellow Jack.

A small shock ran through him. “Fever” was a vague word, which might mean anything from a touch of the sun to malaria. Even “ague” might be a passing ill, easily shaken off. But “yellow jack” was stark and definite as a knife in the chest. Most of his army career had involved postings in northern climes; the closest he had come to the dread disease was the sight of ships—now and then—in Kingston Harbor, flying the yellow quarantine flag. But he’d seen the corpses being carried off those ships, too.

His hands had gone cold, and he wrapped one around the hot pottery cup while he read the rest.

Don’t come here, unless I write to say so. There is one thing to be said for the Yellow Jack, which is that it is fearfully quick. All will likely be resolved—one Way or the Other—within a Week. That may leave enough Time in which to execute your original Intent. If not…not.

I think I will see you again, but should God will otherwise, tell Paul and Edgar, Hal and his family, that I love them, tell George—well, tell him that he knows my Heart and what I would say were we together. And for you, John…you are my dearest Son and I carry my Thought of you through all that lies before us.

Your Most Affectionate Mother

John swallowed several times before he could pick up the cup and drink from it. If she had ridden through the night, which seemed likely, she might be arriving at the plantation now. To meet…

Grey said something very obscene in German, under his breath. He put the cup back and swung out of bed, thrusting the letter at Tom; he couldn’t speak coherently enough to transmit the contents.

He had to piss, and did so. This elemental act gave him some semblance of control, and he shoved the utensil back under the bed and straightened up.

“Tom, go and ask where the nearest doctor is to be found. I’ll dress myself.”

Tom gave him a look, but not the look of profound doubt that might have been expected in response to his last statement. This was a very patient look, and one much older than Tom’s years.

“Me lord…” he said, very gently, and set the letter on the chest of drawers. “If Her Grace wanted you to send a doctor, she’d’ve said so, don’t you think?”

“My mother has very little faith in doctors.” Neither did Grey, but, dammit, what else was he to do? “That doesn’t mean one might not…help.”

Tom looked at him for a long moment, then nodded soberly and went.

John could indeed dress himself, though his hands shook so much that he decided to forgo shaving. Malcolm’s ghastly wig lay on the chest of drawers beside his mother’s letter, looking like a dead animal. Ought he wear it?

Why? he wondered. He couldn’t hide his Englishness from the doctor. He probably should send Jacinto to talk to the doctor, in any case. But he couldn’t bloody stand to stay in the house, doing nothing. He picked up the now-lukewarm cup and drained the bitter contents. Christ, what was this stuff?

He rubbed more of Tom’s coconut-oil concoction into his exposed skin, brushed his hair and bound it simply with a ribbon, then strode out to see what Tom had found out from the other servants.

They were on the patio, which seemed the center of the house. The usual cheerful racket was much subdued, though, and Ana-Maria crossed herself and bobbed a curtsy when she saw him.

“Lo siento mucho, señor,” she said. “Su madre…su prima y los ninos—” She waved a graceful hand outward, encompassing his mother, Olivia, and the children, then again inward, this time indicating all the servants around her, and laid the hand on her heart, looking at him with a great compassion in her softly lined face. “Tenemos dolor, señor.”

He took her meaning clearly, if not every word, and bowed low to her, nodding to the other servants as he straightened.

“Muchas gracias…” Señora? Señorita? Was she married? He didn’t know, so he just repeated, “Muchas gracias,” with more emphasis.

Tom wasn’t among the servants; he’d likely gone to talk to Jacinto about doctors. John bowed again to the servants generally and turned toward the house.

There were voices toward the front of the house, speaking very rapid Spanish, with an occasional baffled word from Tom edging its way into the conversation. Curious, John made his way past the sala and into the small vestibule, where he found Jacinto and Tom blocking the front door and heard a woman’s voice outside, raised in agitation, saying his name.

“Necessito hablar con el Señor Grey! Ahorita!”

“What’s going on?” He spoke sharply, and the two men turned toward him, allowing him a view of a yellow bandanna and the desperate face of Inocencia.

She seized the moment and pushed her way between the butler and Tom, snatched a crumpled note from her bosom, and thrust it into Grey’s hand. Then she fell to her knees, clutching the hem of his coat.

“Por favor, señor!”

The note was limp with the sweat of her body, and the ink had blurred a little but was still clearly readable. There was neither salutation nor signature, and it was very short:

I’m nabbed, old cock. Your ball.

“WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, señor?” Jacinto had been reading the note over his shoulder, without the slightest attempt to pretend he wasn’t. “This is…not English, is it?”

“It is,” he assured the butler, carefully folding the note and putting it in his pocket. He felt as though someone had punched him in the chest, very hard, and he had trouble catching his breath.

It was English, all right—but English that no one but an Englishman would understand. And not even an Englishman like Tom—who was frowning at Inocencia in puzzlement—would know the meaning of that last, paralyzing sentence.

Your ball.

Grey swallowed, tasting the last bitterness of the breakfast drink, and made himself breathe deep. Then he stooped and raised Inocencia to her feet. She was gasping for breath, too, he saw, and there were tracks of dried tears on her cheeks.

“The consul has been arrested?” he asked. She looked helplessly from him to Jacinto, who coughed and translated what Grey had said. She nodded violently, biting her lower lip.

“Está en El Morro,” she managed, gulping, and added something else that Grey couldn’t follow. A quick back and forth, and Jacinto turned to Grey, his long old face very grave.

“This woman says that your friend was arrested at the city wall last night and has been taken to El Morro. That is where the gobierno—the government, excuse me—where they keep prisoners. This…lady”—he inclined his head, giving Inocencia the benefit of the doubt—“she saw Señor Stubbs being taken to the governor’s office soon after dawn, and so she waited nearby and followed when they took him down to—” He broke off to ask Inocencia a sharp question. She shook her head and said something in reply.

“He is not in the dungeon,” Jacinto reported. “But he is locked in a room where they put gentlemen when it is necessary to contain them. She was able to come and talk to him through the door, once the guards had left, and he wrote this note and told her to hurry and bring it to you at once, before you left the city.” Jacinto shot Grey a glance but then coughed and looked away. “He said you would know what to do.”

Grey felt a black dizziness come over him and a prickle of rising hair on the back of his neck. His lips felt stiff.

“Did he, indeed.”

“YOU CAN’T, ME LORD!” Tom stared at him, aghast.

“I’m very much afraid you’re right, Tom,” he said, striving for calm. “But I don’t see that I have any choice but to try.”

He thought Tom was going to be sick; the young valet’s face was pale as the morning mist that blanketed the tiny garden where they’d gone for a bit of privacy. Grey was himself just as pleased that he hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast; he recalled Jamie Fraser telling him once, in inimitable Scottish fashion, that his “wame was clenched like a fist,” a phrase that described his own present sensation to a T.

He’d have given a lot to have Fraser beside him on this occasion.

He’d have given almost as much to have Tom.

As it was, he was apparently going into battle supported by a stuttering ex-zombie, an African woman of unpredictable temper and known homicidal tendencies, and Malcolm Stubbs’s concubine.

“It will be fine,” he told Tom firmly. “Inocencia will provide an introduction to the ringleaders and establish my bona fides.” And if she failed to convince these men that Grey had any such qualifications, all of them would likely be for the chop within seconds: He’d seen machetes wielded with casually murderous ease yesterday—God, was it only yesterday?—by field hands on his way to Cojimar.

“And Rodrigo and Azeel will be there to help me speak to them,” he added, with a little more confidence. To his surprise, when he had put the situation before them, the Sanchezes had shared a long marital look, then nodded soberly and said they would go.

“Rodrigo’s a good ’un,” Tom admitted reluctantly. “But he won’t be no good to you in a fight, me lord.” His own fists had been clenched throughout the conversation, and it was clear that he had a higher opinion of his own abilities in that regard.

Actually, Grey thought, he might be right. Used as he was to Tom’s constant presence, he hadn’t taken conscious notice, but his valet was no longer the pie-faced seventeen-year-old who had bluffed his way into Grey’s service. Tom had grown a few inches, and while not in Malcolm Stubbs’s class in the matter of bulk, he’d definitely filled out. His shoulders were square and his freckled forearms nicely muscled. However…

“If it comes to that sort of fight, it wouldn’t matter if I had an entire company of infantry with me,” he said. He smiled at his valet with true affection. “And besides, Tom:—I cannot depend on anyone but you to see to things here. You must go with Jacinto to find a doctor—cost is no consideration; I’m leaving you with all of our English money, and there’s enough gold there to buy half of Havana—and then take the man to the Valdez plantation, along with any medicines he thinks useful. I’ve written a note to my mother—” He reached into his bosom and withdrew a small folded square, sealed with smoky candle wax and stamped with his smiling half-moon signet. “See that she gets that.”

“Yes, me lord.” Tom glumly accepted the note and tucked it away.

“And then find someplace nearby to stay. Don’t stay in the house; I don’t want you to be exposed to the fever. But keep an eye on things: Visit twice a day, make sure the doctor does what he can, give Her Grace any assistance she’ll let you give, and send back reports every day as to the state of things. I don’t know when I’ll get them”—or if— “but send them anyway.”

Tom sighed but nodded.

Grey stopped, unable to think of anything else. The casa was well awake by now, and there was a muted sense of bustle in the distant patio, a rising scent of boiling beans and the sweetness of fried plantains. He hadn’t told the house servants anything of his own unspeakable mission—they couldn’t help, and to know anything at all of it would put both himself and them in danger. But they knew about the situation at Hacienda Valdez, and he’d heard the murmur of prayers and the clicking of rosary beads when he’d passed by the patio a few minutes ago. It was oddly comforting.

He reached out and clasped Tom’s hand, squeezing.

“I trust you, Tom,” he said softly.

Tom’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. His deft, sturdy fingers turned and squeezed back.

“I know, me lord,” he said. “You can.”

FOUR DAYS LATER—it had taken more time than anticipated to find what was needed—Lord John Grey stood naked in the middle of a grove of mangoes, on a hill overlooking the hacienda of the Mendez family.

He’d seen the big house as they rode into the plantation, a sprawling establishment of rooms added over the years, odd wings sprouting from unexpected places, outbuildings scattered near it in an untidy constellation. One of the complicated constellations, he thought, looking down on it. Cassiopeia, maybe, or Aquarius. One of the ones where you just take the ancient astronomer’s word for what you’re looking at.

The windows in the main house had been lighted, with servants passing to and fro like shadows in the dusk, but he had been too far away to hear any of the noises of the place, and he was left with a queer sensation of having seen something ghostly that might suddenly be swallowed by the night.

In fact, it had been, in the sense that the hacienda was invisible from his present situation—and a good thing, too. His traveling clothes lay puddled on the leaf mold in which his bare feet were sunk, and small insects were treating his private parts with an unseemly familiarity. This caused him to rummage his pack first for the bottle of coconut–mint elixir and apply this lavishly before getting dressed.

Not for the first time—nor, he was sure, the last—he deeply regretted the absence of Tom Byrd. He was actually capable of dressing himself, though both he and Tom acted on the tacit assumption that he wasn’t. But what he missed most at the moment was the sense of solemn ceremony that attended Tom’s dressing him in full uniform. It was as though he assumed a different persona with scarlet coat and gold lace, Tom’s respect giving him belief in his own authority, as though he put on not only uniform but armor and office.

He could bloody use that belief just now. He swore softly under his breath as he struggled into the moleskin breeches and brushed bits of leaf off each foot before pulling on his silk stockings and boots. It was a gamble, but he felt that the chances of these men taking him seriously, listening to him, and—above all—trusting him would be increased if he appeared not just as a stand-in for Malcolm Stubbs but as the incarnation of England, as it were: a true representative of the king. They had to trust that he could do what he said he would do for them, or it was all up. For the hacendados—and for him.

“Wouldn’t do the bloody navy any good, either,” he muttered, tying his neckcloth by feel.

Done at last, his traveling clothes bundled into the pack, he heaved a sigh of relief and stood still for a minute to gather himself, settle into the uniform.

He’d had no idea mango trees grew to such a size; this was an old grove, the trees each more than a hundred feet in height, the leaves rising and falling gently on the evening breeze, making a sound like the sea overhead. Something slithered heavily in the fallen leaves near him and he froze. But the serpent—if that’s what it was—continued on its way, untroubled by his presence.

Rodrigo, Azeel, and Inocencia were where he had left them, no more than a hundred yards away, but he felt entirely alone. His mind had gone blank, and he welcomed that respite. Windfalls of unripe fruit knocked down by a storm lay all around like pale-green cricket balls in the leaves, but the fruit still on the trees had gone yellow—he’d seen it in the twilight as they came up into the grove—and had begun to blush crimson. Now it was dark, and he only sensed the mangoes when he brushed a low-lying branch and felt the heavy swing of the fruit.

He was walking, not having made up his mind to do so nor remembering the taking of the first step, but walking, propelled into motion by a sense that it was time.

He came down through the grove and found Rodrigo and the girls on their feet, in murmured conversation with a tall, spare young woman—Inocencia’s cousin, Alejandra, who would take them to the tobacco shed.

All of them turned to see him, and Alejandra’s eyes widened, gleaming in the moonlight.

“Hijo,” she said in admiration.

“Thank you, madam,” he said, and bowed to her. “Shall we go?”

HE’D IMAGINED IT vividly, from Malcolm’s account. The bulk of the big tobacco barn, the dark, the whispering of the drying leaves overhead, the sense of waiting men…What Malcolm hadn’t mentioned was the overpowering scent that lay in a cloud over the shed, a thick incense that reached out to grab him by the throat from thirty feet away. It wasn’t unpleasant, by any means, but it was strong enough to make him breathe shallowly for a moment—and he needed all the breath he could get.

Cano. That was the name of the man he must convince. Cano was headman of the slaves of the Mendez plantation. There was a headman from Saavedra, too, named Hamid, but Alejandra said that it was Cano’s opinion that counted most heavily among the slaves

“If he says yes, they all will do it,” she had assured Grey.

There was a great deal more to the barn’s atmosphere than the heavy scent of tobacco. He could smell the reek of constant sweat the instant he stepped inside—and the sharp, dark stink of angry men.

There was a single lantern burning, hung from a nail in one of the uprights supporting the high roof. It made a small pool of light, but the glow of it diffused much farther, showing him the men massed in the shadows. No more than the curve of a skull, a shoulder, the gleam of light on black skin, the whites of staring eyes. Below the lantern stood two men, turned to meet him.

There was no question which was Cano. A tall black man, wearing only short, ragged breeches, though his companion (and most of the men in the shadows, as a sidelong glimpse confirmed) was dressed in both breeches and shirt and wore a spotted bandanna tied around his head.

No question why, either. Gray scars mottled Cano’s back and arms like barnacle scars on an old whale—the marks of whips and knives. The man watched Grey approach and smiled.

Smiled to show that his front teeth were gone, but the canines remained, sharp and stained brown with tobacco.

“Mucho gusto, señor,” he said. His voice was light and mocking. Grey bowed, very correctly. Alejandra had come in behind him, and she made the introductions in soft, rapid Spanish. She was nervous; her hands were twisted in her apron and Grey could see sweat shining in the hollows under her eyes. Which was her lover? he wondered, this man or Hamid?

“Mucho gusto,” Grey said politely, when she had finished, and bowed to her. “Madam—will you be so good as to tell these gentlemen that I have brought with me two interpreters, so that we can be assured of understanding one another?”

At this cue, Rodrigo came in, Azeel a pace or two behind him. She looked as though she were wading into a pool filled with crocodiles, but Rodrigo’s manner was cool and dignified. He wore his best black suit, with immaculate white linen that shone like a beacon in the grubby brown light of the barn.

There was a palpable ripple of interest—and a just-as-palpable hostility at sight of him. Grey felt it like a jab in the stomach. Christ, was he going to get Rodrigo killed, as well as himself?

And they don’t even know what he is yet, he thought. He’d been told—often enough to believe it—that the fear of zombies was so great that sometimes even the rumor of it was enough that a crowd would fall upon the suspected person and beat them to death.

Well, best get on with it. He wasn’t armed, save for the regimental dirk at his belt. Nothing was going to get them through this but words, so best start talking.

This he did, presenting his compliments (that got the breath of a laugh—encouraging…) and stating that he came as the friend and representative of Malcolm Stubbs, whom they knew. Nods of wary approval. He came (he said) also as the representative of the King of England, who intended to overthrow the Spaniards in Cuba and take the island.

This was pretty bold, and Azeel stammered a little as she said it for him, but it went over quite well; it appeared that the crowd was quite united with the king in this desire.

“My friend, Señor Stubbs, has asked your help in this endeavor,” Grey said, looking deliberately from one side of the barn to the other, speaking to all of them. “I have come to counsel with you and to decide how best to accomplish our desires, so that—”

“Dónde está el Señor Malcolm?” Cano interrupted him. “Por qué él no está aquí?”

That didn’t need interpretation, but for the sake of protocol, he let Azeel translate it before replying that, alas, Señor Malcolm had been arrested and was imprisoned in Morro Castle. Hence he, John Grey, had come to carry out Señor Malcolm’s plan.

A small rumble of doubt, a shuffling of bare feet in the dust.

“For your assistance in this matter, Señor Malcolm promised you your freedom. I promise this, too.” He spoke as simply as he could, hoping that this would carry sincerity.

Exhalations, quiet murmurs. They were worried—and were more than right to be, he thought. The barn was hot, packed with so many men, and damp with their sweat and the exudations of the drying tobacco leaves. Sweat was seeping through his linen.

Suddenly the other man—Hamid, it must be—said something abrupt and jerked his chin at Grey. The man was bearded, and it occurred to Grey that perhaps he was a Mussulman.

“This gentleman wants to know how you will accomplish the things you speak of,” Azeel said, glancing at Grey. “You are only one man. Do you have soldiers, weapons?”

Grey wondered what the views of the Prophet were with regard to zombies…because it was clear that he was going to have to use Rodrigo.

Rodrigo himself stood close beside his wife, his face calm and unmoving, despite the weight of eyes upon him, but Grey saw him straighten a little and take a deep breath.

“Tell Señor Hamid”—and Grey bowed to the bearded man—“that I am indeed one man…but I am an Englishman. And I am a man of my word. To show that this is true, I have brought my servant, Rodrigo Sanchez, who will tell them why they may believe me and trust what I say.”

Heart thumping audibly in his ears, Grey stepped back and inclined his head toward Rodrigo. He saw Rodrigo squeeze Azeel’s hand lightly, and drop it, before he moved forward.

Unhurried, composed, civilized in a way that these men had never known, Rodrigo picked up a wooden bucket standing near the wall, carried this to a central spot in the light of the lantern, turned it upside down, set it on the floor, and sat down. Very slowly, Azeel moved to stand behind him, her eyes fixed on the men in the shadows.

Rodrigo began to speak, his voice deep, soft but carrying. There was an audible intake of massed breath from the audience, and a ripple of horror moved through the barn. Azeel turned to Grey.

“My husband, he says…” Azeel’s voice trembled, and she stopped to clear her throat. Then she straightened and, putting her hand on her husband’s shoulder, spoke clearly.

“He says this: ‘I have been dead. I died in the hands of a houngan, and I woke in my grave, smelling the rot of my own body. I could not move—how should I move? I was dead. And then, years later, I felt the air on my face and a hand on my arm. The houngan pulled me from my grave and told me that I was indeed dead. But that now I was a zombie.’ ”

Grey felt the ripple of horror that moved through the room, and heard the intake of massed breath, the shocked murmur that had broken out at this. But Azeel put both hands on Rodrigo’s shoulders and glared over his head, turning her eyes from one side of the room to the other.

“I tell you—listen!” she said violently. “Escuchen!”

Grey saw Cano jerk back a little, whether from affront or shock, he couldn’t tell. But the man gave an explosive snort and over the murmuring in the shed said loudly, “Háblanos!” The murmurs stopped abruptly, and Azeel turned her head to look at Cano, the light of the lantern gleaming on her skin, in her eyes.

“Háblame,” she said softly to Rodrigo. “Sólo a mí. Háblame.” Speak to me. Only to me.

Rodrigo’s hand rose slowly and rested on hers. He raised his chin and went on, Azeel translating softly for Grey as he spoke:

“I was dead, and a zombie, in the power of an evil man, in the power of hell. But this man—” He moved his head a little, indicating Grey. “This man, he came for me. He came alone, into the high mountains, and he walked into the cavern of Damballa, the great serpent—”

At this, exclamations and agitations broke out in such a confusion of noise that Rodrigo was obliged to stop speaking. This he did and went on sitting there, unmoved as a statue.

God, he’s beautiful. The thought sparked for a moment in Grey’s mind and then vanished as Rodrigo raised a slow hand, palm out. He waited, and the noise died away in a smother of shushings.

“In the cavern of serpents, this man walked—alone—through the dark and through demons. He turned the houngan’s magic back upon himself, and then he came out of the cave and he took me back. By his own power, he raised me from death.”

There was a moment’s silence, as Azeel’s soft words vanished among the hidden leaves and the dark bodies. Then Rodrigo nodded, once, and said simply, “Es verdad.”

It’s true.

Utter silence for a long moment, and then a murmur, another. Wonder. Doubt. Amazement. Grey thought the language had changed; they weren’t all speaking Spanish but some other language—or perhaps languages. African tongues. He caught the word “houngan,” and Cano was looking sharply at him, eyes narrowed.

Then the bearded man spoke gruffly to Grey in English, jerking his chin at Rodrigo.

“Tell your zombie to go outside.”

Grey exchanged a quick look with Rodrigo, who nodded very slightly and stood up.

“If you will oblige me, Señor Sanchez?” Grey bowed, gesturing toward the door. Rodrigo returned the bow, moving very slowly, and walked with equal slowness to the big open door. Grey thought he might be exaggerating the stiffness of his gait, but perhaps he was imagining that.

Had it worked? “Your zombie,” the man had said. Did they believe that he had rescued Rodrigo from the houngan, from death, or did they think that he was himself some sort of English houngan who controlled Rodrigo and had compelled him to make that speech? Because if so…

Rodrigo’s black form merged with the night and disappeared. There was a noticeable relaxation of the atmosphere, as though every man there had released a sigh of relief.

Cano and the bearded man exchanged a long look, and after a moment, Hamid nodded reluctantly.

Cano turned to Grey and said something in Spanish. Azeel, who had gone nearly as stiff as her husband as he walked away, pulled her eyes away from the open door and translated Cano’s question.

“So, then. How shall we do this thing?”

Grey let out a long, long breath.

Simple as the concept was, it took no little time to explain. Some of the slaves had seen a cannon—all of them had heard one fire, though only in the far distance, when the cannons of the two fortresses were fired on holidays or to salute a ship coming in—but almost none of them had any notion of the operation of a gun.

A space on the floor was swept free of tracks and trampled tobacco leaves and another lantern was brought. The men gathered close. Grey drew the outline of a gun in the reddish dirt with a stick, talking slowly and simply as he explained the loading and firing of a cannon, and repeatedly pointed out the touchhole.

“Here is where they put fire. The powder”—he prodded the barrel—“explodes”—a murmur of confusion, explanations from those who had seen this thing—“and BOOM!” Everyone looked stunned for an instant, then broke into laughter. When the repetitions of “BOOM!” had died down, he pointed again at the touchhole.

“Fire,” he said, and waited expectantly.

“Fire!” several voices said happily.

“Exactamente,” he said, and, smiling at them, reached into his pocket. “Look.”

“Miren,” Azeel said, but it was unnecessary. Every eye was fixed on the six-inch metal spike in Grey’s hand. He had a large bag of them in his pack, of different sizes, as he’d had to take whatever he could find from the various ironmongers and ship chandlers of Havana, but from what Inocencia and Azeel had been able to tell him of the guns in Morro Castle, he thought they would suffice.

He squatted above his drawing and mimed pushing the spike into the touchhole. Then he pulled a small hammer from his other pocket and pounded the spike vigorously into the dirt.

“No fire,” he said, looking up.

“Bueno!” said several voices, and there was much murmuring and nudging.

He took a deep breath of the thick, intoxicant air. So far, so good. His heart was thumping audibly in his ears and seemed to be going much faster than usual.

It took much longer to explain the map. Only a few had seen a map or chart before, and it was very difficult for some of them to make the mental connection between lines on a piece of paper and the positions of corridors, doors, rooms, cannon batteries, and powder stores in El Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro. They had all seen the fortress itself, at least: when they were taken from ships onto the dock, on their way to the slave markets in the city.

Sweat was running down Grey’s back under his uniform coat, his body throbbing with the effects of moist heat and mental tension, and he took the coat off, to avoid fainting.

Finally, a consensus of sorts was achieved. Inocencia very bravely said that she would go into the fortress with the men and help to show them where the guns were. This was met with a moment’s silence, and then Hamid nodded at her and raised a brow at Cano, who, after a moment’s hesitation, also nodded, and a murmur of approval rustled through the men.

Nearly done. He resisted the urge to give in to relief, though. The last item on his agenda might spike his personal guns—or get him killed. He rolled up the crude maps that Inocencia had drawn and handed them ceremoniously to Cano. Then he withdrew from his pack another rolled paper—this one blank—a capped inkwell, and a quill.

His head was not so much spinning as it was floating, and he had some difficulty in fixing his eyes on things. He made an effort, though, and spoke firmly to Cano.

“I will write here that you are performing a great service for the King of England and that I say you should receive your freedom for doing this thing. I am a…God, let me get this right…un hombre de gracia, and I will sign my name.” Hombre de gracia was as close as Azeel could come to the notion of “nobleman.”

He waited, watching their faces, while Azeel translated this. Wary, curious, some—the younger ones—with a touch of hope that stabbed at his heart.

“You must then put down your names. If you do not…have letters…you can tell me your name, I will write it, and you can make a mark to say it is yours.”

Instant alarm, much looking to and fro, the shine and flicker of eyes in the dark, agitation, a gabble of voices. He raised a hand and waited patiently. It took several minutes, but at last they calmed enough for him to speak again.

“I will go with you into the castle, too,” he pointed out. “What if I am killed? Then I will not be there to tell the king you should have your freedom. But this will tell him.” He tapped a finger on the blank sheet.

“What if some of you become lost in the city after we leave the castle? If you go later to the chief of the English sailors and say to him that you have done this great thing and now you must be free, how will he believe you?” He tapped again.

“This will speak for you. You will tell the English chief your name, and he will see it on this paper and know what you say is true.”

“…es verdad.” Azeel looked as though she, too, was about to faint from the strain, the heat, and—no doubt—the fear of the situation, but her voice was loud and firm.

Cano and Hamid had drawn together, were engaged in a low-voiced debate. Sweat was dripping from the tail of Grey’s hair; he could feel it hitting the small of his back through his shirt with the regularity of grains of sand—slow grains of sand, he thought wryly, very slow—in an hourglass.

At last they settled things between them, though, and Cano took several steps forward, to face Grey himself. He spoke, looking intently into Grey’s face from a distance of no more than a foot; Grey could smell the man’s breath, hot with tobacco and with a hint of rot from his teeth.

“He says,” Azeel said, and stopped to work a little saliva into her mouth, “he says that they will do it. But you must make three papers—one for you, one for him, and one for Hamid, because if you are killed and have the only paper, what good is it?”

“Very reasonable,” Grey said gravely. “Yes, I will do that.”

The sense of relief ran through his limbs like warm water. But he wasn’t quite done yet.

“One thing,” Grey said, and took a breath. Too deep a breath; it made him dizzy, and he took another, shallower.

Cano inclined his head, listening.

“The people in the haciendas—the Mendez family, the Saavedras—I know what your intention was, and we will say no more of that. But you must assure me that these people will not be harmed, will not be killed.”

“…Ellos no serán asesinados.” Azeel’s voice was soft now, remote, as though she was reading the terms of a contract. Which, Grey reflected, it was, in all justice.

Cano’s nostrils flared at that, and there was a low sound—not quite a growl—from the men in the shadows. The sound of it made Grey’s scalp contract.

The man nodded, as though to himself, then turned to look into the shadows, first to one side and then the other, deliberate, as a barrister might look to see the temper of a jury. Then he turned back to Grey and nodded again.

“No los mataremos,” he said.

“We will not kill them,” Azeel whispered.

Grey’s heart had stopped thumping and now seemed to be beating with unusual slowness. The thought of fresh, clean air steadied his mind.

Without thinking about it, he spat into his palm, as soldiers and farmers did, and held out his hand. Cano’s face went quite blank for an instant but then he nodded, made a small “huh” under his breath, spat in his hand, and clasped Grey’s.

He had an army.

TOO LATE. That was his first thought when he heard the firing of artillery in the distance as they approached the city. The British fleet had arrived, and the siege of Havana was begun. A moment’s heavy breathing, though, and the panic passed. It didn’t matter, he realized, and a wave of relief went over him.

Ever since Malcolm had first sprung this plan on him, the matter of timing had been in his mind: the notion that the slaves’ raid must happen just before the arrival of the fleet. But Malcolm’s reference had been with respect to his original plan, having the slaves sabotage the boom chain, to allow the fleet into the harbor.

That truly wouldn’t have worked, unless the fleet was in sight when the chain was sunk; any delay and the Spaniards would have it raised again. But the spiking of the fortress’s guns…that would be helpful at any time.

Granted, he thought, tilting his head to try to gauge the direction of the firing, it would certainly be more dangerous to carry out such a mission with the fortress’s gun crews in place. On the other hand, said gun crews would be focused entirely on their business. It was very likely that the gun crews would be taken completely unaware. For the first few moments.

It was going to be a bloody business, on both sides. He didn’t like the thought but didn’t shy away from it. It was war, and he was—once again—a soldier.

Still, his mind was uneasy. He had no doubt of the slaves’ ferocity or their will, but to pit completely untrained, lightly armed men against practiced soldiers in close combat…

Wait. Perhaps a night attack—could that be managed? He reined his mule in to a walk, the better to think it out.

With the British Navy on their doorstep, the guns of El Morro would never sleep—but neither would they necessarily be manned at full strength during the night watches. He’d seen enough, during his brief excursion to Cojimar, to convince him that the small harbor there was the only possible base for an attack on Morro Castle. What were the distances?

General Stanley had referred repeatedly to an intended siege of Havana. Clearly the navy knew about the boom chain, and, just as clearly, an effective siege must be mounted from the ground, not from ships. So—

“Señor!” A shout from the line of wagons broke his train of thought, but he tucked the notion safely away for further analysis. He didn’t want the slaves to be butchered, if it could be helped; still less did he want to suffer the same fate.

THEY WERE WELL in sight of the city wall of Havana now. In one way, the fleet’s arrival was fortuitous: A city under siege needed food, above all things. Faced with the problem of getting a hundred slaves past the city guard, Hamid had suggested loading the plantation wagons with anything that came to hand and letting each wagon be accompanied by a half dozen men, there presumably to do the unloading and delivery. Between the two plantations, they could muster ten wagons—with driver and assistant, that was eighty men. The rest could easily slip in by ones and twos.

A decent plan, but what, Grey had asked, about the plantations’ owners, their servants? It would take time to load wagons, and their departure couldn’t be easily concealed. An alarm would be raised, surely?

No, no, he was assured. The wagons were kept in barns near the fields. The loading would happen by night; they would be gone before daylight. And, Cano added, through Azeel, the female slaves who worked in the house could be relied upon to create distractions, as necessary. The thought made him grin his empty black grin, wolf teeth flashing yellow in the lantern light.

It had worked, insofar as no one had come shouting out of the hacienda, demanding to know what was going on as the wagons rumbled out by moonlight. Now, what might happen when the owners and overseers discovered that a hundred able-bodied slaves were missing…

But whatever distractions the women had devised had evidently been effective. No one had pursued them.

He stopped the wagons just out of sight of the city gate, had a hasty check-round with the various teams, reassuring the men and making sure everyone knew where and when they were to meet—and that all the machetes were carefully concealed. Even though he had packed away his uniform and was once more in mufti—complete with Malcolm’s wig—he thought it better not to come into Havana with the wagons. He would go back to the Casa Hechevarria with Rodrigo and Azeel and find out from Jacinto what the news of the invasion was; Inocencia would try to speak with Malcolm in Morro Castle and, in the process, discover anything in the present situation that might be of strategic value.

“Muchas gracias, my dear,” he told her, and bowed low over her hand. “Azeel, please tell her that we could not even contemplate this venture without her courage and help. The entire British Navy is in her debt.”

Inocencia’s lips made a smile, and she bobbed her head in response, but Grey could see that she was trembling with exhaustion, and her brilliant eyes were sunk in her face. Tears quivered on her lashes.

“It will be all right,” he said, taking her hand. “We will succeed—and we will rescue Señor Stubbs. I promise you.”

She swallowed and nodded, wiping her face on the edge of her filthy apron. Her mouth twitched, as though she meant to say something, but she changed her mind and, pulling her hand free, dropped him a curtsy, turned, and hurried away, lost at once in the crowd of women in the market, all pushing and shouting in an effort to procure food.

“She is afraid,” Azeel said quietly, behind him.

She’s not the only one…He’d felt a coldness at the bone ever since he walked into the tobacco shed, and it hadn’t gone away, though the day was bright and sunny. There was a small flame of excitement at the prospect of action, though, and it was normal for the nerves to be raw—

There was a sharp report from the direction of El Morro, echoed at once by another, and he was suddenly on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, the cannon firing from the walls, and the army waiting, waiting there on the open ground, waiting in the agony of delay…

He shook himself like a dog and felt better.

“It will be all right,” he said again, firmly, and turned in to the Calle Yoenis.

HE COULD TELL at once that something had happened. There was no singing, no chatter from the patio, no one working in the garden. He did hear muted voices, and food was being cooked—but there was no spice in the air. Only the slightly soapy smell of long-boiled beans and scorched eggs.

He walked rapidly through the empty front rooms, and his heart stopped as he heard a baby’s high-pitched squall.

“Olivia?” he called. The muted voices paused, though the baby’s mewling continued.

“John?” His mother stepped out of the sala, peering into the murk of the unlighted corridor. She was disheveled, her hair in a half-unraveled plait, and she had a tiny baby in her arms.

“Mother.” He hurried to her, his heart suddenly feeling as though it had come loose in his chest. She took a step toward him that brought her face into the bar of sunlight from a window, and one look told him.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath, and reached out to embrace her, draw her close, as though he could fix her in space, prevent her talking, put off knowing for one minute more. She was shaking.

“Olivia?” he said quietly into her hair, and felt her nod. The baby had stopped fussing but was moving between them, odd, small, tentative proddings.

“Yes,” his mother said, and drew a long, quivering breath. He let go of her and she stepped back in order to look him in the face. “Yes, and poor little Ch-Charlotte, too.” She bit her lip briefly and straightened herself.

“The yellow fever has two stages,” she said, and lifted the child to her shoulder. It had a head like a small cantaloupe, and Grey was reminded shockingly of its father. “If you survive the first stage—it lasts several days—then sometimes you recover. If not, there’s a lull in the fever—a day or two when the—the person seems to be improving, but then…it comes back.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and he wondered when she had last slept. She looked at once a thousand years old and ageless, like a stone.

“Olivia,” she said, and opened her eyes, patting the child’s tiny back, “recovered, or seemed to. Then she went into labor, and—” She lifted the baby slightly in illustration. “But the next day…it came back. She was dead in—in hours. It took Charlotte a day later…she was…so small. So fragile.”

“I am so sorry,” Grey said softly. He had been fond of his cousin, but his mother had raised Olivia from the age of ten, when his cousin had lost her own parents. A thought came to him.

“Cromwell?” he asked, afraid to hear but needing to know. He’d delivered Olivia’s son, very much by accident, but as a result had always felt close to the boy.

His mother gave him a watery smile.

“He’s fine. The fever never touched him, thank God. Nor this little one.” She cupped a hand behind the infant’s fuzzy skull. “Her name is Seraphina. Olivia had time…to hold her, at least, and give her a name. We christened her at once, in case…”

“Give her to me, Mother,” he said, and took the child from her arms. “You need to go and sit down, and you need something to eat.”

“I’m not—” she began automatically, and he interrupted her.

“I don’t care. Go sit down. I’ll go and blow up the cook.”

She tried to give him a smile, and the twitch of her lips reminded him with a jolt of Inocencia. And everything else. His own mourning would have to wait.

IF YOU HAD TO attack a fortress at night, on foot and lightly armed, doing it with black men was distinctly an advantage, Grey thought. The barely risen moon was a crescent, a thread of light against the dark sky. Cano’s men had removed their shirts and, dressed only in rough canvas breeches, they were no more than shadows, flowing barefoot and silent through the empty marketplace.

Cano himself materialized suddenly behind Grey’s shoulder, announced by a waft of foul breath.

“Ahorita?” he whispered. Now?

Grey shook his head. Malcolm’s wig was wadded up in his pocket and he had assumed instead an infantryman’s cap—a contrivance of steel plates, punctured and laced together, to be worn under a uniform hat—this covered with a black knitted cap. He felt as though his head were melting, but it would turn the blade of a sword—or a machete.

“Inocencia,” he murmured, and Cano grunted in reply and faded back into the night. The girl wasn’t yet late; the church bells had only just rung midnight.

Like any self-respecting fortress, El Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro—the Castle of the Three Magi of the Hump, as Azeel had kindly translated its full name for him—the hump being the big black rock at the opening of the harbor—had only one way in and one way out. It also had steeply sloping walls on all sides, to deter both climbers and cannonballs.

True, there were small penetrations on the water side, used for the disposal of garbage or inconvenient bodies, or for the arrival of provisions or the secret deliverance of a guest or prisoner held incognito. Those were of no use in the present venture, though, as the only possible approach was by boat.

One bell bonged the quarter hour. Two for the half hour. Grey had just pulled his head covering off in order to avoid fainting when there was a stir in the darkness nearby.

“Señor?” said a soft, low voice by his elbow. “Es listo. Venga!”

“Bueno,” he whispered back. “Señor Cano?”

“Aquí.” Cano was aquí, so quickly that Grey realized the man must have been standing no more than a few feet away.

“Venga, then.” Grey moved his head toward the fortress, then paused to put on his two caps. By the time he had managed this, they were all there, a breathing mass like a herd of cattle, eyes shining now and then in an errant gleam of light.

He took Inocencia by the arm, to prevent her being lost or trampled, and they walked quietly into the small stone guardhouse that shielded the castle’s entrance, for all the world like a bride and groom walking sedately into church, followed by a horde of machete-wielding wedding guests.

This absurd fancy disappeared directly as they stepped into the torchlit room. There were four guards, one slumped over a table, the others on the floor. Inocencia shuddered under his hand, and, glancing at her in the flickering light, he saw that her dark dress was torn at the shoulder, and her lip was bleeding. She had drugged the guards’ wine, but evidently it hadn’t acted fast enough.

“Bueno,” he whispered to her, and squeezed her arm. She didn’t smile but nodded, swallowed hard, and gestured toward the door on the other side of the guards’ room.

This was the entrance to the fortress proper, portcullis and all, and his heart began to beat in his ears as they passed beneath its teeth with no sound but the shuffle of feet and the occasional clink from the bags of metal spikes.

He had gone over and over the maps of the floors, knew where the batteries were—though not which ones were manned at the moment. Inocencia led them into a broad corridor half-lit by torches, with doors on either side. She jerked her chin upward—a stairway at the end.

Up. He could hear the panting of the men behind him—even barefoot they made a lot of noise; surely they would be heard.

They were. A surprised-looking guard stood at the head of the stair, his musket still on his shoulder. Grey rushed him and knocked him down; the men behind him knocked him down and trampled him in their eagerness. There was a gurgle and the smell of blood, and something wet soaked through the knee of his breeches.

Up again, no longer in the lead, following the rush of men. He had lost Inocencia but saw her up ahead, being pulled along by Hamid and another of the Mussulman slaves, heads covered with dark bandannas. Another stair, pushing and shoving, grunting bodies hot for a fight.

The next guard had his musket out and fired on them. Shouts from the guard, though he was quickly borne down. Shouts from beyond him and a draft of cold air—the first battery, on the rooftop.

“Primero!” Grey bellowed, and a gang of slaves rushed the first cannon. He didn’t wait to see how they fared; he was already plunging down a stairwell at the far end of the roof, shouting, “Segundo!” at the top of his voice, then pawing and shoving through a clot of slaves and cannon crew that had poured after him and collided, struggling in the narrow space at the foot of the stair.

He shouted, “Tres! Tres!” but he couldn’t be heard. The air was thick with shrieks and curses and the reek of blood and sweat and fury.

He pushed out of the scrum and pressed himself against a wall, panting for breath. They were gone now, out of anyone’s control. He heard the dull bong of hammer on iron, though—at least one man had remembered their purpose…then the ring and clash of others, striking through the riot. Yes!

Suddenly the Mussulman who had accompanied Hamid burst out of the crowd, Inocencia clutched by the arm. He hurled her at Grey like a bag of wheat and he caught her in much the same way, grunting at the impact.

“Jesús, Maria, Jesús, Maria,” she was gasping, over and over. She was splattered with blood, blotches showing wet on the black of her dress, and her eyes showed white all around.

“Are you hurt? Er…dolor?” he shouted in her ear. She stared at him, dazed.

He must get her out. She’d done all she promised.

“Venga!” he shouted in her ear, and jerked her after him, back toward the stair.

“No!” she panted, setting her heels. “Allí!” He didn’t know that word, but she was dragging him toward the far end of the corridor. This meant leapfrogging squirming bodies on the floor, but he followed her without demur, throwing his body between her and a cannoneer armed with a ramrod. It hit him in the shoulder, numbing his arm, but didn’t knock him down. Someone had dropped a bag of spikes, spilling them on the floor, and he nearly fell as these rolled under his feet, clinking on the stones.

They had almost reached the momentary sanctuary of the stairhead when something hit him on the head and he collapsed to his knees. His vision had gone black and his ears were ringing, but through it he could hear Inocencia shrieking at the top of her voice, calling his name.

He struggled blindly, trying to reach the wall so he could get up, but another blow came in from the right. It was a machete—he heard the blade rip the air an instant before the dull thunk of metal rang through his head.

Shock and nausea rocked him back against the wall, but he had a hand on the dagger at his waist. He scrabbled it free and, crouching as low as he could, flung himself round on his knees, slashing. He hit someone. The impact jarred the knife from his hand, but his vision was coming back and he found the dagger again, through flashing black and white lights.

Another scream from Inocencia, this one pure terror. He stumbled to his feet, dagger in hand. A scarred back just before him…Cano brought down his machete with murderous force and Inocencia dropped to the floor, blood spraying from her head. Without a second’s hesitation, Grey thrust the dagger up beneath the man’s ribs, as hard as he could.

Cano stiffened, dropped his machete, clattering. He swayed, and fell, but Grey was already by Inocencia’s side, scooping her into his arms.

“Fucking bloody hell, oh, bloody hell, please, God…” He staggered with her into the stairwell and leaned against the wall for a moment, fighting for breath. She stirred, saying something he couldn’t hear for the ringing in his ears.

“No…” He shook his head, meaning that he didn’t understand, and she flung out a hand, pointing down, emphatically, down, down!

“All right.” He took a tighter hold and caromed down the narrow stair, slipping and crashing into the stones, then finding his footing once again. He could hear the battle still raging above—but also heard through the fading buzz in his ears the clash of steel and hammers.

He tried to exit at the next landing, but she was having none of it and urged him down, still down. The spots were thickening at the corners of his eyes again, and he smelled damp and seaweed, the brackish scent of low tide.

“Jesus Christ, where are we?” he gasped. He had to set her down but tried to support her with one arm.

“Malcolm,” she gasped. “Malcolm,” and pointed to a crooked passageway that curved away to the right.

It was like the sort of nightmare that involves endless repetition of something insane, he thought. The last such nightmare hadn’t smelled like a dead octopus, though…

“Aquí!” She squirmed suddenly and he lost his grip on her. She staggered and crashed into a door that looked as though it had been left outdoors for a century or two. Still pretty solid, he thought dimly.

“God, do you mean I have to break it down?”

She ignored him, swaying as she fumbled in her skirts. Her face, her hair, and her shoulder were drenched with blood, and her hands shook so hard that she dropped the keys as soon as she found them. They landed in a clash of metal, drops of blood blooming on the stones around them.

John fumbled in his sleeve for a handkerchief, in some hope of stopping the bleeding, and there ensued an awkward struggle, him trying to tie the cloth around her head, she bending and snatching vainly at the keys, falling every time she bent over.

Grey finally said something in German and grabbed the keys himself. He thrust the handkerchief into Inocencia’s twitching fingers and stabbed at the door.

“Quién es?” said Malcolm’s voice, quite loudly, near his ear.

“Es mi, querida!” Inocencia collapsed against the door, palms plastered to the wood, and left streaks of blood as she slid slowly down it. Grey dropped the keys, fell to his knees, and grabbed his handkerchief out of her limp hand. He found Malcolm’s wig in his pocket, wadded it, and bound it as tightly to her head as he could. There was a long slash through her scalp, and her left ear was hanging by a thread, but he thought dimly that it wasn’t that bad—if she didn’t bleed to death.

She was gray as a storm cloud and gasping heavily, but her eyes were open, fixed on the door.

Malcolm had been shouting for the last few minutes, pounding on the door ’til it shook. Grey stood up and kicked it several times. The pounding and shouting stopped for a moment.

“Malcolm?” Grey said, bending to look for the keys. “Bloody get dressed. We’re leaving as soon as I get this damn door open.”

BY THE TIME they reached the main level of the fortress, most of the noise above had ceased. Grey could still hear shouts and the sounds of an occasional scuffle;—there was a lot of muffled Spanish that had an official tone—the officers of the fortress marshaling men, assessing damage, starting the clearing up.

He’d told the slaves: “Spike the guns, and run. Don’t wait about for your companions or for anything else. Make your way into the city and hide. When you think it’s safe, go to Cojimar, where the British ships are. Ask for General Stanley or the admiral. Tell them my name.”

He’d given a letter of explanation, and the document signed by the slaves, to Tom Byrd, with instructions to find General Stanley. He hoped Tom had made it to the siege lines without being shot—but he’d sent Tom because of his face. No one could doubt he was an Englishman, at whatever distance.

The night outside was quiet. He breathed the clean sea air and felt the touch of it soft on his face. Then he touched Malcolm’s arm—Malcolm was carrying the girl—and pointed toward Calle Yoenis.

“We’ll go to my mother’s house,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything when we get there.”

SOME LITTLE TIME later, too restless to sit, he limped from the sala into the garden and leaned against a flowering quince tree. His ears still rang with the sounds of steel, and he closed his eyes, seeking silence.

Maricela had assured him that Inocencia would live. She herself had stitched the ear back on and applied a pulpa of several herbs whose names Grey didn’t recognize. Malcolm was still with her. Grey hadn’t had the strength to tell Malcolm that he was now a widower rather than an adulterer. The night would vanish, all too soon, but for the moment, time had no meaning. Nothing need be done.

He couldn’t know the extent of the slaves’ success—but they had been successful. Even in the brief frantic interstices of the fighting, he’d seen a dozen guns spiked, and heard the ring of hammers above as he’d half-fallen down the stairs with Inocencia. As he and Malcolm had made their way out of the fortress with her, he’d heard Spanish shouting from the rooftop, furious and thick with curses.

He stood among the fragrant bushes for what seemed a long time, feeling his heart beat, content simply to be breathing. He stirred, though, at the sounds of the garden gate opening and low voices.

“Tom?” he came out from under his sheltering quince, to find both Tom and Rodrigo—both of whom were amazingly, if flatteringly, delighted to see him.

“We thought you was done for, sure, me lord,” Tom said for the third or fourth time, following Grey into the kitchen. “You sure you’re all right, are you?”

The tone of accusing doubt in this question was so familiar that Grey felt tears come to his eyes. He blinked them away, though, assured Tom that he was somewhat banged about but essentially undamaged.

“Gracias a Dios,” Rodrigo said, with such heartfelt sincerity that Grey looked at him in surprise. He said something else in Spanish that Grey didn’t understand; John shook his head, then stopped abruptly, wincing.

Tom looked at Rodrigo, who made a small helpless gesture at his inability to be understood and nodded at Tom, who took a deep breath and looked at his employer searchingly.

“What?” Grey said, somewhat disturbed by their solemn attitudes.

“Well, me lord,” Tom squared his shoulders, “it’s just what Rodrigo told me this afternoon—after you left.” He glanced at Rodrigo, who nodded again.

“See, he’s been a-wanting to tell you, ever since you come back from the plantations, but he didn’t want his wife or Inocencia to hear it. But he got Jacinto to come translate for him, so he could tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Grey was discovering the stirrings of hunger and was rummaging through the larder, pulling out sausages and cheese and a jar of some kind of fruit preserve.

“Well, he told me about what happened when you talked to the slaves in the tobacco shed and when the one man told him to leave because he’s a zombie.” Tom looked protectively at Rodrigo; he’d quite lost any sense of fear about it.

“So he didn’t want to stay too near—he says sometimes people gets very upset about him—and he walked down toward the plantation house.”

Approaching the house, Rodrigo had come upon the woman Alejandra—Inocencia’s cousin, the one who had revealed the slave revolt, in hopes that Inocencia’s English lover might be able to do something before anything dreadful could happen.

“She was worried, you could see, Rodrigo says, and talked a lot about her lover—that’s Hamid, what he says you met—and how she didn’t want him or the others to die, and they would if…well, anyway, they got summat close to the big hacienda, and she stopped sudden.”

Alejandra had stood there in the darkness, her white dress seeming to float in the air beside Rodrigo like a ghost. He stood with her, quiet, waiting to see what she would say next. But she hadn’t spoken, only stood frozen for what seemed a long time but probably wasn’t, the night wind rising and stirring her skirts.

“Then she took his arm and said they should go back, and they did. But…” Tom coughed, his round face troubled, and looked at Rodrigo again.

“Rodrigo said Azeel told him on the way back to Havana what happened in the shed. What you said to that man, Cano, and what he said to you—about the people what owned the plantation.”

“Yes?” Grey paused in the act of buttering a chunk of bread.

Rodrigo said something quiet, and Tom nodded.

“He said something didn’t seem right while they were looking at the house. There were servants going in and out, but it just didn’t feel right to him. And when he heard what this Cano said to you—”

“No los mataremos,” Grey said, suddenly uneasy. “ ‘We will not kill them’?”

Rodrigo nodded, and Tom cleared his throat.

“You can’t kill somebody what’s already dead, can you, me lord?”

“Already…no. No, you can’t mean that the slaves had already…No.” But a worm of doubt was taking up residence in his stomach, and he put the bread down.

“The…wind,” Rodrigo said, with his usual agonizing pause to find an English word. “Muerto.”

He lifted his hand, a beautiful, slender hand, and drew his knuckles gently beneath his nose.

“I…know…the smell…of death.”

COULD IT BE TRUE? Grey was too exhausted to feel more than a distant sense of cold horror at the notion, but he couldn’t dismiss it. Cano had not struck him as a patient man. He could easily imagine that the slave had grown frustrated when Malcolm didn’t appear soon enough and had decided to carry out his original plan. But then when Grey did come—Christ, he must have arrived on the heels of the…the massacre…

He remembered his sight of the hacienda: lights burning inside but so quiet. No sense of movement within; only the silent passage of the house-slaves outside. And the stink of anger in the tobacco shed. He shuddered.

He took his leave of Tom and Rodrigo but, too tired and shocked to sleep, then sought refuge in the sala, which seemed always to have light. One of the kitchen maids, undoubtedly roused by Tom, came in with a pitcher of wine and a plate of cheese; she smiled sleepily at him, murmured, “Buenas noches, señor,” and stumbled back toward her bed.

He couldn’t eat, or even sit down, and after a moment’s hesitation went out again, into the deserted patio. He stood there for some time, looking up into the black velvet sky. What time was it? The moon had set and surely dawn could not be far off, but there was no trace of light save the distant stars.

What should he do? Was there anything he could do? He thought not. There was no way of telling whether Rodrigo was right—and even if he was (a small, cold feeling at the back of Grey’s neck was inclined to believe it)…there was nothing to be done, no one to tell who could investigate, let alone try to find the murderers, if murderers they were.

The city lay suspended between the Spanish and the British invaders; there was no telling when the siege would be successful—though he thought it would. The spiking of El Morro’s guns would help, but the navy must be informed, so as to take advantage of it.

Come dawn, he would try to leave the city with his mother and the children and his servants. He thought it could be managed easily enough; he had brought as much gold from Jamaica as he could, and there was more than enough left to bribe their way past the guard at the city gate.

What then? Exhausted as he was, he wasn’t even thinking, just watching dimly as the future unrolled in small, disjointed pictures: a carriage for his mother and the children and Azeel, himself on the stubborn white mule, two more animals for Tom and Rodrigo.

The slaves’ contract…if any of them had survived…freedom…the general could see to that…

Malcolm and the girl…he wondered dimly for a moment about Inocencia; why had Cano tried to kill her…?

Because she saw him try to kill you, fathead, some dim, dispassionate watcher in his skull observed. And he had to kill you, for fear you’d find out what they’d done at Hacienda Mendez…

Freedom…even if they’d?…but Cano was dead, and Grey would never know who was guilty of what.

“Not my place…” he murmured and shut his eyes.

His hand touched the breast of his shirt and found it stiff with dried blood. He’d left his uniform coat in the kitchen…perhaps one of the women could clean it. He’d need to wear it again, to approach the British lines in Cojimar…Cojimar…a brief vision of white graveled sand, sunlight, fishing boats…the tiny white stone fort, like a doll’s house…find General Stanley.

Thought of the general drew his fragmented thoughts together, a magnet in a scatter of loose iron filings. Someone to depend on…a man to share the burden…he wanted that, above all things.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, and moths touched his face, gentle in the dark.

HE WAS GROWING COLD. He went back inside to the sala and found his mother sitting there. She had taken the manuscript from the secretaire; it sat on the small table beside her, her hand resting on it and a distant look in her eyes. He didn’t think she’d noticed him come in.

“Your…manuscript,” John said awkwardly. His mother came back abruptly from wherever she had been, her eyes alert but calm.

“Oh,” she said. “You read it?”

“No, no,” he said, embarrassed. “I…I only wondered…why are you writing your memoirs? I mean, that is what it is, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she said, looking faintly amused. “It would have been quite all right if you’d read it—you may read it whenever you like, in fact, though perhaps it would be better to wait until I’ve finished. If I do.”

He felt a small sense of relaxation at this. His mother was both honest and blunt by nature, and the older she got the less she cared for anyone’s opinion save her own—but she did have a very deep degree of emotional perception. She was reasonably sure that whatever she’d written wouldn’t embarrass him seriously.

“Ah,” he said. “I wondered whether perhaps you meant it for publication. Many”—he choked off the words “old people” just in time, replacing them with—“people who’ve led interesting lives choose to, er, share their adventures in print.”

That made her laugh. It was no more than a low, soft laugh, but nonetheless it brought tears to her eyes, and he thought it was because he’d inadvertently cracked the shell she’d built over the course of the last weeks and let her own feelings bubble back to the surface. The thought made him happy, but he looked down to hide it, pulled a clean handkerchief from his sleeve, and handed it to her without comment.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, and, having dabbed her eyes, shook her head.

“Persons who have truly interesting lives never write about them, John—or not with an eye to publication, at least. The ability to keep their own counsel is one of the things that makes them interesting and is also what causes other truly interesting people to confide in them.”

“I assure you, Mother,” he said dryly, “you are undoubtedly the most interesting woman I’ve ever met.”

She snorted briefly and gave him a direct look.

“I suppose that’s why you haven’t yet married, is it?”

“I didn’t think a wife needed to be interesting,” he replied, with some honesty. “Most of the ones I know certainly aren’t.”

“How true,” she said briefly. “Is there any wine in the house, John? I’ve got rather fond of Spanish wine since I’ve been here.”

“Sangria do you? One of the maids brought me a pitcher of it, but I hadn’t drunk any yet.” He got up and fetched the pitcher—a beautiful smooth stoneware thing the color of mulberries—and brought it with a pair of glasses to the table between their chairs.

“That will be perfect,” she said, and leaned forward with a sigh, massaging her temples. “Oh, God. I go about all day, feeling that none of it is real, that everything is just as I left it, and then suddenly—” She broke off and dropped her hands, her features drawn with pain and tiredness. “Suddenly it’s real again.”

She glanced at the secretaire as she said this, and John caught a hint of something in her voice. He poured the wine carefully, not to let the sliced lemons and oranges floating in it fall out into the glasses, and didn’t speak until he’d put the pitcher down and taken his seat again.

“When you write it down…” he said. “Does that make it—whatever it is—real again? Or does the act of putting it into words make it unreal? You know, something…separate from yourself.” What had happened at El Morro had taken place mere hours before, and yet it seemed like years. But the scent of blood and guns hung about him like a shroud, and his muscles still twitched with the memory of desperate exertion.

His own words brought back to him the letters he had written now and then. The phantoms, as he thought of them: letters he’d written to Jamie Fraser—honest, conversational, heartfelt, and very real. No less real because he’d burned them all.

His mother looked at him in surprise, then took a meditative sip of the cool spiced wine.

“Both,” she said at last. “It’s completely real to me as I write it—and should I go back to read it again later, it’s real again.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I can live in it,” she said softly. She finished her wine—the glasses were small, the sort of cup called a shot glass because the heavy base made it possible to slam it on the table with a loud report at the conclusion of a toast—and carefully poured more.

“But when it’s done, and I leave it…” She sipped again, the scent of red wine and oranges softening the smells of travel and sickness in her clothes. “It…seems somehow to separate itself from me. I can set it—whatever it was, whatever it is—aside in my mind then, just as I set aside the page.”

“How very useful,” John murmured, half to himself, thinking that he must try that. The wine was dissolving his own sense of sorrow and exhaustion—if only temporarily. The room grew peaceful around them, candlelight warm on the plastered walls, the wings of angels.

“But as to why—” His mother refilled his glass, and hers again.

“It’s a duty. The book—should it be a book—I’ll have it printed and bound, but privately. It’s for you and the other boys, for the children—for Cromwell and Seraphina,” she added softly, and her lips quivered for an instant.

“Mother,” he said quietly, and laid his hand on hers. She bent her head and put her free hand on his, and he saw how the tendrils of her hair, still thick, once blond like his own but mostly silver now, escaped from their plait and curled on her neck.

“A duty,” she said, holding his hand between her own. “The duty of a survivor. Not everyone lives to be old, but if you do, I think you owe it to those who didn’t. To tell the stories of those who shared your journey…for as long as they could.”

She closed her eyes and two tears ran down her cheeks.

He put his arm around her and drew her head down on his shoulder, and they sat silently together, waiting for the light to come back.