| Jul. 10th, 2009 @ 09:43 am Pyotr (VII) |
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Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI
(Part VI is still being fiddled with as I write this, but I need to keep moving even so)
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..............Slight & His Nibs..........
The manor on the hill was enormous.
With the back half set into the trees, and the front facing down over the town, it provided a near-perfect vantage. The toppers of the second-floor windows were placed well to step to, grip the roof-edge, and simply swing up. So, they sat on the tiles, and pointed out various features to one another.
The English flags - very new flags, too - over all the town, but the cries from the market were not English at all. Danes, maybe? His Nibs thought so, and Slight admitted ignorance, but such exchanges were the meat of their relationship.
The coach, too, they admired. Very like a proper English coach, surely, they both agreed. They admired it almost halfways up the hill, before realising that it had passed the last possible turning-off. Then they ducked heads behind the peak of the roof, and wondered if there was anywhere they might go to see and hear who had arrived.
.............The Barrie Family............
"Father!"
The children ran to father, and near to bowled him down, laughing and relieved to have finally made it loose from the ship again. They could speak of nothing else; the boy and his light. Sitting by the rail and watching as the edges of the jungle were combed had given some fun, it should seem, but it dragged on and on forever and ever, you see, and wasn't it all just so very strange and impossible and marvelous and horrid?
George was forced to agree that it was. And then to bear the laughter of the cook, thinking she mocked him. In a flash of pique, he turned, before he saw that her dark face was open in pure delight. Then he had to grin at her, a right fool of a jumped-up governor, but his children were safe and here.
The cook herself breached protocol, then, saying that there would not be a meal for a goodly hour, but if they all wished, there was a-plenty in the kitchen, table and chairs. So it was that the governor of the island sat in his kitchen at a table with his cook, laughing and plain as if he were just George Barrie, as the children regaled them with the tale of the crossing, too, and the dreary boredom of England.
Mary, though, was quiet throughout. George could not bring her to join in the welcome and homecoming. He would find out later that she had been shocked so badly by the events near the shore that she had felt the need to question everyone about it, and to call everyone "Darling", as if it were a title - Captain, darling, Gwendolyn, darling, Micheal, darling. He would live out his term on the island as Governor Darling, and smile at it... But all that came later.
For now, the table, the joy of it, and the two boys outside the window that listened, so suddenly feeling more lost than ever before.
...............Mister Stark..............
The coachman was not willing to run his horses up to the Governor's house again so soon, and Stark was obliged to walk.
Just another humiliation to add to his listing for the day. First, hearing he was to be put ashore while the captain went to make a few changes in the crew. Second, to be the one to carry the captain's letter. And third, to need to pace up this god-blasted hill, all twists and turns.
Captain James to take the pardon. Now there was a turn, but the logic of it could not be faulted. The island was off the line from any regular protection of the fleet, and so acting as port for English-flagged privateers was to their interest. The Governor had been given rights to pardon any who would settle the island or take it as their home port for just this reason. The Captain, thus, would have a very free hand indeed - trade, privateering, and smuggling all as one great lump could outpay their previous concerns quite handily. A free hand; a piece of wit, that, he'd need to save it.
But why the captain had to lose a hand before he saw it, and why Stark was the one that had to carry the letter, were not such plain matters. To the first, a thirst for revenge seemed obvious, but the captain had seemed cool to the suggestion - thoughtful, even. And to the second, as first Mate, he could speak with some authority, sure, but even so.
Finally. The manor.
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The Next One
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