Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

  “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 an
d 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.”