A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (20 page)

He stopped mid-stocking, leaned
across the bed, and kissed her with an enthusiasm that took her aback.

“Feeling better, then,” she said
wryly, and he tossed his loose hair out of his eyes and grinned sideways at
her.

“Getting there, my tibber. Spring
fever.”

He took her hand and drew her
across the rumpled sheets, to sit beside him on the boards looking out across
the rooftops. Pigeons were courting, in the eaves across the street, wheeling
and dipping against the sun in an ecstasy of flight. It smelt as bad as ever it
had, but there was a certain vibrant life about Aldgate, in the April sunlight.
“In the spring, a young man’s fancy,” he said innocently, and his fingers
linked with hers. “Lightly turns to thinking about - “

“Breakfast,” she said firmly,
“and if Uncle Lucey heard you mangling poor Master Shakespeare’s verse so, he
would nail your ears together.”

“Nonsense, mistress. He would be
delighted that any of it stuck at all, and happier yet to see it put to the
purpose for which it was intended “

“Which is what, pray, sir?”

“Persuading a lovely young woman
to take her clothes off and come back to bed?”

Thomazine sat up in the rumpled
sheets, with her flimsy shift hanging off her shoulder and her hair in a
frowsty braid, and opened her mouth. “Thankful,” she said, “Thankful, dear, it
may be a sign of your advanced age, but - um, you have almost all of your
clothes on, and I have none at all?”

“How remiss of me,” he said,
perfectly seriously. “I must remedy that forthwith.”

Afterwards, she lay in bed
watching him dress, which was always a rewarding sight. Long and lean and as
elegant as a sight-hound, with a swordsman’s athletic muscles and a horseman’s
-

“You have a lovely bum,” she said
dreamily, and he peered over his shoulder at the part so praised.

“I do?” He looked quite startled.
“My arse has never been singled out for praise before, wife.  It holds my legs
in place, and that’s the most I’d ever considered it.”

“Mm. A lovely sweet handful -”

“Spring fever,” he said firmly.
“Now remember, young lady. I am a poor invalid, and I need my breakfast.”

For it seemed that he was not yet
sufficiently well to return to his work, and yet he was well enough -

“That’s lying down, though,” he
pointed out. “It’s almost resting.”

And she had to laugh at him and
that, honestly, was not a thing she had done before, not in twenty years of
knowing him, for she had never known that quick facility to tease, never known him
- flirtatious, almost, and suddenly he was quicksilver and funny and loving and
as ardent as an apprentice.

And if that was only for this one
day, she would take it.

It was wicked, and exciting, that
he slipped downstairs with his boots in one hand and her hand in the other, the
pair of them stifling giggles, and fled past the widow’s bedchamber before she
could wake.

Running - not walking sedately,
as befitted respectable married citizens, but running through the rain-washed
dawn streets scattering pigeons, hand in hand like children. Her hair tucked
unbrushed under a respectable cap, he unshaven with his collar askew, darting
into a bakehouse to feast on hot mutton pie and fresh bread till they were
surfeited. “I’m alive, tibber,” he said, as if it explained everything, and she
nodded blankly.

“Surely.”

“Every time I come through that
ague, and I don’t die of it. Ah, sweet Christ, I am grateful! So - here I am.
Here you are. Me and you and a few hours of grace, though I fear you must treat
me gently, for I am as yet fit for little.”

“You were fit for plenty about an
hour ago,” she said tartly, and he shrugged, flattered.

“Well, my tibber. I have not
thanked you for either your care of me, or your service. I am at your disposal,
so long as we might sit down often. What would you?”

She didn’t want much, actually.
To walk with him, without fear of interruption or duty. To take him to
Leadenhall market and stare, at the great wheels of cheese and the piles of
herbs and the mounds of fruit -

To buy him a pair of stout
woollen stockings, with her own money, and for him to kiss her right there in
front of everyone as if they truly were an apprentice and his lass, and not a
truanting married couple. (He said he would cherish them always, the silly man,
and the woman in the shop laughed at him, and he did not mind.)

A foolish, frivolous, merry
morning, of no point or principle, but joyous. And then they stopped, for he
grew tired, though he said he wasn’t, but he looked it: so they went back and
bought some bread and cheese from the market, and went to watch the world go
by.

“May I show you the
Perse
?”
he said.

She said nothing, having a
mouthful of bread and cheese, but looked intelligent. She hoped.

“The
Persephone
,” he
added. “My ship. Well. Not mine. Ship I have an interest in, then. As does your
Uncle Luce. Can walk so far as Wapping, I think, after a rest.”

It was busier than it often was,
and more bustling than was customary, with an air of suppressed excitement that
was almost feverish. It took him like it always took him -
"
He saith among the trumpets, ha ha, and he smelleth the battle afar
off
," he said to Thomazine, and squeezed her fingers in his own. She
had not a clue what he was talking about, the darling girl, but she gave him
that sparkling, indulgent look that she often gave him these days, as if they
were two adventurers together setting out on a quest to far-off lands.

He had grown fanciful, since he
married. (Not a thing anyone would have suspected him of, once.) And he found
himself standing on his tiptoes, tall as he was, looking for her, as eager as a
lad for a maid. For he would know her anywhere, stout, unremarkable old dear
that she was, and landsman though he was, and for a minute his heart gave a
great squeeze in his chest because she was not here -

"There she is," he said
to Thomazine, and he knew he was grinning, bursting with pride, for though he
had never had the sailing of her - no, nor would he, for he liked the solid
ground beneath his feet too well - the
Persephone
was all things magical
to Russell: she was mystery, and hope, and magic, and had she come back with a
phoenix for her figurehead and a merman for a captain he would not have blinked
an eye.

She followed his pointing finger.
And then all the breath came out of her on a long sigh, too, and she looked on
that fat old nautical goodwife with her eyes like stars. "Where has she
been?"

"East India," he said
softly. And then shook his head. "Well, no, truly, the
Perse
has
been no further than Amsterdam. She trades with the East Indiamen, you
see." He gave a sigh of his own. "Sandalwood, and cubebs, and silks
-"

"
My
silks?" she
said, and she looked up at him as if he'd given her the moon on a plate.
"Thankful - you -"

"Chose them myself," he
said, feeling rather shy. "Went out and chose them my own self for you.
Well. I was engaged in the other work, too, but - yes. From India, to
Amsterdam, from my heart to yours."

"You are an old
fraud
,
Thankful Russell."

"
I
never claimed to
be other than sentimental, my tibber.
Other people
may think as they
choose."

37

They
would probably have stood there all day admiring the
Persephone
rocking
gently at her anchor, if a rather large gentleman in a very conspicuous
waistcoat had not barrelled up to them and suggested that they might wish to
take their mooning elsewhere. He suggested it so roughly, and so unkindly, that
Russell was moved to suggest in return that unless the gentleman in question
wished to wear one of the great spars of wood that were piled on the dockside
as a suppository, he might like to moderate his manners before ladies.

He had turned round by this
point, to stand in front of Thomazine lest matters come to that pass, and so
the large gentleman's comical change of expression when he recognised Russell
went unnoticed by her.

The large gentleman's profuse
apologies did not, however. Things were all at sixes and sevens on the docks of
late. Strangers coming and going at all hours - murders -

Well, he had often known murders,
down here on the docks: sailors, drunk, knifing each other in brawls, or
brawling whores drowning one another, or footpads, and one more or less did not
shock him. It offended him rather badly, though, that some ne'er-do-well had
come down to
his
docks, where
his
ship was moored, and done this
dreadful thing, whilst Russell had been ill. He took it personally, somehow. A
murder, and a fire, and he was not sure what was worse, for he had known Tom
Jephcott. Not well, he had not been an intimate of the man, but he remembered
passing the time of day with him before.

"Strangled," the large
gentleman said, with grim relish. "Some bas- begging' your pardon, miss,
some not very well-meaning person throttled poor ol' Tom. Strangled him black,
they did, with the eyes popping out of his head and -"

"That is
sufficient
,
sir," Russell said sharply, more out of concern for his own sensibilities
than hers, for
she
was all eyes and ears listening to this ghoulish
talk.

"Talk of the town, it is,
for by God's grace some of the lads off the
Perse
was in the Devil's -
uh, the Pelican last night, and they put the fire out before too much damage
was done, but..." His face clouded. "Done a mort o' damage to the
warehouse, mind. God alone knows how much it'll cost Master Giddings to put
right, for it were the better part of the
Go And Ask Her'
s cargo, and
her new-unladen. Year's earnings, poor old sod. And he wasn't the only one to
be so afflicted, for 'twasn't only his cargo in there."

"And the
Perse
?"
he said sharply, and the shipmaster shook his head.

"Not a mark to her."

"Then I'm sorry for Master
Giddings, and will do aught I can to help him. Send word if I may be of any
use, Master - um, I'm sorry, I know your face, but I -"

"Aye, and I know
yours
,
Major. You're a hard man to mistake, no matter what they say. Keziah Dolling,
as is ship's master to the
Ariadne
," he swept his greasy bonnet off
his head to reveal a head of close-cropped badger-grey hair, and made an
unexpectedly genteel bow. "At your service, mistress - your daughter,
major?"

"My
wife
," he
said with indignation, and then realised by Dolling's horrible grin that he was
being made game of.

"They was celebrating a safe
return," the man went on primly.

"In the Devil's Tavern. Hm.
Very safe. So the
Perse
came in -?"

"
Perse
come in on the
evening tide on the Wednesday, and she was all right and tight, empty as a
whore's purse - sorry, miss - by Friday morning, not so much as an old stocking
left aboard."

"
Splendid
,"
Russell said happily, and then remembered they were talking about a man's
death.

"She done well, the old gal.
Aye, some of them lads was paid off with full pockets, major, they done well
this time around, and there was some serious lifting the elbow going on in the
Dev- the Pelican that day." He closed one eye thoughtfully, "You ever
considered a new master for the
Perse
?"

Russell said nothing, for he had
a new ship in mind, one day. Give the
Perse
her honourable retirement,
and send the
Fair Thomazine
out adventuring in her stead. But that was
for a long time hence, God willing, and before then -

"So, what? A fight?"

"Seamen ain't much given to
wearing ribbon," Dolling said grimly, and Russell frowned, not
understanding.

"Thomas was choked with a
ribbon
, major: pretty little trinket, like a gentleman wears, all
‘broidered by a lady’s clever fingers. So they say. Bloody funny choice o'
murder weapon, you ask me. Almost as if someone were trying to make a point.
Like it was a token or some such."

"Jephcott was a married man,
to my sure and certain knowledge," Russell said, and then - "Oh. Oh I
see. You think -"

"
We-ell
," the
ship's master drawled, "well, that's what some of the lads are saying.
Maybe. Choked with a lady's ribbon for putting his hands where they ought not
to go. Some fellers is like that - possessive, you might say." He closed
that bright eye again. "And then
some
of the lads is saying that
maybe Thomas come across a thing he should not have come across, late one night
in a warehouse where they was unloading ships all full of silks and spices.
Maybe a ribbon was what some bright spark had to his hand, if a watchman doing
his duty happened to find him in a warehouse full o' silks and spices."