Burning Bright (14 page)

“It was extremely unpleasant, Captain.”

“I did apologize, Miss Pembroke. Do you have any ideas? You could be a missionary en route to Jamaica to convert the heathen.”

Elinor looked over the top of her newspaper to see him looking back at her, perfectly straight-faced, but with a humorous gleam in his eye. She lowered the paper. “I think I should be a respectable but impoverished woman going to stay with my brother and his wife.”

“Who are, naturally, overjoyed to add another member to their household, what with their brood of seven children and a maiden aunt.”

“But I dote on my nieces and nephews and will be a fine, useful addition to the family, unlike the maiden aunt, who sits in the parlor and criticizes everything Hester does.”

“Who is Hester?”

“My sister-in-law, of course. I cannot believe you are so sadly ignorant of my relations.”

“Again, I beg your pardon. But what about Ernest? You see I didn’t forget about him.”

“Ernest?”

His eyes went wide with shock. “The young man from the next plantation over who’s intended to be your husband, of course! Miss Pembroke, think how upset he’ll be to learn of your indifference!”

Elinor laughed. “Captain Ramsay, things are by no means settled between Ernest and myself!”

“I’m glad to hear it. You should at least meet the young man—” He began laughing as well. “Miss Pembroke, I had no idea you had such a sense of humor.”

“Neither had I, to be honest, Captain.” She folded the newspaper and offered it to him, but he declined with a wave. “I feel it has been years since I last laughed so much.”

Dolph brought another plate for the captain, who began eating with the neat efficiency that seemed to characterize everything he did. “I hope you realize we’re all grateful for the capture of
Joyeux
,” he said, and laughed again. “Amirault couldn’t stop talking about you—not you specifically, but our
feueur
, and he kept asking to meet you. I don’t know if he wanted to shake your hand or strike you, but I think he felt vindicated by your prowess. Something about how no one could have been expected to stand up to that kind of assault. Well, if it makes him feel less humiliated… Amirault’s a decent sort, and it’ll sit hard with him to have to be ransomed.”

He took a few more bites, but with an air that said he wasn’t finished speaking, and Elinor sat in some impatience waiting for him to continue. “So please don’t take what I’m about to say as a denigration of your efforts.”

“You have me positively on edge now, Captain.”

He shook his head. “It’s only that we were extremely lucky,” he said. “Their Scorcher fired off those shots far too early, which gave us plenty of warning even though our watchmen didn’t see them coming. And based on what I’ve seen in ship-to-ship combat, he also wasn’t very powerful. If Amirault hadn’t made so many mistakes, if you hadn’t made up for the failings of our watchmen,
Joyeux
would have fired at least one full broadside before we were prepared to respond.
Joyeux
isn’t made to repel Scorcher attacks, either. Where we’re going, many of the ships treat their sails with flame retardants, have fire-fighting gear handy, use tactics even you may have trouble overcoming. I think it’s important you know not all our combats are going to go that well.”

“I appreciate that, Captain. I did feel as if it were all too easy.”

“It was, and it wasn’t.” He chuckled again. “You didn’t see the men when those sails went up in flames. Throwing fireballs is one thing, but that ship was three times as far away as any of us had seen a Scorcher ignite a fire before.”

Elinor gaped. “I…had no idea, Captain,” she said. It surprised her how unsettled this knowledge made her, when she had been so matter of fact about her talent during the battle. “I know I have power,” she said, “but it seems almost absurdly great. And I feel—I felt as if I had not reached my limit. It is rather like asking one’s father for a pony and getting a stable of thoroughbreds instead.”

“It is,” Ramsay said. “I am rated at ten thousand pounds—Moving capacity, you understand—and I think I could push that limit if I had to. That’s three thousand pounds higher than the previous record. I loaded the cannons on
Athena
, two at a time, in about three hours, because we were in a hurry to get her finished and loaded. I felt almost ridiculous tossing them around like that, and the way they all looked at me—” He broke off. “At any rate, I do understand what you mean.”

“When did you manifest, Captain?”

“Late.” He smiled wryly. “Not as late as you. I was fourteen when I manifested Moving and fifteen when the Extraordinary talent appeared. Do you think your having an Extraordinary talent was the reason you manifested so late?”

Elinor shrugged, thinking,
He changed the subject very quickly just now.
“Most of the records we have about talents are lists of manifestations, not details. It has been barely fifty years since that sort of thing has been noted. Of course there are multitudinous genealogies, breeding records, titles of nobility granted over the centuries.” She could hear, again, the bitterness that filled her when she thought of her father’s passion. “One thing we do know is there are so few Scorchers not only because English talent does not tend in that direction, but because so many of them die when they manifest.”

“Burn themselves to death?”

“And their families, sometimes. The trade in attempting to predict what talents will result from a particular pairing thrives in part because parents want to prevent that sort of thing.”

“I thought it was all fakery and lies.”

“At worst. Most of the diviners genuinely believe in their divinatory methods—astrology and chiromancy are extremely popular. But they’re no more accurate in their predictions than if they’d chosen them at random. Those who apply logic and reason to the problem are somewhat more successful.” She thought of her father’s breeding book and suppressed a shudder. “I understand some Greek natural philosophers have embarked on a more thorough study of the mechanisms that cause talent to arise, applying modern scientific principles, but that is the extent of my knowledge.”

Dolph entered the room and began clearing the table, ignoring them both. Ramsay scooted back a little, out of his way, and said, “It will be a while before we leave, and I would prefer you not show yourself above, since we failed to tell everyone about your family on Jamaica. Is there anything I can bring you?”

“More books? Since I understand we have a long voyage ahead of us.”

He made a slight bow of acquiescence. “You may have the freedom of the ship once we’ve left harbor. I believe you’ve gained the respect of the crew and you’ll have no further problems.”

“But you’d prefer I not intrude on their space any more than necessary.”

He smiled, displaying that crooked tooth. “You are a mind reader, Miss Pembroke.”

“I think not. They’re mythical.”

He laughed. “Good day, Miss Pembroke.”

“Good day, Captain Ramsay.”

When both he and Dolph were gone, she went to look out the window at the steep face of the rock, then opened it to let the cool sea air flow through the cabin and dissipate the smell of sausage, which had become rather pervasive. Climbing the rock would be far too difficult, even on its sloping side, but how would it feel to stand at the summit and look back down at
Athena,
riding gently on the waves that entered the harbor? Had Ramsay ever done that, Flying across the grey-green expanse to light on the tip of the Rock?

Peace, tentative like a new shoot of grass, began working its way through the anxiety she had been carrying with her for a week. She who had never been more than one hundred miles from home in her life was now nearly ten times that distance away and preparing to go even farther.
Thank you, papa
,
for driving me out of my tiny life into something so much vaster than I imagined. Thank you for thinking so little of me that I was forced to find a place where I was valued. Thank you.

She leaned on the casing of the open window and drew in a deep breath of salt air. Ramsay was only partly right; the crew probably feared her as much as they respected her. But she had a place on
Athena
now; she had fought for it, and she was beginning to feel as if she belonged there.

In which Elinor’s shipmates are introduced

t seemed to Elinor, kneeling on one of the couches to lean against the open window frame, that she had never known what blue truly was until she saw the waters of the harbor at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, deep and rich and so clear she could see to the bottom of
Athena
’s hull where it curved away below the stern. If Plato was right, and there truly was an ideal form of all objects, this was surely blue in its most perfect state.

The town of Santa Cruz came all the way up to the shore, surrounded by stony walls interrupted by the fortress of San Cristobal, the blocky towers at its four corners overlooking the bay where
Athena
was anchored near a dozen other ships. They had sailed in at dawn, so Elinor had seen little of the storied shores of the island, with its golden sand and lush greenery, but its mountains lay like sleeping giants that might choose to roll over and crush the town at any moment. That had been Hays’ colorful metaphor when he had described the island to Elinor two days before.

“The mountains are volcanic, you understand,” he had said, “and actively volcanic at that. There was an eruption only fourteen years ago—well inland from Santa Cruz, and I am told it affected the town very little. Still, I think it’s quite exciting, don’t you?”

“More unsettling than exciting, Dr. Hays,” Elinor had replied. “I hope we will not be subjected to another such event.”

“It’s unlikely. And the mountains generally give plenty of warning before they wake. I am hoping to travel into the interior some distance;
Serinus canaria
and
Fringilla coelebs
are fairly common throughout the Atlantic islands, but
Regulus regulus teneriffae
breeds nowhere else. Would you care to join me?”

Elinor had laughed and shook her head. “I am afraid I did not come prepared for a journey into the wild. I intend to walk along the shore and enjoy the feeling of a surface that does not roll beneath my feet.”

Now she surveyed the city and wondered if she would get her wish. The red-tiled Spanish roofs and white stucco walls of Santa Cruz were easily visible from the harbor, a gleaming Mediterranean town in a tropical paradise. The buildings crowded together, however, rather the way they did in London, if London were drenched in sunlight that warmed the roofs and turned the drab walls bright. She could make out a few people walking the streets like ants struggling across a cobblestone path, but even this early in the morning the port teemed with activity, and longboats and dinghies crossed the harbor from ship to shore and back again. With almost three hundred men all wanting leave to visit the town, Elinor thought it unlikely any of them would want to escort her elsewhere, and she doubted Ramsay would allow her to wander around unsupervised.

The smell of eggs and sausage preceded Dolph into the great cabin. He banged down plates and a coffeepot and left before Elinor could seat herself. Coffee splashed from the spout of the pot, making an irregular brown stain on the tablecloth that Elinor chose not to mop up. It was Dolph’s fault, after all, and she found a perverse pleasure in the thought of him doing extra work because of his dislike of her.