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  “Entirely,” said Marie Laveau—but her voice was tired, and she seemed already to be sinking back into sleep.

  Ned felt quite exhausted himself, but he levered himself to his feet and went to the door of the hut, searching the night with his eyes for one of Mortdieu’s crewmen. Eventually, he identified one, as much by the despairing expression provoked by the loss of the vessel as by any faint recognition of his features. He handed him Trelawny’s poniard, and said: “The fellow that brought the pirates here is a mere dupe, but he needs to be watched. Can you do that, while I go to sleep? Mortdieu will return tomorrow—he and Patou will know what to do next. All we need to do is wait. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Monsieur,” the zambo replied.

  “Good,” Ned said. “And try to keep those drums quiet for a while, will you? I really do need to sleep.”

  “Yes, Monsieur,” Mortdieu’s loyal crewmen replied, meekly—and was, it seemed, as good as his word, for Ned did not hear a single drumbeat before he woke up again, which he did not do until the Sun was almost at its zenith on the following day.

  In fact, Ned did not awake until someone actually roused him by tugging at his shoulder, and even then was very sluggish in his reactions, although he ought to have been alert to the possibility of further trouble.

  When he finally contrived to rub his eyes and force them open, however, he found that he was not confronting an enemy, but a friend that he had not expected to see again so soon. “Sawney?” he croaked, “Is that really you, Sawney?”

  Ned had seen Sawney Ross as a Grey Man before, in Sharper’s. Indeed, Sawney had been the first Grey Man he had ever seen, and he had recognized him then, even though he had had a great deal more astonishment to overcome. Time should not have changed the actor overmuch, now that he was dead, but the tropical climate seemed to have agreed with him. His eyes were much more alert with intelligence now than they had been before, and his face was by no means expressionless. In fact, Sawney Ross was smiling. “Ned,” he said. “It’s good to see you. How’s the troupe?”

  “Safe in the custody of Sam and Jeanie, I believe,” Ned assured him, stretching his limbs and writhing to remove the inevitably discomforts to which he had been subject by virtue of sleeping in a wicker chair.

  The reunion was cut short by General Mortdieu, who elbowed his fellow Grey Man aside in order to say: “You’ve lost my ship, damn you!”

  This accusation seemed distinctly unfair to Ned, even though Mortdieu had made the token gesture of leaving him in charge while he went to search for Germain Patou. On glancing around the room, he saw that Patou had, indeed, been found, and had been prompt to attend to his patient—although Marie Laveau, who was sitting up in bed, seemed surprisingly well for someone who had been shot and bitten by a venomous snake within the space of half a minute.

  Patou turned round before Ned could improvise an answer to the unjust accusation, and barked orders to no one in particular. “I need water that has been boiled and is still hot,” he said. “I need fresh bandages, too, and I need space in which to work. Trelawny—you can stay to assist me. The rest of you get out.”

  These orders seemed a trifle unjust too, given that Trelawny had been a prisoner rather than a collaborator, and given what Ned and Marie had already gone through together, but Ned remembered that he had never contrived to give Patou any strong reason to like him, and decided, in any case, that he would rather have a chat with Sawney. While Mortdieu stalked off to relay the doctor’s orders and take stock of his deleted army, therefore, Ned took his old friend by the arm and led him through the village beside the bank of the stream, all the way to the beach. There they found shelter beneath a palm-tree, armed with a water-bottle and a basket of fruit, and sat down to make a late breakfast.

  “How have you been, Sawney?” Ned wanted to know.

  “I was ill for a long time,” the old man told him. “Not myself at all. Hanging can do that to a man, I suppose—and I’m doubly glad, now, that I made something of a career saving men from such a fate. Do you remember what fun it was coaching witnesses for the defense? What actors we had—and how assiduously we searched out fresh chickens! And the performances too! Great days, Ned!”

  “Good days,” Ned agreed, with conscientious modesty. “So you’re back to your old self, now?”

  The Grey Man looked at him, with a strange expression that Ned could not read at all. “No, Ned,” he said, gravely, “not my old self. You can’t go back to your old self, no matter how much you remember. That’s not the way it works. I’m a new man now. I’ve crossed the great divide. This is the Underworld, for all that the Sun shines as brightly on me as it does on you.”

  “But it’s not Hell?” Ned queried, anxiously. “You’re not suffering?” You have no idea, Mortdieu had said to him, and indeed he had not.

  “Oh, no!” Sawney replied. “Not that we’re incapable of suffering, you understand, but…no, I’m content with my lot. It’s good to be….whatever I am, instead of alive. I’m different now, though. I’m not a shadow of my former self. I’ve moved on. John can explain it far better than I, but he stayed behind to look after our people. We’re in constant danger here.”

  “John’s the one that Mortdieu calls the patchwork man?” Ned said, checking to make sure. “The man whose brain was transplanted into another body?”

  “That’s right,” Sawney told him. “He was once a poet, you know, as frail as frail can be—but he’s a colossus now. The zambo love him. We haven’t been able to bring others back from the dead, though—not enough equipment. What we salvaged from Purfleet wasn’t enough. We have no electricity supply, and no way of replenishing our chemicals. We’ve been studying the native methods, hoping to find some adequate means of improvisation, but they’re so sorely harassed that they’re at the end of their tether.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” Ned confirmed. “I’m not sure that Mortdieu will be able to command their allegiance, now that the Outremort is gone, and Marie Laveau has arrived too late in the day to turn things around, in spite of the sheer bravado of Henri de Belcamp’s new grand plan.”

  “Henri de Belcamp?” Sawney queried. “I remember him, just about. He and Mortdieu quarreled. Then Mortdieu and Germain made peace. Then they quarreled too. Here, the mestizos are trying to exterminate the zambo, the mulattos hate the mestizos, and the blacks hate everyone. We live in a very quarrelsome world, Ned—it makes one yearn for the peace and merriment of Sharper’s.”

  “Relative peace and occasional merriment,” Ned said, favoring honest modesty again. “Patou’s company is deep in trouble too, then?”

  “Very much so. He’s appealed to President Boyer for help, offering the Republic his services as a physician and potential ambassador to France, but Boyer considers him an outlaw, little or no better than Desart, and his association with us makes everyone wary. If Mortdieu is willing to forgive and forget, we’ll likely move our people back here, so that we can at least put up a united front against the mestizos, until they wear us down.”

  “I doubt that you’ll get any objection from Mortdieu, proud as he is,” Ned remarked. “How’s your eyesight now that you’re dead, Sawney?”

  “Not bad,” said Sawney. “Why?”

  “Can you see what’s happening out there, on the horizon?” Ned asked, pointing north-eastwards beyond the tip of the headland, where a ragged cluster of dots was silhouetted against the pale cloud that was massing in that direction, obscuring the blue of the sky.

  “Three ships, heading south-east, for the coast beyond the border,” Sawney said. “I think one of them’s a steamer.”

  “You’re right,” Ned confirmed. “The Outremort should have been safe in Tortuga by now…but if that’s her, she’s on the run! Perhaps Desart’s overplayed his hand! Boyer must have been enraged when he heard that the Belleville had been intercepted. He might be reluctant to risk his fleet in an attack on Tortuga, but catching her at sea’s a different matter. Desart wasn’t able make it back to T
ortuga after last night’s raid, and now he’s looking for somewhere to hide. The Belleville and the Outremort haven’t got a single cannon between them. With the westerly wind blowing so briskly, the Outremort might have difficulty outrunning a warship, even if she has sufficient fuel—which she probably hasn’t. Desart must have unloaded the Belleville’s cargo, so she might have the speed to outdistance pursuers, but I don’t know about the Cayman. They must be trying to find shelter, beyond Haiti’s border—but surely that’s zambo territory too.”

  “Is this good news?” Sawney asked. “Will Boyer return the Outremort to us, if he captures it?”

  “I’d certainly be glad to hear that Desart had been clapped in irons and sentenced to hang,” Ned remarked, “but I don’t know about the Outremort. Have Boyer’s men ever come after her before?”

  “He poses as a man of law, respectful of private property,” the actor said, “in the hope of making a treaty with the French—but now the Outremort’s been captured by Desart, different rules might apply.”

  Ned was straining his eyes, trying to make out more detail of what was happening out to sea, but it was hopeless without the aid of a telescope, and even with such aid, he would not have been able to make out any details of real significance. He had already deduced all that there was to deduce, and the ships were passing on now, disappearing beyond the spur of the headland. Two more sails were, however, emerging into visibility on the northern horizon.

  “How ominous is that cloud, Sawney?” Ned asked, then, turning his attention to the backcloth against which the desultory drama had been displayed.

  “Cloud’s always ominous, in these parts,” the Grey Man told him. “Storms blow up very suddenly—but the wind’s taking the cloud south-eastwards; we should be safe from a storm, unless it changes to a southerly, although it’s likely we’ll get some rain.” He paused, and when Ned said nothing more, he added: “What news is there of England, Ned?”

  “The powers-that-be have hanged a great many more good men since they called it quits with you. There’s been no evolution, nor even a change of government. What more is there to know?”

  “What of Temple?” Sawney wanted to know. “Are you still in his employ?”

  “Yes,” Ned admitted, “and relatively honest in that employ, to tell you the truth. I keep the Belcamps informed—Jeanne’s company at the château as well as the Marquis-who-never-was, but Temple knows that, and tolerates it. Little by little, he’s becoming fascinated by the possibility of a second life, as befits an old warhorse who wants nothing more than to continue the fight that old age is sapping from his limbs. He was on his way to Paris when I left, to interview an old friend of Patou’s and investigate rumors of a vampire at large there.”

  Sawney nodded slowly. “Patou’s always alert for rumors of vampires,” he admitted, “but I’ve never encountered one. They’re shy—and who can blame them? We thought that men like me might be more welcome in a land accustomed to zombies…but it doesn’t seem to work like that.”

  “If you get the chance,” Ned advised, “head for New Orleans, and then westwards. There’s a great deal of scope in North America for all kinds of new things. There, if anywhere, you’ll find a safe haven.”

  “Not we, Ned? This is just a flying visit, then?”

  “I don’t know,” Ned muttered. “I just take one day at a time, trying to stay alive. It’s not easy to make plans beyond that. I’ll try to reach some kind of agreement with Patou, if we can get out of this death-trap—but so will Trelawny, and to be perfectly honest, Byron probably has more to offer him at present than I do. As figureheads go, Byron can easily compare with Francis Drake and Queen Anacaona, even in Haiti, let alone in Europe.”

  “Patou had Napoleon himself once,” Sawney said, wryly, “but that didn’t work out either. The trouble with figureheads is that they don’t like dragging Ships of Fools in their wake. They have their own ideas.”

  “Of which the likes of us poor mortals apparently have none,” Ned remarked.

  “None at all,” his old friend confirmed, serenely.

  Chapter Seven

  Changing Fortunes

  There had, it transpired, been a reason why Germain Patou had asked Edward Trelawny to stay and assist him while he changed Marie Laveau’s wounds—a reason more substantial than the gentleman’s social status and relatively clean clothes. By the time Ned and Sawney Ross got back to Mortdieu’s hut—from which the General was still conspicuously absent—the pact between them had already been negotiated and sealed. Nor were the two parties to the agreement ready to explain its terms to Ned, although their churlishness was amply repaid when Marie Laveau sent them away, saying that she wanted to talk to Ned in private.

  “Trelawny has offered to go to Boyer to negotiate a settlement,” Marie told him. “If Boyer will send a ship to the bay, Patou will embark his own Grey Men thereon—he speaks for all of them, it seems, except Mortdieu and a handful of stupid companions, and he seems confident that they will capitulate. Trelawny is sure that Boyer will be glad to get rid of the Grey Men, even if their expulsion were not the cost of Lord Byron’s public friendship and propagandistic support.”

  “But where will Trelawny take them?” Ned wanted to know.

  “He would not say, exactly, but he claims to have a safe location in mind somewhere in the Americas, to which Byron will bring Frankenstein, Shelley and enough equipment for the research to start again in earnest. Patou has had enough of his tribulations here—and I cannot see that Mortdieu has any alternative but to rejoin him, now that the steamship is lost.”

  “If I were in Patou’s shoes, I’d take the deal,” Ned admitted. “But I’m not so sure that I’d grant it, if I were in Boyer’s.”

  “I think he will,” Marie told him. “Byron is highly esteemed among certain factions in France. Boyer is desperate to find some effective advocacy in Paris, and the overt support of the Republicans would be worth a lot, even though they’re not in the political ascendancy. They’re mostly businessmen, after all, and it’s business that Boyer wants to do.”

  “And what about you?” Ned asked. “What will you do, if the plan works out? You have an interest in the renewal of research too.”

  “I’ll stay here,” she replied, “if I can.”

  “If?” Ned queried.

  “Boyer might well want to be rid of me, just as he wants to be rid of Mortdieu and Patou. My expulsion might be part of the deal—but they’ll have to find me first. Despite last night’s fiasco, this is zambo territory, and I’m a zambo.”

  “You haven’t given up on Henri’s crazy plan, then?”

  “It’s my plan,” she told him, flatly.

  “And where do I fit into it?”

  “That’s up to you, if you want to fit into it at all. The more relevant point, so far as you’re concerned, is that you don’t fit into Trelawny’s. He doesn’t want an agent of King George in his company—and neither does Patou. Your old acquaintance won’t be able to talk him round, no matter how firmly you’ve renewed your friendship.”

  “I see.” Ned frowned. Inspiration seemed to have deserted him, for the moment; he could not see any obvious way to make capital out of the situation as it was now defined. If Boyer agreed to Trelawny’s terms, then the ship taking the Grey Men away from Haiti would sail without him, and he would have no alternative but to return to Gregory Temple with a very ignominious report to offer—one that Henri de Belcamp would not like any better. On the other hand, the idea of staying behind to fight for the revolutionary cause with Marie Laveau did not seem particularly attractive—even if Marie could avoid deportation herself.”

  “Damn Trelawny,” Ned muttered. “The fellow has spoiled everything. I almost wish I’d cut his throat last night, when I had the chance. I expect Desart thinks the same, now that he’s running for his life from Boyer’s makeshift navy.”

  “What’s that?” the young woman demanded.

  Ned explained what he had seen—or, rather, what he
had inferred from the little he had seen.

  “There’s nowhere he can go!” Marie exclaimed. “I can feel the wind freshening—there’s a storm brewing. It will probably track to the north-east of the island, leaving us the rain on its fringe, but it’ll cut the ocean off as a potential avenue of escape, and if he hugs the shore too closely, the Dominicans might well join the chase—they don’t like the pirates of La Tortue any more than Boyer does. Desart surely can’t put into any harbor on the mainland without finding enemies eager to slay him. There’s justice for you.”

  “It doesn’t help us,” Ned pointed out. He stood up and turned toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” asked Marie.

  “To find Mortdieu,” Ned said. “He’s the man most likely to put a spike in Trelawny’s scheme, if anyone can.”

  He was not given a chance to do that, however. Germain Patou and Edward Trelawny were waiting for him at the door of the hut, with smiles on their faces. “Monsieur Knob,” said Patou, extending a hand to be shaken. “It’s good to see you again. The resemblance between us is even more striking than it was before, I believe.” It was not much of a compliment, given that Patou had to be 20 years older than Ned, and looked it.

  “I have been mistaken for you in a dim light,” Ned admitted, graciously. “I’ve come a long way to find you, on behalf of your former partner.”

  “Really?” Patou said, without losing his smile. “I understood that you were now working for His Britannic Majesty’s Government.”

  “Gregory Temple is not your enemy, Monsieur Patou,” Ned said, swiftly, “but I was John Devil’s man long before I was Temple’s—and once a man’s affiliated to John Devil, he does not change his allegiance, no matter what colors he might run up his mast.”

  “Very honorable, I’m sure,” Patou said, “after your own fashion. But that’s of little consequence. Monsieur Trelawny and I have a proposition to put to you.”