Burning Bright (43 page)

She spread the four pages out so she could see them all at once. One was a map depicting a coastline, on which was centered a circular bay with its entrance on the east side. The second was a drawing of a tiny settlement, with rough huts and a larger building of unfinished logs that resembled the fortress she had seen on her island, and four ships drawn up in the vast harbor.

The third showed the same view as the second, but from farther away, as if the observer were in a boat and had rowed himself well out into the bay. High up on the cliff walls to either side of the settlement were rough stone boxes from which protruded cannons, at least six cannons on each side. The artistry of all three drawings was exquisite, making Elinor wonder if drawing was a skill all Seers were expected to master. The fourth drawing was much rougher and seemed to be a line drawing of a frigate with what Elinor could only describe as flaps along both sides and a strangely elongated stern.

“The stronghold’s almost all the way to the west on the northern shore,” Durrant continued, “and—damn it, Sullyard, where’s the bloody map?”

Elinor refrained from flinching, or covering her mouth, or doing anything else that would make her look missish in front of these men, but Durrant’s anger was beginning to frighten her. She had never seen him so close to losing control. She kept her eyes carefully averted, thinking he might decide to be infuriated by her presence, and focused on the map Sullyard was now unrolling from where it hung above the fireplace.

“Tortuga,” Durrant said, stumping over to the map and smacking it hard with his slim wooden baton. “Here’s where the cove is. It’s sheltered and it has emplacements on the outer side as well as the inner. Look at the pictures and you’ll see the wall of the cove protects it on the north so the harbor’s nigh impossible to see when you’re sailing past.”

He indicated spots on the map with his baton. “There’s a battery of guns in that north wall facing the sea, don’t know how the hell he managed that, and another to the east of the cove’s mouth, and then a shore battery inside the cove facing east, the guns pointed at the entrance. It’s wide enough that he can get those four ships and more inside, and he dug the whole damn thing out himself, or rather, with his Movers, or so Miss Pembroke says.” He glared at her, and she forced herself to return his gaze with a calm, indifferent demeanor.

“Right now, Evans is holed up inside with some or, if we’re lucky, all of his captains. Nice, secure location, but it’s a rat trap for those damned rats. We’re going to blockade them in there and hammer away at the ships, so they won’t have any way to escape, then send a detachment of Marines in to finish the job.”

Durrant traced a curved line over the northern coast of Tortuga. “Current flows east to west here, so we’ll sail around the south side of Tortuga and up to where that current will bring us straight into the mouth of Evans’ bay. Nothing easier.”

“Beg pardon, Admiral Durrant,” said one of the captains, “but what about the emplacements?”

“What about them?”

The captain looked at his nearest neighbor. “Um…they’ll keep pounding on us the whole time we’re attacking the pirate fleet.”

“We won’t ever be in reach of the western battery. Eastern battery, we’ll send
Breton’s
Marines to take that out from the cliff side. And the inner emplacement, the one inside the cove, their own ships may get in the way, but if not, Miss Pembroke will keep it burning so they won’t be able to fire at us.”

Elinor shifted uncomfortably as every eye in the room was fixed on her. She glanced down at the drawings. “I beg your pardon, Admiral Durrant,” she said, “but I cannot burn stone, and I do not believe—”

“You’ll follow orders, or by God I will ship you back to England myself!” Durrant roared.

Elinor shut her mouth tight. The urge to terrify him with fire was so great she had to grip her hands together under the table. Ramsay, close beside her, tensed. Something was very wrong.

“Yes, sir,” she said when she had regained a measure of control.

“Does anyone else wish to speak out?” Durrant said.

“Sir, is there enough room for all of us to maneuver in front of the cove’s entrance?” asked another of the captains. Elinor waited for the explosion, but it never came, which made her angry. Apparently it was permissible for him to shout at
her
for questioning his plan, but let one of his precious captains, his
men
, raise a concern…

“Plenty of room,” Durrant said. “We’ll have Speakers communicating when and where you’ll make your passes. You have something to add, Carruthers?” This last was directed at a portly red-haired captain who seemed unperturbed by Durrant’s aggressive tone.

“Evans is an Extraordinary Seer,” he said in a deep bass rumble. “He’s been able to track our ships all along. How do we know he won’t see us coming?”

“One of Lisbon’s Extraordinary Seers has learned to do the same thing Evans does,” Durrant said. “Evans is using the captured Navy ships as a…a generalized focus, or whatever the hell she calls it, and compelling Visions of all the ships that match that shape, then working out which Vision is important. We know he has
Olympia
—or he had before
Glorious
beat seven kinds of hell out of her. Captain Horace found her abandoned on that island of Miss Pembroke’s. They also have
Tarsus
and
Melpomene
, which gives Evans a fourth-rate and two frigates to focus on.

“I don’t mind telling you the man is some kind of damned savant to be sorting out the Visions of our fleet from all the other ships of their classes all over the world, but sort them he does. So we’ll be altering the lines of your ships before we go, which should make them impossible for Evans to track, and we’re also counting on the sheer mass of information he has to go through to hide the fact that we’ve disappeared.

“Now, get back to your ships and ready yourselves. Have your carpenters make the alterations indicated. Doesn’t have to be pretty, just obvious. We have to do this quickly, before Evans Sees what we’re up to. I’ll be joining Walters on
Breton.
We’re leaving Port Royal at noon tomorrow to meet with the rest of the fleet at Port de Paix on the first of July.”

He rose from his chair and left the room before anyone else could stand. The captains began trading glances, some of them even looking at Elinor with what appeared to be apologies. So Durrant’s behavior
was
erratic, and it was not her imagination.

Ramsay offered her his arm and she almost had to run to keep up with his pace. “I think we’ll make a stop before returning to
Athena
,” he said. He dragged her, clutching her drawings, through a doorway into a long, high-ceilinged room. It looked as if it might once have been a ballroom, with hooks in the ceiling from which chandeliers might have hung, brass sconces lining three of the four walls, and a fine parquet floor like interlaced trellises. The fourth wall was entirely made of tall, white-framed windows that looked out over the same lawn and garden Elinor had glimpsed from the admiral’s board room.

Whatever the room’s original purpose, it was now entirely given over to rows of wooden chairs, most of them occupied by men in uniforms of pale blue coats with rows of brass buttons, white shirts with high collars and cravats gone limp in the Caribbean heat, and nankeen trousers tucked into shiny brown leather boots. Each chair was pulled up to a small desk that looked almost like a child’s toy, stacked high with sheets of poor-quality greyish paper and supplied with a brass inkwell and a jar filled with pens.

Many of the men had their heads tilted slightly back in the attitude of someone Speaking to another. Some were scribbling rapidly on sheets of paper, waving them in the air to dry them, then folding them in half and writing something on the outside. Young boys dressed in a cut-down version of the Speaker uniform waited to take those folded papers, then either put them in one of the cubbies that lined the other long wall, or ran out through the north or south door as if being chased.

The room was eerily silent except for the scratching of pen nibs and the occasional patter of feet across the trellis parquet. With the bright Bermudan summer sun pouring through the closed windows, it was also hot and smelled of unwashed bodies and ink. Sweat started to prickle under Elinor’s arms.

Next to the north door stood a lieutenant in Speaker uniform, with the addition of a three-cornered hat with a cockade in Speaker blues. Ramsay crossed the room to speak to him, pulling Elinor in his wake as if he’d forgotten she were there. “Did the admiral receive a communication from Whitehall in the last hour?” he said.

“I can’t tell you about private communications, Ramsay, and there’s no way you can charm it out of me,” the man said.

“I don’t want to know the details. I only want a yes or no answer, Mitchell. One word.”

Mitchell started to look twitchy. He glanced at Elinor, looked back at Ramsay and then his gaze snapped back to Elinor’s face. “She the Scorcher?” he said in a low voice.

“Yes, she—”

“Captain, I am standing right here. I beg your pardon, Lieutenant Mitchell.”

Mitchell looked confused. “Is she or isn’t she?”

Elinor made an exasperated noise. “She is,” Ramsay said, amused.

Mitchell looked furtively around the room. “Show me?” he said, finally addressing Elinor.

“I beg your pardon again, Lieutenant, but…show you what?”

Mitchell fluttered his hands. “Do something fiery.”

Ramsay made a strangled sound that was probably a suppressed laugh. Elinor repeated, “Something…fiery?”

Mitchell nodded. Elinor sighed. She held up one hand and let the fire flow over it, its gemlike colors instantly soothing her annoyance. She could feel more eyes on her from the room at large as men who were not engaged in Speaking to someone caught sight of the spectacle. “Is that what you had in mind?” she said.

Mitchell seemed transfixed by the display. Elinor extinguished the flame and lowered her hand, and he caught his breath. “That’s beautiful,” he said, and the simple admiration in his voice made Elinor ashamed of her frustration with him.

“Thank you,” she said.

Mitchell came out of his reverie and stepped closer to Ramsay. “Admiral had two messages from Whitehall about forty and forty-five minutes ago,” he said in a low voice. “Can’t tell you who they was from, but…I can tell you Harkins took the messages.”

“I owe you again, Mitchell,” Ramsay said.

“Just bring the girl around again sometime,” Mitchell said, and smiled at Elinor with a friendly and admiring interest that made her feel flustered. It was rare that men looked at her with that expression; she knew she was not hideous, but she was certainly no beauty like Amelia, and in any case most of the men she met these days looked at her with more fear than romantic interest. And the lieutenant was attractive, if a bit too dim to be interesting to her. Still…

Ramsay nodded to Mitchell and left the room as quickly as he’d come, pulling Elinor after him. “‘Bring the girl around sometime,’” he muttered.

Elinor, surprised, said, “Is something wrong, Captain?”

“No. Well, yes, but—wait a moment.” They entered the front hall, and Stratford leaped to his feet. “Mr. Hervey, please take us back to the ship. We’ll discuss it there,” Ramsay said to Elinor.

Back in the great cabin, Ramsay threw his hat at one of the couches and paced in front of the windows. “Pray, tell me what’s troubling you, Captain?” Elinor said, sitting at the table and removing her bonnet.

“Harkins knows only a few people at the Admiralty,” Ramsay said, finally coming to a stop, “and those few are…I think Admiral Durrant received news about Crawford’s court-martial, and it wasn’t good news.”

“Do you mean Captain Crawford was convicted?”

“That is the only thing I can think of that would make the admiral lose his temper like that. Either someone else saw what you did on
Glorious,
or he was held accountable for not recognizing
Olympia
as a captured ship, or…it could be any number of things. I’m surprised, actually, since it sounded like Crawford fought as long as anyone could be expected to…but I’m not the one he had to answer to.”

“So…he might hang.”

“Possibly.”

Elinor found that her earlier bloodthirstiness with regard to Crawford’s fate had dissipated. “What will this mean for us? For the attack on the pirates?”

“Nothing, I hope. But it might compromise the admiral’s judgment. Distract him.” Ramsay ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face. “Most of his plan is sound, except for him expecting you to burn the emplacement. I don’t know what he was thinking.”

“Captain, I am certain I can at least do
something
. I will know more when I see them with my own eyes. Though these drawings are remarkably fine.”

“They had better be. We’re staking our lives on them,” Ramsay said.