They know who you are. Why would Adam have included such words in his riddle? Of course they knew who Duncan was, just another broken Highlander, adrift, with no prospect of ever finding an anchor again.
The marks on the wood were a nonsensical epitaph, not just for Adam, but for Stewart and Ian as well. It was no coincidence that three of the best-educated men of the Company, its natural leaders, had now died, for they had seen the biggest world, had nurtured the biggest dreams; they had been wise enough to see that, having been wronged by English judges, all doors had now been slammed shut, that if they lived, for as long as they lived, all their dreams would be nightmares.
He stared at the drawings until a wisp of fog swept in front of them, then he looked up. The ship had entered a low fog bank, its thick white cloud blanketing the world under the maintop. No sound came from below except a few shouts, not of anger now but of fear, and a strange mournful wailing. Duncan was alone, washed in the sunlight that pierced a gap in the gathering clouds. He heard only the groan of canvas and creak of rigging. Suspended above the dense, churning whiteness, Duncan had a sense of floating between worlds, and a sudden, desperate longing to be with Adam.
The wind began to push the fog, and the sea became visible a cable’s length away, with the ship below still covered in the edge of the low, dense bank. Huge swells swept toward the horizon, which was lined with clouds as black as ink. Duncan felt strangely thin, impossibly light. He would float away into the storm if he just let go.
A stark and terrible beauty had overtaken him, seemed to be seeking him, calling him from the world. Rejoice in this moment, something inside said, this is freedom, or the closest to it you will ever find again. But his heart was gone, replaced by the chill, empty thing that was spreading through his body. Adam’s pained, confused words and his insane scratching had simply been his final gift to Duncan, leaching away the last drop of Duncan’s hope. With an odd sense of relief, he felt the rot inside finally break through to the surface.
He did not know how long he gazed out into the storm, into the nothingness of wind, water, and swirling cloud, but gradually he became aware of someone speaking from a vast distance.
Stare into the raging sea and ye’ll meet the eye of y’er god.
It was the voice of his grandfather, released from a chamber in his mind he had kept closed for years. When, as a boy standing on a sea cliff in a rising storm, Duncan had first heard the words, he had taken them as a somber warning. But now, as the old man’s raw, dry voice echoed across the span of nearly two decades to reach him, a melancholy grin split Duncan’s face. The words had been not a warning but a taunt. Duncan somehow knew now that when a British corvette had blasted the sloop his grandfather used to smuggle rebels, the old clan chief had glared into the dark waves and shouted a Gaelic curse at his god while the violent, frigid waters of the Hebrides crashed over him.
Duncan found himself fingering the runelike shapes on the mast. He had misunderstood. He did not need resolution, he needed release. Adam had shown him, his grandfather was showing him again. There were fates worse than death, and a way for a dying clan to triumph over those who imposed servitude. Duncan was ready to stare down his god.
The ship pitched forward into a trough of the angry sea and was suddenly clear of the fog. Duncan clutched the mast and dared a glance over the edge of the maintop platform, wary of being spotted again. Any moment they would be upon him, this time with clubs and chains, this time planning to strip his back raw.
“Lift up thy hands!”
The sudden command from below stabbed like a blade. Duncan thrust himself back against the mast, the welts on his back afire again, then slowly straightened his tall, thin frame, studying the treacherous rigging above. He would climb higher, to the tip of the tall mainmast. Then it would just be a matter of waiting for the right wave, when the ship would heel over and put him above the raging water. He would not go down to the deck, not ever again.
“Rise up to meet the lamb!”
Duncan froze as he reached for the ropes, then peered back over the edge at a group of men huddled near the bow, where a bearded sailor waved a black book. The calls had not been for him, but for the other sailors gathered around the man, listening to what? A service for the dead? But there was no shrouded body, no solemn officer in formal dress to recite the words prescribed for burial at sea. In fact there were no officers on deck at all, he saw as salt spray slapped his cheek, though the deck and masts should be crawling with sailors to reef sails and ready the ship for heavy weather. He realized the ship had been deathly still since the other prisoners had been taken to the hold an hour before. Even the helmsman seemed about to abandon his duties, for he stood beside the wheel, one hand on a spoke as he stared uneasily at the waters behind the stern. No one had been pursuing Duncan after all. The alarms had been raised for another reason.
From the group at the bow came the uneven chorus of a prayer, the sound growing more distant as Duncan turned his gaze toward the churning waters ahead. The deck seemed to be receding, drifting out of his consciousness. There was no need to climb farther.
They had reached the edge of the storm. He released one hand, letting the wind swing his body away from the mast, yielding at last to the emptiness that was swelling within. He selected a massive black wave in the distance and gazed into it as it approached, letting his hand slip around the curvature of the mast, defying his god to meet his gaze and hear Duncan’s own venomous taunt.
Suddenly strong fingers clamped around his arm, pulling him back.
“’Tis a terrible final thing, lad.”
Without looking, Duncan recognized the gravelly voice of the eldest of the keepers. “Just an autumn gale, Mr. Lister.”
“Do not trifle with me, McCallum,” the older man said. “Have I not seen such a look too many times this voyage? I ken what’s in y’er eye even if ye do not.”
Duncan glanced back at Lister and paused, confused at the pain on the man’s scarred, weather-beaten countenance. Lister was a prisoner himself, as were all the keepers assigned to watch the others, a trusty not confined to cells or locked holds. He had served at sea most of his life, had been in the navy, then second mate on another of the merchant ships that plied the Atlantic, until he was condemned for some unspoken crime. Lister had been the only keeper to show him any kindness, had often spoken with Duncan about the sea, had only the night before pushed the lantern closer to the barred door of the prisoner hold to give Duncan more light as he sat writing at the threshold. The black wave reached and passed the ship, and the two men fixed each other with inquiring gazes as they gripped the rigging and rode the heave of the mast.
When he finally replied, Duncan’s throat seemed dry and scratched. “Adam,” he said, with a gesture toward the crude drawings.
“A cruel, rotten thing,” Lister muttered, venom in his voice, then saw the question in Duncan’s eyes. “Me mind has no reason to ken it, but in me heart I know what we saw plain before us was a murder, as sure as if we watched a blade planted in Munroe’s back. His dying was different from the others. Adam didn’t want to die. He had to die.”
Something unexpected stirred within Duncan. The old sailor had found the words that had been struggling to rise from Duncan’s own heart.
“’Twas that bastard redback,” Lister added. “Our bluestocking prig.”
The emptiness ebbed for a moment. Had Duncan misunderstood something about Adam’s death? “Lieutenant Woolford?” he asked. There was only one member of the king’s army on board.