“You speak as if war was inevitable, Alonso?” Henrietta interjected.
“Likely, not inevitable,” he replied gently.
“Melody and I are just two women. Window dressing here in Spain,” the Governor of New England’s youngest daughter objected. “How can we possibly influence things?”
The Spaniard drained his glass and waved for it to be refilled.
Presently, he answered Henrietta’s question.
“When you are recalled to England, or to wherever your fates take you, you,” he declared softly, fixing Henrietta in his grey-brown stare, “will still be the remarkably accomplished daughter of a very powerful man.” He turned his gaze towards Melody: “And you, dear lady, one day soon, will probably be the Head of the Colonial Security Service…”
“Rubbish!” Melody retorted in English.
“Is it? Lady De L’Isle’s father, an implacably honourable man has stood by Brigadier Harrison thus far◦– in my country he would have thrown him in prison by now◦– but sooner or later the branch upon which Señor Harrison sits will bend so far it must break…”
Melody shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“There will be a call for a replacement acceptable to a majority of the First Thirteen’s Governors,” her host continued, a note of subtle apology underlying his words, “the appointment of a woman would reassure all the colonies that the CSS’s wings have been sufficiently clipped. Honestly and truly,” Alonso said, with no little sympathy, “if you did not already exist, Lady De L’Isle’s father would have to invent you, Señora Danson.”
A servant tried to top up Melody’s glass; but needing more than ever to keep her wits about her, she signalled for it to be left half-empty.
“You make a lot of assumptions, Don Alonso,” she observed tartly.
The Spaniard shrugged.
“Yes, but think of the possibilities if you were Head of the CSS and I was, say, the master of the Nacional de Inteligencia de Nuevo España…”
Henrietta was shifting uncomfortably in her chair.
“Should I really be listening to this?”
“Oh, yes,” the man chuckled. “We are, after all, just three friends, private citizens passing the time of day together before we dine. There is nothing sinister going on here.” He hesitated. “Well, I suppose if this conversation became generally known to certain officers of the Inquisition, I could end up a slave in the Indies, or worse but I don’t think that is likely. Our small talk becoming generally known, I mean.”
Melody said nothing because she understood that the man had just placed his life in her hands.
Chapter 3
Friday 10th March
Anson Road, Royal Navy Norfolk, Virginia
Surgeon Lieutenant Abraham Lincoln, RNASR◦– Royal Naval Air Service (Reserve)◦– had kissed his one-year old son’s head and hugged, and smooched like the world was going to end with his wife before, with aching reluctance, he had torn himself away and jumped into the waiting car outside the neat married quarters on Anson Road.
He and Kate had talked about how they would cope with separation, reassured each other, coupled last night as if it was for the last time. Since they had ‘properly’ begun their married life together on Leppe Island some twenty months ago, they had never, ever been completely apart and it scared them both.
This parting was bad enough, scheduled to last a week or perhaps up to ten days at most. Then they would be reunited, for a few days or so, before Abe’s ship steamed away for a four to six-month attachment to the West Indies Squadron.
Abe tried not to mope about things; Kate was stoic in the way of her people. Stoicism was written into the soul of the native peoples of the Americas, a thing unlearned by most Europeans long before they colonised the New World all those centuries ago. The fact that Kate was approximately two months pregnant with their second child made parting even harder; that summer he was likely to be away while his wife’s belly swelled and if fate so conspired, he might not even be back in Virginia in time to welcome his new offspring into the world.
Their son, Kariwase◦– a new way of doing things in Kanien'keháka◦– had been delivered into life by the Iroquois mothers of the Kempton community in Ontario while he watched on, his white man’s medical learning treated as an unnecessary encumbrance. Although he would have stepped in if the need had arisen it had not and that was a mercy, for Kate had wanted their son born the way nature had decreed for unknown thousands of generations before her.
There was the normal desultory Getrennte Entwicklung separate development crowd hanging around the main gates to Royal Navy Norfolk, protesting about the one wholly multi-racial, and horror of horror, ‘integrated’ exemplar, in New England.
Namely, the Royal Navy.
Abe’s driver, Sub-Lieutenant Robert Edward ‘Ted’ Forest, a blond, stocky man a year or so his junior who was still relatively new to the First Thirteen invariably shook his head and whistled a little sadly whenever he encountered ‘religious nuts’. But then ‘newbies’ from the Old Country, these days a veritable mixing pot of humanity inter-mingled from all over the Empire, tended to be colour blind if not always very good at veiling their innate sense of moral superiority.
However, Abe was a practical man; one out of two was a good start.
The Englishman had doffed his cap, half-bowed and treated Kate like an exotic princess the first time he had called at the Lincoln household. Ted Forest had reduced Kate to tears of mirth attempting to correctly pronounce her Mohawk name, Tekonwenaharake, and been absolutely fascinated by his hosts’ stories of life in the wilds of the Mohawk Valley.
That had been shortly after the Registrar of the Commonwealth of Virginia had granted the deed excising the name ‘Fielding’ from all official documentation.
Just so as to tidy up any possible loose ends, Abe and Kate had since had their marriage blessed anew◦– as Mr and Mrs Abraham Lincoln◦– in the Anglican Chapel at the base.
Ted Forest had been posted to HMS Achilles as the senior of the three Navigator-Observer-Air Gunners◦– the other two men were rated as Petty Officers◦– attached to the light cruiser’s twelve-man Flight Division, responsible for operating the ship’s two Southampton Flying Boat Corporation Sea Fox seaplanes. At the same time Abe had begun his familiarisation with the ‘type’◦– with Ted in the ‘back seat’◦– at the nearby Virginia Beach Royal Naval Air Station.
The two men had hit it off from the start.
‘How come a bally doctor is flying kites in the RNAS?’ Ted had asked within minutes of their first meeting.
‘It’s a long story.’
He had told that story over a beer in the Mess at Virginia Beach.
‘I was inducted straight into the Royal Naval Medical Service as soon as I got here. I assumed I’d be a junior houseman, or the Navy equivalent, for my time on shore. Anyway, as I understand it, somebody in the Personnel Section here at Norfolk saw that I was a qualified pilot with several hundred hours under my belt and the next thing I knew, I was hauled in front of a selection panel at twenty-four hours’ notice. The next day I discovered I was in the RNAS!’