The Firebird

‘And false, as well?’

He shrugged. ‘I would myself know little of such things, for I am not a naval man. But Deane is.’

‘Captain Deane,’ she said, ‘is many things.’

‘But not a fool. He is a naval man of long experience, and when he came to Cronstadt he’d have seen within the space of half a day how things do truly stand.’

‘I do not follow.’

Edmund said, ‘The Russian squadron is not fit for sea, and ill provisioned, and things are not in the order that they would have been in had the Tsar not died. However much the Empress and the Duke of Holstein may support King James, this year is not the one to try to set him on his throne again, and all of us do know it. But we cannot let the English know it, else they might make use of their advantage. They could do much damage while we try to build our strength. Unless—’

‘Unless they do not see that we are weak.’ She gave a nod, to show she understood. At least, she understood that part of it. She looked away and asked him, in a different voice, ‘Why you?’

He did not answer for a moment. It fell quiet in the cabin, with the rolling of the ship beneath them and the half-light in which she could not have read his eyes if she’d been looking at them. Then he asked, ‘And who else was there?’

‘Anyone.’

‘None else Deane would believe could turn a traitor to his kin.’ The hard and mocking edge had crept back in his tone. ‘Your Mr Taylor offered.’

She did bring her head round then, and looked him in the eye. ‘He is not mine. And if he offered, why did you not let him do it?’

‘Because whoever carries these damn’d letters into Amsterdam will lose his reputation altogether, Mistress Jamieson. A month from now, when I am well away and none can fetch me back or stop me, there’s a harlot in St Petersburg will swear that, while I lay with her, I told her of my plans to meet with Deane, and after that there will be none, except a very few, who do not know me as a traitor.’

As he faced her, she could see his closed jaw lift and set again at a defiant angle, as though he were waiting for her once again to strike him, but instead she kept her gaze on his and asked him, very calmly, ‘Would this be the harlot who did live next door to you? The one whose husband beat her?’

Edmund stared at her.

‘I’d think,’ said Anna quietly, ‘a woman who is grateful would say anything you asked her to. Would she have told the same lie about Mr Taylor, then, if he’d been carrying the letters in your place?’ She knew the answer to that, also. ‘So you would not let him bear that shame, yet you yourself would shoulder it?’ She studied him. ‘You need not always stand and take a whipping you do not deserve.’

He went on staring at her, saying nothing, as though he could not believe he’d heard her properly. And then he left the shadows; took a step towards her, cautiously.

‘I am always as I am. People will see me as they want to see me. But never before in my whole life,’ he told her, ‘have I had a person who wanted to see me as good.’ He stood and looked down at her, searchingly. ‘How do you know I’ve not lain with the harlot?’

She answered him honestly. ‘You would not take such advantage of someone who had been so wounded.’

He shook his head slightly, his eyes never leaving her own. ‘How would you know how I deal with wounded things?’

‘You healed the bird.’

‘How do you know? You never saw me let it loose. For all you know I killed the thing and had it for my dinner.’

‘You did not.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because you told me.’ All this talk about the bird reminded Anna she still held the silk-wrapped carving from the Empress, and she looked now for a place to set it down. There was a table just beside them, with a chair where Edmund had sat earlier and waited for them, playing at some single-handed game whose object seemed to be to end with all the cards arranged in their four suits.

She lightly touched the cards. ‘What game is this?’

‘It goes by several names. Some fancy it can tell your fortune, tell you if you will succeed or not in what you venture.’

Anna asked him, ‘And what have these cards told you?’

‘Their advice is undecided, for the deck is incomplete.’ Not content to stop their argument, he cornered her again with, ‘Why is my word enough for you?’

There was no way to answer that, thought Anna, not in speech, because the words did not exist to tell him why. She found another way to do it. Reaching deep into her pocket she drew out the cards he’d sent her, and she set the ace of hearts face-up upon the table, in amongst its fellows.

‘I am happy to return you this,’ she said, ‘for I believe that it is yours, and has been for some time, and very likely always will be.’ As his eyes found hers she forced herself to finish. ‘But if I may,’ she told him, ‘I should like to keep my knave.’

He raised his scarred hand to her face, and touched her very softly. ‘I’m not good with fragile things,’ he said. ‘I’m careless, and I break them, and I lose them, but I …’ He broke off, as though to gain control of some emotion, and when next he spoke his tone was gentler than she’d ever heard it. ‘I’d take care of you.’

‘That is not true,’ she told him, and before he could misunderstand, she carried on, ‘You’re not so rough with fragile things. You carried twenty painted eggs within your pockets just to please a child, once,’ she reminded him. ‘And I am not so breakable.’