The Winter Sea

Lord Griffin, who had turned aside the surgeon’s offer of a hammock and was sitting in a chair against the sloping wall, glanced over and remarked, ‘It does appear that someone tries to kill the lad with regularity.’

He too had seen, as Gordon had, the other scars that Moray bore upon his chest and arms to mark his years of being slashed and shot at on the battlefield. And hanging from his neck he wore a leather cord on which was strung a single pebble, small and black and smoothly worn, the purpose of which none of them could see.

Lord Griffin guessed it was a charm of some sort. ‘Soldiers are a superstitious lot.’

‘Well,’ said the surgeon, ‘he will have to do without it for a moment, while I dress and bind this shoulder.’ But his movement to remove the stone and cord was stopped abruptly by a hand around his wrist.

A hoarse voice, barely recognizable, said, ‘Leave that.’

Moray’s eyes came slowly halfway open, with a waking man’s awareness. He took stock of where he was, but did not loose his hold upon the surgeon’s wrist until the latter said, ‘You have been hurt. I need to dress the wound, sir, and this stone is in the way.’

A moment passed, then Moray’s hand released its grip and moved instead to take the pebble on its cord and slide it over his own head with care before he gathered it into his palm and closed his fingers round it in a small act of possession. With his gaze fixed on the surgeon’s face, he said, ‘Your voice is English.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Only Gordon saw the hand of Moray’s wounded left arm move against his thigh as though he’d hoped to find his sword still there. ‘What ship is this?’

Lord Griffin answered, ‘You’ve no need to worry, my boy. We are on board the Leopard, and safe among friends.’

The sound of Lord Griffin’s voice clearly caught Moray off guard and he turned his head sharply towards it, but Gordon was standing between them. The ship rolled and the lanterns swung and in the shifting bars of light and shadow Moray’s gaze met Gordon’s in a hard unspoken challenge. ‘Among friends.’ He did not sound convinced.

‘Aye,’ Gordon told him. ‘For the moment. But I cannot keep you hidden here for long.’ He aimed his next words at the surgeon. ‘Do you think he will be well enough to leave by nightfall?’

Moray’s face grew wary. ‘Leave for where?’

‘I mean to take advantage of the victory celebrations of this day. They will increase the great confusion of these waters,’ Gordon said. ‘With so many ships and vessels and so many drunken men it should be possible to get you both aboard the fishing-smack that waits prepared to carry you across to France.’

Lord Griffin said, ‘And what then of the men who saw you bring aboard two prisoners this morning from the Salisbury? Will they believe we simply disappeared?’

His voice was dry, and his expression made it plain that while he did admire the plan he had his doubts about its chances for success.

‘My crewmen saw me bring two wounded prisoners aboard,’ was Gordon’s answer. ‘They will see me, on the morrow, hold a proper Christian burial at sea for those same prisoners who, sadly, were beyond our surgeon’s aid. We sew the bodies into sheets, and none will know that there are ballast weights in place of men inside. They will be satisfied, and both of you will have escaped the English.’

‘No, not both of us.’ Lord Griffin shook his head. ‘You simply cannot kill the both of us, my boy, they’ll not believe it. And besides, what would that say about the skill of your poor surgeon?’ With a smile he settled back, arms folded. ‘No, you get the young lad off, and I myself will stand tomorrow at his burial and weep, and back your story with my own.’

Moray raised himself upon the table, to the protests of the surgeon who had not yet finished bandaging his shoulder. ‘My Lord Griffin, if there is to be but one of us escaping, I insist—’

‘Oh, save your breath, my boy. You are but young, you have your life ahead of you, and mine is near its end.’ He said to Gordon, ‘I have told you, there is nothing to be feared if I am taken. I have known Queen Anne since she was in her cradle, I was in her father’s Guards. She will not see me come to harm.’ He smiled again. ‘Besides, the prospect of a room within the Tower from which I may look on London in my last years does not seem at all unpleasant.’ And he paused, his words grown heavy with the weight of memory. ‘I have been so long away from home.’

Moray had been stubborn in his arguments against Lord Griffin staying, but the Englishman had not relented, and in the end the matter had been settled only after Gordon had exploded, ‘Christ, man, I may turn you in myself and claim the ransom if you do not let it lie.’ And then, recovering his temper, he’d reminded Moray, ‘You once told me it was not a soldier’s place to ask who gave an order, but to follow it. Cannot you follow this one?’ Low, he’d added, ‘For her sake, if no one else’s.’

Like combatants locked in equal battle both the men had held each other’s gaze in silence for a moment. Slowly, Moray’s hand had lifted and he had replaced the small black pebble on its cord about his neck, as though it were the only armor he had need of. And he’d given one brief nod.

Sophia stared at Captain Gordon as he stood, still with his back to her, against the curving bay of windows in the Leopard’s cabin. She had not said a word through all his tale, so tightly gripped had she been by her own emotions.