Charon's Crossing

The boy's heels damn near clicked together. "Sir?"

"If you're going to sneak into the galley and raid Cookie's sweets, you must remember to wipe your mouth."

Never pausing, Matthew made his way up the ladder to the deck, and to what he hoped would be the first of many pleasant evenings. The carriage Lord Russell had sent for him was waiting at dockside. It was an elegant barouche, emblazoned with the Russell coat of arms and drawn by a pair of perfectly matched, high-stepping greys. It was also complete with a liveried coachman and footman. Both men were black. Were they free men, Matthew wondered, or slaves? Slavery was a fact of life in these islands, as it was in some of the American states, but that didn't change Matthew's dislike of the practice.

The coachman tipped his hat.

"Evenin', sir."

"Good evening," Matthew said, waving off the footman who was already scrambling down to help him into the carriage.

The whip cracked the air and they set off. Matthew looked about him with interest. Atropos had docked the day before, but save for a brief visit to the Customs Office, he had spent no time in Hawkins Bay.

Now, by the fading light of dusk, he saw that it was a larger settlement than he had thought. Front Street, which gave onto the docks, was a hodgepodge of customs houses and narrow wooden buildings that seemed to offer everything a seafarer could possibly want. Shipbuilders, suppliers of salt pork and hardtack, makers of hemp line and tar jockeyed for position. And interspersed among those establishments were the taverns, what looked to be nearly one for every ship that lay at anchor in the harbor. The tropical air was heavy with the scent of rum and cheap perfume that wafted out their doors along with the shriek of coarse female laughter.

More dignified commercial buildings lined the next street. Not that banks and trading corporations were all that dignified, Matthew thought with a little smile. His Virginia backers, for all their blueblood lineage, fine homes and fancy airs, had proven themselves as determined to wring every penny from a dollar as any ship's chandler.

The paved roadway ended and became packed dirt. They were in the residential section of town now, first passing what were surely rooming houses. Matthew had seen enough of them in enough ships' ports halfway around the globe to be able to pick them out even at a distance. Then, as the road began to climb, the houses grew bigger and stood further apart, the homes, no doubt, of Hawkins Bay's merchants and bankers.

Finally, there were no houses at all, only the now-narrow road, climbing into lush hills that looked as untouched as they must have been when Europeans had first come to these islands. Everywhere there were flowers, sending their sweet scent into the night. Birdsong had given way to the chirrups of a chorus of insect voices. It was fully dark now, save for an enormous, butter yellow moon rising into a sky bright with stars.

Matthew sat back in the leather seat. He folded his hands behind his head, stretched out his long legs, and crossed his ankles.

Surely Lord Russell's daughter would be beautiful. How could she be anything less, in such a paradise as this? Half an hour later, the slowing of the horses roused him from a light slumber.

Matthew leaned forward as the carriage drew to a halt. Years at sea had taught him the value of caution; he laid his hand lightly on the handle of his sabre.

"Driver? Why are we stopping?"

"We got to open the gates, sir."

"What gates?"

"Why, the gates to Charon's Crossin'."

Matthew stood in the carriage. Ahead, like black stripes painted against the charcoal of the night, loomed a high iron gate. As he watched, the footman undid the lock and leapt aside just as the coachman shouted to the horses, which lunged ahead and up a rise. The scent of night-blooming flowers was strong, interspersed with the ever-present salt tang of the sea.

A blaze of light filtered through the trees. Matthew whistled softly through his teeth.

"Is that the house?" he said, raising his voice over the sound of hooves pounding against gravel.

The coachman nodded. "Charon's Crossin', sir."

By the time the coach pulled up before the house, the blaze of light had sorted itself into easily a dozen candlelit windows, augmented by the flames rising from oil-burning torcheres in the courtyard.

The front door swung open at his knock. Laughter, conversation, music and the smell of fine wines and expensive foods encompassed him.

"Sir?"

Matthew looked at the liveried butler standing squarely in the open doorway. His face was black, but his accent was straight from the rarefied reaches of upper London society. And if the look on his face meant anything, so was his attitude.

Matthew smiled pleasantly. "Good evening. Captain Matthew McDowell, of the Atropos, to see Lord Russell."

The butler's nose almost twitched. "The American vessel, sir?"

"Exactly," Matthew said, still pleasantly.

The butler nodded. "I shall see if his lordship is available."