"Well ... I'm not sure. He was involved pretty deeply in mathematics and natural philosophy at one time, but since he retired from his chair at Oxford six years ago ... "

Chandagnac had seen her father only a few times during the month's voyage - the dignified, one-armed old man had not seemed to desire shipboard sociability, and Chandagnac had not paid much attention to him, but now he snapped his fingers excitedly. "Oxford? Benjamin Hurwood?"

"That's right."

"Your father is the - "

"A sail!" came a shout from high among the complicated spider webs of the mainmast shrouds. "Fine ahead port!"

Beth stood up and the two of them hurried across the deck to the port rail and leaned out and craned their necks to see past the three clusters of standing rigging, which they were viewing end on. Chandagnac thought, it's worse than trying to see the stage from above during a crowded scene in a marionette show. The thought reminded him too clearly of his father, though, and he forced it away and concentrated on squinting ahead.

At last he made out the white fleck on the slowly bobbing horizon, and he pointed it out to Beth Hurwood. They watched it for several minutes, but it didn't seem to be getting any closer, and the sea wind was chillier on this side in spite of the unobstructed sun, so they went back to her chair by the starboard rail.

"Your father's the author of ... I forget the title. That refutation of Hobbes."

"The Vindication of Free Will." She leaned against the rail and faced astern to let the breeze sweep back her long dark hair. "That's right. Though Hobbes and my father were friends, I understand. Have you read it?"

Again Chandagnac was wishing he'd kept his mouth shut, for the Hurwood book had been a part of the vast reading program his father had led him through. All that poetry, history, philosophy, art! But a cloddish Roman soldier had shoved a sword through Archimedes, and a bird had dropped a fatal turtle onto the bald head of Aeschylus, mistaking it for a stone useful for breaking turtles open upon.

"Yes. I did think he effectively dismissed Hobbes' idea of a machine-cosmos." Before she could agree or argue, he went on, "But how do pendulums and tuning forks apply?"

Beth frowned. "I don't know. I don't even know what ... field ... he's working in now. He's withdrawn terribly during the years since my mother died. I sometimes think he died then too, at least the part of him that ... I don't know, laughed. He's been more active this last year, though ... since his disastrous first visi to the West Indies." She shook her head with a puzzled frow: "Odd that losing an arm should vitalize him so."

Chandagnac raised his eyebrows. "What happened?"

"I'm sorry, I thought you'd have heard. The ship he was on was taken by the pirate Blackbeard, and a pistol ball shattered his arm. I'm a little surprised he chose to come back here - though he does have a dozen loaded pistols with him this time, and always carries at least a couple."

Chandagnac grinned inwardly at the idea of the old Oxford don fingering his pistols and waiting to come across a pirate to shoot at.

From out across the blue water rolled a loud, hollow knock, like a large stone dropped onto pavement. Curious, Chandagnac started to cross the poop deck to look again at the approaching vessel, but before he'd taken two steps he was distracted by the abrupt white plume of a splash on the face of the sea, a hundred yards ahead to starboard.

His first thought was that the other vessel was a fishing boat, and that the splash marked the jump of some big fish; then he heard the man at the mast-top shout, more shrilly this time, "Pirates! A single sloop, the mad fools!"

Beth was on her feet now. "God in heaven," she said quietly. "Is it true?"

Chandagnac felt light-headed rather than scared, though his heart was pounding. "I don't know," he said, hurrying with her across the deck to the port rail, "but if it is, he's right, they're mad - a sloop's hardly more than a sailboat, and on the Carmichael we've got three masts and eighteen heavy guns."

He had to raise his voice to be heard, for the morning, which had been quiet except for the eternal creak-and-splash-and-slurry, had instantly become clamorous with shouted orders and the slap of bare feet on the lower decks and the buzz of line racing through the block spools; and there was another sound too, distant but far more disquieting - a frenzied metallic clatter and banging underscored by the harsh discord of brass trumpets blown for noise instead of music.>Sunrise wouldn't be for another nine or ten hours; and though he had to stay here until then, it would certainly be impossible to sleep. The prospect of the long wait sickened him.

He remembered the bocor's statement: "I hope it was worth it."

He looked up at the stars and sneered a challenge at them. Try to stop me now, he thought, though it may take me years. I know it's true now. It can be done. Yes - even if I'd had to have a dozen Indians killed to learn it, a dozen white men, a dozen friends ... it would still have been worth it.

BOOK ONE

The seas and the weathers are what is; your vessels adapt to them or sink.

- Jack Shandy

Chapter One

Gripping one of the taut vertical ropes and leaning far out over the rail, John Chandagnac waited a moment until the swell lifted the huge, creaking structure of the stern and the poop deck on which he stood, and then he flung the biscuit as hard as he could. It looked like quite a long throw at first, but as it dropped by quick degrees toward the water, and kept on falling instead of splashing in, he saw that he hadn't really flung it very far out; but the gull had seen it, and came skimming in above the green water, and at the last moment, as if showing off, snatched it out of the air. The biscuit broke as the gull flapped back up to a comfortable altitude, but he seemed to have got a good beakful.

Chandagnac had another biscuit in his coat pocket, but for a while he just watched the bird glide, absently admiring the way it seemed to need only the slightest hitch and flap now and then to maintain its position just above the Vociferous Carmichael's starboard stern lamp, and he sniffed the elusive land smell that had been in the breeze since dawn. Captain Chaworth had said that they'd see Jamaica's purple and green mountains by early afternoon, then round Morant Point before supper and dock in Kingston before dark; but while the unloading of the Carmichael's cargo would mean the end of the worrying that had visibly slimmed the captain during this last week of the voyage, disembarking would be the beginning of Chandagnac's task.

And do remember too, he told himself coldly as he pulled the biscuit out of his pocket, that both Chaworth and yourself are each at least half to blame for your own problems. He flung the thing harder this time, and the sea gull caught it without having to dip more than a couple of yards.

When he turned back toward the little breakfast table that the captain let the passengers eat at when the morning's shiphandling jobs were routine, he was surprised to see the young woman standing up, her brown eyes alight with interest.

Tags: Tim Powers Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net