Nathaniel did not wipe her tears away; she had earned them, after all. But he put an arm around her and held her, felt the tension in her that matched his own.

"We will get through this, all of us." It was the most he could offer her.

Elizabeth was caught in a tangle with Curiosity, the squirming babies held between them. Curiosity said, "We was expectin' you on the Osiris," she said, laughing and scowling all at once. "And here you show up on a pirate ship."

"The captain of the Osiris didn't like the idea, either," Nathaniel said, reaching for Daniel. "He must have had a spy on our tails, because they set out after the Jackdaw as soon as we weighed anchor."

Elizabeth shook her head in irritation. "This discussion must wait," she said, her voice hoarse and tears running freely. "I want to get these children out of the rain."

"Wait." Curiosity twisted to look down at the deck of the Jackdaw. "We ain't quite done yet."

"Miss Somerville interests me not at all," Elizabeth said sharply, her chin going up at that angle Nathaniel knew too well, when her anger had the better of her. "She may go to the devil, for all I care. I wish she would, if it meant she will no longer interfere in our affairs."

"That's one wish you may just get," Curiosity said dryly.

"Will you hurry with those manropes!" barked Pickering.

"Never mind your manropes," Stoker shouted, putting Giselle on her feet and patting her rear in a familiar way. "We're pushing off. Move smart, lads! Jib aft!"

"Stoker!" roared Pickering. "What is the meaning of this!"

But it was Giselle who answered him. She stood there with a strange half-smile on her face, but her voice carried strong. "I am so sorry, Horace! But I should have made a very poor wife. We are both better off this way!"

Pickering stood, swaying slightly, like a man who takes a bullet but doesn't have the sense to fall down. Below him, Giselle spread out her hands in a gesture that might have been regret.

Scattered around the deck, men stood frozen in place, their expressions divided between surprise and disgust. All except Moncrieff, who was watching the captain closely.

"Captain!" Mr. MacKay's voice cracked like a boy's. "Sir, give the order and we'll demast her with a single volley!"

Pickering looked confused, as if his first officer spoke a language he had never before heard. Then he ran a hand over his eyes and finally turned and walked away, disappearing into the round-house to shut the door behind him.

Hannah said, "She was telling the truth. It was the Jackdaw she was waiting for."

Elizabeth let out a little sound of surprise. "Miss Somerville is running off with Mac Stoker?" And she sought out Nathaniel's gaze as if he might know more about this than she could. But it was Curiosity who answered.

"She had it planned all along. She didn't reckon on you showing up with him, though. That took her by surprise. Us, too." Curiosity's dark eyes followed the smaller ship as it inched away, but Nathaniel was more concerned with Moncrieff, who came striding down the deck.

"Mr. MacKay!" The deep voice carried from one end of the ship to the other. "Carry on so long as the captain is indisposed. And mark me--no action is to be taken now or at any time against the Jackdaw." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Make sail, man. It's time we were hame."

18

As a young woman Nathaniel's mother had sailed from Scotland to join her father in New-York. When Nathaniel asked her about the journey, she had looked up in her thoughtful way, her eyes scanning the mountains, taking in ash and beech, birch and maple, endless stretches of white and red pine, blue spruce and hemlock: too many kinds of green to count.

"Imagine a world wi'oot trees, or a single growin' thing," she had said. "And should ye climb tae the highest point on the highest mast, there's naught tae see but water and sky cleavin' taegither."

Even as a boy this idea of a world without trees had not interested him, as wild and curious as he had been. And now, more than three weeks out of Québec, it still took him by surprise. Waking at sunset, Nathaniel was first aware of the lingering light, the color of meat gone bad.

For a long time he kept completely still. The bosun's whistle blew and the first watch started up from the lower decks. The ship wouldn't settle down again until the men coming off the last dog watch had made their way below and hung their hammocks: she moaned and quaked, shuddered and whistled, groaned and murmured as she always did, a woman who knew her work and did it well but would not be quiet about it. Nathaniel had come to recognize all her voices, in storm and calm, and just now there was nothing to alarm him.

The sounds from the next room were just as unremarkable; Elizabeth and Curiosity were talking, their voices low. The twins hummed and burbled and crowed. Lily yawned and Daniel laughed as if he had never seen such a thing. And no sign of Hannah, who would be with the doctor, as was her habit at this time of evening.

In the wardroom just below them officers' voices rose and ebbed, interrupted by the rattle of dice and an occasional curse or shout of laughter. Moncrieff was among them; Nathaniel had not seen the man since the day he left the Jackdaw, but he heard his voice every day.

Steps in the other room; he sat up just as Elizabeth opened the door.

She leaned against the frame, her hands busy at the nape of her neck as she plaited her hair. Nathaniel watched her wrists flex, supple and strong; her raised arms pulled the fabric of her gown tight against her breasts.