Outlander 03 - Voyager полностью

Jared eyed him dubiously, well aware of his response to seagoing craft of any kind. Jamie could scarcely set foot on a ship at anchor without going green; the prospect of his crossing the Atlantic, sealed inescapably in a small and constantly tossing ship for two or three months, was enough to boggle the stoutest mind. It had been troubling mine for some time.

“Well, I suppose there’s no help for it,” Jared said with a sigh, echoing my thought. “And at least you’ll have a physician to hand,” he added, with a smile at me. “That is, I suppose you intend accompanying him, my dear?”

“Yes indeed,” I assured him. “How long will it be before the ship is ready? I’d like to find a good apothecary’s, to stock my medicine chest before the voyage.”

Jared pursed his lips in concentration. “A week, God willing,” he said. “Artemis is in Bilbao at the moment; she’s to carry a cargo of tanned Spanish hides, with a load of copper from Italy—she’ll ship that here, once she arrives, which should be day after tomorrow, with a fair wind. I’ve no captain signed on for the voyage yet, but a good man in mind; I may have to go to Paris to fetch him, though, and that will be two days there and two back. Add a day to complete stores, fill the water casks, add all the bits and pieces, and she should be ready to leave at dawn tomorrow week.”

“How long to the West Indies?” Jamie asked. The tension in him showed in the lines of his body, little affected either by our journey or by the brief rest. He was strung taut as a bow, and likely to remain so until we had found Young Ian.

“Two months, in the season,” Jared replied, the small frown still lining his forehead. “But you’re a month past the season now; hit the winter gales and it could be three. Or more.”

Or never, but Jared, ex-seaman that he was, was too superstitious—or too tactful—to voice this possibility. Still, I saw him touch the wood of his desk surreptitiously for luck.

Neither would he voice the other thought that occupied my mind; we had no positive proof that the blue ship was headed for the West Indies. We had only the records Jared had obtained for us from the Le Havre harbormaster, showing two visits by the ship—aptly named Bruja—within the last five years, each time giving her home port as Bridgetown, on the island of Barbados.

“Tell me about her again—the ship that took Young Ian,” Jared said. “How did she ride? High in the water, or sunk low, as if she were loaded heavy for a voyage?”

Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, then opened them with a nod. “Heavy-laden, I could swear it. Her gunports were no more than six feet from the water.”

Jared nodded, satisfied. “Then she was leaving port, not coming in. I’ve messengers out to all the major ports in France, Portugal and Spain. With luck, they’ll find the port she shipped from, and then we’ll know her destination for sure from her papers.” His thin lips quirked suddenly downward. “Unless she’s turned pirate, and sailing under false papers, that is.”

The old wine merchant carefully set aside the lap desk, its carved mahogany richly darkened by years of use, and rose to his feet, moving stiffly.

“Well, that’s the most that can be done for the moment. Let’s go to the house, now; Mathilde will have supper waiting. Tomorrow I’ll take ye over the manifests and orders, and your wife can find her bits of herbs.”

It was nearly five o’clock, and full dark at this time of year, but Jared had two linksmen waiting to escort us the short distance to his house, equipped with torches to light the way and armed with stout clubs. Le Havre was a thriving port city, and the quay district was no place to walk alone after dark, particularly if one was known as a prosperous wine merchant.

Despite the exhaustion of the Channel crossing, the oppressive clamminess and pervasive fish-smell of Le Havre, and a gnawing hunger, I felt my spirits rise as we followed the torches through the dark, narrow streets. Thanks to Jared, we had at least a chance of finding Young Ian.

Jared had concurred with Jamie’s opinion that if the pirates of the Bruja—for so I thought of them—had not killed Young Ian on the spot, they were likely to keep him unharmed. A healthy young male of any race could be sold as a slave or indentured servant in the West Indies for upward of two hundred pounds; a respectable sum by current standards.

If they did intend so to dispose of Young Ian profitably, and if we knew the port to which they were sailing, it should be a reasonably easy matter to find and recover the boy. A gust of wind and a few chilly drops from the hovering clouds dampened my optimism slightly, reminding me that while it might be no great matter to find Ian once we had reached the West Indies, both the Bruja and the Artemis had to reach the islands first. And the winter storms were beginning.