Walking After Midnight

Subject: Walking After Midnight Tue Feb 12, 2008 7:42 pm

Willem didn't look up when the tavern door opened. He did look up when there was no sound of it closing again. Madame D'Alembert was standing motionless in the doorway, holding the heavy wooden panel open with one slender arm. Even in the dim tavern light--it wasn't that he was cheap with the tapers, he rationalized, it was just that the patrons preferred things to have a dim and fuzzy cast--it was clear something was amiss.

Abruptly the woman released the door and began to make her way toward the bar. Her step was firm, but she moved as if disconnected from the air around her; smoothly avoiding the few patrons, tables, chairs, but automatically. As she neared the bar, Willem's eyes widened.

"Good Christ," he murmured. "Jesus Mary and Joseph on a soddin donkey!"

Madame D'Alembert sat down opposite him and he knew that he was staring in a most ungentlemanly fashion but he couldn't seem to look away. Her bodice was all in disarray, the overcoat she had taken to wearing ripped and torn. Her skirt, however, looked as if she had been rolling in the fire, the area below her waist blackened and shredded. And then there was the rest.

She eased back into the chair and appeared to notice Willem for the first time.

"Ah, Willem," she said, matter of factly, with a slight, almost business-like smile. Momentarily the smile faded, and she seemed suddenly uncertain. "Yes, Willem. My usua. . .no, in fact, I think this would be an occasion for rum. Yes. Rum. And Willem?"

She reached out and placed her hand over his, in the way that women did he noticed, not without a pang, to indicate their interest was limited to that of friendship.

"Your rum. The authentic article. Not the house stock."

He realized he was still staring. He forced himself to speak.

"Er, Ma'am. . .that's ter say. . ."

Without taking his eyes off her face, he reached out and picked up a metal plate, holding it toward her with one hand and gesturing awkwardly with the other. Taking the plate from him she contemplated herself as if in a mirror. With her eyes averted Willem now found that he could actually see what he had been staring at all this time. The blood. Splatters all over her face, and a thick rivulet running down one side. It looked like she had failed to dodge someone swinging a headless chicken.

"Ah," she said. "Yes. I quite see."

She reached across and gently took the towel that he used to wipe down the bar top. Turning the plate this way and that, trying to improve upon its blurred image, she began to clean off the blood, and in doing so handed Willem his second life-threatening shock of the evening. The blood wasn't hers. Finally, satisfied, she set the plate down, went to drop the towel and instead placed it gently on the plate, letting her hand rest there for a moment. Then she turned her one good eye and fixed it on Willem.

"That's done. Now Willem. You have a rum heading in my direction. . .at a rapid rate of knots, I trust?"

Subject: Re: Walking After Midnight Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:51 pm

In Willem's mind rum was the universal solvent: all a man's troubles disappeared in its fiery swim and it definitely gave a sense of perspective on the world. Sadly that perspective often turned out to be a little off kilter with the way things really worked, which is why he no longer touched the stuff himself now that he was selling. He guessed it worked the same way for a woman, although to his way of thinking the rum had a great deal more to sort out once it got into a lady's system. Nevertheless, with enough application, it usually seemed to help. And Madame D, while rarely touching the hard stuff was no stranger no knocking back the finer vintages of the local wine produced by Confederacy-owned plantations. But she seemed not to know what to do with the rum. She'd been so insistent, and now she was just sitting there, staring at it. And for the love of all saints, she just looked terrible.

Not taking his eyes off her, Willem cautiously moved to the end of the bar, and surreptitiously beckoned the boy.

"Oy, get yer arse over here. The Reardy Dew, she's made port?" The boy looked blank, so Willem continued. "See that lady there?"

"Oui monsieur."

"Don't be given me lip, boy. You know her ship?"

"Oui, Le Rire de Dieu."

"Well that's what I said, for chrissake! That ship is in port?"

"Ou. . .er, but yes, that ship, it is in the docking since the morning of the last day."

"Good, you know Master Patrice? Get him here, as soon as possible. And boy. . ."--here he grabbed the boy hard by the lapel; the boy flinched, expecting a blow, but he was struck more by the cracking softness in the man's voice--"for the love of God, be as quick as you can. Tell Patrice that the Lady D is here, and she's. . .she's not well."
_________________
Deoiridh D'Alembert, Freetrader.
Merchant Captain of Le Rire de Dieu
out of Belle Isle, New France

Subject: Re: Walking After Midnight Fri May 16, 2008 7:11 pm

She had not realized how long she had been sitting there until she felt the side of her face growing warm. Looking up, she was surprised to find the sun low in the sky, the squat buildings of New Orleans collapsing into thick pools of shadow. Off to her left the wall of the small church was brightly lit by the falling sun, the brick detail washed into a solid blonde mass until it seemed almost a second sun, filling the adjacent graveyard with light.

The rough wooden marker had been replaced with a more substantial marble monument; the stone very fine, but modestly shaped, paid for quietly by the officers of the Confederacy. But none of them had known what to say when the stonemason had asked them for the text of the inscription. Her fingers traced the simple lettering: Pere, Patriote, Ami. Feeling the channels and ridges beneath her fingers it was not, she knew now, what he would have wanted. The precise nature of his preference eluded her, however. He was a man always pulled in multiple directions. He would perhaps have chosen "Un Citoyen du Monde." Equally, however, she could well imagine him preferring simply "Un homme."

There was no name on the headstone. This had been at the suggestion of members of his crew. The first mate, Zacharie Sommer had taken her aside after the funeral service upon hearing that the Confederacy would pay for the monument.

"He was never supposed to be here," Zacharie said softly. "Perhaps it is fitting that he not be here now. I would like, I think, to imagine that he is still prowling the courts of Europe with the same restlessness he stalked the decks of the Luron." He caught her eye. "Do not mistake me Madame. He was exactly the right sort of man for the. . .the task he was assigned. But this part of the world. . ." He stared meditatively at the sexton filling in the grave. "It is not a part of the world that is made for the right sort of man."

Now, several weeks later she had returned, alone, to pay the kind of respects that could not be paid with a crowd watching. Her eyes strayed to the adjacent headstone, the resting place of his wife and child. The stone said simply, "Ma Vie." That, she knew, he would have liked. She realized to her surprise that tears were flooding down her cheeks.

"Ah Benoit," she murmured. "I cannot blame you for leaving, but you leave a hole in the world behind you."

She was not crying for the loss of the man. Death, she knew, creates self-absorbed hypocrites of us all. Their friendship had not begun promisingly--that was an understatement--but a relationship that begins at gunpoint can really only improve. They had dined regularly together, discussed philosophy, politics and religion. . .all the things that men and women were not supposed to talk about with one another. There had never been anything voiced between them, never anything that resembled that woefully polite phrase, an "understanding." But she wept now for the loss of hope, for the loss of possibility, for the loss of the better part of her nature. She found herself thinking of Cathern and Hew, of Chantilly and Emile. . .how did they ever develop this "understanding" with the world all beset by confusion and uncertainty? Yes, she understood well how it worked when a woman especially was young, and sheltered, and fanciful; the world kept them that way for a reason. But Chantilly and Cathern were like her in that they had seen much, done much, lived several lives. . .and yet those lives had not cut them off from other people as had hers. She hung her head, her tears falling into the unyielding grass atop her friend's grave.

"They say that humans weep because stones cannot."

She had not been aware that she was observed. A quick flourish of her kerchief and she turned clear eyes upon the man standing on the other side of the small wooden fence enclosing the burial ground. He wore the palest blue frock coat, from which issued at the neck and cuffs diaphonous clouds of lace. Yet he seemed like a small, detached piece of the lengthening shadows that had suddenly jumped toward her.

"Forgive me, Madame D'Alembert. I was informed you had arrived at the port, but I regret having to intrude on you at such an inopportune moment. Yet we have business together."

She stared hard at him. He spoke perfect French, yet her ear detected the unmistakable lilt at the edges. And her blood slowed to a crawl. Trying to keep her voice steady, she asked:

"Do I know you sir?"

He smiled. "Oh no. Not yet. But there will be time enough for us to become much better acquainted. However, here comes the priest. I'm sure he will expect a sizable donation for the privilege of allowing you to cry so prettily in his graveyard. These places are made for forgetting not remembering and you are ruining his scenery."

She had looked up at the approach of the priest, his mouth open in a gentle smile but his eyes, indeed, narrowly calculating; when her eyes flicked back to the fence the man in the frock coat was gone. But his final words had lodged in her brain, catching narrowly at the breath in her throat like a gnarled hand:

"Elsewhere, however, people make it their business to remember."
_________________
Deoiridh D'Alembert, Freetrader.
Merchant Captain of Le Rire de Dieu
out of Belle Isle, New France

Subject: Re: Walking After Midnight Tue May 27, 2008 8:20 am

Patrice burst through the door followed closely by Macklin, Grabber, Niles the coxswain, and the mountainous Breck, an intimidatingly heavyset waister.

"La Sainte Vierge!" exclaimed Patrice when he reached the bar and was able to take in her appearance fully. He rounded on Willem's boy, who was last through the door, breathing heavily, still wondering how these men had been able to outrun one born running through the irregular cobbles and slippery mud paths that made up Grenville's streets.

"Are you an idiot?" demanded Patrice? "You said that the lady was sick, not that she was injured. If you do not understand the difference I will be happy to use votre cul by way of illustration."

"Pardon, mon Capitaine," pleaded the boy, gesturing in Willem's direction, "it is as the monsieur instructed of me."

Patrice gave Willem a hard look. "I thank you for sending for us but we will take care of the lady now."

Willem returned Patrice's look with a fierce scowl. "Aye, and you've been doin a capital job of it and all so far! Don't be crackin airs on me in me own place. I've been plyin my trade all atwixt the violence of the world since afore ye was breeched and I can tell when someone is bad hurt. The lady aint injured, leastwise not obvious."

"Much that is most dangerous in the world is the least obvious," snapped Patrcice. "The lady needs medical attention, that much is obvious. How I wish that we were able to keep a surgeon aboard but they have demonstrated a lamentable tendency to fall overboard or die from mysterious ailments. Macklin, take Niles, make your way speedily to La Rue de la Bourbe and obtain the services of a surgeon. Here is my purse, use it as necessary. Grabber, Breck, stand outside and let no one in not personally known to you."

"By the pimpled arse of Old Nick himself!" thundered Willem. "Ye'll be doing no sich interfering with my trade! Just try and stop me custom from enterin of their own free will and they'll be using yer pizzle as a doorpull!"

"I think," said Deoiridh quietly, "that is quite enough shouting for the moment. Both of you, Patrice, Willem, sit down. Sit. Down. Thank you. Now I am in no need of a doctor, so you may save your hard-earned doubloons, Patrice. Boy, follow the two men that have left and ask them to return, on my authority. However, Willem, for the moment, I think it might be a good idea to station two men outside. Not," she hastened to add, as Willem's colour began to rise, "To prevent anyone leaving or entering, but just as a. . .precaution. And I think it is time I offered you all an explanation of the necessity for such a precaution."
_________________
Deoiridh D'Alembert, Freetrader.
Merchant Captain of Le Rire de Dieu
out of Belle Isle, New France