Rebellion. James McGee

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      She lifted her hand again and ran a fingertip along the line of his cheek, below his eye, tracing the scars. “Your wounds have barely healed.”

      “No rest for the wicked, Maddie,” Hawkwood said. “You should know that by now.”

      Her green eyes flashed. “That’s what you said the last time.” She stepped back and folded her arms about her, as if warding off a sudden chill. “Just don’t expect me to cry myself to sleep. That’s all.”

      Hawkwood had always suspected Maddie Teague was too strong a woman for that, though in truth her comment made him wonder; was she still jesting, or not?

      “Curious,” Hawkwood said. “That’s what I was going to say.”

      She gave a wan smile and waited as he placed the shirts and breeches in the valise. Sensing her eyes on him, he turned.

      “Take care, Matthew,” she whispered.

      He nodded. “Always.”

      Maddie lowered her arms and smoothed down her dress. “I’ll have Hettie find something in the kitchen for your journey. We don’t want you going hungry.”

      “Perish the thought,” Hawkwood said.

      She frowned. “Now you’re making fun of me.”

      He shook his head. “I’d never do that.”

      She gazed at him intently and took a deep breath. Then, without speaking, she leaned forward and kissed him fiercely before turning on her heel and exiting the room.

      Leaving Hawkwood to his packing, alone with his thoughts.

      There was something eerily familiar about her lines, even by moonlight, and as he drew closer Hawkwood saw why. She was a cutter. The long horizontal bowsprit, the sharply tapering stern and the preposterous size of her rig in proportion to her length and beam were unmistakable. The last time he’d boarded a similar vessel it had been at sea, in the company of Jago and the French privateer, Lasseur, and he’d been fully armed with a pistol and a tomahawk and screaming like a banshee. This time, his arrival was a lot less frenetic.

      The journey from London had taken four changes of horses and the best part of the day, so it was late evening when the coach finally made its bone-rattling descent into the town; by which time Hawkwood’s throat was dry with dust, while his spine felt as if it had been dislocated by the constant jolting.

      Even if it hadn’t been for the silhouette of the castle ramparts high above him and the lights clustered at the foot of the dark chalk cliffs, it would have been possible to gauge his proximity to the port purely by the miasma of odours arising from it; the most prominent being smoke, cooking fires and sewage, the unavoidable detritus of closely packed human habitation.

      Dover was home to both an ordnance depot and a victualling yard, and keeping the navy armed, watered and fed was clearly a twenty-four-hour operation, if the number of people on the streets – both in uniform and civilian dress – was any indication. The town looked to be wide awake. The public houses in particular, to judge by the knots of men and women weaving unsteadily between them, were still enjoying a brisk trade.

      The coachman, clearly adhering to prior instruction, steered the vehicle away from the main part of the town and into a maze of unlit cobbled alleyways leading down towards the outer harbour. After numerous twists and turns, the coach finally drew to a halt and Hawkwood, easing cramped muscles, stepped out on to a darkened quay.

      The cutter had the dockside to herself, her tall, tapering mainmast and canvas-furled yards reaching for the moon like winter-stripped branches. Lantern lights were showing above the closed gun ports and Hawkwood spotted shadows moving around the deck. He turned his coat collar up.

      The concoction of smells was even stronger here and he guessed they were within spitting distance of the navy supply stores, for the combined aromas of unrendered animal fats, stale fish, offal, baking bread and fermenting hops hung heavily in the night air alongside the more familiar dockyard scents of grease, cordage, tarred rigging and mildewed timbers. Though, he supposed, looking around, it could all have been just an exaggeration of Dover’s natural reek.

      Noise always seemed magnified at night and the thudding of hammers and rasping of saws floated across the ink-black water from the surrounding jetties. At the same time, from the opposite direction, a stiff breeze was coming off the Channel, carrying with it a soulful requiem of creaking spars and clinking chains from craft moored along the outer harbour walls. To add to the lament, a watch bell clanged mournfully in the darkness.

      Behind him, the coachman, satisfied that his passenger had been delivered safely, clicked his tongue and the coach trundled off into the night.

      As Hawkwood neared the ship, he noted that the vessel wasn’t displaying a man-of-war’s standard colour scheme. Instead of the customary buff-painted hull, he saw that all the external timbers, from bowsprit to counter, were as black as coal. As his mind deciphered the significance, a slim, uniformed figure stepped nimbly from the cutter’s gangplank.

      “Mr . . . Smith?” The speaker touched the brim of his hat. “I’m Lieutenant Stuart. Welcome aboard Griffin.”

      He hadn’t taken Brooke all that seriously when the superintendent had given him his boarding instructions. Brooke’s explanation for the false name, when he’d seen the sceptical expression unfold across Hawkwood’s face, had been that it simplified the process and avoided prevarication. Hawkwood had been tempted to ask Brooke what the procedure was if there was more than one passenger per voyage and then had decided against it. Brooke, he’d suspected, wouldn’t have found the enquiry amusing.

      As he took in Hawkwood’s appearance, the lieutenant’s head lifted, revealing more of his features. He looked, Hawkwood thought, disturbingly young to be in charge of his own ship; though as vessels went, Stuart’s command was unlikely to see an admiral’s pennant fluttering from her masthead any time soon. She was too small and too far down the lists for that. Nevertheless, from the serious expression on his boyish face it was plain her captain thought no less of her for that.

      The lieutenant led the way on board. A second officer, and the only other man Hawkwood could see dressed in uniform, was waiting by the rail.

      “Lieutenant Weekes,” Stuart said. “My second-in-command.”

      There wasn’t that much difference in their ages, Hawkwood thought. Weekes may have been a year or two older, but that was all. Though it might have been his deep-set eyes and serious expression that made him appear so.

      “Sir.” Weekes favoured Hawkwood with a brief nod before looking expectantly at his captain.

      Stuart obliged. “Prepare for departure, Simon, while I take our passenger below.”

      “Very good, sir.”

      As his first officer turned away, Stuart turned to Hawkwood. “Just as well you arrived when you did. The tide’s already on the ebb. Another half an hour and we’d need deeper water beneath our keel. We’d’ve had to anchor her outside the walls and ferry you out in the jolly boat. I don’t think you’d have cared much for that.” The lieutenant threw Hawkwood an unexpected and surprisingly roguish grin. “I’ll show you to your quarters. I apologize in advance; there aren’t too many home comforts.”

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