(The Players for this evening's narrative at the Officer's Quarter, Fort Hemmerly....)
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| (Colonel Cornelius White) |
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| (Major Ebenezer Hawthorne) |
The lamps burned low, their glass chimneys fogged by the thick Caribbean heat. Beyond the open shutters, the sea murmured against the rocks, a ceaseless, ghostly rhythm. Now and then, a warm breeze drifted in, carrying the mingled scents of salt and smoke from the fort’s distant gun batteries. Inside, the air hung heavy — pipe smoke, old wood, and the dark perfume of Madeira wine.
Colonel Cornelius White sat behind his massive mahogany desk — the kind built to outlast its owner — his coat undone, his waistcoat loosened. The silver in his hair caught the lamplight as he filled the glasses once more. Across from him sat Major Ebenezer Hawthorne, his broad shoulders stooped slightly, the sweat glistening along his brow.
“Another?” White asked quietly, voice like gravel over old oak.
Hawthorne nodded, his mouth a grim line. “If we’re to speak of the Contessa, Colonel… I’ll need it.”
White gave a dry grunt of amusement. “You and every man on this cursed island. She’s not been ashore a full day yet, and already she’s set the whole place aflame.”
He poured. The wine caught the lamplight, glowing deep red — almost arterial. Hawthorne raised his glass, muttering, “To our misfortunes,” before swallowing a mouthful that burned pleasantly down.
For a time, the only sounds were the creak of timbers, the tick of the longcase clock, and the quiet breathing of two men too long acquainted with duty and dread. Shadows swayed across the walls — crossing maps, muskets, and the glint of medals that no longer gleamed as they once had.
White leaned back in his chair, studying the rim of his glass. “You’ve seen it — the way people speak of her. The Governor nearly tripped over his own dignity to greet her, and Lady Eleanor…” He let the name hang, like a match above dry powder. “She seems quite taken.”
Hawthorne’s smirk was small and tired. “Lady Eleanor has a way of being taken — by many things.”
White chuckled, low and knowing. “Aye. Though I’ll grant her this — she’s cleverer than most men in this town. Dangerous quality, that, in a woman.”
“Spoken from experience?” Hawthorne asked, raising an eyebrow.
White looked up, his eyes sharp but not unkind. “I’ve lived long enough under this damned sun to recognize witchcraft when I see it. It wears many faces — a French diplomat, the Spanish contessa, the English wife who smiles as though she’s seen right through you.”
Hawthorne laughed softly, then sighed, swirling his glass. “And what do you make of this Contessa, then?”
White poured again, the motion slow, deliberate. “I make her trouble. Spain sends her here, and suddenly our merchants gossip, our officers preen, and Reverend Task bellows about the Whore of Babylon from his pulpit.”
“The Reverend would find sin in a loaf of bread,” Hawthorne said with a faint grin. “Especially if it weren’t his to bless.”
White allowed a chuckle. “Perhaps. But even he isn’t wrong to feel the unease. She’s no ordinary creature. Men look at her and forget themselves. Even the Governor…”
Hawthorne leaned forward, a glimmer of mischief. “Even you, Colonel?”
White’s eyes darkened. “I remember my oath — to the Crown, to order. But yes,” he admitted after a pause, “I feel it too. Like a heat you can’t name.”
Silence settled again — thick as molasses. Outside, a wave broke against the shore. Somewhere in the fort, a sentry’s call echoed faintly, then was lost to the night.
Hawthorne finally spoke, his tone softer. “Do you think Port Dominion’s ready for her?”
White smirked without humor. “Port Dominion’s never been ready for anything that’s happened to it. We weren’t ready for war, or famine, or rebellion — and we’re sure as hell not ready for a woman like her. But she’s here now, and we’ll have to live with what that means. Perhaps she has been sent here to stir up the small population of Catholics that have stayed here since our flag was raised on this island, and the Lord Governor graciously allowed them to stay and pray in their church, as long as they don't cause any trouble." He sipped from his glass before continuing. "And so far, they really haven't been any trouble at all. Other than the occasional bout of hard drinking, or the bickering housewife..."
Hawthorne nodded as he drained the last of his glass, setting it down with a quiet click. “And Lady Eleanor?”
White’s eyes drifted toward the shuttered window, where the candlelight trembled faintly against the glass. “Lady Eleanor,” he said after a moment, “is a game unto herself. Whether she plays beside her husband or against him, I cannot say. But she plays beautifully.”
Hawthorne whistled low. “God help the man who underestimates her.”
“God help us all,” White murmured, “if she and the Contessa ever find common cause.”
They shared a brief, humorless laugh — not from mirth, but from the bone-deep understanding that men like them laughed only to ward off dread.
When the laughter died, White stood. His chair groaned as he moved to the window, gazing out toward the dark expanse of the harbor. A few ship lanterns swung gently on the tide — golden eyes in the blackness.
“The war in Europe bleeds us,” he said quietly. “Men, coin, spirit. The Queen battles the French in Flanders and the Spanish in their lands, and yet their ships still find our shores. Their agents slip through the fog, their whispers reach even this godforsaken island.”
Hawthorne rose too, standing at his shoulder. “Then perhaps,” he said softly, “the Contessa’s arrival is no accident at all.”
White turned halfway, the lamplight carving one side of his face in gold, the other in shadow. “No, Major,” he said. “Nothing ever is.”
They stood together in the half-light — two weary soldiers in a colony far from home, staring out at a sea that had never cared for the ambitions of men.
Outside, the tide kept its endless rhythm. Inside, the last of the wine sat untouched, and the candlelight trembled as if uncertain whether to hold or fade.
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