· David Spitz - Author ·

♦1851♦

            Neither the warm spirit of friendship nor the warming friendship of spirits could fully suppress the unnerving presence of Mr. Thomas Witan, though both had been attempted in excess. Even on that momentous night, December 31, 1851, when these two forces, binding and blinding in power, ignited under the masking billows of perfumed smoke, Mr. Witan remained willfully daunting.

            Mr. Edward Gage, fine gentlemen and rising engineer, found himself especially perturbed that evening. Having just reached his peak in English society, Gage cared little for the New Year’s celebration, as he firmly believed that anything new would be significantly less comfortable. In truth, the young engineer had only agreed to meet Witan to discuss the business of constructing a railroad in India, and having arrived at the man’s home to find that no other guests had yet to turn up, he had resigned quietly to his chair and brandy with little hope of an enjoyable evening.

            Witan shifted uneasily in his seat and breathed deeply from his smoldering cigar, the thick, burning smoke seeping slowly into his blood. His eyes flickered with the glowing flame and danced savagely about the room, searing into Gage’s finely tailored suit.

            “I’ve heard great things of Witan Shipping,” the engineer offered, shuffling awkwardly within his chair. “Such a long history of success—it’s rare for company to survive through so many years. Quite an accomplishment, sir, especially with the rise of Consolidated Peerage.”

            “Conpeer is of no concern to me,” Witan snapped, swigging wildly from his glass. His ruddy, olive skin shone dark beneath the thick, rank smoke that slithered from smoldering tip of his cigar.

            Gage slumped back into the depths of his chair and sighed. A thin layer of sweat had formed atop his neck and glowed gently in the lamplight.

            “Indeed,” the engineer declared, “business is such dull conversation.” Gage peered about the empty room, tugging at the suit caught tightly around his chest. “For a party no less.”

            Witan smiled warmly, wild eyes tamed behind his rigid collar and fine silk shirt.

            “You must forgive me, Mr. Gage. I am not much of a conversationalist.”

            Gage attempted to chuckle, but failing, simply drank heavily from his brandy. His tongue was lithe, too slick for reason or tact to restrain.

            “Bah, nothing wrong with that,” he replied, words slipping more easily from his spirited lips. “Men are naturally silent, Mr. Witan—stoic, strong. If it’s a talker you want, well, that’s a woman’s…” Gage jerked himself from drunkenness at once. “Well, give me peace and quiet any day.”

            Witan smiled, but not so warmly, and Gage squirmed again within his chair.

            “A…uh…a beautiful home you have here,” the engineer stuttered, eying the floorboards. “And the furnishings are brilliant.” Avoiding Witan’s eyes, Gage glanced quickly around the room. “Those ships there,” he muttered, raising his arm to the opposite wall, “the family’s, I surmise.”

            Witan nodded curtly, glaring at the shimmering paintings hung upon the wall beside him. He gestured to the nearest.

            “The Endeavor…my great-grandfather’s vessel.” Frowning, he gulped quickly from his glass and struggled with the rigid collar caught tight about his throat. “Source of riches…and…”

            “It’s marred,” Gage interrupted. The young engineer reached to adjust his spectacles but, having forgotten his drink, managed only to wet his nose. “The…the…oh…the mas’ there,” he pointed with the precision of a drunkard, his harsh, slurred words cutting through the masking smoke. “It’s…it’s different somehow. There are…things sprouting off the main mast.” His glass fell suddenly from his hand and chipped upon the hard wood floor. Smiling coyly, Gage turned to his host. “The artist’s slip perhaps?”

            A smooth chunk of ice slid from the overturned glass and came to rest before Witan’s smoldering gaze. It melted promptly.

            “If only,” he muttered, eyes fixed upon the gleaming puddle.

            Mr. Gage leaned closer to the painting, abandoning his shattered glass to the floor.

            “Then the ship herself bore the flaw?”

            Witan’s eyes shot up at once and met the engineer’s stare, a Hell-born fire blazing in his vicious orbs.

            “A ship of my line flawed!” Witan leaped from his chair with furious agility and struck the Endeavor with sudden passion. The painting tore and the frame rattled viciously against the wall as Gage jumped back, eyes wide behind his crooked spectacles. “I’d rather myself be stricken deaf then hear my family’s vessels slandered unsound.”

            “I…I didn’t…”

            The engineer crept timidly behind his chair, pocket watch rattling within his coat. His brandy-stained cheeks had blanched bone white, the ruddy blush of drunken friendship all but forgotten as he peered meekly into Witan’s wild eyes, probing daggers no longer hidden by the gentlemen’s smoke.

            And then, as suddenly as he had erupted, Witan smiled warmly and relaxed his stare upon the trembling Mr. Gage. Removing his fist from the tattered canvas and nodding politely, Witan casually returned to his chair and resumed puffing at his cigar, face hidden once more behind the wafting smoke. The ruined Endeavor alone remained evidence of the entire incident.

            “I can assure you,” Witan began, sipping calmly from his glass, “There has never been, nor will there ever be a ship of the Witan family constructed poorly. Of this alone I am certain.” He glanced quickly at the tattered canvas and breathed hard from his cigar, concealed eyes shimmering with self-restrained tears. The smoke appeared painful to his throat, as the words to his tongue. “Our vessels are not marred upon their launch. Any damage they endure—any break upon the hull, tear upon the sail, crack upon the mast—all is due to captain’s error.”

            Gage gazed nervously around the room, jittery eyes shifting between the shards of glass and the tattered canvas. He drank heavily from his brandy before daring a look at Witan’s friendly smile, and though his tongue squirmed lithely in his mouth, the words did not slip easily from his lips.

            “Then… then the Endeavor… met with some misfortune?”

            Witan turned suddenly and stared at the ruined painting, chuckling softly as his reddened lips twisted into a spirit-crazed grin. Beads of sweat rolled from his smog-bathed face and pooled upon his shirt, staining the white silk with streaks of gray.

            “Does misfortune attend service on Sundays?”

            Gage squirmed within his seat, brow cocked and eyes worried.

            “Sir?”

            “Does misfortune stroll in the park on Monday mornings? Drink tea with her friends on Tuesdays? Attend chorus practice on Wednesday evenings? Does she visit her sick grandmother every Thursday before supper? Knit sweaters for the family on Fridays? Visit the lake every third Saturday?”

            Mr. Gage could only stare blankly, pale face motionless behind smoke and wonder, for Witan’s fierce eyes burned alive once more in fury and lunacy.

            “How can a man meet with misfortune if she keeps no schedule?”

            Gage opened his mouth slowly, countenance frozen in a bewildered gawk.

            “I…what I meant…”

            “No man seeks out misfortune!” Witan swigged violently from his glass, horrific grin drenched in brandy and madness. “What sane captain sails for the tempest when calm waters roll by so near? No, misfortune seeks us out, forces its will onto us, springs from the waters of life, vengeful and furious, and consumes our riches, our lives!”

            Gage gulped from his drink as Witan once more rose to his full, daunting stature.

            “But you…you mentioned captain’s error.”

            Witan sank slowly back into his chair and drew deeply from his cigar, grasping out with tired lungs for something real, something tangible in the thick, stagnant air, yet he found naught but ash and smoke. Witan turned and looked sadly at the tattered painting which clung crookedly to the wall beside him, then closed his sorry eyes and sighed.

            “The Endeavor’s main mast was splintered rounding The Cape.” The engineer’s eyes sparked with interest as Witan sipped hesitantly from his glass. “It was my great grandfather’s first expedition with her…a trading mission on which the entire Witan fortune depended.” Witan paused and stared once more at the ragged painting. “She was raped on her maiden voyage… raped by an ocean-brewed fiend. For six days and nights she struggled against his will—clawed, bit, spat, tore, cursed, matched his atrocities with grit and resolve of equal ferocity. But on the dawn of the seventh day, as God lay slumbering above, she lost all strength and succumbed to his twisted pleasure.” Witan swigged from his brandy and breathed in the heavy, perfumed smoke, spirits of passion and deception seeping into his veins and drowning his wild heart with crushing smog. “The following morning, she crawled her way to land, shamed and crippled…but in her womb lay safe the seed of my wealth.”

            Gage glanced quickly about the luxurious room, blazing eyes darting between lavish furniture and royal trim. The soft glow of lamplight illuminated all in flickering radiance, eerie and wondrous, as Witan’s black shadow lay stark upon the floor.

            “Then the Endeavor’s cargo was saved from the storm,” the engineer declared, voice cracking with a bubbling hatred. Witan nodded grimly as Gage again drank from his speech-provoking glass, burning face alive, awake, sobered of alcohol yet drunk on boiling passion. “But surely not saved from the beasts of the Continent!”

            “The Endeavor’s crew held courage enough for tempest. No four-legged fiend could threaten her.”

            “None indeed that run, slither, or pounce…” Gage staggered across the room and stroked the tattered Endeavor with his shaking hand. “The vicious lions the crew could match with simple fire, poisonous snakes can easily be avoided, and fever…” His eyes blazed behind his spectacles as his reddened lips trembled with each uttered word. “Fever is nothing. But I’ll tell you what the true danger is.” Gage whipped about suddenly and jabbed at Witan’s chest with his sweat-drenched fingers. “It is those merciless demons which lurk in huts and fish in rivers…Be careful and trust not your eyes, for they are as we are but for the black of their skin and the red of their fangs. If the cruel blue sea tainted your ancestor’s virgin, then the fiends of the jungle made her their whore!”

            “Enough!” Witan roared, bolting to his feet and matching the engineer’s raging stare with his own blazing eyes. Gage remained untamed, face dripping with blinding sweat, hair matted raggedly atop his head, and mouth contorted into a vicious snarl.

            “Have you ever been to Africa, Mr. Witan? Have you ever once traversed the White Man’s Graveyard?” He spat the words between his lips, abandoning reason for brandy and passion. “I have… and it was not the lions which I feared.”

            “Sit down, Mr. Gage!”

            “I was once a guest at their village…” The engineer hesitated and, turning away from Witan’s burning stare, sank slowly back into his seat. He reached for his brandy. “I was surveying for the iron mines a few years past…There…there was an incident.” His voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over with cooling sweat. “A storm…a flood…sudden and fierce...it consumed everything…left us to die on that horrid land…” He turned once more to Witan. “…but they came for me…revived me…”

            “Then they should be praised,” Witan interrupted.

            Gage shook his head and rubbed his face quickly with his sleeve.

            “They found others…warriors of rival tribes too weak from exposure to cast themselves into the water…they dragged them to where there was no water, a barren land of ash…no tree, no vine…only fire and wailing. They butchered them, Mr. Witan—cut their throats, tasted their blood, and spilled the rest upon the dust. So forgive my prejudice. Not soon do I forget when souls are chained forever in prisons of ash, and black-skinned demons lick clean their tainted fangs.”

            Witan sighed deeply, fire quenched within his eyes, and reached for the tattered painting. His hand stopped suddenly, mere inches from the canvas, as if the very paint repulsed his skin. But then, with great effort, Witan willed his trembling palm forward and stroked the Endeavor upon the mast.

            “She was not constructed by my great grandfather. He bought her from Americans… traders…slave traders.” Witan closed his eyes, voice hoarse with smoke and ash. “He wagered everything on her…chanced all his worth on this ship, this pure maiden of the sea who had raped that continent until it bled. Look again upon her disfigured mast. It is a tree, torn from its roots to heal what the tempest had wrought. Even then, after she had taken so many souls, her hunger for life remained unquenched. My wealth has sprung from death.” Witan’s fiery eyes blazed fiercely at the silenced engineer. “Your demons were chained by iron. I am chained by blood.” He overturned his glass and stamped out his cigar. “You’re right, Mr. Gage. But for the black of their skin and the red of their fangs, they are as we are.”

            “Why did Eve do it?”

            Captain Henry Edward Witan leaned out over the Endeavor’s railing, his cold, shaking hands clamped tightly about the ship’s damp wood, and gazed out upon the African soil. Small caps of white foam lapped against the bay, gentle and smooth beneath the blazing sun as the Endeavor rocked slowly within the waves. Its immense, battered structure cracked and groaned, torn between anchor and sea.

            “The serpent spoke the truth.”

            Sakash placed his hand upon Witan’s shoulder and his long, boney fingers slid atop the captain’s tattered shirt. Witan shivered under the burning sun.

            “You believe so?” the captain questioned, fixing his tired, salt-blurred gaze upon the distant jungles. Witan’s nails dug slowly into the wood.

            “I need not believe,” Sakash answered. His dark, Indian skin was blotched with white, peeling and shedding from the pounding wind of salt and sea. He stood beside Witan, hand still clasped about his shoulder, and leaned up against the railing as well. The ragged shards of his fine silk shirt scraped against the baking wood. “Knowledge always trumps faith.”

            Witan turned away from the railing and stared out across his ravaged ship. Countless gaps riddled the Endeavor’s deck as shards of broken wood lay between the cracks and fissures. The once proud sails slumped lifelessly upon the deck, tattered and knotted, stained gray by the tempest and sun. The main mast was nothing but a wretched stump, fractured and worthless. Witan sighed and shook Sakash’s hand from his shoulder.

            “Any other tree…”

            He turned away and spat over the railing into the calm, clear sea. The water shimmered brilliantly atop the surface, set ablaze by the African sun which baked the muggy air and left it thick in Witan’s mouth. His tongue lay parched like wild cotton, dry and rough, as he stared into the beating sun, blood-stained eyes clinging to their precious tears. Sakash grumbled quietly, muttering in Hindi as he joined the captain once more beside the rail. Together, they looked out beyond the fiery water into the dense, dark jungles of the Continent.

            “If only the fiend’s lust had remained unquenched,” Witan muttered, eyes low beneath his darkened brow.

            Sakash chuckled coldly.

            “You prefer the storm to such peace?” he demanded, tugging at the remnants of his sweat-drenched shirt. The fine Indian cloth clung stubbornly to his tired chest. “Have you already forgotten his wrath—the pain borne, the damage wrought, the men lost!”

            Witan’s salty lids clamped shut and his vision faded into a dull sea of blood.

            “I have not forgotten.”

            “Then perhaps you owe your God some thanks,” Sakash hissed, his lithe tongue mere inches from the captain’s ear. “His mercy does not come cheap.”

            Witan’s eyes opened at once as he turned and stared into Sakash’s dark face.

            “God has no mercy left.” Witan turned away and gazed once more into the sea’s rolling waves. “None for me, at least.”

            Sakash chuckled again, a sharp wheeze caught in his burning throat, as he reached out and took hold his captain’s wrist.

            “Then thank Shiva for what he has spared us.”

            Witan wrestled his arm away from Sakash’s grasp and pounded his fist against the Endeavor’s rail. The wood cracked loudly as a glimmering cloud of splinters floated gently into the rolling waters below.

            “And what has your god spared us?” Witan roared, smashing his hand once more against the brittle, sun-baked wood. “A bloodied crew, tattered sails, a mast ripped from its deck—open your eyes, Sakash! Here is where we will die.”

            Sakash shook his head, dark curly locks matted against his scalp with sweat and dried blood.

            “No, Henry,” he whispered, leaning in close to the captain so that Witan could feel the warmth of his breath upon his face. “He has spared our wealth.”

            Witan’s lips twisted into a foul smirk, dark and festering beneath the grime of the sea. His eyes flashed like the blazing waters.

            “Our wealth lies in India,” he countered, “not here in this hell.”

            A perverted grin spread slowly across Sakash’s darkened face as he inched ever closer to his captain.

            “Tell me again, my friend, how many French muskets we purchased in Charleston.”

            Witan turned again to the gleaming sun, closed eyes bathed in a shower of pulsing red.

            “One thousand stand of arms, Charleville Model 1766. Six thousand buff-colored flints. Thirty-six thousand cartridges.”

            Sakash sighed deeply, breath caught within his bursting chest. His fingers, crusted with salt and grime, snaked feverishly across Witan’s back, clawing and tearing at the captain’s ragged shirt.

            “And how much, dear friend…” the words stuttered from his shaking tongue, “…how much has Nizam ul-Mulk promised us? How much does the kind governor offer to equip his troops? How much are we to gain?”

            Witan turned away and shook the man’s boney arm from his back, but Sakash caught his wrist, fingers clenched tight around his captain’s skin.

            “Tell me!”

            “Four thousand pounds—a life’s wages for every hand.”

            Sakash chuckled once more, dark lips smeared across his face as the croaking laughter echoed through his slim, lanky frame.

            “Had your Satan our cargo, no man’s God could keep him from market.”

            Witan turned away and again ran his tired eyes along his ship. He could smell the pungent mold growing from the pile of sails, wafting in the salty breeze, stinging his eyes and burning in his nostrils. He could hear the Endeavor’s moaning—the creaking of the remaining mast in the whipping breeze, the whining of the deck beneath the crew’s heavy boots, and the wails of agony pouring forth from the surgeon’s quarters. And there, amidst it all, stood the wretched stump, splintered and gnarled, broken and shamed.

            “Had God our wounds, not even He could sail to India.”

            Sakash stretched out his neck, dark skin peeling white beneath the sun, and spoke into Witan’s ear.

            “When Eve ate of the fruit, she saw her own nakedness. The serpent didn’t take her clothes, dear friend. It gave her vision…four thousand pounds and you will be many a man’s God.”

            Witan sighed, shoulders slumped and weary, eyes cast down upon the lapping waters of the ocean.

            “How?”

            “We will need a new mast,” Sakash whispered. “Order the crew to ready the boats. We will row up river and set ashore. We will select a tree from the jungle, transport it back to the Endeavor, fit it to the hull, and be on our way in naught but a few days.”

            Witan turned and glanced upon the ruined stump, then stared out into the jungles of Africa. Ten feet beneath his boots rested enough military might to safeguard an entire principality. Over five thousand sea miles to the east, in the vaults of Nizam ul-Mulk, sat four thousand pounds profit.

            “You know why Eve did it?”

            “I do,” answered Witan. “The damn snake was right.”

The Endeavor’s Compass is in stock and ships the next business day.