Driving right down into the crowd, it only stopped where packed dirt became the pebbled foreshore. Two carriage men leaped down from their seats with a spring. They opened the carriage door as for some lord in the high street, and that was when James stepped out onto the riverbank.
The air changed, lifting like the breeze in a long-ago garden.
It’s you, Will thought, as though they knew each other.
Palaces fallen to ruin, grass grown over the fields where armies fought, a world with all its wonders gone, except for fragments, glimmers that left you breathless.
He was beautiful. A golden beauty, he might have been carved from fine marble by some master, but there was no one in the world who looked like this.
A shiver of fear rippled across Simon’s men – a strange reaction to James’s young, lovely face. His youth itself was a small shock: James was a boy of about seventeen, Will’s own age.
Will found himself moving closer, ignoring the reaction of Justice behind him, until he was right at the edge of the wet crate. Will heard one of the sailors say, ‘It’s him. Simon’s Prize.’ Another answered, ‘For your life, don’t let him hear you call him that.’ The fear among the crowd winched tighter.
James strolled forward.
All activity had ceased with James’s arrival. The men who had gathered around the carriage fell back, opening up a path for him. Will recognised one or two of them from the hold of the Sealgair, and realised with new fear of his own that there were no lingering bystanders. Those few who remained were Simon’s men down to the last. There were brands under those shirtsleeves.
The crunch of James’s boots on the pebbles of the foreshore was loud.
The riverbank was illuminated near the carriage by a row of torches that flamed on poles and lanterns that men held aloft, their faces flickering. The river behind them was black, with a choppy glinting path of moonlight on its surface from the high three-quarter moon above; the sky was clear. The occasional sound was distant: a muted splash, the far-off ring of a bell.
James’s cool blue eyes surveyed the damaged chaos of the bank. His elegant silhouette embodied the fashion of the times: his golden hair brushed in a fashionable part, his jacket with its taut waist, the fine fabric of his trousers with their glove-like fit, his long shiny boots.
‘Mr St Clair,’ Captain Maxwell of the wrecked ship greeted him, bowing deferentially, even nervously, though James was likely more than thirty years his junior. ‘As you can see, we’ve dredged almost all the cargo. Some of the larger pieces can be salvaged. And of course the—’
‘You lost the boy,’ James said.
In the pin-drop silence, his voice carried. Will felt his stomach flip at the confirmation that they cared more about him than about the ship or its cargo.
‘Who was in charge?’
James’s mild question was met with silence from the men. The only movement was the lapping of the water on the foreshore, a soft in-and-out, like the waves of the sea.
‘No, Tom, you don’t have to—’ said a voice, and Tom was ignoring it, pushing past the men in the crowd to step out and stand in front of James.
‘I was,’ said Tom.
Violet’s brother. Will hadn’t seen him since the attack, Violet dragging him unconscious out of the hold. Tom looked recovered, and even wore a new set of clothes, though his good brown waistcoat did not match James’s exquisite tailoring and his sleeves were pushed up roughly, as if he’d been doing the kind of physical labour that was beneath his station. In front of the men, Tom dropped to one knee, so that James was looking down at him. James’s eyes passed over him, a long, unhurried look.
‘Bad kitty,’ said James. His voice was not quite pleasant.
Humiliated red flooded Tom’s face.
‘I accept any punishment Simon wants to give me.’
‘You let Stewards board the ship,’ said James. ‘You let them kill your men. And now the one thing Simon wants is in Steward hands.’
Another voice cut across the riverbank. Will saw Tom’s father stepping forward. ‘The boy’s only been missing a few hours. He can’t have gone far. And as for the attack – if it had just been Stewards, Tom could have fought them off. It was the boy who – you saw what he did to the ship. We weren’t warned. We had no idea that the boy was – that he could—’
‘Your son’s best quality,’ said James, ‘is that he doesn’t make excuses.’
Tom’s father closed his mouth with a snap.
On one knee, Tom looked up, his hands fists, his face determined as he made his pledge.