She found her voice this time. “Of course not. Adam, go. Our game was nearly finished, and it is not as important as the captain’s time.”
The captain smiled at her a second time, with nearly as great an effect. “You honor me.” He took her hand in his and, bowing low above it, touched it to his lips, then as he straightened said, “I’ll try to see he’s not debauched. We are a fairly sober crowd, but we’ve been known to keep our conversations going into the next morning, so if I don’t have him back by midnight, don’t be too alarmed.”
She promised not to be. “I trust you’ll take good care of him.”
Why she would believe that, having only met the man, I wasn’t sure, but Captain Gordon had the sort of presence that persuaded people he was someone they could trust.
He looked at me with eyes that told me little, and said, “Get your hat.”
*
Steell’s tavern was crowded, and Gordon attracted attention. So many men turned from their talking to greet him or shake his hand that it took us some few minutes to press our way through to the back, where Pat Steell himself looked up with pleasure from drying a jug. “Why, Captain Gordon! It did take ye long enough to come this little distance up the road from Leith. How many days now since the Royal William came to anchor?”
“I arrived on Monday, but the wind made it impossible to come to shore,” said Gordon, leaning over to make himself heard above the noise of nearby conversation. “And my ship’s not named the Royal William any longer, Pat, not since the Union, just as I’m no longer commodore of our Scots navy, for we have no navy anymore. Our ships are now joined with the English into one great British navy, and the English did already have a Royal William, so my own ship is renamed the Edinburgh, and flies a Union Jack in place of our old Scottish flag.” His face showed his opinion of the change.
“Aye, well,” said Steell, “’tis just a name.”
“’Tis just our independence,” Gordon countered, but he stopped short of an argument. Instead he drew a paper from the pocket of his coat and passed it to the tavern owner. “Can you post this up for me? I’m having placards printed but they’ll not be ready till tomorrow morning, and there may be men in here tonight who take an interest.”
I could see it was a notice, lettered in a neat hand, that invited sailors to come serve Her Majesty at Leith aboard the Edinburgh.
Steell said, “Then it’s true? I heard this afternoon ye had some trouble, but I swore I’d not believe it. Never Captain Gordon’s men, that’s what I said—they’d never mutiny.”
Gordon grinned. “I thank you for your confidence, but aye, not too long after I did come ashore today, one hundred of my men escaped the ship in boats and are run off. It will take time to round them up, if we can even find them. In the meantime, we can search for men to take their place.”
Steell took the paper, promising to post it up straightaway, and asked the captain, “Will ye take a room tonight?”
“Aye. Thank you. And, if you please, some supper for the sergeant and myself.”
The room, a floor above and at the far end of the house, was vastly quieter. The noise of talk was muted to a constant, raucous murmuring that rose and fell beneath our feet.
Steell knew his clientele. The room was made for men. The walls were lined with dark wood panels, warmly lit by plain brass candle sconces. At the window, simple draperies of striped fabric matched the hangings on the tester bed that dominated the back wall, and by the modest hearth two elbow chairs faced one another over a square table, ready for a meal or conversation or, in our case, both.
The supper sent up to us was a good and simple one—cold chicken and a dish of peas, with bread and butter and a quart of wine to share.
I studied Gordon while I poured my wine. “A shame about your sailors and the mutiny.”
“Aye. Although they’re not entirely to blame. They somehow got it in their heads that we’d be bound for the West Indies next, and that did frighten them.”
“I wonder who began that rumor?”
“I cannot imagine.” He said it with such innocence I knew it had been him.
I told him, “Now you’ll have to spend a week or longer rounding those men up again, and hiring new ones.”
“Definitely longer than a week. I’d be surprised if we were heading north before the middle of the month.”
“And while you wait, our eastern coast sits unprotected,” I said, “at the very moment young King James and his French allies are reportedly preparing their invasion force.”