I thought, with great optimisim, that I'd have Kin's Destiny up on Amazon by the first week of January. However, the urge not merely to check and re-check, but to tweak several bits, was too strong to ignore.
I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's proof that I grown up a bit beyond that childlike desire to immediately shout, "Look at this! Look what I've done!"
Perhaps it's because I know, having sold copies of Book 1, that Book 2 had better be up to scratch. People shelling out their cash deserve that, at least.
January, it had better be before the end of January!
Meanwhile, as I'm formatting my way into a frenzy so the file uploads without a hitch and translates into a easy-on-the-eye ebook, here's Chapter 2.
Béatrice ran her
fingers over the sealed bamboo tubes where the manuscripts lay, as if her
fingertips could summon the words from their hiding place. Yet, there was no
need. She had painstakingly scratched onto the parchment every word of the
Pirate Queen’s story so that each letter was similarly etched upon her memory.
Her fingers were still stiff from the spasms of agony she had suffered as she’d
completed the relentless task. If all were lost or destroyed, she could,
feasibly, rewrite the entire document. Apart from the maps. That was a
different matter. She had only seen the maps while Kagerou had examined the
manuscripts for a final time before secreting them in their bamboo keepers.
They were maps, Béatrice assumed, of the oceans that lay between Béatrice and her
quarry. Béatrice had watched as Kagerou had set them aside, leaving one map
spread out on the table. Béatrice’s eyes strained to read it, a single island,
it seemed, without numbers or latitudes. There were only columns of tiny,
spidery notes.
“This chart will
be your reward for finding my daughter,” Kagerou said, suddenly turning her
gaze upon Béatrice who still craned her neck to get a better view and blushed
at her curiosity being discovered.
“You know to what
they lead. She may wish to take her share ... but I very much doubt it.”
Béatrice saw the heaviness of grief flicker across Kagerou’s features before
she busied herself, gathering the papers including the single mysterious map,
rolling them into two tight tubes. She barked something into the darkness and a
man appeared with a small box containing a block of sealing wax. The melting
wax dropped slowly, like clotting blood,
onto the ends of the bamboo vessels and so sealed their lids to keep out salt
air, moisture and prying eyes.
“Do not let these
out of your sight. I put these in your charge, over and above anything -– or
anyone,” ordered Kagerou.
Béatrice’s
experiences of life at sea so far could hardly be said to be encouraging.
Losing her father to illness at the mission in Canton had been woeful enough
before facing the suffocating custody of her aunt and uncle until a suitable
husband could be found in France. Yet before they had left the South China Sea
more trouble had followed, and as slight as her affection for her relatives had
been, she nevertheless grieved their passing -– her uncle killed at the hands
of mutineers, her aunt dying in the captivity of Chinese Ladrones.
Now aboard a ship
sailing west under the auspices of the very same pirate who had been
instrumental in the death of her aunt, Béatrice woke each morning to remind
herself that this was no dream. She was no longer a child hanging onto her
father’s words, waiting to be told what to do. She now dictated her own future.
Occasionally the realisation of this would strike her with fear, other times
she felt that she was truly blessed. But never a day went by when she didn’t
think how her father would have enjoyed sharing this adventure.
Béatrice was
cautious. Allowing herself to enjoy the unaccustomed pleasure of such freedom, still
felt risky. Though any one of the crew would do her bidding, still she feared
to trust them and found herself deferring to Cheng. By nature Béatrice was
inclined to appreciate the mental calculations and analysis that a voyage
required, and to satisfy this thirst for knowledge, she thrust herself into
Cheng’s realm all the more. To her delight he bore her endless questioning in
good humour. She occasionally suspected, as she occasionally caught his
lingering gaze in the tail of her eye, that he might even have a lurking
affection for her.
Though she did not
participate in the tasks and exertions on board ship, she nevertheless paid
close attention to everything that went on, where every man stationed himself,
which operations were necessary to achieve movement in the various conditions
of wind and tide that they met. Standing at the helm beside Cheng, anticipating
what orders he might call out to the crew, she gradually began to feel mistress
of the vessel.
By night, with a
sense of privacy lent by the cloaking darkness, she felt more at liberty, and
she took to lying on the quarterdeck to observe the stars, as she had on her
first voyage out to China with her father. Béatrice lay with her back to deck
and let the riot of sparkling constellations dazzle her, savouring the
excitement she kept bridled during daylight hours. She also indulged in silent
conversations with her father, and as often as she reminded herself that these
were imaginary, she was equally certain she could hear his voice between the soughing
wind and the snapping sails.
But no sooner had
she began to feel more at ease than Béatrice felt her joy begin to tarnish.
From the outset, Béatrice had been a little in awe of Cheng, a little
distracted by his arrogant swagger and handsome face. And as she had given -–
or rather offered -– her orders and asked for his advice he had always been as
solicitous, respectful and charming to her, as he was curt and impatient with
his crew. Yet, with several dozen leagues between their vessel and his former
commander, Kagerou, both his manners and his presence began to decline.
One afternoon, she
enquired as to his whereabouts and was informed that he was in a meeting. She
was not invited to join it. To her annoyance, and growing anxiety, it was
several days after this before she finally met him face to face. When she did
trot over to him and ask what business was keeping him so engaged he looked
back at her boldly with a snappish retort. Did she not regard him sufficiently
competent to plot a course for the voyage without being constantly at her beck
and call?
Béatrice began to
wake each morning feeling sick with worry, and thus she began to fret that she
was coming down with a sickness. This in turn aggravated her queasy stomach.
She quit her nighttime vigils of the planets and took to her bed, falling into
restless slumber which unsettled her with fervid visions of the risen dead
crewing her ship, and Cheng sailing her not to the Indies, but to hell. When at
last one night brought a gentler dream, her eyes moistened with tears of relief
as she felt her father’s gentle hand take hers, and she saw his face animated,
anxious as he pointed to something far away. Look as she might, she could not
find what he wished her to see, and she woke with a jolt, her face wet.
As her mind
scrambled to make sense of her dream the brooding self-pity that she had clung
to was swept away by a chilling certainty that made her shiver. Like a rap on
the head, she suddenly knew what she had been too complacent to realise before.
But she had to check and make sure. Feeling small and vulnerable she pulled on
her clothes, wrapped a large kerchief over her head, concealing most of her
face, and silently stole from her berth onto the deck. The celestial theatre of
light and its mistress, the moon, were shrouded in wreathes of smoky cloud, but
Béatrice could still see enough to confirm her fears. For her father had taught
her the rudiments of celestial navigation, and as she had suspected, the ship
was not following the course she had plotted with Cheng at all.
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