The Holy Tree
By
Corcoran
Chapter 1
Captain Sir Edward Pellew held the note in hands that shook slightly and the good quality cream coloured parchment trembled with them. So many years spent alone. As alone as one can be commanding a warship of some four hundred souls. Even unsigned he would have known the sender. He knew that handwriting as he knew his own. Two paragraphs, signed with a 'J' rune. Who else would sign his name thus? Pellew shook his head in amazement and bit his lip. He really didn't know what to feel or to think.
His first though was one of disbelief. He was dreaming. He must be.
The disbelief was replaced by anger. Who did he think he was to walk back into his friend's life after fifteen years silence?
The anger drained away as quickly as it had risen. It was entirely likely that his friend had been on a mission so dangerous as to make any contact impossible. In fact it was more than likely.
What was not likely was that he'd been forgotten. Jack had a long memory and they had been close, far closer than Captain and First Lieutenant usually were. He remembered that happy time, sitting up late into the night reading aloud to one another or listening to Jack sing in a clear and beautiful tenor voice. He often wrote his own songs, strange, exotic, beautiful creations. He'd accompanied himself on his guitar with boyish enthusiasm. He allowed himself to visualise one of those interludes, Jack's face, slightly reddened with sunburn, his blonde hair falling loose to his shoulders as he crooned to the guitar resting on his knee. What was he singing? Pellew tried to remember the words and was surprised to find that they returned to him as if he had heard them only yesterday:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy it's holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of it's fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of it's hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of it's leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.*
Jack had looked up quickly and caught him watching, Pellew's breath catching at the beauty of the song. He'd smiled, his dark blue eyes full of warmth and...trust?
Had it really been a spell? It was impossible to tell for certain, not being a wizard himself. He suspected so, the memory clear as it was. A strong feeling of quiet calmness, of green, growing things, of Jack's scent, like newly mown hay stole over him. Suddenly he realised. The song had been a gift. Jack had written the song on the instant and cast the spell into the words to give him comfort when alone. He'd left him a gift that Pellew had been too distressed to use. The memory, until now, had been too painful. Taunting him. He really had been silly over this whole thing. Jack had returned as his final letter had promised he would. He'd said little else. Military Intelligence had sent him on a mission and he had to go alone. The letter had been full of regret and the promise to return when he could. That had been the last Edward Pellew had seen of Jack Hargreaves for fifteen years. Now he'd returned home.
Pellew and his old friend sat one on either side of the fireplace. They hadn't bothered to light the candles because the light from the blaze provided more than enough light for them to see one another's faces.
"I know you can't tell me where you've been but I'm so glad you're home again. I've missed you." Pellew's voice was very quiet. He wasn't comfortable making emotional admissions of that sort. He was always afraid of what the response would be. He looked up, trying to read his friend's face.
"I know because I missed you as well. If I'd had the choice I'd have stayed on board the Merlin with you at my side and we'd have hounded the French until doomsday." His eyes were dark as midnight and the firelight turned his almost-white hair ruddy. In all the years since Pellew had last seen him he hadn't aged a single day. "I couldn't tell you a word of where I'd gone or when I'd be back. I couldn't even write to you. If the letter had fallen into the wrong hand's we'd both have been walking corpses." Pellew wondered if he meant that literally. You could never be quite sure with Jack. "There were even those who could have intercepted our more...unusual modes of communication. I couldn't risk it. Better to have you hate me than put you in that kind of danger." He'd said just enough for Pellew to read between the lines. He'd been dealing with very dark, occult matters.
"I didn't hate you, Jack. I understood you well enough to realise that if you'd left like that, especially without telling me where or why, there must have been a damn good reason for it. For a time I feared you had died but then I realised that if that was so all debts would be payed and you'd have come to see me one last time."
"One last time? No, Pell, I'd have stayed, if that was what you had wanted." The pale face was tranquil but for the eyes. They burned with deep emotion and Pellew had the strangest feeling that Jack was looking not at his body but at his soul. He'd forgotten about that. He looked like one of those statues of Indian saints. The beatific, almost mask like, expression and eyes filled with, endless, burning compassion.
Jack went on "I've completely lost count of the songs, the poetry I wrote in the vain hope of comforting myself. Must have been hundreds." He smiled sadly. The mask slipped and Pellew could see his pain.
He was flabbergasted. To say this disclosure was unexpected was the understatement of the century. He blinked. He blinked again. Jack watched him, his eyes deep as a cloudless summer's night. Waiting. No expectations. He sipped his brandy and when he spoke again his voice was low and musical.
"I wasn't sure you'd be prepared to see me when I got back. I thought you might not have been able to forgive me. That was why I wrote. So you could ignore me if you chose without embarrassment. "
"Ignore you? Heaven grant me patience!" Pellew expostulated, the palms of his hands slapping against the arms of his chair. " I've waited so many years for some kind of explanation. I had to see you again, even if you couldn't give me one. Forgiveness was never an issue, I wasn't angry to begin with." He'd felt devastated, abandoned, broken, hurt to the point of numbness, but not angry. The idea that Jack might have felt the same way had never occurred to him. He'd assumed that either his friend, his Captain, hadn't felt that way or that his vast age had granted him some kind of wisdom that would allow him to put the feelings into a little mental box and ignore them. Apparently neither assumption had been correct.
Jack seemed to pick up on what was not said as well as what was. "I'm so very sorry, Pell..." He did one of those odd, socially inappropriate things that he sometimes did in response to strong emotion. The remnant manners of a time long past or perhaps merely acting as his intuition directed. He slid from his chair, knelt before Pellew and reached for his friend's hands, holding them firmly between his own. Pellew returned the clasp and felt the years rolling back. "Jack, unless you want me to start weeping into my drink, *please* stop apologising. Will it help to say that I forgive you? I do, completely and without reservation but I say it because you need to hear it, not because I feel it's necessary." Jack bowed his head and, his voice soft with emotion, he whispered "Thank you. It's far more than I deserve."
Pellew had had enough of this self-recrimination. This was nothing like his former Captain, usually so supremely confident and self-assured. He leaned forward and lifted Jack's chin with one hand and looked at him sternly. That look had made strong men quake in their boots. He followed this up with an equally stern voice.
"Sir," Jack was his superior officer, after all "you were doing your duty. Do you honestly think I would hold that against you? You can do things that most people would never even dream of. If the Admiralty, the Secret Service or even the Palace wanted something dangerous, difficult and of an occult nature doing of course they would send you. And you would go. You'd never shirk doing your duty what ever your personal feelings might be. Or mine for that matter. And that's how it should be."
"Where did that come from?" asked Jack, an arrested expression on his face "I mean that Look? You never learnt that from me!"
"No, not from you. That was a Pell original. Now, can we lay the matter to rest?"
"Six feet under, if you like!" Jack sounded far more like himself. In a single feline movement he shifted so that he was sitting at Pellew's feet, facing the fire, hugging his knees. Pellew looked down at him affectionately. God, he looked no older than Hornblower. Obviously he'd taken Pellew at his word, he'd relaxed and seemed to be communing with the fire. Scrying, perhaps. Jack seemed to have a never-ending grimoire. His friend had a spell for every occasion. Suddenly Jack turned his head so he could see the other's face.
"I might not be able to talk about my work but that doesn't mean I take no interest in yours, my friend. What have you been doing? You always were a dashing creature. I'm sure that hasn't changed. I'm constantly hearing of your courage, brilliance and your uncanny ability to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat." He teased his friend gently. "Don't tell me they are exaggerated or mistaken, I simply won't believe it!" he spoke lightly but Pellew could hear the pride in Jack's voice, pride in the man his protege had become.
Pellew let his head fall back against the wing of the chair. Where to begin. The present? The past? There was so much catching up to do. His hand dropped to Jack's shoulder. The contact focussed him.
"I have the privilege of commanding His Majesty's Ship the Indefatigable and it's a fine life. My crew are among the best to be found and I'm so attached to my young Lieutenants that I have difficulty keeping an appropriate distance. The eternal struggle of command. I know you dispensed with all of that but for those of us without your gifts it's necessary."
"Tell me about them. It sounds as if I'd like them."
"You would and I'm sure they'd like you. They're friends. Completely inseparable. I long since gave up trying. They just seem to gravitate together again. They're a formidable team. As different as two people could possibly be. Hornblower is a very serious young man and he has problems with my sense of humour. He can never tell when I'm pulling his leg. It's a bit sad, really. I exert myself to amuse him and he takes me seriously. However, he's a brilliant strategist, bold and inventive. He plays the odds and he plays to win. He's also a born leader. The men would follow him to hell and back. Kennedy is a different type altogether. He's funny, witty and sociable. He laughs at Hornblower constantly, and that balances Hornblower's incipient melancholia. I know he suffered some kind of terrible abuse on board his previous ship and he carries deep scars, which sometimes take the form of fits. I don't know the details of what happened. He never speaks of it, at least not to me. I suspect that Hornblower and some of the men of his division know but they aren't talking. I've met the man responsible and he was a damned nasty piece of work. Capable of anything. I shot him when he tried to kill Hornblower. I've never seen such malice."
He recalled Simpson and the way he cheated during his duel with Hornblower and fired early. Hornblower survived and so had the right to shoot his opponent as he stood. Simpson begged for his life and Hornblower deloped and turned away. Simpson stole a dagger from his second and tried to stab Hornblower in the back. Pellew had shot him through the heart from the top of the nearby cliff at extreme range, a truly prodigious feat.
Jack looked back at him, concerned. He could feel his intuition tugging at him. The there was a lot more to this that there appeared to be.
"Jack, you have that look on your face, as if you're reaching for some thought that hasn't had the good taste to make itself completely plain to you." Jack laughed and rested his head against Pellew's knee, very much at his ease. They seemed to have fallen into their old manner of communication. Disjointed but eloquent. It was as if they'd never been apart.
"You describe it very well. That's exactly how it feels!" Jack chuckled "There's something else going on here but I'm not sure which part of our conversation has raised the hairs on the back of my neck." The blue eyes looked a little perplexed. "Something about Hornblower playing the odds and playing to win. And something about Kennedy being wounded but resilient." he bit his bottom lip and frowned. "Luck...and suffering. Odd...the two are related."
"Is that your opinion as a wizard?" Pellew smiled down at his perplexed friend.
"My dear man, I can't give my opinion as anything else but I didn't consciously use magic to come to that conclusion. I'm following a hunch. I doubt I'll be able to tell you more until I meet them." he began to hum softly, under his breath as he often did while teasing out a knotty problem.
"I'd forgotten about your habit of singing when you're thinking."
"Was I? Oh, yes. That was one of the ones I wrote for you. I got depressed and I always write when I'm depressed." his manner was very offhand, almost absent-minded but Pellew knew him better than to take that at face value. "I'll sing it for you one day soon, if you like."
"I'm still having trouble believing this is real and not some kind of dream. No, that's not right. I feel like I'm waking up after sleeping for a very long time." Pellew finished the last of his brandy and Jack reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. "And yes, I'd love to hear it."
"Then you shall, Lieutenant Pellew!"
"Thankyou, Captain Hargreaves, Sir!" Pellew laughed.
Jack looked thoughtful. He met Pellew's gaze and smiled. "You aren't my Lieutenant now, though, are you? Not my subordinate at all. We are equals now and I like that so much better. Being away made me realise how important our friendship was and is to me. It made me realise how much I valued you because you were no longer there. Leaving was hard. Staying away, doubly so. Do you realise, Pell, that together we could pass over the world driving everything before us? We were a fine team before but a team of equals is infinitely more powerful." Jack gazed into the fire as if he had more to say but didn't quite know how to phrase it.
"I'd happily become your Lieutenant if it meant I could put to sea with you again." Pellew's voice was very quiet and absolutely sincere.
Jack looked at him, surprised "Do you mean that?" he asked "What about your rank, the Indefatigable and your remarkable Lieutenants?"
Pellew smiled down at him, tugging gently on his friend's cue until Jack's head rolled back far enough for Pellew to meet his eyes.
"My rank means nothing. It was always the work I wanted, not the rank. I must be where I can do most good and, as you so ably pointed out to me only moments ago, that place is with you. I would miss the Indefatigable at first but I'm just as well acquainted with the Merlin and I love her just as much. And as for the lads, we could take them with us..." he looked just a little sly.
"Would they want to come?" Jack looked doubtful.
"In a heartbeat!" Pellew almost laughed. "You have no idea what your reputation is among the fleet. They've been telling tales of your exploits for the last three hundred years! Nobody's sure if you actually exist but the myths still circulate. They use your name like a charm, to bring them luck! You disappear for a few years and then turn up when you're most needed. That hasn't been lost on them. You do wonders for their moral. They all know what you look like and yet when you actually walk among them they don't recognise you. The really amusing thing is that not one of them has come up with a story that's half so outrageous as the truth! Hornblower and Kennedy will want to join us out of curiosity, if nothing else."
"And what about the Admiralty? Will they permit this, do you think?"
"Why not? They may even come up with a job for us and save us finding one of our own. You outrank most of them, anyway. Besides, if you've spent the last decade and more doing what I suspect you've been doing, they owe you."
"True enough. I have to go and see the old buzzards tomorrow, would you care to accompany me?"
"Only if I can watch Hood's face when you stride purposefully onto his axminster! He knows I never really forgave him for sending you away." Pellew finished his third glass of brandy and Jack, of course, refilled it.
"I'm on the high road to getting plastered here, you reprobate! What would Hood say to that, I wonder? He was always warning me about you, you know. Seemed to think you were a bad influence."
"What? Did he think I'd lead you into temptation? What temptation, exactly?" Jack asked inquisitively.
"I'm not absolutely certain but he kept waffling on about impressionable young Lieutenants and how the stories about you were all exaggerated." Pellew shrugged and looked innocent.
Jack laughed. "You, Sir, are wriggling. That innocent look doesn't deceive me for one moment! He was afraid he'd give you ideas and that was why he way so vague. I protest! I was slandered!"
" No, my friend. I didn't let him. I'm afraid I nailed my colours to the mast." Pellew looked down and swirled the brandy in his glass, abandoning subterfuge." I said that if only one in ten of the stories were true I knew where I wanted to be."
It was Jack's turn to be flabbergasted. He looked up at his friend, wide eyed with surprise.
"You really told him that? I must say, that was exceptionally brave of you. For a twenty five year old Lieutenant to take on the Chief Buzzard must have taken great courage...I'm impressed and touched that you would have done such a thing on my behalf."
" I was twenty two, Jack." Pellew smiled. "He was surprised. Nobody could have spoken to him like that for years. When got over his attack of apoplexy he actually commended me for my honesty and my loyalty to my commanding officer. I think he gave up on me after that."
Jack looked thoughtful. "I wonder which of my numerous unconventionalities he was referring to this time."
" I think it was just general unconventionality. I'm not sure society's conventions mean anything to you. You're just too old and you've seen too much. These things change with each passing generation and you have more important things to think about. Why bother with something so ephemeral? You work by intuition and that often flies in the face of convention. You've pretty much abandoned the traditional forms of discipline, for example, and you get better results because you do. In all the time I served with you I rarely saw you order a flogging, that disciplinary mainstay of the fleet. That alone could bother him. Yet your crew always supported you and they always obeyed you without question."
"Maybe..."
"I remember finding you sitting on one of the companionways once comforting one of the powder monkeys who was missing his mother. I don't know another Captain in the fleet who would have done that. You didn't keep a 'proper distance'. Particularly from me." He swirled his drink again.
Jack nodded. "The hard, cold disciplinarian isn't a role I can perform. In the long term it doesn't work for me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I lead by example. I can't be what I'm not. It's exhausting and I have more important things to do. I know that approach wouldn't work for everyone but in all the time I've been involved with the services nobody has ever let me down. And why would I keep my distance from you? Friendship is a rare and precious thing. Believe me, I've been around long enough to know exactly how rare and how precious. I'll be damned if I'll ignore it when I see it just for the sake of appearances."
"I suspect that our interview with Admiral Lord Hood is going to interesting and most instructive."
*This is part of a poem by William Butler Yeats. Loreena McKennitt set it to music on her album The Mask and The Mirror.
By
Corcoran
Chapter 1
Captain Sir Edward Pellew held the note in hands that shook slightly and the good quality cream coloured parchment trembled with them. So many years spent alone. As alone as one can be commanding a warship of some four hundred souls. Even unsigned he would have known the sender. He knew that handwriting as he knew his own. Two paragraphs, signed with a 'J' rune. Who else would sign his name thus? Pellew shook his head in amazement and bit his lip. He really didn't know what to feel or to think.
His first though was one of disbelief. He was dreaming. He must be.
The disbelief was replaced by anger. Who did he think he was to walk back into his friend's life after fifteen years silence?
The anger drained away as quickly as it had risen. It was entirely likely that his friend had been on a mission so dangerous as to make any contact impossible. In fact it was more than likely.
What was not likely was that he'd been forgotten. Jack had a long memory and they had been close, far closer than Captain and First Lieutenant usually were. He remembered that happy time, sitting up late into the night reading aloud to one another or listening to Jack sing in a clear and beautiful tenor voice. He often wrote his own songs, strange, exotic, beautiful creations. He'd accompanied himself on his guitar with boyish enthusiasm. He allowed himself to visualise one of those interludes, Jack's face, slightly reddened with sunburn, his blonde hair falling loose to his shoulders as he crooned to the guitar resting on his knee. What was he singing? Pellew tried to remember the words and was surprised to find that they returned to him as if he had heard them only yesterday:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy it's holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of it's fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of it's hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of it's leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.*
Jack had looked up quickly and caught him watching, Pellew's breath catching at the beauty of the song. He'd smiled, his dark blue eyes full of warmth and...trust?
Had it really been a spell? It was impossible to tell for certain, not being a wizard himself. He suspected so, the memory clear as it was. A strong feeling of quiet calmness, of green, growing things, of Jack's scent, like newly mown hay stole over him. Suddenly he realised. The song had been a gift. Jack had written the song on the instant and cast the spell into the words to give him comfort when alone. He'd left him a gift that Pellew had been too distressed to use. The memory, until now, had been too painful. Taunting him. He really had been silly over this whole thing. Jack had returned as his final letter had promised he would. He'd said little else. Military Intelligence had sent him on a mission and he had to go alone. The letter had been full of regret and the promise to return when he could. That had been the last Edward Pellew had seen of Jack Hargreaves for fifteen years. Now he'd returned home.
Pellew and his old friend sat one on either side of the fireplace. They hadn't bothered to light the candles because the light from the blaze provided more than enough light for them to see one another's faces.
"I know you can't tell me where you've been but I'm so glad you're home again. I've missed you." Pellew's voice was very quiet. He wasn't comfortable making emotional admissions of that sort. He was always afraid of what the response would be. He looked up, trying to read his friend's face.
"I know because I missed you as well. If I'd had the choice I'd have stayed on board the Merlin with you at my side and we'd have hounded the French until doomsday." His eyes were dark as midnight and the firelight turned his almost-white hair ruddy. In all the years since Pellew had last seen him he hadn't aged a single day. "I couldn't tell you a word of where I'd gone or when I'd be back. I couldn't even write to you. If the letter had fallen into the wrong hand's we'd both have been walking corpses." Pellew wondered if he meant that literally. You could never be quite sure with Jack. "There were even those who could have intercepted our more...unusual modes of communication. I couldn't risk it. Better to have you hate me than put you in that kind of danger." He'd said just enough for Pellew to read between the lines. He'd been dealing with very dark, occult matters.
"I didn't hate you, Jack. I understood you well enough to realise that if you'd left like that, especially without telling me where or why, there must have been a damn good reason for it. For a time I feared you had died but then I realised that if that was so all debts would be payed and you'd have come to see me one last time."
"One last time? No, Pell, I'd have stayed, if that was what you had wanted." The pale face was tranquil but for the eyes. They burned with deep emotion and Pellew had the strangest feeling that Jack was looking not at his body but at his soul. He'd forgotten about that. He looked like one of those statues of Indian saints. The beatific, almost mask like, expression and eyes filled with, endless, burning compassion.
Jack went on "I've completely lost count of the songs, the poetry I wrote in the vain hope of comforting myself. Must have been hundreds." He smiled sadly. The mask slipped and Pellew could see his pain.
He was flabbergasted. To say this disclosure was unexpected was the understatement of the century. He blinked. He blinked again. Jack watched him, his eyes deep as a cloudless summer's night. Waiting. No expectations. He sipped his brandy and when he spoke again his voice was low and musical.
"I wasn't sure you'd be prepared to see me when I got back. I thought you might not have been able to forgive me. That was why I wrote. So you could ignore me if you chose without embarrassment. "
"Ignore you? Heaven grant me patience!" Pellew expostulated, the palms of his hands slapping against the arms of his chair. " I've waited so many years for some kind of explanation. I had to see you again, even if you couldn't give me one. Forgiveness was never an issue, I wasn't angry to begin with." He'd felt devastated, abandoned, broken, hurt to the point of numbness, but not angry. The idea that Jack might have felt the same way had never occurred to him. He'd assumed that either his friend, his Captain, hadn't felt that way or that his vast age had granted him some kind of wisdom that would allow him to put the feelings into a little mental box and ignore them. Apparently neither assumption had been correct.
Jack seemed to pick up on what was not said as well as what was. "I'm so very sorry, Pell..." He did one of those odd, socially inappropriate things that he sometimes did in response to strong emotion. The remnant manners of a time long past or perhaps merely acting as his intuition directed. He slid from his chair, knelt before Pellew and reached for his friend's hands, holding them firmly between his own. Pellew returned the clasp and felt the years rolling back. "Jack, unless you want me to start weeping into my drink, *please* stop apologising. Will it help to say that I forgive you? I do, completely and without reservation but I say it because you need to hear it, not because I feel it's necessary." Jack bowed his head and, his voice soft with emotion, he whispered "Thank you. It's far more than I deserve."
Pellew had had enough of this self-recrimination. This was nothing like his former Captain, usually so supremely confident and self-assured. He leaned forward and lifted Jack's chin with one hand and looked at him sternly. That look had made strong men quake in their boots. He followed this up with an equally stern voice.
"Sir," Jack was his superior officer, after all "you were doing your duty. Do you honestly think I would hold that against you? You can do things that most people would never even dream of. If the Admiralty, the Secret Service or even the Palace wanted something dangerous, difficult and of an occult nature doing of course they would send you. And you would go. You'd never shirk doing your duty what ever your personal feelings might be. Or mine for that matter. And that's how it should be."
"Where did that come from?" asked Jack, an arrested expression on his face "I mean that Look? You never learnt that from me!"
"No, not from you. That was a Pell original. Now, can we lay the matter to rest?"
"Six feet under, if you like!" Jack sounded far more like himself. In a single feline movement he shifted so that he was sitting at Pellew's feet, facing the fire, hugging his knees. Pellew looked down at him affectionately. God, he looked no older than Hornblower. Obviously he'd taken Pellew at his word, he'd relaxed and seemed to be communing with the fire. Scrying, perhaps. Jack seemed to have a never-ending grimoire. His friend had a spell for every occasion. Suddenly Jack turned his head so he could see the other's face.
"I might not be able to talk about my work but that doesn't mean I take no interest in yours, my friend. What have you been doing? You always were a dashing creature. I'm sure that hasn't changed. I'm constantly hearing of your courage, brilliance and your uncanny ability to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat." He teased his friend gently. "Don't tell me they are exaggerated or mistaken, I simply won't believe it!" he spoke lightly but Pellew could hear the pride in Jack's voice, pride in the man his protege had become.
Pellew let his head fall back against the wing of the chair. Where to begin. The present? The past? There was so much catching up to do. His hand dropped to Jack's shoulder. The contact focussed him.
"I have the privilege of commanding His Majesty's Ship the Indefatigable and it's a fine life. My crew are among the best to be found and I'm so attached to my young Lieutenants that I have difficulty keeping an appropriate distance. The eternal struggle of command. I know you dispensed with all of that but for those of us without your gifts it's necessary."
"Tell me about them. It sounds as if I'd like them."
"You would and I'm sure they'd like you. They're friends. Completely inseparable. I long since gave up trying. They just seem to gravitate together again. They're a formidable team. As different as two people could possibly be. Hornblower is a very serious young man and he has problems with my sense of humour. He can never tell when I'm pulling his leg. It's a bit sad, really. I exert myself to amuse him and he takes me seriously. However, he's a brilliant strategist, bold and inventive. He plays the odds and he plays to win. He's also a born leader. The men would follow him to hell and back. Kennedy is a different type altogether. He's funny, witty and sociable. He laughs at Hornblower constantly, and that balances Hornblower's incipient melancholia. I know he suffered some kind of terrible abuse on board his previous ship and he carries deep scars, which sometimes take the form of fits. I don't know the details of what happened. He never speaks of it, at least not to me. I suspect that Hornblower and some of the men of his division know but they aren't talking. I've met the man responsible and he was a damned nasty piece of work. Capable of anything. I shot him when he tried to kill Hornblower. I've never seen such malice."
He recalled Simpson and the way he cheated during his duel with Hornblower and fired early. Hornblower survived and so had the right to shoot his opponent as he stood. Simpson begged for his life and Hornblower deloped and turned away. Simpson stole a dagger from his second and tried to stab Hornblower in the back. Pellew had shot him through the heart from the top of the nearby cliff at extreme range, a truly prodigious feat.
Jack looked back at him, concerned. He could feel his intuition tugging at him. The there was a lot more to this that there appeared to be.
"Jack, you have that look on your face, as if you're reaching for some thought that hasn't had the good taste to make itself completely plain to you." Jack laughed and rested his head against Pellew's knee, very much at his ease. They seemed to have fallen into their old manner of communication. Disjointed but eloquent. It was as if they'd never been apart.
"You describe it very well. That's exactly how it feels!" Jack chuckled "There's something else going on here but I'm not sure which part of our conversation has raised the hairs on the back of my neck." The blue eyes looked a little perplexed. "Something about Hornblower playing the odds and playing to win. And something about Kennedy being wounded but resilient." he bit his bottom lip and frowned. "Luck...and suffering. Odd...the two are related."
"Is that your opinion as a wizard?" Pellew smiled down at his perplexed friend.
"My dear man, I can't give my opinion as anything else but I didn't consciously use magic to come to that conclusion. I'm following a hunch. I doubt I'll be able to tell you more until I meet them." he began to hum softly, under his breath as he often did while teasing out a knotty problem.
"I'd forgotten about your habit of singing when you're thinking."
"Was I? Oh, yes. That was one of the ones I wrote for you. I got depressed and I always write when I'm depressed." his manner was very offhand, almost absent-minded but Pellew knew him better than to take that at face value. "I'll sing it for you one day soon, if you like."
"I'm still having trouble believing this is real and not some kind of dream. No, that's not right. I feel like I'm waking up after sleeping for a very long time." Pellew finished the last of his brandy and Jack reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. "And yes, I'd love to hear it."
"Then you shall, Lieutenant Pellew!"
"Thankyou, Captain Hargreaves, Sir!" Pellew laughed.
Jack looked thoughtful. He met Pellew's gaze and smiled. "You aren't my Lieutenant now, though, are you? Not my subordinate at all. We are equals now and I like that so much better. Being away made me realise how important our friendship was and is to me. It made me realise how much I valued you because you were no longer there. Leaving was hard. Staying away, doubly so. Do you realise, Pell, that together we could pass over the world driving everything before us? We were a fine team before but a team of equals is infinitely more powerful." Jack gazed into the fire as if he had more to say but didn't quite know how to phrase it.
"I'd happily become your Lieutenant if it meant I could put to sea with you again." Pellew's voice was very quiet and absolutely sincere.
Jack looked at him, surprised "Do you mean that?" he asked "What about your rank, the Indefatigable and your remarkable Lieutenants?"
Pellew smiled down at him, tugging gently on his friend's cue until Jack's head rolled back far enough for Pellew to meet his eyes.
"My rank means nothing. It was always the work I wanted, not the rank. I must be where I can do most good and, as you so ably pointed out to me only moments ago, that place is with you. I would miss the Indefatigable at first but I'm just as well acquainted with the Merlin and I love her just as much. And as for the lads, we could take them with us..." he looked just a little sly.
"Would they want to come?" Jack looked doubtful.
"In a heartbeat!" Pellew almost laughed. "You have no idea what your reputation is among the fleet. They've been telling tales of your exploits for the last three hundred years! Nobody's sure if you actually exist but the myths still circulate. They use your name like a charm, to bring them luck! You disappear for a few years and then turn up when you're most needed. That hasn't been lost on them. You do wonders for their moral. They all know what you look like and yet when you actually walk among them they don't recognise you. The really amusing thing is that not one of them has come up with a story that's half so outrageous as the truth! Hornblower and Kennedy will want to join us out of curiosity, if nothing else."
"And what about the Admiralty? Will they permit this, do you think?"
"Why not? They may even come up with a job for us and save us finding one of our own. You outrank most of them, anyway. Besides, if you've spent the last decade and more doing what I suspect you've been doing, they owe you."
"True enough. I have to go and see the old buzzards tomorrow, would you care to accompany me?"
"Only if I can watch Hood's face when you stride purposefully onto his axminster! He knows I never really forgave him for sending you away." Pellew finished his third glass of brandy and Jack, of course, refilled it.
"I'm on the high road to getting plastered here, you reprobate! What would Hood say to that, I wonder? He was always warning me about you, you know. Seemed to think you were a bad influence."
"What? Did he think I'd lead you into temptation? What temptation, exactly?" Jack asked inquisitively.
"I'm not absolutely certain but he kept waffling on about impressionable young Lieutenants and how the stories about you were all exaggerated." Pellew shrugged and looked innocent.
Jack laughed. "You, Sir, are wriggling. That innocent look doesn't deceive me for one moment! He was afraid he'd give you ideas and that was why he way so vague. I protest! I was slandered!"
" No, my friend. I didn't let him. I'm afraid I nailed my colours to the mast." Pellew looked down and swirled the brandy in his glass, abandoning subterfuge." I said that if only one in ten of the stories were true I knew where I wanted to be."
It was Jack's turn to be flabbergasted. He looked up at his friend, wide eyed with surprise.
"You really told him that? I must say, that was exceptionally brave of you. For a twenty five year old Lieutenant to take on the Chief Buzzard must have taken great courage...I'm impressed and touched that you would have done such a thing on my behalf."
" I was twenty two, Jack." Pellew smiled. "He was surprised. Nobody could have spoken to him like that for years. When got over his attack of apoplexy he actually commended me for my honesty and my loyalty to my commanding officer. I think he gave up on me after that."
Jack looked thoughtful. "I wonder which of my numerous unconventionalities he was referring to this time."
" I think it was just general unconventionality. I'm not sure society's conventions mean anything to you. You're just too old and you've seen too much. These things change with each passing generation and you have more important things to think about. Why bother with something so ephemeral? You work by intuition and that often flies in the face of convention. You've pretty much abandoned the traditional forms of discipline, for example, and you get better results because you do. In all the time I served with you I rarely saw you order a flogging, that disciplinary mainstay of the fleet. That alone could bother him. Yet your crew always supported you and they always obeyed you without question."
"Maybe..."
"I remember finding you sitting on one of the companionways once comforting one of the powder monkeys who was missing his mother. I don't know another Captain in the fleet who would have done that. You didn't keep a 'proper distance'. Particularly from me." He swirled his drink again.
Jack nodded. "The hard, cold disciplinarian isn't a role I can perform. In the long term it doesn't work for me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I lead by example. I can't be what I'm not. It's exhausting and I have more important things to do. I know that approach wouldn't work for everyone but in all the time I've been involved with the services nobody has ever let me down. And why would I keep my distance from you? Friendship is a rare and precious thing. Believe me, I've been around long enough to know exactly how rare and how precious. I'll be damned if I'll ignore it when I see it just for the sake of appearances."
"I suspect that our interview with Admiral Lord Hood is going to interesting and most instructive."
*This is part of a poem by William Butler Yeats. Loreena McKennitt set it to music on her album The Mask and The Mirror.