Spring 1806, Carteret Islands
There was, however, on that still, bright day, that anything untoward was going to happen. Her uncle had taken the Mary, with a cargo of timber in her beloved her ship. Cicely handled the schooner well and became known and trusted in her uncle's stead, once racing out the local boats to the current line, to the laughter and frivolity of all, something which was becoming a tradition each time she got to Madehas and Mahon.
Cicely had wanted to go that day, but something was making her feel faint. The heat of the season, she told herself, although they were so close to the equator that there wasn't much variability in the climate.
"You will remain," Godwin told his niece, and held up a hand between them. "God forbid that you should become faint were you asail and fall into the ocean: what will I tell your husband then? What should I tell your former captain.
So Cicely remained, imagining, as she watched the "Mary" leave the shore, the ship getting first to Madehas, due south from the islands, where letters were to be dropped and others ready for collection. Cicely watched them go, the promise she had made to her uncle not to overdo things in her mind.
She had gone back to the villa, and over the book that her aunt-in-law had written, had closed her eyes and dozed off into a gentle slumber. "Work for the betterment of oneself," Mary Wollestonecraft had said, the words in her tired mind.
So the betterment of oneself - herself - clearly must be to rest that morning, rather than been the captain of the ship named after the author. bound as it was with rubber wood to go to Bourgaineville, a strategic Sarawak port further to the west, to be sold before monsoon season.
It was a knocking at the door that brought Cicely awake, and she called out for Adam, thinking it was him. "Ekah?"
And Ekah - Adam - her uncle's servant out of choice and indeed the rouser of her senses, was on the other side of the drawing room door, and brought her to the front of Godwin's villa. A woman was looking at her, unblinkinly, unemotionally, cradling in her arms a child.
"She is to be abandoned, and the child," Ekah warned, as Cicely made to speak to the woman. He had drawn her back inside and closed the door, speaking to her, urgently, warningly.
But Cicely recognised the woman: it had been the same woman who had been alone when in labour, and Cicely had helped her through the birth to produce a healthy child - presumably the child in her arms. She shook her head and made to open the door again. While Ekah did not bar her way, he did raise his voice.
"In this island culture," he was at pains to explain, "The woman is an "Untouchable", as is her child.
"But she thrives," Cicely protested. "As does her child." She fixed what turned out to be a cold look to the man, and added, "And is it not the case that if she chances on fortune she may live by it?"
"It is, Madam Cicely," Ekah replied steadily. There was no defeat in his voice, as if her words had tricked him, only acceptance.
"Then she was fortunate enough to find me, as was her son. And I will see what she wants."
But it did not appear there was anything she did want: after a few questions - in the presence of Ekah, Cicely established she was not unwell, nor did she want for food and she produced milk for her son.
"We would to the church," the woman told her.
"Church?" Cicely asked, and looked across to Ekah, and to T'ohw - Isaac - who had not gone with her uncle, for he he had taken several of the young boys come of age, having completed the island ritual and returned successfully as men of their tribe.
For it was that the woman wanted - to take the baby to church and give him a name.
"He has no name," the woman told her, "But, when he goes to church with me, he will get a name, a Christian name."
"And what is your Christian name?" Cicely asked the woman, ignoring the nervousness of the two men beside them.
"Elizabeth," the woman replied. There was no uncertainty in her voice, no nervousness, no awareness that her words were causing the two servants to become a little agitated.
"And what was your tribal name?" Cicely asked, and it was then that Ekah stood before her.
"She must not say her name!" Ekah declared, more to the woman than to Cicely. Whether this was a threat, or a warning, Cicely did not know. She watched the woman's face, who merely lifted her son higher into her arms. At first, Cicely thought that the woman would not reply, but, after a minute, she turned her head to her.
"B'wti," the woman told Cicely. "This is the island name I do not have."
Cicely felt her heart break. She had found some of the traditions of the islanders difficult, and this was particularly hard to bear. To not have a name because she had been put to birth and potentially left to die, and when that didn't happen, to be left without a name? For the child to be treated the same?
"And what island name does your son...not have?" Cicely asked, carefully. Now, she noticed B'wti, soon to be Elizabeth, glance to J'non.
"He is not J'non," B'twi told Cicely, with equal care, "But he will be John, after John the Baptist."
And so, in the absence of her uncle, who read Wesley's bible to the island's people every Sunday, Cicely tool the baptism service. She felt bright, her energy seemed to have returned to her that she would be doing such a thing and she rang the bell for school at chapel, not understanding the looks Isaac and Adam, and his wife, Cicely's uncle's housekeeper, M'bui - Mary - were giving to one another.
"I will ring the bell, and the children will come. They can see the ceremony," Cicely thought as she stepped into the cool of the building and opened the shutters. They would witness the baptism and Ccely would keep school afterwards.
Both Adam and Isaac put themselves forward to be John's godparents. Mary had brought with her a cloth and a bowl and, after Cicely had found the baptismal service in the bible, she stood by the door and encouraged about half of the island's children, about a dozen, into the chapel, inviting them to sit on the chairs that had been arranged by the font. They could stay where they were after two more souls had come to know God, and Cicely could show them more writing and numbers, which they carried out on tablets of dried tree wax, pushing into it long quills of sea grass stalks that grew around the shores.
John did not cry. A superstitious tale Cicely had heard was that a child that did not cry at baptism had not let the devil out of his soul. That is what Stephen would have said of his own faith. Instead, the baby just looked around, almost surprised that water was now splashing over his forehead as Cicely cleaned him and wiped his brow, adding at the end, "John, with the help of your mother, Elizabeth, and your godfathers Adam and Isaac, you will know God."
A fleeting pain crossed Cicely's mind, as she remembered her own son being born, brought into the world, dead, by Jack Aubrey's careful, urgent hands. Like her brother, whose death had not been consecrated, hers and Stephen's child had not even lived long enough for God to be brought to him in a baptism of his own
From his chair near the door, M'bui and Ekah's son, Go-ohk, stood up, interrupting Cicely's thoughts, as Elizabeth brought John to see all in the chapel, even those by the door who had come to witness the baptism but had not gone over the threshold and inside the church.
The boy had been at the front, watching everything intently, waiting patiently, but had now crossed to his mother and began to unpack the basket she had brought with her as Elizabeth headed out of the chapel with her baby.
George pressed something into Cicely's hand, a compressed grain substance which had been boiled and flavoured, wrapped up in a palm leaf and tied with coconut twine, when opened it kept it's oblong shape, easy to eat, Cicely bore a few bites, nodding to Mary as she ate, but felt a little queasy. It was becoming a hot day and she took a drink from a jug filled with coconut water diluted well with cooled boiled water, kept cold in the earth, very refreshing.
Around her, the rest of the children were eating and drinking the same, and Cicely noticed that, now his parents had disappeared and left her to her teaching, George had changed and was now lingering by Cicely. She suspected the reason.
"You have it," she encouraged George, who was relucant at first, as if expecting his mother to appear and scold him, and then looked to the table onto which Cicely had placed the thing.
"Go on," Cicely encouraged again, then looked out of the door, before ringing the chapel bell again, that should have brought the older children, those who waited until after the younger ones had done their lessons. It was too hot to have too long a session teaching, Cicely had decided, and would do what she could with them in one go.
Strange, Cicely thought, as no low hubbub came across the sand dunes, the tell-tale sign of teenagers giving respect to her while still finding a way to gossip to one another, none of them were coming. She rang the bell once more, and waited by the door. A woman came. Cicely expected it was to do with medical treatment but instead it was to remonstrate with Cicely over taking in of the chapel.
"I will not speak of it!" she told Cicely, and dropped something at the door of the chapel. Cicely bent lower to look at the thing. When she moved, however, her stomach lurched, as if she were falling over a cliff.
"I will speak to your man!" the woman continued, and glared at the thing on the sand. As her eyes grew adjusted to the brightness, Cicely thought it was a rodent of some sort. But rats were non-existent on the islands, and when she looked harder, the black, tufted thing looked as if it had blood on it.
"My man?" Cicely repeated, wondering if the woman, who was glaring at her defiantly, meant Godwin or Stephen. Before she could try to unpick what was going on, however, a scream rose from beyond the sand dunes where her uncle's villa was build. She turned, and saw someone running. Several people running. And more screams.
Cicely looked further out, and to her horror, saw the cause. A ship had anchored just beyond the sandbars. From that ship, boats had been launched, some of them reaching land, their increasing numbers increasing the shouting and screaming as the people who were running were islanders. They were not fast enough, some of them, and they seemed to freeze in mid-air with their arms outstretched before falling to the floor.
Being killed.
With slowly dawning horror, Cicely realised the island was under attack.