“No one sent me on this journey, dear. I asked to come. Do you have your other stockings? Those ones, aye.”
“But why?” asked Mary, as she passed the stockings over to be packed.
“Because you’ll need a dry pair close to hand, once we’re aboard the ship.”
“No, why would you have asked to come?”
“I had my reasons,” said the Scotswoman, and kept them to herself, as seemed increasingly to Mary to be something of a habit of the Highlands, for MacPherson too said next to nothing as they made their way down to the quayside.
Marseilles was a pretty town, built at the edge of the land with the sun shining hard to the south on the Mediterranean Sea, and the hills ringing all round behind with their dotting of villas and country estates. The long harbor, while not large, was made safe by sheltering rocks and at this hour of day was a bustling place with the breeze bearing scents of wet wood and warm canvas and salt from the sparkling sea. Tall ships idled and creaked at their moorings, some seeming impatient to leave while still others seemed peacefully slumbering, glad of the rest, while around and amidst them bobbed smaller boats carrying produce and merchandise, sailors and passengers, men of all races and languages mingled together.
For Mary, who had only read of such sights in the pages of books and imagined them in her own mind, this bewildered and thrilled her and filled her with wonder.
It was only when they had met Cole at a table with benches set near to a hut by the water, where they were served small cups of coffee by a man who wore, Mary saw to her horror, a fetter and chain on his leg, that she started to notice the other men like him who shuffled in chains, often linked two together, the chain borne between them, and all of them wearing some form of the same sorry uniform: red coats that looked more like peasants’ frock shirts, partway open in front and designed to be pulled on without any buttons; and coarse linen shirts and brown breeches and red caps to cover their heads, which appeared to be generally shaved.
“Galley slaves,” Cole explained, when he saw her reaction. “A common sight here, I’m afraid, and one that’s most distressing to we men—and ladies—born to British freedom, though I’m told there are but half as many galleys now as there were in the old king’s day.”
Mary took no comfort from that, for as she looked round the harbor she saw far too many ships with rows of dreadful oars set on their waterlines. So many ships that she knew for each pair of men she now saw laboring beneath their chains, there must be hundreds more imprisoned in the dark and crowded decks who had not even that small scrap of liberty.
Thomson answered smoothly, “British freedom is a drink that has a different taste depending where you’re served it. I suspect that what my countrymen have tasted would to you taste much like servitude.”
Which drew a glance from Effie that might well have been approval. It was difficult to know, with Effie. She sat to the table’s end, declining coffee for her stomach’s sake, in preparation for the trial by sea that was to come.
“Just so,” said Mr. Cole. “I’m sure I did not mean offense. ’Tis only that my friend Vilere, who long has been an officer aboard the galleys, tells me that our sentiment affords these men more sympathy and pity than they do deserve, for most of them are criminals so vile that in another Christian country they’d be put to death for what they’d done.”
“This is a death,” said Mary, with her gaze still on the galleys. “Slavery is a kind of death.”
“But see now, that is sentiment,” said Cole, to prove his argument. “And not all slaves are chained below and beaten. Some have leave to work at trades, you see their huts along the quay here. And this man, this Turk”—he nodded to the man who’d brought them coffee—“he was taken in a war, and so is treated better than the others, for the French would have his people see this when they come to port, in hopes the Turks will treat their own French prisoners in like fashion. He can work, and if he works hard he perhaps can save enough to pay his ransom, and return to his own homeland. So you see, you are quite wrong to let your sentiment paint everything a single shade of black.”
MacPherson, who till now had sat in stoic silence on the bench across from Mary, said, “She has a right to think as she decides.”
Her upward glance was only meant to show him she was grateful he’d defended her, but what she saw in his eyes when she met them put her in a great confusion, for in place of their accustomed frost-like calm she glimpsed a pain so deep and dark it was as if he’d briefly torn a bandage back to show a violent wound. It vanished even as she looked, but left her troubled.
Thomson said, “Come, let us speak of less afflicting things. Which is our ship?” He turned a little in his seat to view the tall, three-masted ship that Mr. Cole was pointing to.
Cole said, “That’s it. The Princesa Maria.”
“A good name,” was Thomson’s opinion. He asked Mary, “Would you not agree, my dear?” His kind voice and warm eyes sought to restore the peace, an effort he extended now to Cole. He looked around and said, “I should imagine this is yet a very pleasant place to live.”
“It is. When you return, sir, you should think to settle here or someplace nearby where you might employ yourself in trade, for I do recommend it. That is, if you can remain here, unmolested in this kingdom.”
A man was approaching them.
Middle-aged, heavily built, with a brown coat and shiny brass buttons, he held out his hand to shake Cole’s and surprised them with English. “Well met, sir. Well met. And would these be my passengers?”