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  “You change ships like trousers,” Key said, “and you thrive on dodgery. The only consistent thing about you is that blue neckerchief.”

  The captain’s expression warmed and he laughed. “What is America to you, then?”

  “Since I was twelve years old I’ve believed America is the higher soul of mankind. We stand above bloodline and birthplace. Or we should.”

  Boyle made a rascally expression. “Tell that to your slaves.”

  The rebuke opened a whole new door, but Key kicked it closed. “I am not unmoved.”

  And with that he ended the subject.

  Boyle pondered the complex angel across the table. After a moment, he smiled. “You’re desperate to make a contribution, aren’t you?”

  Key shrugged one shoulder—for him an almost wild demonstration. “If fate allows. I shall have to wait and see.” Then he shook himself out of his thoughts and asked, “But tell me, was that your grave news?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said you had grave news. Was it that your cargo was seized and two men pressed? That’s grave enough.”

  “It should be. Sad to say, there’s more to it. One of the men was Victor Tarkio.”

  “Oh, no …” Key uttered.

  “Even worse,” Boyle said, “it was my idea for him to go in the stead of another man. It was a command decision. One of those.”

  For a long moment they were silent. The fiddler played and the murmuring conversations of others at dinner made a pleasant background to their thoughts.

  Key felt his brow furrow, no matter how much he tried to control his expression for his friend’s sake.

  “How will you tell Mary?”

  Sailors and Spies

  ACROSS THE TAVERN’S FRONT parlor, at a table near the only window, the man with the model ship picked at a length of twine. Outside the window, the night was dark but for a branched cloud that hid the moon, which gave the cloud a ragged gray lining. Through a doorway to another dining room, the man could see one of the tavern keepers’ daughters reading a newspaper aloud to the patrons sitting in that room. He wished he could hear the news, but he had to sit here.

  “Keep your eyes on your food.”

  The man spoke without moving his lips.

  The hunch-shouldered woman across the table obeyed him scrupulously. “Does you knows that man?”

  He stifled a wince at her heavy accent. “I followed him here, didn’t I?”

  “You said you come to meet me.”

  “Why would I come to meet you?” the man balked. “Eat your food.”

  Her crocheted bonnet cloaked a mousy knot of hair, its brim falling forward limply to frame a forgettable face and humped nose. Her mother had possessed the same features, but somehow they were packaged differently. The mother, he recalled, had been passably attractive.

  Into a spoonful of red bean pie, the woman asked, “Alors qui l’est? Pourquoi est-il important?”

  “Speak English,” the man told her calmly but sternly. “And keep your voice down. That miserable Quebec accent. You should practice to have no accent, as I have none.”

  The tavern’s drowsy atmosphere disguised an undercurrent of hazard. They might as well be standing on a volcano.

  “What name for you?” the woman asked. “I call you Yakov or—?”

  “I haven’t decided. I am a French Jew, but I must be trusted by Americans who are not Jews. Or at least not identified as French or a Jew.”

  “I dun’t like whisker you have.”

  “It’s either the beard or the scars.” He tucked his chin, hoping the movement would deplete the firelight’s glitter on the silver hairs in his whiskers. “I don’t want to be memorable. Which is more likely to be remembered? Whiskers, or half a chin?”

  He stopped talking as the man he was watching abruptly rose and went into the kitchen.

  “His name is Boyle,” the French Jew whispered, toying with the model ship. “Born in Marblehead, ’75 or ’76. He took to sea at the age of ten, on a ship commanded by his father. No … yes, by his father. At sixteen he was himself captain of a schooner called Hester. He’s gained and shed many ships.”

  “Mays be he was look for right one,” the woman said, then she giggled.

  “Maybe. The word is maybe, not mayzz be. Save your jokes for your brainless women friends. He lives in Albemarle Street.”

  “Who?”

  “The—mmm!” A twist of his mouth brought her attention back to the captain.

  “Oh,” she said. “I dun’t know where is.”

  “Yes, you do. In Baltimore. The seamstress lives there. That one who repaired the chair covers. He lives kitty-corner from her. His partner is the insurance man Carrere. Boyle is an important figure in Baltimore. A businessman. In 1805 he was in the 51st Baltimore Regiment, but gave it up to take command of the Comet. I’ve heard he speculates in real estate.”

  “Why you—”

  “Ssst.” He made a fierce sound with his teeth, to chop her volume down as the man named Boyle came back with two steaming bowls and joined the tall fellow with the sand-colored curly hair at the table by the hearth.

  The woman tried again. “Why are watch him?”

  “I’m watching him because there are people worth watching. We don’t want to make the wrong kind of history, do we?”

  Though he spoke quietly, he was careful not to appear to be whispering, for that too could draw attention.

  The woman moved her caterpillar eyebrows in a shrug, but kept her shoulders down.

  “He’s back too soon, you see,” the French Jew explained. “Why does a successful blockade runner come back early and without a cargo?”

  Pausing to turn the ship model around, he pretended to survey the little paper sails and the twine imitating rigging

  “He’s galled by the takings of men from American ships by the Royal Navy. It sticks in his craw. The captain will find me in passionate sympathy with him.”

  “Why?”

  “Idiot, I beg you, think.” He looked irresistibly at the captain. “I want to influence him.”

  “Will you introduce?” she asked. “Will you go there?”

  “He will come to me.”

  Her pointy nose wrinkled. “Why he come?”

  “Because I’m doing this model wrong.”

  “How you know ding it wrong?”

  “Because I know nothing about ships.”

  “I thought you did.”

  “You know I don’t.”

  Feeling himself drawn into a ridiculous argument that could go for an hour, the Frenchman bottled further talk of the model, but continued to string the incorrect part of a sail.

  “He’s glancing this way,” the Frenchman uttered. “Don’t look—he’ll come soon.”

  He pulled the model’s little anchor on its little anchor string and draped it over the bowsprit. Even he knew what a bowsprit was.

  Dutifully avoiding a look toward the captain and his companion at the other table, the woman took a mouthful and sloppily asked, “Who is pretty one?”

  “What? Oh. Handsome, not pretty. Men are handsome.” With a cotton napkin he wiped a bean from his beard. “Just a lawyer. Goes around with armloads of law books. He’s nobody.”

  “I like him,” she declared. “Him’s face … pretty. Soft eye.”

  The French Jew made a rude sound through his nose and forced himself to think about something else, something he enjoyed discussing, even though he might as well be in conversation with a goose.

  His mind wandered. He smelled the beans and listened to the drone of the girl in the other room reading the news. Something about England. Something about exports. Shoes. Hair combs. Toothbrushes.

  “England,” he mused. “Monarchies. Corrupt old families, inbred spoiled-brat heirs … they have no idea what makes a country. A dictator is much better. A dictator must rise through the ranks with no money in his pockets, learn to take orders before he can give them. He would know the face of oppression.”
r />   “You mean ’bout ’Nited States?”

  Her voice actually startled him. Had he not told her to stop talking?

  “Eh? No, certainly not! The United States are nothing. Little bundles of mayhem. What is so noble about breaking the barriers of bloodline? Napoleon has done it already. There must be war between the Americans and Britain. There must be! Britain will try to take back this continent, but will fail. America is too weak to wage a good war. They will argue with each other and the states will crack apart.”

  Pausing for another slurp of bean pie, the French Jew nodded at his own reasoning and agreed with himself. Such exciting thoughts—it was hard to keep his voice down. Such a glory of mischief.

  “A dictator is not answerable to the mob. Popular whims mean nothing. This idea of Jefferson’s, that rabble can rule themselves—fft! A dictator can do what he wants without fear.” He waved his spoon. “These Americans, if they knew what was good for them they would ally with France right now, today. I don’t know what they think their precarious neutrality is doing for them.”

  He hunched in his seat, realizing his volume had risen in this one-way conversation, and lowered his voice. Unable to look at his companion’s ridiculous face, he gazed at the future in his bean pie.

  “In France we are all citizens. Napoleon made us into citizens. Us Jews. He shattered the walls like Alexander, smashed the old kingdoms—everything is new for us and our banking empire. So who cares for the ancient aristocracies? Napoleon has set up what we need and broken down what we don’t. Americans make bold talk about freedom while their meals are served by slaves. They want freedom of the seas to bring more slaves. What’s down and what’s up, they don’t know. They don’t know …”

  A new aroma flooded the room as one of the owner’s other daughters entered with two heaping bowls of something that smelled much better than bean pie and delivered it to a family on the far side of the room.

  “But if we are lucky,” he went on quietly, “America will keep Britain busy while Napoleon makes our next conquest. When he returns with new land, new wealth, new gold, he will cross the Channel. France will capture the world. Then we will seize this ridiculous continent too.”

  The woman grinned, baring bean-streaked teeth, and wriggled with joy. “You will name mountain after me, oui?”

  “What? Yes, why not. Who cares? ‘Mount Pdut.’” Regarding her with disgust, he added, “No matter how old you get, you never grow up.”

  But she was lost in a fantasy, touring in her mind the towns and cities named after her. Pdut, America.

  “When he comes to me, you must not speak. Eat your food and crinkle your eyes at him.” With a glare from under his coal-smudge brows, he whispered, “And remember … no mention of the name Rothschild.”

  “Non, non, non,” she muttered, seeming unsure whether she could manage it. “Non, Rotshilt, non.”

  “Woman, you are such a—”

  A motion caught the corner of his eye, because he had been waiting for it and even had paced out the number of steps needed to cross the room from the hearthside table.

  “Now it happens,” he murmured. “Alors … here the captain comes.”

  “Pardon my intrusion … A model of a frigate, is that?”

  “Oh,” the bearded man responded, “yes, good sir. A gift for my nephew. He wants to join the Navy.”

  “Admirable boy. If I may suggest—”

  “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Please, not at all.”

  “Most of your lines are going nowhere.”

  “Oh … is that so? Oh, my.”

  “My name is Captain Boyle, by the way.”

  “A seaman!”

  The captain nodded, trying to add a touch of modesty to the gesture. “May I sit?”

  “Be our guest!”

  Tom Boyle took a seat upon a three-legged stool and inched up to the table. “So you’re visiting the coast? Not from here?”

  “We’re from the Ohio Valley, but we’re living in Baltimore for a time. My name is Yambrick. Samuel Yambrick. This is my niece … Sophie.”

  “Ma’am.”

  The woman said nothing. She made a small grin under the gargoyle of her nose and the tent of her bonnet. Right off Boyle got the idea there was something odd about her, and that she wouldn’t say a word no matter how polite he could be. He gave it up immediately.

  To the man called Yambrick, he said, “The lines on a ship are like the streets in your town. A ship may have ten miles of running rigging, but every line does only one thing. Once you learn where that street goes, then you know it. The starboard mains’l sheet, here, does only one thing—it draws the main this way or lets it out that way. You have it run to a gun truck.”

  The man frowned over his model. “Probably won’t work …”

  “No,” Boyle said, trying to be gentle. “And up here, you have the moons’l—the moon sail—you have the sheets and braces tied to each other.”

  “Please show me, if you will.”

  Boyle hesitated, then rather eagerly got his sailor’s fingers in there to unloop the tiny strings. “The braces turn the yards. Two braces per yard, and two sheets pulling on the lower corners of the sails. Sheets are lines that control the sails.”

  “Why do they call them that?”

  “No idea. On a ship with square sails such as this, the braces and sheets work together to ‘brace around’ the sails—turn them to catch the wind. Or spill it, depending upon what’s happening.”

  “Why would you spill the wind out?”

  “To stop the ship.”

  “Ah …”

  Boyle leaned back, careful not to take too much charge of the model frigate, and almost forgot he was on a stool instead of a chair. “Go from the largest to the smallest. For instance, the starboard mizzen tops’l brace block. Starboard side, mizzen mast, topsail—”

  “I’m lost.”

  Boyle waved his hand along the side of the model ship. “Did you say you were staying in Baltimore?”

  “Renting an apartment in the painted building at the foot of Broadway, yes.”

  “Neighbors!” Boyle laughed. “I live on Albemarle Street. I’ll invite you aboard and give you a tour of the rigging. You’ll understand better than on a model.”

  Yambrick clapped at his victory. “Delight! Now, which ship should I visit, Captain?”

  “I’ll contact you. I’m talking to an investor about ships to be built in Fell’s Point over the next few months.”

  “And Fell’s Point is where?”

  “It’s where you’re living.”

  “Not really!”

  “Really.” Boyle made a cursory attempt to meet the eyes of the dowdy woman, just to acknowledge that he wasn’t ignoring her in a social situation, but the gesture came to nothing. She did not raise her eyes nor attend their conversation, but simply sucked beans out of her spoon and played with the contents of her bowl. Very well, then …

  Boyle paused, thinking. “You’ll have to wait. I just returned from the Bahamas. The ship did not return with me.”

  “Not a tragedy at sea?”

  “Some schedule changes. She’s docked on the coast.”

  “And you have left her to go to your family?”

  “Until matters are worked out by the owners.”

  “Aren’t you the owner of your ship?”

  “I’m the captain. Most ships are owned by groups of investors who then hire captains.”

  “Oh, I see.” Mr. Yambrick surveyed Boyle with a keen eye. Keener than before. “Tell me, Captain, what is your opinion of the talk of war?”

  “Well …”

  “Too personal? I apologize. Some say America shouldn’t go to war unless it is invaded. I understand if you are one of them.”

  “I’m a businessman, Mr. Yambrick, an entrepreneur, as all Americans should be. I’m an American, at liberty to come together to engage in commerce. We must have freedom of trade.
For what else did we have a revolution but freedom to meet for the purpose of doing business?”

  “Captain, you inspire me,” Mr. Yambrick uttered, deeply moved. “The blockade of our waters by the Royal Navy must gall you.”

  “It does very much. Pardon me, but it occurs that I am ignoring my dinner companion. Good luck with your model. Any sailor can tell you in more detail how to rig it until I can offer you a tour of a ship.”

  “And American ports are awash with out-of-work sailors. Thank you, Captain Boyle.”

  “My thanks for your company. Fair weather to you. And you, miss.”

  “Damn the intriguer.”

  The French Jew pushed the model ship away and returned to his meal, which was now cold and stiff.

  “I plumb for information, he cannily gives scant. He sensed something. I must be more clever with him from now on. We will give him one week, then we’ll find our way to Fell’s Point and once again stumble into Captain Tom Boyle’s path.”

  He paused and looked at Pdut to see whether she was still awake. Her eyes peered back like two black buttons on a dirty white collar.

  “And you,” he declared. “You were too quiet!”

  The Flag Lady

  60 ALBEMARLE STREET

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  “FLAGS ARE THE LANGUAGE of the seas. Mind that our work is important. To be a flag maker, one must command a daunting knowledge of heraldry. Certain colors cannot be placed touching each other. In the language of flag making, blue is called indigo or azure. Red is cochineal, a dye made from the dried bodies of female insects from Mexico that are called cochineal. Blue and red must not … Caroline, are you paying attention?”

  “Mother, I’m historically bored.”

  “You’re always bored. You begin a task already bored. A woman had better learn a skill.”

  “But I’ve heard all this …”

  “But you haven’t learned it.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

  Caroline Pickersgill suffered at her mother’s declaration because she had heard it through all of her twelve years. It made no more impression upon her than it had when she was toddling and interested only in chewing a sock.