Voyager - Diana Gabaldon [290]
He shook his head, frowning. The effort of talking seemed to be bringing him slowly out of his own shock.
“I heard one of the sailors shout to the men in the boat, and he spoke in French. But that proves nothing—sailors come from everywhere. Still, I have seen enough of ships at the docks to think that this one didna have quite the look of a merchant—nor the look of an English ship at all,” he added, “though I couldna say why, exactly. The way the sails were rigged, maybe.”
“It was blue, with a black line painted round it,” I said. “That was all I had time to see, before the guns started firing.”
Was it possible to trace a ship? The germ of the idea gave me hope; perhaps the situation was not so hopeless as I had first thought. If Ian was not dead, and we could find out where the ship was going…
“Did you see a name on it?” I asked.
“A name?” He looked faintly surprised at the notion. “What, on the ship?”
“Do ships not usually have their names painted on the sides?” I asked.
“No, what for?” He sounded honestly puzzled.
“So you could bloody tell who they are!” I said, exasperated. Taken by surprise by my tone, he actually smiled a little.
“Aye, well, I should expect that perhaps they dinna much want anyone telling who they are, given their business,” he said dryly.
We paced on together for a few moments, thinking. Then I said curiously, “Well, but how do legitimate ships tell who each other is, if they haven’t got names painted on?”
He glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I should know you from another woman,” he pointed out, “and ye havena got your name stitched upon your bosom.”
“Not so much as a letter ‘A,’” I said, flippantly, but seeing his blank look, added, “You mean ships look different enough—and there are few enough of them—that you can tell one from another just by looking?”
“Not me,” he said honestly. “I know a few; ships where I ken the captain, and have been aboard to do business, or a few like the packet boats, that go back and forth so often that I’ve seen them in port dozens of times. But a sailing man would ken a great deal more.”
“Then it might be possible to find out what the ship that took Ian is called?”
He nodded, looking at me curiously. “Aye, I think so. I have been trying to call to mind everything about it as we walked, so as to tell Jared. He’ll know a great many ships, and a great many more captains—and perhaps one of them will know a blue ship, wide in the beam, with three masts, twelve guns, and a scowling figurehead.”
My heart bounded upward. “So you do have a plan!”
“I wouldna call it so much a plan,” he said. “It’s only I canna think of anything else to do.” He shrugged, and wiped a hand over his face. Tiny droplets of moisture were condensing on us as we walked, glistening in the ruddy hairs of his eyebrows and coating his cheeks with a wetness like tears. He sighed.
“The passage is arranged from Inverness. The best I can see to do is to go; Jared will be expecting us in Le Havre. When we see him, perhaps he can help us to find out what the blue ship is called, and maybe where it’s bound. Aye,” he said dryly, anticipating my question, “ships have home ports, and if they dinna belong to the navy, they have runs they commonly make, and papers for the harbormaster, too, showing where they’re bound.”
I began to feel better than I had since Ian had descended Ellen’s tower.
“If they’re not pirates or privateers, that is,” he added, with a warning look which put an immediate damper on my rising spirits.
“And if they are?”
“Then God knows, but I don’t,” he said briefly, and would not say any more until we reached the horses.
They were grazing on the headland near the tower where we had left Ian’s mount, behaving as though nothing had happened, pretending to find the tough sea grass delicious.
“Tcha!” Jamie viewed them disapprovingly. “Silly beasts.” He grabbed the coil of rope and wrapped it twice round a projecting stone. Handing me the end, with a terse instruction to hold it, he dropped the free end down the chimney, shed his coat and shoes, and disappeared down