Our Sunset Wall of Remembrance Read online

we sat in silence while I considered seriously staying aboard The Temerarious, sailing to the icy cold of the north and discovering one of the most sought after rivers in both maritime and trading circles. It was with an aching mind that I came to my conclusion, and I said to him, “Remember those Dutch in Japan?”

  “Coer and his bastard mob? Aye! ...Bastards!”

  “They saw me fit to lose thousands of pounds in linens. I've got a bone to pick with them.”

  “You're coming?”

  “I am.”

  He laughed heartily and took me in his arms, almost breaking my spine in his act of affection.

  “You were going to come all along weren't you, you were just playing me as the fool, you dirty scoundrel, I'll get you back for that, you see if I don't.”

  There came a knock at the door and so entered the captain's first officer. He was in his early thirties, and wore a perpetual expression of caution.

  “Sir, we're I sight of the northern gate.”

  “See? We're almost free.” he said, slapping me once again on the back and insisting we go on deck to watch the northern gate glide above us as we exit the bounds of the city.

  In the open air, I was indeed mindful of the freedom that lay less than a mile away. We had wind in our sails and clear skies above, and I reckoned that we could be at the port of Kingsburgh in little over a day.

  It was at that moment, as I sadly recall, that I knew that there would be no escaping my crime, for there on the shore was a policeman upon a shining black steed, matching our pace as we moved gracefully toward the towering gate.

  “It is finished,” I said to MacCourighn, nodding to the horseman. “They have discovered us and lay in wait for us yonder.”

  MacCourighn leant over the rails of his ship and spat in the direction of the officer.

  “I'll be damned if they're going to take me from my own boat!” he raged, storming below deck.

  “What occurs?” A crewman said, concerned for his captains disposition, and I turned to him momentarily, uncertain how to answer.

  There was a tremendous blast, and I spun on my heel to see MacCourighn holding a musket. “Those buggers won't get us, I tell you!”

  “Alfred, no!” I snatched at the musket, pulling it wayward. It fired again, the heat of the barrel scolded my hands and I snatched them away.

  When I looked at the constable, he was laying on the riverbank, dead. The first shot struck true and had thrown him from the saddle.

  “My God, we're for it now!” I said, flustered.

  “Men, at arms!” MacCourighn called, there was a moments dismay among the crewmen, who seemed uncertain as to whether they were dreaming or not, they must have been fully perplexed to find any trouble on the gentle River Granta. The second officer stepped forward and drew his sword, snarling, “You heard your Captain! All hands ready!”

  This moved the men, who brandished their cutlasses and pistols. Uncertain as to who the enemy was, they scoured the shoreline for signs of trouble.

  “Listen up,” MacCourighn shouted, turning to his men, “When we reach that gate we're going to find a dozen officers of the law laying in wait for myself and Master Hobble, here. They wish us ill and I wish it back upon them, so lets give them a taste of The Temerarious's wrath, eh? Let's make it clear who's the scourge of the water. If they think they can take us on our own ship, the lady who's looked after us through hell and high water, we'll teach them they're sorely wrong!”

  The crew erupted at their Captain’s words, though I turned to him and took hold of his arm.

  “I fear you have made us nought more than common fugitives.”

  “Were we any less at the gates of Abingtowne?” He left me feeling severely admonished and stomped up to the quarterdeck. There he shouted some unintelligible words to an unseen crewman before making his way past me to the forecastle deck at the front of the ship. There he waited, watching the northern gate draw closer.

  I joined him, and together we watched the gate, ancient and magnificent, grow wider until we were almost beneath it.

  “There,” he whispered, pointing with his brow to a row of balconies beneath the gate's arch. “They have us marked.”

  Indeed he was right, high in the arch, standing in the shadows on what I assumed to be a service platform, were several shapes. It was difficult to see in the encroaching darkness of the tunnel, but they were obviously constabulary. It was in their posture, even at such a distance they couldn't hide their arrogance.

  Without noise we passed into the tunnel, shadow slipping over us and bringing with it the gentle tickling echo of lapping waters. This rippling wonderland was broken before it had even the chance to begin.

  “Temerarious crew,” one of the constabulary called authoritatively, their voice bounding and bouncing off wall and water, “by heed of the law, disarm and bring yourself ashore.”

  The crew didn't flinch, yet we saw the constabulary take their muskets and train them on us.

  We drifted a few moments longer, maybe passing thirty feet into the tunnel, all the while the shapes above grew larger and darker. None on board said a word, merely kept an eye on those muskets directed at our persons. Water dripped, wood creaked.

  “Temerarious crew,” the voice shattered the silence and my nerves, “you travel with two murderers, hand them over peaceably and you shall be on your way.”

  I saw the crew look at one another, some shrugged and others looked genuinely perplexed. “We're all murders here!” A crewman replied, drawing laughter from the rest. The sound echoed and stirred like something ghostly.

  MacCourighn took a last look at the distance between us and the end of the gate. It was a fair way yet, though the tunnel had channeled the wind and we were picking up speed.

  “Temerarious cr...” A shot rang clear from the fighting top of the main mast. The constabulary all ducked, though none had been injured. The shot pinged and chipped stone above them, but nothing more.

  “Stand down!” Captain MacCourighn bellowed to the man in the fighting top, “Or I'll have you in the brig for the rest of the voyage.” He then turned his attention to the constabulary. “You can see that my men were not bred to turn down a fight, sir. How do you feel about letting your men live and letting us be on our way?”

  There was a moment’s silence, the constable was saying something to his men and they once again took their positions and put us in their sights. MacCourighn said something to me, when another shot fired, splintering wood at the far end of the ship. I looked to see if anyone had been injured, the blast still reflecting all around, and I all at once came over quite queer. There was nothing, no shot, no lapping water, no chains clinking idly, no chattering, scuffing or shouting, just a sudden icy coldness coupled with shock that the world had disappeared as swiftly as a doused candle.

  Of the next hours or days I remember nothing, and trying to recall it would be as attempting to recollect a dreamless sleep.

  I awoke in The Ferryman's pit, gasping and terrified, and knew that I had been shot dead. Instinctively, I wondered what I could do about it – as a lazy schoolboy might who has woken on the day of exam - but the sensation was only fleeting.

  A sky of shrieking crows swarmed in the evening sky. They swirled and set upon us all, pecking and feasting an cawing their gratitude. I fumbled and twisted on the ocean of corpses below me, and saw myself laying there, mouth agape and eyes gazing upward, a bloody hole forged deep into my temple. I dared not see the mangled exit wound.

  Upon my grey-blue features, written by a coroner of Addenbade's Hospice, or perhaps one of the constabulary as we were hauled through the city, was a single word: Infletus, meaning that none would mourn my absence and my death had passed unnoticed. It was written unceremoniously across my nose and cheek in some dark ink.

  The sight was too much for me and I clambered away, not sparing the thought to see if the captain and his crew were also strewn across the pit the same as I. I can only guess that they were, and I despair to think
that their end came about because of me. My expiration as a criminal was complete.

  That is how I remember it at any rate, I'm sure the ebb and rush of time has tainted my recollection somewhat. There are things that are as bright in my mind as a matches flare, and others that I need to grasp for and study before accepting that they are indeed true.

  I'm certain there was a girl somewhere in my tale, though who she was is lost to me. Long auburn hair that turned ginger at the tips and eyes as green and magical as the northern lights. I don't think she was my wife, and to think she was my fiance makes me sad to think I chose to risk my life and foresake my happiness. I'm sure there was a girl who would have missed me and marked the anniversary of my passing, but I hope there was not.

  And so the stars continue in their fastidious arc across the heavens, and the sky grows paler in the east. I watch the sandy flats of The Wall melt from bruise-black to granite-grey, and the shadowed wilderness thaw, and imagine what would have happened should we have survived the constabulary and journeyed in search of the North East Passage. I doubt we should have ever found it, but captain MacCourighn's passion was good enough for me.

  I have only a few years left in this form, that is one thing that death has taught me, that even death has a date of expiration, though what lays beyond that is only speculation. I like to think that when we eventually fade we once again become the life-energy of the spring grass and fledgling coney,