Falconer's Quest Read online

  “My dear friend, not at all. Perish the thought. No, the lovely lady is fairly trembling with joy. She and her husband both. Though I must say the two of them are more than upset with your lack of communication.”

  “I’m sorry, but I could not bring myself to answer her letters.”

  “And now I see the reason why. She will be very sad to learn the reason for your silence.” Reginald fumbled with a button to his waistcoat. “She should be delivering their first child any day now.”

  “Please tell them I wish them every joy.” Falconer waited a moment, and when Reginald did not speak, he pressed gently, “So it is not Serafina.”

  “No. It is myself. And my dear wife, Lillian. We are at our wit’s end, I tell you. Our wit’s end.” Reginald Langston became agitated, and he rose and began pacing before the bench. “Lillian had a son by her first marriage. You knew she was widowed, of course.”

  “Yes.” Falconer remembered Reginald’s wife had previously been married to an earl, rather a scoundrel of English society who had squandered his money on ill-fated ventures.

  “Byron was to succeed to his late father’s titles, but Lillian had sold them,” Reginald went on. “She was penniless and heavily in debt and had no choice. Byron, however, failed to understand either the need or the deed. He was always a difficult son, impetuous and rather a snob. Very much like his late father, so Lillian tells me. The boy ran through his inheritance in a few short years. Also Lillian had left him quite a nice London town house, which he mortgaged. Without telling his mother, I hasten to add. And he spent all that as well.”

  “Gambling?” Falconer wondered. Another wayward son of wealthy parents.

  Reginald clearly was reluctant to speak ill of the lad. “Does it matter?”

  “I really cannot say until I know the problem.”

  “Then, yes. Gambling and vile women, by all accounts. He loved the trappings of power and accepted none of the responsibilities. He went before the magistrates once too often. A duel over a married woman, though married to neither of the men dueling, as it happened. Lillian begged for my help, which of course I gave. Our London partner, as you know, is Samuel Aldridge, a former diplomatic agent and a man of considerable influence. And of course you know Gareth and Erica Powers. Through their intervention, we managed to have the lad released. On one condition. Byron was to leave his past, his ways, and his London life behind. Samuel arranged for him to take a position of assistant manager at a new trading outpost.”

  Falconer realized he was already caught in the hunt. Not by the story. But by Reginald’s need. For this was what Falconer knew he could never refuse. He could not say no to a friend. Falconer asked, “Where?”

  “Marseilles. Do you know it?”

  “The harbor. The port. I’ve not been further inland than the seaman’s market fronting the quayside.” He could smell the place now.

  “Never been there myself. But our office is on the main avenue leading up from the port.” Reginald had not stopped his pacing before Falconer’s bench. “Byron arrived as scheduled. He worked there for six months. That is, he came in occasionally, mostly to collect his wages.”

  “He kept to his past ways,” Falconer surmised. When Reginald continued to pace in silence, Falconer picked up the story for him. “He did no work. He lived for the night and dark deeds. He again got into debt.”

  Reginald stopped pacing and stared at the nearest gravestone.

  Falconer said quietly, “He owed money to the wrong man.”

  “So we have been informed,” Reginald agreed, his voice low.

  “Is Byron alive?”

  “We were desperately afraid that he was not. We heard conflicting rumors. He had taken up with vile merchants, he had been found in an alley—nothing that could be confirmed even by our own agents.”

  Falconer waited for a time, then asked more softly still, “What have you learned?”

  “A letter arrived from Samuel. He was approached by a missionary’s wife, that is, his widow. She appeared in London. Traveling from Algiers. She claims to have seen Byron. Not merely seen him. Been shown him, like…like a prize heifer.”

  “Or a slave.”

  Reginald stared at him, his gaze hollow. “According to this woman, he had been sold to a North African brigand by the name of Ali Saleem.” Though Falconer’s intake of breath was very soft, Reginald caught it nonetheless. “You know him?”

  “The name. Every seaman who traverses the southern Mediterranean has heard of Ali Saleem. He is the last of the Barbary pirates.”

  “So I have been informed. This Ali Saleem let the poor woman go, even arranged transport back to civilization, upon receipt of her oath to pass on this information. The brigand has offered to release Byron for gold. Quite a large amount of gold.”

  Falconer rose to his feet. “I must speak with my son.”

  Reginald’s face was grim with old woes. “I will not have you doing this out of any sense of indebtedness. You owe me nothing. No matter what we might have said in the past. We are friends. I release you from any promise you might have made to me. Do you hear what I am saying?”

  Falconer gripped the other man’s arm. He turned Reginald around and guided him through the cemetery gates. “You are a friend, Reginald.”

  The man said miserably, “I wish I had not come.” Falconer’s squeeze on his arm was the only answer.

  Falconer left Reginald at the inn’s front entrance and rode his horse back out to the farm. Keeping his horse to an easy pace, he lifted his hat to a pair of women returning from the fields, his thoughts all the while racing far and wide. He tried to rein in the blood surging through his veins. He tried to pray.

  But all the while, his mind turned over and again to a single reality.

  Though they were six days’ hard ride inland, his nostrils were filled with the scent of the sea.

  Chapter 2

  The Moravian elders had interacted with Falconer on a fairly regular basis, but this night was different, according to Sarah Brune. She insisted upon Falconer dressing in a clean, starched shirt and fresh trousers. The shirt’s buttons were cloth and the trousers scarcely met Falconer’s ankles, but with a new black long coat, also of homespun, his appearance matched the serious nature of his meeting.

  He had asked to talk with the elders at their weekly meeting in the community hall, one door down from the church. His earth-stained and battle-scarred hands fiddled with his wide-brimmed dark hat as he waited, feeling like a schoolboy called to the headmaster’s office. The hall was not full, nor was it empty. Any member of the community could attend, and many did, especially during the winter months, when work was light and the evening hours long. But this was September harvest, and most folk were far too busy to take part in the regular event. Even so, with Falconer being one of them now, with the inn an important element in the community, and with news of the stranger’s visit having traveled quickly, most families sent a grandmother or an older gentleman whose limbs no longer could work the fields. One person per clan, to pass along the news and speak for kinfolk if required. It was the Moravian way.

  The community’s normal business was done, and the elders were in a good frame of mind with news of a bumper harvest and barns packed to overflowing in spite of those weeks of drought. The prayers were mostly of praise and thanksgiving, the discussions easy, the arguments absent. No village woman was brought up for the sin of gossip, no wayward youth had required punishment, nor was there news of further dissent with the powers that be in Raleigh.

  But as soon as Falconer arose to recount his conversation with Reginald, the elders’ demeanor turned serious, if not dour. He recounted the Langstons’ problem with their son, the personal debts and their outcome. He did not embellish. He answered the questions as best he could.

  He waited.

  The chief elder was none other than Paul Grobbe, one of the first men Falconer had met upon his arrival in Salem a couple of years before with a band of exhausted former slaves. “Wh
at of the inn, Brother John?” he now asked.

  “I stand ready to do as you advise.” Falconer motioned to where the nervous young innkeeper sat with his wife. “Brother Karl is here as well.”

  Grobbe motioned for the young man to rise. “Do you wish to continue with this work?”

  The young man’s stammer was as obvious as his nerves. “I-If the elders will it, g-good sir.”

  Grobbe looked to either side. None objected. “You have seen to your duties well. There have been no complaints from visitors. Your wife provides an excellent table.”

  “Th-thank you, Elder Grobbe.”

  Falconer said, “I am willing to sign over the running of the inn until Matt comes of age.”

  “What say you, Brother Karl?”

  Karl glanced at his wife, who used the corner of her apron to dab at her eyes. “Th-that has been our h-hope, Brother J-John,” he managed to say.

  The elder Grobbe paused a moment. Long before his gaze shifted, Falconer knew the time had finally come for the question he had pondered ever since speaking with Reginald three days earlier.

  Grobbe asked, “What about the boy?”

  “I would rather Matt be allowed to speak for himself,” Falconer replied. He looked at the boy beside him and sat down.

  “Very well.” Grobbe motioned to Matt. “Young Matt Hart, what say you?”

  The boy’s fingers trembled slightly as he held his hat in the same manner as Falconer. But his voice was steady. “I have nothing left for me here, sir.”

  One of the elders stiffened in protest. “Salem is your home and your family’s heritage!”

  Grobbe silenced his colleague with a single glance. He turned back to the boy and said gently, “I pray in time this will change for you, lad.”

  “I pray I can say the same, sir. But right now…”

  “Yes? Please continue, lad.”

  “The only thing that makes me happy is singing at sunset with Father John.”

  The previous elder could be held back no longer by merely a piercing look. “Your family helped establish this community! How could you possibly think of walking away from your heritage?”

  Matt did not look at the speaker but kept his eyes on the elder Grobbe, a man he had known all his life. “A frau stopped me on the street today, sir. She choked up as she hugged me. I continually see sorrow in all the faces I meet. The boys don’t treat me the same—the same as before. They mostly ignore me, and some call me names.”

  “We can soon put a stop to that,” the second elder forcefully chimed in.

  “It won’t matter, sir,” Matt responded, turning now to look at him. “I don’t want to be the lonely orphan boy. I want to go someplace where people don’t think about or talk about my missing mama every time they see me.”

  Falconer studied the lad standing beside him. Matt had sprouted a full eight inches in the past year. There was a mature leanness to his features, a steady calmness to both his gaze and his words.

  “You have been through far too much for a child of your years,” Grobbe murmured.

  Matt might have shrugged. “When Father John spoke to me of Master Reginald and his difficulty, I found myself wanting something for the first time since Mama passed.”

  Grobbe gave him a moment, then gently urged, “What was it you wanted?”

  Matt spoke in the same calm voice. “To leave. To be where I am not known.”

  This time Grobbe cut off the elder’s protest before it was fully formed. “What of your place here among us?”

  “I may return, sir. I do not see that day now. But I shall pray on this as hard as I am able. For my mother and my father both lie here in peace, and I think they would want this, though right now I cannot say for sure.”

  Falconer edged back a trace in his seat. Until that moment, he had not clearly seen how the boy had been changed by the tragedy. Or how he had grown.

  As was their habit, they sat together upon the porch, this time with coats about them against the fall chill. The next day would be anything but normal, what with a dawn rise and their final breakfast with the Salem folk, and this last evening of song and contemplation held a bittersweet air. Sarah had protested at the news of their swift departure, although not overmuch. For any who looked carefully could see that, since the elders’ meeting, Matt carried a notable difference about him. There was a wind in his sails now, a new spark to his eyes. Though he said nothing, even Aunt Sarah, who loved him as dearly as she did her own bairns, saw that this change was for the better.

  It was Sarah who now turned and spoke, not to Falconer or the lad she loved but rather to her husband. “Have you asked him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “If not, when?” But her husband was clearly loath to speak. She harrumphed something that might have been Men. Then Sarah leaned forward so she could look around her husband and asked, “Are you angry with God, Brother John?”

  “No, Sister.”

  “I ask you this because I will not have you leave this home with wrath in your heart, especially not for your Maker. There is a difference between sorrow and burning rage.”

  “Sarah.”

  “No, husband. If you will not speak, then I will have my say.”

  Falconer stood and moved to the rail so he could see all six faces. Paul and Sarah Brune, their seamed features glowing with harvest tans. The three children, two boys in their late teens on the swing and a younger girl by her father’s chair petting the cat. All holding the same hearty farmland vigor. And Matt. “You are right to speak as you do, Sister.”

  “Am I, then.” She settled back in the rocker and did as many of the Moravian women when talking among themselves, slipping her hands beneath her apron and folding them together. Beneath the curve of her small starched cap, her eyes glowed strong in the dimming daylight. “Tell me why.”

  “Because I must care for the boy. And he will judge the world through what he sees in me.”

  “Do you speak these words because you know I wish to hear them or because you know them to be true?”

  “I promised Ada I would do right by the lad. I said I would love him as our son and raise him into the man she knew he would be. I can only do this with God’s help.” He saw Matt wipe at his eyes and forced himself to focus upon the couple. “I could not make it through each day without Him. Even when He is distant, even when I question His ways, even when I am…”

  Sarah rocked softly, giving Falconer time to find his strength. “You are a good man, Brother John. You will become whole again.”

  “I scarcely know what that means.”

  “You will be healed,” she said. “And you will be the father Matt needs you to be.”

  Falconer saw a bit of Ada in the woman, which was hardly a surprise. Ada had been raised in this very household after losing her own parents to an influenza that had devastated the Moravian ranks. “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because I hear God speak in time to your own words, Brother John. Even when you cannot hear Him, even while your heart remains wounded by your loss. Still and now, He is with you.” The rocker creaked softly in cadence. “You may not go in peace, Brother John. But you will go with God. And you mark my words. He will use this road to draw you near once more.”

  Chapter 3

  Before the sun had risen, Falconer and Matt took the northwest trail out of Salem, riding a pair of fine horses and leading a pack mule. At midday they halted by a swiftflowing creek and ate provisions from their bulging saddlebags. Sarah Brune was determined they would arrive at their destination with food to spare. The day was fair, and they made good time.

  At sunset they found an empty meadow by a deserted cabin and camped under the eaves. In spite of brisk temperatures, Falconer slept deeply and did not dream. He awoke to swallows chasing the first rays of daylight, the horses cropping grass, and the soft breath of his son, whose bedroll was beside his. He lay there for a time, feeling the faint stirring of something deep in his bones. He found himself wondering if
there was more to this quest than simply coming to the aid of some dear friends.

  Late in the second afternoon, they arrived at what once had been the Moss plantation and now belonged to Falconer. The new overseer had hung a sign by the post road announcing Little Salem. The overseer was Moravian, the youngest of nine brothers and thus destined to receive almost none of the family land. Though he and his wife missed their kin and the Salem community, they reveled in farming a spread of this size. The house had been divided into four segments. Two families had matching apartments, a pair of rooms had been set aside for Falconer, and a portion of the cellar was rebuilt as a Freedom Train hideaway.

  After dinner Falconer took Matt down the side lane to where the orchard formed a live border between the main house and the rebuilt cabins, now housing six other landless Salem families. Each had been deeded a portion of fertile bottomland. Falconer could hear children playing in the last throes of daylight. He liked the fragrance of the few apples left to rot into the earth. He liked the sound of bees humming. He liked most of all how his heart responded to these things.

  Falconer now said to Matt, “I’ve had the impression something’s bothering you.”

  The boy jumped and touched a low-hanging limb.

  “It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m not one for pressing you to speak. But if you wish to talk, I am ready to listen.”

  Matt took so long in responding, Falconer almost suggested they return to the house and bed.

  But Matt then said, “I feel like I’m doing something wrong.”

  “Why is that?”

  Matt shrugged.

  “It is hard for me to communicate with a motion of your shoulders, son.”

  Matt said in a small voice, “Is it wrong to be happy?”

  “Ah.” Falconer resisted the urge to take hold of the boy. “Let me see if I can add some meat to that bit of a question. You feel that you are being disloyal to your mother by enjoying our time on the road?”