THE LEFT-HANDED FATE

June 22, 1812

Baltimore was a beautiful, twinkling, probably hostile collection of lights up ahead, half-hidden by two sheltering arms of land and one massive fortress. The topsail schooner Left-Handed Fate slid like an elegant knife through the water, trying as hard as ever she could not to look like a British privateer as she passed under the guns of Fort McHenry. The three youngest passengers stood at the port rail, leaning progressively farther out over the water in order to get a view unobstructed by someone else's head until the tallest, a young man in spectacles and a blue velvet coat, shoved the leather portfolio he was holding into the hands of the girl in the middle, pivoted abruptly, and vomited over the side.

"Is Max all right?" asked the smallest, a child with Chinese features, leaning around the girl to give the older boy the briefest of looks.

"Just committing his supper to the sea." After that, other than handing the portfolio back once the boy called Max had composed himself, Lucy Bluecrowne ignored them both. Her eyes were on the fortress, and not all the vomiting landlubbers in the world were going to distract her from the hornet's nest they were sailing into.

"But there isn't even any sea running," the small boy protested. "This river's calm as glass."

"Since when does he need a reason?" Lucy muttered.

"I'm right here," Max said with wounded dignity. "And I'm not seasick, Liao."

"Nerves, then," Liao said sympathetically, patting his arm.

"I'd be an idiot not to be nervous," Max retorted.

"Enough," Lucy said abruptly. The night was far too clear for this sort of adventure. You wanted dirty weather — clouds, mist, a good fierce soaking storm — for sneaking in and out of unfriendly ports. But the weather hadn't chosen to cooperate, so here they were, the Fate and all the souls aboard her, waltzing toward the harbor of Fells Point as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The crew had done what they could to disguise her more distinctive features — detaching and stowing the left-handed figurehead that was sometimes called a Fate and sometimes called a Fury, overpainting and scuffing the beautiful piney green she usually wore on her sides, dirtying up the decorative gilt gingerbread-work that was the bosun's mate's pride and joy. The Fate looked drab and nondescript now, except for her sharply back-slanting masts. Fortunately the schooner had been built in Baltimore, so it was perhaps the one place where she would look right at home. And they were headed for a friendly shipyard. Still ... Lucy forced herself to unclench her jaw.

She also forced herself not to look back. The Fate had enemies behind her as well as enemies ahead, but there were already plenty of eyes scanning the dark river behind them for familiar sails.

Or strange lights on the water. Or strange lights under it. Or, worst of all, strange lights aboard the Fate itself. Lucy shuddered, then reached out and scratched one of the nearby lines of rigging for luck.

"Cutter's ready," came a rough whisper from across the deck. Lucy put one arm — a comforting arm, it was meant to be — around Max. For some incomprehensible reason, this made him flinch, which made her want to give him something to flinch about. Instead she took a deep breath and reminded herself that, yes, he was sure to be terribly nervous, and also he had just thrown up, and she led him across the deck as gently as she thought appropriate. Meaning that to anyone watching, it probably looked more like dragging him for twenty-five feet than leading him, but with effort, she kept herself from shoving him across with a kick in the backside to hurry the process along.

Kendrick and another sailor called Whippett were holding one of the Fate's cutters steady against the starboard side. Max managed not to fall in the water as he climbed down into it. This was uncommon enough to seem like a good omen to Lucy.

Captain Richard Bluecrowne appeared at her side just as she was about to clamber down herself. "Take care, Lucy. You're clear on the rendezvous?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if there's trouble?"

"All clear on that, too, sir."

The captain nodded. "Don't go out of your way — I should prefer you to get Max where he needs to go and back again as quickly as possible — but keep your eyes open and take note of anything that might confirm or disconfirm the rumor."

The rumor. "Yes, sir."

He leaned over the gunwale and tossed a quick "Best of luck, Mr. Ault" to Max, then kissed Lucy's forehead. "See you soon. May no new thing arise."

Liao ducked under one of the captain's arms. "And don't worry, Lucy. I shall look out for our papa and the rest in the meantime." His voice was jaunty enough, but Liao was twisting the end of his long, braided pigtail between the fingers of his right hand. It was a thing he'd done for as long as Lucy had known him, and it meant he was nervous, too.

"I know you will, Liao." She kissed the little boy's cheek, then dropped easily down the side of the Fate and joined Max, Kendrick, and Whippett in the waiting cutter.

She and the two sailors piloted the little boat toward a dark stretch of open land to the north of Baltimore proper, just beyond the shipyards that lined the waterfront of the town of Fells Point. Kendrick was her father's coxswain; he was one of the most trusted hands aboard the Fate and also the closest thing to an uncle that Lucy had. She'd known him and Whippett most of her life, and the three of them handled the cutter like the practiced team they were, right down to beaching it neatly and getting Max out of it again without him getting his feet wet. Two good omens, that was. Then Lucy, Max, and...