George Martin - Fevre Dream

…– a meal was brought

With blood, and each sate sullenly apart

Gorging himself in gloom; no Love was left;

All earth was but one thought-and that was Death

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men

Died and their bones were tombless as their flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devour’d,… and Jeffers read on, evil dancing after evil, until at last he concluded:

They slept on the abyss without a surge-

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,

The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need

Of aid from them-She was the Universe.

He closed the book.

“Ravings,” Marsh said. “He sounds like a man taken with fever.”

Jonathon Jeffers smiled wanly. “The Lord didn’t even put in an appearance.” He sighed. “Byron was of two minds about darkness, it seems to me. There’s precious little innocence in that poem. I wonder if Cap’n York is familiar with it?”

“Of course he is,” Marsh said, hoisting himself out of his chair. “Give that here.” He extended his hand.

Jeffers handed him the book. “Taking an interest in poetry, Cap’n?”

“Never you mind about that,” Marsh replied, slipping the book into his pocket. “Ain’t there any business to attend to in your office?”

“Certainly,” said Jeffers. He took his leave.

Abner Marsh stood in the library for three or four minutes, feeling mighty odd; the poem had had a very unsettling effect on him. Maybe there was something to this poetry business after all, he thought. He resolved to look into the book at his leisure and figure it out for himself.

Marsh had his own errands to run, however, and they kept him busy through most of the afternoon and early evening. Afterward he forgot all about the book in his pocket. Karl Framm was going into New Orleans to sup at the St. Charles, and Marsh decided to join him. It was almost midnight when they returned to the Fevre Dream. Undressing up in his cabin, Marsh came upon the book again. He put it carefully on his bedside table, donned his nightshirt, and settled down to read a bit by candlelight.

“Darkness” seemed even more sinister by night, in the dim loneliness of his little steamer cabin, although the words on the page didn’t have quite the cold menace that Jeffers had given them. Still, they disquieted him. He turned pages and read “Sennacherib” and “She Walks in Beauty” and some other poems, but his thoughts kept wandering into “Darkness.” Despite the heat of the night, Abner Marsh had gooseflesh creeping up his arms.

In the front of the book, there was a picture of Byron. Marsh studied it. He looked pretty enough, dark and sensual like a Creole; it was easy to see why the women went for him so, even if he was supposed to be a gimp. Of course, he was a nobleman too. It said so right beneath his picture:

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 1788-1824

Abner Marsh studied Byron’s face for a time, and found himself envying the poet’s features. Beauty was never something he had experienced from within; if he dreamed of grand gorgeous steamers, perhaps it was because he so conspicuously lacked beauty himself. With his bulk, his warts, his flat squashed nose, Marsh had never had to worry over much about women neither. When he’d been younger, rafting and flatboating down the river, and even after he’d worked a spell on steamers, Marsh had frequented places in Natchez-under-the-hill and New Orleans where a riverman could find a night’s fun for a reasonable price. And later, when Fevre River Packets was going strong, there were some women in Galena and Dubuque and St. Paul who would have married him for the asking; good, stout, hard-faced widow women who knew the worth of a sound strong man like him, with all those steamboats. But they had lost interest quick enough after his misfortune, and anyway they had never been what he’d wanted. When Abner Marsh let himself think of such things, which wasn’t often, he dreamed of women like the dark-eyed Creole ladies and dusky free quadroons of New Orleans, lithe and graceful and proud as his steamers.

Marsh snorted and blew out his candle. He tried to sleep. But his dreams were flushed and haunted; words echoed dimly and frighteningly in the darkened alleys of his mind.

… Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day.

… Gorging himself in gloom: no Love was left.

… men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation.

… a meal was brought,

With blood.

… an astounding man.

Abner Marsh sat bolt upright in his bed, wide awake, listening to the thumping of his heart. “Damn,” he muttered. He found a match, lit his bedside candle, and opened the book of poems to the page with Byron’s picture. “Damn,” he repeated.

Marsh dressed quickly. He yearned for company something fierce, for Hairy Mike’s muscles and black iron billet, or Jonathon Jeffers and his sword cane. But this was between him and Joshua alone, and he had given his word not to talk to no one.

He splashed some water on his face, took up his hickory stick, and went out onto the deck, wishing he had a preacher on board, or even a cross. The book of poems was in his pocket. Far down the landing, another steamer was building steam and loading; Marsh could hear her roustabouts singing a slow, melancholy chant as they toted cargo across the planks.

At the door to Joshua’s cabin, Abner Marsh raised his stick to knock, then hesitated, suddenly full of doubts. Joshua had given orders not to be disturbed. Joshua was going to be almighty displeased by what Marsh had to say. The whole thing was tomfoolery, that poem had just plagued him with bad dreams, or maybe it was something he ate. Still, still…

He was still standing there, frowning in thought, his stick upraised, when the cabin door swung silently open.

Inside was as dark as the belly of a cow. Moon and stars cast some small light across the door frame, but beyond was hot velvet blackness. Several paces back from the door, a shadowy figure stood. The moon touched bare feet, and the vague shape of the man was dimly felt. “Come in, Abner,” came the voice from the darkness. Joshua spoke in a raspy whisper.

Abner Marsh stepped forward across the threshold.

The shadow moved, and suddenly the door was closed. Marsh heard it lock. It was utterly dark. He couldn’t see a thing. A powerful hand gripped him tightly by the arm and drew him forward. Then he was pushed backward, and he was afraid for an instant until he felt the chair beneath him.

A rustle of motion in the darkness. Marsh looked around, blindly, trying to make sense out of the black. “I didn’t knock,” he heard himself say.

“No,” came Joshua’s reply. “I heard you approach. And I have been expecting you, Abner.”

“He said you would come,” came another voice, from a different part of the darkness. A woman’s voice, soft, bitter. Valerie.

“You,” Marsh said in astonishment. He had not expected that. He was confused, angry, uncertain, and Valerie’s presence made it even more difficult. “What are you doin’ here?” Marsh demanded.

“I might ask the same of you,” her soft voice answered. “I am here because Joshua needs me, Captain Marsh. To help him. And that is more than you have done, for all your words. You and your kind, with all your suspicion, all your pious-”

“Enough, Valerie,” Joshua said curtly. “Abner, I do not know why you have come tonight, but I knew you would come sooner or later. I might have done better to take a dullard as a partner, a man who would take orders without questions. You are too shrewd perhaps for your own good, and mine. I knew it was only a matter of time until you saw through the tale I spun for you at Natchez. I’ve seen you watching us. I know about your little tests.” He gave a rough, forced chuckle. “Holy water, indeed!”