“I remember that item,” Jack allowed.

“Will you throw her away, too?”

“She is far more valuable, true…”

“ Andworth more money,” Eliza put in slyly.

“You’re not proposing to sell yourself-?”

Eliza went into a strange amalgam of laughing and crying. “I mean to say that I have already made more money than the plumes, sword, and horse were worth, and stand to make far more, soon-and so if it is money that concerns you, walk away from the God’s Wounds and stay with me, here in Amsterdam-soon you’ll forget this ship ever existed.”

“It does not seem respectable-being supported by a woman.”

“When in your life have you ever cared about respect?”

“Since people began to respect me.”

“I am offering you safety, happiness, wealth-and my respect,” Eliza said.

“You would not respect me for long. Let me take this one voyage, and get my money back, then-”

“One voyage for you. Eternal wretchedness for the Africans you’ll buy, and their descendants.”

“Either way I’ve lost my Eliza,” Jack said with a shrug. “So that makes me something of an authority when it comes to eternal wretchedness.”

“Do you want your life?”

“ Thislife? Not especially.”

“Get off the boat, if you want to have a life at all.”

Eliza had noticed what Jack hadn’t, which was that God’s Wounds had finished being loaded. The hatch-covers were back in place, the herring was paid for (in silver coins, not cowrie-shells), and the sailors were casting off lines. Only Mr. Vliet, and Yevgeny, remained on the quay-the former haggling with an apothecary over a medicine-chest, and the latter being blessed by an outlandish Raskolnik priest in a towering hat. This scene was so curious that it diverted Jack’s attention completely, until all of the sailors began to holler. Then he looked at them. But they were all looking at some apparently horrid spectacle on the quay, putting Jack suddenly in fear that ruffians, or something, were assaulting Eliza.

Jack turned around just in time to discover that Eliza had seized the harpoon, which Yevgeny had left leaning against a stack of crates, and was just in the act of launching it toward Jack. She was not, of course, a professional harpooneer, but she had the womanly knack of aiming for the heart, and so the weapon came at him straight as Truth. Jack, recalling a dim bit of sword-fighting lore from his Regimental days, twisted sideways to present a narrower target, but lost his balance and fell toward the mainmast and threw out his left arm to break his fall. The broad flukes of the harpoon made a slashing attack across the breadth of his chest and glanced off a rib, or something, so that its point struck his forearm and passed sideways through the narrow space between the two bones and buried itself in the mast-pinning him. He felt all of this before he saw it because he was looking for Eliza. But she’d already turned her back on him and was walking away, not even caring whether she had hit him or not.

D’AVAUX AND A PAIR OFtall, uncommonly hard-bitten “valets” saw her to the brink of a canal, not far from the Dam, that ran westwards toward Haarlem. A vessel was tied up there, accepting passengers, and from a distance Eliza thought it a tiny one, because it had an amusing toylike look, with the stem and the stern both curved sharply upwards-giving it the profile of a fat boy doing a bold belly-flop. But as they drew closer she saw it was a large (albeit lightly built) ship, at least twenty yards long, and narrower of beam than she’d expected-a crescent moon.

“I do not mean to belabor you with tedious details-that sort of thing is the responsibility of Jacques, here, and Jean-Baptiste…”

“ Theseare coming with me!?”

“The way to Paris is not devoid of perils, mademoiselle,” d’Avaux said drily, “even for the weak and the innocent. ” Then he turned his head in the direction of the still lightly smoking wrack of Mr. Sluys’s string of houses, only a musket-shot away along this very canal.

“Evidently you think I am neither, ” Eliza sniffed.

“Your practice of harpooning sailors along the waterfront would make it difficult for even the most lubrique to harbor illusions as to your true nature-”

“You’ve heard about that?”

“Miracle you weren’t arrested-here, in a city where kissing someone is a misdemeanour.”

“Have you had me followed, monsieur?” Eliza looked indignantly at Jacques and Jean-Baptiste, who pretended, for the time being, to be deaf and blind, and busied themselves with a cartload of rather good luggage. She’d never seen most of these bags before, but d’Avaux had implied, more than once, that they and their contents all belonged to her.

“Men will ever follow you, mademoiselle, you’d best adapt. In any event-setting aside the odd harpooning-in this town are certain busybodies, scolds, and cancaniers who insist that you were involved in the financial implosion of Mr. Sluys; the invasion fleet that sailed for England, from Texel, the other day, flying the Duke of Monmouth’s colors; and the feral mob of Orangist patriots who, some say, set Mr. Sluys’s dwelling afire. I, of course, do not believe in any of these nonsenses-and yet I worry about you-”

“Like a fretful uncle. Oh, how dear!”

“So. This kaag will take you, and your escorts-”

“Over the Haarlemmermeer to Leiden, and thence to Den Briel via the Hague.”

“How did you guess?”

“The coat of arms of the City of Den Briel is carved on the taffrail, there, opposite that of Amsterdam,” Eliza said, pointing up at the stern. D’Avaux turned to look, and so did Jacques and Jean-Baptiste; and in the same moment Eliza heard behind her a weird sighing, whistling noise, like a bagpipe running out of wind, and was jostled by a passing boer headed for the gangplank. As this rustic clambered up onto the kaag she saw his oddly familiar hump-backed profile, and caught her breath for a moment. D’Avaux turned to peer at her. Something told Eliza that this would be an awkward time to make a fuss, and so she let her mouth run: “She carries more sail than the usual canal-barge-presumably for crossing the Haarlemmermeer. She is a slender vessel, made to pass through that narrow lock between Leiden and the Hague. And yet she’s too flimsy to traverse Zeeland’s currents and tides-she could never afford the insurance.”

“Yes,” d’Avaux said, “at Den Briel you must transfer to a more insurable ship that will take you to Brussels.” He was looking at Eliza queerly-so suspicious! The boer, meanwhile, had disappeared into the clutter of passengers and cargo on the kaag ’s deck. “From Brussels you will travel over land to Paris,” d’Avaux continued. “The inland route is less comfortable during summer-but much safer during an armed rebellion against the King of England.”

Eliza sighed deeply, trying to hold in her mind the phant’sy of a million slaves being released from bondage. But it was a frail gauzy construction ripped apart by the strong summer-light of Amsterdam, the hard clear shapes of black buildings and white windows. “My lovely Dukie,” she said, “so impetuous.”

“Etienne d’Arcachon-who asks about you, by the way, in every one of his letters-suffers from a similar fault. In his case it is tempered by breeding and intelligence; yet he has lost a hand to a Vagabond because of it!”

“Oh, nasty Vagabonds!”

“They say he is recovering as well as can be expected.”

“When I get to Paris, I’ll send you news of him.”

“Send me news of everything, especially what does not appear to be news,” d’Avaux insisted. “If you can learn to read the comings and goings at Versailles as well as you do the taffrails and insurance-policies of Dutch boats, you’ll be running France in a trice.”