Page 77 of Go, Rogue

“Given you’re a by-blow,” Barclay continues, ignoring him. “I ought not to even call you brother. You’re an embarrassment and nothing more.” He turns to leave. “But you’ll have a doctor when you’ve given me what I want. No matter what you might think, I am not a monster.”

And then he leaves.

McGann keeps where he is for a few more moments, clutching the prison bars with white knuckles to steady himself for whatever’s coming next.

“Let’s get this shite over with,” he growls at James.

James only smirks back and McGann wonders if he has the physical fortitude to bring the man down. Perhaps. He tries to move his weight to his toes and unhooks his hands from the bars to prepare himself for a fight. He nearly tips over instead.

Bloody hell.

He has to grasp at the bars again to keep from hitting the deck with his face. Now isn’t the time.

But it will come, he reminds himself. It always comes.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” is all James says as he unlocks and pushes open the door. “If you take a swing at me, I’ll have to kill you, and His Grace would be unhappy with me if I did that.”

“I am his brother,” McGann says, but James only snorts.

“Not because you’re related, you clod. Because he needs the payout from whatever’s in that box and he can’t open it without the key. The key you have.”

“I don’t have it,” McGann says, and then, “last I heard, the dukedom had plenty of coin. Why does Barclay need funds so badly?”

James only stares at him and shakes his head. “Everybody needs funds. The clearances have emptied us out. There are hardly any Scots left in Scotland anymore. And those that did stay are bloody desperate.”

McGann knows of the clearances, of course; everyone knows of them. That there are more sheep than Scots up North these days. That the British have well and truly broken the clan system and the result has been disastrous. No one to farm or work the land. No chiefs to hold to tradition and purpose. Families and communities broken, everything derelict. He knows how hard life is in the North right now. But Barclay has a dukedom, for fuck’s sakes. He isn’t a laborer.

“He’s double-crossed them, hasn’t he?” McGann says. “Barclay found the box and wants to use whatever’s in it to his advantage. Thinks he can sell its contents to the highest bidder, the East India Company be damned. But not without the key.”

It’s the only reason that makes sense.

Jesus wept, his brother’s an arsehole.

James doesn’t bother to answer him, just pulls McGann out of the brig and up the schooner’s ladders. But McGann doesn’t need him to answer. The stillness of the man’s face and the aversion of his eyes say quite enough. McGann’s right about this and he knows it.

James leads him out onto the deck, and he stares at the sky, lit up with that peachy-orange glow he loves. He tries to enjoy it; it’s the first sunset he’s seen in a week. And it might be his last if he doesn’t give his brother the key to the box. Which he can’t do because he doesn’t have it. Catherine does.

He shakes his head and thinks of her, as he does when he feels his spirits flag. He remembers the way they ate their dinners together aboard The Elphame. Recalls how the sunset highlighted her face in this same golden, peachy light.

He holds that memory in his mind, letting it wash over him and fill him with something that feels like hope, while James pushes him to the gangway leading to the pier.

They walk with McGann in front and James behind. James doesn’t even bother with restraints—it takes all the energy McGann has to put one foot in front of the other in a limping, dragging walk. He can’t run, much less escape, and both men know it.

The pier, when they finally reach it, is empty and hot, and it smells like fish guts. McGann breathes in deeply, loving the wretched scent. There’s nothing like the sour smell of rotting fish and sea brine to remind a man that he’s not dead.

He grins to himself and lifts his head to assess their position. Kingston is ahead of them, up a dusty, twisting road. And north of that is Spanish Town, where the government is housed. He wonders where they’re headed, probably to neither place if he had to guess.

And he wonders about his gran, especially what Barclay said to her, or paid her, to give up his lockbox. The one she’d given him that holds the only things he has from his mother.

He wonders about Esmee and her new beau, a former Bow Street Runner of all people, and how she’s faring back in London. And he thinks of Catherine, always Catherine, who must have reached Boston by now.

James pushes him toward a dilapidated carriage that awaits them at the end of the pier, and he groans as he steps onto the stair mount. His leg nearly gives out from under him as soon as he puts weight on it, but James catches him from behind and, with the help of the coachman, heaves him the rest of the way up and into the conveyance. McGann sinks back onto the dirty squabs and waits, letting the heat of Jamaica seep into his bones.

It’s December but hot enough that he’s soon covered in sweat. Even as daylight fades, the temperature holds, and he feels himself marinating in dirt and grime and stink. The worst of it is the rank smell of infection coming off his wound. His leg is definitely getting worse.

“Should I even bother to ask where we’re going?” he mutters to James, who climbs into the carriage beside him. James doesn’t answer, just knocks on the roof for the coachman to begin their journey.

They head for the interior of the island. The road is dusty and bumpy and made worse by the unsprung state of the carriage. Each sharp jolt sends a bolt of nausea from McGann’s stomach to his throat. He palms the seat beside him and wipes his brow, grateful he’d not bothered to force down the hard biscuit this morning.