The Choir Boats Read Free

be
nearly as good as restored.”
    For a second Barnabas and Sanford shared a montage of
memories: a chaffinch on the churchyard gate, a minaret against a
great red sun, the roar of surf under a ship the size of a castle. And
crabbed handwriting on a letter locked in a trunk upstairs. Barnabas
pushed his chair back, and strode forward to clasp his partner’s
hand. “Thank you,” he said, in a voice low and taut. “We shall double
this cape together, old friend. Together.”
    The partners turned to practical matters, neither of them having
heard of the Piebald Swan. Sanford said, “Finch-House Mews is
above Hermitage Stairs near Brown’s Key and the Oil Wharf. George
& Sons, the chandlers, have their office at Finch-House Longstreet
and the New Deanery. You’ll recall they owe us for jute-sacking from
the Gazelle ’s last voyage.”
    “Well, buttons and beeswax,” said Barnabas, “We should ask ’em,
the Georges, about this Piebald Swan.”
    Sanford shook his head. “The letter is clear about not telling
anyone.”
    Barnabas would not be swayed. “Not to tell anyone of our plans ,”
he pointed to the letter, adopting the tone he used with East India
Company officials and their lawyers when interpreting a clause in
a contract. The lips on Sanford’s face stretched briefly upward, the
nearest thing to a smile he afforded himself or others. Barnabas
was, he knew, “clarifying,” as Barnabas called it. He’d seen Barnabas
“clarify” contractual points to a profitable nicety many times before.
Sanford was an able practitioner of “clarification” himself.
    “In formal terms, yes,” said Sanford. “But think what might
occur should we noise about our enquiries for an inn or coffeehouse
named the Piebald Swan. Quick ears will pick up our tale, pass our
scent for money in all the rookeries and dens from Cripplegate to
Whitechapel.”
    “Fairly spoken,” said Barnabas. “Point to you, round still
undecided.” Sanford bowed his head. “No good to have every rascal,
wretch, and cutpurse from here to Limehouse swarmin’ ’round us.
Not that we couldn’t handle ’em, of course, just that the letter states
it pretty plain . . .” Barnabas lost his sentence as he thrust out his
arm, waving the quizzing glass in lieu of a cutlass to “handle ’em.”
    Sanford ducked the sweep of the quizzing glass. “Quite,” he said. “And
then there’s the N.C. Strix Tender Wurm the letter warns us against.”
    Barnabas paused in mid-stroke, looking like Playdermon, the
hero of the hills whose exploits were put on stage by Buskirk in the
year Barnabas was born. “Ah,” he exclaimed. “Surely a monstrous
brute, this Wurm fellow, a great villain . . . but we . . . aren’t . . . scared . . .
of . . . him!” Between each word, Barnabas took huge swipes with
his phantom blade, ending with an explosive chop to a globe that he
deemed suitable as a substitute for the Wurm’s head.
    Once again, the merest rictus crossed Sanford’s face, the grimace
that was his mule’s smile. Not scared, no, he thought. But best be wary,
all the same.
    Satisfied that he had dispatched the Wurm, Barnabas thumbed
through the book from the box. As Sanford’s eyes narrowed,
Barnabas read aloud from a page at random: “‘On March 10, 1788
the two ships in the French naval expedition led by de la Perouse
left Port Jackson in Australia, witnessed by the British onshore,
and vanished. France has been searching ever since for the lost
expedition.’ Well, there’s some proof for you! Everyone has heard
about the lost Perouse expedition. There was even that play about it,
here in London. Not that I care for the French, mind you, but all the
same, poor devils. . . . Ah listen, here’s more: ‘Some believe that the
Perouse ships have wandered off our world onto the mist-wracked
roads that lead to Yount . . .’”
    Words like “mist-wracked” nearly caused the tendrils on Barnabas’s
vest to uncurl with delight. Eyes shining, Barnabas