The Poisoner's Game

Chapter 3

A.

HMS Alexandra

Malta Naval Base

Some months prior...

A knock sounded on the door to the officers' quarters which I shared with four other lieutenants. I had just begun to take off my uniform for the night. The other men would be out carousing in the streets of Malta finding whatever wicked brew they could and soaking in the good weather that rarely graced their motherland. Normally, I would join them, but I had the expectation of a promotion hanging over me.

Re-buttoning my white shirt, I responded, "Enter."

A young midshipman of maybe fourteen nodded in the doorway. "Lieutenant Rocque, Commander Hornby has requested your presence in his quarters, if you'll follow me."

I flexed my hands, my heart hammering as I composed myself at once glad I had not joined the rest of the men. Tossing on my blue naval jacket and making sure that I looked as sharp as possible, I followed the midshipman. Gas lanterns hung along the hallway of the ship, which ever so slightly rocked in the harbor. We had arrived in Malta in March after Sir Geoffrey; my longtime leader and mentor had been promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. For the past few weeks, we had been listening to whispers of aggression from the Russians against the Ottomans. The Balkan uprisings had heaved the unrest of the area into full focus with the brutal retaliation by the Turks. Disraeli wanted something to be done about it before his rival Gladstone embarrassed him again with another pamphlet like the "Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East." With the signing of the "London Protocol," the Royal Navy had the job of retaining a threatening presence in the Mediterranean.

Once we reached Sir Hornby's door, I excused the midshipman and straightened the cuffs of my sleeves before giving the door a firm knock. The door opened, and Captain Fisher exited, he gave me a once up and down which neither held kindness nor malice.

"Captain," I nodded as he held the door for me.

Moonlight shone through the four glass-paned windows at the back. A lantern hung above Sir Hornby, highlighting the weathered cracks in his face. It seemed like only yesterday that I had been foisted into his care. Motherless and practically fatherless.

#

May 20th, 1869

Hamoaze, England

The Devonport Dockyard

"Your name, lad?"

I looked up from my muddy shoes, wishing I hadn't stopped to throw rocks into the estuary. I had realized too late I was standing on nothing but mud banks. At least, my crisp uniform remained spotless. Clearing my throat, I stared up at the man with deep lines around his eyes, a receding hairline, and thick sideburns. Perhaps, his sideburns had stolen the hair from atop his head.

"Lord Alexander Rocque, sir," I breathed out, trying to refrain from the mumble I was always punished for. "I am the third son of the present Duke of Auden."

"Please sit, cadet." Commodore, Sir Hornby, indicated to the seat in front of a large desk covered with an assortment of maps and papers. He sat across from me and shuffled through the papers looking at me over their crisp edges. "Your age, cadet."

"Thirteen, sir." My chest expanded. Everyone always expected me to be fourteen because of my height.

Sir Hornby didn't look up. I deflated once more. "Your training?"

"Two years at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, sir." My heels knocked lightly against the sides of the chair. The mud didn't budge.

"You enrolled when you were eleven years of age?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yet, you received a first-class passing grade in studies, seamanship, and conduct."

"Yes, sir." I swallowed. "I passed to the rank of midshipman and spent a year on a training vessel."

"You'll be the youngest member of this squadron." Sir Hornby's golden insignia flashed in the beams of sunlight streaming through the window. "You'll have to pull your own weight."

"I'll pull six times my own weight!" I was immediately embarrassed by my childish and impassioned response.

Sir Hornby smiled. "Report to Captain Hopkins for your assignment, midshipman. We leave at dawn tomorrow."

#

Sir Hornby sat behind a table that had already been cleared and shined. He held only a letter. To the side of the room, his trunks were packed and ready for their removal to his home on land. Only since January had the HMS Alexandra become home and yet I still missed the HSM Liverpool which had carried us around the world.

"Commander, you requested my presence?" I asked keeping any emotion from my voice.

"Yes." For a moment Sir Hornby said nothing else and I felt a tinge of anxiety with every passing moment. With a deep sigh, he folded up the letter in his hand. "You're not going to like what I have to say. Please, take a seat, Alexander."

Sir Hornby had only called me Alexander two times in the eight years that I had known him. Once when I had almost gotten myself killed roughhousing in the crow's nest and a second time when my father had bid me stay on the ship for Christmas my first year in the Navy. I sat with reluctance, any expectation withering away and leaving nothing but nausea in the pit of my stomach.

"The Duke of Auden requests your immediate return to London." Sir Hornby regarded me with a pitying expression that made my hands clench. We had never once spoken at length about my father and we never would. I wondered what he'd think if he knew the truth.

With a coldness that surprised me, I responded, "Is there to be a funeral?"

Sir Hornby's expression didn't change. "His grace didn't say."

Of course not. At least I could be certain that neither of my older brothers had passed, for surely that would have reached the papers across Europe long before a letter from my father reached me. I hadn't seen my father in two years and hadn't seen him beyond a crowded ballroom in four years. Nothing good ever came from his summons.

Before I could respond saying I wouldn't go, Sir Hornby cleared his throat. "You'll have to go. I have no sway over the duke and his whims, neither does the Royal Navy. You know your father." What he didn't say was that my father never made requests but only demands. No one had ever told him no.

I swallowed my pride, the numbness of a little boy trying to claw its way inside of me. "Did he say anything else?"

Sir Hornby thought for a moment and then unfolded the letter again to scan it. "He wrote that you should 'pay your respects' to your mother."

Every fiber of my being stilled. The little boy inside me heard a woman scream and saw the glint of a knife like the eyes of a wolf. Blood dripped down his chin.

I took a breath.