The fallon blood, p.53
The Fallon Blood,
p.53
“Shut up,” Michael said tonelessly. He managed to get his arms under her and stand erect. He looked around for the carriage. The crowd parted in front of him as he walked toward it, staring straight ahead.
Suddenly there was a shot, and the people in front of him scattered. Something brushed his head, and wetness dripped down his cheek. In front of him, Henry Tyree appeared, throwing one pistol aside and pulling another. Michael kept walking toward the carriage.
“Damn you,” Tyree shouted. “I don’t care about the money. I just want you.”
Robert had just taken his hat and pistol from Catherine when the shot rang out. Instinctively he turned, arm coming up to the duelist’s ready. And suddenly there was a clear path from him to Michael to Tyree. He stepped to one side to clear Michael and shouted. “You!”
Tyree paused in the act of raising his gun. His eyes darted from Michael, still walking steadily toward him, to the waiting Robert. He snarled, and his pistol came up. Toward Michael. Robert fired on the instant.
Tyree was hurled back, his unfired gun lying beside him, still cocked. Michael walked past him without even looking down. He climbed into the carriage and put Gabrielle on the seat beside him, his arm around her so she could lie against his chest the way she liked to. Saul, weeping on his perch, peered at him wide-eyed.
“Home,” Michael said, and when Saul didn’t move he snapped, “Tir Alainn, damn you!”
The driver spun around, and the carriage rolled into the night. Michael held Gabrielle close, his tears falling onto her hair.
36
Michael’s study at Tir Alainn was dark. The curtains kept the darkness in. Only two candles were lit, one on either side of Gabrielle’s portrait. The portrait was in the only pool of light in the room.
Michael sat at his desk in the darkness. He didn’t drink. He just sat, watching the portrait. He didn’t eat, either. Regularly, trays were set outside the door. They grew cold, and were replaced by fresh trays that in turn grew cold. Untouched.
He sat, and looked at the portrait. Seeing Gabrielle. Laughing. Raging. Lost in love. There were so many memories. But sometimes another world would sneak in. Gabrielle lying in the street. The long walk from the house after the minister spoke to the new-cleared ground—the first two graves to hold Fallons in the New World.
There’d been more people than he wanted. All he wanted was Robert and Catherine. But they said they wanted to pay their respects. They said they wanted to honor her memory. They couldn’t understand a private grief, so they poured in by dozens, with flowers and black crepe.
He’d watched the wooden coffins with their shiny brass handles lowered into the ground, trying not to think of the stones added to one to bring what was in it up to the weight of a man. He’d watched the dirt sprinkled, as required, impassively, and stayed with cold eyes and a cold heart after everyone else was gone, until the last spadeful of earth was in place. Then he’d walked back to the house, to his study, closed the door, and pulled the curtains.
They said he was cold. They said he was unfeeling. He didn’t care enough about what they thought to explain. He just wanted to look at her portrait, and remember the good times.
There was a rap at the door, but he didn’t look around. Catherine stuck her head in hesitantly, then entered determinedly. “Papa, I must talk with you.”
Michael gazed at her. She was a beautiful child. As beautiful as her mother, perhaps. His eyes drifted back to the portrait. Thank God he had had St. Memin paint it.
Catherine walked to the window and threw open the curtains. The sunlight hurt his eyes after so long. She stood staring out before speaking. “Charles Manigault has asked me to marry him.”
He jerked erect. “You told him he’d stepped beyond the bounds of course.”
“I’m thinking of accepting,” she said slowly. “He says we should spend a year or more touring Europe for our honeymoon. I’d like that.”
“Honeymoon!” he roared. “Damn it, girl, you’re fifteen. A child. You’ll not even think of marriage for years yet!”
“But, Papa—”
“No, don’t smile at me like that. You’ll bend me around your finger no more. With—With your mother gone—Within the hour you’ll bring me a note to young Manigault, telling him you’ll not be seeing him again. Within the hour, mind, or you’ll not sit down for a week. Marriage, at your age. Go on with you, now.”
Catherine hurried out of the room. Thank God! But, drat it, now she wouldn’t be able to see Charles. He’d be totally baffled as to why. But Papa was alive once more.
Robert, waiting in the hall, looked at her expectantly. She nodded with a bad grace, and pointedly turned her back as he knocked on the door.
Michael was on his feet when Robert entered, still looking at Gabrielle’s portrait, but wondering how he was going to handle Catherine. “At least you aren’t aching for an early marriage,” he said.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” Robert replied innocently.
“Nothing, lad.” He stepped closer to the mantel. It was good the curtains were open. She’d always been beautiful in the sunlight.
“Sir, I hesitate to come to you with this, but I need your help.”
“Um?” Michael pulled his attention from the portrait with an effort. “My help? Of course. Whatever you need.”
“I want to buy a half interest in a brig, but I’ve only money for a quarter. I’m not known in Charleston, and—”
“And bankers are loath to lend to strangers. No matter. I’ll give you the money.”
“I can’t take it, sir,” Robert said quickly. “I mean no offense, but I’ve been my own man for too long.”
Michael nodded slowly, as if seeing Robert clearly for the first time. “Yes. Yes, I see. Well, I’ll take no offense at a statement of fact. Will you accept an introduction to William Kershaw, the banker?” At Robert’s nod he bent over his desk and began to write rapidly. “This will get you your money.”
“There’s one other thing, sir. I’d like you to take a look at the brig. She’s the Curlew, lying at Motte’s Wharf. I need your opinion of her.”
Michael stopped sanding the introduction. “My opinion? You know a good ship from a bad by now. You’ve worked the sea nine years.”
“I still have doubts of this one, and I’ve heard it said you have a natural eye for ships. Will you come to Charleston and look at it? I need that as much as the introduction.”
Go to Charleston? He didn’t want to leave that room, or Gabrielle’s portrait. But he couldn’t look at Robert’s brig from his study. And he couldn’t keep Catherine in order from there. God, she might just run off with Manigault if her temper was roused.
“All right. I’ll come down tomorrow and look at the Curlew.”
Robert smiled broadly. It was done. “Thank you, sir. I’d better get this note to Kershaw before the ship’s sold. And thank you again.”
Michael found himself smiling as Robert made his good-byes. He seemed entirely too overjoyed for just a ship. Perhaps there was a girl in Charleston as well. Wouldn’t that be a fine thing. His grief for James brushed him like a dark wing, then was gone.
Now for Catherine. On his way out of the study, he stopped just inside the door. Sunlight bathing the portrait made the flesh seem warm and alive. Gabrielle had been full of light and life. He’d been wrong to shut her up in darkness. She’d never accepted darkness, for herself or for him, never surrendered, never accepted an ending. If this was the ending of his story, it was the beginning of Robert and Catherine’s. And they needed him still, to help their story begin well.
He poured a glass of wine and raised it to her portrait, tears in his eyes and a smile on his lips. “To us, Brielle. To life. To America and the Fallon blood, for a thousand years to come.”
Tor Books by Robert Jordan
Note: Within series, books are best read in listed order.
—–
THE WHEEL OF TIME®
The preeminent fantasy epic of our era, created by Robert Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson.
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter’s Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams
The Gathering Storm (with Brandon Sanderson)
Towers of Midnight (with Brandon Sanderson)
A Memory of Light (with Brandon Sanderson)
New Spring: The Novel (a prequel)
Young adult editions of the first two books in the Wheel of Time:
From the Two Rivers (Starscape; Part one of The Eye of the World)
To the Blight (Starscape; Part two of The Eye of the World)
The Hunt Begins (Starscape; Part one of The Great Hunt)
New Threads in the Pattern (Starscape; Part two of The Great Hunt)
Companion books to The Wheel of Time containing in-depth descriptions of the characters and the world:
The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time (with Teresa Patterson)
The Wheel of Time Companion (with Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons)
Graphic novel adaptions of The Eye of the World and New Spring: The Novel:
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume One
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume Two
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume Three
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume Four
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume Five
The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume Six
New Spring: The Graphic Novel
CONAN
Tales of the legendary barbarian created by Robert E. Howard
Conan the Invincible
Conan the Defender
Conan the Unconquered
Conan the Triumphant
Conan the Magnificent
Conan the Destroyer
Conan the Victorious
The Conan Chronicles
The Further Chronicles of Conan
ROBERT JORDAN WRITING AS REAGAN O’NEAL
These gripping tales of love and bravery in America’s tumultuous past chronicle the lives of the Fallon men as they encounter adventure, forbidden love, and history.
The Fallon Blood
The Fallon Pride
The Fallon Legacy
ROBERT JORDAN WRITING AS JACKSON O’REILLY
Cheyenne Raiders
—–
Sign up for author updates at: tor-forge.com/author/robertjordan
About the Author
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, where he now lives with his wife, Harriet, in a house built in 1797. He taught himself to read when he was four with the incidental aid of a twelve-years-older brother, and was tackling Mark Twain and Jules Verne by five. He is a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army; among his decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star with “V,” and two Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry. A history buff, he has also written dance and theater criticism. He enjoys the outdoor sports of hunting, fishing, and sailing, and the indoor sports of poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting. He has been writing since 1977 and intends to continue until they nail shut his coffin.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
THE FALLON BLOOD
Copyright © 1980 by James O. Rigney, Jr.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y 10010
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
Design by Susan Hood
eISBN 9781466809628
First eBook Edition : January 2012
Robert Jordan, The Fallon Blood
