A Dark and Promised Land Read Online Free PDF Page B

considering.
    â€œIndeed?” Lachlan replies. “Well, my neck’s very sore. But after last night, praise the Lord that we are still drawing breath.”
    Rose agrees with him, though she has no idea where they are and is still uncertain of the outlandish people who have rescued them. With a lowered voice, she informs Lachlan that they spoke English. He looks at her with arched eyebrow, but does not respond.
    The wind seems to pass through her robe. She doesn’t need to climb a tree to know that the ranks of brush and bole go on for endless leagues. There is something about the chill of the wind, the immutability of it that gives the impression that the surrounding forest is breathing, and is a beast of unimaginable size.
    There were the odd winter days in Stromness when the weather turned to the south and the thermometer almost burst in the sudden warmth; she could smell the lush green of distant tropical lands on that breeze, hear the chatter of brightly plumed birds as they swooped from palm to palm.
    The air now moving past has that sense of space and distance, but unlike that delicious equatorial ghost, this air whispers of barrenness, speaks of a land cold and empty of anything warm.
    After a breakfast in which Lachlan watches the Indians closely, but does not address them beyond a cautious “Thank you, ma’am,” when he is handed a spear of meat, the survivors don what remain of their rags and the Indians give Rose a stained capote and a pair of moose-hide leggings. They are much too large for her and she is required to cinch them high up under her breasts with a length of hemp. The Indians have no moccasins to spare, and she is forced to tie rotten and discarded pieces of hide around her feet.
    Several colonists return to the beach. Wreckage is scattered far down the strand, and there are many bodies half-buried in gravel or shrouded in kelp. Of the two ships that accompanied them, there is nothing to be seen.
    Rose stands listening to the hush and roar of surf. On the blurred horizon, the grey water blends with the equally sombre sky, making her feel enveloped on all sides by the same empty waste. Somewhere out there is her home, countless leagues east. The ship that had died on these shores had been her only connection with everything she has ever known, and it feels as if a part of her has perished with it.
    She feels a sudden tumble of emotion — grief, fear, and anger at her father for bringing them to this terrible place. She had been awed by the enormity of the Northern Sea, and struck dumb by the mountains of blue-green-grey ice through which the Intrepid had attempted to navigate, but any sense of adventure she carried with her from Orkney — a delicate bird it had proved to be — had perished on the night’s killing strand.
    Most of all she feels overwhelmed by the emptiness. Her life has been a safe one; she had the time and comfort to believe in adventures filled with courage and extravagant heroism. But their arrival in Rupert’s Land changed everything: wonder and hope becoming meaningless, ignoble death. There is no page to turn or cover to close; she is trapped within a story not of her choosing, facing a future utterly beyond her control. Even now, the men gather to decide the course of action, her voice unimportant and unwanted.
    â€œDamned, unnecessary tragedy,” her father says, standing beside her in his wrinkled coat and breeches. She is startled to see how gaunt he looks, with shadowed cheeks and purple fans below his eyes. His hands tremble. “That captain was a fool,” he says.
    â€œIt was an accident, was it not, Father?”
    â€œYes, Rose, but preventable — ah, look at that damned whitemaa there. Get, get, I say!” He runs waving his hands at a gull that had approached a corpse. The bird spreads its long white wings and floats off, screeing down the beach.
    â€œWe must bury these poor folk,” Lachlan