Horatio Hornblower Fanfiction: Belle-Lettre by Jedishampoo

Archie Kennedy remained on deck to keep the watch, though indeed he could see very little in such a hellish storm. The night was black and the cold rain horizontal, watery bullets which stung his cheeks and squinted eyes.

The Indefatigable was hove-to somewhere off the coast of Brittany until the violent tempest had blown itself out. That happy time was long off if the strength of the blow was any indication. The winds shrieked through the Indy’s rigging in a cacophony that was surely beyond natural. It was a night for dark, lurid fantasy, for anthropomorphizing the screaming wind into the angered, relentless cries of elementals hidden somewhere in the darkness, bestial in their fury. It was the perfect night to have found the two half-drowned women tossed about in a broken craft that was little more than a rowboat, to have rescued them amid high peril to all, for imagining them as sodden royalty, princesses or queens on the run for their lives.

Archie was on tenterhooks to know who they were and if they were all right. But for now he would have to keep the watch, and he would have to wait for Captain Pellew-- or Horatio, if he was allowed-- to tell him.

I will be patient when the sea is. What care these roarers for the name of King? Or Queen? he thought to himself with private fancy. With automatic professionalism he peered up at the bare, moaning rigging to be sure they were not about to carry away a spar. It was a lost hope: if the storm lasted past morning, will-he, nill-he, they would lose a spar or two.

"A plague upon this howling," Archie said into the wind. "Those ladies are probably frightened to their deaths."

When the crew from the boat had pulled the sodden women aboard, the Captain’s concerned face had frozen to the point of discomfort at the stream of hysterical French that had poured from the lips of the older woman. Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower, their resident French-speaker, had been called over to deal with them. Captain Pellew was a kind but morbidly practical man, and must take all due care lest they be spies or something equally dangerous. After all, they were hard at war with France and too-near French soil. Indeed, even now the Indy sheltered in the mouth of a wide French bay.

"I believe she says they are mother and daughter, and that they are survivors of a merchant-vessel lost near here," Horatio had yelled to Captain Pellew over the howling winds. It was a likely-enough story, almost trite in its common-ness, and the stone-faced Captain had merely ordered with sharp, wordless gestures for Horatio to accompany them below and then report what he learned. But Archie and nearly every other man on deck had heard the words, and had seen the women, the one grey-haired and babbling and shaking, and the younger, unconscious yet dark-haired and astonishingly beautiful and pale as she was carried away.

Simple cloaks had covered their clothes but some indefinable feeling, not just fancy, told Archie that they were more than they appeared. Perhaps it had been the significant look, brief but sharp as the old madame’s eyes had crossed his. You must help us, the eyes had said. And God help him, Archie wanted to.

The Captain had stared the men down to remember their business. "The quarterdeck is yours, Mr. Kennedy," he’d said, then had taken himself below as well.

Leaving Archie Kennedy’s soul in turmoil, like the storm. But for now, he had to wait, and keep the watch.

***

It was two more hours before Mr. Bracegirdle relieved him and Archie dripped his way into the wardroom, almost too tired to care any longer. He shed his sou’wester and fetched a glass of wine, something to help him sleep through the rest of the storm. The room was empty, and Archie drank alone. His eyes drooped halfway through the glass, yet he was too exhausted to move. At Horatio’s entrance, however, he was re-energized, and all his fiery interest reignited. Horatio wore a most puzzled expression.

"Are our guests comfortable, Mr. Hornblower?" Archie asked, determined to show none of the fevered care that he felt.

"I suppose," Horatio said, taking a seat across the table. "There’s something-- I can’t really tell. They are most odd, Archie."

"What do you mean?" Archie felt his reserve evaporate; his friend was well-nigh rattled. "What did they say? Who are they?"

"I don’t really believe that the old woman is the younger’s mother—she has more the air of a servant. And the younger speaks perfect English—says she is well-read, but I do not know what to think."

"She is awake? Who is she?" Archie asked again, losing patience with Horatio’s bemusement.

"The old lady would only say elle est belle. She is beautiful," Horatio said, translating. "And the younger said to give you this. Do you know them?"

Archie ignored the question in his haste to take what Horatio held out above the table. It was a book, leather-bound, and sodden, yet a fine old book for all that.

‘Roméo et Juliet,’ the cover read. Archie’s heart stopped for a long moment.

"Do you know them, Archie?" Horatio asked again.

"No, Horatio, I don’t," Archie admitted when he could speak again. "May I see her, do you think?"

Horatio hmm’ed, was silent for a moment, and then said in an uneasy voice, "The Captain has given no orders otherwise."

"Thank you, Horatio," Archie said in a whisper, and left as quickly as he could, heart again beating loud in his ears, drowning out the howling winds and the creaking of the Indy’s timbers.

***

He scratched at the door of the small ‘guest’ cabin-- the Captain had not been so unkind as to put their foundlings, French or not, in the brig-- and at the soft reply of "Entrez" he opened it.

And she was belle, she was beauty personified. Older, perhaps than he’d first thought, when unconsciousness had paled and slackened her cheeks, but still no more than thirty-five. She was a princess, she was a queen, even with her soft, tangled dark locks drying in disarray about her shoulders, and her brown eyes wide and more beseeching than imperious.

"C’est-il," the old woman whispered.

"I know," his princess replied in soft, accented English. "May I know your name, sir?"

"Lieutenant Archie Kennedy," he told her with a small, courtly bow.

"Loo-tenant Archie Kennedy," she said with a heartbreaking smile. "A fine name, for a kind gentleman. All of you have been very kind."

"Thank you, but we could do no less on such a night," Archie said with a small, self-consicous chuckle. The exchange was polite and mundane, but the air fizzled with a magic he could not name. "Why did you give me this?"

She looked at the brown book limp in his fingers. "It is a beautiful story, is it not?"

"Indeed, but some might say a tragic story, ma’am."

"As are all the very best." She closed her eyes for a moment, lashes fine and dark against her cheeks, then looked up again with a stare that drowned him. "May I tell you a story, Loo-tenant Archie Kennedy?"

"Please," Archie breathed.

"A long time ago, in a faraway land, there lived a handsome young prince," she began. "The prince had all that he could desire, and yet he was selfish, and cruel."

Archie was lost in her voice, lost in her eyes and the enchanting story that floated soft as feathers from her pink lips. The old lady said never a word while Beauty spoke; she was as enraptured as he, shedding only a few quiet tears here and there.

A beautiful castle, it and all its inhabitants tormented by a grievous spell; an evil, relentless suitor; a girl’s unselfish love for her father; a twisted soul that learned to love: these consumed him as the minutes and bells ticked and rang by in another world.

"And they, of course, lived happily ever after," Beauty finally, and all-too-soon, finished with a sigh. A perfect ending.

Archie looked at her, heard the absence of the storm and the normal noises of a ship waking for the day. So much time had passed. Yet he could not leave her, especially not now. "Ah, but the story does not end there, does it?" he asked her, hoarse from wonder and lack of sleep.

"No," she said, and, her soft voice spoke volumes of sadness. "It is a hard world. There must be something that follows the ‘ever-after;’ a wedding, perhaps a few years of love and laughter, and then a Revolution. Perhaps that came long past its time, and all the more violent for it."

"I will help you," Archie said.

***

"This is quite irregular, Mis-ter Kennedy," Captain Pellew said, black eyes boring into his third Lieutenant’s.

"I agree, Sir." Archie stood straight before the hard question in those eyes, and kept his hands firmly clasped behind his back, not wishing like Horatio to convey his disquiet by flapping them about. "But we are heading for England anyway, Sir, are we not? Should we not be at Spithead within the hour?"

"Dammit, man, that is not the issue here!" Pellew’s voice was harsh, angry at this flight of fancy from a man he’d had to learn to trust. "What if they are spies, eh? What then? Are we to compromise His Majesty’s security because Mr. Lieutenant Kennedy says I-believe-them?"

Archie took a deep breath, filling his chest with air like a rooster puffing itself up with false bravado. A base animal glamour, but was not such trickery a form of magic? It was magic alone that gave Archie the courage to make the daring reply he knew he must. "With all due respect, sir, you do not believe they are spies, either."

The Captain was silent for a full minute, fuming, gnawing his knuckles. Without looking at Archie, he finally grated out, "No. I do not." The admission cost him, and he would not forget it, but Archie had to be relentless in his pursuit of a happy ending to this tale.

"I will take full responsibility, sir. I give you the word of my family, as well; they will fully support me in this."

Pellew waved his hand in disgust. "Very well. On yours-- and my-- head be it. I must still report it, you know. We are taking a very great gamble here, Mr. Kennedy."

"Yes, Sir," Archie told him.

Then there was a letter to be written, and what coins he had to be dug out of nooks and crannies in his sea-chest. The old lady, fawning over him in an incomprehensible torrent of thanks while Horatio struggled to translate.

And all the while Beauty was silent, staring at Archie unswervingly as Matthews and Styles helped the old lady over the side. Then it was her turn, and her dark eyes transfixed him, and her soft fingers rubbed at the stubble on his cheek: her kiss was soft and fleeting yet endless as the enchantment passed from her lips to his.

"We knew you would believe. And I will find my husband," Beauty said before backing away to the side of the Indy, to her new beginning.

And Archie watched them go, and his heart ached to know how the story ended.

End: Thanks for Reading!

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