North of the Azores

By Ruth Danes

The year is 1780 and the Devil’s Isles, a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, have recently been conquered by Britain after a brief war. The inhabitants of the Devil’s Isles practice magic and both human and animal sacrifice. Nebula, a young princess from the islands, struggles with this and is beginning to question what she has been taught.

Aware of a plot to kill everyone on the islands, Nebula defects to the British side where she takes on a new identity and a new life. Under the name Adeliza, she works in England as a maid for a Dr Moon. Only two men know her real identity; the kind-hearted doctor and the seemingly terrifying Mr Lastman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781624203367

Book preview

Chapter One

For the first thirteen years of my life I lived on the Islands as we called them, as if there were no other islands on earth. The Islands are better known to the world now as the Devil’s Isles and their natives as Demons, a group of seven islands situated north of the Azores and south of Iceland, closer to Ireland than to the Americas.

I was born on Beltane 1767, the low princess of the House of Beaumarch. My parents gave me the name Adeliza. The Islands were ruled by a high queen but under her were nine aristocratic houses headed by low queens. My parents were both of the House of Beaumarch, which ruled over two small islands on the far east of the archipelago.

People who settled on the Islands were absorbed into the culture and society which already existed there. We Islanders were pagans who had a culture that practiced both human and animal sacrifice. Island society was ruled by women and only female children could be sacrificed as the more valuable, life-giving sex. We accepted settlers providing they took on our religion, customs and language. Our language which we called Islanders has been described as similar to Latin but influenced heavily by Old Norse and many modern languages. However, any proud Islander would reject the notion that any barbarian, as we called those who came from overseas, might influence anything that we did.

We had little to do with the rest of the world until the middle years of the eighteenth century. As a low princess I played a significant part in the Islands’ cultural and religious life. I was also educated to a high standard. The influence of foreigners on our islands had a bigger influence on my time on the Islands than we would have liked to admit. The British in particular took a great interest in the Devil’s Isles but there was a significant number of Portuguese from the Azores and Icelanders on our shores as well as French and Danes.

Every year a sort of census was taken of the Islands’ population and it fell during my lifetime. The proportion of barbarians to Islanders rose.

The reasons for the dwindling population were war and the ensuing raids, reprisals, disease and famine. Until the war between Britain and America, our relationship with foreigners was civil. We felt and expressed our superiority whilst taking what we could from these strange people, be it new scientific ideas or the cargo from their ships. During the late seventies Britain tried to tighten its once feeble grasp over us. Soon Portugal, Iceland and Denmark joined the fight. In 1779 war broke out between the nations and Britain won after months of bloody frightening.

In the summer of 1780 a treaty was drawn up which would make the Devil’s Isles a British colony indefinitely and for the next twenty years one fifth of all revenue from the Isles would be split equally between Denmark, who then ruled Iceland, and Portugal. The treaty was due to be signed on the day of the summer solstice.

As an Islander I was aware of a plan that ensured this treaty would never be signed. On the eve of the summer solstice we would invite all the foreigners to a party in our capital, Arx, which was on the northern coast of the largest island, Mikil. Almost all the foreigners lived on Mikil and mainly near Arx. We had been making and hoarding gunpowder since the preceding winter solstice. Every house and every public building had enough hidden in them to blow both the building and its inhabitants into the next world. We would take ourselves into paradise and the invaders into hellfire at midnight on the summer solstice. Nothing would remain of the Islands. If we could not live on them in the manner in which we always lived then no-one else would ever live on them again.

The invaders, or barbarians as we called them, accepted our invitation to the party as homage from a captive people who wanted to appease their new masters. We accepted that death was better than slavery.

I, however, did not.

Up until the plan was finalised, in the weeks before Beltane, I entirely accepted my culture and my creed. I believed in human sacrifice until it was my turn to be sacrificed. I grew desperate with no one and nowhere to turn to. I was barely thirteen years old and I was adamant I did not want to die. Yet it would have been unthinkable treason to confess this.

A desperate and daring plan formed in my mind. In the darkness of late evening I would swim out to one of the many foreign ships anchored in the Bay of Arx, climb up the chain linking the ship to its anchor, tell my tale and beg for mercy and action.

It all seemed so simple.

I began the day of the nineteenth June 1780 as usual. I rose and combed my thick brandy-coloured hair which fell in soft curls to my hips. I pulled the top half of my hair back into a clip which was fashioned out of an emerald, as long as my second finger and shaped like a lozenge. No pomade was needed to hold my hair in place. It was combed twice-daily but had not been washed since my seventh birthday. I cleaned my teeth. I wiped my face, hands and feet with a cloth which had been soaked in flower-infused water. I applied kohl around my eyes and rouge to my lips. I was ready for the day.

There was no need to get dressed. I had slept in my clothes as was our custom. I wore a breast band to support breasts which were just beginning to grow and over that a gown. My gown was entirely emerald green, its bodice was made of velvet and had a square-cut neckline, its long loose sleeves and six ankle-length skirts were made from silk so fine it was translucent. Tiny emerald beads edged the neckline and the hems of the skirts and sleeves. It being summer I walked barefoot. We all walked barefoot except for during the coldest months and consequently had feet so tough they appeared to be coated with horn.

I wore the jewellery I always wore, the five bands of high birth. Five bands of gold worn around the neck, each wrist and each ankle. The necklace was studded with opals, the bracelets with pearls and the anklets with diamonds.

Since my seventh birthday I lived mainly at the High Queen’s court with other maidens of high birth to both be educated and to serve. By June 1780 there were one-and-twenty maidens, including me, aged from seven to nineteen. We all dressed in the same style but in different colours and matched the jewels in our hair to our gowns. We honoured the rainbow by wearing its colours.

I had been wearing green since I turned seven. I had been commanded to do so and the reason why was probably because the colour suited my tawny hair, pale brown skin and peridot-coloured eyes. Since entering the court, I no longer answered to Adeliza but to a new name, Nebula.

I was not a great low princess. My looks were not reckoned to be anything remarkable. I was on the short side, round faced with a pointed chin and sturdily built whereas the ideal maiden was either short and slight or tall and buxom. I had been chosen to sing at court because it was in my stars that I should be able to sing excellently but although my alto was passable, the ideal maiden sung soprano like a lark.

The ideal high-born maiden was also able to interpret dreams, heal the sick, cast spells and communicate with the dead. My skills in these areas, although better than my singing, were not astounding and above all a high-born maiden was astounding. Even worse, it had taken me many years before I could participate in either animal or human sacrifices with the required gusto. It had been very clear from my infancy I was going to be a shy, retiring girl and not a natural leader. These qualities, prized in barbarian women, were a shameful handicap in any female Islander, let alone a princess.

My strong point was the ability to learn how to understand, speak, read and write foreign languages to a high level very quickly. This was not a skill I had been expected to acquire but it was one that came naturally to me. By the summer of 1780 most Islanders had at least some understanding of the languages the barbarians spoke and wrote, mainly English, French, Latin, Portuguese, Danish and Icelandic. Very few Islanders were fluent in any, let alone all of the languages. My written and spoken English, French and Latin were almost as fluent as my Islanders. I could confidently read and understand Portuguese and Danish. I could write and speak both languages to a lesser degree. My Icelandic was passable. French and Latin were the languages the barbarians used to communicate with each other when they did not share a mother tongue. Very few of them spoke more than a smattering of Islanders.

It was because of my abilities as a linguist I was called to meet with the barbarians and act as an interpreter. At first, I helped to interrogate captured soldiers, then to negotiate peace and to translate a written treaty. By the summer of 1780 I was called upon daily to speak with various barbarian officials.

There were only a handful other Islanders who carried out this work. Boys did not receive the same standard of education as girls did and only the very elite in Islander society were taught foreign languages. In my day these languages were Latin, French and English. Only a few hundred girls and women received such a high level of education. I picked up Portuguese, Danish and Icelandic from dealing with the barbarians. Out of the two hundred or so female royals, I was one of the best linguists and certainly one of a very small number who was interested in learning barbarian languages any longer than a tutor demanded it. By 1780, many of my peers had died in the war. Consequently, I was in demand for my skills but the fact I loved the sound of these foreign words and their shapes when written down was a source of shame and another reason why I was not a great low princess. However, my knowledge could not be ignored and it did give me higher status amongst my peers and the leaders of the barbarians than I would have otherwise enjoyed.

The atmosphere was a queer one on that mild midsummer’s day. It was almost as though a storm was brewing. Islanders and barbarians alike were restless, ill at ease and kept looking around them as though expecting a blow from an unseen assailant. As usual I kept to myself and what little I had to say was neutral and bland. As usual no one paid very much attention to me. I sacrificed a bird to the Queen of the sky and the sea as was customary on Mondays before I prayed with the rest of the low princesses. There was little business to attend to. The barbarians had nearly completed the takeover of the Islands and the Islanders were preparing for the hereafter. Much of the day was passed in a haze of aimless anxiety.

Many days before it had been decided that the low princesses would retreat at one hour before midnight to our cells where we slept within the Grand Palace of Arx. On the stroke of midnight, the barrels of gunpowder beneath the palace would be ignited. This would mean none of us could attend the party but the excuse would be given our pride prevented us from attending. Our people needed our solitary prayers within our cells. Between seven and eight o’clock that evening I was in conversation with the other low princesses. Everyone was on edge and plainly nervous despite gleefully declaring we could not wait for the hereafter. The youngest, a girl of nearly eight years of age called Luceen, excused herself saying that she wanted to see Arx one final time. Before an argument could erupt, even the most neutral of comments could start a terrible row in those turbulent times, I abruptly announced I too needed air and left the palace.

Now or never, now or never.

The words danced around my mind. I walked out of the palace’s gardens, refused an escort, snapped I wished to pray alone and hurried to the coast. I never considered the exact time when I would escape but I hoped to have the cover of darkness. The sun was still far above the horizon. My jewels and clothes marked me as royalty and made me stand out. People bowed and curtsied to me. I nodded at them distractedly, glad they too were distracted with the dreadful knowledge of what was to come.

Not for the first time I wondered how many Islanders actually wanted to die. Was life under British rule really going to be so bad? Common sense held my tongue for weeks but the question remained stubbornly fixed in my brain.

I arrived at the dunes which were thankfully deserted. I looked around and, on seeing no-one nearby, headed towards my hiding place. I dug at the sandy soil, plant roots chafing at my hands, and pulled up the boy’s clothes that came to the palace for distribution to the growing number of very poor Islanders, a razor blade, a piece of brick, a wide bandage and a small horn funnel.

Shivering, I headed into some nearby bushes and twisted my hair at the nape of my neck before hacking most of it off with the razor. I stroked the remainder of my hair with the blade until it was roughly cropped around my head. The wind got up and I quickly wrapped as much as I could of the length of my hair around the base of a scrubby bush. No woman cut her hair for any good reason.

I squatted and pushed the funnel up and inside me. I would only draw it out to pass water like a boy. There would be little privacy on a ship. The funnel was originally used in a rite but it had disappeared soon afterwards. So many things disappeared during those troubled times that no comments were made.

Now you must disappear too, Nebula!

I unlaced my bodice and pulled the gown over my head. I tied the bandage tightly over my chest and then put on the boy’s shirt that reached my knees, the breeches and then a jerkin. The garments were a little too large for me and worn but in good condition. I roughed them up with the side of the brick and then set to my manicured nails and soft hands. I rubbed dirt into my hair, clothes and uncovered skin, carefully ensuring my now ragged nails were black with dirt.

Finally, I used the blade to hack away at my bands of high birth which had been fastened on by welding years earlier. I chose the thinnest parts of the bands and with much effort cut through the precious metal. I was naked of adornments for the first time I could remember.

I placed the bands on top of my gown, added the brick on top of them and tied the remains of my old identity into a surprisingly small bundle which I shoved as far into the dense bush as I could. I kept the blade.

I could hear voices, barbarian voices, and remained in the bushes until they faded away. The air was now much cooler and time was running out. I emerged and noticed the light was dimming but it was not quite sunset.

My clothes were partly in the barbarian fashion, the shirt had billowing sleeves and the breeches finished just below my knees, but the jerkin was made in the style of the Islands, using leather of three different colours and decorated with patterns made of tiny holes. This mix of styles was unheard of amongst the wealthiest Islanders but years of hardship meant the poor wore whatever they could scavenge. I would be taken for an Islander on sight but I did not know whether or not English would sound like my native language when I spoke to a barbarian. I had been complimented on my accent many times before but those to whom I had spoken knew who I was before I opened my mouth.

I decided to use the name Gowther, a name as common on the Islands as John was in England, and to claim to belong to no house nor know my exact age. I was amongst the poorest and, like many of the Island poor, quite without kin. I would say I thought I was about nine years of age. I believed the barbarians would show more mercy to a younger child and I did not think I could pass myself off as any younger. I decided to change my sex as the barbarians whom I already met knew me as a girl and I could not afford to be recognised by anyone. I also heard women were rarely treated well on ships.

More figures appeared, milling about in the coolness of the evening. Some were groups of Islanders taking one last look around before their deaths and some were oblivious barbarians taking an evening stroll after the heat of the day. The party would start soon but even though all the barbarians had been invited I knew it was unlikely they all would attend. Years at court taught me this much about grand events.

I kept my head down and walked as casually as I could to the end of the headland. Taking a deep breath to steady myself I then began to climb down the steep dunes to the tiny strip of sand which met the Atlantic Ocean.

Many ships were moored off the coast and I was drawn to one in particular, the Mermaid, a British ship with whose officers I did a little business weeks earlier. Something pulled me towards her but it was instinct alone. I had no choice but to trust it.

The Mermaid was docked half a mile off the shore, towards the back of the fleet. I knew where she was because I had been rowed out to her on more than one occasion. The light was beginning to dim and I decided to begin swimming. My nerves forbade me from leaving it any later and people would soon head back inland as dusk fell. With my stomach churning and my heart pounding, I strode into the cold saltwater.

Once the water passed my shivering waist I began to swim. I kept near to the coast until I guessed I was roughly opposite where the Mermaid was anchored. I hoped to avoid any curiosity. Treading water, I rubbed at my face hard, hoping to remove all traces of the cosmetics that had been applied that morning and the smell of the perfumes used in the Grand Palace. Finally, I aimed straight for the ship, swimming as silently and speedily as I could.

No one seemed to be around and I feared I had left my mission too late. I began to climb a chain as thick as my arm and ignored how it cut into my palms.

A youth of about fifteen appeared on deck. I yelled to attract is attention.

Who the Devil are you? was his startled response.

Sir, I beg you, let me come on board. I am alone and but a boy. I have an important message, something terrible is going to take place in Arx tonight.

Clearly puzzled and not sure if he should believe me, the youth leaned over to pull me onto the deck. I panted hard from the exertion while he examined me critically.

Put your hands in front of you, open your fists so I can see them.

I obeyed and then spoke.

Sir, my name is Gowther and I am a native of the Islands. I have lived all my life in Arx and a terrible plot is underfoot. At midnight tonight, these isles and everyone on them will be blown to smithereens, people have been hoarding gunpowder for months which will be lit on the stroke of midnight. Everyone will die. Please sir, we must do something!

He stared at me aghast and I shivered, the sun was now level with the horizon and I was dripping wet. A familiar figure approached us.

What’s this Silversmith? Who is this boy and why is he on the Mermaid?

The figure was Captain Hennessey. He was an Irishman in his mid-thirties, very tall and very powerfully built. He was not an attractive person to look at. His sandy hair was receding, his features were coarse and his sallow skin was pock-marked. In contrast, the youth showed every sign of becoming a very handsome young man. He was tall, the perfect size for his height with clear skin, curling, dark hair gleaming red in the fading sunlight and the greenest eyes I ever saw. Until the captain spoke I did not know the boy’s name for I had never met him before.

Silversmith repeated everything I just told him. Captain Hennessey turned to me, his face showed interest but no hint of fear.

Is this true? Are you telling us the truth, lad?

Sir, I swear by all that is holy I am not making this up.

He laughed. What you think is holy and what I hold holy are two completely different things. I know the ways of this godforsaken land. Such horrors have never been encountered before by any European. Well, we have certainly had our suspicions about you lot, you seemed rather too compliant and conciliatory after displaying such ferocity in fighting. It is now half-past nine according to my pocket watch, we have some two hours to act. Most of my men are already in Arx and I was about to join them and leave a skeleton crew to keep watch. Silversmith will stay here with you and I am going ashore with the rest of those on board to try to save as many souls as we can. Silversmith, get him clean clothes and watch him well. If I find out he is lying he will pay dearly for it when we officially take power.

The Irishman remained remarkably cool-headed throughout this. He surprised me although on reflection I realised it was likely the barbarians had their suspicions before I confessed and his years commanding at sea would have taught him many hard lessons. Indeed, his manner always seemed calm and unruffled on the occasions when we previously met.

Silversmith led me below deck to a long room where numerous sacks and boxes were pushed against the wall. He looked at me, pulled out some clothes from a box which included a pair of boots and handed them to me. He then pulled out a drying-sheet. The light was dim below deck and Silversmith did not watch me change. He was very distracted despite his captain’s order to keep a close eye on me. He kept running up to the deck and back down as if he was trying to see the coming trouble.

Once dressed I handed him my blade. I had a suspicion I might be searched and I knew I had to appear trustworthy and trusting in order to stay alive. Impressed by my honesty, Silversmith took my only weapon. He then took me to get something to eat and drink while we kept watch on deck.

Over the meal he told me about himself before asking me many questions. He was the fifteen-year-old that I guessed him to be and his first name was Jim, a common abbreviation of James as I would learn. Jim’s place of birth was a large village, nearly a town in fact, called Swanford which was situated near Bristol. He passed all of his life there before joining the navy at the age of eleven, he had been to sea before but this was his first time on the Devil’s Isles. This would also be his last time at sea. His father and elder sister were dead and his mother needed him to help run the inn the family owned. A life at sea, even a brief one, showed him many strange things but he never experienced anything like the Devil’s Isles before. No one had. Not even men like Captain Hennessey.

His attention returned to me and I began to answer his questions. My name was Gowther and I had never been called any other. People like Jim had surnames, all but the poorest Islanders belonged to a house instead, we were all somehow linked to one of several aristocratic extended families. I believed