"No, he didn't. A couple of days later he came back to the shore in a fine old mood. He'd found a body in a ditch-or what was left of it. A Yankee, who'd died many, many miles from home. In his satchel were all his papers: everything Nickelberry needed to become another man, which in those days was not very much. After that day, he was never 'Nub' Nickelberry again. He became a man called Geary."

This was not remotely what Rachel had expected, but as she contemplated the information she saw how the pieces fitted. The roots of the family into which she'd married were deep in blood and filth; was it any wonder the dynasty that sprung from this beginning was in every way shameful and hollow?

"I didn't know what I'd agreed to," Galilee went on. "I didn't realize until a lot later the scale of Nub's ambition, or what he was prepared to have us do to make it a reality."

"If you had known…?"

"Would I have agreed? Yes, I would have agreed. I wouldn't have liked it, but I would have agreed."

"Why?"

"Because how was I ever going to be free of him otherwise?"

"You could have just walked away."

"I owed him too much. If I'd cheated him, history would have just repeated itself. I would have been pulled into something else-some other piece of human folly-and had to endure that instead. I would have had to pay the price eventually. The only way to be free-at least this was the way I thought of it-was to work with Nub, and help make his dreams come true. Then I'd have earned a dream of my own. I could have my boat, and… off I'd go." Galilee sighed deeply. "It was messy, working for him; very messy. But he was right when he talked about the opportunities. They were everywhere. Of course, to get ahead of the crowd you needed something extra. He had me. I was the one he sent in if he had trouble with somebody, to make sure he never had trouble again. And I was good at it. Once I was in the rhythm I realized I had quite a skill for terrorizing people."

"You get it from Cesaria."

"No doubt. And believe me I was in the right mood to do violence. I was an exile now; I felt free to do whatever crossed my mind, however inhumane. I hated the world, and I hated the people in it. So it made me happy to be the spoiler, to be the bloodletter."

"And Nub-"

"Geary, now. Mr. Geary."

"Geary. He never got his hands dirty? You did all the intimidation, he did all the business?"

"No, he'd get involved when he felt like it. He was a cook. He liked knives and carcasses. Sometimes he'd astonish me. I'd see him do something, so cold, so indifferent to the suffering he was causing, and I'd be… I'd be in awe of him."

"In awe?"

"Yes. Because I'd always felt things too much. I'd agonized over things I did. My head had always been filled with voices telling me not to do this, not to do that; or to look out for the consequences. That was why I liked to get drunk, and high; it hushed those voices. But when I was with Geary: no voices at all. Nothing. Silence. It was nice.

"And as the months went by, and I got completely well, and strong again, I began to get a reputation as somebody to be afraid of, and that was nice too. The more of that reputation I got the more I made sure I deserved it. When I needed to make an example of somebody, I was vicious.

There was this part of me that was cruel, venomous, and when people saw that in my eyes or heard it in my voice… it made them compliant. Often-especially later-^1 didn't need to lay a finger on them. They'd just see me coming, and they'd be asking what they could do for us, how they could help us."

"And the men who didn't?"

"Died. At my hands. Usually quickly. Sometimes not. Sometimes, if Geary thought an example had to be made of a guy, I'd do something so bad-" He stopped. She couldn't see his face. But she heard the soft sobs that escaped him; and could see his silhouette shake as he was wracked. He took a moment to recover himself and then continued, his voice muted.

"We started to expand our territories, state by state. We went north into Virginia, we went into Tennessee and Missouri, we worked our way through as far as Oklahoma, then down into Texas. Wherever we went, Geary bought up land, most of the time with money he didn't have, but by now he had a name and a reputation; he was this new guy out of Charleston who had a vision and a fast tongue and a way of getting what he wanted, and anyone who said no to him regretted it, so fewer and fewer people did. Fewer and fewer wanted to. They wanted to be in business with him: he was the face of the future, and he always acted as though he had so much money that you'd get rich just by shaking hands with him." His voice was gathering strength again. "The thing was, a lot of people did get rich off him. He was a natural; he had a nose for wealth. I think he even surprised himself.

"In a little over three years he was a millionaire, and he decided it was time to start a family. He married a rich woman out of Georgia, who'd taken all her money up north before the war. Her name was Bedelia Townsend, and she seemed to be the perfect match for him. She was beautiful, she was ambitious, and she Wanted the world right there, in the palm of her hand. There was only one problem. He didn't take care of her in the bedroom as she would have liked. So I kept her company."

"Did she have children by you?"

"No. They were all his. I was very careful about that. Pleasuring her was one thing, giving her a Barbarossa was another."

"Weren't you tempted?"

"To make a half-breed with her? Oh yes, I was tempted. But I was afraid that would spoil what was between us. I loved being with her. Nothing made me happier."

"And what did Geary think about all this?"

"He didn't care. He was out empire-building. As long as Bedelia produced children, and I was there to play the bully-boy if somebody crossed him, he didn't concern himself with what we did together. It was a busy time for a cook who wanted to be a king. And to be fair to him, he worked, night and day. The seeds of everything the Geary family became were sown in that decade after the end of the war."

"So there must have come a time when you'd paid your debt to him."

"Oh there did. But if I'd walked away from him, where would I have gone? I couldn't go back to L'Enfant. I had no other life besides the Gearys."

"You could have gone away to sea."

"That's what happened, eventually." He paused, thinking on this moment. "But I didn't go alone."

"You took Bedelia?" Rachel said softly.

"Yes. I took Bedelia. She was the first woman to step on The Samarkand, and you were the second. We sailed off, without telling Geary we were going. She left a letter, I think, explaining her feelings; telling him she wanted more than he'd given her."

"How could she do that? How could she leave her children?"

He leaned a little closer to her. "You wouldn't have done that for me?" he said.

"Yes," she murmured, "of course I would."

"That's your answer then."

"Did she ever see them again?"

"Oh yes. Later. But she also had another child…"

"You had your half-breed?"

"Yes."

"Niolopua…?"

"Yes. My Niolopua. I made sure he understood from the beginning that he had Barbarossian blood. That way he could escape at least some of the claims of time. My father had told me that some of his bastards-the ones who lived in ignorance of who they were-lived ordinary, human lives. Seventy years and they were gone. It was only the children who knew their real nature who could outlive their Biblical span."

"I don't understand," Rachel said. "If you've got Barbarossian blood what does it matter whether you know it or not?"

"It's not a matter of blood. It's a matter of knowing who you are. It's knowledge, not chemistry that makes us Barbarossas."