Monk clung to the gunwale of the boat, his hands frozen, his body shaking and numb with cold. He could hardly breathe for it. Seconds went by, a minute—it seemed like eternity—then another minute. The
Maude Idris
was still gaining speed.
Then it happened. At first it was only a dull sound. Monk did not even realize what it was until he saw the sparks and the gout of flame. The second crash was far louder as the ship’s magazine exploded and the flames roared upward, engulfing the decks and leaping up the sails. Soon she was a pillar of fire in the encroaching night, an inferno, a holocaust of burning wood and canvas sweeping towards the deserted mud of the shore, carrying with it Durban, Louvain, the river pirates, and the corpses of the crew.
It was at once a Viking’s pyre and a plague ship’s burial. She lurched into the shallows and stuck, the white heat gone, the light dying red, the water rushing in.
Monk stood in the boat beside Orme, his body freezing and exhausted, his mind burned through to the core with grief and pride. The tears were wet on his face and his hands too numb to feel Orme reach out and grip hold of him in a moment of understanding, a loss too deep to endure alone. He was barely aware of one of the other men taking off his own coat and putting it around his shoulders.
The warmth would come later, in the time still ahead.
By Anne Perry
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
F
EATURING
W
ILLIAM
M
ONK
The Face of a Stranger
A Dangerous Mourning
Defend and Betray
A Sudden, Fearful Death
The Sins of the Wolf
Cain His Brother
Weighed in the Balance
The Silent Cry
A Breach of Promise
The Twisted Root
Slaves of Obsession
Funeral in Blue
Death of a Stranger
The Shifting Tide
F
EATURING
C
HARLOTTE AND
T
HOMAS
P
ITT
The Cater Street Hangman
Callander Square
Paragon Walk
Resurrection Row
Bluegate Fields
Rutland Place
Death in the Devil’s Acre
Cardington Crescent
Silence in the Hanover Close
Bethlehem Road
Highgate Rise
Belgrave Square
Farriers’ Lane
The Hyde Park Headsman
Traitors Gate
Pentecost Alley
Ashworth Hall
Brunswick Gardens
Bedford Square
Half Moon Street
The Whitechapel Conspiracy
Southampton Row
Seven Dials
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Anne Perry
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Shifting Tide
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data can be obtained
from the publisher upon request.
e-ISBN 0-345-47830-4
v1.0
The Shifting Tide
Anne Perry
OEB
Perr_0345478304
en