Read Online The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) by Gregg Loomis - Free Book Online
Authors: Gregg Loomis
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unfortunate French ship had become stuck in the ice, her timbers gradually crushed as the winter pack grew while her stranded crew starved or froze on desolate plains of snow covered ice. Frobisher had seen signs of cannibalism at similar sites.
He pulled the shawl of Scottish wool even tighter across his shoulders to ward off a chill not entirely due to the weather.
A month into the voyage and the victuals were holding up. Weevils had already gotten into the biscuit. But then, the addition of the extra meat should be welcome since the boiled beef was turning green in the barrels of brine and would go off shortly. In his previous voyage, his three ships had carried live animals, beef and sheep, to slaughter for fresh meat but the cost to so provision fifteen vessels was more than his sponsors, royal and civilian, were willing to bear. And fish. It was a rare net dropped overboard that did not come back filled with slivering, squirming silver. Each ship already had enough fish salted away to last beyond the anticipated length of the voyage.
The daily ale ration, the most carefully planned store, should last, a gallon a man per day. The men might cheerfully fill their bellies on weevil-infested biscuit and slimy boiled beef but interrupt the ale ration and the crew would turn surly indeed.
Not discovering the Northwest Passage on this voyage might be a disappointment but the gold-laden soil should assuage the anguish. That, plus the device the Queen’s messenger had personally handed him the day before all fifteen ships slipped their moorings at Plymouth and beat down the English Channel to the open Atlantic. The thing actually worked, made navigation possible when these northern latitudes sent the compass swinging wildly.
He reached beneath the shawl and wool doublet into his shirt to pull out the round, gold case he wore on a cord around his neck. He smiled for the first time today. This, his queen’s gift to him, was more valuable than all the gold the chemists might find in the dirt he was taking back to England. Without it, his bones and those of his crew might be the ones scattered across the ice flow.
13.
L aw Offices of Langford Reilly
Peachtree Center
227 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, Georgia
March 24, 2014
Lang’s first day back in the office was every bit as hectic as he had feared even though he had been away for only five days. Clients were rarely happy that he insisted only the most urgent matters be referred to him while on Foundation business or vacation. Otherwise, he might as well have stayed home and saved some pretty steep roaming charges. Now those clients wanted answers to questions, most of which Sara had handled in his absence.
When was the next court date? Any word on a shorter sentence in exchange for a guilty plea? What sort of a deal could be made if the client turned state’s evidence?
Some questions Lang had answered multiple times for the same client and were poorly disguised attempts at reassurance. People facing jail time tended to be insecure.
All of his clients were-–or were about to be--facing criminal charges. Lang defended mostly swindlers, con artists, embezzlers, and a garden variety of people who lusted after other peoples’ money with an occasional old-fashioned thief or other general malefactor.
No dope dealers, sex criminals, or violent crime. Ponzi schemes, mail and wire fraud, counterfeit checks, and the like filled his days.
He had learned that your average violent felon was relatively indifferent as to whom he hurt. Disarming and subduing a dissatisfied client got old with the first one, a pistol-packing pimp who stood accused of
He pulled the shawl of Scottish wool even tighter across his shoulders to ward off a chill not entirely due to the weather.
A month into the voyage and the victuals were holding up. Weevils had already gotten into the biscuit. But then, the addition of the extra meat should be welcome since the boiled beef was turning green in the barrels of brine and would go off shortly. In his previous voyage, his three ships had carried live animals, beef and sheep, to slaughter for fresh meat but the cost to so provision fifteen vessels was more than his sponsors, royal and civilian, were willing to bear. And fish. It was a rare net dropped overboard that did not come back filled with slivering, squirming silver. Each ship already had enough fish salted away to last beyond the anticipated length of the voyage.
The daily ale ration, the most carefully planned store, should last, a gallon a man per day. The men might cheerfully fill their bellies on weevil-infested biscuit and slimy boiled beef but interrupt the ale ration and the crew would turn surly indeed.
Not discovering the Northwest Passage on this voyage might be a disappointment but the gold-laden soil should assuage the anguish. That, plus the device the Queen’s messenger had personally handed him the day before all fifteen ships slipped their moorings at Plymouth and beat down the English Channel to the open Atlantic. The thing actually worked, made navigation possible when these northern latitudes sent the compass swinging wildly.
He reached beneath the shawl and wool doublet into his shirt to pull out the round, gold case he wore on a cord around his neck. He smiled for the first time today. This, his queen’s gift to him, was more valuable than all the gold the chemists might find in the dirt he was taking back to England. Without it, his bones and those of his crew might be the ones scattered across the ice flow.
13.
L aw Offices of Langford Reilly
Peachtree Center
227 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, Georgia
March 24, 2014
Lang’s first day back in the office was every bit as hectic as he had feared even though he had been away for only five days. Clients were rarely happy that he insisted only the most urgent matters be referred to him while on Foundation business or vacation. Otherwise, he might as well have stayed home and saved some pretty steep roaming charges. Now those clients wanted answers to questions, most of which Sara had handled in his absence.
When was the next court date? Any word on a shorter sentence in exchange for a guilty plea? What sort of a deal could be made if the client turned state’s evidence?
Some questions Lang had answered multiple times for the same client and were poorly disguised attempts at reassurance. People facing jail time tended to be insecure.
All of his clients were-–or were about to be--facing criminal charges. Lang defended mostly swindlers, con artists, embezzlers, and a garden variety of people who lusted after other peoples’ money with an occasional old-fashioned thief or other general malefactor.
No dope dealers, sex criminals, or violent crime. Ponzi schemes, mail and wire fraud, counterfeit checks, and the like filled his days.
He had learned that your average violent felon was relatively indifferent as to whom he hurt. Disarming and subduing a dissatisfied client got old with the first one, a pistol-packing pimp who stood accused of
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