Free A Flower for the Queen: A Historical Novel by Caroline Vermalle, Ryan von Ruben Page A

groped his way back across the deck towards the stairs.
    As if from nowhere, the wind began to gale and the ship began to roll from side to side. The sky darkened and huge raindrops pelted down so fast and with such force that Masson was drenched by the time he covered the short distance to the stairs.
    Bracing against the pitching and rolling of the ship which now seemed to fight his every move, he managed to make it down past the afterfall. He fell down the last few steps and then dragged himself across the lower deck towards the door of his old cabin and still not a soul was to be seen. With what seemed the last of his strength, he pulled himself upright and, leaning his full weight against the door, pushed into the cabin.
    The cabin’s window was open, and the sun burst through a gap in the storm clouds outside, blinding him. At the same time, the ship lurched so suddenly that he lost his balance and fell, slamming his head against the floor.
    Unable to get up, Masson simply rolled onto his back. It was all he could do to open his eyes, and even then he was sure that his nightmare had turned to madness. For the apparition that he beheld was impossible: with the sunlight from the window forming a halo around her head, an angel sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the drawing of the flower that she held in nimble, delicate hands.
    Masson tried to shout out, but the words would not form in his swollen mouth; the dry insides of his throat feeling as if they had been glued together. As he struggled, she smiled a kind, sad smile before folding the drawing and placing it in his breast pocket. As darkness closed in once again on Masson, he heard Bank’s words from their first meeting echoing from the fevered depths of his mind:
    “Like a lady passing in the night, it is entirely possible that I might even have imagined it.”

C HAPTER 12
    O CTOBER 1772, T ABLE B AY .
    “Table Bay!” The shouts resounded around the ship as Masson woke from his slumber, his fever broken.
    He closed his eyes and tried to remember the details of his dream, but nothing made any sense. He remembered the drawing of the Queen’s flower and reached for his breast pocket, where he found it, safe and sound.
    He had spent almost the entire journey from Cape Verde to Cape Town in the throes of what had been discovered to be acute lead poisoning. The ship’s cook had mistaken a packet of lead powder for flour, pouring its entire contents into the pancake batter. Masson had the misfortune of being served from the top of the pile of pancakes and being the last to be cooked, had received those which contained the greatest amount of the heavy powder, which had settled to the bottom of the mixture. It had been an honest mistake, but the prolonged suffering combined with his confinement below decks had only served to further re-enforce Masson’s resolve to complete his task as quickly as possible so that he could return for home. If he had almost lost his life through the simple carelessness of a ship’s cook, he needed no further proof for his previously held belief that this so-called life of adventure was only for the foolish or the foolhardy.
    But stepping out on-deck for the first time in weeks, Masson blanched at the fresh air and the force of the wind on his face. He closed his eyes to absorb the warmth of the sun, and when he opened them again, he was stunned at the beauty of what lay before him.
    Table Mountain rose up imperiously to dwarf the town. Flanked on one side by the Devil’s Peak and on the other by the Lion’s Head, the hills reached out like muscular arms to embrace the ship in the safety of Table Bay. The mountain’s fabled flat top was obscured by what the locals called its tablecloth , a stratum of cloud that spilled down and over the sandstone cliffs, disintegrating as it tumbled towards the buildings that were nestled at its base.
    Next to the fort that dominated the foreshore, a single wharf jutted out into the blue