Tamsin Beech Ch. 11: Fort George

Cornwall, in the year 2045.

"Don't touch that sweetheart," Jessamy Beech warned her daughter. Phoebe was three years old and at the inquisitive stage where she had to investigate everything.

Lupita Mpenzi gently coaxed the slide of Jessamy's dismantled Glock from the toddler's chubby fingers, "Is that mother of yours leaving her guns lying around again? You come with Aunt Lupita and we'll see if we can't find you a biscuit instead. Much tastier."

"Thanks, Lupita," Jessamy brutally pounded away at a great ball of dough, raising clouds of coarsely ground flour in the Beech family's little kitchen.

"You're starting to show," Lupita commented as she reached down a tin of homemade cookies with which to bribe Phoebe.

"Wh ... oh, yeah. It's about two months now," Jessamy touched a hand to her belly. Much to Jiff's delight she'd discovered only weeks before that she was pregnant with their second child.

"That man of yours is certainly firing on all cylinders."

Jessamy blushed, remembering the last time Jiff had been home. They'd packed a tent and spent a few days hiking the coast while Mpenzi and her father John looked after Phoebe. The sex had been incredible. Each and every time Jessamy had been reduced to a shivering, quaking mess as Jiff's cock, fingers and tongue bestowed orgasm after orgasm on her, "I'm lucky," she replied, and meant it.

"You still miss it?" Mpenzi asked, holding up the Glock.

"I'm just giving it a clean. If you mean do I miss roaming all over the country tracking down paedos, rapists and serial killers, and mixing with the dregs of humanity ... yes I do. I miss doing something worthwhile and good, Lupita."

"You're doing something worthwhile and good here, Jess. Bringing up your beautiful little daughter with another on the way."

Jessamy let out a long sigh, "I just feel ... as if there's loose ends, you know? Thanatos is still up there. I've carried that fucking list with me for so long I know the names by heart. Jack Aubrey is still out there threatening communities that just want to be left alone. Ox and Morwenna's killer ... we never caught her either, after nine years of searching. I just want to be out there ..."

"Instead of making bread?"

Jessamy threw a chunk of floury dough across the room and laughed, "Yeah. Even instead of making bread ..."

The front door flew open and slammed back against the wall with a loud bang, "Jess, Lupita! Thank god you're both here. Something's ... happened."

Jessamy found the haunted look in her father's eyes more terrifying than his words, "Dad, what is it? What's happened?"

John Beech leaned against the kitchen worktop taking deep breaths, "Sorry, I just ... ran back ... from Newlyn," he took Jessamy's hands as he looked into her eyes, "I'm so sorry Jess. Jiff is dead."

. . .

Nineteen years later ...

Jessamy could remember every detail of that day as if it had been yesterday. The day she learnt that her unborn daughter Ada would never know her father. The psychopath Jack Aubrey had been to blame for that - blasting Jiff's boat on a whim with the HMS Poseidon's big naval gun.

But the fact that little Ada barely ever knew her own mother either? That was entirely Jessamy's fault. She recalled the day Phoebe had discovered proof that Ada had stayed at Fort George. The beam of late morning sun shining on a child's crayon and charcoal drawing on a wall, as if highlighting it specifically for their attention. The four stick figures, two adults and two children - both girls, standing beside a tall house under a smiling yellow sun.

Jessamy remembered that the drawing had been added to and finessed over the course of time - possibly years, as the artist's skill had developed. And painfully - like having a knife twisted in her gut, she remembered reading the names printed neatly underneath 'Granddad John, Aunt Lupita, Phoebe Beech, Ada Beech' ...

No sign of mummy.

But there'd hardly been any sign of mummy in Ada's life either. So why would she be included in a drawing? Why would her daughter go to the effort of adding someone who had never been there?

CHAPTER TEN: FORT GEORGE

Morayshire in the Scottish Highlands, autumn 2064 ...

"Your turn ... daddy," Tamsin Beech murmured sleepily into her pillow.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that. It sounds ... stranno. Weird," beside her, Leonid Denisovich rolled grumbling off their bed, and yawned expansively. It was still dark outside. But for late autumn in the Highlands that wasn't really surprising. The glow from the wood burner provided faint illumination as he tugged on some trousers, while from the next room along the corridor came the unmistakable sound of their newborn baby son crying to be either fed or changed. Or perhaps both.

Stopping the concoction of contraceptive herbs Tamsin had been taking for years had been a mutual decision after the events on Lindisfarne. The Coalition were no longer a threat and the United Kingdom could finally begin to rebuild itself properly and look to the future. Bringing a new life into the world had seemed to be the logical place to start. A new beginning.

At first, when her periods stopped, Tamsin was convinced she'd been impregnated by one of the Reekies back at Edinburgh Castle's geothermal pool. But the timing was all wrong. There could be no doubt Leonid was the father.

"Khorosho! I'm coming, I'm coming," Leonid impatiently grabbed a bottle of breast milk Tamsin had expressed only an hour earlier and headed for the door ...

... just as the crying abruptly stopped.

Leonid blew out his breath in a relieved sigh. It wasn't right, expecting an ex-major from the Coalition's elite Spetsnaz to change shitty nappies. But at the end of the day he was the boy's father, "Looks like our nanny got there first again."

"You ... need to get used to nighttime feeds though Leo. She may not always be here," Tamsin mumbled from under the covers.

"Why wouldn't she?" Leonid asked, climbing back in next to her still half dressed, "her own baby's only a few months old. She can't travel anywhere while it's that young."

Tamsin pressed herself back against the heat of Leonid's body as he spooned up behind her, "In case you hadn't realised, 'it' is a she."

Much as he was tempted by the feel of her soft curves, Leonid knew it was far too soon to resume any kind of sexual relationship. He contented himself with snaking an arm around to hold her close, "Alright, but she still can't travel anywhere while her daughter is that young."

"No ... I don't know what we'll do if she ever does leave," Tamsin continued drowsily, "Yeonmi makes a great nanny. A pity she doesn't speak a word of English."

"Or Russian for that matter," murmured Leonid, "I just wish we knew more about her," he buried his face in the lustrous curls of Tamsin's red hair and eventually fell back to sleep.

. . .

After collecting Leonid Denisovich from Edinburgh, they'd steamed north on the Orcadian trawler Girl Flora, the mood onboard less than celebratory. Certainly, the Coalition fleet had been wiped out. But at a terrible cost. Hamnavoe and McTavish were both dead, and over a hundred and fifty Reekies had died too getting them into Lindisfarne's now defunct Soteria bunker.

It had been Jessamy's idea to stop off at Fort George on the Moray Firth just outside Inverness. To collect their thoughts. They all needed some quiet time to assimilate what had happened and to mourn their dead. The fort's sole occupant - the old man Finlayson, had welcomed them back and it had been his idea that they stay.

That had been a year ago. Over the next few months, over a hundred waifs and strays from all over had gradually made their way to their door. British refugees, Russian colonists and even a few North Koreans from the flooded towns along the Firth of Forth. Wanting permanence and security behind strong walls, and good leadership from people who'd become legends standing up for the weak and oppressed - Jessamy Beech and her niece Tamsin.

None were turned away, as long as they were willing to work hard for the community. The time for vengeful thoughts and bigotry was over.

Fields of crops had been planted on the parade grounds, trade with other communities up and down the coast established - even with Keaton's people far to the north in Kirkwall. The fort's 18th century defences were repaired and improved, the barrack blocks cleaned out and renovated to make comfortable accommodation. Tamsin and Leonid moved into a pair of the top floor rooms while her parents, Aunt Jessamy and cousin Phoebe preferred to be close to one another along one of the bottom corridors.

"My knees aren't what they used to be Tamz," explained her father Ross, only half jokingly, "I can't be doin' with all those stairs every day."

Finlayson himself remained in the fort's draughty old chapel. He'd been living there for years, he reasoned, so why move out now?

They'd been at the fort for over four months when Tamsin discovered she was pregnant. Angus John Beech Denisovich was born at the beginning of that autumn with his father's blond hair and mother's blue green eyes. Doting grandparents Ross and Merida helped out as much as they could, but if Tamsin wanted to go out on scouting or scavenging missions, what they really needed was a wet nurse - a breast feeding mother who could take over.

Like the answer to their prayers, Yeonmi had appeared at Fort George's sallyport on a stormy night, hungry, exhausted and soaked to the skin with her three month old daughter Jag-eun Neugdae wrapped up in a Coalition goretex jacket. It soon became apparent while warming her by the fire and giving her dry clothes that she spoke no English or Russian whatsoever. Her name was all she could provide until they found another North Korean to interpret.

But even then she seemed cagey and secretive about her past. The Coalition had suffered monstrous losses. Perhaps Yeonmi had too. Tamsin could understand why the girl might be nervous or unwilling to disclose too much to the war's victors. Nevertheless the pretty young North Korean girl was invited to stay - or at least for as long as she wanted to. Winter was coming and since Thanatos and the end of global warming, Scottish winters could be especially brutal.

All was well.

. . .

Phoebe moaned and spread her legs wider. Tamsin's hands on the insides of her thighs and her mouth, warm and wet as her lips brushed against her aching labia, fingers probing very gently into her wetness.

"Ohfuck," Phoebe whispered, "oh ... please."

Tamsin's tongue lapped against her, soft and persistent.

"That feels so good," Phoebe said, stretching her hands out and letting her head roll in ecstasy. She closed her eyes, and then felt Tamsin's hands on her breasts. Small but strong and capable hands, hard with callouses and scars, tugging and squeezing her nipples. She moaned with pleasure and arched her hips towards Tamsin's face. Obediently Tamsin licked her a little harder and squeezed one finger inside, reaching forward, searching ...

Phoebe Beech awoke with a start as a door slammed somewhere in the building. It was freezing. She cursed under her breath. Daydreams about the time she'd shared with her cousin on Kerrera were a regular occurrence but when such vivid memories came unbidden into her dreams she cherished them.

She realised she was wet as she reached a hand down beneath the thick covers. All that time ago and the thought of lying naked next to Tamsin in Kerrera's old boatyard was still enough to get her aroused.

But that was all in the past. The resistance leader had made her choice. Since settling in Fort George, Tamsin had had a baby with the Russian Leonid Denisovich - starting their own family to make their commitment to one another official. Phoebe angrily punched her pillow.

Before reuniting with Tamsin she'd never even been kissed. So the intensity of their union on Kerrera had just left her wanting more. But not from a man - though she'd certainly had plenty of offers. Phoebe wanted to feel once more what she'd felt that day with Tamsin - a woman's touch. A female's soft curves fitting against her own. Like yin to yang.

They'd been at Fort George for a year. Phoebe had kept herself busy, throwing herself into making their community a better place to live - scavenging, hunting, farming, harvesting, fishing. But all that time the frustration had been building. Was it too much to ask to want a little companionship too? She let her fingertips trail down over the downy blonde hairs of her mound as she tried to picture in her mind's eye what sort of woman could possibly fill the gap in her life.

One of the sisters who'd fled across the country from Lancashire perhaps? Phoebe put her hand up to her mouth and tasted herself, relishing the salty tang and wondering if either of them would taste as wonderful as Tamsin. Probably not.

She considered reaching under the old camp bed for the thick phallus she'd carved from a piece of washed up whalebone for when the urges became simply too much, but decided against it. As the fog of sleep had dissipated, so had her mood.

There was a Russian woman about her own age who'd walked all the way north from New Moscow. A possibility? Tatiana was fit and attractive, but aloof and cast from the same mould as her mother, Jessamy Beech. Phoebe was certain she'd just keep seeing that image in her mind's eye.

"Fuck!" Phoebe hissed. There was no-one else.

The sound of Tamsin and Leonid's son crying drifted faintly down from the building's top floor. Angus was as cute as it was possible to be, with his father's blond hair and mother's blue green eyes. It was good to hear the sounds of normality after so long when she'd grown more accustomed to the noise of gunfire, death and battlecries.

The wails eventually stopped. Phoebe guessed either her cousin Tamsin or the wet nurse Yeonmi had crawled bleary eyed out of bed to feed the infant.

Yeonmi. Slim and petite even after giving birth to her own child Jag-eun Neugdae. The serious young North Korean woman found it so difficult to integrate into the community when there were only a few that spoke her language. With her shining black hair and delicate features, Phoebe had never known anyone move so gracefully while carrying out even the most mundane tasks.

Phoebe stared at the stained ceiling in quiet contemplation. Yeonmi ...

. . .

Mere minutes later in the adjacent room, Jessamy Beech awoke to six inches of fresh snow outside. The first of the season. She threw a fresh log into the wood burner so that her small room would at least be warm enough to wash in when she returned. Then she pulled on the beaded sealskin jacket Hamnavoe had made for her years earlier back on Kerrera and stepped out into the icy cold morning.

It had been a year since his death. But Angus James Banavie - Hamnavoe, was never far from her thoughts. Like a benevolent presence lurking on the fringes of her consciousness, simply waiting - until something Jessamy did or said, some scent or sound, reminded her of him and dragged his memory painfully back out into the open. That was what loving someone so deeply did. Caused more pain than any physical wound ever could.

What was she going to do with herself now?

Jessamy pondered that as she strode by lantern light up one of the wide ramps onto Fort George's thick outer wall for her morning circuit around the battlements. A couple of their lookouts - layered up against the cold, nodded a greeting as she passed. Armed with SA80s and body armour plundered from the Soteria bunker they were as well equipped as any soldier alive. At least until the ammunition ran out.

The Soteria network had helped them bring down the invaders in the most devastating way possible. And without their fleet, Coalition conscripts as far south as what had once been Lincolnshire had simply dropped their guns and surrendered. With no way home, the Russian and North Korean civilians in the New Moscow colony had been permitted to stay, and retain sufficient weaponry and vehicles for self defence, but nothing more.

"Looks like it's going tae be a long aul' winter," murmured Finlayson as he shuffled up next to Jessamy, interrupting her thoughts. He leaned against the cold stone rampart looking out towards Chanonry Point and the Black Isle beyond.

Jessamy liked the old man. He was down to earth and plain speaking. And like her, enjoyed an early morning stroll before the rest of the fort was even awake. She blew her breath out in a white cloud, "Good morning! Yeah. Certainly does. Though winter usually started in August when I lived on Mull."

Finlayson laughed, "Then this is warm for ye lass."

"Yeah, balmy," Jessamy hesitated for a moment, "look ... I'm sorry we've attracted all these people here Finlayson. You just wanted to live out your days in peace and quiet and ... well, now look."

Finlayson waved a hand dismissively, "Dinnae fash. Everyone new here treats me like royalty. Mister Finlayson they call me. Mister Finlayson! I cannae complain abou' that noo can I?"

"I suppose not."

Exactly how many of the enemy had she and Tamsin wiped out when they'd made the decision to destroy the fleet? Thousands? They'd been the enemy sure enough, but in her opinion it didn't make them any better than Jack Aubrey when he'd used Soteria himself to destroy Penzance.

As always when Jessamy started contemplating the human cost of the war she began to wonder if her daughter Ada had been among those killed. Possibly recruited and brainwashed by Zakhvatchikov from the refugees in this very fort, Ada would be nineteen now. Or would have been. And her elder daughter Phoebe was already a young woman. More than capable of looking after herself and finding her own way in life. She no longer needed a middle-aged mother telling her what to do.

Something instinctual clicked into place in Jessamy's mind. She had to know. Needed to know for certain. What had happened to Ada Beech? Perhaps with no-one else to fight but the Reivers it was about time she found out.

"I'm leaving soon," Jessamy stated abruptly, before she'd even properly made the decision in her head.

"You're wha'?" Finlayson turned to face her, the first light of dawn shining in his rheumy eyes.

"I need to find my daughter," announced Jessamy. She clasped Finlayson's gloved hands in her own, "I was ... a shit mother to her, and I owe her this much at least. Thankyou for taking us in Finlayson. MISTER Finlayson I should say," she grinned, "after all the shit that's happened over the last forty years we need communities like this more than ever. Can I ... ask you to keep an eye on my brother for me?"

"King Ross? Sure."

Jessamy laughed, "I guess the nickname from Berwick Upon Tweed stuck, eh? Yeah, King Ross. And Queen Merida, and ..." her voice grew quieter, "my daughter Phoebe? I can't take her."

"From wha' I've heard of her, she's a good fighter."

"Exactly," Jessamy stared off into the distance, lost in her own thoughts, "and I don't want her to be like that. Phoebe's naive about a lot of things, and far too trusting. So it'd be better if she stayed here at the fort. Besides ... I need to do this alone."

Finlayson laid a hand on her arm, "It'd be an honour, lass," he said sincerely, "a knackered ol' fart like me can hardly protect her. But if she needs advice or an ear to bend, I'll be here."

. . .

A week later ...

"Hand."

"Hend."

"No, h-A-nd," Phoebe repeated, pointing to her own.

Yeonmi frowned with concentration. "Haand."

"That's it! Very good Yeonmi," Phoebe grinned, "if I didn't know better I'd swear ye'd spoken English for years."

At Phoebe's own suggestion she'd been teaching the North Korean girl some basic English for a couple of hours each afternoon. Once the daily chores were out of the way and her cousin Tamsin was able to take care of Yeonmi's daughter Jag-eun Neugdae, they both retired to her room away from the noise and distractions of the fort. It also gave them time to get to know one another ...