The Mountain's Shadow

"I believe in being direct, Mr Jeffries. Better you understand the situation now than feel deceived later."— Ezekiel Blackwood

The coastline emerged from the morning mist like a dream refusing to resolve into waking—grey cliffs rising from grey water beneath a grey sky, the whole world reduced to shades of uncertainty. William stood at the Doris's rail, his hands gripping the weathered wood with a force that whitened his knuckles, and watched as Van Diemen's Land took shape before him.

Fourteen days at sea. Fourteen days of watching the horizon for something other than water, of feeling the deck pitch beneath his feet, of lying in his narrow berth whilst the ship groaned and creaked through the darkness. Fourteen days of trying not to think about copper hair and emerald eyes, about a clearing in the Domain, about a woman who had asked him to forget her even as she pressed a silver watch into his hands.

He had not forgotten. He suspected he never would.

The watch hung against his chest now, suspended from a chain beneath his shirt, its steady ticking a counterpoint to the rhythm of his heart. He had taken to wearing it there rather than in his pocket—closer to his skin, closer to the place where Eliza's memory lived despite his promise to let her go. It was a small betrayal of her wishes, but one he could not bring himself to abandon.

Around him, the other passengers had gathered at the rail, their faces turned toward the approaching land with expressions that ranged from eager anticipation to naked fear. There were perhaps twenty of them—government clerks returning from leave in Sydney, settlers seeking opportunity in the southern colony, and a handful of men like himself: freedmen carrying certificates that declared them no longer property of the Crown, venturing toward whatever futures they could scrape together from this distant corner of the Empire.

None of them spoke to William. He had made no effort to know them during the voyage, had rebuffed the few tentative overtures of friendship with a silence that discouraged further attempts. It was not cruelty that drove his isolation—or perhaps it was, though the cruelty was directed inward rather than out. He did not trust himself to speak of ordinary things, to engage in the pleasant fictions of casual conversation, when everything inside him felt scraped raw and bleeding.

The mist began to lift as the Doris navigated the mouth of the Derwent, and William caught his first clear glimpse of the mountain that dominated the landscape. It rose from the surrounding terrain like a fortress wall, its flanks cloaked in dense forest that gave way to bare rock near the summit.

Mount Wellington. He had heard the name spoken during the voyage—heard, too, the stories that the original inhabitants had their own names for it, names that the colonists had discarded along with so much else. The mountain watched over Hobart Town like a guardian or a judge, its presence inescapable from every angle, its moods reflected in the weather that swept down from its heights to buffet the settlement below.

William studied it with the assessing eye he had developed over seven years of survival, cataloguing what the mountain told him about this place. The snow meant cold winters, colder than Sydney's mild climate had prepared him for. The forest meant timber, and timber meant opportunity for men willing to work. The sheer scale of it—so much larger than anything in the settled regions around Sydney—spoke of a wilderness that remained unconquered, a land that had not yet been fully bent to colonial purposes.

This was the edge of the world. The thought came to him unbidden, carrying with it a weight that was not entirely unpleasant. He had travelled as far from England as it was possible to go without falling off the map entirely. Whatever he built here, whatever he became, would be his own creation—unencumbered by the expectations and limitations that had constrained him in Sydney, untouched by the memory of all he had lost.

Or so he told himself. The watch ticked against his chest, marking seconds that felt like accusations.

Sullivan's Cove opened before them as the Doris rounded a final headland, and William felt something shift in his chest—not quite disappointment, but something adjacent to it. He had known, intellectually, that Hobart Town would be smaller than Sydney, rougher, less established. The colony was barely a decade old, after all, founded in 1804 as a secondary settlement to relieve pressure on the overcrowded gaols of New South Wales.

But knowing and seeing were different things.

Where Sydney had grown into something approaching a proper town—stone buildings lining paved streets, churches and warehouses and the beginnings of civic architecture—Hobart Town remained stubbornly raw. The settlement clung to the waterfront like a barnacle, a collection of timber structures and bark huts that seemed barely adequate to the task of sheltering their inhabitants. A few more substantial buildings rose among the makeshift dwellings—government offices, William presumed, and perhaps a store or two—but they only emphasised the poverty of their surroundings.

The wharf itself was a rough-hewn affair, timber planks laid across stone pilings that showed the marks of hasty construction. Men moved along its length with the purposeful energy of workers accustomed to ships and cargo, but their numbers were far fewer than William had grown used to on the Sydney docks. Everything here seemed smaller, more fragile, more provisional—as though the settlement had not yet decided whether it intended to stay or to pack up and retreat to more hospitable shores.

And yet.

William leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he studied the scene more carefully. Beyond the immediate disorder of the waterfront, he could see signs of growth—timber frames rising where new buildings were under construction, cleared land stretching back from the shore toward the foothills of the mountain. Carts moved along roads that were little more than muddy tracks, but they moved with purpose, carrying goods and materials toward destinations that spoke of commerce and expansion.

Reginald Donnelly’s words echoed in his memory, speaking of Van Diemen's Land as a place of opportunity for men willing to work. "The southern colony is growing faster than anyone predicted," the merchant had said. "Ten years from now, it will rival Sydney itself. The men who establish themselves there now will be the ones who shape its future."

William had believed him. Looking at the rough settlement before him, he found he still believed—not because Hobart Town was impressive, but because its very rawness spoke of potential. Everything here remained to be built. A man with ambition and intelligence could carve out a place for himself in ways that the established hierarchies of Sydney would never have permitted.

The Doris eased alongside the wharf. Thomas Whitmore stood at the helm, calling orders to his crew in a voice that carried easily across the water, and William found himself appreciating the man's quiet competence. They had exchanged perhaps a dozen words during the entire voyage—Whitmore was not given to conversation—but there was something reassuring about his steady presence, his evident mastery of his craft.

Lines were thrown and secured, the gangplank lowered with a thud that seemed to echo across the cove. Around William, the other passengers began gathering their belongings, their voices rising in the particular excitement of arrival. He remained where he was for a moment longer, watching the activity on the wharf, delaying the moment when he would have to step onto this new land and begin the work of building a life from nothing.

His sea chest sat at his feet, containing everything he owned: some clothes, a few books Eliza had given him, the letters of introduction from Reginald Donnelly, and a small pouch of coins representing his savings from the final months of his Sydney employment. It was not much. It would have to be enough.

He reached beneath his shirt and touched the watch, feeling its warmth against his palm, its steady pulse like a second heartbeat.

Throw yourself into your new life with everything you have, Eliza had said. Don't hold anything back.

Very well. He would honour that request, even if he could not honour the other—even if he could not stop himself from carrying her with him, close to his heart, into whatever awaited.

William picked up his sea chest, settled it on his shoulder, and walked down the gangplank onto the soil of Van Diemen's Land.

The smell struck him first—not unpleasant, exactly, but different from anything he had known. Salt and tar from the harbour, yes, those were familiar enough. But beneath them lay something else: the sharp bite of eucalyptus, stronger here than in Sydney, mingled with wood smoke and the rich, dark scent of recently turned earth. And underlying it all, a coldness in the air that spoke of the mountain's influence, of winds that swept down from heights to chill the settlement below.

William pulled his coat tighter around himself, grateful that Eliza had insisted on having it made for him. The garment was finer than anything he had ever owned—good wool, well-tailored, with brass buttons that gleamed dully in the grey light. It marked him as something other than a common labourer, which was precisely the impression he needed to make if he was to present himself to Samuel Hartley as a man worth employing.

The wharf was organised chaos. Dockworkers unloaded cargo from the Doris with the roughness of men accustomed to physical labour, their shouts and curses forming a familiar counterpoint to the creak of cranes and the splash of waves against the pilings. Government officials in dark coats moved among the passengers, checking documents and directing new arrivals toward various destinations within the settlement.

William approached one of these officials—a thin man with a pinched face and ink-stained fingers who seemed to be conducting some kind of registration process.

"Name?" the man asked without looking up, his quill poised over a ledger.

"William Jeffries. Recently freed, arrived from Sydney with letters of introduction to Mr Samuel Hartley."

At the mention of Hartley's name, the official glanced up, his expression shifting from boredom to something more assessing. "Hartley, is it? Well, you'll find his offices on Macquarie Street, such as it is. Third building on the left past the commissariat." He made a notation in his ledger and waved William on. "Next!"

It was not the warmest welcome, but William had not expected warmth. He shifted his sea chest to a more comfortable position and set off in the direction the official had indicated, his boots squelching in mud that seemed to be the primary paving material of Hobart Town's streets.

Macquarie Street—named, William presumed, for the governor who had done so much to shape New South Wales—was little more than a rutted track running parallel to the waterfront. The buildings that lined it were a mix of timber construction and rough-hewn stone, their facades bearing signs that identified them as the commercial heart of the settlement: a general store, a chandlery, a public house with a painted board depicting a whale in improbable colours.

The third building past the commissariat was somewhat more substantial than its neighbours—two storeys of sandstone with real glass in the windows and a door that appeared to have been properly hung rather than propped in place. A brass plate beside the entrance read "S. Hartley & Associates, Merchants" in letters that had begun to tarnish from the salt air.

William paused before the door, taking a moment to compose himself. This was the beginning—the first step on the path that would lead him toward whatever future Van Diemen's Land had to offer. Reginald Donnelly had spoken of Samuel Hartley as a man of vision and integrity, a merchant who had built something significant in the southern colony and who was always looking for capable men to help expand his operations.

"A practical man," Donnelly had said. "One who judges men by their abilities rather than their circumstances. You'll do well with him, William."

William squared his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair to smooth it into some semblance of order, and pushed open the door.

The interior of Hartley's establishment was gloomy despite the glass windows, the light filtering through accumulated grime to cast the room in shades of amber and grey. A counter ran across the middle of the space, separating a small waiting area from the working portion of the office. Shelves lined the walls behind the counter, stacked with ledgers and papers and the accumulated detritus of commercial enterprise.

A young man sat at a desk behind the counter, his head bent over a document he appeared to be copying. He was perhaps twenty-five, with dark hair that curled slightly at his temples and features that might have been called handsome if not for a certain sharpness about the eyes—a quality of assessment that suggested he was calculating the value of everything he saw.

He looked up as William entered, and for a moment something flickered across his face—recognition, perhaps, or curiosity, or something else entirely. It was gone before William could identify it, replaced by a professional neutrality that revealed nothing.

"Can I help you?" The voice was educated, with an accent that spoke of English origins rather than colonial birth.

"I'm here to see Mr Hartley. My name is William Jeffries—I've come from Sydney with letters of introduction from Mr Reginald Donnelly."

Again that flicker, there and gone. "Donnelly's man. Yes, we received word you'd be arriving." The young man rose from his desk, his movements fluid and unhurried. "I'm Ezekiel Blackwood. I manage most of Mr Hartley's day-to-day affairs." He extended a hand across the counter, and William shook it, noting the firmness of the grip, the way Blackwood's eyes never quite left his face.

"Is Mr Hartley available?"

Something shifted in Blackwood's expression—not quite amusement, but something adjacent to it. "Mr Hartley is... indisposed at present. He asked me to receive you in his stead and see you settled." He paused, as though weighing how much to reveal. "The truth is, Mr Jeffries, that Mr Hartley has not been well. The burden of managing his affairs has fallen increasingly upon my shoulders. I expect that much of your work here will be conducted under my direction."

William absorbed this information, filing it away for later consideration. It was not what he had expected—not what Donnelly had led him to believe—but he had learned long ago that expectations were luxuries men in his position could not afford.

"I understand," he said carefully. "I'm prepared to work under whatever arrangements Mr Hartley—or yourself—deems appropriate."

"Good." Blackwood's smile did not reach his eyes. "Then let me show you the operation, and we can discuss what role you might play in it."

The tour that followed was both illuminating and troubling. Blackwood led William through the offices and into the warehouse space that occupied the rear of the building—a substantial area filled with goods awaiting distribution or shipment. Crates of tea and sugar, bolts of fabric, barrels of salted provisions, tools and implements of various kinds. The inventory was impressive, speaking of trade connections that reached well beyond Van Diemen's Land.

But William's trained eye noticed other things as well. Ledgers left carelessly open on desks, their columns of figures visible to anyone who cared to look. Goods stacked in ways that suggested haphazard organisation rather than systematic storage. Dust accumulating on surfaces that should have been kept clean if the operation were running at full efficiency.

And through it all, Blackwood's voice, smooth and knowledgeable, explaining the workings of the enterprise with the confidence of a man who had made himself indispensable.

"We handle primarily import and export," he was saying, gesturing toward a stack of crates marked with destinations in Sydney and beyond. "Wool and timber going out, manufactured goods coming in. There's also a growing trade in whale oil—the southern waters are rich with whales, and the demand in London seems insatiable. Mr Hartley was among the first to recognise the potential."

"And Mr Hartley himself?" William asked. "When might I expect to meet him?"

Blackwood's expression flickered again—that same unreadable quality William had noticed before. "That depends on his health. Some days are better than others." He paused, then added with what seemed like deliberate casualness: "He drinks, if you must know. The strain of building this business, the isolation of the colony... it takes its toll on some men. He's not the man Donnelly would remember from their earlier dealings."

The admission surprised William—not its content, which explained much of what he had observed, but the fact that Blackwood had offered it at all. In his experience, men did not reveal their employers' weaknesses to strangers unless they had reason to do so.

"I appreciate your candour," he said, keeping his voice neutral.

"I believe in being direct." Blackwood's eyes met his, and William saw something there that he could not quite name—an intensity that seemed at odds with the young man's polished manner. "We'll be working closely together, Mr Jeffries. Better that you understand the situation from the outset than discover it gradually and feel deceived."

They returned to the front office, where Blackwood settled himself behind his desk and gestured for William to take the chair opposite. The afternoon light had shifted, casting longer shadows across the room, and William became aware of how tired he was—the accumulated fatigue of two weeks at sea settling into his bones now that the journey was finally over.

"Your letters speak highly of your abilities," Blackwood said, withdrawing a familiar envelope from his desk drawer—Donnelly's letter of introduction, evidently forwarded in advance of William's arrival. "Competent with figures, experienced in maritime commerce, capable of independent judgment. High praise from a man of Donnelly's reputation."

"Mr Donnelly was kind to speak well of me."

"Donnelly is never kind without purpose." The words were delivered lightly, but William sensed the weight beneath them. "He doesn't recommend men unless he believes they'll prove useful. The question is: useful for what?" Blackwood leaned back in his chair, studying William with that unsettling intensity. "What do you want, Mr Jeffries? What brought you to Van Diemen's Land?"

It was a simple question with no simple answer. William thought of Eliza, of the watch against his chest, of the future she had demanded he build. He thought of the convict past that would follow him wherever he went, the stain that no certificate of freedom could entirely erase. He thought of ambition and survival and the cold, patient anger that still burned somewhere deep in his chest when he remembered Jack Hawley's face.

"I want to build something," he said finally. "Something that's mine. Something that proves I'm more than what the court records say I am."

Blackwood nodded slowly, as though the answer confirmed something he had already suspected. "An honest response. I appreciate honesty—it's rarer than you might think in this colony." He paused, his fingers drumming lightly on the desk. "Very well, Mr Jeffries. Here's what I propose: you'll work here, in the offices, learning the business from the ground up. Clerking duties initially—inventory, correspondence, accounts. As you prove yourself, you'll be given more responsibility. The pay is modest but fair, and there are opportunities for advancement for those who demonstrate their worth."

"And Mr Hartley?"

"Will ratify whatever arrangements I make." There was no arrogance in Blackwood's voice—merely statement of fact. "As I said, the day-to-day operations fall to me. You'll report to me, work alongside me, and be evaluated by me. Is that acceptable?"

William considered his options. They were, he recognised, extremely limited. He was a stranger in a strange land, with no connections beyond the letters he carried and no resources beyond the meagre savings in his sea chest. Blackwood was offering him exactly what he had come for: employment, experience, a foothold from which to begin his ascent.

If the arrangement was not precisely what Donnelly had described, if Hartley was not the mentor William had hoped for—well, he had survived worse disappointments. He would adapt. He always had.

"It's acceptable," he said. "When do I start?"

Blackwood's smile widened, and for the first time, it seemed almost genuine. "Tomorrow morning. Seven o'clock sharp. I'll arrange lodgings for you tonight—there's a boarding house on Collins Street that caters to men in our employ. Nothing fancy, but clean and reasonably priced." He rose, extending his hand once more. "Welcome to Hobart Town, Mr Jeffries. I have a feeling you and I are going to work very well together.”

The boarding house was, as Blackwood had promised, nothing fancy—a two-storey timber structure with a shared privy in the yard and a landlady whose suspicious glare suggested she had seen too many lodgers abscond without paying to extend trust easily. But the room was clean, the bed reasonably comfortable, and the evening meal that came with the lodging was hot and filling.

William sat by the narrow window, looking out at the unfamiliar streets of Hobart Town as darkness settled over the settlement. The mountain had disappeared into the night, but he could feel its presence somewhere beyond the buildings—a vast, silent witness to everything that transpired in its shadow.

His first day in Van Diemen's Land had not unfolded as he had imagined. Samuel Hartley, the merchant who was supposed to be his gateway to colonial success, had proven to be a drunk and a disappointment, his business apparently held together by the efforts of a young man whose manner left William deeply uneasy. There was something about Ezekiel Blackwood that did not quite fit—a smoothness that seemed practised rather than natural, an intensity that suggested depths carefully concealed beneath a polished surface.

And yet, what choice did he have? The letters of introduction were worthless if there was no one to receive them properly. The connections Donnelly had promised existed in name only, the reality of colonial commerce proving more complicated than the merchant's optimistic descriptions had suggested. William was alone in a strange place, dependent on the goodwill of a man he did not entirely trust.

He withdrew the watch from beneath his shirt and held it in his palm, feeling its familiar weight, its steady pulse. The inscription gleamed faintly in the candlelight: To W.J. — May your future be as bright as our love. Forever yours, E.D.

"I'm trying," he whispered to the empty room, to the woman hundreds of miles to the north, to the memory he had promised to release but could not quite surrender. "I'm trying to build something. I just... I don't know what I'm building yet. Or who I'm building it with."

The watch ticked on, marking seconds that stretched into minutes, minutes that would become hours and days and months. Outside, the sounds of Hobart Town's evening faded as the settlement settled into sleep—voices calling across darkened streets, a dog barking somewhere in the distance, the ever-present whisper of wind from the mountain.

Tomorrow, William would begin his new life in earnest. He would present himself at Hartley's offices, submit to Blackwood's direction, and start learning the trade that would—he hoped—eventually make him a man of substance and independence. He would be diligent and observant and careful, as he had always been. He would look for opportunities and seize them when they appeared.

But he would also watch. He would watch Ezekiel Blackwood, with his too-smooth manner and his unexplained authority. He would watch the business he had joined, with its absent owner and its carelessly maintained records. He would watch, and he would learn, and he would try to understand what kind of world he had entered.

Because something was not right here. William could feel it in his bones, in the instincts that had kept him alive through seven years of convict servitude. Something beneath the surface, some current running through Hartley's operation that he could not yet see clearly.

He closed his hand around the watch, feeling its warmth against his palm, and made himself a silent promise.

He would find out what it was.

And then he would decide what to do about it.