Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  Except for Tethys, who was aware of all that happened within her realm.

  Their business completed in Madagascar, the decision of where to sail next had been put to the vote in democratic pirate tradition. The crew had opted for going “home” to the Caribbean. Jesamiah had not been so certain. As he had predicted to Woodes Rogers, England had negotiated a treaty of peace with France and Spain. It would have been too costly for Parliament not to, like dropping gold coin down a bottomless well.

  As he had also predicted privately to Malachias, that same government had no more honesty than the worst liar in London’s Newgate Gaol. With the end of war, pardons had been promised to the sea-roving privateers who had aided the English struggle against the Spanish Dons and the Frenchies. Except, the men who sought these pardons soon discovered they were as rare as two-headed donkeys to procure. Free given, aye, if you had the gold to buy one, and if you could prove you had not committed any debased act of piracy against any vessel not French or Spanish. If you had the gold? You must be a pirate.

  Jamaica: aligned east to west, the largest island in the Caribbean; one hundred and forty-six miles long by fifty or so wide. Jesamiah knew the facts and could not give a damn about them. Bringing the Mermaid here to the Royal Naval harbour of Port Royal in search of one of these pardons was a bad idea. He had said so for the whole of the return voyage across the Atlantic. Now, locked in a dank, rat and cockroach infested prison cell these past four weeks, he wished he had said it louder.

  The boredom was the worst of it. There was nothing to do except sleep or walk up and down the few yards to the far end of the cell and back again. Entertaining if you took into account the crunch of the insects beneath your boots and the necessity to step over or around the other fourteen people also incarcerated in the same cell, while avoiding the accumulation of spewed vomit, piddled urine and excreted shit.

  There was one small, grilled window at eye level about two feet long by one high. Its view was mostly of the protruding rear wall of Fort Charles’ extensive armoury, but Jesamiah had discovered if he stood to the side and screwed his head around he could glimpse a portion of the harbour. Or if he looked upward, the sky.

  Watching a single cloud amble across a small patch of blue, he concluded, was as exhilarating as watching a new coat of paint dry on a ship’s hull. The harbour view had not been agreeable either. Not since the day he had seen some thief sail the Mermaid away. She had been claimed and sold as a Prize by the Royal Navy – and they did not consider that an act of piracy? Commandeering someone else’s ship and selling her for profit without a by your leave?

  The fact Malachias had stolen her from someone else originally was beside the point.

  Jesamiah scratched at the growth of his beard, he hated having so much clinging to his chin; found a louse, crushed it between his thumb and finger. Wearily he sank down from the window to sit on the musty straw scantily covering the damp, disgusting floor. Today was the eighteenth. He knew that because yesterday, the seventeenth, they had hanged Malachias Taylor and Daniel Wickersley down on the shore below the high-tide line. Their bodies would dangle there until three tides had washed over them and then they would be cut down. Daniel’s corpse would be sent for medical dissection at the naval hospital. Malachias, coated in tar, put in tight-fitting iron bars and displayed for all to see until the flesh and bones rotted to nothing. The twentieth would be Jesamiah’s own hanging. Not the most enthralling prospect to look forward to.

  He sighed, tried to get comfortable and spent ten minutes fidgeting before giving up and getting to his feet again. God’s tears the place stank! He frowned down at a drainage hole; s’trewth, even the rats were leaving! He watched as two in succession whisked out, frowned as a third followed. Puzzled, he scanned the cell. The place was normally riddled with vermin. He counted only four – then he felt it, slight, indistinct, unmistakable. The ground was trembling. Tentatively, he put his hands up to the iron bars of the grill. Faint, almost undetectable, but it was there. Movement.

  Another man, a Frenchman with a tumble of brown hair and a bush of overgrown beard was on his feet, his expression curious. “What is it do you think?” He spoke in heavily accented English, putting out his hand to touch the wall.

  Jesamiah shook his head, tried to remember – 1692 was it? Yes of course, the year before he was born. An earthquake had carelessly tossed half of Port Royal into the sea. The governor had rebuilt Fort Charles as a military and naval base, the rich moving their mansions across the bay to establish the present town of Kingston, leaving the poor to salvage what they could from the rubble. Stepping back from the wall he stared, fascinated, as a crack appeared above the rat hole and spread upward, zigzagging through the lines of mortar.

  “If it’s what I think it is,” he answered slowly, “we might not have to worry too much about being hanged.”

  Men were getting to their feet, some bewildered, others starting to shout their panic. Then Jesamiah was pulling the Frenchman violently aside, yelling a warning as the entire wall began to topple inward, the floor shaking and quivering, heaving itself upward as if the earth was shrugging her shoulders to rid herself of these annoying fleas that dared to walk upon her. The sound was of several broadsides being fired at once, a huge cloud of dust adding to the spread of panic and confusion.

  It lasted no more than half a minute, although with the walls and roof falling in, the cries of trapped men and Hell apparently opening up beneath their feet, it seemed a lifetime.

  Jesamiah stood and stared. There was no longer a wall, only a pile of dust-smoking rubble. Nor was there a north-side outer wall to Fort Charles, part of it was nothing more than a gaping hole. Coughing and spluttering he peered out through the swirling fug, dust choking in his throat and nose, coating his face and hands. A great crack had torn across the paving of the courtyard; red-coated militiamen were sprawled dead or injured, others were standing dazed and disorientated.

  “Allez, Monsieur! Vite! Vite! Do not stand there – run!” The Frenchman urged as he ducked out into the open air of freedom. “Or do you wish to stay ‘ere and ‘ang at the governor’s pleasure, after all?”

  Hesitating, Jesamiah glanced behind into what had been their prison cell. He could see three dead men; good men, good crew, good pirates – were those other two alive? He winced, wrestling with his conscience. If he stayed to help them what could he do? He was no surgeon; one looked as though he had lost a leg, the other was half buried.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered as he chose survival and freedom, and hoped the poor beggars, if alive, would die quickly.

  In Port Royal’s main street people were running in aimless directions like frightened rabbits, others stood or sat, silent and dazed some cradling broken bones and bleeding wounds. More than a few lay dead, crushed beneath collapsed buildings. A small child, shrieking hysterically for her mother, wandered on to the cracked cobbles of the road straight into the path of a bolting horse, its iron shoes sending up a shower of sparks as it galloped, terrified. Without thinking of his own safety Jesamiah plunged forward, grabbed up the child and rolled with her as he hit the ground. Slammed his eyes shut as a hoof came down a hair’s breadth from where his head had been a short second ago.

  He sat up, the child screeching her indignation in his arms, he stroked her hair, jigged her up and down, did what he could to comfort her while he tried to think what to do. Think man! Think! The officers inside the fort were beginning to get themselves and their men organised. Any moment now they would realise the jail was empty of living men and erupt in search of their prisoners.

  “I cannot take you with me, sweetness, I’m sorry lass. Your ma will soon find you.” He set the girl down, dragging her clinging fingers from his grimed shirt and ran towards the harbour, forcing himself not to look back at her or he would be sure to regret it.

  A two-masted sloop anchored in the harbour had wrenched free of her cable; she would be holed on a reef before long if no one went aboard to set a sail and
steer her. Several small boats had also broken their warping lines and were drifting. Jesamiah knew next to nothing of earthquakes; this one had seemed enormous, but as most of the fort and the ramshackle town was still standing he assumed it had not been anywhere near as massive as the ‘quake of ‘92. Did he not remember his father saying something about aftershocks and tidal waves? He looked out to sea. Aye, the waves were crashing over the reefs, running at twice the height he would have expected – as if a storm were rumbling beneath the surface.

  Looking round, he recognised others from his cell: the Frenchman and a black African among them. He shouted to them, waving his arm. “If there’s enough of us, we can get to sea – it’ll be rough sailing but that sloop’s begging for a crew!”

  He jumped for the deck of one of the rowboats bumping loose against the jetty, which was leaning drunkenly aslant, one of its supporting pillars given way. Barrels, wicker baskets, crates, were bobbing in the water; a hissing cat clinging wildly to one, squawking chickens cackling in another. He grabbed a line, secured it around a bollard, holding the craft firm.

  “Hurry,” he called, “the fort will soon be on to us!”

  The two men needed no further urging. Five more followed. It took only a matter of moments to row across, scramble up the side of the sloop and board.

  “Hoist sail!” Jesamiah yelled, darting towards the wildly swinging tiller; realised as he shouted that five of the men had no idea what to do.

  Only the Frenchman and the African were of use. “Je suis Claude de la Rue,” the first said, introducing himself without formality as he and his companion grabbed at halyards. “Mes amis m’appellent Rue – my friends call me Rue. This is Isiah Roberts. We’ve roamed the sea together several years. Merci bien for saving my life twice over, Monsieur. When that wall collapsed and now again.”

  “We’re not out of this yet, my friend,” Jesamiah grunted. “Can none of you others sail?” Solemnly, they shook their heads. He cursed. Useless landlubbers!

  “Hold this tiller,” Jesamiah instructed a man with a red beard, Nathaniel, he thought his name was. They had all been strangers thrown together in a small cell these weeks, exchanging names had never seemed a priority. No point finding out, not when the hangman was all too keen to put an end to new-formed friendships. “Do you feel the wind on your left cheek?” he asked.

  Nathaniel frowned, raised his head slightly. “Aye.”

  “Then keep it there. Do not let it come around to the other cheek, or to the full of your ugly face.”

  “If I do?”

  “I’ll kick your fokken arse and toss you overboard!”

  The craft was broad of beam and had a slow leak somewhere for an inch of water was sloshing around his feet. No matter, deal with that later, there would be a bucket for bailing. First thing was to set these fore-and-aft sails and steer a safe course through the reefs. Thank God at least for Rue and Roberts.

  At the far tip of the spit of land known as Gallows Point, the crossbar and top half of a gallows showed through the surging high tide. From it, dangled two men their dead and bloated bodies swaying in a grotesque dance, caught in the forward and backward movement of the sea. Jesamiah paused with hauling the sail, stood, his throat choking, brought suddenly to tears.

  The Frenchman was a large, well-built man but the touch of his hand upon Jesamiah’s shoulder was light. “I did not know ‘im, but I ‘ave ‘eard of Malachias Taylor,” he said, his accent unmistakable. “’E was a good man n’est-ce pas?”

  Jesamiah opened his mouth to answer and found the words would not come. Instead, he nodded. Rue, fully understanding, patted his shoulder.

  Respectfully, Jesamiah brought his right hand to his forehead, saluted his friends. You are free now, he thought. None can touch either of you where you have gone. God guard your souls.

  Wiping a hand across his face he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, carried on hauling, concentrating on what he was doing. Time enough to grieve later. There again, if God was not on the side of pirates he may well be meeting Malachias Taylor and Daniel Wickersley sooner than expected. It was a long way to the nearest safe harbour where he could acquire something more suitable to his needs, and as he soon discovered, the wooden tub leaked more than he had realised, had several holes in her sails and was mostly crewed by men who could not tell the bow from the stern.

  Malachias had always said Jesamiah had the luck of the Devil. Out of habit he touched the acorn earring between his finger and thumb. Aye, well, if he did not have it before, he sorely needed it now.

  Eight

  For Tiola and Jenna, a living had to be made. The revenue from selling Mother’s jewellery would not last forever, nor when Captain Rogers had finally decided to make sail for England, had his generous patronage been of further use. He had been content to pay for their board and lodging in lieu of Jenna’s medicinal skills – Tiola’s in reality, but she had thought a man such as Rogers would not contemplate receiving treatment from a girl. Easier for all parties if Tiola assisted Jenna and made pretence it was the older woman who possessed the skill.

  With only a few days left before the money ran out, and a roof over their heads consequently about to be denied them, the solution was solved by chance coincidence – or ordained providence?

  Jenna, not as adventurous as the younger Tiola, tended to use the wider and safer main streets or the East India Company market for food and provisions. Tiola found the maze of alleyways more fascinating to explore, although knowing Jenna disapproved, rarely told of where she had been. Here, the scum of Cape Town scrabbled a living by plying their trades; here, the beggars and whores, the thieves and charlatans eked a meagre existence of day to day drudged survival. Elsewhere, near the grandeur of the fort and the V.O.C. gardens were the well-to-do houses, the estates of the rich merchants and traders, ship owners, slavers. The wealthy. Tiola preferred the honesty of the poor.

  Most of them were thieves and scoundrels out for all they could get for free, ready to rob as soon as look at you, but they had honour among their own and judged people for what they were, not for what they alluded to be. Those fat profiteers in their mansions, with their acres of estates, their bulging purses and their conceit? Tiola wanted nothing to do with them, although she realised Jenna would be doing all she could to encourage such acquaintances. Tiola was a gentleman’s daughter and would, in Jenna’s dutiful opinion, soon be needing a gentleman as a husband. Father? A gentleman? A respected clergyman, a man with an outer veneer of honest decency? More like a man diseased by mouldering rot!

  Early morning found Tiola scrambling over a pile of mildewed cabbage leaves attempting to catch an injured cat. She had been stalking the mangy creature for several days, anxious that the bloodied maggoty ear needed attention. Jenna had scoffed, saying it would be best to leave the animal to die, one less of the caterwauling little pests would be a blessing. Tiola, as usual, ignored her.

  She lunged, caught the cat’s tail. He turned yowling his fury and scratched her hand, but she held tight, bundling him quickly into the scrap of sacking she had brought for the purpose. Wrapping it around his body she inspected the ear. Most of it was missing.

  “Been fighting have you Tom? You need to move quicker on your paws lad, if you are going to survive that game.” Tucking him into a secure grip she turned for home, the single room they would soon be having to vacate on the top floor at the rear of the Golden Hind tavern.

  In places the alleys were no more than corridors between buildings, most of them piled with accumulated debris blown there by the persistent wind. Rats scurried, the smell of rot and sewage nauseating. She turned left then right, aware this was the favoured area for the prostitutes, set near the taverns and the harbour. Sailors were not interested in walking far before they found their eager-awaited entertainment.

  She had been accosted on several occasions in these back streets, grappled by men assuming she was a working girl looking for custom. One, this morning, had been blind drunk, easy t
o push to the ground and leave lying in the garbage, legs and arms waving helplessly as if he were a beetle on its back.

  For another she had used her skill of Voice. “I am not for you. Be on your way.” And he had shambled off looking puzzled, half remembering something that for some reason now eluded him.

  The cat was wriggling; Tiola was concentrating on keeping the wild thing confined within the sacking, on not getting scratched again or bitten, then stopped, cocked her head, listening intently.

  “Help me!” A desperate plea, faint but urgent. Tiola let the cat go, the moth-eaten tabby streaking off the way they had come. She backtracked a few yards and peered up a dead-end passage providing a rear entrance to a tavern and a storehouse. It was littered with the usual heaps of strewn rubbish – but at the far end a woman huddled against a brick wall. Not a woman, a girl, not much younger than herself. Thirteen perhaps? A girl with blood and urine staining her petticoats and ragged gown. The girl groaned, sank to her knees, her suffering blowing through her lips and rising into a scream as her arms clutched around her abdomen.

  Tiola glanced up and down for aid; this was a rarely used alley. No one was in sight or within hailing distance. What to do?

  ~ You know what to do. ~ The guiding voice of her grandmother, and of all her grandmothers, sharing their knowledge of Craft.

  She ran to the girl, put her arms around her shoulders, smoothed aside her sweat-soaked hair. “I am here to help. Be easy, dear-heart.” Unobtrusively, Tiola lifted the drape of the girl’s clothes, peeped beneath. “For how long have you been like this?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve ‘ad pain in m’ belly all night. I’m s’posed to be fetchin’ the bread. Stopped ‘ere, couldn’t go nay further.” The girl issued another scream. “What’s wrong with me?” she cried. “Am I dyin’?”