Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  “Mon ami, Capitaine, it is an excellent plan but are you not forgetting un petit matter?” Rue lifted his hand, held finger and thumb close together indicating something very small. “We are not in possession of a ship.”

  Jesamiah stood there, his bare feet sinking into the white sand. Stood there grinning. He spread his arms, palms uppermost. “So we get one.”

  “D’où – from where?” Rue climbed the dune joined him on the top. With an extravagant sweep of his hand, he gestured towards the worm-riddled jetty that served the village. Pointed at the two leaking fishing boats and their own battered longboat. “Are we to use one of those? What do we do? Beat a merchant crew to pulp with the oars?”

  “Our longboat will take us to St. Augustine. From there we find a passage to Virginia, we can talk ourselves aboard something. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do so.”

  “Virginia?” Rue spluttered, raising his arms in the air, exasperated. “‘The sun ‘as got at you? Why, in the name of God, do we wish to go to Virginia?”

  “To get us a ship – keep close-hauled, man!”

  Rue brushed sand from his bare legs. “I ‘ave a feeling I do not wish to be knowing this but tell me anyway. Why do we need to go all the way to Virginia to get us a ship?”

  Folding his arms Jesamiah smirked. “There are eight of us. Eight men to find and take a suitable vessel. We need to get something easily, something sleek and fast, and preferably something that has a cargo we can sell immediately to entice a full crew. We might strike lucky and find what we want in St Augustine, but we would have to get out past the fort. With that battery? We do not have the men or time to sit on our rumps and wait for something to come to us, therefore, we go to where I know there will be what we want.”

  “In Virginia?”

  “In Virginia.”

  Suddenly, Rue realised what Jesamiah was alluding to. “You talking about somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay?”

  Jesamiah smiled. “I’m talking about somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay. The Rappahannock River to be precise. When we get there they will have started loading the tobacco on to the convoy ships.”

  “One of which we commandeer?”

  Jesamiah’s easy smile faded and a different look came into his eye, one that was rigid and echoed the remnant of a long-buried lust for revenge.

  Beneath a sky of pure crystal blue with the few clouds seeming as if they were just in reach, Jesamiah lost his familiar air of congeniality and the could-not-care-less attitude he normally portrayed. The bright sun was behind his head haloing his black hair into a shimmer of silver, shadowing his face so that Rue could not see the expression harden in his eyes. But he heard it. The hatred that had congealed in Jesamiah years ago was solid in his voice.

  “No, not commandeer. Someone I know owes me a boat.” Jesamiah paused, half turned and stared at Rue not seeing the Frenchman, seeing instead the contorted, mocking face of his half-brother. A face that had delighted in the infliction of pain and fear.

  The pause lengthened. He found it difficult to speak of his past, this part of it anyway. “My father, when he died, left me one of his three vessels. The smallest, a two masted sloop. She was nothing special, but I loved that boat.” Another pause as he offered Rue a small, apologetic smile, embarrassed that perhaps it was not manly to be admitting such a thing. But the Frenchman raised his hand, a slight gesture of understanding. He too had known his share of special craft.

  Jesamiah shrugged as if tossing aside the recollection of bad memories, gave an almost inaudible sigh. “She was called Acorn. I took my name from her so I would never forget what my brother, that bastard, owed me.” Thought, nor how he shamed me and what he made me do.

  Aloud, he said, “I had my father’s name then, Mereno. Jesamiah Mereno. My half brother Phillipe hated me.” He gave another, quick, smile. “Feeling was mutual.”

  The uncomfortable memories, now the box into where he had locked them away was opened again, were flooding back. “He is almost seven years my senior. He made my childhood a misery. He was older, bigger, heavier than me.” About to say more he stopped, then added with feigned indifference, “The names he called me, the words he used all hurt as much as the physical injuries he inflicted.” Thought, keeping these particular memories private, I could never run fast enough to get away.

  Apart from when he was safe with his mother or father, all of it, almost every day, had been one long existence of concealing his dread and hiding his tears. As a boy, he had been afraid of the night and had cringed from the coming dawn. As a man he had never completely forgotten the endless despair. Still, even now, he flinched when anyone came up behind him.

  Shooting Rue a wry smile Jesamiah snorted cynically. “Oh, he was a clever bugger, he made sure the bruises never showed.” Nor the blood. He did just enough to hurt and humiliate me. Never enough for anything to be noticed.

  The resentment and hatred surged within him, quickening his breath and heartbeat. He clenched his teeth, his fingernails dug into his palms. Lifting his eyes he stared direct at his friend, the words tumbling out of him. “My brother, when I was a sprog, would have made the Spanish Inquisition look like a doting aunt. His mother died when he was five and my father almost immediately went back to sea – he was a privateer. Made his first fortune as a young man sailing with Henry Morgan, his second on the Red Sea Coast. When he returned home two years later, he brought with him a new wife and a baby son – me! Phillipe resented my mother. Resented me even more. I suppose seven was a difficult age to accept a new baby as a brother, a new woman as a mother. To add insult, my mother was Spanish. To some eyes in the Colonies she might as well have been the Devil’s spawn.”

  He turned his head to look at Rue, the pain evident in his eyes, his expression. “He hated us Rue. Hated me.”

  For a moment Jesamiah had to cease talking, the tightness was rising too high in his throat. He trod down the slope of the dune, half slithering, starting a small avalanche of sand, walked a few paces down the beach. A loggerhead turtle had lumbered ashore during the night to lay her eggs, the trail of her flippers gouged through the slope of the hot sand to end high above the tide line. Idly, Jesamiah kicked the trail askew with his feet, obliterating it. One nest of eggs that would not be gathered for food. One clutch of life that would stand a chance of survival.

  Jesamiah finished kicking at the sand. “Father died within a week of my mother. On the day of his funeral Phillipe burnt my boat to a cinder and made me watch. She was all I had left.” He turned his face away from Rue. There were other things that Phillipe had done, but he was not going to be admitting them, not even to the man he now regarded as his closest friend. “I was a boy, a few months short of fifteen. Phillipe was a grown man, almost two and twenty.”

  He did not bother to hide the bitterness, it was too raw to be hidden. “I changed that day, for some reason courage – a madness perhaps – took hold of me. Phillipe thought he had broken me but I turned on him. I had no idea how to fight I was all feet and elbows, fists bunched wrong, jabbing at the parts that would not hurt beyond a bruise. There was blood smothering his face. I had him down, me on top. God, but it felt good to be finally hitting him!”

  Rue was no fool, he realised there was more here than Jesamiah was saying, but it was not his business to ask. Instead, he said, “So what ‘appened? You did not kill him?”

  Jesamiah smoothed his moustache. “I was stopped. Old Halyard Calpin, my father’s overseer pulled me off – for my sake not my brother’s. There was blood pouring from his nose, I had broken it I think, and a couple of teeth were missing. Phillipe ordered the servants to throw me off the plantation, threatened to have me hanged if I returned. They did not have to do much throwing, I left willingly. Calpin managed to advise me where to go, what to do.”

  “To go to sea? To become a pirate?”

  His face tipped towards the spread of the sky Jesamiah repeated, “To go to sea, to become a pirate.” And his normal, carefree self-confide
nce returned. He grinned, said with a flourish, “A bloody good one as it ‘appens. It was not too hard for me to find a few of my father’s old shipmates, ask to crew with ‘em.”

  “Malachias Taylor?”

  “Malachias Taylor.” Jesamiah stared out to sea. A few gulls were squabbling over something, a dead fish probably. Further out he caught the wicked glimpse of a shark’s fin. Said, an uncertain question in his voice, “So we go to Virginia?”

  Shrugging his agreement, Rue nodded. “A reckoning, non?”

  His inner hardness returning. Jesamiah absentmindedly curled one of his ribbons around his finger. Answered, “Aye. A reckoning.”

  Sixteen

  September –1716

  The plantation, Sorenta, looked much the same. The trees at the far end of the fields where the tobacco grew were further away than Jesamiah remembered; more ground would have been cleared for the cultivation of new young plants. There was a second storehouse built alongside the original one flanking the jetty, where the wide spread of the Rappahannock River meandered into a long, lazy, curve. The house and its gardens were unrecognisable. Phillipe had pulled most of the plain frontage down and rebuilt in a grander style. There were pillars and porticoes, carved statues and fancy lintels. An additional wing to the west, and what appeared to be an entire new stable block at the side. Business – profits – must be good to warrant such expansion, those alterations would have cost a fortune. But then, their father had left a fortune, intending it for both sons. Jesamiah had not seen a shilling of it.

  The gardens his mother had so lovingly tended had been informal and full of life. She had adored flowers; the grass slope running down to where the river wandered had been bordered by colour that had changed with each season, from the vibrant yellows of spring to the deep reds and mellow golds of autumn. They were all gone. A formal shorn and raked lawn had replaced the ramble of grass; there was hardly any colour, save for a few dour, circular flower-beds and a mass of shrubs and trees all lined up like soldiers on parade. The great oak beside the house had also gone. Not even its stump remained. Jesamiah had spent most of his childhood among the branches of that friendly old tree. Phillipe would have enjoyed destroying it.

  “This,” Rue said in a curt whisper at Jesamiah’s side, interrupting the thoughts of the past that were crowding and shouting for attention, “is madness.”

  “No one said you had to come with me; you could have stayed with the longboat, downriver,” Jesamiah growled tetchily, ducking into an overhang of leafy shrubs as yet another laden wagon trundled past along the wide, formal sweep of the gravel drive. So far there had been several flaws in his proposed plan. The major one being the ship itself.

  For several hours they had taken careful and discreet stock of the estate, the task unexpectedly made easier by all the people bustling about the place. It seemed a party was being prepared at the house. Carts and wagons had been coming and going with an army of tradesmen, slaves and bustling servants since dawn. With everything in turmoil, everyone busy, two more men would scarcely be noticed.

  First, they had scouted the river itself and the ships. Not the expected Querida or Sorenta, the two vessels moored to the jetty were unfamiliar to Jesamiah – the Fortune and the Alicia Galley, a conventional square-rigged, three-masted ship; her only difference, she was also fitted with oars. And she appeared to be falling to pieces.

  The plantation was named after the original vessel, Sorenta, which Jesamiah’s father had captured and claimed as his own. Ship and cargo – a hold full of Spanish doubloons and barrels of precious indigo.

  “Dieu Jesamiah, these ships are worm-riddled ‘ulks!” Rue had whispered, mindful of how voices carried near water. Jesamiah had not answered. There was not much he could add.

  He had swallowed his disappointment, then brightened, ever the optimist. “The Alicia Galley looks in better repair than the other one and we only need her for a short while. As long as she holds together until we find us a crew and take what we want from the Spanish, who cares if she then rots to pieces? We’ll be rich after, can buy what we want.”

  “Oui, as long as she ‘olds. ‘Ave you got a few lengths of cordage to tie ‘er together perhaps?”

  “She cannot be that bad, Rue! She’s already half loaded with hogsheads of tobacco for the voyage to England. Phillipe would not risk his precious cargo to an unseaworthy boat. Would he?”

  “I ‘ope the fool ’as got ‘er insured, that is all I can say.”

  Next, the house itself. Jesamiah had ached to go along the riverbank to Halyard Calpin’s cottage, walk in as bold as brass and ask what all the bustle was about. Except, he had already discovered the old man was no longer there, he was beneath a headstone in the plot designated as a cemetery. He had been a good man, a good friend. Old Calpin had never known all the sordid details of that last evening; Jesamiah had not had the opportunity – nor the inclination – to speak of it, and Phillipe himself would not be telling the truth. Searching the plot, Jesamiah found no sign of his mother’s grave. No mound, no marker. He had not really expected one.

  Rue shrugged, decided he might as well make the best of a poor job. He stepped from the bushes fastening his breeches after relieving himself and waylaid a likely-looking trader dragging a mule burdened by packages and boxes up the long sweep of the drive.

  “Pardon, Monsieur, what is it ‘appening ‘ere?” he asked, dipping his head at the distant house.

  Sniffing, the trader wiped his cuff under his nose. “Christening ball. Mereno’s wife gave birth to their first son couple of months ago; they’ve just got round to ‘avin the celebration party.”

  Appearing behind Rue, Jesamiah raised his eyebrows. He was an uncle, then. “First child, eh?” he queried, wondering who the wife was.

  Frowning suspiciously the trader hesitated, then touched his forelock in respect as Jesamiah casually slipped him payment of two silver coins.

  “The first ‘e’s spawned with ‘er, ‘though there’s prob’ly a scatter of others dropped along the way who don’t warrant a fine christening. Only been married a year, long enough t’ensure the kid be ‘is. She ‘as another brat by a first ‘usband. He left ‘er sittin’ well pretty when ‘e died, so I ‘ear tell.”

  Grateful for the information, Jesamiah touched his hat. “I’m indebted to you Sir.” He added another coin to the previous two, “And I’d be obliged for you to forget you met us?”

  The trader walked on, whistling. It was none of his business who was on Mereno’s property, or why.

  “Let us find somewhere to squat our backsides for the rest of the day, Jes, then take the ship tonight. We will leave ‘ere with no one the wiser, n’est-ce pas?” Rue was still feeling apprehensive.

  To sneak in and out again was not Jesamiah’s intention. He had ghosts to lay; too many years of huddled fear to erase, too many childhood tears to wipe away. He wanted Phillipe to know he had been here, wanted him to know his brother had not forgotten or forgiven. And he needed to prove he was no longer afraid. Stealing a ship was not the demon Jesamiah had come here to face; the demon walked and talked and called himself Phillipe Mereno.

  The vague plan was to arrive at the house unannounced as merchants, one Spanish, one French, with the offer of an enticing business proposition. Jesamiah was banking on the fact that after all these years his brother would not recognise him. Phillipe would not see beyond what he was supposed to see – a dark-haired, bearded Spaniard who spoke very poor English. Men rarely noticed what was under their noses, not seeing what they did not expect to see. The easiest way to conceal something? Set it in plain sight. All it needed to make a man slide his gaze over you without seeing who he was looking at, was nerve. And since leaving this place, Jesamiah had acquired nerve by the shipload.

  To Rue’s mind the plan was the stupidest thing he had ever heard, outside of poking a sleeping cobra with a stick. He appreciated they could not take the ship straight away, for the jetty was busy with slaves loading tobacco. They would h
ave to wait for nightfall when work finished, creep aboard, slip her moorings and quietly sail down river – with only eight of them, the last thing they wanted was a fight. To walk direct into the lion’s den, though? Well, that fellow Daniel in the Bible might have tried it, but Rue would rather err on the side of caution. There again, Jesamiah was never a cautious man.

  Dozing, hidden in a tumbledown barn, they waited until dark when the house became filled with light and noise and people. Carriages by the dozen, women dressed in satin and silk, the men as elaborate in powdered wigs and embroidered waistcoats. A lavish evening, where the opportunity to flaunt what you had, or purported to have, was displayed in full.

  For all his bravado, the first person they met, aside from footmen and servants, was Phillipe. Jesamiah had not expected that, had assumed they would be shouldered aside into some unobtrusive corner and forgotten. He felt his palms go sticky with sweat, his throat run dry. His heart was leaping in his chest as if dancing a jig there. All the memories flooded back. All those endured cruelties. Mereno approached, a questioning expression on his face. He glanced at the Spaniard, swivelled his attention to the Frenchman who was making a courteous bow and relating the reason for the intrusion in an exaggerated French accent. Intrigued, the lure of wealth being dangled, Phillipe listened.

  Jesamiah relaxed, the first hurdle cleared, he had not been recognised. Now all he had to do was keep reminding himself he was a man grown, not a child afraid of his elder brother.

  Beyond two false ivory teeth, there was no lingering sign of damage to Phillipe’s face. That battering Jesamiah had finally found the courage to give him had been superficial then. Pity.