Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  “Well, he is in God’s hands.”

  Tiola glanced at her, smiled affectionately. She had no belief in a specific religion, nor for any one particular god; as always she made no comment, except to say, “And my hands, Jenna. And mine.”

  The tourniquet was beginning to take effect, the blood loss was easing. Tiola worked quickly and efficiently, knowing exactly what she had to do and how to do it. The lack of confidence she had once possessed had left her long ago; she had the gift of Craft, she was a midwife and a healer. By instinct she knew the properties of herbs and medicines, how to mend a broken bone, stitch a wound or remove the lead shot of a pistol. And what she did not know by instinct, was there in her mind in the guiding voices of her ancestors.

  Cleaning first with salted, hot water, she carefully and skilfully stitched the damage, easing the edges of ripped flesh together, making as neat a job as she could. Despite her care there was always going to be a pattern of livid scars – providing the wounds healed and did not fester, which would mean fetching in the saw-bones physician to remove the limb. That task, she could not do; she did not have the physique to wield a surgeon’s amputation knives and saws. The job needed to be done quickly and efficiently. Sawing through flesh, muscle and bone in less than two minutes, while a patient screamed himself unconscious was beyond her. Physically and mentally. She hoped, in this instance, it would not be necessary. Finished, she unwound the tourniquet, satisfied to discover the blood now only seeped and oozed, not flooded.

  “We will bandage it in a moment, let some of this congeal first.” As she spoke she was cutting away the remains of the shirt, already inspecting the bloodied hole where the lead had penetrated.

  “No exit wound,” she commented as she delicately half lifted Jesamiah, thankful he had not regained consciousness. “I will have to remove the ball.”

  For all her light touch with fingers and forceps, the pain as she probed into the wound roused him. He gasped, jerked, his face contorting, the cry bitten back as she hastily withdrew.

  “Fetch the laudanum please, Jenna, add a few drops to some rum.” Tiola brushed back his sweat-damp hair. “Ssh, be still, luvver, the discomfort will last but a moment.”

  He tried to say something, she put her fingers against his lips, hushed him again. “Save your strength, there is no need to talk.” And taking the pewter tankard from Jenna she held it to his mouth, her arm supporting his neck and shoulders. “Drink – ah, careful – sip it. Swallow slowly.”

  He gagged the liquid down, tried to croak something, again she quietened him, her hand spread lightly to the side of his face.

  ~ You are safe. I am Tiola. Do you not remember me? None shall do you harm while you are in my care. Let the sleep take you. You are safe. ~ She thought the words, smoothing them into his mind. Gave him a moment for the sedative to take effect, her fingers unlacing the ribbons from his hair, her eyes noting the two gold teeth, the acorn and mermaid tattoos, his ring and earring.

  With a snort of scorn Jenna also saw the unmistakable signs. “Pirate!” she muttered. “Thieves and murderers, the lot of them.”

  “He could be the King’s Navy,” Tiola responded. “These items do not necessarily make him a pirate.”

  Jenna crossed her arms her expression stern. “A silver-inlaid pistol-butt, a fine crafted cutlass, an arm cut to pieces and a pistol shot to the shoulder, however, do. Aside, my bones and my eyes tell me you are already aware of that fact and you know who he is.”

  “Ais. I know who he is.” Tiola admitted.

  She had known he was here in Cape Town. All afternoon and into the evening she had felt impatient and excited, her inner senses returning, again and again, to the pull of the harbour as if it were a compass point and she the swinging needle aching to the north.

  With nightfall she had been unable to sleep, had fiddled with items in the cosy, cluttered room, picking things up, putting them down. Had tried to read, to sew. Had wandered down into the quiet coolness of the courtyard an hour after midnight, back up the stairs again. Dozed fully dressed on the bed for an hour or two…Brought suddenly awake she had leapt, alert and already running down the stairs at the desperate sound of his voice pleading for help. Summoning her and her Craft.

  “In the name of all that is good!”

  The name Oldstagh was uniquely hers – fleeing from England she had rejected the surname of her father, nothing of his would she ever use again. Tiola was an inherited name, hers before she was born, a respected name to be proud of. Oldstagh, she had chosen during those anxious days of waiting for the smugglers to get her away to safety. She had chosen well. Her new name commemorated her mother’s courageous love and encompassed the wisdom and purpose of her White Craft, effectively countered the taint of evil lingering from her father’s foul touch. Tiola Oldstagh. A summoning command. An anagram of all that is good.

  Chance had guided Jesamiah to the street outside, to the passageway leading to her door. Chance? Or her thoughts? One or the other – perhaps both combined – had drawn him towards her. Did the compass needle not always point north? Where the one sailed the other always followed. Eternally inseparable.

  She was ashamed to have doubted she would meet him again, that he would come back to her. Although she would not have wished it to be like this, for him to be suffering so.

  Between them, she and Jenna stripped him of his clothes, noticing the bruise under the dented gold coin. With her healer’s skill Tiola felt the broken ribs and bound them tight, salved the wounds with a soothing ointment of healing herbs, bandaging them with care. They moved him to the bed, made him as comfortable as they could, thankful he slept through all their pulling and prodding.

  “He will bring trouble to us, mark my words,” Jenna scolded several times over, with a meaningful, tight-lipped nod of her head.

  Watching him sleep, holding his hand, the hurting evident even through his unconsciousness, Tiola merely smiled an enigmatic answer.

  “Trouble, in some forms Jenna can sometimes be most welcome.”

  Twenty Three

  Jesamiah stirred, his eyes squinting against the early morning daylight of an unfamiliar room. A light that did not have the ripple of water-reflected patterns on the ceiling; a room that did not sway with the movement of a ship. He lay there disorientated for a confused moment, then became viciously aware of his body feeling as though he was being roasted on a spit and his arm apparently being crushed by a ton of rocks. His ribs were squashed against his lungs and in his head a battalion of drummers were thundering in unison. He tried to move, found he could not. Tried again and gasped aloud as a burst of agony charged at full gallop through his entire being.

  “Sweet Jesus!” he swore, sucking air in through his clenched teeth.

  “That high an authority I cannot provide,” a female voice said from the lingering shadows across the room. “You will have to make do with me I am afraid, Mr Acorne.”

  “I’m a Captain,” he croaked pedantically as she opened the window to allow in full light and a waft of fresh air. The rumble of cartwheels, shouting voices, and a hen announcing she had just laid an egg grew louder. The shriek of squabbling gulls drowned the more pleasant twitter of songbirds. Aimlessly, he flapped his left hand, asked, “How do you know me?” Added, desperately willing the thumping in his head to cease so he might have a moment to think clearly. “Have we met?”

  Tiola crossed the room to lean over him, her hand going to feel his forehead; he was hot and feverish. She rested two fingers against the pulse beating in his neck beneath his jaw, frowned. The pump of blood was rushing there too fast. Much too fast.

  “A captain you may be,” she said with the smile wide in her voice as well as her eyes, “but you are also, so I understand, an infamous rogue known and wanted from the Chesapeake Bay to here in Cape Town.” As he tried to move she put her hand to his shoulder pressing him back against the pillow. “Be still. The damage is extensive and raw, you will hurt for a while yet.”

  He
regarded her through his muzzy senses, not remembering much beyond men bursting into a room intent on taking him prisoner or shooting him dead. Vaguely, he recalled falling through a window. Not much after that. Nothing really, except the touch of a woman’s lips on his own and her fragrant scent of summer. He sought for the memory, to clutch at it tighter but it faded and then vanished completely. Despite her advice he moved, trying to relieve the aching stiffness in his body – yelled, his face screwing into a contortion of intense pain, his breath choking in his throat.

  “Bloody, sodding hell,” he gasped and then realised he was going to be violently sick. He tried to twist sideways, to not spew his vomit all over himself or the bed, half managed it. Tiola responded quickly, her arms going around him to help him lean forward, for the gush of liquid to cascade to the rag-rug on the wooden floor. His guts heaved again, the taste foul in his mouth, his stomach protesting. His head swam, his body was trembling.

  She helped him to lie back, propping pillows behind his shoulders then whirled away to fetch a dampened cloth, wiped his mouth, his face, mopped up the mess on the edge of the sheets. Whisking away the soiled rug she dropped it into a bucket on the small landing at the top of the stairs.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, embarrassed, not sure whether there might be more to bring up.

  “Not your fault, my luvver, do not worry on it.” Tiola fetched the chamber pot from underneath the bed, placing it nearby. Just as well, he retched again but she had him in her arms, half sitting, the bowl beneath his mouth as he spewed up what little was left.

  Carefully she laid him, weak and half-conscious, on to the pillows. Sweat was streaking his ashen face.

  “God, it bloody hurts,” he grimaced, his jaw taut, the muscles in his face and neck twisting into rigid cords.

  Reaching for a tankard, Tiola held it to his lips. “Drink this. You might vomit again but it will take away the worst of your discomfort.” She persuaded him to sip, not gulp, was pleased he kept the herbal mixture of feverfew, white-oak bark, valerian and marigold down. Sat beside him, one hand covering his as he drifted into a restless sleep.

  He awoke several times during the morning while the midsummer sun climbed higher in the sky and the shadows shortened across the floor. Vaguely, he was aware of her reassuring voice and her cool hand soothing his hot skin. Saw her face, blurred, hovering over his own. He had no idea who she was but knew one thing – she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Although she had no feathered wings and had black hair not spun gold, he assumed she must be an angel and felt easier, for if she was he must be in Heaven, not the other place.

  When the red fog kept coming back more and more ferociously, and the heat in his body began to burn with the blaze of a furnace, he reckoned Hell had consumed him after all.

  The fire swarmed up and down his arm and tore into his burning shoulder with an insistent, never-ceasing thrumming. As daylight drifted into dusk and night sauntered in its wake, the bed linen was sodden with sweat. He plucked at the sheet covering him, thrusting it away, irritably pushing away, too, the arm holding a tankard that knocked against his teeth. Tiola persisted, gentle but firm, most of the liquid going down his throat more through reflex than co-operation. It brought sleep, but could not fight the red-heat of fire consuming him, the fever slithering between his semi-aware consciousness and weird dreams, his body alternating between drenching sweat and uncontrollable shivering.

  During the day and night Tiola battled with the demons that had overtaken his mind and body. Frequently he called out, nonsense words and slurred, rambling phrases of things haunting him; past fears, future worries. A man’s name, Rue. Another, Phillipe, usually accompanied by agitation and vehement, explicit swearing. The names of ships. Mermaid was there, Salvation, Inheritance.

  On the third day, she sent Jenna down to the harbour to enquire discreetly of any of them. Only the last, the one he muttered more often, was known.

  “The Inheritance? Weighed anchor this morning.”

  Where bound? Unknown.

  Through each sobbed breath of delirium Tiola eased Jesamiah’s distress, washing the sweat from his skin, spooning cool, herbal mixtures into his mouth. Changing the sheets when they became too soiled and sodden with his sweat and urine. Often, holding him close and tight and safe, she talked to him and sang, rocking him as a mother hushes a child, encircling him within her arms through his pain, his head lowered against her shoulder. Her voice, calming and soporific. Spell-like.

  Mid-morning the fifth day. Sunlight was streaming through the window, dust motes swirling and dancing in the slanting rays. Jesamiah realised, abruptly, he had been awake, watching them for some while. The burning was not as intense in his body and his mind was functioning again, albeit sluggishly, as if he were a ship drifting without a wind to hurry her along. He moved his arm, hissed breath in through his teeth, but the pain was not as unbearable as it had been; more of an aching discomfort beneath the restrictive bandaging. He felt light-headed, as weak as a newborn.

  “Well, you are looking better at last,” the face said as she came from somewhere beyond his vision and sat on the bed. Her hand, as ever, reaching out to touch his forehead and check the beating pulse in his neck. She nodded satisfaction.

  “Let me look at you,” Tiola said, opening his mouth to inspect the colour of his tongue and sniff his breath. Her voice had an accent he could not identify, a burr, Irish? Welsh? She also had a mass of dark hair and even darker eyes that sparkled and danced with merriment.

  “Feel sick?” she asked.

  He swallowed, considered, shook his head. “No.”

  “Good.” Her smile was beautiful, a smile not just on her mouth, but one coming from somewhere within her. From the laughter of her soul, he guessed.

  “I suppose I had better thank you,” he offered. “You appear to have rescued me.”

  She smiled again, “From certain death, at least.”

  Returning the smile, showing his two gold teeth, he admitted with a half shrug, “I do not remember all of it.”

  “Not much to remember.”

  A huff sounded from across the room, Jesamiah swivelled his head to look at the other, older woman.

  “She’s one for bringing home unwanted and unwelcome strays,” Jenna interjected grumpily. “Last time it was a mangy tom. We cut off its balls, tried to house train it, in the end I had to wring its neck.”

  On better judgement, Jesamiah decided to ignore the old bat. Instead, he held up his left hand one finger casually outstretched towards the girl. He grinned impishly. “I remember the nice bit, though.”

  Tiola took his other hand protruding from the bandaging, inspected the fingers. The nails were split and dirt encrusted, powder burns and tar had permanently blackened the skin around the base of his thumb and along his fingers.

  “Is that so? And what bit would that be? Can you squeeze my hand?”

  He tried, winced. “Ouch, no, it hurts. The bit where someone very pretty was doing things which in other circumstances would have been extremely pleasant.” He pouted, regretful. “I was not in a fit state to enjoy the attention though, was I?”

  “If you were in the sort of state to have enjoyed whatever it was,” she snorted back, peering into his eyes for sign of yellowing, “it would not have been necessary for it to have happened, would it?” She sat back, rested her hands in her lap. “You will do. A couple of weeks’ rest and you will be on your feet again.”

  Moving sharply Jesamiah suppressed a yelp, attempting to ignore the protest from arm, shoulder and ribs as he tried to sit up. “A couple of weeks? I cannot stay here one week, woman, let alone two!”

  Tiola rose from the bed, smoothed the sheet where she had been sitting. “Got something better to do, Captain Acorne? Such as keeping an appointment with the men you cheated out of one hundred and fifty gold pieces?”

  He cleared his throat, looked bashful.

  “They are searching the whole of Cape Town for you, seem to wa
nt you very badly for some reason. Something to do with dancing a jig with Jack Ketch? I am not familiar with nautical terms but I believe that one refers to the hangman, does it not?” She paused, folded her arms. Her eyes were stern, accusing. “Would it not make sense to remain hidden for a while until whoever is hunting you becomes convinced you are either long gone, or dead? And as you will not be going anywhere until I say you have strength enough, you may as well remain here.” She pointed at the floor, then swirled away across the room to fetch something from the cupboard.

  Ignoring the advice he tossed the bed covers aside and grunted mild embarrassment to discover he was naked. Swinging his legs to the floor he pulled the sheet away and wound it around his lower half, his darting gaze searching for his clothes.

  “It is a generous offer to be sure, I thank you, Miss, but I have certain things demanding my immediate attention.” Like finding his ship and Rue. He stood, swayed, the room spinning, his head reeling.

  He swallowed, took a breath to steady himself. “I will naturally pay what I owe, for I hold with settling my debts. If you would be so kind as to be fetching my clothes, I will…” He got no further; with a muted groan he crumpled to the floor; sprawled there looking surprised.

  Jenna gazed at him a moment, then returned her attention to a pot stewing over the cooking fire; dipped in a spoon, tasted the contents. “Talks pretty for a pirate, does he not?” she observed, sarcastic.

  “Oh, he is a captain,” Tiola said with a serious face, a gleam of amusement in her voice, as she squatted in front of him, a roll of clean bandaging in one hand, a pot of sweet-smelling salve in the other. “There is many a pirate captain with a silvered tongue. It goes with the gold teeth and the earring I assume. They do not tend to possess an inch of common sense, however. It must be all the salt-water rusting what little brain they have. Especially if your name happens to be Jesamiah Acorne.” She laughed out loud, then relented her teasing, and putting the things in her hand on to the side table, threaded her arms around Jesamiah, lifted him to the bed. Removing the sheet concealing his modesty she straightened his legs, spread the linen and tucked its edges beneath the mattress.