Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  He could not be certain this weasel did not have the evidence, although it was unlikely. Not unless van Overstratten had discovered several reputable people who could swear before God to his identity as a pirate – and if he had, he would not have waited. Once they had careened and provisioned, most captains and ships’ officers did not linger in foreign harbours while a fresh wind was blowing and a tide was running. To a merchantman time and tide were money.

  “I do not require evidence. It would be a simple thing to be rid of you, but I am not a murderer who thinks nothing of spilling another man’s blood. Unlike you, I am a man of honour.”

  Bullshit, Jesamiah thought, sitting passive, with no outward reaction. You do not want me murdered because you want to crow the glory of capturing a notorious pirate. He sipped his rum, had another thought. Or is it that you do not want to lose Tiola’s favour? As you surely would were you to be the man responsible for my hanging.

  “And as a man of honour I shall give you fair chance to avoid the gallows.” Van Overstratten picked up the playing cards as he spoke, his eyes returning to Jesamiah’s face. “I shall speak plain. I want you gone. I therefore name as my stake...” he paused, shuffled the cards and feigned the impression of giving the matter some thought, although it was obvious he had planned much of this days ago. “If you lose, you leave Cape Town. There is a brig in harbour, she sails on the morrow’s noontide for England. You will leave alone. If you do not leave I shall instruct the Governor to have you arrested and once within the fort’s rat-infested dungeons I shall make certain you do not see daylight until the day you hang. And hang, you shall.”

  Expression unconcerned, thoughts racing, Jesamiah ignored the cards the Dutchman was beginning to deal. He tipped his chair, balancing on the two rear legs. “You still want Tiola for yourself then? I admire your fortitude. She’ll not have you though, even if I am not here.” Curiosity getting the better of him, added. “Why her? Why not have any loose-in-the-rump doxy to bed with? I’ve seen a few who would wash up pretty enough.”

  That at least was true: several of Bella’s girls, for instance, were handsome, although they did not possess a degree of intelligence between them. Amber-Rose was lovely to look at, useless to talk to. But men did not pay whores for the pleasure of intellectual conversation.

  Dealing the last card and placing the excess of the pack in the centre of the table, Stefan waved his hand in a flippant attitude, a ring on his finger sparkling in the light of the candles. “I require a legitimate son to inherit my fortune. I therefore need a wife to provide me with one. Were I to send to Holland I risk getting a hag or a simpleton.” He visibly shuddered. Van Overstratten was a man who took pleasure from possessing beautiful things: his apparel, his house, his ships. He would not contemplate a wife who did not have a striking beauty, and Tiola Oldstagh, although she scampered around the town clad like a street urchin on occasion, was undeniably beautiful.

  Dropping his chair back on to all four legs Jesamiah said crudely, “And you want Tiola, even though she has been fornicating with a pirate?”

  Stefan picked up his cards. “I have no objection to making use of soiled goods, Mr Acorne, if they are the goods I desire. She suits my purpose, providing she does not carry the pox or drop a bastard, which you have apparently in all these months not managed to sire. I am certain I can perform where you have been limp and lacking.”

  Reacting against the insult Jesamiah’s hand fell towards where his cutlass should be, but weapons were not permitted within the gentleman’s clubrooms of the Golden Hind. He took several calming breaths, reminding himself that van Overstratten was deliberately goading him. Why Tiola? Because the Dutchman could not tolerate someone having something he wanted. He was like Phillipe, obsessed with getting his own way and caring nothing for who or what he crushed beneath his boot in the process.

  “And if I win?”

  Studying his cards Stefan did not answer immediately, when he did he spoke in a tone implying the suggestion was absurd. “If you win?” He looked up, “Then you sail away on my ship, again – apart from a scratch crew – alone, and on the morrow’s noontide. I shall make no attempt to stop you.”

  Smiling, his expression displaying no hint of friendship, Jesamiah answered; “Win or lose you are asking me to leave?”

  Stefan blew another perfect smoke ring. “No, Captain Acorne, I am not asking. I am telling.”

  Jesamiah picked up his cards, did not look at them, his steadfast gaze not leaving the Dutchman’s face for perhaps half of a minute. Saying nothing he studied the cards in his hands, began arranging them into suits, said at last, “And how do I trust you?”

  “You trust me because you have no choice. I am a man of my word and my word can be taken either way.” Stefan shrugged one shoulder. “Win or lose you will be gone; cross me, you will hang.”

  “And does Tiola not have a say in all this?” Jesamiah asked, considering which card to play. He set the deuce down.

  Van Overstratten laid his first card, the très. “She is a woman several years short of the age of mature independence. She is not entitled to a say.”

  Jesamiah did not agree, but he had held his silence. Played.

  Two

  Puffing air through his cheeks, Jesamiah again glanced up at the window to their room. The shutters were closed, a flicker of light showing through. It could be Jenna there of course, Tiola may still be at that birthing, although she had expected to return before midnight.

  How to tell her?

  ~ If you stand here much longer my luvver, you will find lichen growing on your boots come morning. ~ Tiola’s voice, clear and resonant, sounded in his thoughts not his ears.

  He yelped, spun around his hand automatically going to his cutlass. “Hell’s tits woman, do not come up behind me like that! You nigh on frightened the shite out of me!” He rammed the cutlass back into its scabbard and scowled. Even Tiola coming up, silent, behind him evoked echoes of his childhood. “I have only been here a few minutes.”

  “Over an hour. I have been watching you,” she spoke aloud this time, a soft smile on her face. It was useful to be able to put words direct into his mind like a lover’s secretive and intimate touch. “What’s wrong?” Sensing his brooding disquiet she slid her arms around his waist. His breath smelt of rum, his clothes of tobacco smoke.

  Pulling her close into the warmth of his coat Jesamiah said nothing, held her, his chin resting on her head. He might have guessed she would know.

  “I think I have done something foolish, sweetheart,” he admitted after a moment of quiet. “Well, damned stupid, actually.”

  “You lost at cards? You have gambled away your entire fortune?”

  “No love, the fortune is safe.” Who gave a damn about fortunes? Where he came from there was always another. On impulse he took her hand, started walking. “Come with me, I cannot tell you here. Not like this.”

  On occasion Tiola regretted not having the ability to eavesdrop on another’s thoughts, but sly intrusion was not permitted. With one of her own kind, communicating by thought alone was natural and usual, but there were few, now, who held the Craft. She smiled to herself as they walked. She often knew what Jesamiah was thinking anyway. It did not always require skill: the lust in his eye and the bulge in his breeches anyone could interpret!

  His fingers locked around hers, he said nothing. He walked her to the harbour, a sickle moon rode between the rushing clouds, the wind stinging their faces made their eyes water. Took her on to the jetty near the tree-lined canal, stood holding her close gazing at the vessels moving restlessly against the restraint of their anchors. A brig, a sloop and two Dutch East Indiamen – he snorted ironically, one was the Christina Giselle on her way home from the far China Seas. Had her captain been van Overstratten’s source of information? Possible, but unlikely.

  The air was heavy with the smell of the sea, the aroma of wet canvas and fresh tar, the odour of decaying seaweed and rotting fish.

  “You are mi
ssing the sea aren’t you?” Tiola said, nestling deeper into his warmth. “It calls to you; a lost child whimpering for its mother.”

  He did not have the courage to answer immediately but his fingers tightened around hers. “I come down here most nights to see what ships are at anchor. Who is here.”

  “Watching for Rue and the Inheritance?”

  “Not really.” Jesamiah sighed, there was no headway in lies. “Aye. Watching for Rue, hoping he might one day pass by.” He pointed to a dark-hulled sloop anchored to the edge of all the others. “That one is a pirate craft.”

  “How can you tell?” She peered up at him, at the wistful longing etched in his face, aching in his voice. “Looks the same as any ship to me.”

  “Boat. She ain’t a ship.”

  “There is a difference?” Tiola frowned at him, astonished.

  Giving her a quick, affectionate kiss Jesamiah answered. “As a rough rule any vessel that don’t have three masts is a boat.”

  Tiola asked again when he said nothing more. “So? How do you know that boat is a pirate?”

  He shrugged. To him it was obvious. “Small things, details. The name across her stern has been re-painted, her anchor cable is rotten; few merchant captains allow slovenliness. Pirates are not concerned if cordage and cables rot, we can always get more.”

  She noted the ‘we’.

  “See her sails? Not neatly furled are they? Decks are probably a disgrace too. I’d wager her keel is full of teredo worm, most of the planking eaten away as they bore inward. Her crew’s here to find a replacement vessel.”

  Tiola tugged playfully at his short beard, laughed. “The rest I grant you have deduced from experience, but how can you possibly know they are looking for another boat?”

  He chuckled, lifted her hand and kissed each individual finger. “I don’t, not for certain; it’s what I would do were she mine.”

  “I suppose you would commandeer the Christina Giselle?”

  “Good grief, sweetheart, no! Far too big! The best pirate craft are fast and manoeuvrable, shallow on the draught. The brig, for instance, or the three-masted square-rigged warped alongside the far jetty.”

  “The ship – she has three masts, that makes her a ship? The one with the bosomed lady as a figurehead?”

  “Aye. Grand ain’t she?”

  Tiola was uncertain whether he referred to the ship or the figurehead with its bold, bare chest. Jesamiah had a fondness for plump bosoms, although her breasts were small and almost insignificant. She smiled to herself, what she lacked in size she more than made up for in enthusiasm.

  “Ain’t she?” he queried again, giving Tiola a nudge with his elbow.

  “Ais.” She was.

  “She’s mine.” There. He had said it.

  Silence.

  Quickly he said, “All above board, all legal. I’ll have her papers signed to me by noon on the morrow.” He glanced up at the sky to where the moon sailed, corrected himself. “Noon today.”

  “You bought her?” A chill in her tone as iced as the blowing wind.

  “Er, no. I won her. Playing cards.”

  Suddenly wary, angry, Tiola released her hold of him. “Against whom?”

  “Does it matter? Is it relevant?” This was not going well.

  To stop herself from slapping him, Tiola moved further away. Did it matter? No it did not. He had a ship, he wanted to go back to sea. He had every right to do as he pleased. Furious she retorted, “Yes it bloody does matter!”

  When in the wrong, shout. Lose your temper. Jesamiah shouted back at her. “Stefan van bloody Overstratten, if you must know!”

  “The stars! You can be such an idiot at times Jesamiah!”

  “What? Me? He wanted to raise the stakes, not me! Not my soddin’ fault if he is as useless at cards as he is at everything else!”

  “He is not useless at cards, he is an excellent player. You think of him as a dull-witted fop because that is how you want to see him, but he is not. He is a clever man, one of the most competent and agile-minded in Cape Town.” Her agitation was rising. “He is setting a trap Jesamiah, a trap which will end with a noose around your neck – and you have stupidly stepped right into it! Do you seriously think he will stand aside and let you take his ship?”

  No, he did not think that. He knew Van Overstratten had deliberately let him win. The Dutchman had known the pirate in him would not resist the challenge of setting sail. Jesamiah would never have left Cape Town had he lost, not on the back of a mere threat – but the lure of a beautiful ship? Tiola was right. Van Overstratten was a clever man.

  “Traps are only traps when you do not know they are there, Tiola.”

  “He will not honour a game of cards, nor will he hand papers over to you.”

  Jesamiah was well aware van Overstratten would not honour any of it. He had no proof of his winnings, no witnesses. Even if he did, who would believe him, a pirate, over the word of a respected and wealthy merchant? Opening his mouth to shout at her, to jibe she was being unreasonable he shut it abruptly, spread his hands, tried again; swallowed, took another breath and said quietly; “I do not need papers, sweetheart. I’ve never had any before.”

  Tiola stared at him, disappointment and despair clouding her face. She turned on her heel and walked away without looking back.

  Three

  Through what was left of the night he held her, so very tight, her face buried in his shoulder. He had followed her home, apologised, taken her to bed and made love to her. Praying it would not be for the last time. And afterwards, she had wrapped her arms around him and wept.

  “Come with me,” he finally said, stroking her hair. “Come with me? Please?”

  “I cannot.”

  “You can. We can go anywhere you want, Tiola. Anywhere. That is the freedom a ship gives you. You choose; we will go there. The East Indies, the West – Cornwall. I will take you home to see your brothers.”

  Tempting but unwise.

  During their first breathless days of being together she had told him of her past; of her grandfather’s farm and her eight brothers, some living, some dead. Jesamiah’s arms fiercely protective as she had found the courage to admit things she had tried to forget. What her father had attempted to do to her, and how her mother had died. Listening in silence, he had comforted her while she grieved, realising why his first intrusive kiss had so frightened her. Swallowing down the sickness curdling in his stomach, he had held her close – oh he knew what it was to fear someone! And hanging? Slow strangulation was a bad end for a man, but for a woman? No woman, whatever she had done, deserved such a death.

  In return he had talked of his parents and the Virginia tobacco plantation. Told her of Phillipe, making light of the misery his half-brother had made of his childhood. Beyond speaking of Rue and Malachias Taylor, his friends, had said nothing of his life as a pirate and she had not asked. Had not wanted to hear of the men he had killed or the women he had bedded.

  After the sharing of her secret Tiola had never cried again, not even after the disagreements they occasionally had, when Jesamiah lost his temper and shouted. Went banging out of the door and thundering down the stairs in search of a tavern and a drink. Always coming home again before midnight with an apology and a loving kiss.

  He wondered now, here with her in their bed and watching the dawn mature, whether Phillipe had some connection with van Overstratten. The Dutchman was principally a merchant wine trader, although he had fingers dipped into many pies. Partially he dismissed the idea. Phillipe sold tobacco to England. Ah, but what of the sugar plantation belonging to Alicia? Stefan had just returned from the Caribbean. Coincidence? Either way, perhaps it was the right time to be moving on from Cape Town.

  “Sail with me,” he said, pressing his body closer, his hands smoothing over her skin. “I want you to be with me aboard the Sea Witch.”

  “Sea Witch?”

  “I’m renaming her. For you.”

  She snuggled her head into the cradle of hi
s neck, her mass of black hair draping over the red scar that had been the pistol shot. “You are a pirate and I am a healer. How can the two mix Jesamiah? Our lives are as opposite as salt and sweet.”

  Cape Town was her home the only sanctuary she knew, the world out there frightened her. How could she leave? “And what of Jenna? And my work?”

  “Jenna is capable of caring for herself. I will leave her an endowment. As for the other, I remember you once said, ‘Women go into labour every day, midwives such as myself help them every day, in every country of the world’.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You did.”

  He kissed her, long and lingering. “You will come? I do not have to be a pirate, I can do other things.” He could not think what, would worry on it later.

  “Ais,” she answered, making her decision. Cape Town was her home but Jesamiah was her life. “Yes, I will come with you.”

  Aroused, he made love to her again, more urgent this time, more possessive. Then he left the warm hollow of the bed and dressed. He had made his plans leaning against the wall in Grope Lane, knew exactly how he was going to outwit Stefan van bloody Overstratten.

  “You must be on the jetty by noon Tiola,” he said, draping his baldric across his shoulder, settling the cutlass comfortable into place at his hip. “Once I have gone aboard I will not be able to wait. If I do I’ll be a dead man.” He emphasised the point. “By noon.”

  “I will be there.”

  He thrust his pistol through his sash. Going to the clothes chest, rummaged for his ribbons, laced two into his hair. He had not worn them for these seven months ashore. “Bring nothing, only what you stand in.”

  She balked. “My books, my things…”

  “I will buy you new books and better things in Madagascar.”

  “Madagascar?”

  “Aye, we’ll be there a month or so, refitting her.”

  “As a pirate ship?”

  Not wanting to lie he ducked the question, walked to the bed, kissed her. “Be there. Noon.”