Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  Glancing at the binnacle, at the steadying of the swinging compass, he nodded, pleased.

  “We’ll run on this bearing for now,” he said to his new quartermaster who had said not a word but had watched, with critical admiration, a true seaman sail a ship.

  “Keep ‘er so until we’re beyond sight of eyes studyin’ our course,” Jesamiah added, handing him the helm and slipping, already, into the clipped, lazy, speech of a pirate. “Then we’ll turn south down the coast, round the Cape and head east’d to the Indian Ocean. In this wind we’ll ‘ave to work ‘er ‘ard.”

  With some gusts reaching seventy-five miles an hour, almost hurricane strength, there would be some delicate tacking to do to reach around the promontory of the Cape of Good Hope, and beyond to the most southerly tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas – the Sea of Storms as it was called by those sailors who understood the uncertain temper of these waters.

  “Welcome aboard, friends.” Jesamiah called, grinning to the men of his new crew who, euphoric at their success were gathering down in the waist. “I promised excitement did I not? I trust you’ll find Sea Witch a more superior ship than the worm-pocked, bilge wreck you left abandoned in Cape Town ‘arbour?”

  They laughed, cheered. There was no comparison between the two vessels; may as well compare a hawk with a turkey. Fixing a smile Jesamiah added an acknowledgement of thanks and made the additional promise of rum all round once well clear of danger.

  He went to stand at the stern, his fingernails digging into the varnished wood, staring back at the rapidly diminishing settlement, at the white walls of the fort, the straggle of the houses and taverns and shops. The people were too small to see with any distinction. A knot of them were gathered on the jetty, the bright-coloured coats of the Dutch militia standing out, huddled in a group. On the far side of the harbour the pillar of smoke reached up to the sky. If Tiola was there he would not have been able to see her – if he was to fetch the telescope, look closer? He stood where he was, Jenna’s words echoing in his mind. Do you seriously believe Tiola would commit herself to a man who as soon as his eye settled on a suitable ship, is off, sailing away in it?

  If she loved him, if she had intended to come – if something had delayed her – she would have spoken into his mind. Wouldn’t she?

  ~ Tiola? Please Tiola, answer me! ~ Nothing. No response to his thoughts. But why would there be? It was not he who held the Craft.

  The wind was buffeting his face, the salt from the sea stinging his cheeks and eyes. As well it did. It would not have been fitting for his crew to discover the moisture on the face of their new captain was not from the spray, but from spilling tears.

  Six

  The voices cackled in her head.

  ~ Jenna is dead. Jesamiah is gone! ~

  Tiola tried to concentrate on what Bella was saying, but her brain was a fog, stuffed with bundled cotton. There was more than one voice now, giggling inside her, the voices of the Malevolents disorienting and confusing her.

  ~ Jenna is dead. Jesamiah is gone. ~ The liturgy was whirling around and around and around like a spinning top.

  “Jesamiah would not shoot Jenna,” she said, desperately trying to force herself to think clearly. They were saying he had killed her? Bella and Stefan, the both of them bending over her, their faces blurred, alternately receding and enlarging, their words drifting away into the mist, then coming closer. Jesamiah would never have done that.

  “Over my dead body,” Jenna had said.

  ~ Jenna is dead! Jesamiah is gone! ~

  She tried to stand but the room was swirling, her legs feeling as if they did not belong to her. “I have to meet him,” she mumbled. “He is waiting for me.”

  Stefan whirled away across the room, clawing the air above his head, exasperated. Could the silly bitch not understand?

  “He has gone dear,” Bella said more patient, kneeling in front of Tiola, rubbing her hands, anxious because the girl did look so dreadfully pale. “He has already sailed.”

  “But I was to go with him.” None of this was making sense! Oh, if only these wretched voices in her head would stop their chattering and giggling!

  “He had no intention of taking you, liefste,” van Overstratten said pushing past Bella, and bending nearer grasped Tiola’s arms. “He felt nothing for you. If he did, would he have shot your guardian and dear friend? He shot her in the back. Took deliberate aim and killed her.” Blood was on Stefan’s shirt and white breeches. Jenna’s blood from where she had fallen, dead, against him. From where he had used her as a shield, but already his mind had twisted the fact, had dismissed his cowardice. Acorne had shot her deliberately, that now was the believed truth.

  Tiola’s tongue felt thick, her lips numb. Her mind as unfocused as their distorted faces. The Dark Power was smothering her. With effort she fought back, fought against the malicious sniggering. “But I was to meet him at noon.” Still the muddle; still she did not understand.

  “Noon? God’s witness, girl, he was already under way come noon!”

  Bella looked sharply at the Dutchman. That was not what she had heard. Stefan frowned at her, shook his head and put his finger to his lips. Said in a hoarse whisper, “Is it not kinder for her to think the scoundrel has lied all along? That he had no intention of waiting for her?”

  Reluctant to distort the truth, Bella hesitated, but what good would it do for Tiola to know the precise sequence of events? Acorne was gone and it was unlikely he would come back. With an audible sigh she nodded agreement, justified the lie by saying, “I liked him. I am sorely disappointed he has turned out to be no better than any other rogue on the look out for the quick tumble of a pretty girl, and nothing more.”

  Stefan felt no remorse for Acorne at all, but retained his silence, held Tiola’s arms, his grip tight. “Liefste, it is imperative you answer me this. The man is a murderer, a liar and a thief. He must be punished for his crimes. You owe him nothing for he thought nothing of you.” The grip tightened. He had to know, had to get his property back! “My dear, to where has he sailed? Do you know where he has taken my ship?”

  “Gone? Jesamiah has gone?” Tears streamed her face and the Darkness filled her.

  ~ He thought nothing of you ~ The chortle of the demons consumed her. Forcing her to believe the lies.

  Seven

  September – 1717

  It often rained during the winter months in Cape Town, June to August. Rarely did the rainy season linger into September, certainly not as heavily as this. The streets were sticky with mud that lifted poorly-laid cobblestones, leaving gaping, ankle-wrenching, puddled holes. The shacks along the coast, slave quarters mostly, had washed away, the poor wretches left to shelter as best they could beneath tarpaulins or dripping trees.

  Tiola had ploughed through the rain and mess two days ago to deliver a dead child, now she had trekked the same three miles to lay out its dead mother. A midwife’s responsibility, to bring life into the world and to tend the life gone from it, to bring the newborn into the light from the womb and to prepare the departed for the dark of the grave. It was not a task she enjoyed, this cleansing of the husk that was the body, the sewing of it into a shroud or dressing it in finest wear. Nothing was enjoyable about death, but this was a compassionate duty, a final completion of the circle of life. The sadness was when the death was a healthy woman who had not survived the ordeal of birth.

  Bone tired and wet through, the sole of her boot was leaking, her foot and woollen stocking saturated. She would have been no wetter had she jumped full clad into the sea. The giggling voices continued to snigger in her head, making her temples throb and her patience wear thin. Midnight was approaching; good folk were abed the boisterous only halfway through their carousing. Her head drooping, feet stumbling, she made her way along the side streets, avoiding the attention of men by huddling into her mantle, the hood pulled forward. They left her alone. No one was interested in a timid drab.

  As usual, Bella’s Place was crowded. She held a
reputation for clean girls and offered an entertaining evening. Tiola leant against the wall in Grope Lane reluctant to enter the passage and go up the stairs. To go home. Kisty had lit a lamp for her, she could see the glow behind the closed shutters.

  Jesamiah had stood here in this exact spot. That night. That last night.

  She leant her head against the wall, closed her eyes. She was so tired, but when she slept the dreams haunted her. She was weary of surviving through one bereft day after another. Her Craft had deserted her, she could do nothing to ease what was eating away inside her. Not the gangrene which had rotted that young mother, but something as malignant. Grief.

  She was tired of the tears she could not shed, of the ache tearing her apart, and the hole within her that would not be filled. Drained by emotion and memories refusing to be silenced and stilled. The voices kept giggling and whispering, reminding her he had abandoned her; had never loved her.

  And the rain fell, despair flooding in its wake.

  Stefan had protested when she insisted on returning here to Bella’s, but Tiola had found his patronising condolence overbearing. She did not resent being cosseted and cared for, but she would not be told what to do, and Stefan was persistently attempting to advise her. Constantly watching her.

  She trudged up the stairs, an effort to put one foot in front of the other, pushed into the room where only two months ago she had been happy. Kisty had also lit the fire, had been unable to do much about the leaking roof.

  Jesamiah was supposed to have mended it. “I’ll climb up there, patch it up,” he had promised. But he was a pirate, and pirates were known for not keeping their promises.

  She emptied the buckets, set to catch the drips, out of the window. Stepped from her wet petticoats and stockings, laid them to dry before the fire. Added more charcoal, hooked the kettle on the hook. Routine chores.

  The Malevolents, the Demons. Always there, always whispering.

  ~ He shot Jenna! ~

  ~ He never loved you. He only loves the sea ~

  Where was he now? Perhaps he had returned to the Caribbean, he had talked often of the islands with their beaches washed by the surf of turquoise seas. She had tried to use her Craft to call him but she had lost the ability to send words into his mind, and even if she had not, she knew she would only meet with a wall of silence. He had shut her from his thoughts, had, as the voices said, abandoned her.

  Huddled beneath the blankets of her bed she lay shivering. The bed where she had lain in his arms, his warm, strong body entwined with hers. The bed where he had possessed her, had made love to her.

  The roof creaked. She tried to sleep but feared the dreams, for even in sleep demons mocked her, caused her to dream of the sea, of a ship and a man standing at the helm. She knew it was him, Jesamiah, although he always had his back to her. When she shouted out to him, trying to attract his attention, she would wake to find herself tangled in the sheets and alone in the darkness.

  Another creak and the bulge in the ceiling burst, the rain cascading through bringing down a waterfall of coldness, plaster and broken tiles drenching both her and the bed.

  And then the tears fell, the tears she had so desperately suppressed through these long weeks of loss. Tears, once they started that would not stop.

  “You should have fetched me earlier, Madam Dubois,” Stefan scolded as he disdainfully surveyed the wreckage; the saturated floor, the gaping hole in the ceiling. “Nor should you have neglected this roof.”

  His chiding stung but Bella did not protest, for he was right she should have done both things. At least it had ceased raining, although the clouds were louring moodily, threatening more misery. Table Mountain, brooding behind the grey covering of mist had become invisible.

  “I have been saying it would be best for her to live within my household,“ van Overstratten continued to rail. “Well, now she is ill and I remove choice from her. She requires nursing and comfort.”

  Statements which, although she searched for reasons, Bella could not oppose. It was well known van Overstratten wanted a wife to give him a son. As well known, Tiola had refused his offer of marriage several times over. Bella did not care for the Dutchman, he was pompous and opinionated, but he had wealth and as he said, Tiola required nursing and comfort for she was a very sick young lady.

  Eight

  “She is not coming, mon ami, it has been three months. Your ship is refitted, she is ready to sail, it is senseless to wait here much longer.” Rue meant well. He put his hand in friendship on Jesamiah’s shoulder, did not expect the response of a snarl and a raised fist.

  “When I want y’ bloody opinion I’ll soddin’ ask for it.” Jesamiah was drunk. He usually was these days.

  “Let me ‘elp you to bed. Sleep it off, non?”

  The fist swinging into a left-handed punch was not co-ordinated. Rue ducked with ease and deftly caught Jesamiah as he overbalanced, toppled forward.

  Dishevelled, stinking of spilt rum and sweat; in need of a shave, a wash and clean clothes Jesamiah knelt in the short, dry grass which never stopped its muttered conversations with the wind. There was always a wind here in Madagascar, blowing in from the sea or down from the forested hills. He hated that damned, mumbling wind.

  He looked at the rum bottle clutched in his right hand as if surprised to find it there. Looked too, at the scars zigzagging in a crazy pattern against the suntanned skin of his right arm. A reminder he would carry to his last day. Not for the first time this week the thought occurred that with one quick slice of his cutlass he could get rid of the reminder. And if he was lucky, the rest of this miserable life into the bargain.

  He had thought she would come. Those first few weeks, when they had been busy refitting, he had laughed with the men as they worked, had been there on the beach waiting to greet every ship dropping anchor, expecting her to be aboard. And gradually he came to realise that Jenna had spoken the truth. Tiola did not want a skunk of a pirate. From there, what was the point of staying sober?

  Tipping the bottle to his mouth, Jesamiah fell backwards, unconscious.

  Carrying him into the hut at the edge of the clearing Rue covered his friend with a light blanket; in these hot climates the nights turned cold. Near the door, a rectangular opening covered by a ragged deerskin, he kicked an empty bottle sending it spinning across the earth floor. He picked it up, collected two more.

  This had to stop.

  The day Jesamiah had arrived was one of the best Rue could remember. Seeing a perfect ship glide into harbour and drop anchor close to the rotting carcass of the Inheritance had been a joy, and to discover Jesamiah stepping ashore…there had been celebration in this corner of Madagascar that night! Aye, and for the entire week after!

  The pirate settlement had its compensations; a life of ease and black-skinned women by the dozen, an endless supply of provisions. Anyone who wanted to make a secretive profit on a cargo called in at Saint Mary’s Anchorage. Legal merchantmen alongside buccaneers. Even the occasional Royal Navy ship if she carried a captain who had a Prize to sell and knew he would not personally obtain its full worth in England.

  The township – more of a clutter of dilapidated huts and bothies than a town – ambled along the shore and boasted four taverns, three brothels and not much else. Several hundred men lived there with a variety of women and a gaggle of lice-riddled children, who could name any one of the men as their father. The trading was operated by a group of self-styled Company Men, literate ex-pirates with the savvy for business. They had the sense to build on the higher hills in better style and comfort, and kept themselves to themselves, emerging for their share of the cargo only when a ship dropped anchor.

  Rue and Isiah Roberts, soon wearied of the constant round of senseless carousal, had followed the Company’s example by moving further down the coast. They chose a spot where the forested hills overlooked the sweep of the sea and the harbour entrance, then traded with the natives for food and friendship. The huts they built within a day, mud for
the walls, grass thatching for the roof, earth for the floor. By the second day they each had a woman sharing their lodging, willing to cook, fetch fresh water, wash their shirts and keep them content during the night. An idyllic life without worry or threat. A life that, when Jesamiah had sailed into the harbour, Rue had realised with sudden clarity was repetitively dull and mind-numbingly boring. Two months on, apart from the brief spell of activity when they had enthusiastically altered the Sea Witch from a merchant trader into a pirate craft – cutting gun ports and fitting guns, re-stepping her mizzen mast and removing the high, poop deck – things had not changed.

  Collecting stained clothing abandoned on the floor, Rue hung his captain’s hat on a nail in the wall, touched the hardened and cracked leather of Jesamiah’s cutlass strap. Shaking his head and with a sigh of despondency he partially drew the weapon. The metal needed rubbing with sand to stop it rusting, then oiling. A whetstone running down its blade to sharpen its edge.

  From his bed Jesamiah groaned, belched.

  Slamming the cutlass back into its sheath Rue strode with great paces from the hut, swept across the clearing and ducked into Isiah’s dwelling.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the floor eating an evening meal of roasted chicken, his woman indicated Rue could sit, eat. Waving her away the Frenchman refused both offers. “Isiah, I ‘ave ‘ad enough of this I am going back to the sea.”

  Isiah Roberts stopped chewing, his eyes beginning to gleam. “When?”

  “Right now. No more excuses. It is September, the ‘urricane season is almost finished in the Caribbean. I am going ‘ome.”

  Spluttering half-chewed bits of chicken from his mouth Roberts leapt to his feet. “Are you serious? Can I come? Will you have me, a black man as crew?”

  Flinging his head back Rue crowed excited laughter. “The colour of your skin ‘as nothing to do with ability aboard ship, mon ami! You are eager to come then?”