Sea Witch

by Hollick, Helen

  In her consciousness Tiola felt the chafe of the topmast fore stay against her arm, felt beneath her bare feet, Sea Witch stoutly rising as she lifted over another onrushing wave, the vessel determined and steady on her course towards the Chesapeake Bay. If Tiola were to glance upward way, away overhead, she would see, tiny and distant, the underside of the keel forging through the water. And out on the lonely thrust of the bowsprit, would see herself, her hair and coat and gown billowing around her in the sudden-come wind, glowing with phosphorescence, standing silent and alone in the darkness.

  ~ Yes. Look! ~

  If she looked, her concentration and conviction would be broken. To look was to doubt and Tiola knew she must never doubt her ability. Doubt was weakness. Confidence was strength.

  Scathing, Tethys laughed. ~ You are new to your Craft, Witch. Come back when you have learnt how to use what you have. In a thousand, thousand years. ~

  And Tiola answered, proud and confident. ~ The shell that is my body is new, but not the knowledge I carry and use within it. In that I am as old as you. ~

  The ocean shuddered. The fault lines of the continents shifting at the will of Tethys, impotent to do anything against the Sea Witch that was the ship, the Sea Witch who was the ageless woman.

  ~ It is my right to ask what I will of you, Tethys, for it is the right of the Craft I hold, the Craft given me by the passage of Time, through the generations of Time, from beyond the dawn of Time. ~

  ~ Time is meaningless to me. ~

  ~ As it is meaningless to me, but still it is my right to ask. ~ And Tiola altered her voice. Where she had been talking low and coaxing, seductive and harmless, she suddenly snapped a command, the force shattering the near silence, hurling through the undersea world with its demand to be obeyed.

  ~ Where is the ship upon which my lover is held captive? ~

  The sea swelled as another soaring wave rushed across the Atlantic almost engulfing the Sea Witch within its white-foamed rage.

  ~ I do not concern myself with trivialities. I do not know. I do not care. ~

  ~ You do know, Tethys. You do care. You know all there is to be known of the sea, in the sea and on the sea. You are the sea. I have asked and you must answer. ~

  ~ I give no answer unless I get something in return. One must be exchanged for the other, as is my right. ~

  Becoming complacent again, Tiola agreed. ~ As is your right. You shall have something in return. ~

  Her body, standing on the thrust of the bowsprit released its firm hold of the stay and reached for the ribbon, Jesamiah’s blue ribbon, from the tangle of her hair. Released it into the night. It was tossed and toyed with a moment by the wind but was soon discarded as insignificant; it fluttered downward into the surf foaming to either side of Sea Witch’s bow and was gone, taken.

  ~ A blue ribbon is pretty but it is not sufficient. ~

  ~ It is a token only, a gesture of my gratitude for your answer. ~

  ~ Payment will be demanded. Payment will be made when I ask it. ~

  ~ What you ask, when you ask, shall be paid. Where is Jesamiah? ~

  ~ Jeshh..a..miah? ~

  Sea Witch rolled dangerously, the Atlantic slamming against her a third time. Her bow lifted and rose higher and higher, seemingly as if she would rise too high and tip over backwards – and then she was breasting the wave and plunging down the other side, her stern now reaching for the sky that showed the first hint of dawn, the fog quite gone. In its place the wind was rising into stronger and stronger gusts. It veered suddenly taking the Sea Witch’s topsail aback. Over and over onto her side she went, the upper dead-eyes of her rigging dipping under the water, the mainmast yard arm beneath the sea. Water sluiced over rails and deck, poured down into the hatches, flooded into the lower deck and the hold. The once horizontal upper deck was now almost vertical, leaning towards the lightening sky, the great guns hanging from their tackles.

  Rue shouted something as this third wave engulfed them, his feet slipping on the tipped up planking awash with the sea. He grabbed a halyard, clung on for dear life. From the shout of his first bellow, hands had already been coming up from below, alarmed, running, unsure of what was happening. Attack? Reef? Shoals? Many of them were washed along the deck, some, the lucky ones were sluiced back down the ladders. Three were swept overboard with open-mouthed cries of fear, knowing they were gasping their last breath of sweet air. There was nothing anyone could do for them, except later, say the appropriate words as a form of burial and pass their meagre belongings to loved-ones ashore.

  Tiola saw their deaths and grieved for men who should not have died, and she saw the greed of Tethys reaching out for what was not hers to have. She screamed her rage, the sound renting the sky in a shout of potent fury.

  ~ Do not dare ,Tethys! Do you not dare destroy this ship! ~

  Sea Witch did not care for such rough treatment, and as the wave rumbled beneath her keel she twisted, righting herself, shaking free of the grappling hold that was pulling her down into a watery grave. She lurched forward, her bowsprit crashing through a cascade of foam and the sail flapped. As if nothing had happened, water pouring from her scuppers, Sea Witch calmly ploughed through the next oncoming wave.

  “What the devil was that?” someone called, sodden, bruised, but relieved.

  “Did we hit something? A whale? A wreck?”

  Rue could not answer, he abandoned the helm to Isiah, was running forward, running to the bow where Tiola should have been. To the bowsprit, where she had stood silent and still through the entire night. Where there was now nothing except a bowsprit, a figurehead, jib-boom and furled sails; all drenched, dripping with spray.

  “Mon Dieu!” he cursed as he stepped up for’ard past the heads, the sailors’ seat of ease, peering outward and down expecting to see her body dangling, dead, beneath the rigging. Could he forgive himself if he lost her? He had not said last night when she had spoken to him for it was a thing he would hold secret to himself, but he had accepted all she had said as a token of hope for Jesamiah. A part of him insisting that if he looked after Tiola then he would find his friend; if all was well with her, than so was it with Jesamiah. And stupidly, stupidly, he had allowed her to go out on to the bowsprit!

  And then he laughed, his head back, hands on his hips, a lion’s roar of relief as a white, slender hand, two, grasped the rail and a bedraggled, sodden girl began to haul herself upward. He grabbed her arm and dragged her aboard, her hair dripping, her coat and gown soaked and covered by slime and green weed.

  “I do declare,” he chortled, “we ‘ave caught ourselves a mermaid!” He removed the drenched coat, took off his own and set it around her shoulders, picked a crab from her hair and threw it into the sea. She looked as white as death but she managed a smile for him.

  “Mereno went westward. He put in at Charleston,” she said breathless and bone-weary tired but bursting with elation. She was grateful for the warm coat and for Rue’s arm supporting her waist, desperately needed to sleep. “Phillipe has no love of the sea and he feared the fog. We will find him as he runs north along the coast.”

  Chewing his lip, Rue wondered whether to ignore her excitement; they could be wasting valuable hours by doing this, and yet…the prevailing wind had returned and the fog had lifted to expose miles of a dawn-bright empty ocean. They had no hope of finding Mereno’s ship out here in the middle of nowhere.

  Jasper trotted up, eyeing Tiola’s bedraggled appearance. He said nothing. If the daft woman wanted to stand up here in the bow, more fool her. “Begging pardon, Rue, but Jansy says we need men for the pumps. We’ve got more’n two feet of water in the well.”

  Rue was not surprised. With the deluge swamping them he had expected much more. They had escaped lightly. “Ask Mr Janson to set the necessary men on to it if you please. As soon as we ‘ave canvas set, I will send more men to ‘elp.”

  Jasper touched his forehead, trotted off away aft.

  “Lay ‘er on the larboard tack, full and by!” Rue or
dered as he stepped into the waist, guiding Tiola before him. “You, mademoiselle, get yourself down into that cabin and into Jesamiah’s bed. Stripped and dried. Once Finch ‘as re-lit ‘is stove, I will ‘ave ‘im bring you ‘ot coffee and breakfast.”

  The crew were scurrying to do as he commanded, swarming up the shrouds and out along the yards, pleased to be free of the fog and making way. No sailor liked to be blind at sea.

  “We are going after him as fast as we can?” Tiola asked Rue, peeling away his coat and handing it back to him.

  “All ‘ands! To braces! ‘aul and let go!” he shouted, cupping his hand around his mouth, and sails spilled from the yards. He scowled at Tiola. “If you intend to stay aboard this ship then you had best learn orders are to be instantly obeyed. If you are incapable of getting yourself out of those wet clothes, I am sure I can find one of the ‘ands willing to be of assistance.”

  Imitating Jasper’s respectful salute she knuckled her forehead, made no movement to leave. “Jesamiah?” she asked again, her head cocked to one side, her hand lightly touching Rue’s arm.

  “Oui. As long as this wind ‘olds. It will take us more than three day’s sailing to raise Charleston from ‘ere – in the fog we ‘ave drifted too far north. If it is the coast ‘igher up you will be wanting – take a day off that. We will get our captain back, do not worry.”

  The men nearby cheered, a sound taken up by those in the tops and those below manning the pumps. A cheer that scurried through the entire ship.

  Happy, Sea Witch brought her head around and was sheeted home. As eager as her crew she leapt forward. Lying over no more than a degree or two she glided through the water as beautiful as a swan, as fast as a greyhound, her rudder balanced perfectly against the full spread of her sail.

  Jesamiah, Rue thought as he watched Tiola disappear below into the captain’s cabin was a damned lucky sod to have a fine ship and a beautiful woman. Prayed his friend had not run out of that luck.

  ‘Old on, mon ami, he thought. Just ‘old on.

  Twenty Six

  “Sail ho!”

  “Where away?” Rue responded, peering up the mainmast at Toby Turner who stood precisely balanced on the crosstrees. Sea Witch was rolling hard, hove-to with her mizzen topsail backed as they waited ten miles out from the Carolina coast. Turner was swinging through a wide, curving arc back and forth as the mast ponderously swayed and the ship rocked, everything creaking and groaning with the swell hauling under her keel.

  “Hull down, two points off larb’d beam!” Turner shouted, his arm outstretched, finger pointing, totally disregarding the uncomfortable motion as Sea Witch’s starboard scuppers dipped once again below the foam.

  From the rocking deck the crew could see nothing except an empty sea and the grey landmass of North Carolina spread along the horizon. Taking his telescope Rue scurried aloft his sense telling him to not raise hope, the ship could be anything. This would be the eighth sail spotted coming up from Charleston since sun-up. The eighth disappointment? He hooked his elbow through the shroud and steadied the bring it close at what appeared to be a schooner heading north. Too far away to see its hull below the horizon. Rue snapped the glass shut, cursed. It could be any damned ship! Except there were not many of these new slim-line American Schooners on the seas. They were good vessels, fast and expensive. Rich men’s toys – or a pirate’s dream. There was not a pirate, yet, who had managed to catch one.

  “Keep a sharp eye, Toby. It will be dark in three hours, I want a positive sighting before then.” Did not add, as the t’gans’ls flapped, that he did not want to lose the wind. If it was the schooner they would be hard pushed to run her down and if this faltering breeze yet again turned fickle…Rue was not going to think about that. Bad thoughts brought bad luck.

  Toby indicated his understanding as Rue let himself hand-over-hand down to the deck. Tiola had wanted to go to Charleston itself, Rue had firmly refused on two counts. One, it would mean doubling back on themselves and they could easily miss Mereno. Two, Sea Witch was not welcome anywhere near Charleston harbour.

  “We are pirates,” he had scoffed at her persistent arguing. “Pirate ships are not encouraged into respectable anchorages. Not after our last visit there, anyway. We would do better to lay off-shore ‘igher up the coast and wait for ‘im to come to us.”

  He was not as convinced as Tiola about Mereno being somewhere in this vicinity, the feeling of doubt increasing as the hours had slowly passed. They were several days out from Nassau, and had been tacking up and down this patch of ocean since dawn. ‘Getting pirates a bad name,’ Rue had commented with a wry grin as they had watched yet another laden merchant sail warily by, unharmed and un-threatened.

  Now the wind was once again letting them down; the only comfort, there was no return of the fog. Ironically, there were probably storms brewing down in the Caribbean, and with his own eyes Rue could see stronger gusts about five miles away stirring the swell.

  He gave order to haul the fore topsail, to at least, if for nothing else, do something about this stomach-churning rolling.

  “All we need is for the Carolina guardships to come out and investigate us,” he muttered as Sea Witch tacked and ceased her sickening motion,

  Expecting to see the danger of the patrol ship come immediately into view some of the men glanced uneasily over the rail, crossing themselves or making various signs to ward off bad luck. The guardship. Pirate hunters. It was not good to be hanging around in these waters.

  “On deck! Rue? Rue!” A while later, young Jasper was up the mast having relieved Toby Turner. He called down again, his voice stirring action from the lazing crew. “Sir! It’s her, I’m sure of it! It’s her, a schooner with a red hull, Mereno’s ship!”

  Where everyone had been idling with nothing much to do except check Sea Witch’s westerly drift, life suddenly bounced into a gallop. Men were on their feet, a few running up the rigging to stare south, others leaning over the rails. Peering through squinting eyes, squabbling over a spare bring it close.

  Rue opened out his telescope, took his time to take a long, careful look. Red hull. A schooner. Figurehead of what could be a red-haired, red-robed lady. He lowered the bring it close, snapped it shut. Grinned at Tiola. “I apologise for doubting you. We ‘ave found ‘im!”

  The whoop of chorused cheering lifted to the lead-grey sky.

  The schooner was at least ten miles distant and she had a wind. They did not. She was also wary of anything suspicious, like a mouse, whiskers quivering, creeping close to the skirting board, certain there was a cat on the prowl somewhere. Or a pirate ship lurking in wait. The mouse saw the cat, flicked her tail – and fled.

  Lewd and explicit, Rue swore as she piled on sail, turned her nose and began to race north-east away from the coast and out to the open space of the Atlantic, showing them a wide berth and a clean pair of heels. It meant she would have to tack against the direction of the wind, but to catch her – to follow her – so would Sea Witch and first they would have to find the wind that Ruby, as the crew were calling the schooner, already had.

  With less than two hours of daylight left the sails flapped and collapsed, the patchy wind dropping entirely. Rue swore again. They were going to lose her! “Merde,” he added as an amen to a particularly explicit oath, thumping his fist angrily on to the binnacle.

  “We could always warp her from the boats,” someone suggested, not relishing the idea. Towing a ship the size of Sea Witch from the longboats in open sea was backbreaking, bone-aching work, even if it was only to where a wind was riffling the surface a few miles away to larboard. By the time Sea Witch got there the breeze could have shifted again and Ruby would be long gone.

  “Are you sure it’s her?” Isiah asked Rue quietly as he tipped his head back and eyed their sails flapping again, lifeless. “No sense in putting our backs into the wrong Chase.”

  Rue had given the telescope to Tiola who was studying the ship as intensely as Rue had. She lowered the glass, handed
it to Isiah who made his own inspection.

  “It is Mereno,” Tiola said with a confirming nod. “Jesamiah is aboard and he is still alive.”

  She regarded Rue a moment. Carefully, with small, subtle changes she had altered any recollection he had of her night on the bowsprit. Those of the crew who had seen her for’ard, remembered her with her feet planted firmly on the deck – until that wave had almost washed her overboard. Even young Jasper had no memory of warning her about the widow maker. Only with Rue had she left something, for she had to allow him to accept her word. The rest of the secret she had shared with him, however, was erased from his memory, for his sake as well as hers. What was not known could not be told.

  “We need a wind?” she asked, her head cocked on one side as she watched the men heaving the yards around in an attempt to find one.

  “Without the wind we can make no progress,” Isiah Roberts answered, flatly. “Nature is a cruel mistress. We wait all this while for the schooner we’ve been trailing. We find her – then we sit here like a hen, arse-tight to her eggs, and watch her sail by because she has the breeze and we do not.”

  “I am learning the requirements of this ship with a speed that surprises me,” Tiola announced casually, “but tell me, from which direction do we require this wind to blow in order for us to catch Ruby before dark?”

  Rue answered gruffly, this was all talk. There was no wind nor, if he knew his signs aright, were they likely to get one. “Anything between sou’east through west to north will suit, the Trades blow the total opposite – when they blow. All we can do is ‘aul our sails and limp along as efficiently as we can.”

  “And hope we do not lose her?” Tiola was scornful. “I am not willing to take a risk Rue, not again. Jesamiah has suffered long enough already.”

  “Well then, Dieu!” Rue kicked, furious with the turn of fate, at the helm. “What are you going to do? Are you going to get out and push?”