“But I’m fifteen years out of practice,” protested Ishiro.
“No, you’re not,” insisted Little Jane. “I seen you with me parents, going over the naval charts, advising them in their quarters below decks. You know how to navigate and manage men. I’ll help you, I promise. Please, Ishiro.” She finished with a pleading look that would have put a baby harp seal to shame.
Ishiro opened his mouth to protest, but found he was unable to say no to those enormous eyes.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“To Captain Ishiro!” said Little Jane, toasting an imaginary glass.
“Hurrah!” shouted Villienne, lifting a specimen jar back at her.
Little Jane grinned, then ran over and gave an uncomfortable looking Ishiro a big hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear as she embraced him. “You’ll see. We’ll be the best crew you ever had. You won’t regret it for a minute, I swear.”
Chapter Four
The Nameless Isle
Ned Ronk scowled as the rest of the crew of the Panacea trooped out on deck to see the captain disembark for the Nameless Isle with his chosen landing party.
Ned thought everyone on the Panacea would treat him like a hero after the capture of the Pieces of Eight. After all, it was only with his help that the ship had been secured, wasn’t it? And what thanks did he get? Instead of being celebrated, he was treated like a pariah. Oh, he was rewarded handsomely for his service, to be sure. Yet the coin he had been given was precious little use to Ned while they remained at sea, which they seemed most likely to do until that loony Madsea found his treasure.
It had been a long time since Ned had served on a Crown ship. He’d forgotten the disdain they held you in if you weren’t an officer or a gentleman. There had been no officers on the Pieces of Eight — and certainly no gentlemen — and the captains had been so loose about rank that they’d even supped with their crew. Now he had to take orders from that little snot of a midshipman, Jesper. Though he’d always sailed before the mast, Ned was dismayed to find himself still only granted a mere able seaman’s status on the Panacea, after all he’d done.
Unfortunately, the Panacea already had herself a bosun, a huge Cornish man named Kingly. Ned Ronk had challenged Kingly in the mess hall for his job, only to belatedly discover the man’s successful side career as a bare-knuckle boxer.
Then there was the confusion surrounding the pirate captains’ “son” — really Rufus, the cabin boy from the Pieces of Eight, who Madsea’s men had mistaken for Bonnie Mary and Long John’s child. Of course, Ned was the one to alert the captain to the unfortunate case of mistaken identity. But were the officers grateful? Oh no. They actually blamed him.
Ned eyed one of the large orange birds flapping overhead. They still gave him the creeps, those things. Surprise, surprise, not one of the Panacea’s sailors had thought to delay the consumption of massive quantities of orange bird meat until they could monitor the effects of the obnoxious orange fowl on the human digestive tract. If the whole lot of them get thoroughly sick with the runs as a result, it will serve them right, he thought.
Despite his lack of status on board, Ned still found some consolation in the pitiable state of his former captains.
How delightful it was to see Silver, the man who’d flogged him so mercilessly aboard the Pieces, thrust up on deck in chains. Ned savoured the sight of his former captain leaning on a pair of uneven crutches. Chains hung from his wrists, tangling themselves up in his sticks, hobbling him still further. All his dandyish clothes had been replaced with dirty sailor’s slops and his half-empty pant leg flapped behind him like a tattered old flag in the wind.
Pleased by the sight, Ned turned his attention to Bonnie Mary. She looked small and filthy, more of a dockside jade than a respectable captain, with her matted braids tied up in a bit of torn rag, tattered split-skirt indecently revealing her bare brown ankles to all. Against his will, he recalled what he had once felt for Bonnie Mary and still could not help a few wishful old fantasies from clouding his senses. He remembered a jest he’d made, back long ago, when they were all still friends, and how her whole face seemed to smile when anything amused her. He thought of her happy green eye, deep as the heart of an emerald sea, framed by lashes dark as ink.
Ned forced himself back to reality, a place where Bonnie Mary turned her good side away and his skin still stung from the lashes she’d snapped across his back.
He noticed her blind blue eye weeping now — as well it should for what she’d done, he thought. It had always rather irritated him before, how she’d often dab at it with one of those loud, colourful handkerchiefs that she kept. He’d always considered it one of her silly affectations, much like Silver’s predilection for ridiculous feathered hats. Now he watched with cold detachment as she tried to wipe it off on her shirt sleeve.
Even from where he stood in the ship’s bow, he could hear her loud, bossy voice.
“Where’s me daughter?” she demanded. “Ain’t any of you found Little Jane yet?”
“Shut up,” ordered the guard, striking her. Long John struggled with his crutches as he tried to grab at the guard, but his own minder only yanked him back, nearly causing him to topple over in the process.
Bonnie Mary seemed to quiet herself, her gaze returning to the approaching shadow of the island’s massive volcanic cone. Resolutely, she turned away to the port side, her eyes finding Ned Ronk’s. She met his sinister stare coldly, her head held high.
Ned Ronk’s expression of contempt died quickly on his features, and he felt a sudden chill. It seemed impossible, yet he was certain her dead eye actually looked at him now; looked and saw something it abhorred with all its blighted sight. In the shadow of the Nameless Isle it burned pure blue as a gas flame with her hatred, a feeling untempered by anything so prosaic as the rule of law, keen only to devour and destroy.
A wave of panic crashed over him. Just as quickly though, he came to his senses, remembering with sudden relief the fatal plans Madsea had in store for the two pirates. The captains would be sent to England to be hanged once Madsea had his treasure, he had been told. Either that or they’d die on the island. Either way, he had nothing to fear, not really.
Ned glanced to his captain for comfort. Madsea was on the deck in uniform for the first time in weeks, barking out orders for Lieutenant Jesper to relate to the crew. For such a narrow-chested man, the captain cut a surprisingly strong figure.
Only Doc Lewiston noticed how the sweat glistened on Madsea’s feverish brow. The doctor looked over at his two other patients, wishing he could do something about their chains.
“Here, m’dear,” he said gently, handing Bonnie Mary his own clean handkerchief to wipe her weeping eye.
“Much obliged,” she whispered humbly.
Doc Lewiston also noted, with some discomfort, that the guard assigned to Silver, a certain Able-Seaman Snepper, seemed to derive a tad too much pleasure from the exercise of yanking the pirate about by his chains, as if he was trying to make him fall. So far, the pirate had remained upright, though just barely.
It upset Doc Lewiston’s sensibilities to see such pointless cruelty. How had he ever managed to involve himself in something so completely repulsive to his senses, both moral and medical?
Oblivious to the speculations of his crew, Captain Madsea walked the well-scrubbed boards of the Panacea with feverish intensity. His ever-present riding crop swished at his side like a panther’s tail, alighting on the back of any sailor he perceived to be slacking in his duties. Today no detail, no matter how small, escaped the lamp-like scrutiny of his gaze. After all, today was the day he would have his revenge. Today success was guaranteed.
The ship that Villienne commandeered had originally been the Duke of York, but as it had only been painted with the word York before they took possession, it quickly became known as the Yorkman to the crew. This pleased Captain Ishiro. Although he knew ships were usually given female names, he couldn’t h
elp feeling there was something essentially male about the modern, muscular lines of the Yorkman.
It had only taken Ishiro a day to assemble the crew and bring all the supplies on board. During this time, Villienne kept him well supplied with green lichen drinks, which, although they tasted disgusting, seemed to genuinely improve his health. Surprisingly, he was feeling even stronger today. No ghost of his old comrades could begrudge him this, he thought. After all, sad as it was, those men were long dead. The crew of the Pieces was, in all probability, still very much alive and in desperate need of rescue. It felt strange to reacquaint himself with his old ways of command after so many years, skills he’d never expected to rely on again. Still, at that moment, it truly felt as if no intervening years had passed.
It was Little Jane’s job to make sure the ship did not leave without Villienne, who despite having crammed his room on board full to bursting with strange vials, inks, and huge sheaves of paper, was in a constant state of running back out to purchase more “absolutely essential items” in town.
When the ship finally did set sail, Villienne took to sea travel easily, displaying none of the seasickness landlubbers often did on the choppy seas. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Jonesy. Only now did Little Jane begin to appreciate the great sacrifice the barkeep had made by coming on their journey. Jonesy was deathly afraid of water and prone to the worst bouts of seasickness she’d ever seen. And while many of the crew laughed at the fearsome-looking bartender humbled by even the gentlest rocking of the waves, Villienne did not. After all, if anyone could sympathize with a man out of his element, it was the magistrate of Smuggler’s Bay.
Villienne took it upon himself to hold the bartender by the shoulders whenever Jonesy began to look the least bit off-colour and steer him directly to the nearest railing or scupper for a quiet vomit. Then, while Jonesy remained a captive audience, Villienne would distract him with a poem or two.
As ridiculous as Little Jane first thought it, she soon observed that Villienne’s poetry recitations really did seem to do the trick in focusing Jonesy’s energies on something other than the rocking of the boat. For his part, Villienne, always starved for an appreciative audience, seemed pleased by his new association.
The biggest problem with Jonesy’s seasickness was that it left him unable to properly tend to his cooking duties. Little Jane soon found herself thrust from cook’s mate into the position of cook herself. This did not bother her much, as most of her job involved stirring a big pot that Jonesy would come by and add things to when he was not otherwise occupied with hurling the contents of his stomach overboard, but it was dreadfully dull. Little Jane soon ended up borrowing some of Villienne’s “absolutely essential” books just to relive the tedium.
She’d come upon the open crate of books in Villienne’s stateroom while the magistrate was otherwise occupied above decks. Little Jane’s attention was instantly riveted by the uppermost book in the stack, a green-clad volume with the title, Robin Hood, printed in faded gilt letters on the cover. This book was like no other Little Jane had ever seen. For one, it was her favourite colour. Second, it mentioned something that sounded awfully like “robbery” right in the title. On these two facts alone, Little Jane knew she’d have to investigate further.
She cracked the book’s cover as she mechanically stirred her pot with its long wooden ladle down in the galley kitchen. She was instantly riveted, borne far away from her own troubles, into a land of knights and forester-outlaws. When she did not understand something she read, she looked to the pictures of people brandishing bows and arrows for explanation and soon found she understood far more than she did not.
Little Jane was no stranger to books, not exactly, but what books her parents owned were straightforward compilations of coordinates, star charts, and other reference guides practical for sailing life. Books were expensive and few people aboard could read with ease. As a result, all the soul-searing stories of grand adventure Little Jane loved were told aloud over the glow of the Spyglass’s fire, rather than found between cardboard covers.
Of course, she had seen similar books in the dusty, unappealing windows of shops in America that closed their doors to people like her. In England they were held in the laps of dour black-clad men in high collars and women in puffy dresses. But nothing in the setting she found them in, or the type of people she’d seen reading them, seemed relevant to her. In her life of constant travel she’d seen some truly odd things that people in different places did for fun and had tried plenty of them. Yet here was a ridiculously entertaining pastime, hidden in plain sight from her nearly all her life!
To discover just the sort of stories she loved, to be had and enjoyed whenever she wished, was nothing short of a revelation. No longer would she be forced to wait until the end of the day, when her father was freed up from work to hear a tale, or rely solely on her own fancy for entertainment. She could borrow books from Villienne, or even pick up her own from some of the ports they stopped at. Where no inkling of such potential had ever existed before, new possibilities sprang up in her mind. Although she was under too much pressure to reflect on it then, in later years, Little Jane would look back upon the discovery of Villienne’s books as one of the events that nudged her toward a different path than the one she’d always assumed she would travel. But that day she only read seeking escape, a passage through that trap door in the attic of her mind, to places she’d never dreamed of before.
The Yorkman had been rolling and tossing all morning on the rough sea, but as it hit a particularly large swell, the ship suddenly lurched to one side, sending cups and plates crashing to the floor of the galley and spilling a large pot of gravy over the pages of the book. Cursing, Little Jane jumped up, flannel in hand, to clean up the mess. Then, just as she was dabbing gravy off a picture of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Villienne poked his head in to see if she was all right.
“I’m sorry,” she confessed. “I had no business rooting around in your things. I weren’t stealing, honest. I was just curious, that’s all. I would’ve returned it as soon as I finished.”
Villienne took the book from Little Jane and studied it gravely. “My professional opinion as an almost-doctor is that the Sheriff of Nottingham should survive his gravy accident, to clash with Robin Hood another day. But say, what did you think of the story?”
“Th-the story? I didn’t finish it,” she admitted, pleased he wasn’t angry.
“See that you read the rest then, before returning it to me,” he said, handing the book back with a smile.
“Thank you.” Little Jane beamed up at him. Then she had a sudden flash of inspiration. “May I ask you something?” she ventured.
“Of course,” Villienne answered. “What is it?”
“You seem to know a great deal about words. Tell me, what d’ye think these mean?” Little Jane unwound the fabric from Melvin, her mother’s wooden sword, so she could show the magistrate the mysterious words carved into the hilt.
“Masthead, East, Lamp, Vergaloo, in Nakika,” Villienne read, rolling each word slowly around his mouth, as if tasting it for meaning. “That’s an odd set if I ever did hear one. I must say, it seems like gibberish to me,” he admitted. “May I ask what you call your sword?”
“Melvin,” she replied bashfully. “A silly name I know. A sword’s supposed t’be named for a woman.”
“I always thought if I ever chose to name my blade, I’d call it Eurydice,” mused Villienne. “Or perhaps Eunice. Always liked the name Eunice. Of course I have no blade, so that is rather beside the point. Melvin is quite a strange name for a sword, though, no doubt about it. How ever did you come to choose it?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “Me mum just told me that was the name. I guess it were her what named him and carved in the words.”
“That seems possible.” He stood for a moment, stroking his chin, deep in thought. “Wait a tick! It isn’t a strange name at all. And it’s not gibberish either.”
Villienne pu
lled a small book of poetry from his breast pocket and opened it up. “Look here. It’s a type of poem.”
“Poem?”
“An acrostic,” explained Villienne. “The first letter in each line, when read downward, spells out a word. Now look,” he remarked excitedly, “Masthead East Lamp Vergaloo in Nakika. Take all the first letters of those words and what do they spell?”
“Melvin!” exclaimed Little Jane. “The name of the sword. If I know me mum, it’s probably some type of code.” She smacked her fist on her thigh in frustration. “If only we knew what it meant!”
“Maybe I can help you there,” said Villienne. “A masthead is a …”
“I know what a masthead is. I’m a sailor. It’s the top crossed part o’ the mast,” said Little Jane impatiently. “And east is east. And a lamp is a lamp, I suppose. But what about vergaloo? What in blazes is a vergaloo anyway?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” replied Villienne.
“It is?” asked Little Jane, raising one eyebrow. “’Cause nobody else around here seems to know.”
“A virgaleau, as it is properly pronounced in French, is an ornamental pear tree,” explained Villienne.
“An ornamental pear tree? Blow me down!” Little Jane laughed. “Don’t tell me you know what that’s got to do with anything?”
“I haven’t a clue. All I know is that my Aunt Cornelia used to have one in her garden.”
“And Nakika? You figure that one out, too?”
“I think it’s fairly obvious. Na Kika is the octopus god of the South Pacific Samoan islanders.”
“Unbelievable,” said Little Jane excitedly. “Villienne, you’re a genius.”
Little Jane and the Nameless Isle Page 5