Little Jane and the Nameless Isle

by Adira Rotstein

  To her surprise, the Bird King returned her spontaneous gesture of regard, dipping its own massive head in response. This manoeuvre concluded, with a single clack of its beak the bird turned toward the mouth of tunnel. The injured fledgling squawked loudly and jumped down on its elders’ back just as the largest of the peculiar orange birds dipped its head and disappeared back into the tunnel from whence it came, followed by its entourage.

  As she watched them vanish into the shadows, Bonnie Mary suddenly remembered Jim. She ran over to kneel beside him.

  “Jim! Jim! Are you all right?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Doc Lewiston’s Oath

  “Jim?” Bonnie Mary repeated.

  He didn’t answer her, but at least he was still breathing. Bonnie Mary steeled herself. Time for strategy, not emotion; she was the only captain conscious now.

  “Pick him up,” Captain Bonnie Mary Bright ordered Villienne brusquely. The magistrate did as she said, staggering a little under the pirate’s weight. “C’mon, Little Jane.” Obediently, Little Jane followed her mother and Villienne, her comatose father slung over his shoulder, down the path.

  Suddenly, Doc Lewiston stepped out in front of them, Madsea slung across his back like a sack of potatoes.

  “What are you doing with him?” Bonnie Mary scowled. “Leave him here.”

  “I can’t,” confessed Lewiston. “I know what he’s done, but I’m ship’s surgeon. I owe my oath to the captain and crew.”

  At this comment, Little Jane and Bonnie Mary swore some choice oaths of their own, but Lewiston stood his ground, refusing to relinquish his captain.

  In the end Bonnie Mary made no move to stop the doctor. Exhausted as she was, she had neither the energy nor the time to argue with him. She was anxious to make it down to the rock bridge before nightfall, when it would be fully submerged by the incoming tide. As it was, they barely made it down the mountain in time.

  As they reached the bottom, they ran into Darsa and the unstoppable Kingly. The two men were only too happy to head back to the ship with them.

  The group traversed the rapidly disappearing rock path across the moat as quickly as they dared. By this time the sun hung low in the sky, providing just enough light for them to get back safely.

  “Listen, Mama,” whispered Little Jane as they edged along the narrow bridge, taking care not to fall on the slippery stone. “What’s that?”

  Bonnie Mary stopped to listen, but heard nothing other than the laboured breathing of the men behind them.

  “The cannons, they’ve stopped firing!” exclaimed Little Jane. “Maybe Ishiro’s won.”

  “I wonder … could it be true?” whispered Bonnie Mary.

  But before the two of them could wonder much more, the silhouettes of two figures appeared ahead of them on the shore.

  “Jonesy!” cried Little Jane. “We left him behind when we tried to swim the moat,” she explained to her mother.

  Bonnie Mary squinted at the figures. “Aye, but who’s that beside him?”

  “All my days!” Little Jane laughed as she realized just who Jonesy’s companion was. “It’s Ned Ronk. And Jonesy’s got ’im all tied up. ”

  And so two more members were added to their party.

  The Yorkman and the Panacea were anchored close to shore, right near the old masthead. Both vessels were under the control of Captain Ishiro. The Panacea, though much damaged from her battle with the Yorkman, had remained afloat thanks to the concerted efforts of the Yorkman’s crew at bailing her out. With a few rough patches to the biggest holes in the hull, she was rendered able to be towed back to Jamaica.

  Ishiro greeted his exhausted friends by the last light of the setting sun, his silver-black ponytail snapping behind him like an elegant silk pennant in the breeze, his old face lit with an unaccustomed smile, looking younger than he had in years.

  “Ishiro!” exclaimed Bonnie Mary. “Mercy, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  Little Jane ran up to hug him, but when Ishiro reached out to embrace Bonnie Mary, she collapsed from exhaustion in his arms.

  Slowly, Ishiro eased Bonnie Mary onto a packing crate before she could faint clean away.

  “Jim,” she said, oblivious to her own weakened state. “Tell me … how does he fare?”

  Once he had seen to stout chains for the grumbling Ned Ronk, Jonesy went to help Villienne lay Long John out on the deck. Little Jane tried to help, but they shooed her away. She stood by the railing, nervously twisting a button on her shirt, unable to help as they examined her father.

  Feeling sturdy wood planking beneath him once more, Long John stirred briefly into consciousness.

  “Papa, I’m here!” cried Little Jane, rushing to her father’s side.

  Pushing Ishiro’s arm away, Bonnie Mary stumbled across the deck to where Little Jane already knelt beside her father.

  “Papa, c’mon.” Little Jane squeezed her father’s calloused hand. “Say something.”

  At last he opened his eyes. “Little Jane, Bonnie Mary,” he nodded casually to them, as if he’d just strolled through the door of the Spyglass after a hard day’s work, looking for a pint. “Good evening.”

  It was the last thing he said for two whole days.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Return

  Madsea awoke with a start to find himself in the hold of a strange ship. He was lying in a box-bed under a foul-smelling blanket. His head hurt terribly and his body stung all over from bird bites too numerous to count. The last thing he remembered was the massive beak of the giant orange bird coming straight at him.

  Struggling against the drowsiness that threatened to pull him back under, Madsea whipped the blanket off. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for whatever hideous unpleasantness might meet them. Experimentally, he shook his feet. They were clad in iron shackles fastened to a ring in the wall, but otherwise appeared to be, miraculously, unharmed. He reached up to touch the bandage that was wrapped around his head. His fingers came away sticky and he noticed they were covered with noxious-smelling green paste. Not too bad, all in all, he thought.

  But just you wait until Mary and Jim get through with you!

  That was assuming his old nemesis had survived, that is. Madsea was an old hand at the system of retributive justice practised among pirates and privateers. Though he’d never believed the world was a place kind or fair to its human inhabitants, he still saw it as fundamentally balanced in its own ruthless way. The globe is a perfect sphere, after all, he thought. Underneath the deceptive decorations of flowery words like faith and brotherhood the simple rule of symmetry still held sway. What Jim did to hurt Fetz so long ago caused him to hurt Jim in return, and now it was Jim’s turn to even the score. Nothing for it. It’s just The Way the World Works, thought Madsea bitterly, pausing for a moment of self-pity.

  Except, no matter what popular globes may tell you, the world is neither perfectly spherical nor symmetrical, but fat around the middle and flattened at both poles. And last I checked there are several people on the planet who hold no truck with Madsea’s view of The Way the World Works, and they’re alive and well and going about their day to day business, all the same. Still, as a wealthy globe-maker once told me, generalizations are so much easier to construct.

  Little Jane understood some things that Madsea, despite all his years of sailing and revenge, did not. Although she knew that, generally speaking, birds were colours other than orange, mothers weren’t sea captains, and fathers had one hat and two feet, instead of one foot and many hats, the world was filled with ample proof that just because something happen in one way most of the time, didn’t mean it always did or always would.

  Then again, sometimes the pattern of a friendship, lost for a time, can return to our lives just when we least expect it. On the deck of the Yorkman, two old friends stood together watching the stars come out, carefully marking the position of the constellations in their notebooks, just as they once used to.

  As had always bee
n the case, Villienne took the fewest notes and talked the most between them, bursting with conversation as if he’d been storing it all up in their years apart. Doc Lewiston was pleased to listen to his old friend’s wild, hopeful schemes concerning the beneficial purposes they might put the discovery of the green lichen to once they presented their findings to the learned societies of Britain. It was certainly a pleasant change from the insults he’d grown accustomed to taking from Madsea.

  Thinking of his old captain once more, Lewiston reminded himself to check on him as soon as they were finished stargazing. The doctor was a tad concerned about what state of mind he’d find Madsea in once he emerged from his medicinal stupor. He was certain Madsea would be incensed at his capitulation to the enemy. He was glad he’d have Alistair Villienne there by his side to take his part when he went to confront the man. Even chained as Madsea was, the cruel force of his words could cut quicker than a surgeon’s scalpel.

  Later that night, Lewiston found himself sitting on a stool at Madsea’s bedside, a teacup and saucer balanced precariously on his knee in precisely the same way he’d sat so many times back on the Panacea.

  Had the room not been so different, Madsea might have sworn he was back there again, his strange sojourn upon the Nameless Isle no more than another fever dream. But then, there was the strange fact that for the first time in months he didn’t feel the slightest bit feverish. Then the image of the monstrous bird bobbed unexpectedly to the surface of Madsea’s thoughts. Could it really have been Lewiston who saved him? he wondered. It seemed impossible that this plump, persnickety little physician could have risen so dramatically to his rescue. And yet he remembered the gleam of spectacles flashing in the light just before the bird tried to bite him.

  “You saved my life,” Madsea said. “Why?”

  “You’re my patient and my captain. How could I not?” Lewiston replied with a gentle clink of teacup against saucer.

  “Actually,” said a voice from the head of the bed, “that wasn’t the first time in the past few days either. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the recent improvement in your health.”

  “And just who the deuce are you?” Madsea glanced irritably around to locate the source of the mysterious voice.

  “Sir Almost-Doctor Alistair Florence Virgil Villienne at your service. You have Lewy here to thank for your continued existence and also something else. Voila!” Villienne stepped out of the shadows flourishing a clump of green lichen. “I call it lichenus nameless islenus. What I believe it to be is the most powerful antibiotic agent ever discovered.”

  “Auntie what?” asked the irritated captain.

  “Anti-bi-ot-ic,” repeated Villienne slowly. “Means it kills germs.”

  “Germs?”

  “Tiny animalcules invisible to the naked eye that cause disease,” interjected Doc Lewiston.

  Villienne gave their patient an encouraging smile. “Wondrous strange, this world we live in, isn’t it?”

  “Tiny invisible animals that cause disease?” scoffed Madsea. “That is without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s a new and fairly controversial theory,” confessed Doc Lewiston. “I admit, even I wasn’t certain of it until Villienne showed me his microscopic findings. Your recovery is proof that there’s something in this plant, a chemical perhaps, that’s poisonous to disease-causing organisms. We were wondering if you’d give us permission to write you up in a scholarly paper to present before the Royal College of Surge —”

  “My permission? I’ll give you no such thing,” said Madsea haughtily.

  “Whether you believe in the theory or not is immaterial,” retorted Villienne. “This lichen saved your life, just as my friend Lewy here did. Another man would’ve simply left you to your fate. You’re in no position to refuse him. He could always give you back to the pirates, you know. It was only through Lewy’s pleading the importance of your case to the advancement of medicine that they agreed to release you into our care at all. Who knows? If Lewy here was to say we were mistaken, they might hang you still. After all, you did try to kill them.”

  “Tried to kill? You mean Silver still lives?” groaned Madsea.

  Doc Lewiston removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You really can’t keep anything under your hat, can you Alistair?”

  “Sorry.” Villienne cringed apologetically.

  “You oughtta be well grateful he lives,” came a high voice from the darkened corner of the room. “If he died by your hand, I’d give you a taste of me knife you wouldn’t soon forget.”

  A glint of silver flashed from the shadows.

  “How many people are in this room anyway?” asked Madsea, scrambling up onto his elbows. He turned to stare at the girl who emerged from the corner. “Who are you?”

  Little Jane blinked back at him with surprise. “You truly don’t remember?”

  “Wait — you’re the child! The spawn of Silver I thought me men captured, but no—you’re the real one.”

  The truth of his words being evident, Little Jane said nothing.

  “If you’re Silver’s daughter,” Madsea continued, “then you must know.”

  “Know what?” asked Little Jane, curious in spite of herself.

  “What a liar he is. Whatever he told you about me, best believe it’s pure fiction. He sold me out — me, the man he once called his brother. Glad I put him through hell on the island. Won’t forget that beating soon, will he?” added Madsea with a malicious grin. “I’ll die proud now that I’ve done that, whatever happens.”

  Doc Lewiston grimaced at his captain’s twisted sentiments. Why had he saved the man?

  “Sold you out? What in blazes are you talking about?” asked Little Jane.

  “Your Silver’s daughter, so you say. Then you should know your father betrayed me to the French at the battle of Anguilla. He sat there on the Pieces of Eight while my ship was blown to bits, leaving me for the French to capture. I near died of fever in their stinking prison, but I survived to take back what’s mine by rights. He owes me my share o’ the wealth he and your cursed mother stole from me, all they made while I mouldered away in that blasted prison. But somehow, someway, they tricked me. Gave it all to those bleedin’ birds. Don’t see how they arranged to do it, but —”

  “Are you serious?” Little Jane interrupted his nonsensical tirade. “All this happened, what, fifteen years ago? They barely made it outta that battle alive themselves. Old Captain Thomas Bright were gut-shot and died. Go see his grave on the island, you don’t believe me. Me mum took a sword hit to the face, for Pete’s sake. Not the Newton nor the Golden Fleece made it back. Ask Ishiro how many men went down on his ship. If yer boat sunk under your command, it be yer fault. Me father had little time enough to lead a tactical retreat and save me mother, without wasting precious time tryin’ to make up for your dodgy seamanship. If he’d rather save her than stick around and risk gettin’ hisself and his ship stove-in trying to fish you out of the drink, who’s to blame him for that?”

  “Lies!” Madsea shook his head vehemently, trying to clear her sensible statements out of his mind. “I know the currency of your kind.”

  “Fine, I lie. To what purpose then? Ain’t you ever bothered to check a history of the battle afore throwing all your scanty years away on this scheme? The records is all there in the governor’s mansion. It’s not secret.”

  “Records can lie, depends on the writer, what stories he’s been listening to. Jim ever tell you what happened to his leg?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Little Jane, confused by his abrupt change in conversation topics.

  “Some heroic tale about taking a bullet for Admiral Rodney at Martinique?”

  “Actually, I ain’t heard that one.”

  “But you’ve heard some rubbish story, plain enough. Don’t feel bad. I believed him once, too,” confessed Madsea, “but rotting away in prison, I had time to smarten up. Y’see Jane, a person’s eithe
r an honest man or he’s a liar, and you know what sort your father is. A false thing through and through. A man like that lies about everything.”

  “No,” said Little Jane in a small voice. “Not everything. The story he told me about the battle of Anguilla — that be none of his invention.”

  “And how d’ye know that?” asked Madsea with a sardonic smile.

  “Weren’t anything funny about it, fer one thing,” replied Little Jane. She’d said it instinctively, but upon reflection saw the truth in her own words. She’d never in her life known her father to tell a completely serious story, yet when he’d talked of the battle and of the two ships and their men who had vanished into the foaming water before his eyes, he’d been grim from start to finish. The tears he hastily scrubbed away as he spoke of the loss of his childhood friend were real, not for show.

  “It don’t matter,” coughed Madsea. “I still got me letter of marque. It gives me permission from the Crown. They’re still identified as pirates by British law. If I don’t get them, another pirate hunter will. If you make Jamaica or any other British colony with me ship, they’ll just clap you all in irons and send you to prison.”

  Little Jane could only glare at him, knowing that was true.

  “Maybe,” said the magistrate, “and maybe not. Where’s the letter now?”

  “Down in the captain’s state room on the Panacea, I imagine,” said Little Jane. “But what difference—“

  “Just lead me there. It’s time I tested out a theory.”

  For two days, Long John lay in Ishiro’s cabin floating in a pharmacological haze. Every two hours Little Jane and Bonnie Mary had been deputized to wake him to prevent his concussion from worsening.