Finally, Doc Lewiston decreed that Jim was out of the worst of the danger and the mixture of laudanum and green lichen powder was reduced enough to let him fully wake.
Had the smelling salts employed by Bonnie Mary not done the trick, the reeking stench of the green lichen poultices liberally applied to his wounds could have worked just as well. At least, Jim thought upon nearly gagging on the smell, no one had the temerity to break out the leeches.
Gingerly, he reached up to feel the bandage wrapped around his still-aching head. His nose felt like Ishiro had given it the once over with one of his meat tenderizers. Gazing into the small shaving glass by his bedside, he noticed someone had thoughtfully stitched up a gaping cut that ran across his right eyebrow with strands of coloured thread. Other than his concussed head, the broken knee of his short leg had suffered the brunt of the damage. Doc Lewiston had immobilized it in an awkward structure of wooden scaffolding and stiffened plaster while Long John was asleep.
On the plus side, his mind seemed none the worse for wear, despite a persistent, though fading headache, and his wounds remained pleasantly rot-free, even if they did stink of lichen. Most importantly, Bonnie Mary and Little Jane were alive and safe, and for that he would be forever grateful. Nothing could ever take the shine off that for him.
Yet, despite this, he could not rest easy. Part of him still couldn’t believe what had transpired since his surreal reunion with Fetz aboard the Panacea. All the years since Fetz’s supposed death, Jim had mourned his friend. It had comforted him to think that even if Fetz’s life had not been long, it had been happy, at least during the years they had been shipmates together.
But now? He favoured the wooden planks of the ceiling with a grim twist of a smile. Now he wanted to kill Fetz for what he’d done. Especially for what he put Little Jane and Bonnie Mary through. For that, there was no forgiving.
Didn’t matter that he couldn’t walk. A person didn’t need to get up to fire a pistol. One shot would be all it would take.
Idly, he reached around to finger the octopus tattoo on his back, the one Fetz’d given him, but it was hidden under too many bandages to touch. He thought of his father and how he’d scoff at this sentimentality. Too soft by far, he would say.
Maybe. But look at what made Madsea strong. Even if he hated Madsea now, he knew he couldn’t kill him. Little Jane deserved a better father than one who’d do that. A person without pity wasn’t what he wanted her to grow up to be, not if he had any say in the matter.
So maybe he wasn’t ruthless like Long John the First. He could use his facility for imagination to think of other solutions. Wasn’t that just what he’d been doing his whole life? After all, a good pirate was nothing if not resourceful.
The next time Long John awoke, Little Jane was sitting quietly by his bed.
“I weren’t sure if you was sleeping,” she said shyly.
“I’m awake now. What’s your mother say ’bout our time to Jamaica?”
“Two or three days. The sea’s becalmed and we’re towing the Panacea, so Ishiro don’t see no reason to push it.”
“Good on him. Give the men some rest. They deserves it,” he said.
Little Jane paused as she tried to remember what else she was supposed to say, so distracted was she still by her father’s battered appearance. It made her furious, what they’d done to him. She looked away, trying not to let him see how much it distressed her.
“How’s Jonesy?” he asked. “Still stuck over the side of a railing?” Long John smiled, trying to set her at ease, but she would not meet his eye. He touched her under the chin, raising her gaze to meet his. “I knows it looks a mite rough,” he said softly, “but I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry. Old bones just don’t heal fast as young is all.”
His calloused fingers gently touched the palms of her hands. Much to Little Jane’s surprise, she noticed the angry red rope burns she’d suffered weeks before had faded to unobtrusive white lines without her even noticing.
“Takes a lot more’n that to keep a Silver down,” he said stoutly. “Now bring me sticks over,” he instructed her. “’Bout time I were getting up.”
“But, Doc —”
“No harm in me taking a quick turn ’bove decks. I been longing to see this fine ship ye got fer yerself anyway.”
“Wait, about the Yorkman.” Little Jane shifted uncomfortably. “What’re we gonna do? I ain’t told you, but it’s not really ours. Villienne commandeered it off a shipbuilder. He won’t let us keep it.”
“Then we’ll have to go back and return it just as the good magistrate says. Me and yer mum’ll settle with the Yorkman’s crew, give ’em the rest of their fee and —”
“But what’ll we do for gold to pay ’em with now that the birds’ got it all?” asked Little Jane in despair. “Even say by some miracle we manages to pay the crew, what’s left to us to buy food? Everything you and Mum be working for all your days, it’s gone, all of it!” She glanced over at her father to gauge his reaction, but incredibly his mild expression remained unchanged. Maybe he was still on the laudanum, she thought. “I don’t understand!” she exclaimed. “Don’t it bother you none?”
“Perhaps it were true, it would,” he said slowly, eyes twinkling. “’Course, who says it’s all gone, at that?”
“But the birds —”
“Shhhhh!” Long John stopped the flow of Little Jane’s words with a finger to his lips. “No point spreadin’ it round, love, but we still got us a little gold what weren’t on the island.”
“What? Where?” she asked, glancing around the room, as if said gold would miraculously materialize from behind the crockery.
“First National Bank of Jamaica, that’s where.”
“Bank of Jamaica? But you always said bankers is all crooks and you don’t believe in ’em. Worse thieves than us, you said. I heard it,” she protested.
“True ’nough. But even we privateers got to be practical every so often. Come now, don’t act so shocked. If we was ever in an emergency and needed money straight away, wouldn’t it be a tad inconvenient fer us to go sailing all the way to the Nameless Isle to get it?”
“B-but you never told me before.”
“Which were a mistake, I reckon, and not the only one I been making lately, but I’m thinking yer old enough now, time you knows these things. Me and yer mum just ain’t wanted to frighten you, goin’ on about wills and inheritances and such.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Though, I’s surprised Jonesy never mentioned it to you while we was gone. I did tell him if anything ever happen t’me or Mary he were to make sure you knew it.”
“Wait a tick. You told who?”
“Jonesy.”
Little Jane smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “You entrusted the knowledge of your secret bank account to Jonesy?”
Long John scratched his cast thoughtfully. “Perhaps that weren’t the most well-thought-out decision, now that ye mentions it. Not that he ain’t a brilliant musician and barkeep,” he added loyally. “The money ain’t a lot, mind, but you know me and yer mum’d never leave you skint.”
“I don’t care anyway, Papa,” she said. “I’m just glad you and Mum’s back with me in one piece.”
“Two pieces, in my case, I suppose,” he admitted ruefully. “But me, too, Jane. Me, too.”
“Speaking of Mum, where’s she at? There’s something Villienne wants to show us.”
“And what’s that?”
“No idea, says we’ll like it though.”
With a theatrical gesture Villienne removed a sheet of paper from a worn leather case and placed it on the side of Long John’s bed.
“I don’t understand. What is this exactly?” asked Bonnie Mary, confusion corrugating her brow.
At that moment she seemed to speak for nearly everyone gathered in Ishiro’s cabin, which was by this time crowded near to bursting. Little Jane, Bonnie Mary, Long John, Ishiro, Villienne, Doc Lewiston, Jonesy, and Mendoza sat on the bed or s
tood staring down at the papers. Harley, Rufus, and Sharpova were there, too, although they had to look over everyone else’s heads, as they were busy holding Fetzcaro Madsea and Ned Ronk between them in chains.
“What exactly is we supposed to be looking at?” asked Little Jane, peering down at the papers.
“Before you start,” broke in Madsea, “I submit you’ve all forgot one crucial point.”
“Yes, and what’s that?” asked Long John testily.
“That unlike you lot, I’m an official privateer and pirate hunter for his majesty the King of England, and you —”
“But you’re not,” interrupted Villienne. “Look here.” He pointed with a magnifying glass at the letter of marque. “You’re not an officially licensed privateer at all.”
“That’s absurd!” cried Madsea, looking around at his assembled audience. “Who are you going to believe? Me or this paintbrush-handed idiot here?”
Villienne hid his stained hands in his pockets and looked down.
“Whatever he may look like to you,” Little Jane growled at Madsea. “He’s a right clever man and the justly appointed magistrate of Smuggler’s Bay, and if he says it’s so, then I thinks he’s right. I don’t believe you are an official pirate hunter.” With that, she folded her arms over her chest, as if that settled the matter.
Long John put his hand to his aching head. “Would someone please explain this to me.”
“This letter of marque here, it’s a forgery,” said Villienne simply.
Doc Lewiston glanced from Villienne to Madsea.
Madsea’s face contorted with fury. “What d’ye know anyway?” he yelled. Ned Ronk shot his former captain a look that would pierce granite.
“I know,” replied the magistrate coldly, “because for an entire year I wore the king’s seal around my neck, and would be wearing it still if not for a recent incident involving a certain unmentionable species of bird. For a whole year, I polished that seal every morning after breakfast and every afternoon before tea, and this …” Villienne tapped the impression in the wax at the bottom of the letter of marque. “This isn’t it. This was made using an old cricket medallion.”
“What?”
“See, if you look closely enough you can just make out the outline of a man with a cricket bat where it should be Lady Britannia with her shield.”
Ishiro took the paper and placed it under the large magnifier they used for viewing navigational maps, thereby exposing its clearly cricket medallion nature to everyone.
“Ridiculous,” scoffed Madsea, still trying to maintain his ruse.
“I know,” marvelled Villienne. “I mean, how could anybody be tricked by such obvious fakery? It’s so clearly a cricket bat, if they just bothered to really look.”
Swearing, Ned Ronk strained at his chains, still trying to get close enough to choke his former captain.
“Why on earth would you need a fake seal?” Doc Lewiston removed his spectacles to rub his tired eyes.
“Don’t you see,” sighed Madsea. “I tried to get a king’s letter to come out here, but the bleedin’ Admiralty wouldn’t give me a thing. All I could get was authorization to blockade merchant ships delivering supplies to revolutionaries in Massachusetts, and who wants to do that?” The pirate hunter let out a wretched sob. “Blast you, you’ve ruined my life completely now, Silver. If not for you, I wouldn’t have spent all these years rotting away, dying of consumption. I’ll have me vengeance yet!”
“Why?” Little Jane’s voice broke through the quiet.
“Why?” Madsea gasped.
“I mean you’re not rotting away dying of consumption anymore,” said Little Jane sensibly. “Even then, all them years ago, you escaped. And what’d you do with the time? Went on some stupid quest to deprive a girl of her parents, that’s what. You could’ve done anything … penned songs, painted pictures … ’stead you chose to do this.”
“You —” Madsea began, but realized he could think of no suitable reply. He’d never thought of it in that way that before. Was it possible the girl was right?
“Let us say,” said Bonnie Mary sweeping the papers off the bed, back into Villienne’s capable hands. “That the Panacea, commandeered without the Crown’s permission, was unfortunately sunk and the ship we’re towing now is the Pieces of Eight, damaged from some encounter with the rocks around the Nameless Isle. Still more than salvageable with a little work and refitting, but looking a little different from her old self. That should suffice, I think,” she added with satisfaction.
“After all.” Long John smiled slyly. “You can’t expect us to come out o’ this with no compensation, now.”
“But, my investors in London —”
“Ain’t our problem,” replied Bonnie Mary. “Though if I was you I’d keep me head down when Villienne and Lewiston here shows ye off to all those bigwigs at the Royal Society.”
“What about me?” asked Ned Ronk. “Me what served you and yer husband before the mast fer three good years —”
“And threatened to kill our daughter, after all our kindness to you, you cruel-hearted beast,” snarled Bonnie Mary. “You and any what sticks by you from the Panacea’ll find yourselves a nice cozy berth on one of them lovely whaling ships sailing out to Antarctica, how about that? Any of us find you round Jamaica or any other of the islands, well, we ain’t countin’ ourselves responsible for our actions. Not to mention those of the authorities what might be pleased to hang a fella for what you done.”
Long John glowered up at Fetz and Ned, unable to restrain his emotion. When he spoke, his voice was all the more chilling for its unaccustomed softness: “I’ll show you mercy this time, but anyone of you or your crew ever hurt another person the way ye hurt me and my family — you ever even think on it — you’ll come to regret it. I find you’re up to tricks again, so help me, one night ye’ll hear me step upon the stair and that’ll be the last thing ye’ll be hearing in this life again. You get me, shipmates?”
“Aye, aye!”
“Aye, aye what?”
“Captain Silver.”
“Best be remembering that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Return to Smuggler’s Bay
All told, Little Jane spent three months in Jamaica, helping her parents recover and repair their new ship. It had been a month since Villienne and Lewiston set sail for England with their captive research subject in tow, and she’d been chomping at the bit to leave ever since.
Oddly enough, she found she missed the magistrate now that he was gone. Somehow, in the course of their adventures together she’d grown quite fond of him. While he was in Kingston, she often found herself loitering around the laboratory, listening to him talk as she assisted him and Lewiston with their chemistry. She enjoyed watching Villienne’s wiry frame quiver with energy as he spoke to her of his theories. Occasionally he’d even dance a jerky little jig step across the room when stimulated beyond mere verbal expressions of joy at the results.
For his own part, Villienne loved an audience. He could no more horde knowledge than a bucket could contain an ocean.
Little Jane noticed that Long John and Bonnie Mary, despite their gratitude to the scientists, cared little for how Lewiston and Villienne’s discovery actually worked, unrelated to sailing or storytelling as it was. Secretly this pleased her. Her newfound knowledge of medicine, poetry, and explosives could remain her own unique store of power; like her voice, her own special modus operandi, as weaponsmaster Mendoza liked to say.
The day Villienne left, a gift was delivered to their rented rooms in Kingston. It was a blank book with a green leather cover to replace the one she lost on the Pieces. When Little Jane opened it, the title on the flyleaf made her smile: “How to Be a Good ____________.”
It was strange to stop dreaming about becoming an infamous pirate. All her life, that’s all she’d ever wished for. She thought she might still want to be a sea captain, but not one like her parents. Smuggling and stealing for a living did seem to
make people dislike you in some particularly nasty ways, she’d observed. Conceiving of her parents’ profession like this was new to her, but after her recent experiences she could no longer think of it in the same light. Something within her had changed.
What surprised her even more was that her parents seemed to be changing, too. She’d overheard them in Kingston talking one night when she was supposed to be asleep.
“I been thinking, Jim,” her mother began, ordinarily enough. “If this green lichen works as well curing others as it done wit you, might be an idea for us to make ourselves some profitable business outta it.”
“How d’ye figure that?”
“What I been thinking,” explained Bonnie Mary, “is there’s got to be some way to harvest it, so’s we could sell it. Villienne or Lewiston make it a popular treatment back in England, there’s no telling what sort of price it’ll fetch on market. We could hire some fellas to pick it off the island and make a fortune exporting as medicine, like was done with tobacco and rum.”
“Makes sense I suppose, but d’ye really think we could make a go of it?” mused Long John. “Old seadogs like us, turning merchant?”
“No idea, but I guess it ain’t so much different from what we be doing now. I mean, we’re already pretty good at parting people from their money.”
“That’s true.”
“Only difference is, if we was merchants, they’d get something for it in return.”
“And they’d be less likely to try to shoot us,” remarked Long John.
The two pirate captains lapsed into silence after this, each absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Much as an outlaw’s existence still greatly appealed to their rebellious natures, they knew there came a day in every pirate’s life when the risk of being shot and maimed on a daily basis began to lose its lustre. Perhaps this was that day.
“’Course that means we got to go back to the Nameless Isle to harvest the foul stuff,” Long John added.
Little Jane and the Nameless Isle Page 19