Call of the Raven

by Wilbur Smith

  Mungo waited until the ship rolled away, bringing the side up towards the sky, then he dropped his other foot to the ledge and slithered through the ventilation port, holding the painter until his feet were firmly on the deck inside the cabin. The floor was wet from waves that had splashed through the open window.

  Isabel was waiting for him on the edge of the bed, the flickering light of the candle on the writing desk illuminating her body, clothed in a nightgown. She stood, and as the ship rolled back to starboard she fell into his arms. He felt her supple body against his, her cheek on his stubble, the squeeze of her breasts against his chest. She turned her face towards his, and he leaned down to find her lips.

  There was no doubt about why he had come. He had made his decision; he did not think twice now. He kissed her hard, urged on by his desire, but she was his equal. She drew him close with ferocious strength. Her hands sought the belt around his trousers and unfastened the buttons, then her fingers slipped beneath. He was already fully erect. When she squeezed, he nearly groaned with pleasure, but he suppressed the sound in time. He hitched up her nightgown and felt the smoothness of her thighs and buttocks, the hollow of her back. She raised her arms over her head so he could lift the dress away. Pressing her hips against him, she leaned back and cradled his neck with her hands. Her breasts were round and full, with thick areolae and erect nipples as large as raspberries. He cupped them with his hands and took one nipple, then the other, into his mouth. She ran her fingers through his hair and began to thrust against his hips, whispering in his ear.

  ‘Take me.’

  They stumbled towards the bed, as the ship rose on a wave and the creaking of the timbers masked their footsteps. She tugged off his shirt and trousers so that Mungo was as naked as she was. She pushed him down on the bed and straddled him in haste and hunger. He reached towards her, probing the soft cleft between her legs and guiding himself towards it. She shifted her hips to grant him entrance and touched his lips.

  ‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘We must not make a sound.’

  She began to move, undulating over him deliberately, then with urgency, until he felt something inside him about to burst. She shut her eyes and opened her mouth, giving herself entirely to the sensations. Mungo watched her all the way, thrilling at the sight of her body moving in the candlelight.

  She climaxed with a shudder at the same moment he did, and collapsed onto him, her chest heaving as if she had climbed a mountain. She nuzzled her head into the crook of his shoulder and brushed the hair from her face.

  ‘If I ever return home, I will let it be known that the men of Europe are nothing as lovers compared to an American sailor.’

  She traced a finger over his lips. ‘I think you have done this many times before.’

  Mungo didn’t deny it.

  Isabel propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Were there many women – or only one? Did you have a fiancée? A sweetheart? Someone special?’

  ‘There were many women,’ said Mungo. ‘And with most of them it was the same. Some moments of pleasure that lasted an hour or a day or a week and served us both well, and afterwards nothing.’

  Isabel fingered the locket that Mungo wore, the only thing he had not taken off.

  ‘Then what is this?’

  ‘A lucky charm.’

  She heard the note of tension in his voice.

  ‘Is it a woman?’ she teased him. ‘Do you think that I would be jealous?’

  ‘It belonged to my mother.’

  ‘Then let me see.’

  She pried at the clasp, but it would not move. Mungo put his hand over hers and pulled it firmly away.

  ‘Whose portrait would I find if I opened your little heart? What would she say, if she knew what we were doing this moment? Did you love her?’

  ‘Love is a device for poets who have nothing more interesting to write about,’ said Mungo.

  ‘Did you not feel it for your sweetheart?’

  ‘I did not say I had a sweetheart.’

  ‘You did not have to. I can feel it in every muscle of your body.’ Isabel ran her fingers through his chest hair until her hand came to rest over his heart. ‘I do not doubt you mean the things you say about love. But I wonder if, deep in here, you truly believe it.’

  ‘You have no idea what is in my heart.’

  She shrugged her naked shoulder. A ripple went through her breast.

  ‘It does not matter. We are not virgin lovers. We both know what we want.’

  ‘We do,’ Mungo agreed.

  He had known plenty of women who could be voracious in the bedroom, but they had always dressed up their appetites in the pretty language of love and courtship. He had never met a woman as unapologetically direct as Isabel. He was grateful for her lack of sentiment. It made him feel less as if he was betraying Camilla’s memory.

  She adopted a little girl’s voice, false and mocking. ‘Will you stay with me always?’

  He kissed her forehead. ‘I can stay until the fourth bell.’

  She thought about this, as the ship rolled beneath them and the candle flame danced above its wax. She gave him an impish smile and ran her fingers down his hairy chest to his stomach, and beyond.

  ‘Does that mean we have time to do it again?’

  Mungo and Isabel met frequently as the ship sailed southward towards the Gulf of Guinea, as often as Mungo and Tippoo stood the night watch together. On deck, during the days, Isabel was more demure than ever. In her cabin, she was wild. As adventurous as Mungo was, Isabel had even more creative ideas. She took her pleasures greedily, and returned them with interest. When Mungo began to tire, she had ways of stimulating him until she had wrung every drop out of him.

  He had thought that sleeping with Isabel would break the fever that had gripped him and cure him of his unwanted obsession. In fact, it only left him hungry for more. Every day, he thought constantly about what he wanted to do with her. Although he was in charge of making the watch lists, he could not doctor them every night without arousing suspicion. Each night that he could not get to her cabin felt like an eternity.

  He could not understand it. It was only physical pleasure, as meaningless as scratching an itch. He had never been susceptible to the hypocrisies that afflicted the rest of society about the union of the sexes. At Cambridge he had had many women, and afterwards given them no more thought than a good day’s hunting, or a fine meal. But Isabel had a grip on his imagination he could not shake.

  There was only one other woman who had ever burrowed so deep into him. And it was easier not to think about her.

  Through all this, Isabel remained steadfastly unsentimental. There was no talk of love. Though Mungo might possess her body in deep and intricate ways, her soul remained always elusive. But a sort of friendship developed between them. In between their bouts of lovemaking, they lay entwined together and talked. She told him about her family and the world she had known: her upbringing in Lisbon; the years she had spent in Paris when her father was an ambassador in the court of Louis Philippe; her travels between Portugal and Prince’s Island during the count’s tenure as governor. Wherever she went her beauty made her the centre of attention – yet she felt detached from it, an outsider.

  She spoke without reservation, hiding nothing and apologising for nothing. Her father doted on her, her mother was dead, and her stepmother was an evil witch.

  ‘And your brother?’ Mungo asked.

  She wrapped her finger in the corner of the bed sheet, twisting it until it was as tight as a noose.

  ‘He is a perfect libertine. He acts the prude, but behind that mask he has appetites that would shock even you. Women, men, girls, boys . . . And if they resist, he takes them by force.’

  She had gone perfectly still, her voice low with emotion. A question hung between them, and Mungo knew he had to ask it.

  ‘Even you?’

  Isabel gave a bitter laugh. ‘He tried, once. I was fifteen, he was drunk. I told him if he touched me, I would cut off his cock
and present it to the King of France. After that, he did not dare touch me. But the thought of any other man having me drives him to a rage of jealousy.’

  Mungo remembered what Lanahan had told him: Afonso has already killed three men in defence of his sister’s honour.

  Isabel rolled over. ‘I am bored of talking about myself. Tell me your stories.’

  So Mungo offered her a glimpse of the life he had left behind. He told her about Windemere, the galas and fox hunts, the joys of harvest and sailing on the James. He told her about his years in England, about coming of age at Eton, then returning to study at Cambridge after a season in Virginia. Isabel listened with interest, but there was mischief in her eyes.

  ‘What is it like to own a slave, to possess another human being? Does it make you feel powerful?’

  ‘It feels . . .’ Mungo shrugged. ‘Normal.’

  ‘I think I should like it. To have a person completely under my control.’ She frowned. ‘Or perhaps you do not think the blacks are people at all.’

  Mungo remembered sitting on his father’s knee at Windemere, a young boy watching the slaves at work in the fields.

  ‘African souls are as much God’s gifts as the souls of us white folk,’ Oliver had told Mungo. ‘They are inferior to us neither in intelligence nor in character – only in their education and religion. If we can teach them anything, it is to know the Scriptures, and to worship the true God.’

  ‘I never saw an ounce of difference between black and white,’ Mungo told Isabel.

  ‘Then why keep them as slaves? Why should they not be free?’

  Another memory came to Mungo, much later than the previous one. Mungo had been eighteen, just returned from Eton and cocksure with the arrogance the school instilled in its pupils.

  ‘If you believe that black souls are gifts of God, why don’t you set them free?’ he had demanded of his father.

  Oliver had blinked. ‘I give them every comfort I can afford. They are happy here.’

  ‘They are still slaves.’

  ‘And if I set them free tomorrow, what would happen to them? They would be put loose in a society that gives them no rights, with neither the means nor the aptitude to support themselves. They would starve.’ He had shaken his head. ‘They are children, and like children they need a loving father’s firm hand to guide them.’

  ‘But white children are allowed to grow up and find their way in the world. Isn’t that why you sent me to Eton?’

  ‘That is different.’

  ‘Why?’ Mungo pressed, using the same unrelenting style that his opponents had come to dread at the Eton debating society. ‘Because I am white and they are black?’

  ‘No.’

  A sudden change of tack. ‘What if I said I wanted to marry a black woman?’

  Oliver laughed. ‘That is absurd.’

  ‘Why? Are we not all equal before God?’

  A sigh. ‘The world is more complicated than that. You see the world with the blazing eyes of youth – I see it with the clarity of experience. That is the difference between us.’

  Oliver had meant it in a kindly way. But the look he got in return from Mungo made a shiver go through him. When had his son become so remorseless?

  ‘The difference between us,’ Mungo had said, ‘is that I am honest and you are a hypocrite.’

  Remembering the exchange now, in Isabel’s cabin, he felt a rare pang of regret. He had hurt his father, who after all had been a flawed man trying to live a good life.

  ‘My father made many compromises,’ Mungo said to Isabel. ‘I intend to live my life on my own terms.’

  As the days turned into weeks and the Blackhawk rounded Cape Palmas and sailed east towards the Bight of Biafra, Mungo began to stay with Isabel longer and longer into the watch. The fourth bell became the fifth, then the sixth and the seventh. Tippoo accepted these changes without protest, but the risk of detection increased. There were occasions when they heard footfalls outside Isabel’s door and watched the handle, terrified that it might turn. To Mungo’s knowledge, Isabel had the only key to the lock. But there was always a chance that Captain Sterling had kept a copy for himself. Each time the footfalls faded away, they rushed to finish their business before Mungo scrambled out of the ventilation port and up the painter to the deck, concealing the line at the bottom of the pile by the stern rail.

  The sodden rope was the only evidence of their affair that survived the night, apart from Mungo’s sweat on Isabel’s sheets and the lingering scent of her perfume in his clothing. By sunrise, Mungo and Tippoo were asleep in their hammocks, and Isabel was alone in her stateroom. As far as any of them knew, neither Afonso nor Captain Sterling nor any of the crew suspected a thing.

  It was a knock on the door that proved them wrong. It was late in the watch; the dawn light was already coming through the ventilation port. Isabel was lying naked in Mungo’s embrace, when suddenly two sharp taps sounded from outside. Isabel and Mungo went still, silent, wondering if someone might have overheard the soft cries Isabel had uttered at the height of her pleasure.

  Mungo allowed himself to hope he had misheard. The noise of the ship was all around them, the moaning of timbers and creaking of lines in tension, the luffing of sails not quite full, the whistle of wind through the yards and the jangling of dishes in the galley. But a minute later, he heard the squeak of a floorboard underfoot, and a second tap of a knuckle on the door.

  ‘Isabel,’ said Afonso, ‘I heard you cry out. Is anything the matter?’

  Isabel placed a finger on Mungo’s lips. She let out a gentle moan, as if waking from a sleep.

  ‘Afonso?’ she said. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Are you all right?’ replied the viscount. ‘Were you having a dream?’

  ‘A dream?’ Isabel paused. ‘Yes, that’s right. I was dreaming. It was Mother again. Did I wake you?’

  ‘No, it was a cry from the masthead. The lookout has sighted Prince’s Island. Would you care to join me?’

  Isabel glanced at Mungo. He nodded his head.

  ‘A walk would be refreshing, but I need to dress.’

  ‘Of course. I will wait in my cabin.’

  As soon as they heard the viscount’s retreat, Mungo threw on his clothes without a sound and left Isabel with a kiss. Reaching through the ventilation port, he took the painter and slipped through the opening. He heard the swish of the ship as it sliced through the water, the crackle of the sails as they flapped in the breeze. The wind had turned capricious in the Gulf of Guinea, sometimes blowing off the continent to the north, other times from the east or the south. Twice, it had stranded them in pockets of calm – for six hours the first time, then for more than a day. On this morning, the wind was steadier but still light, barely above seven knots.

  The surface of the ocean was smooth, disturbed only by the western swell. When the ship rocked to port, Mungo hoisted himself onto the window ledge and reached out for the railing, holding fast as the ship rolled back and gravity tugged against him. He raised his foot to the batten beneath the rail and levered his body upwards. He was so focused on maintaining his footing that he didn’t see the shadowy figure waiting for him on the deck – or the blade balanced in his hand.

  ‘A strange time to be inspecting the hull,’ rasped Lanahan’s voice. Every word rang with triumph.

  Mungo froze, glancing from the first mate’s hate-filled face to the gleaming cutlass he was holding, and then to Tippoo, who was standing by the helm, his features transfixed by impotent anger. Mungo’s instinct was to fight. His hand was still on the painter. He could lasso the first mate’s wrist, knock the cutlass away, and pitch Lanahan over the side. Afterwards, he could claim the first mate had been drunk and fallen overboard. Tippoo would swear it was true.

  Then Mungo saw the rest of them. A knot of men stood by the mast, sailors Mungo knew were loyal to the first mate. All were armed, with pistols trained on Tippoo and on Mungo.

  Mungo reassessed his plan.

  ‘Did you inten
d to run me through, or shoot me?’ he asked casually.

  Lanahan laughed. ‘That would be too merciful.’ He spoke to Tippoo. ‘Master gunner, ring the bell and then come with me below. Both of you will answer to the captain.’

  The walk to Sterling’s quarters felt like a march to the gallows. Tippoo went first, then Mungo, and finally the first mate, poking Mungo’s back with the tip of his sword. The captain answered his door dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, his hair freshly oiled. He fixed his eyes on Mungo, his expression dark, and admitted them without a word.

  Isabel was seated on the leather bench at the foot of the captain’s bed. She was wearing a violet morning dress, her hair assembled in a hasty twist. Her brother stood beside her, a hand gripping her shoulder. When she saw Mungo, her lips parted slightly, as if in apology, but her almond eyes held no trace of regret. Her back was erect and her hands rested primly in her lap. She looked as regal as a princess. The viscount gave Mungo a glare of such fury and contempt that his eyes looked as if they might burst from their sockets.

  Captain Sterling took a seat in his chair, whose gilt edges and velvet cushion reminded Mungo of a throne.

  ‘Mr Lanahan,’ he said. ‘The charges, please.’

  The first mate spoke. ‘With respect to Mr Sinclair, dereliction of duty, endangering the crew, and immoral assault against a passenger. As for Mr Tippoo, dereliction of duty, and conspiring with Sinclair in the assault of the passenger.’