by Steve Goble
“It will not be long until duty, Spider John. You’ve slept an unusual long time, you bastard. Are you ill?”
Spider blinked and shook his head. “I do not feel right.” He looked at Odin, and saw only the familiar hideous face of his friend.
“I slept ill, and had strange dreams, Odin.” Indeed, night memories swam in his head, visions of Em, holding the hand of a boy who looked like Hob, both of them shouting words he could hear but not understand as Half-Jim Fawkes thumped his peg leg and crutch into the sand while pacing behind them, laughing maniacally.
Spider attempted to roll out of the hammock and onto his feet, but somehow ended up on his knees. His stomach seemed filled with bilge, and he began to cough. Small splotches of gray fluid hit the floor beneath him and glinted in the lantern light.
“Jesus,” he said. “Oh, Lord.”
“Spider, do you need help standing?” Odin lifted him. Spider coughed a bit more, and Odin blinked against the spray.
“There is illness here, Odin.” Spider walked uneasily toward the chest where his weapons were kept. “Scurvy, or some plague, I know not. I should not have gone upstairs. Stingo warned me.”
“Lord,” Odin said.
“Missus Fitch says that’s what filled those graves out there, a sickness,” Spider replied. “She says Oakes told her it was no worry, just something related to the patients and their afflictions, but . . .”
“I don’t trust him any more than I trust a ship’s purser, or a fucking shark.”
“Nor do I,” Spider said. “The man hires killers and thieves and pirates.”
“Like us.”
“We are former pirates, Odin.” Spider closed his eyes. His head was slowly halting its mad spin.
“Not former killers, though, if that is what it takes to get out of here. Let us go, Spider. We have not seen Hob, have we?”
Spider shook his head. “If I have to dig up those graves to make certain Hob is not in the cold, cold ground, that is what I’ll do ere I leave this house. I do not hold you to any promise, though, Odin. You’ve been a true friend to me, but I can’t ask you to stay here and catch ill.”
Odin spat. “I’ll stay. You have been a true friend to me, too, and I am not accustomed to that, by thunder. Most men keep their distance.”
“You are a frightening son of a whore, Odin.”
“Ha! But if I get a pox and die, Spider John, I am going to haunt you until the end of your days, and maybe beyond.”
Spider laughed weakly. “I suspect you are going to haunt me no matter how you die. Besides, my mind stops spinning now. I can stand.” He did so. “Oakes is up there with patients a lot, and Gold Peter and Simon, too. They all seem healthy. Perhaps I simply ate too much of that cold chicken.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or,” Spider muttered, grasping Odin by the shoulder, “Shit! I’m a lubber, Odin. Maybe I didn’t eat too much. Maybe I drank too much.”
“You always drink too much.”
“Aye, and I always hold it better than this, don’t I? So what might be different this time? I think . . .”
The doors leading out to the grounds opened, flooding the room with sunlight. Hugh, the Frenchman, leapt into the cellar and landed with a flourish. “I thirst, my friends!”
He dashed between hammocks and hurdled a sea chest, then stopped at another and lifted the lid. He took out a small pewter flask.
“It is wine from home, and I have only a few precious drops left,” he said as Spider and Odin watched him pop the cork. He looked at them suspiciously, and held the bottle out of reach. “Pardon me, but I have not enough for sharing.”
“I’ve had enough to drink, I believe,” Spider said.
Hugh drank deeply enough to indicate he had a bit more wine than he had claimed. He wiped his lips and winked. “Enough, you say? No, no, no. There is never enough of this. Say, you will not tell notre capitaine, will you? He will take it amiss if he knows.”
“I saw nothing,” Spider said.
“I am half blind. Ha!”
Hugh smiled. “You please me, my new friends. A fair man, Fawkes is, until he has caught you breaking his rules. Then, you would not want to be the man who broke the rules. Those three last night, they broke the rules.”
“Aye.”
“I break rules, too, though I do it wisely, and quietly!” He emptied the flask. “I had some wine coming to me, and I hope it was in the wagon. Our shipmates, they went for supplies, and I asked for supplies, too. But they cannot tell me, alas, if they found my wine. If they brought me my wine, not so good as this from my home, but wine is wine, and if they brought me my wine I shall offer a sip to the both of you.”
Spider and Odin nodded.
“You did not help to unload the wagon? Were there some bottles?”
“No, we did not unload.”
Hugh sighed.
“Well,” Spider said. “Maybe you will find it. And we will share any good fortune that comes our way, as well. But fortune don’t favor us, usually.”
Hugh smiled. “Fortune. She is a fickle bitch!”
“Did you sail with Fawkes?”
“I met him a year ago, serving with Ruggard Blake. Fawkes was first mate. Hard men both, Blake and Fawkes. But the law was catching up to us, and we dispersed. I stayed with Fawkes, because Blake was coughing blood by then. He is dead now, most probably.”
Spider nodded. “I sailed with Fawkes, too, a while back. Bent Thomas was our cap’n, back then.”
Hugh smiled. “Then you know Fawkes, and you know to never”— he looked around quickly, then continued—”never call him Half-Jim.”
“Aye. He does not like that.”
“Very well, my friends! I am now fortified to return to duty.” Hugh placed the flask back in his trunk and left the way he came.
Odin tapped Spider on the shoulder. “I woke you because if you wish to seek Hob or ask questions before we get sent out to our posts, you are losing time.”
“Thank you,” Spider said, heading up the cellar stairs. “How is the injured leg?”
“Better than your stomach. Ha!”
“That reminds me, don’t drink a dram of liquor, nor water unless you bring it up from the well yourself.”
Odin scratched his nose. “Why?”
“Poison, I think.”
Spider rushed up the steps.
26
Between his attempts to sneak upstairs in search of Hob, Spider did a lot of thinking.
He did not for a moment believe those graves outside held men who had died of illness. It was too much of a coincidence, and the illness did not behave like any he’d heard of in his sailing life. He’d heard tell of sickness ravaging entire crews and accounts of Naval vessels that had been turned away from ports because of some horrid disease. But he’d never heard of any illness that claimed one life at a time, as Mrs. Fitch had described. If some malady upstairs was killing men, it seemed likely Oakes would be taking more precautions.
Those thoughts were still tossing in his mind when Odin beckoned from the front door. Spider hurried out.
“Is something amiss?”
Odin shook his head. “No, I just wondered whether you’d made it up to find Hob.”
“No. Those ruffians upstairs seem ever alert.”
“Damn,” Odin said. “I am tired of this place. I have been thinking about poison. Why’d you get sick from it, and I did not?”
“Because I drank from a bottle Missus Fitch keeps tucked away, supposedly as medicine for patients that have taken ill.” He quickly told Odin about all he’d learned in the kitchen.
“So, poison in that bottle, then?”
“Perhaps, Odin, but maybe not.” Spider inhaled deeply and gathered his thoughts, then looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear as they strolled.
It was true enough that Spider knew nothing about mental afflictions, but he’d sailed with many a buccaneer who was clearly not right in the head—and none of them had di
ed wasting in their beds. He’d seen a man walk right off the bowsprit and sink into the arms of death below, and he’d seen a man put a flintlock to his temple and pull the trigger. But he’d never seen a crazy man simply waste away and die in bed. Poison seemed more likely, and this sudden stomach trouble of Spider’s reinforced that notion.
“Rum never made me churn like that, Odin.”
“This is true, by thunder.”
“It could have just been medicine, though, something in the bottle to treat the patient that hit me amiss. Remember old Doctor Boddings, in his cups and lecturing. A medicine given proper would save a man, but a wrong dose or bad circumstances and it would kill him.” He pictured Boddings, pontificating while in his cups aboard Plymouth Dream, and wondered if the old man lived. He had been quite ill himself. He was still of sound mind when last seen, though, and was a surgeon of long experience who seemed to know his business.
Odin grinned. “I thought Doctor Boddings just told us all that because he had booze in those bottles and wanted to keep us out of them.”
Spider nodded. “Aye, he liked his drink and hoarded it away. But he seemed a right good doctor, though, and probably spoke true about his profession, I think.”
“Did Missus Fitch give you the drink? Was she trying to kill you?”
“No,” Spider said. “I snuck it, when I had a chance. But there is more. Daphne gave me a sip from a cup she was supposed to take up to a sick lad.”
“Was she trying to kill you?”
“Jesus might know. I do not.” Spider rubbed his hands together. “And for that matter, Oakes gave me a bit of wine, too.”
Odin scoffed. “Everyone just pouring you drinks all day, then?”
“Makes for murky waters, it does. Let us head back to the house, I want to make another try to find Hob.”
They walked in a broad circle that reversed their course. “Spider, maybe ask why someone might be killing people here, instead of worrying whether it is poison or medicine or what.”
“Aye, Odin, good thought.”
“So why would Missus Fitch poison people?”
Spider considered. “She feels sorrow for those poor souls, Odin, the mad ones upstairs. She thinks death might be a release for them, send their souls to a better place.” Spider snapped his fingers. “And I heard Oakes yell for her, wondering where some medication had got to.”
Odin scoffed. “She does not seem a killer to me, and there is that little Daphne. She seems a right better suspect.”
“Aye. She might poison anyone, for any reason. And she is let to walk about, it seems. Some notion of showing trust, Missus Fitch says, part of her treatment.”
“Trust is a foolish notion,” Odin said. “Piracy drove that nonsense out of my head. Ha!”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“Not with my flask, I don’t, nor do I trust your notions about helping people and figuring out who killed who and all that. I am just here because you and Hob both owe me, remember?”
“Aye.”
“Would Oakes have a reason to kill people?”
Spider considered that. “He is here to help people, he says, and he makes his coin by caring for them. If he kills them off, I suppose that families would stop paying him, wouldn’t they?”
“Aye, probably.”
“And what reason might he have? He seemed a bit upset about the violence of last night. He’s got an ego, for certain, but I don’t know why he’d snuff people like candles.” The man, indeed, had seemed remorseful when discussing the deaths in the night, but Spider knew that could have been an act. He’d seen many a smiling man sneak a knife into a belly.
“Fawkes?”
Spider shook his head. “Knife or gun, for him. Not poison.”
“One of these other brigands?”
“Maybe. There is a farm hand that sneaks about, as well, large fellow.”
Spider sighed heavily. He was glad Odin was here to discuss things with. The old man’s prying questions and eager ears had, in the past, helped Spider settle things in his mind when pondering one puzzle or another. But they could not keep tossing ideas back and forth like clouds in contrary winds. He longed to find Hob, and it would be folly for both Spider and Odin to try to get upstairs.
“I am going in again. Wish me good fortune.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a prayer heeded, Spider, but hell. I’ll try.” The old man scooted off, barely limping now.
Moments later, Spider was making his fourth attempt at a foray upstairs when he felt a tug at his sleeve before he’d ascended a single step.
He turned to find Ruth smiling at him. “Come with me, will you?”
Spider blinked. “Does Fawkes summon me?”
“No,” she said. “I do.”
She turned and strolled toward the sitting room where Spider had first encountered Ambrose Oakes. She had no weapons Spider could see. He followed her, a bit too quickly. His head throbbed a bit still, and something in his stomach swirled.
“Aren’t you still on watch, Ruth?”
She smiled again. “Jim gave me leave to come off watch early. And I have questions for you.”
Questions?
“Aye.” She smiled. “You are not like these other pirates here. I can tell. You are looking for something, Spider John. Or maybe you are hiding something. I cannot decide which.”
“No,” Spider said. “I have dark deeds in my past I am trying to outrun, like most of these gents, I suppose, and I came here seeking honest work. The work I found don’t seem quite so honest, I reckon, but I have meals and a roof and there has not been a goddamned Navy frigate come sailing by, so it suits for now.”
She shook her head and stood a bit closer. She smelled clean, and he noticed her dark hair was a bit damp.
“No, Spider. You have some purpose. I see it in the way you glance about, the way you listen to everything being said.”
“I just pay attention because noticing things has kept me alive, so far.”
“So far. I noticed that you noticed me.”
She stepped forward and kissed him. He had his arms around her before stopping to consider whether that was a good idea. His hands searched for the three knives he recalled seeing previously at the back of her belt, but they were not there.
“I am supposed to be on watch soon,” Spider said, “and Fawkes has not given me no leave.”
“He certainly won’t give you leave to do this.” She kissed him again, more urgently.
Spider noticed his body responding quickly. It had been a long, long time. Ruth’s mouth opened to his, and he pulled her tight against him.
I’m sorry, Em.
Ruth’s right hand raked his back, slowly, starting from the base of his neck and moving downward. The stroke made it almost halfway to his belt before Spider remembered he had knives tucked away there.
He stepped back quickly, only to realize Ruth’s other hand had grasped his belt buckle. He backed against a bookshelf, and she pressed him against it.
“Did you think I was going for your knife? You are not supposed to carry one of those upstairs, you know.” She winked at him. “It is against the rules. It is a very good thing I caught you before you climbed the steps.”
“I know. And yes, I thought you might be trying to take me unawares, as they say.”
“If I meant to fight you, I’d have brought a knife of my own. But I am not carrying any right now. I don’t need a knife right now. Do I?”
Spider blinked. “I reckon you do not need a knife.”
She smiled and opened his weapon belt buckle.
“So why resist?” She kissed him again.
When he managed to pull his lips from hers, he said, “because Fawkes likely would kill me.” Also, there’s a woman I love and have not seen in years, he thought, although that hasn’t stopped me before, so ...
“Oh, yes, he certainly would kill you,” she said. “Have no doubt. He probably would kill me, too. But he is away from the house,
I know that for certain. And the master is upstairs, working with a sick patient. We won’t be disturbed.”
Her hand reached into his breeches, and she clutched him.
“Ruth,” Spider said, “I do not think we should . . .”
“You are stronger than me,” she cooed, her right hand moving down his arm. Her left hand moved, too. “If you truly wanted to pass up this opportunity, I think you would have cast me aside and escaped by now. But you haven’t. Have you?”
Spider’s head spun. He pulled her grasping hand away, and the friction resulting from that nearly toppled him overboard. “Ruth . . .”
She backed toward the divan. “Come here.”
He buckled his belt, with some difficulty. “Is this what you do, play the whore and entice men when Fawkes isn’t looking?”
He’d meant the remark to sting, to change the game a bit. But she simply smiled. “Why should I not have a bit of fun when I can?”
That convinced him she was up to something. This change in her attitude toward him was too sudden. Spider decided to play a game, too.
He stepped toward her. “No wonder Jim’s men do not complain,” he said.
She lifted her blouse over her head and tossed it on the floor. “I am no harlot, Spider John. I choose my mates as I will. And I am choosing you.”
She cupped her breasts and smiled. “Will you choose me?”
Spider joined her on the divan and placed a hand on her breast. He kissed her, hard. She leaned into him and he was almost convinced her enthusiasm was genuine.
“Some of these gents were even captives, right? Taken in some sort of raid?”
She startled. “What? No, I mean . . .”
He had a knife at her neck in a heartbeat.
“I do not want to fight, but I think you are trying to start some trouble for me,” Spider said. “Are you? Quietly now.”
She blew aside a strand of hair. “I think you came here to Pryor Pond for some reason, and I am trying to find out what that is.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes,” she said. “My blouse, if you please.”
Spider raked the garment closer with his boot, never taking his eyes from her face while she reached for it. Once she had it, he stood while she donned it.