Sea Witch (Sea Witch Voyages)

by Helen Hollick

  He was not prepared for Tiola’s blithe answer, “If I have to, ais.” She knew exactly what she had to do – summon a wind. It would be difficult to gradually blur the memory of all of them yet again, but sailors, especially pirates, were a superstitious breed; easier, to let them believe something else had brought it and not her. Those geese winging south for instance?

  Casually, she leant her back against the stern taffrail, her full attention on the fore topsail, that without the pressure of the wind was collapsed into a sagging rag. She concentrated on the yard and braces, the standing and running rigging; the shrouds and the gaskets – the ties used to furl the sails. Thought about Sea Witch moving through the ocean, the dip, lift and roll as she surged forward. The curtsey of her bow, the uplifting swing of her stern, her joy and liberty. Merging with the ship, Tiola felt every swaying movement, every shift of settling or bending beam of timber; felt the constant, aching strain on the masts, the push against the sails – the surge of water beneath her keel.

  And then Tiola sang. A sound an octave above the pitch of the human ear, and as sweet and pure as liquid honey. A sound that swirled around the three masts and brought with it three enormous snow geese.

  Jasper, perched aloft was to swear later a whole flock of birds had flourished overhead, the sky had been filled with them. But then, he could not count beyond a tally of two. Barking and whooping, the birds came in low over the ship, the music of their wings rushing past Jasper’s ears, causing every man to look up, point and gasp. Three damned, great bloody geese!

  They circled the ship twice, black-tipped, white pinions shimmering in the late afternoon sun, bright against the empty water world of white-splashed grey. Their outspread wings sighing, spread as if they were feathered sails, the birds themselves the graceful, sleek hull.

  A higher, clearer singing soared above their mournful cry. More beautiful than a mermaid’s love poem, or the voice of an angel; more captivating than a siren’s song. An enchantment, the spell of a Sea Witch fetching up a wind. And in answer, it came, flurrying across the sea from due west, shivering through the rigging, nudging the cordage, the ratlines, the shrouds into their own voice of harp-like song.

  The geese circled a third time, caressing Sea Witch with their outspread wings as the lifeless sails caught the hurry of the breeze and she began to gather way, her dull lethargy quite gone, quite forgotten. In a wide, graceful spiral the three birds rose higher against the sky. Rue, forgetting them, intent on the rise of the wind shouted for sails to be hauled and set.

  “We ‘ave a wind!” He bellowed, elated. “Let fall, mon Dieu let fall before it fades!” Canvas began to tumble from the yards as eager men leapt to backstays. “Look alive! Forget those birds – we ‘ave a wind! ‘Ands to braces. Belay!” Rue was almost dancing in his excitement, his arms whirling like windmills encouraging the men.

  Within minutes all canvas was sheeted home, Sea Witch bounded forward with an urgency of spirit into the oncoming sea, the hush of her passage as melodious as the wind sighing in above the level of the tide and humming through her rigging.

  Tiola, standing at the stern, a smile in her dark, radiant eyes, permitted herself a moment of personal pleasure and released her soul to soar with the geese a while. For a moment only, three geese became four. She felt the air currents lift her wings, saw the ocean spread below, mile after mile after mile of unbroken freedom. And below her, two ships. Sea Witch, incredibly lovely, her sails wide-spread as she flew, catching up on the other, red-stained and tainted by the spilling of blood.

  From up here, high, so high, Tiola could see the entire curve of the world; the infinity of the sea with its islands and continents, the glimmer of ice at the Poles. The slow turn around the sun, the gaze of the moon and the chatter of the stars. All of it, in the sight of her Craft timeless and incredibly beautiful. In her cupped hands, her fingers trembling in exquisite expectation, she held the sky and the sea together with the geese and the wind. And in the centre of it all, rested the Sea Witch.

  Balancing with the rising motion of the ship as if she had been born to the sea, the one leg bent slightly forward at the knee, the other back, Tiola opened her palms wide and set them all free. Set the wind to blow, the sea to roll, the geese to become nothing more than three specks drifting away, diminishing and vanishing as if they had never been. And Sea Witch to fly through the Atlantic rollers, not as a white goose but as the swooping hawk. A peregrine falling from the sky, her wings folded, eyes fixed, talons outstretched. The fastest creature in the sky, plummeting down on to her selected prey, and at this moment the fastest ship on the oceans. Her prey had no hope of escape, no matter how desperately the Chase tried to haul the wind or twist and turn. Nothing could outrun the spell of a Sea Witch.

  The last notes of Tiola’s song faded. None aboard any the wiser of what she had done.

  Only Tethys stirring way below, saw and heard the witch, and with a flurry of eager anticipation, understood. She swayed and crooned; she had been promised a gift of reward and was unable to wait any longer to be given it. She wanted her trophy! She wanted him.

  Wanted him now!

  Twenty Seven

  Under fighting sail, reduced canvas to make her easier to handle and keep her stable during the firing of her guns, Sea Witch overhauled the Ruby – rightly called Retribution. Phillipe had named her well for his purpose of vengeance. Two hundred yards to windward, Rue gave command to show they meant business and fired on the upward roll into her rigging; one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten, then riding the strong breeze, a gull now, not a hawk, Sea Witch came around and fired again. All her shots aimed high, chain shot and langrage to damage men and mast, not to penetrate the hull.

  Ruby was firing her six guns indiscriminately with no discipline or sequence, all haphazard, firing everything she had in desperation. Phillipe had an eye for a ship, a justification for a name but had dolts for crew. From one hundred yards Rue paid Sea Witch off to rake the Chase again with another series of accurate shots, also on the up roll at the height of the rise, all going home on the same strake through rigging and sail.

  The men on the Retribution, panic stricken, petrified, surrendered immediately, falling to their knees and crying to God, the Virgin and various other deities to save them, their guns and their master and employer abandoned to the tangle of her broken cordage, ripped sails, shattered spars and broken main mast. Only the two officers refused to give ground, firing muskets and pistols at close range as Rue luffed Sea Witch alongside, slamming into the schooner’s bow with a tearing crash that juddered through both ships. The pirates poured down over the rails to board, swinging on ropes or jumping, their voices shouting the death chant that had shattered the silence of the sea before being drowned by the firing of the cannon. A special chant which without rehearsal had come to all their lips.

  “Jesamiah! Jesamiah! Jesamiah!”

  In the bilge, Jesamiah had heard but ignored it. He was past caring what happened to him, and no longer believed what he thought to be true. Too many hallucinations had haunted him these past days – days? He had no idea if he had been in this black pit for days, weeks or forever. With no glimmer of daylight, no idea of whether the sun shone or the stars gleamed, whether it was morning or afternoon, disorientation had rapidly engulfed him.

  Twice a day – he assumed a day – they had soused him with a couple of buckets of seawater. He imagined to sluice away his mess of urine, faeces and vomit so that Phillipe did not have to tread in it when he visited, but it added to his discomfort, the salt stinging his wounds and leaving him cold and shivering. They also brought him half a tankard of scum-green drinking water and a meagre portion of food; biscuits that were more weevil than hard tack. In the dark he gulped down the brackish water and sucked at the meagre food, unable to chew for his mouth was too sore, the gold teeth gone. Phillipe had pulled them out, with two healthy teeth. Revenge for the ones Jesamiah had punched from his gums all those years ago as an angry boy. At le
ast the salt water had washed some of the dried blood from his face, he could open his eye now. Not that there was anything to see in the darkness.

  The first day after Phillipe had tortured him had passed as a fog of red agony and black nothingness, the one misting in and out of the other. Jesamiah’s body, where his brother had ill-treated him had been on fire, everything too painful to move, yet too painful to remain still and ignore the cramp tearing at his torn muscles. He had tried, for a short while, to keep himself together, to fight the dark and the wretchedness. Tried, but had soon abandoned the trying.

  To keep his mind alert and active he had set himself mental riddles; the most effective way to attack a larger, faster ship; the latitude of familiar places and the points of the Compass Rose. Only, he soon found he could get no further than sou’-sou’-east, and that frightened him. He could not remember! Again, he would start at north, and each time become more muddled until he collapsed into the exhaustion of semi-conscious tears.

  And then the days had blurred together into the dread of Phillipe’s visits, the hunger and thirst, the smell of the bilge and his own waste. And the rats and the dark. He slept, curled on his side, a half-awake half-asleep place, where he was always aware of the motion of the ship and of his prison; the sound of the sea tearing past on the far side of the keel. Aware of footsteps coming below, scuffing on the wooden ladder and echoing along the length of the hold; of the swinging bob of a lantern’s light, growing brighter, coming closer. Phillipe’s low, malicious chuckle beside him, and the look of madness behind his eyes. The stomach-sickening dread of being shown what his brother held in his hand to use on him this time. A lit cheroot to burn, a knife, a leather belt…

  “Why?” he had asked once, the tears streaming down his face. “Why are you doing this to me, Phillipe?”

  He had not expected, nor understood, the reply. “Because when Father left me alone for two years to be cared for by servants, this is what was done to me.”

  Sometimes, Jesamiah would drift in and out of this insane, semi-aware world and believe he was in his bed aboard Sea Witch, could swear he heard Finch bringing him coffee, even smelt it. Or he was on deck, critically watching the trim of the sails – or leaning against a wall in a dark street, blood pouring from his arm, a pistol shot in his shoulder, with a girl who had her arms about him, telling him not to struggle, it would be alright.

  Tiola.

  He dreamt often of Tiola, and woke each time to the smell of his fear and pain, with fresh tears falling on finding she was only a dream. He was alone with the rats and the dark. And Phillipe’s revenge.

  Tiola.

  ~ Jesamiah. I am coming for you. ~

  And he would again wake with a jerk to find himself naked and chained into this nightmare, knowing he was going mad. Had probably gone mad. Dreading, in his desperation that perhaps he had been wrong. Had he seen a woman who had only looked like her at Nassau? Or wherever it was, he could no longer clearly remember that either. Or what if she no longer cared for him? Was not coming? What if there was nothing except this darkness and Phillipe’s obsessive madness?

  The only thing of benefit, he had discovered, was once he stopped screaming and let Phillipe do what he wanted to him without murmur, the torture had eased. Although that could have been to do with the ship lying at anchor in a busy harbour somewhere. The sounds had been familiar; other ships, the clatter of winched capstans, the shouted calls, the cry of gulls. The bump of a bum-boat coming alongside, shouting the wares they had for sale, and being told in no uncertain terms to clear off by someone on deck. The splash of oars as Mereno’s gig was put over the side.

  Then they were under way again, moving slowly at first, probably under topsails only; when canvas had been set, they were skimming the sea once again. Phillipe had not come while they were in harbour. A day? Two? Had reappeared once they were at sea and it had all started again. He may be coming in a minute, any minute...

  Jesamiah heard his name being shouted and knew for certain he had gone mad. He was hearing voices. Only when the first rolling broadside hit and the ship rocked violently, screeching its own terror, did he come alert, his sluggish mind dragging itself back to a dulled awareness of reality. Guns. When the next roll came he counted rapidly: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Guns he recognised. Guns he bloody, blessedly so beautifully recognised! Sea Witch!

  The tearing and splintering, the groans of a ship under fire. The crash of a mast falling, the pop, pop, pop of musket and pistol fire. The shouting of men. His men, his wonderful, loyal, precious, men!

  “Jesamiah! Jesamiah! Jesamiah!”

  The shock of a ship crashing alongside.

  “Jesamiah! Jesamiah!”

  And a moment later, a long moment later, a different voice; not the shouting of the pirate’s death chant, but sweeter and so much, so very much, dearer.

  ~ Jesamiah? ~

  “Oh, Tethys! Jesamiah! My luvver, my dear!” Arms were about him, lips kissing his bruised, bloodied face. Her tears wet, dripping on him. Someone, a man, was swearing a series of blasphemous curses in French, holding a lantern high, its light sending wildly swinging shadows across the low, curved beams. Rue swore again, called orders for clothes or at least a blanket, to be fetched.

  A short while later someone else standing there, a black man with a shirt and breeches gleaned from a chest in Mereno’s cabin.

  Jesamiah’s chains went slack, were peeled from the mess of the chaffed skin of wrists and ankles and he was free. Free to move, to get up, to leave. But all he could do was sit there with his arms clamped around the waist of the woman he loved, his face buried into her shoulder.

  Twenty Eight

  Hesitating at the open scuttle Jasper was reluctant to go down into the hold. What was happening down there was none of his or the crew’s business. There were some things a man, a captain, wanted to keep private.

  He was a good lad, fifteen years of age, fair-haired, blue eyed; gangling legs and arms too long for his body. With Sea Witch warped to Ruby – they refused to call her Retribution – the both warped together with sails aback, most of the crew were busy ransacking the hold and cabins for anything of value. So far, there was not much. A few of the men were shepherding the pitiful crew into the launched longboat – rarely did they destroy a ship they attacked, usually stripping it of everything of worth then leaving it for the hands to survive as best they could. Not this ship. Come nightfall there would be nothing of her except pieces of charred wood floating in the sea. One or two bodies among the debris.

  Jasper chewed his lip. Dusk would soon be swarming in from the east, the descending sun was striking something white coming in from the north-west. Something approaching fast. His mind made up, he lifted a lantern from a hook and scurried down the ladders into the lowest hold.

  They were grouped at the far end, Rue, Isiah Roberts and Miss Tiola, the men standing, stooping forward holding two lanterns high; Rue’s left arm leaning against the bulwark. Miss Tiola was on her knees among the stinking bilge water slopping about, cradling something which Jasper realised with a gasp, must be his captain.

  “Sir?” Jasper’s tentative voice came as a croak that altered pitch half way through. He coughed, called louder. “Sir? Rue?”

  Frowning Rue spun around, snapped, “Go away boy, this is not for you to see.”

  “No Sir, I know, but there’s a ship coming up on us.” He faltered, wondering again whether he was being foolish. “I can’t be sure, I think it’s the guardship.”

  Rue’s expression changed from disgruntlement to alarm. Stooping low he made his way back to the hatch, looked up at the boy. If it was the coastal patrol or pirate hunters they were in trouble. Sharks. Professional men, usually ex-pirates, who were paid a handsome bonus for every man captured and brought in for hanging.

  “ ‘Ow can’t be sure are you?”

  “I’m fairly certain it’s the Carolina Revenge. Being the size she is she’s pretty distinctive. I
had a good look at ‘er back in the spring when we ‘ad that run-in. I’m certain it is ‘er; she’s about half an hour away.”

  Rue rubbed at his bearded chin, pinched his nose, thinking a stream of curses. If they were caught here…

  “Merci Jasper, you have done well. We will be on deck directly, pass word I want everyone back aboard the Sea Witch.”

  They would grumble at not being able to pick over their Prize at leisure, but they had achieved what they had come for. They had Jesamiah.

  “Isiah? Tiola? We ‘ave to go. There is unpleasant company on its way.” He mouthed the word “Guardship” at Isiah, drawing his finger across his throat at the same time.

  “I am not sure if we can move him yet,” Tiola said looking around, her drawn face streaked with tears, blood smeared on her clothes.

  “I’m alright,” Jesamiah croaked. “Don’t fuss. I can manage. Help me get those breeches on will you? I don’t want any o’ the crew to see me like this.” He tried to rise, got as far as one knee, groaned as stiff, cramped, muscles protested, and half slumped forward, Tiola’s arms going out to catch him.

  Best to fetch a stretcher? Rue thought. To Isiah he said, “If it is the Carolina Revenge we will be done for if they catch us.”

  Lifting his head at the ship’s name, Jesamiah winced. “Carolina Revenge?”

  “Oui.”

  What the hell is the Carolina Revenge doing near Nassau? Jesamiah thought, his head aching, his mind confused.

  Sensing his muddle Tiola took his hand, explained. “We are off the coast of the Carolinas, luvver. You have been imprisoned here for seven days.”

  Seven days? Was that all? Jesamiah frowned, it had seemed a lifetime.

  “Help me up,” he said to Rue, intending to offer his right arm, changed his mind, offered the left instead. It was rather bloodied, but intact. Sort of.