The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  Up the stone steps, and Marlowe could just see him in the shadow as he tugged at one door, then the other, then both, before turning and walking back the way he had come.

  ‘Damn,’ Marlowe said softly. They would need another way in. He ran his eyes over the front of the house, pictured it from the inside, as it had been shown to him by Yancy.

  ‘Hold! Who’s that?’ The voice from the dark startled him. Honeyman was no more than a shadow against the gray house. Marlowe saw him pause and turn toward the guard. Then he caught a flare of light overhead. He looked up, quick.

  On the balcony attached to one of the rooms, a figure was holding a torch, a great flaming mass of fire. To Marlowe’s surprise, that person was Elizabeth.

  He stood, took a step forward. He did not know what do do. Shout? Remain silent? She was two stories up. She could not jump, nor could he climb up to her.

  As he stood there, paralyzed with his indecision, Elizabeth turned her back to him, leaned over the edge of the balcony, and whipped the torch up in the air. It flew from her hand, tumbled end over end, slowly revolving in the air, and then landed on the thatched roof above.

  The flame gutted, smoldered, and then flared as the dry thatch caught. The guard who had challenged Honeyman now forgot him completely as he ran for the door, shouting, ‘Fire! The damned bitch lit the damned roof on fire! Fire, there!’

  Honeyman ran across the grounds, into the shadows where the others stood. He was grinning. ‘Men hear about this, I reckon they’ll elect your wife captain in your stead, Marlowe,’ he said.

  ‘I reckon she would do a better job.’

  Someone unbarred the big door at the guard’s pounding. People came streaming out, and others from around the building, looking up at the roof, which was well on its way to being engulfed. Pandemonium began to sweep through the half-drunk men. Several were shouting orders, each trying to take command of the situation, no one listening to anyone else.

  ‘Come on,’ Marlowe said, hurrying out of the shadows and racing along at the edge of the growing crowd. There were thirty or forty people on the grounds now – pirates, servants, women. Their attention was on the burning roof. No one noticed the four men at the edge of the light.

  Marlowe paused, ten feet from the door. Circling the crowd unnoticed was one thing, but going inside was another. He braced himself, ready to make his move, when Nagel, like a wild bull, burst through the door, pulling up his breeches as he ran, his booming voice trampling the buzz of excitement and the orders that were flying around the yard.

  ‘Here, you motherless bastards!’ he roared. ‘With me! Get buckets! Get axes! We have to cut the roof away before it sets the whole goddamned house ablaze!’

  He waved his arm, turned, and charged back into the house, and the others charged in behind. Now they had someone to lead them, and it would not be long before they had the blaze contained.

  The last of the men in the yard rushed past, and then Marlowe and the others joined them, running in through the door at the tail of the crowd, hats pulled low, hands on pistol butts.

  Across the high foyer and up the stairs, Nagel led his mob, and the four men from the Elizabeth Galley followed, lost in the chaos.

  At the far end of the hall there was a rough ladder that led up and under the thatch, and Nagel bounded up it, heedless of the danger that the fire might present, and behind him the bolder of Yancy’s men followed. Sloshing buckets appeared and were handed along.

  ‘This way, I think,’ Marlowe said, and they pushed their way through the crowd toward the open hall beyond.

  Marlowe looked up the corridor in one direction, then another. Doors lined the way, three on one side, three on another. He was turned around in the house, could not guess in which of the rooms he had seen Elizabeth. He grabbed Bickerstaff by the arm. ‘Take Hesiod, start looking in those rooms!’ He pointed across the hall. ‘Honeyman, with me, here!’

  They pushed past the pirates, the servants, the wives, and down the hall. Bickerstaff pushed open the far door, shouted, ‘Fire! Clear out! Fire!’ as he searched the space for Elizabeth.

  Marlowe tried the far door on his side, but the room was dark and empty, as far as he could see. He moved to the next, lifting the heavy latch, swinging it open.

  The room was lit with a smattering of candles, giving it a dreamy, soft: quality. In the middle of the room stood a big four-poster bed, draped with shiny, gauzy material. Two women were there on the bed, naked, their long black hair falling over brown shoulders. They looked up at the intrusion, and one of them propped herself on her elbow, unabashed. They gazed at Marlowe with little curiosity, as if they had no interest in what would happen to them next.

  Between them, in the bed, lay Peleg Dinwiddie, flat on his back, snoring. There were various glasses and bottles and pipes scattered around the room and on the bedside table and in the bed itself. Dinwiddie’s big belly rose and fell with his breath. It seemed to glow white in the light of the flames.

  Marlowe crossed the room quickly, grabbed Dinwiddie’s shoulder and shook it, hard.

  ‘Peleg! Peleg!’ he said in a whisper, as loud as he dared. ‘Peleg, wake up!’

  At last the big man moaned, opened a bleary eye, looked up at Marlowe. There was no recognition in his face. ‘Peleg, it’s me. Marlowe. Come, we have to go!’

  ‘Marlowe?’

  ‘Yes, yes, come along …’

  Dinwiddie rolled his head away. ‘Sod off, you bastard …’

  Marlowe paused, unsure if he had heard correctly. ‘What?’

  Dinwiddie rolled his head back, looked up into Marlowe’s eyes. ‘I said “sod off.” Let that whoreson Honeyman take my place, never had any goddamned respect—’

  ‘Peleg, you cannot stay here. Come with me, we’ll sort this out.’

  ‘Sod off, bastard. Treat me like a fucking lord here …’

  ‘Marlowe,’ Honeyman called from the door. ‘We ain’t got much time …’

  ‘Right.’ He looked down at Dinwiddie. ‘Son of a bitch …’ There was no way he could carry him out of there. Perhaps he really did wish to stay. Marlowe did not know where his duty lay.

  ‘Marlowe!’ Bickerstaff was at the door. ‘There is a room at the other end of the hall, seems to be where the fire is centered!’

  That had to be Elizabeth. He could not waste any more time with Dinwiddie. ‘Very well, I shall sod off,’ he said, then turned and hurried from the room, shut the door on his former first officer, who was already asleep once more.

  Marlowe and Honeyman and Bickerstaff pushed down the hall, still unnoticed in the pandemonium. And now the hallway was filling with smoke, which served to further hide them.

  Down the hall, and Hesiod was standing guard outside the door. ‘Locked,’ was all he said.

  Marlowe looked back but still no one was paying him any attention in the commotion and the dark and the smoke. He kicked at the door, felt it yield under his boot. Kicked again, then Honeyman stepped up and kicked it, and it swung open, and they plunged through.

  It was like stepping through the gate to hell. The fire had spread across the thatch above that room, had dropped to the plaster ceiling overhead and burned clean through. The entire ceiling was ablaze, and in the middle of it a great charred hole looked right up to the burning roof overhead.

  Marlowe stumbled into the room, hand over his face. It was brightly lit by the flames, but he had trouble seeing through the thick smoke, which gagged him and made his eyes water.

  ‘Elizabeth!’ he shouted, thinking he would not be heard over the roar of the fire. ‘Elizabeth!’

  The others followed him in, and Honeyman slammed the door again, leaving them in their brilliant, hot, smoking inferno.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  And then from across the room, a voice high-pitched with controlled terror: ‘Thomas? Thomas?’

  Marlowe stumbled across the room, stepping around the burning bits of thatch and fallen lath and plaster that were setting the floor and the carpets abl
aze. Out onto the small balcony, and there he found Elizabeth, pushed back against the railing, where there was some relief from the smoke that rolled out the door. Her face was black with soot, white lines cut down her cheeks by tears.

  He grabbed her, hugged her. ‘Are you all right? Did Yancy …’

  ‘I have not seen him since you left! Oh, Thomas!’ She threw her arms around him, hugged him tight. ‘I was so afraid you were—’

  ‘What? You never thought I would really leave you?’

  ‘No, never. I never thought that.’ The building shuddered. Something overhead gave way, and the room flared as more flames sprang up. ‘I fear I have killed us all, with my stupid act!’

  ‘No, no. We would never have gotten to you if you had not set the fire!’

  And then over the din of the fire and the shouts of those fighting it, Marlowe heard a shrill shout of surprise and outrage and fury.

  Through the smoke Marlowe could see the door pulled open. The draft swirled smoke away, sucking it out of the room, and Yancy stood in the frame, a big ax in his hand.

  Honeyman, who was by the door, jerked a pistol from his belt, raised it, cocked the lock, pointed it at Yancy as Yancy swung the ax. It caught Honeyman’s hand, knocked the pistol away, and opened up a wide red gash. Honeyman shouted, grabbed his hand as Yancy pulled back to cleave his head in two.

  As the ax arced towards Honeyman’s skull, Hesiod bounded across the room, grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back, and the blade came down into thin air. Marlowe was surprised. He did not think the weak little man had it in him.

  Now Bickerstaff was there, his sword striking like a snake, and it caught Yancy’s arm before Yancy could move away. Yancy screamed, as much in outrage as in pain, raised the ax again.

  Yancy and Bickerstaff faced off, sword against ax. Marlowe saw the telltale waver as Bickerstaff prepared for a feint, then a lunge, which would have killed Yancy.

  But before he could strike, the building shook again, the sound of the fire like thunder, and overhead a section of the ceiling sagged down, spitting fire out from the cracks as it fell. Yancy leaped for the door, and Bickerstaff leaped back into the room, and a ton or more of beams and plaster and thatch fell in, making a flaming wall between them.

  Yancy shouted, flailing at the fire with his ax, trying to cut his way through. Marlowe charged into the room, grabbed Bickerstaff’s arm, pulled him back toward the balcony and what fresh air it might afford their aching lungs and burning throats and streaming eyes.

  Now what the hell will we do? Marlowe wondered.

  He stumbled out onto the small balcony, crowded now with Elizabeth and Hesiod.

  ‘Where’s Honeyman?’ he shouted, glancing fearfully back into the burning room, but Hesiod nodded to the ground.

  Marlowe looked down. The rope that Hesiod had brought in his haversack was looped through the legs of a table wedged against the balcony wall and the two ends flung over the edge. On the ground, Honeyman held both ends of the rope in one hand, a pistol in the other, watching for anyone who might approach.

  Hesiod turned to Elizabeth. ‘You next, ma’am,’ he said.

  Elizabeth looked down at the ground and shook her head. ‘I can’t do that,’ she said.

  ‘Mind if I help, Captain?’ Hesiod asked, and Marlowe had no more than nodded when Hesiod bent over and grabbed Elizabeth around the waist, then straightened with her over his shoulder.

  ‘Son of a bitch! Put me down, goddamn your eyes!’ Elizabeth shouted, her long hair trailing on the balcony, her rear end up in the air. She was furious, but she retained enough sense to refrain from struggling as Hesiod stepped over the balcony rail, wrapped his free arm and his legs around the rope, and fell to the ground in a controlled plummet.

  ‘Strong son of a bitch,’ was all Marlowe said as he waited for Hesiod to reach the ground and set the fuming Elizabeth down before he gestured for Bickerstaff to follow.

  Bickerstaff hit the ground, and Marlowe looked back toward the door. The room was engulfed. He could not see past the wall of flame, which meant that Yancy, if he was still there, would not see their egress. He would think they had burned to death if he did not guess they had a rope.

  Marlowe put his leg over the rail, grabbed the rope. It had been years since he had done anything like this, and it was with some difficulty and burned palms that he finally reached the ground. Hesiod grabbed one end of the rope and hauled away, unreeving it from the table jammed in the balcony. It fell free and came down in a pile at his feet, and he coiled it quick.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Marlowe said.

  The yard was well lit by the great bonfire that was the roof, but the few people standing there and gawping up at the flames did not notice them or did not care who they were. It was one of the great advantages of the pirate community. Curiosity was not encouraged.

  They made their way out the gate and down the road, the flickering light of Elizabeth’s fire nipping at them as they hurried along. Down through the center of town and down the road running along the harbor and at last to the beach with never a challenge. No one even spoke to them.

  Marlowe helped Elizabeth into the boat, and then the four weary men pushed it out into the water and clambered in over the gunnels. They took up oars and with never a word spoken they fell into their easy rhythm, pulling away from St Mary’s, pulling for the open sea. The flames of Yancy’s mansion were like a distant lighthouse, but it looked to Marlowe as if those fighting the fire were at last getting it under control.

  He turned on the thwart, smiled at Elizabeth, then looked past her, out to the open sea. The Elizabeth Galley should have stood on for an hour, then come about and beat back to the island, to the extent that she was able. Marlowe did not hope to see her in the dark. They would have to wait until first light to find her and close with her.

  That was if she was there. He wondered if perhaps Flanders would cross him, betray him, sail off with the ship. That thought had never occurred to him till now.

  CHAPTER 17

  It did not start well, the short and unhappy reign of Lord Dinwiddie I of St Mary’s.

  He woke, confused and distressed, having suffered through a series of disturbing dreams of the kind that come in the half-awake hours of early morning. His head pounded whenever he moved. His throat was dry and ached in patches.

  With a groan he rolled over, and his hand came down on warm, pliant flesh. The girl they called Lucy, asleep beside him. He had lain with her several times over the past few days, days that were now a blur of drinking and eating and copulating.

  It had been the very paradise about which he had on occasion fantasized, during those times when his thoughts strayed from his immediate duties and his limited imagination swept him away. He had always considered those dreams of pagan abandon to be his darkest, deepest-held secret. Now he was living them.

  He opened his eyes – another of those duties he knew he had to perform. The late-morning sun was streaming around and through the sheer curtains that hung in front of the room’s single window. In those places where the light penetrated unimpeded, it looked like rods of gold as it passed through all the dust that swirled around.

  He became aware of the acrid smell of charred wood, like a fire that has died in a fireplace but more pervasive.

  And the quiet. He realized that it was very quiet, which it generally was not in that place where the pirates made their home.

  He closed his eyes again. He had dreamed of Marlowe. Marlowe telling him to come, looking at him with disdain. In the dream he had told Marlowe to sod off, and it felt good and bad all at once. He had dreamed other things as well, unpleasant things that all swirled together in a great stew of emotions and left him unsettled.

  There came a knocking at the door, and the rhythm had a subtle insistency about it. Dinwiddie realized that it was knocking that had woken him up.

  ‘Come,’ he croaked. The door opened, and light streamed in from the hall, which seemed odd to Dinwiddie, since there were no wind
ows there. Nagel was standing in the doorway, just a dark outline against the brilliant light at his back. He stepped into the room, and then Dinwiddie could see him better. He looked somber.

  Dinwiddie struggled to sit up, pushed Lucy out of bed. The young woman stood and padded off, entirely naked, but neither Dinwiddie nor Nagel paid her any attention.

  ‘You look damned hangdog this morning,’ Dinwiddie said as he waited for the pounding in his head to settle.

  ‘It is a sorry day. A right sorry day indeed,’ Nagel intoned.

  ‘Why? What has happened?’

  ‘It’s Lord Yancy. I reckon the fire was too much for him.’

  ‘Fire?’

  ‘The fire. Last night. You didn’t know?’

  Dinwiddie shook his head.

  ‘Burned half the damned roof. Nearly done for the house. Come.’ Nagel nodded toward the open door.

  With some effort Dinwiddie stood up and shuffled across to the chair, over which he had thrown the silk banyan that Yancy had given him. He pulled that on, wrapped it around his girth, and followed Nagel out into the hall.

  It looked like the aftermath of some terrible battle. The sunlight, which Dinwiddie had been at a loss to explain, poured in through the ceiling and the roof above, half of which was burned away so that there was only the charred rim outlining their view of the sky. The tops of the walls were charred as well, and the formerly white plaster was black with soot. Water stood in puddles all over the floor, and the hall was littered with blackened bits of timber that had fallen from the roof.

  ‘Dear God …’ Dinwiddie said. ‘How did it start?’

  ‘Don’t know. Started on the roof. Took us three hours to get it out, and we nearly didn’t. You didn’t hear none of it?’

  Dinwiddie shook his head. Lord, I must have been some far in my cups to sleep through this.

  ‘What was that you said, about Lord Yancy?’

  Nagel shook his head sadly. ‘Lord Yancy, bold fellow he is. He was fighting the fire with us, leading the job, like was his way. Struggled for two hours, even though he ain’t strong. Finally he just collapsed. We thought he was dead, with … the cancer … you know. But he wasn’t, just overcome. But he ain’t long for us, I don’t reckon.’