The Pirate Round

by James Nelson

  It was a short pull over smooth water to the dock. Press stepped ashore, his men behind them, and they waited there as the boats went back for the prisoners. Filthy, ragged, they were led up from below, and Clayford sorted them out, organized them, and bound their wrists.

  Soon Press had his army assembled behind him, with the prisoners in their midst, and he led them once more through the town – his town now – and up the hill toward the big house. He tramped on, expressionless, but his eyes moved like a raptor’s over the building and the grounds in the distance.

  He could see no signs of life, no party there to greet him. Tasker had to know he was back – he had saluted the squadron. So where was he?

  The emotions started to roil in Press’s mind. Anger, concern, disappointment. But mostly anger. He picked up his pace, his long, thin legs moving fast, and the men behind him struggled to keep up.

  The big gate in the stockade was closed, and there were no guards there, though Press had instructed Tasker to keep two at least posted at all times. Press pushed on the gate. It swung open, unlatched and unimpeded, and he stepped through to the empty grounds in front of the house.

  He could hear noise now, shouting and yelling and … singing. He cocked his ear. Yes, it was singing, coming from the great hall. ‘Tasker, you worthless son of a bitch,’ Press muttered, ‘leting those bastards go on a drunk.’

  He let his eyes move over the house and the grounds, and they fell on a figure sitting motionless by the wide landing at the main entrance to the house. He was propped against the side of the house, unmoving, and he looked unhappily familiar.

  ‘Come along,’ Press said over his shoulder, stepping quickly across the open ground, his men filing in through the gate and following behind.

  Halfway to the main door, and Press could see that the figure slumped against the building was Tasker. He held a bottle of rum cradled in his arm like a baby, his head was resting against the stone wall of the house. He was not moving.

  ‘You stupid, stupid bastard,’ Press said and moved faster still, already picturing the swift kick he would give his now-former second in command.

  Ten yards from the man, and Press slowed, then stopped. Tasker did not look at all well. His face was gray and pinched, and there was something unnatural about the way he sat. He looked, in fact, like he was dead.

  Roger Press felt a sick twist in his gut, and the memory of Nombre de Dios sprang unbidden into his head. He had planned it all, executed it perfectly. Sent Marlowe and the others off to their certain death, distracted the Spaniards while he and his chosen few made off with the booty. He had only to get the take into the boats and go; he had been that close. But Marlowe had not been killed. He had appeared at the landing, and Press’s whole plan had collapsed around him.

  Why did that memory come to him now?

  Press approached Tasker slowly, looked the motionless figure over carefully as he did. The man was dead. There was no mistaking it. What had killed him? Was the yellow jack there? The plague? Had he drunk himself to death?

  Press looked around, as if he might see the answer somewhere in the compound.

  And then a musket fired, the double crack of priming and powder, and the dust leaped at Press’s feet, and Press leaped back, looked up. From every window of the great house men leaned out, muskets aimed down, and suddenly the grounds contained by the stockade wall bacame a pen to hold animals for the slaughter.

  Press whirled around. More men charging in from the open gate, muskets leveled, ready to shoot down any of Press’s men who reached for a pistol or unslung a musket from their shoulders.

  He whirled again. More men charging from around the house on either side. Men with the look of pirates, with pistols and muskets and cutlasses. As many men as Press had. More, perhaps, and with their guns leveled and ready.

  One of these men stepped forward, a big man, taller than Press even, and weighing three stone more. ‘Every one of you bastards, drop your firelocks or we’ll shoot you down!’

  Press whirled around again, turned a half circle, too stunned to speak, and before he found his voice, before he could order his men to fight to the last, they tossed aside their weapons and put their hands meekly before them. The prisoners held their bound wrists aloft to show that they were no threat.

  ‘Over there!’ the big man said, nodding with his jutting beard toward the stockade wall and pointing with one of the two pistols he held. Press’s men began to back away, leaving behind a pile of muskets and pistols lying in the dust where they had been dropped.

  And still Roger Press could not speak.

  ‘Ah, Roger Press, I reckoned you’d come calling someday.’

  Press whirled around again. No, no, no! It cannot be!

  Elephiant Yancy, standing next to the lifeless body of Jacob Tasker. He grinned, gave Tasker’s body a push with his foot, and the dead man fell forward onto the ground.

  Press felt the scream building, deep inside. ‘Aaaahhhh, you son of a bitch!’ he shouted, the sound escalating, and then he charged forward, pushing past the big man, his eyes focused on Yancy’s throat.

  And then he stopped, doubled over, thought for an instant he had been shot, but in fact the big man had hit him in the stomach. He collapsed to the ground, gasping, thrashing in the dust.

  ‘Roger, Roger, oh dear,’ he heard Yancy say. ‘You never did know how to be a proper guest. You did not when I saved you from that spit of sand, do you recall? Tried to lead a mutiny against me. I reckon you weren’t such a good guest for the Dons neither. The Inquisition don’t like it when someone gets out alive. Not a pirate anyway.’

  Press sucked air into his lungs. A thousand words crowded in his head, but none could get out. He heard Yancy’s feet on the stone steps and then on the ground, and he knew the little bastard was standing over him, but Press would not give him the satisfaction of looking up.

  ‘So you lie at my feet once more?’ he heard Yancy say.

  ‘I’ll kill you for this,’ Press gasped, the first words to find voice.

  ‘Yes, yes. God, but you are tiresome.’ Yancy paused. Press braced himself for a kick or a blow, but instead he heard Yancy gasp as well. ‘Oh, Roger, is it possible?’ Yancy asked. ‘Have you brought me Thomas Marlowe, too? And Elizabeth?’ Yancy laughed, his high-pitched, squeaking laugh. It always reminded Press of a rat being crushed underfoot.

  ‘Oh, Roger, my beauty,’ Yancy said when he had finished laughing, ‘you could not have done more for me if you had brought me the treasure of the Great Mogul himself!’

  CHAPTER 24

  Marlowe threaded his arms through the iron bars of the cell, looked across the stone-floored alleyway to the cell facing him.

  ‘Lord, Roger, is there any damned thing you haven’t made a hash of?’ he called across the open space. ‘You were the richest man in Christendom for … what? Two weeks? And then you deliver it all to Yancy like it was a tribute. Lord, what a dumb arse.’

  ‘Shut your fucking gob.’ The voice came from the dark cell, the speaker unseen.

  They were in the prison in the big house, built into the lowest part of the building, under the first floor. The prison consisted of no more than two big stone rooms fronted with iron bars that faced each other across a six-foot-wide walk. The cells were cool and damp and lit by only a single window in each, a slit eight inches high and two feet across set at the top of the wall.

  A lone flight of steps led from the alleyway up to the first floor. Two steps, a landing, and then a 180-degree turn and five more steps up to the grand entrance. A bored guard sat in a chair at the bottom of the stairs. There was no need for more. The cells were impenetrable, the iron bars thick and sound.

  Marlowe, Bickerstaff, Honeyman, and Billy Bird, along with their men, those who had come ashore as prisoners, were in the one cell. Two-thirds of Press’s captured men were in the cell opposite, with Press. A third had elected to join Yancy.

  More than a third, actually, but Yancy was not so stupid as to allo
w too many men of dubious loyalty into his personal army. Yancy chose the few he wanted, locked up the rest.

  Yancy had kept warring crews apart. Marlowe guessed he did not want them killing one another. That was Yancy’s office. He figured that Yancy would not have locked up the officers with the men if there had been more than two cells, but there were not.

  What had become of the rest of the men of the Elizabeth Galley and the Bloody Revenge, Marlowe did not know. He imagined they were still battened down aboard their respective ships, their guards waiting for word from Press. He reckoned Yancy would take them in his own time.

  He did not know where Elizabeth was, but he could guess.

  Marlowe wondered if his circumstances were any better or worse now than they had been three hours before, when he had been Roger Press’s prisoner. His concern for Elizabeth was the greatest thing on his mind, and that had not changed at all.

  But now at least he had Roger Press’s profound misery to cheer him. ‘You should have killed me, Press. You pissed that opportunity away. Now Yancy will butcher you, and you’ll never have the chance.’

  ‘Butcher me? I reckon he’s butchering that little doxy of yours right now. Thrumming her good. What do you say to that, Marlowe?’

  ‘I say he tried that before and nearly lost his whole damned house. Elizabeth can take care of herself.’ He spoke the words with a confidence he did not feel. But he would not let Press exploit his one area of genuine fear.

  ‘Captain said “shut your gob,”’ Israel Clayford said. He was leaning against the iron bars of the cell he shared with Press, six feet away. He was a big bastard, and mean-looking.

  ‘Don’t you get into this,’ Marlowe said to him. ‘Captain’s a dead one. You just look to your own neck.’

  Then Press emerged from the gloom and ran his hands through the bars, like Marlowe, and faced him. ‘Look, Marlowe,’ he said, his voice low, ‘I know you want to kill me much as I want to kill you. But I say let’s set that aside for now, work together. Won’t do either of us any good if that bastard Yancy kills us both, will it?’

  Marlowe smiled, and then he laughed, and his amusement was genuine. ‘What you mean is, I help you save your sorry hide and then you stab me in the back again?’

  ‘Damn your eyes, Marlowe! Don’t you see that we’re both dead if we don’t work together, and it ain’t going to be pleasant, I’ll warrant. I say—’

  The guard was up, and with two steps he was in front of the cell. He slammed the flat of his sword against the iron bars. Press jumped back in surprise, shouted, ‘You whoreson!’

  ‘None of that,’ the guard growled, looking at Press and then Marlowe. ‘I hear one more goddamned word like that and one of you goes in the pit.’

  Marlowe and Press glared at the guard, and the guard glared back as he retreated to his chair by the steps. Marlowe did not know what the pit was. He did not care to find out.

  How they were going to get off St Mary’s alive, he had no idea.

  Elizabeth was stretched out on the big four-poster bed in Yancy’s bedchamber. The space was lit softly with candles placed around, throwing off pools of light, while the rest of the big room was lost in shadow. In another circumstance she might have found the room lovely, warm and romantic.

  Her wrists were bound tightly together and tied to the bed’s headboard, forcing her into her supine position. She gritted her teeth and pulled, jerked at the constraints, worked her wrists under the rough cordage.

  She had been struggling for twenty minutes, and her wrists were raw and bleeding in places, and she was no freer now than she had been when Henry Nagel first forced her onto the bed and lashed her in place.

  ‘Son of a bitch, son of a bitch …’ she muttered as she struggled and then finally gave up, let her body go limp, exhausted from the effort. ‘Oh, God …’ she whispered.

  Yancy had learned his lesson the last time, apparently, about letting Elizabeth wander free in the room in which she was imprisoned. She knew that as long as she remained tied as she was, Yancy was free to do as he pleased. She might be able to get in a good kick or two, but in the end he could rape her to his heart’s content.

  ‘Oh, God …’ she said again, giving in to the despair.

  She had been alone in the room for an hour. At first she had not dared move, but she lay very still and listened, hoping to hear something that would give her some indication of what was happening.

  Yancy had sprung his trap, had marched Press’s men and Thomas and Billy and Francis and their men off to some prison, she supposed. She had been held at gunpoint in the grand entrance while the men were led down a half-concealed stairway to a level below the house. From there she had been taken to the great hall, alone but for the three guards who stood over her.

  For two hours Elizabeth had sat there before Nagel had come back and taken her to Yancy’s bedchamber. She did not know what had become of the others, if Thomas was alive or if Yancy had killed him already. She did not know what would happen to her, but she could guess.

  Her eyes moved again to the swords mounted on the wall. A pair of long, thin, cup-hilt rapiers, crossed and mounted as decoration, they were very like the weapons with which Bickerstaff had taught her sword work. If she could just get her wrists free and get one of those weapons in her hands, she could skewer the filthy insect as he came in the door.

  She struggled anew against her bonds, clenched her teeth against the agony of her raw flesh, but it was no use. Nagel was a sailor. He knew how to tie things so they stayed tied.

  Then footsteps in the hall, light footfalls, and she knew it was not Nagel. She lay still, listened to them growing closer, and was sure that the soft, quick steps were those of Elephiant Yancy. There would be no getting out of this through brute force alone, no chance to run him through as he entered the room. She had no choice now but to play the willing lover, if only until her hands were free.

  The thought of it was as revolting as that of being forcibly raped.

  The footsteps stopped. The door to Yancy’s bedchamber, like all the doors to all the bedchambers in the big house, had a heavy lock that could be worked from inside the room or out. Each room could function as either sanctuary or prison.

  Elizabeth heard the key turn in the lock on the other side of the door. The door swung in. Half lost in the shadows was Elephiant Yancy, wearing his rich silk clothing, his long cape with its red lining trailing behind him. He stood there for a moment and looked at her, and she tried to look back in an alluring, come-to-me manner, but it was hard, being tied as she was. She reckoned that the sight of her lashed to the bed was all the allure the little prick would need.

  ‘Elephiant, where have you been?’ she asked, as if she cared.

  Yancy stepped into the room, and then Elizabeth could see his thin weasel face, the carefully groomed mustache and goatee, which he stroked as he watched her, as was his habit. He believed that the gesture made him look thoughtful and intelligent, she could tell.

  He turned and closed the door and locked it, set the key on the table by the door, then crossed the room, stepping with authority and confidence. ‘It has been a busy day, my dear, a most busy day. But I need not tell you that.’ He whirled his cape off, tossed it on a nearby chair.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ Elizabeth said soothingly. ‘That beast Nagel has tied me up. Let me loose and I’ll rub your shoulders. You need a soft touch.’

  Yancy took a step toward her. ‘That beast Nagel tied you up on my orders. You nearly burned my house down, when last you was here. Do you recall?’

  ‘Me? You think that was my fault? I have no notion how the fire started, though I do recall it nearly killed me. But come, let me make it up to you.’

  He smiled down at her, then tossed his head back and laughed. ‘I am not so much a fool, you know, as to think you want me in that way! You’ll have me, want me or no, but I’ll not be tricked into thinking you hold some great love for me. Someday you will. But not now.’

  ‘How d
o you know? You are a handsome man, and a powerful one. Perhaps I do have some feelings for you.’

  ‘Perhaps. But what will you do if I untie you, eh? Fight me? Punch me? Kick me? What will you do?’ He stepped over to the bed, ran a finger down her cheek, down her neck, over her breasts. Elizabeth closed her eyes, made a purring sound as between closed lips she clenched her teeth.

  ‘What will you do, my lovely?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Why don’t you let me free and see?’ she said, just a whisper.

  Yancy ran his fingertip over her face again. ‘I will.’ He reached around his waist and pulled out his long, needle-thin stiletto, held it up, let the candlelight dance off the blade. ‘I am not such a fool,’ he said again. ‘But I think I will like it if you fight. These native girls are so very passive, they will lay down with never a struggle. I think I will like a bit of a challenge.’

  Elizabeth lay very still as he moved the knife past her face, less than an inch from her skin. She felt the tip of the blade touch her arm, as light as a feather, and Yancy ran the point gently up the length of her arm until she felt the steel against her wrists, and with a quick motion he cut the bonds away.

  ‘Oh,’ Elizabeth moaned involuntarily. A great wave of relief flowed over her as she lowered her arms, gently rubbed the raw flesh on her wrists.

  Yancy had made a grave mistake. Her arms and her wrists had ached so much, she had been so very helpless, that her will and her strength had begun ebbing fast away, and she had not even realized it. But now the fight was back in her.

  She snuggled deeper into the bed, looked into Yancy’s eyes, gently bit her lower lip. There was not much about enticement that Elizabeth did not understand.

  Yancy tossed the stiletto aside. He was kneeling beside her on the bed, and she ran her hand up his thigh. She turned her head and let a wisp of her long blond hair fall across her cheek.

  She did not dare look at the rapiers. But even as she caressed Yancy’s leg and his waist and ran her hand up his chest, she was calculating time and distance, gauging whether she was better off going for the weapon or going directly for the door.